At 8:10 o'clock on the night of Oct. 14, 1912, a shot was fired the echo of which swept around the entire world in thirty minutes. An insane man attempted to end the life of the only living ex-president of the United States and the best known American. The bullet failed of its mission. Col. Theodore Roosevelt, carrying the leaden missile intended as a pellet of death in his right side, has... more...

CHAPTER I When the widow of Martino Consalvi married young Corbario, people shook their heads and said that she was making a great mistake. Consalvi had been dead a good many years, but as yet no one had thought it was time to say that his widow was no longer young and beautiful, as she had always been. Many rich widows remain young and beautiful as much as a quarter of a century, or even longer, and... more...

CHAPTER I. BIRTH.—EDUCATION.—RESIDENCE IN EUROPE.—AT COLLEGE.—AT THE BAR. —POLITICAL ESSAYS.—MINISTER AT THE HAGUE.—AT BERLIN.—RETURN TO THE UNITED STATES. John Quincy Adams, son of John and Abigail Adams, was born on the 11th of July, 1767, in the North Parish of Braintree, Massachusetts—since incorporated as the town of Quincy. The lives and characters of his parents, intimately... more...

GIVE THE DEVIL HER DUE It was going to be a perfect June day. Already a cloudless, azure sky, promising no hint of rain, arched over a shimmering campus. All shades of green were represented and so was every color in the flowers that lined the walks and burst forth from the beds. In perfect compliment, the lovely old brick and stone buildings sat around the campus, complaisant and secure, full of pride... more...

THE HERO In the year —— there dwelt on Hampstead Heath a small thin gentleman of fifty-eight, gentle disposition, and independent means, whose wits had become somewhat addled from reading the writings and speeches of public men. The castle which, like every Englishman, he inhabited was embedded in lilac bushes and laburnums, and was attached to another castle, embedded, in deference to our national... more...

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY—A WORD OF WISDOM, FOUND WRITTEN, LIKE THE MOST ANCIENT, ON LEATHER 'Ah! old men's boots don't go there, sir!' said the bootmaker to me one day, as he pointed to the toes of a pair I had just brought him for mending. It was a significant observation, I thought; and as I went on my way home, writing another such chronicle with every springing step, it filled... more...

Treats of the Engine-Driver’s House and Household. Talk of earthquakes! not all the earthquakes that have rumbled in Ecuador or toppled over the spires and dwellings of Peru could compare, in the matter of dogged pertinacity, with that earthquake which diurnally and hourly shocked little Gertie’s dwelling, quivered the white dimity curtains of little Gertie’s bed and shook little Gertie’s... more...

THE "AGAPEMONE" OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. As it is not generally known that the "Agapemone" had a prototype in the celebrated Family of Love, some account of this "wicked sect" may not at this moment be without interest to your readers:— "Henry Nicholas, a Westphalian, born at Munster, but who had lived a great while at Amsterdam, and some time likewise at Embden, was the... more...

EDUCATION. Now that I have given away the certificates it will be expected that I should make a few remarks on that inexhaustible subject, Education. My remarks will be brief. I take this opportunity of explaining to our visitors the nature of the Higher Certificate examination. It is an examination instituted originally to test the efficiency of the highest forms of our public schools, and to enable... more...

CHAPTER I This is not a story about myself. Like Canning's organ-grinder I have none to tell. It is the story of Paragot, the belovéd vagabond—please pronounce his name French-fashion—and if I obtrude myself on your notice it is because I was so much involved in the medley of farce and tragedy which made up some years of his life, that I don't know how to tell the story otherwise. To... more...