measures of resistance against the encroachments of Great Britain on
the rights of the colonies. He drew up the famous petition of the
General Court of Boston to the King, in 1764, against taxation on
trade. He was elected a Representative in the Massachusetts House of
Representatives in 1765, was chosen Clerk, and served in that body
ten years. It is said that he was the first to suggest the congress
of colonial delegates that assembled in New York in 1765, and was
the father of the non-importation agreement of 1789, intended to
check the use of British manufactures and other foreign imports and
foster home manufactures and, still more, a spirit of independence.
He was Chairman of the committee that waited on the Royal Governor
and Council in 1770, on the day after the Boston riot and massacre,
and demanded the removal of the troops. He was one of the signers
of the declaration of independence: was one of those who matured
the plan of the Continental Congress, to which he was a delegate
from Massachusetts from 1774 to 1782, and signed the articles of
confederation, which were the constitution of the country until
replaced by the present Federal Constitution. He was Lieutenant
Governor of Massachusetts from 1789 to 1794, and Governor from 1794
to 1797. He was born in Boston Sept. 27, 1722, graduated at Harvard
in 1740, and died in Boston Oct. 2, 1803.
ORIGIN OF THE CAUCUS.
CHICAGO, Ill.
Can you tell us the origin of the American caucus?
JOHN ALLEN.
_Answer._—The origin of the term “caucus” is traced back to the
Caucus Club, Boston, of revolutionary days. This club was composed
mainly of persons engaged in ship-building. It was one of the most
radical opponents of British oppression. It and the Merchants’ Club
of the same period, used to meet before elections and agree on
candidates for town and provincial offices. “Caucus” is believed to
be a corruption of “caulkers.”
THE YORK SHILLING.
CHICAGO, Ill.
To settle a dispute please inform us through Our Curiosity Shop
whether the United States ever issued a coin called the “York
shilling?” Was there not a coin of some kind called a York shilling?
READER.
_Answer._—The United States certainly never did mint any such coin.
Neither did New York itself before the adoption of our present
Constitution, under which individual States are not permitted to
coin money. Most of the original thirteen States had issued bills of
credit during colonial times, which had depreciated in the several
colonies in different degrees, according to provisions made for their
redemption and other incidents. In New England, after the adoption
of the Federal decimal system, the pound in paper currency was worth
only $3.33⅓ and the shilling 16⅔ cents, equal to six shillings to
the dollar. This standard prevailed also in Virginia, Kentucky,
Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama, and
Florida. In New York the paper currency pound was worth only $2.50,
and so the shilling was reckoned but 12½ cents, equal to eight
shillings to the dollar. This last is the “York shilling,” a money of
account. The only coin that ever passed by that name is the Spanish
real, known along the Ohio and Lower Mississippi as “a bit,” which,
until a few years ago, was current through the country at 12½ cents,
the value, as above shown, of the New York paper currency shilling of
the olden times. In Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland
the pound was worth $2.70, making the shilling worth 13½ cents, or
7s. 6d. to the $1. In Georgia and South Carolina the pound was worth
$4.20, and the shilling 21-3/7 cents, or 4s. 8d. to the dollar. Such
was the force of habit that, long after the old colonial paper money
passed out of use, people continued to buy and sell and keep accounts
in pounds and shillings; and schoolboys were required to familiarize
themselves with the rules for reducing the several State currencies
to Federal currency.
THE GREAT NAPOLEON’S DEFEATS.
CHICAGO, Ill.
1. Was Bonaparte repulsed at Acre? 2. Was he forced to leave Egypt?
3. Did he make a disastrous retreat from Moscow? 4. Did the Duke
of Wellington suffer defeats parallel to those endured by Napoleon
Bonaparte?
THOMAS WILSON.
_Answer._—1. In 1799, after laying siege to the stronghold of Acre,
Syria, for sixty-one days, Napoleon Bonaparte resolved to raise
the siege and return to Egypt, where his presence was demanded by
the threatening state of affairs, which culminated at last in the
great battle of Aboukir, in which he defeated Murad Bey, for the
second time, with great slaughter. There is no doubt that, although
victorious over the Ottoman and Egyptian armies, the almost utter
annihilation of the French fleet by the English and Turks in the
famous naval battle of the Nile, some months before this, and the
menacing state of affairs in France, made it prudent for Napoleon
to take advantage of the prestige of this victory to retire from
Egypt, leaving the government of the country he had conquered to
General Kleber, who soon after this totally defeated the Ottoman
army, 70,000 strong, before Heliopolis. Not until after Kleber
was assassinated and months of the unwise administration of his
successor, General Menou, did the insurrection fomented by the
English, and finally assisted by an English naval and land force,
compel the French under Menou, to withdraw from Egypt, nearly two
years after Bonaparte himself had returned to France. Taken all in
all the French expedition into Egypt, planned by Napoleon Bonaparte,
although distinguished by several brilliant exploits, must be
regarded from a political and military standpoint as a failure. 3. So
was the expedition to Moscow, which, after a succession of victories,
ended in a disastrous retreat in midwinter, forced upon the French,
not by arms, but by threatening starvation and other results of the
burning of Moscow. 4. The Duke of Wellington, although several times
compelled to retreat before French armies during campaigns in the
Netherlands and in Spain, never suffered any disasters comparable
with those inflicted on Napoleon; neither did he ever exhibit, even
at Waterloo, where, with the allies, he had double the strength
of the French army, such marvelous generalship as made Napoleon
Bonaparte for many years more than a match for all the powers of
Europe combined, the arbiter of all their thrones.
FUNDED AND FLOATING DEBT DEFINED.
IROQUOIS, D. T.
Explain the terms “floating debt,” “funded debt,” and “sinking
fund.”
QUERIST.
_Answer._.—“Funded debt” is government or corporation indebtedness in
the form of bonds or other evidences of money stipulated to be paid
at stated intervals, and usually bearing interest payable annually or
oftener. “Floating debt” is indebtedness, such as unsettled accounts,
scrip in the nature of due bills, etc. not funded. A sinking fund
is money set apart out of taxes, earnings, or other income, for the
redemption of government or corporation bonds or other specific
tokens of indebtedness.
ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION.
FAYETTE, Iowa.
I am very anxious to learn how to make an incubator, or have one
made, for hatching chickens by artificial means. Will you oblige
myself and other readers by giving such minute directions that a
carpenter can make one by following them?
E. J. ALLCOTT.
_Answer._.—Similar requests are made by C. A. Brace, Esq., of
Persia, Iowa; L. R. S., Cameron, Neb.; Q., of Elk Grove, Wis.,
and several others, some of whom desire to know what success has
attended experiments in artificial incubation with modern apparatus.
Conflicting reports as to this latter question, together with the
fraudulent methods taken by some persons engaged in vending pamphlets
that cost the publishers not to exceed 8 cents a copy, containing
directions for making apparatus of this sort, at the extortionate
price of $2, and selling ready-made incubators at exorbitant prices,
has made caution advisable in treating this subject. Reports received
within the past six weeks from twenty different persons, who have
experimented with incubators, indicate that in about twelve cases
out of twenty the average success is encouraging, and in the cases
of the others the average results are quite discouraging. It is very
certain that in a climate incident to such sudden and extreme changes
as ours success demands skill and constant attention. None but
absolutely fresh eggs must be selected, a temperature hardly varying
from 103 deg., and a proper degree of moisture must be maintained,
with sleepless vigilance. Let the eggs be chilled even for a few
minutes and the consequences are disastrous. For a comparatively
inexpensive incubator make a box 4 feet long, 3 feet wide, 6 inches
deep, outside measurement, with a tight board lid and a zinc bottom;
using boards 1¼ inches thick, nailed or screwed together. This is
the heater. Of the same kind of boards make an egg-drawer 4 feet
long, 2 feet 11½ inches wide, 5 inches high, outside measure, and 4
inches deep on the inside, with slats nailed in crosswise, instead
of a board for the bottom. The slats better be of inch-thick lumber,
not more than 1 inch wide, and set one inch apart. Over these slats
on the inside tack a piece of coarse sack the full length and width
of the box. Draw it tight and tack it securely to the slats and the
ends of the box. Next make a frame 3 feet 7 inches long and 32 inches
wide, using inch-square strips for the end pieces and inch-wide
strips of half-inch thickness for the sides. Strain stout muslin over
this frame and tack it firmly. Lay this, muslin side down, on the
coarse cloth in the egg drawer. This is to support the eggs. Next
bore twenty half-inch holes in each side of the egg drawer, 1¾ inches
apart, and as close to the frame with the muslin bottom as can be
done and yet allow this frame to slide easily underneath twenty slats
a half-inch square each, which must be run through the box from hole
to hole, to keep the eggs in position. Arrange the eggs between these
slats, resting on the muslin of the muslin frame. It will be seen
that by moving this frame about two inches backward or forward the
eggs can be turned half over. Make a box of precisely the same length
and breadth as the heater, but eight inches deep instead of six.
Nail on a tight bottom of inch flooring stuff; bore twelve half-inch
holes in this bottom, into which insert as many tin tubes of the same
diameter, seven inches long, for ventilators. Fill all the space
between the pipes with sawdust to within about an inch of their tops.
Next set the egg drawer on top of this ventilator box, and set the
heater, the first box described, on the top of the egg drawer. Take
common inch-boards, one foot wide, and nail one on each side and
across one end of this pile of boxes, driving the nails along the
lower edge of each board into the ventilator box, and along the upper
edge into the heater box; raising the latter off of the egg-drawer
barely enough to let the latter slide easily back and forth between
the heater and ventilator.
As the incubator stands now, the egg-drawer is protected from the
cold, underneath, by the ventilator box with about six inches of
sawdust: but it must be similarly protected on the sides and top.
Set this nest of boxes, as now arranged, on a couple of trestles
made of pieces of scantling, four feet eight or ten inches long,
with short legs eight inches long, and build another box 27 inches
high (outside) around them, long enough and wide enough to form a
sawdust chamber 8 inches wide along both sides and the back end of
the incubator, and rising 8 inches higher than the top of the heater.
Next get two tin pipes, 12 or 13 inches long and about 2½ inches in
diameter, seamed together, as solder melts; also get two such pipes
about 6 inches long, and two elbows. Bore a 2½-inch hole through the
sawdust-box and the heater-box entering the latter about 9 inches
from the front and 2 inches below the lid, and slide one of the
longer pipes through these holes. Attach one of the elbows and one
of the 6-inch pipes outside. Put the other pipe into the heater from
the opposite side, about 9 inches from the back end of the heater.
Two kerosene lamps, set on brackets, on the outside of the sawdust
box, with their chimneys thrust up into the short pipes, will supply
all the heat that is required for hatching the eggs. If the lamps
smoke, drop them low enough to admit a little air to enter between
the chimneys and the inside of the pipes. Opposite where each of
these tin flues enters the heater, bore three three-quarter-inch
holes through the top of the heater, nine or ten inches apart, in a
line about three inches from the side. Slide six tin tubes of the
same diameter, fifteen or sixteen inches long, through these holes
to within a half-inch of the zinc bottom of the heater. Now fill
the sawdust chamber around the incubator and on top, putting earth
instead of sawdust just around the hot-air flues, to avoid fire. As
the zinc directly under where the hot-air flues enter the heater is
apt to get overheated, it is best before covering the heater with
sawdust to lay a piece of zinc or tin, about a foot square, on the
zinc bottom as an equalizer of the temperature. Keep a thermometer in
the egg drawer to test the temperature. This drawer will hold about
250 eggs.
This is the incubator; directions for using it will be given
hereafter.
M. A. Bevard, Derby, Iowa—General Hull took part in the revolutionary
battles of White Plains, Trenton, Stillwater, Princeton, Saratoga,
and Monmouth. 2. Aaron Burr died on Staten Island.
INTEREST ON NOTES.
WASHBURN, Wis.
1. Will a promissory note draw interest if it is not so specified
in the note? 2. Will a note made payable one year after date, with
interest at 7 per cent, draw interest after the note becomes due?
A. E. R.
_Answer._.—1. Such a note will not draw interest until after due and
payment has been demanded. It will draw legal interest from date of
such demand. 2. Such a note will continue to draw interest at the
same rate if payment is demanded at maturity and payment is withheld.
NEW YORK IMMIGRATION COMMISSION.
BARNARD, Ill.
Who was the first to propose Castle Garden for the benefit of
foreign immigrants? Is the board of management a National or a
State organization? How did it originate?
ANNA SIERLE.
_Answer._—The pitiable condition in which immigrants were landed
in New York, the cruelties inflicted upon them in many cases in
overcrowded emigrant ships, the extortions and downright frauds
practiced upon them when they were put ashore like so many cattle,
and left to shift for themselves in a strange city, without language
to make their wants known, began to attract the attention of humane
public officers and merchants of that city at an early day. The
outrages multiplied, and the importance of providing some remedy
grew with the rapid increase of foreign immigration, which swelled
from 22,633 for the whole United States in 1831, to 104,565 in 1842.
The Legislature of New York State was appealed to, and on May 5,
1847—in which year the rate of foreign immigration more than doubled
upon that of 1842, the total number received rising to 234,968—it
created the present Board of Commissioners of Emigration of the
State of New York, which has been in successful operation ever
since, and has proved one of the most beneficent institutions of the
land. It consists of nine members, six of whom are appointed by the
Governor with consent of the Senate, while the other three are the
Mayor of the city and the Presidents of the German Society and the
Irish Emigration Society. All of these serve without compensation.
The law makes it their duty to provide suitable quarters for the
reception of alien passengers arriving at New York; to care for the
sick and helpless among them; to protect them from extortion, fraud,
and impositions of any kind; to aid those who wish transfer to the
railways and other transportation routes to the interior of the
country; to assist such as wish to remain in the city to obtain work,
and, in general, to give them trustworthy information and advice,
and guard their interests. For this purpose they were authorized to
collect of vessel owners $2.50 for each passenger, until 1871, when
it was reduced to $1.50.
In 1855 the city of New York leased Castle Garden to the
Commissioners for an immigrant landing depot, and it was opened for
this purpose in August of that year. It occupies the extreme southern
point of the city at the junction of the North River, or Hudson, with
the East River. A more convenient, healthy, an every way desirable
station could not have been selected. The immigrants are brought here
directly from immigrant vessels, in tugs or barges, and received into
rooms properly heated, lighted, and ventilated. Bath-rooms, lunch
counters, with provisions at reasonable prices, suitable sleeping
quarters, and other conveniences are all found within the building,
and are conducted under strict superintendence. The names of such as
have money, letters, or friends awaiting them are called out. Clerks
stand ready to write letters for them in any European language.
There are railway offices where tickets are sold them by thoroughly
responsible clerks, who can talk with them in their native tongues.
Responsible brokers exchange their foreign coin and currency at par
market value. There is an employment bureau to find work for those
who do not care to go any farther. A physician is in attendance, and
the sick are properly cared for in a temporary hospital until they
are transported to the immigrant hospitals on Ward’s Island.
In view of the fact that about two-thirds of all the foreign
immigration to the United States land at New York, it is, indeed,
a noble institution that meets these strangers with such generous
provisions for their wants. According to an article in “The American
Cyclopedia,” of the 5,033,392 immigrants arriving at New York between
May 5, 1847, and Jan. 1, 1873, for whom commutation money was paid
by the vessel-owners, “all of whom received protection, advice,
and information from the commissions, 1,465,579 were provided and
cared for out of the immigrant fund, for a greater or less period
during the five years subsequent to their arrival; 398,643 received
treatment and care in the institutions of the commissioners; 449,275
were temporarily supplied with board and lodging and money relief in
the city of New York; 349,936 were provided with employment through
the labor bureau at Castle Garden; 53,083 were forwarded from Castle
Garden to their destination in the United States, or returned to
Europe at their own request; and 214,642 were relieved and provided
for in various parts of the State of New York,” all out of this
immigrant fund. In 1872-3 bills were introduced into Congress to
supersede this New York Emigration Commission by a National bureau,
but the movement excited great opposition, not only in New York, but
in other quarters, and it ended in failure.
DERIVATION OF SIRLOIN.
GALENA, Ill.
Is it true that an English king knighted a roast of beef as Sir
Loin, and that this was the origin of the name sirloin for a
certain cut of meat?
A SUBSCRIBER.
_Answer._—It is true that the great lexicographer, Dr. Johnson,
gave credence and currency to this etymological nonsense, and that
subsequent lexicographers, down to Webster and Worcester, parrot-like
repeated it. But both of our distinguished lexicographers rejected
this popular tradition of a silly freak or pun of James I. or
Charles II. as of no etymological value, and agree that sirloin,
which appears in Johnson’s dictionary for the first time with this
orthography, is derived from the French surlonge, that is, “upper
loin.” In the old English dictionaries, such as Ainsworth’s and
Cotgrave’s, the English word was spelled surloin, and both Webster
and Worcester, while giving sirloin as the usual orthography,
recommend surloin, and authorize it as the preferable spelling.
Skeats’ Etymological Dictionary, Oxford, 1882, vocabulates this word
thus: “Sirloin, an inferior spelling of surloin, q. v.;” and under
surloin says: “Frequently spelled sirloin, owing to a fable that
the loin of beef was knighted by one of our kings in a fit of good
humor.” The king was naturally imagined to be the merry monarch
Charles II., though Richardson says (on no authority) that it was so
entitled by King James I. Both stories are discredited by the use
of the original French surlonge in the fourteenth century. Indeed,
Wedgewood actually cites ‘a surloyn of beef’ from an account of
expenses of Henry VI. But Richardson had the authority of Dean Swift
for referring the pun on surloin to James I. In “Polite Conversation”
Swift says: “But, pray, why is it called a sirloin? Why, you must
know that our King James I., who loved good eating, being invited
to dinner by one of his nobles, and seeing a large loin of beef at
his table, he drew out his sword and in a frolic knighted it.” Which
Swift, in all probability, intended to be taken as a legend, and
nothing more.
NORTH CAROLINA GOLD MINES.
Give us some information in regard to the extent of mining for the
precious metals in North Carolina.
MALCOLM MCMANUS.
_Answer._—There was a time when gold mining in North Carolina was an
important industry. The earliest record at the United States mint of
gold produced in this country was in 1804. In that year a deposit
was made at the mint of gold found in North Carolina. Small amounts,
not exceeding an annual average of $2,500, were received from 1804
to 1823, after which there was a steady increase, as follows: In
1824, total amount received at mint, $5,000; in 1825, $17,000; in
1826, $20,000; in 1827, $21,000; in 1828, $46,000; in 1829, $134,000.
During this last year $2,500 was received from Virginia and $3,500
from South Carolina. A Southern “gold fever” set in, and hundreds of
people went to prospecting all along the Appalachian Mountains, so
that in the next year, 1830, the mint received $212,000 from Georgia,
$204,000 from North Carolina, $26,000 from South Carolina, $24,000
from Virginia, and $2,000 from Tennessee and Alabama. The total
amounts of precious metals from the mines of the South, deposited at
the United States mint from 1804 to 1881, was as follows:
From Virginia $ 1,689,797.00
From North Carolina 10,750,468.64
From South Carolina 1,429,751.55
From Georgia 7,869,282.60
From Alabama 220,892.25
From Tennessee 86,511.61
——————————————
Total $22,046,703.65
Various causes conduced to the decrease of mining in the South
before the discovery of gold in California, but this latter event
drew away the best miners and most experienced, most enterprising
capitalists engaged in the business, so that the gold product of this
region became insignificant. A revival of mining has set in in North
Carolina, yet the products of the Carolinas and Georgia in 1881 was
only about $275,000.
MEERSCHAUM—SEA FOAM.
GILMAN, Ill.
Is meerschaum a product of sea foam, as some persons declare?
W. C. DUCKHAM.
_Answer._—Meerschaum is a German word, compounded from _meer_,
sea, and _schaum_, foam. It is the name of a fine clay composed of
magnesia, silica, and water in equal parts. When fresh from the pit
it is soft and makes a lather like soap, which gave rise to its
name. After being molded into pipes, these are boiled in oil or wax
and baked until hard.
STATE GOVERNORS.
ZANESVILLE, Ohio.
Please give the names and politics of all State and Territorial
Governors. Also, their salaries and dates of expiration of their
terms.
A SUBSCRIBER.
_Answer._—The following is a full list of Governors of the several
States and Territories, with their salaries and the times when their
terms end. The politics of Governors is indicated by running the
names of Republicans in Roman, and of Democrats and Fusionists in
italics: