Observations of a Retired Veteran

Excerpt

Henry C. Tinsley was born April 7, 1834, in Richmond, Virginia, and lived on the corner of Franklin and Governor streets, in his father's residence, which was opposite the old WHIG office. His father was a native of Ireland and died at the early age of 28, the day after the birth of his only daughter, Ella, who was educated at the Virginia Female Institute in Staunton, while presided over by the Rev. Dr. Phillips. She and his mother have since died, and it is not believed that he has at this time any living relative.

Mr. Tinsley's education was obtained at the old Richmond Academy of that city, a classical school. In his 18th year he began his journalistic career as a reporter for the Richmond DISPATCH, in which profession of his choice he soon attracted attention.

The war coming on, he enlisted in the Richmond Howitzers and served during the whole war as a faithful and brave soldier.

After the war he returned to the Richmond DISPATCH and soon became one of the most valued men upon its working corps.

Early in the '70's he became by purchase, half owner and editor of the Staunton VINDICATOR, being associated with the late W. H. H. Lynn until 1876 when Mr. Lynn sold his interest to Capt T. C. Morton. The paper was then for eight years conducted under the style of Tinsley & Morton. After this Capt. Morton retired from the paper and his eldest son, A. S. Morton, became in turn half owner, the firm continuing as before until 1895 when it was dissolved, Mr. R. S. Turk purchasing the office and good will of the VINDICATOR and consolidating it with the SPECTATOR, since which time it has been known as the Staunton SPECTATOR and VINDICATOR, Mr. Tinsley retiring from the paper of which he had been chief editor for twenty-four years.

Mr. Tinsley died in Staunton, after a long and painful illness, August 21, 1902.

OBSERVATIONS OF A RETIRED VETERAN I

I saw the Sweet Harbinger of Spring last week. A violet? No. A swallow? No. A bud? No. Ah! no; put up your encyclopedia of Spring information and I'll tell you. It was the annual boy with his shoes off for the first time since the warm weather. He stepped gingerly; he stood still longer than usual; he hoisted the bottom of his foot for inspection often; he let a cat go by, though a rock lay in a yard of him; he picked out a velvety place on the tan-bark sidewalk before he put his feet firmly down and squared himself on them to give the two-finger whistle for his chum, which is the terror to the nervous. Much of the boy had gone out of him. He moved with the motion and sloth of decrepit age. Next week you will not know him for the same boy. His feet will be hardened, he will dance over the macadam mixed streets with the callosity of a stone-crusher, and the fugacious cat will be lucky if it gets its tail through the fence in time. The mourner's bench humility of today will have changed to the noisy glee of the hardened criminal. His baseball practice will pervade the middle of every street, and his large and assorted stock of general trouble and annoyance will be displayed under all our noses with the request that we will call and examine before purchasing elsewhere. I cannot understand how any man can be indifferent to the blessings of the church, when he remembers that one of them is the Sunday School—invented by the Fathers as an ingenious and effective place of torment for this Boy. Through the week he is intolerable, but the blessed Sabbath is to him a day of retribution. It is the awful day when his ears are washed and touseled about; when his eyes are punched out by the towelled but unsparing hand of a Christian mother; when his shoes are put back on him for a day, and when, with a neck encircled by a collar starched to maddening stiffness, and with a pocket handkerchief the consistency of pasteboard, he is sent to the place of punishment....