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| Gen. Louis Botha. |
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| Gen. C. de Wet. |
Cortland Evening Standard, Thursday, April 11, 1901.
MASTER MIND FAILS.
Dewet's Intellect Weakens and Botha Sues For Peace.
TO ACT FOR ENTIRE BOER FORCE.
Botha, Having Discovered That Dewet is Mentally Irresponsible and His Influence With His Followers Diminishing, Makes Overtures to British.
CAPE TOWN, April 11.—General Botha has reopened negotiations with the British for peace.
As explained here, this action was determined in part by General Botha's discovery, at a recent meeting, that General Dewet's intellect had weakened, and that his influence with his followers was diminishing, and that a continuance of the campaign, in view of General Dewet's irresponsibility, rested with General Botha alone.
It is understood here that although General Dewet, at his recent interview with General Botha, refused to surrender, General Botha, regarding him as irresponsible, undertakes to negotiate in behalf of the entire Boer forces. The British authorities here consider that if General Botha surrenders Dewet's following can be easily taken.
CREDITED IN LONDON.
News of Botha's Change of Spirit Causes General Satisfaction.
LONDON, April 11.—The report that General Botha has renewed the negotiations with Lord Kitchener is not yet officially confirmed but it is generally credited and received with satisfaction, except by the ultra-jingoes, who fear that the government will renew the terms recently rejected.
Regarding Dewet's mental condition reports have been very conflicting for some time. His recent inactivity points to there being some truth in the rumors which allege that long continued hardships, under the harassing British pursuit, have unhinged his mind.
On the other hand a correspondent of The Times quite recently acknowledged the "wonderful foresight and fertility of resource" which characterized General Dewet's retreat from Cape Colony.
As during the previous abortive negotiations the British press again loudly insists on "unconditional surrender" but Boers, as the Daily Chronicle remarks editorially, "may reckon on fair treatment" at the hands of the British.
Semi-Official Confirmation.
LONDON, April 11.—"It is semi-officially asserted here," says the Cape Town correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, "that General Botha has had another interview with Lord Kitchener, in which he informed him that he had seen General Dewet, who still refused to entertain the idea of surrender on any terms. General Botha, however, regards Dewet as no longer responsible for his actions and seeks a modus vivendi on behalf of all the burgher forces."
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| John P. Morgan. |
Morgan Won't Talk to Reporters.
LONDON, April 11.—The Pall Mall Gazette, discussing a cabled suggestion that J. Pierpont Morgan's visit to Europe concerns not only the steel trust, but the Panama canal project, considers it probable that the strong feeling of British shipowners in favor of the Panama route has had some influence with Mr. Morgan, and says: "The White Star line officials have issued special orders that no reporters be allowed to board the Teutonic at Queenstown, owing to the presence of Mr. Morgan on board."
PAGE FOUR—EDITORIAL.
The Nation's Drink Bill.
It is a fact significant of the wealth of the American people that their drink bill every year exceeds the whole amount of the national debt. They spend for alcoholic liquors alone a sum which almost equals the whole volume of the interest-bearing obligations of the government According to statistics compiled by the "American Grocer," the beverages consumed by the inhabitants of the United States last year represented a money cost of $1,228,674,925, divided as follows:
Alcoholic drinks, $1,059,568,787.
Coffee, $125,798,630.
Tea, $38,312,608.
Cocoa, 6,000,000.
Total, $1,228,674,925.
Of this grand total 86 per cent went for alcoholic beverages, and of this 86 per cent 50 per cent was spent for beer, 30 per cent for whisky and 6 per cent for wine. The relative cost and bulk of alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages are indicated by the fact that while the $125,798,530 worth of coffee used last year made 1,257,985,296 gallons, the $500,000,000 worth of beer measured only 1,221,500,160 gallons.
It is interesting also to learn that, notwithstanding the bigness of the figures we have quoted, the consumption of alcoholic liquors is not increasing. The consumption of spirits has declined from 1.43 gallons per capita in 1891 to 1.27 gallons in 1900; the consumption of wine has fallen from .45 to .40 gallon, and the consumption of beer has increased from 15.31 to 16.01 gallons. The nation's drink bill amounts to $16.17 per capita yearly, or an average daily per capita of less than five cents, not counting the money spent for soda water and other non-intoxicating beverages. It is evident from these figures that while the people spend a colossal sum for drink, the outlay is not burdensome and that temperance conditions are steadily improving.—Mail and Express.
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| Daniel Scott Lamont. |
SOCIETY OF IMMIGRANTS
OF CORTLAND COUNTY IN NEW YORK CITY—FIRST REUNION.
Held at Hotel Manhattan on Tuesday Evening—One Hundred Sixteen Charter Members and Guests Present—All but Three Towns of the Comity Represented—Delightful Social Gathering—Sumptuous Dinner—Fine Speaking—Interesting Letters from the Absent—List of Those Present.
The first annual reunion and dinner of the New York Society of Immigrants from Cortland county was held at Hotel Manhattan, corner of Forty-second-st. and Madison ave., in New York on Tuesday evening, April 9, at 7 o'clock. This society is in reality the creation of Melvin A. Rice, formerly of Cortland, and to him is due in large measure the success of the whole undertaking. When Mr. Rice was in Cortland a few months ago he said to the writer that he had been astonished to learn how many Cortland county people were now residents of New York [City] and he had been thinking over the project of getting them all together for a reunion at some early date. Other counties had their organizations there and came together once a year to renew old friendships. Why could not Cortland do the same? As a result Mr. Rice made out a list of the names of those whom he knew and sent copies to them all. Request was made that additional names be forwarded to him. The STANDARD also published the list and friends within the county sent on more names to Mr. Rice. A few of the immigrants got together informally and affected the following organization:
President— J. Maus Schermerhorn.
Vice Presidents—Judge Edward B. Thomas, Hon. Daniel S. Lamont.
Secretary—Melvin A. Rice.
Treasurer—Dr. Charles O. Dewey.
The arrangements for the reunion were then pushed forward to completion and the result was a most gratifying success. One hundred eight immigrants from the county, or husbands and wives of immigrants, together with eight residents of Cortland who were guests of the occasion came together at The Manhattan on Tuesday evening at 7 o'clock. The registration showed that all but three towns in the county were represented—Cuyler, Lapeer and Willet. Unfortunately not all the immigrants filled out their cards in full, as requested. If they had done so, perhaps these three towns would also have found that they had representatives present.
It was a most delightful gathering. Dr. and Mrs. Charles W. Sanders, Mr. and Mrs. Seymour M. Ballard and Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Pierce were the reception committee, but beyond extending greetings they had little to do, for everyone seemed to know every one. Introductions were scarcely needed. Friends were delighted t o meet friends. Some had not seen each other in years, though residents of the same city. Others were surprised to know that old time friends were so near at hand and they had not known it before. Reminiscences and incidents of the past were recalled and years rolled back while friends visited. It was truly a Cortland county gathering and one could hardly imagine as he looked about upon familiar faces on every side that he was outside the boundaries of the old county.
At length the announcement was made that dinner was served and places were taken in the beautiful private diningroom [sic] of this popular hotel. It was an ideal place for this gathering and the company just about comfortably filled the room. There was one long table at one side of the room at which were seated the speakers of the evening, and some of the officers of the association. The others were grouped at small tables arranged in congenial parties according to the wishes of the individuals. A handsome card at each place gave the menu, the names of the six speakers of the evening, the names of the officers of the association, the reception committee and the complete list of those who were there. A blessing was offered by Rev. John B. Calvert, D. D., and then while a fine orchestra in an alcove at one side discoursed choice music the elaborate menu was partaken of.
It was toward 10 o'clock when Mr. J. Maus Schermerhorn, the president, who also acted as toastmaster, called the assemblage to order. Mr. Schermerhorn spoke as follows as a preliminary:
In calling you together my fellow immigrants from the best county of the best state in the Union I take it for granted that you have all been naturalized and that I may make reference to the "Ould Country," or in our case old county, without the feeling that any show of regard for our old home or loyalty to its traditions will subject us to any detention at Ellis Island or deportation to our old habitations.
If we can give you just a few whiffs of Cortland county air in the midst of this busy New York life by taking you back in memory to that beautiful valley of the old Tioughnioga girded by those hills that we learned to love so well in early life, we shall have accomplished a part of the mission for which this society has been called into being We must confess that the Tioughnioga does not seem so large and broad as it did once, nor those hills that bounded our youthful vision so high, but I fancy the hills would be quite high enough were we to attempt to climb them now.
However the essence of our society which our secretary, Mr. Rice, has been instrumental in working up so well is in the simple dear old fashioned word "home". What a flood of memories even that word brings back to us. We can perhaps recall those happy summer days when we could lie under the shade of the sheltering trees, hearing the hum of the bees and let the hours go by as they would without thought of such a thing as a business engagement or the difficulty of an after dinner speech.
I recently heard a speech in which my friend Judge Rumsey, as the representative of Steuben county, in speaking to the Society of Franklin County, said that since Franklin county produced the most maple sugar and his county produced the most buckwheat he could see why he was asked to speak because there could be no proper result from either product without a suitable co-mingling of them both. Now I think that our county can properly be said to produce as fair an amount of each of these products as any county in the state and so we have concluded that for our first dinner we should be as well satisfied to have only our own family from our own county at our board.
Should it be thought best to continue our society for another year, after we have renewed the acquaintance of those from our old home, it would seem to me a most suitable thing for us to invite in the presidents of the societies of the other counties, for surely we shall want the other counties to see what a goodly company we of Cortland have gathered together.
I was intending to say that we have concluded to start an innovation to the customs of other kindred societies by having the ladies of Cortland county as our guests, but on second thought I would not like to call it an innovation, but rather an exceedingly proper and most agreeable addition to our feast. When it was suggested to me that the ladies be asked to come and sit in a gallery and watch us eat and hear what our speakers had to say after the manner of the Holland society and many others, I said that it seemed to me that the ladies should be asked to come and sit at our tables and be our only guests of honor. If we are building up our society on the sentiment of our old home what is more fitting than that those who have made it more than a name should have their place at our tables on such an occasion as this and help us bring back some of the memories of earlier days.
We may speak of home, the glories of the past, the products of our beautiful county such as maple sugar, butter, cheese, and wire cloth, but after all what has made it an honor always to say that we are natives of Cortland is the character of the people who have come from there. Most of us from Cortland have a strain of New England blood, which produced as good characteristics as from any part of our Union, the sturdy, upright, religious character of our first settlers will never cease to influence the lives of all their descendants.
To those of us who hail from old Homer, which we all love as our particular part of our beautiful county, there has come in these latter days rather a feeling of pride at its idealization of the pen of my late personal friend, Edward Noyes Westcott, in his now famous book, "David Harum", in our description under the name of "Homeville". While we who know the place and the late David Hannum so well, can not fail to recognize the characteristics of the place as those of Cazenovia, which Mr. Westcott loved, and would be glad to remember Mr. Hannum to be possessed of the good heart and high principles of David Harum, still though unfaithful to actual fact we remember many of the sayings and stories as those we have heard from Mr. Hannum's own lips. We have always regretted that the Cardiff giant incident was cut out of the book as the genius of the most remarkable fraud was well worthy of preservation. We remember one saying, omitted from those of the late Mr. Hannum, to the effect that the only thing to help Homer would be "thirty first class funerals;" meaning that until the principal residents were gone no liberalism could find a place there. Well, dear friends, more than thirty funerals have taken place and we thank God that the same sturdy character of its pioneers still remains.
In my short remarks I would like to take you by the hand and wander [around] some of the by-paths of our old home and perhaps call to mind the time when it had but "two colored persons"—one Don Brown of molasses candy fame and the other the faithful old friend and servant of my grandfather Jedediah Barber, in the person of Hannah Simmons, the cook. A few may remember Old Kendell with his "all day luncheon basket'' of hard boiled eggs, who though having no competition at the railroad station just established, used to call out "here is your fine stall fed eggs and time enough to come and get them."
Then Aunt Charity Kinney who made such wonderful tea for her most particular friends and actually used the old grave stones of her children with the names up for a walk from her door to the street. She also gloried in the possession of an umbrella that had never been wet and only regretted that her residence was off the very stately Main-st. because of the difficulty of having so good a funeral from its remote precincts.
Though many years have rolled between, it seems but yesterday when my friend Dr. Day and myself attended the old Cortland academy and were walloped by Prof. Clark with a rubber tube whose proper place was in his chemical laboratory.
We cannot believe that "three fairer maids from school" were ever known than my boyhood friends, Lottie Miller, Carrie Thomas and Addie Pratt, who received my attentions first at the early age of 6.
Speaking of Aunt Charity, though absurd for so unique a person, she had a husband as large and ungainly as she was small and dainty. They used to sit behind us in the old church and as my brother and myself were lulled to slumber by the far away voice with words and subject which had no interest for our secular minds, we did not notice that we had put our heads upon old Kinney's fingers, which were quite as large as the back of the pew, until he would most playfully pull them out and let our heads go chug on the wood and bring us back too suddenly to our strenuous life. We did get even with the old party, however, when he delivered hay at our father's barn by attending personally to throwing salt on him that should have lost its savor in the cure of the hay.
Before I close these remarks which are only intended to be an introduction to those more eloquent which are to follow, I shall read with your permission a paper from one of my boyhood friends, Rev. Dr. Theodore T. Munger of New Haven, Conn., a justly celebrated preacher for many years and now trustee of Yale university, who could not be present, but has very kindly consented to favor us with some thoughts that I know will please you all.
DR. MUNGER'S LETTER.
The letter of Rev. Dr. T. T. Munger, to which Mr. Schermerhorn referred, is really so interesting in all its details, especially to all the older residents who remember Dr. Munger personally, that we publish it in full.
NEW HAVEN, Conn., April 5, 1901.
To the Society of Immigrants from Cortland County:
DEAR FRIENDS—I suppose I was invited to come to this meeting of immigrants from Cortland county because I should be the oldest person, and so, in a sense, adorn the occasion by patriarchal locks and far-back reminiscences. But my young friend, Mr. Schermerhorn, is, in fact, mistaken. I must confess to three score and ten and one more, but I am a good deal of a boy yet, and the Cortland county meeting makes me wholly one.
I must confess that I am not county born. It happened to me to first see the light in Chenango county, where my father practiced medicine and tilled a farm which lay along the Susquehanna [river]. But in 1836 he moved to Homer for the sake of the educational advantages of the academy, then presided over by Mr. S. B. Woolworth, afterward secretary of the board of regents. After living in the village four years in a large and pleasant house for which he paid Mr. Barber the exorbitant sum of $75 per year, be bought a farm three miles north of the village, on what used to be called "the plank road", having a theory that a farm was a better place for his four boys than the village—in which theory he was quite right.
I think every man is to be pitied who has the misfortune not to have been brought up on a farm. If he was not, the best thing he can do is to buy one and, if rich, play with it. I, at my time of life, do not as a general thing indulge in regrets, and as for envying (never did much in that line, but it is an increasing regret that I did not obtain possession of those hundred and forty acres, and I envy the present owner, notwithstanding his hideous silo, more than Ahab envied Naboth. I suppose the reason is, that if a man has
(Continued on second page.)
STATE LEAGUE MATTERS.
Officer of the Cortland Association May Be Elected To-night.
There will be a meeting of the directors of the baseball association this evening in Fireman's hall, at which officers for the season may be elected. There are yet unsold nearly fifty shares of baseball stock.
Definite statements have been given out in Amsterdam that that town will not be in the State league this season. The location of the eighth franchise will be settled at a meeting of the league early next week.
Pete O'Brien says that he will save all of his money this season. Pete is an old married gentleman now, but has more ginger than ever before.—Binghamton Herald.
Pete is the shortstop on the Cortland baseball team and the fans here will be interested in this bit of information. By the way, while O'Brien stood low in fielding average among the State league shortstops last season, there were only two of them that averaged more chances taken in a game than he did. In this respect averages do not always tell what kind of a game a player is putting up. O'Brien goes after everything that comes into his garden, and he made plays last season that the high average player would never have tackled.
The Utica team will report at Rome, April 25.
BREVITIES.
—The Loyal Circle of King's Daughters will meet with Mrs. E. R. Wright, 16 Groton-ave., to-morrow afternoon at 3 o'clock.
—The funeral of Mrs. B. Sheehan will be held from her home, 103 North Main-st., Friday morning at 9 o'clock and from St. Mary's church at 9:30 o'clock.
—Cortland Canton, No. 27, P. M., I. O. O. F., will hold a regular meeting at the lodge rooms this evening. Several candidates for degree work will be present.
—New display advertisements to-day are—C. F. Thompson, Gee Brook special, page 5; Mitch's market, Farm poultry, page 5; C. W. Stoker, Groceries, page 4; Baker & Angell, Shoes, page 8; S. Simmons, Clothing, page 6.
—The maple sugar social at the First M. E. church last evening, given under the auspices of the Epworth league, was largely attended. The silver collection taken helped swell the league's treasury. The musical program, under the direction of Messrs. George Oscar Bowen, Harry A. Jennision and Robert I. Carpenter, was greatly enjoyed.
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