EXCITEMENT IN MADRID AND QUAINT NANTUCKET

Stewart L. Woodford.

Cortland Evening Standard, Monday, September 27, 1897.

EXCITEMENT IN MADRID.

Policy of the United States Made Public.

GUARD FOR MINISTER WOODFORD.

   MADRID, Sept. 27.—The arrival of United States Minister Woodford from San Sabastian has made a sensation. The program of the United States has been ascertained.

   This does not contemplate a declaration of war if Spain rejects mediation, but according to report, an "ostentatious proclamation to the world of disapproval of the Cuban regime, by suspending diplomatic relations with Spain and withdrawing the United States minister."

   General Woodford has declined to be interviewed on the subject further than to say that his conference with the Duke of Tetuan, the foreign minister, was of the most satisfactory character. The unexpected bitterness of the press and of public opinion has painfully impressed him, but he hopes this will soon be allayed, as he believes his mission favorable to Spanish interests, and cannot comprehend that Spain could reject mediation designed to end an impoverishing war.

   He has not named a time at which the war will be terminated, but he hopes as a result of his tenders that it will be ended quickly. He believes the war is inflicting incalculable losses upon the United States, and that it is impossible to prevent the organization of filibustering expeditions.

   Unusual measures were taken to protect Minister Woodford on his journey from San Sabastian to this city, but the trip was uneventful. A party of gendarmes commanded by a sub-lieutenant guarded he Southern express on which he was a passenger. Secret police were posted at the station, and the prefect of police was waiting to escort him to his hotel. The drive through the streets was marked by no special incident, though several people saluted him, receiving a bow in return.

   Some comment has been caused by the fact that Minister Woodford’s family has not accompanied him but remains behind the French frontier. Minister Woodford explains that his party is a large one, requiring a commodious home, and prefers spending a pleasant October at Biarritz until a suitable residence can be secured here. The legation cannot be used as a residence.

   General Woodford has engaged a box at the Royal Opera House and has purchased horses.

   General Woodford has taken apartments at the Hotel Rome, but receives official visitors at the legation where he passes the entire morning.

PAGE TWO—EDITORIALS.

Spain and the United States.

   The record of President McKinley's administration will be made on its settlement of the Spanish-Cuban question. That settlement cannot in the nature of things be much longer delayed. The outcome of it will apparently be the independence of Cuba. The United States owes it to the interests of her own citizens to stop the war which Spain is dragging on in an exhausted, crippled condition.

   The Spaniards are a high minded people, as proud as they are at present poverty stricken. In negotiations with them undoubtedly President McKinley and Mr. Sherman will use all possible delicacy and courtesy and let them down as easily as possible.

   Spain need not feel unduly humiliated at giving up Cuba. Spain has given up one after another the countries of northern and western South America, also Central America and Mexico. She sold outright for dollars Florida to the United States and ceded Louisiana to France, and her pride survived both the trade and her previous losses by war. It, as well as her national honor, will still survive when she is forced to give up Cuba. France lost Alsace-Lorraine to Germany by the fortunes of war, yet today the nations respect France no less than Germany. Nobody will respect Spain a whit the less for giving up Cuba when she can no longer hold on to it. Meantime the situation is a grave one. Any bluster or jingoism on the part of American editors is in extremely bad taste and calculated to inflame passions that should be quiet.

   Relations between Washington and the court of Spain have been critical for some time, hence the extreme courtesy very properly observed to Minister De Lome at Washington and the very gracious reception accorded by the queen of Spain to Minister Woodford. Americans universally realize that the task of Minister De Lome at Washington has been a difficult one and that he has performed it with a tact that entitles him to all praise. When the inevitable end comes, let us have no cowardly bluster or crowing over Spain.

Walter Wellman.

WOODFORD IS WISE.

OUR MINISTER TO SPAIN HAS ALSO PLENTY OF NERVE.

Both Wisdom and Courage Requisite In the flotation of the Cuban Question—Personal Traits of the American Diplomatist—His Remarkable Memory.

   General Stewart L. Woodford is just now at the front of the world's stage. The eyes of the nations are upon him. He has been entrusted with a most delicate task—nothing more or less than pushing in the wedge which is expected to result in ultimate freedom of Cuba from Spanish rule. He is the agent of the president of the United States, whose great ambition, so far as this matter is concerned, is to achieve revolution in Cuba without war, to loosen the grip of Spain finger by finger without any explosion of temper or warming up of the big guns of international war.

   General Woodford, more than any other diplomatist in the world, so far as we know, is at this moment playing a game in which the hazards are war or peace. All Americans will be glad to learn that in so far as high official opinion at Washington is of value, the chances are ten for peace to one for war. What a fine feather in the cap of the McKinley administration would be a solution of the vexing Cuban problem without the firing of a gun or shedding of another drop of blood!

   General Woodford appears to be turning out unexpectedly well in his difficult role. He is just the man for the task. He is tactful to an extraordinary degree. He has an inexhaustible supply of politeness—so much and so effusive that it is like a fine, mellow brand of Irish blarney. The Spanish like this sort of medicine and are able to take it in large doses. If sweetness of temper, oiliness of speech, incessant protestations of eternal friendship, persistent soft soaping so skillfully done that none of the lather gets in the victim's eyes will suffice to cool the hot Spanish blood and keep in leash all the dogs of war, General Woodford's mission of revolution with peace will result in a glorious success.

   Nor is this all. When the time comes for palaver to cease, when it becomes necessary in the playing of this rather hazardous game of minding other people's business to give o'er to soft word and to convert the genial palm into a fist, General Woodford will be there too. There is a strain of Irish in him, and your true Irishman knows how to follow blarney with blow. General Woodford is one of your blue eyed men, and the blue eyed man has been famous in all the world's activities for replacing suavity with solidity at the right moment.

   Among my fellow passengers on an ocean steamer not long ago was an eminent jurist who has known General Woodford for many years. The two men are near neighbors in Brooklyn, and every night or two for many summers they have run back and forth, smoking one another's cigars, drinking one another's whisky and tolerating one another's stories.

   "It's all right to talk of General Woodford's suaviter in mode," I said to the judge, "but how about his fortiter in re, as you lawyers would say? There must come a moment when the success of his mission depends not upon blarney, but altogether, upon his backbone—upon whether or not he can convince the Spanish that President McKinley and the American people are in dead earnest. What then?"

   ''Never fear,'' replied the judge. ''Woodford has the heart of a woman and the gall of a devil. When those blue eyes of his take on a steel gray tint the Spaniards may know that trouble has begun. I've seen him tested 20 times, and he has the nerve in him."

   General Woodford is a noted public speaker. He is distinguished for the felicitous manner in which he expresses himself in what appear to be purely extemporaneous speeches. My fellow voyager, the judge, let the cat out of the bag. It is a trick of memory.

   "Up in our state," said the jurist, "General Woodford is the favorite man for chairman of Republican conventions. I suppose he has presided over more state conventions in New York than any other man living. Once when he had served as chairman he came over to my house, and I went for him about his speech. I didn't like it, and told him so. 'Well,' said he, 'perhaps I was not correctly reported in the newspaper, for I thought it was a pretty good speech.' What did you say?' I asked, and at that moment I picked up a copy of a newspaper containing a full report of his convention remarks. General Woodford squared himself off, just as if he were on the platform, exclaimed, 'Gentlemen of the convention,' and proceeded to repeat his speech to me with all proper oratorical effect, while I followed him in the paper. I pledge you my word that for a column and a half he never missed a word as it was written down. It was the most remarkable feat of memory that ever came under my observation."—Walter Wellman in Chicago Times-Herald.

QUAINT NANTUCKET.

Some Impressions of the Island as Seen by H. G. Joy.

   (Mr. H. G. Joy, foreman of the STANDARD office, who has spent his vacation for several years at Block island, this year concluded to visit Nantucket. Before his departure we asked him to send us a letter giving his impressions of the island and the people. In response to this request we have received the following which will no doubt interest his many Cortland friends as well as those who have themselves visited the quaint old island out at sea.—Editor STANDARD.)

SHERBOURNE HOUSE,

NANTUCKET, Sept. 22, 1897.

   Well, here I am in quaint old Nantucket by the sea. It is so late in the season that it is hardly fair to institute comparisons with other places, but Block Island is certainly far ahead of Nantucket in the number and quality of its hotels, as well as fine marine views. There is a large harbor here, but no large boats can cross the bar at the entrance. Either the fishing is much better here or the fishermen are more skillful and persistent liars than the Block Islanders. There are about 4,000 regular residents on the island, 3,000 in Nantucket village, 200 in Siasconset and the remainder divided among other small villages.

   It is claimed that the village of Nantucket on the north shore of Nantucket Island has about 9,000 summer visitors, Siasconset on the south shore 1,400. Seven hotels, and numerous lodging and boarding houses entertain them in Nantucket, and one hotel and several boarding houses in Siasconset. This place is not in the track of vessels, and receives few calls from pleasure yachts and excursion steamers, therefore it is not so stirring a place as Block Island—except perhaps during an occasional winter storm, when the wind attains a velocity of 100 miles an hour and blow the shoes off the feet and the hair off the head of any unlucky islander caught outdoors.

   Nantucket is a queer, quaint old place. There are some handsome modern houses and nice streets but most of the houses are old style with small windowpanes and their sides to the street. They are shingled instead of weather boarded, are never painted, and present a wonderfully old, dingy and weather-stained appearance, contrasting strangely with the inside fittings of some of them. Even the native women must be "set agin" paint, for most of them have a storm-beaten, tempest-tossed complexion and appearance generally. Many of the streets are very narrow and, have the cobblestone pavements in vogue in old countries before Columbus discovered America.

   In the old, sturdy, intolerant days, when gallants in cocked hats, knee breeches, low shoes with large steel or silver buckles, and perhaps sword at thigh, went swaggering through these narrow lanes, every old woman who bought a new broom was a witch and every door had its horse shoe with which to shoo them away. At midnight on Christmas if any burglar was bold enough to peep out skyward he might see a grand dress parade of witches on their brooms, sailing through the air in wide circles and curves, like rockets on our Fourth of July nights. What I see now, however, convinces me that the present generation of Nantucketers has forsaken the faith of its fathers and swung round to the belief that it is the young women who are the witches, although some of them have little to do with brooms.

   Notwithstanding their belief in witches, the early settlers were a bold, forceful, shrewd race. We have all read with what courage and through what hardships they evolved and built up the largest whaling business in the country, which reached the zenith of its prosperity in 1840, before many of Cortland's present citizens were born. In thought I see the simple fisher wives and lassies of those times gather at doors and windows on summer evenings, and gossip across the narrow streets about harpoons, whalebone, fish oil and the hardy fathers, brothers and lovers who, by the thousand, "went down to the sea in ships," and with their white winged vessels were searching every sea for monsters of the deep, and incidentally discovering new isles and safe harbors in the remotest parts of the globe. From 1840 the fisheries steadily declined, and the population has decreased from 10,000 to the present 4,000.

   Like the other islands along this coast, Nantucket has its ancient windmill, built 151 years ago, to show to visitors. The day I walked out to it three men were busily engaged reshingling it. The lower half was brand new. But it has a claim to distinction outside of age. In the Revolutionary war a cannon ball passed through it without knocking the jolly miller's head off. While there I met a gray, grisly, wind-and-wave-buffeted and tobacco-juice-stained old whaler captain, who pointed out a spot near shore at which he said a Yankee privateer had "stood off" an English man-of-war. The Englishman's vessel was large and he dared not get as close to shore as the privateer. He played on her with his guns and sent the crew in boats to board her. The Nantucketers caught up marlinspikes, harpoons, and such other weapons as were to be had, and flocked out to aid their countrymen, and the grisly old captain says not an Englishman got back to his vessel. Their bones have been Nantucket dust these many years. "But," said he, "our people had to bury with them a good many noble Yankees." So if this story is true it must have been a gruesome fight.

   Between 1765 and 1845 there was no place in the southern continent, nor in the north seas, nor in the numerous islands of the ocean, where the foot of man had trod, that Nantucketers did not go; and through that long stretch of active prosperous years many a tallow dip was set in cottage window to send its shaft of light trembling athwart the darkness of the night, while women within waited long for sturdy sailor men whose lives had found swift and sudden ending in far off seas.

   The Nantucket Athenaeum is a combination of library and museum. It contains over 6,000 books, to which visitors can have access for 50 cents per month. In the museum is the jaw of a sperm whale. It is 17 feet in length, weighs 800 pounds and has forty-six teeth. Nantucketers seem to have kept very careful record of events, both great and small. For instance: In 1704, population 700; fifteen years after had twenty-one more; 1764, Indian plague swept off 222 Indians; in the war of the revolution 1,000 Nantucketers lost their lives; 1791, sent the first whaling vessel to Pacific ocean; 1795, Nantucket bank started and was robbed same year of $22,000; 1822, last Indian died, etc., etc.

   The island is fifteen miles long from east to west, with an average width of three miles, although the eastern shore will measure ten miles from the southeast corner of Siasconset to the end of Great Point.

   My hotel man, a genuine Yankee, assures me this is the richest and most productive soil in the world; that all the finest vegetables displayed in the markets were grown here, and the runty, stumpy and decayed ones were imported, of course. I said I had already taken a stroll over the sandy soil and could scarcely believe that. Well, after dinner he would show me growing corn, he said, that would convince me. So after dinner he took me by the arm and hauled me through weed grown streets, round a few corners, struck an attitude and challenged me to "beat that for corn." Looking carefully I at last espied a single stalk of corn showing above a tight board fence, which it topped by three feet. I had expected to see at least a garden patch of corn and looked at the man in surprise, but his grave appearance assured me no joke was intended. "That corn," said he, "has had no sort of care or attention; if it had been properly looked after, it would be twice as big." It was useless to discuss the merits of sandy soil with a native who had such serene faith in the efficacy of a solitary stalk of corn, and I silently departed in search of the antique, gray-haired windmill and the bald-headed "oldest house."

   The soil is productive when well manured with the sea kelp which the tide sometimes piles up eight feet high on the outer shore. Very little land is under cultivation and most of the Island is wild common, scantily clothed with short weeds and wild flowers. A combination of half fisher and half sailor makes a poor farmer. The steady, unremitting labor, early and late, required to make a success of the truck-patch does not suit him. What, the descendants of a Coflin, a Swain, a Barnard, a Coleman, a Macy, a Starbuck or a Fouiger—who have made Nantucket famous the world over—weed turnips and cabbage! No sir, not while there is a fish in the sea and a summer visitor to pay 50 cents an hour for going after him. Neither can "the lass that loves a sailor" be trained into a quick-footed, deft-fingered diningroom girl.

   There are five or six varieties of our state flower on the island. The long smooth leaved kind grows in thick clusters on the low ground, and just now makes the landscape bright with great splotches of intense and brilliant yellow.

   Board at hotels ranges from $2.50 to $4 per day and $10, $11 to $14 per week. In boarding houses from $6 to $9 per week. The Sherburne is the only hotel open after the close of the season.

   I think a point is made to attract visitors by the quaintness of many things here as well as by the sailing and fishing. This is one of the best hotels in Nantucket, but the halls are narrow, with three steps down here, two up there and three more up just round the next turning. The beds are large, and the bedding apparently sweet and clean, with no indications that the dainty flea or slow moving but steady purposed bedbug have ever registered upon them. The lower window sashes contain twelve 7 by 9 panes of glass and the upper ones eight. The dishes are all of the colored persuasion, even to the butterdish, and the different sets are all mixed up. The edges of all are more or less nicked where chips have been knocked out of them. I counted three on the butterdish and eighteen on the edge of my soup plate one day. I venture no inquiries about them, believing that if I should the girl would assure me that they are valuable heirlooms, handed down in the hotel business ever since somebody's great-great-grandmother was a boy. The bill of fare is varied, good, well cooked and neatly served, and is seasoned with friendly and gentle courtesy; in fact, I never fell into kinder hands, from proprietor down.

   H. G. JOY.

BREVITIES.

   —The Jewish new year began Sunday night at sunset.

   —The Gamma Sigma and Clionian fraternities of the Normal will not give their musical and literary entertainment until Oct. 9 instead of Oct. 1 as previously announced.

   —It is reported on good authority that Mr. Theodore H. Wickwire is now rehearsing some of the choicest of the old lullaby songs and others, and that just now his favorite is "There is only one girl in the world for me.''

   —Overseer of the Poor Captain J. W. Strowbridge on Saturday assisted Mrs. Louisa Fesci, an Italian woman, and her year old baby to Syracuse. The woman was begging on the streets and attracted attention with a small hand organ, much the worse for wear, out of which she ground what purported to be sacred music.

   —Master Harry Hitchcock, who has been giving such satisfaction as a trick and fancy bicycle rider at the Columbia opera house with the Maude Hillman company, gave an exhibition at the fair to-day and will also be present to-morrow. He is but 8 years old and performs the most difficult feats.—North Adams Transcript.

   —New display advertisements to-day are—Opera House, "Me and Jack," page 5; Bingham Bros. & Miller, Fall and Winter Clothing, page 8; Case & Ruggles, Dress Goods and Cloaks, page 6; F. E. Brogden, Cough Cordial, page 6; W. J. Perkins, Hot Water Bottles, page 6; T. P. Bristol, To the Ladies, page 6; Adolph Dahm-Petersen, Voice Culture, page 5.