DANIEL WEBSTER

Daniel Webster (1782-1852) was one of the greatest lawyers and statesmen of America and one of the great orators of the world. He was born in New Hampshire, in pioneer days, of the rugged type of people who managed by hard work and economy to squeeze a living out of that poor soil and unfriendly climate. He worked on the farm, and went to the little country school. His mental ability was so evident, even as a boy, that his family decided to give him a college education, though for them it meant great sacrifices. He went to Dartmouth College, in his native state, and while there became known for his superior ability and his power of speaking effectively. After graduating, he took up the study of law; then taught for a time to help his brother through college; then completed his reading and was admitted to the practice of the law.

From the beginning of his career as a lawyer, he showed unusual power and legal knowledge and great influence over the juries. In those days the law was a sort of natural gateway into politics and public life, and in 1813 Webster was elected to Congress as a Representative of his state. From this time he rose rapidly in fame, both as lawyer, orator, and statesman, and soon became one of the most prominent men in the country. The list of his honors is long: Congressman from 1813 to 1817, and from 1823 to 1827; senator from 1827 to 1841, and from 1845 to 1850; secretary of state from 1841 to 1843, and from 1850 to 1852.

As a speaker, whether in the court room, in the halls of Congress, or on the public platform, he had extraordinary power: his commanding presence, deep-set, flashing dark eyes in a head of magnificent proportions, deep and powerful voice, and tall and dignified figure gave additional weight to his clear and forceful way of saying things. He was the sort of speaker who could, apparently without effort, compel the attention of his audiences and hold them as long as he wished. His most famous speeches are his Reply to Hayne, the argument in the Dartmouth College case, the two Bunker Hill Addresses, the Speech at Plymouth in 1820, and the address on the deaths of Adams and Jefferson.

LIFE IN OLD NEW YORK

In those good old days of simplicity and sunshine, a passion for cleanliness was the leading principle in domestic economy, and the universal test of an able housewife.

The front door was never opened, except for marriages, funerals, New Year's Day, the festival of St. Nicholas, or 5 some such great occasion. It was ornamented with a gorgeous brass knocker, which was curiously wrought, sometimes in the device of a dog, and sometimes in that of a lion's head,- and daily burnished with such religious zeal that it was often worn out by the very precautions taken 10 for its preservation.

The whole house was constantly in a state of inundation, under the discipline of mops and brooms and scrubbing brushes; and the good housewives of those days were a kind of amphibious animal, delighting exceedingly to be 15 dabbling in water, insomuch that an historian of the day gravely tells us that many of his townswomen grew to have webbed fingers, "like unto ducks."

The grand parlor was the sanctum sanctorum, where the passion for cleaning was indulged without control. No 20 one was permitted to enter this sacred apartment, except the mistress and her confidential maid, who visited it once a week for the purpose of giving it a thorough cleaning. On these occasions they always took the precaution of

leaving their shoes at the door, and entering devoutly in their stocking feet.

After scrubbing the floor, sprinkling it with fine white sand, which was curiously stroked with a broom into 5 angles and curves and rhomboids, after washing the windows, rubbing and polishing the furniture, and putting a new branch of evergreens in the fireplace, the windows were again closed to keep out the flies, and the room was kept carefully locked, until the revolution of time brought 10 round the weekly cleaning day.

As to the family, they always entered in at the gate, and generally lived in the kitchen. To have seen a numerous household assembled round the fire, one would have imagined that he was transported to those happy days of primeval 15 simplicity which float before our imaginations like golden visions.

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The fireplaces were of a truly patriarchal magnitude, where the whole family, old and young, master and servant, black and white, nay, even the very cat and dog, enjoyed a community of privilege, and had each a right to a corner. Here the old burgher would sit in perfect silence, puffing his pipe, looking in the fire with halfshut eyes, and thinking of nothing, for hours together; the good wife, on the opposite side, would employ herself 25 diligently in spinning yarn or knitting stockings.

The young folks would crowd around the hearth, listening with breathless attention to some old crone of a negro, who was the oracle of the family, and who, perched like a raven in a corner of the chimney, would croak forth,

for a long winter afternoon, a string of incredible stories about New England witches, grisly ghosts, and bloody encounters among Indians.

In these happy days, fashionable parties were generally confined to the higher classes, or noblesse; that is to say, 5 such as kept their own cows, and drove their own wagons. The company usually assembled at three o'clock, and went away about six, unless it was in winter time, when the fashionable hours were a little earlier, that the ladies might reach home before dark.

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The tea table was crowned with a huge earthen dish, well stored with slices of fat pork, fried brown, cut up into morsels, and swimming in gravy. The company seated round the genial board, evinced their dexterity in launching their forks at the fattest pieces in this mighty 15 dish, in much the same manner that sailors harpoon porpoises at sea, or our Indians spear salmon in the lakes.

Sometimes the table was graced with immense apple pies, or saucers full of preserved peaches and pears; but it was always sure to boast an enormous dish of balls of 20 sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat and called doughnuts or olykoeks, a delicious kind of cake, at present little known in this city, except in genuine Dutch families.

The tea was served out of a majestic Delft teapot, ornamented with paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds 25 and shepherdesses tending pigs, with boats sailing in

the air, and houses built in the clouds, and sundry other ingenious Dutch fancies. The beaux distinguished themselves by their adroitness in replenishing this pot from a

huge copper teakettle. To sweeten the beverage, a lump of sugar was laid beside each cup, and the company alternately nibbled and sipped with great decorum; until an improvement was introduced by a shrewd and economic 5 old lady, which was to suspend, by a string from the ceiling, a large lump directly over the tea table, so that it could be swung from mouth to mouth.

At these primitive tea parties, the utmost propriety and dignity prevailed, -no flirting nor coquetting; no romp10ing of young ladies; no self-satisfied struttings of wealthy gentlemen, with their brains in their pockets, nor amusing conceits and monkey divertisements of smart young gentlemen, with no brains at all.

On the contrary, the young ladies seated themselves 15 demurely in their rush-bottomed chairs, and knit their own woollen stockings; nor ever opened their lips, excepting to say, yah, Mynheer, or yah, yah, Vrouw, to any question that was asked them; behaving in all things like decent, well-educated damsels. As to the gentlemen, 20 each of them tranquilly smoked his pipe, and seemed lost in contemplation of the blue and white tiles with which the fireplaces were decorated; wherein sundry passages of Scripture were piously portrayed. Tobit and his dog figured to great advantage; Haman swung 25 conspicuously on his gibbet; and Jonah appeared most manfully leaping from the whale's mouth, like Harlequin through a barrel of fire.

From WASHINGTON IRVING'S "History of New York by Diedrich Knickerbocker."