American Court Gossip; Or, Life at the National Capitol [!] (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1887. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... chapter X. Arctic Survivors--Soldiers' Home--Operas--Dramatic AmaTeurs--Coulisse Chat. There were a half dozen heroes to visit the Capital, and late in the autumn of 1882, a reception was given at Masonic Hall to these survivors of the "Jeannette" the Arctic ship sent out byBennett of the New York Herald that was lost in the ice floes of the far north. The affair was managed by a few gray haired admirals of the navy in town--the hall decorated with flags and flowers--Speaker Keifer, General Logan, the Hon. David Davis and other officials were present. The Russian Noros and an Esquimau were much noticed--Lieutenant John C. Danenhower now dead, and a brother of the ill-fated Collins. Chief Engineer Melville, one of the survivors who lived in Philadelphia, sent regrets, for the reason that he had been terribly criticised in some of the papers, as being unkind to his wife. She came to the Ebbitt House and made some remark by her loud manners, when it was soon found out, the lady was partially insane. The old tar had an honest, bluff face, and as he had spent eighteen years at sea, out of twenty-three years of married life, it looked as if the skeleton might be in Ms closet. Miss LaFarge, the fiancee of Lieutenant Chipps of the illstarred expedition, lay in the vault of the LaFarges in a Philadelphia cemetery, dead--her heart broken at the thought of his burial in the everlasting Siberian snows of the far off north. The "Proteus" sent after Greely under Lieutenant Garlington, the chase of the "Thetis and Bear" would seem that this ignus fatuus, the discovery of the North Pole, was not worth the candle. At this Arctic reception, there was a good deal of spread eagle eloquence on the glory of the American navy, but bysensible people it was said, "there is little glory ...