without airing or washing. Washing, airing and drying before storing in the spring prevented a recurrence of these diseases. Further appropriations by the Legislature and a steady improvement in the system of management brought to the institution a high degree of efficiency in accomplishing the objects for which it was founded. On February 16, 1879, the destruction of the administration and domestic buildings by fire involved a loss to the State of nearly $75,000, and to the employees and officers of sums ranging from $100 to $500. The Legislature speedily authorized the rebuilding of the destroyed structures, and plans were adopted for making the new buildings fireproof. On the 27th day of April, 1884, the institution was visited by a most terrific cyclone. The storm did not rage to exceed one minute, but with force indescribable, tearing away the roofs of the laundry, hospital and other buildings, completely demolishing the barn, wagon and tool sheds, carrying away the roof of the hospital a distance of five hun dred feet, in an almost unbroken condition until it struck the earth, driving slates into the trees with such force as that it was impossible to remove them with the hand; removing a large part of the east veranda from its foundation, tearing down timber, fences, and other structures, and carrying a portion of the wreck miles away, and yet there was no human being injured, except two employees slightly, although there were at the time within the institution about seven hundred and fifty men, women and children; the children all being at supper. The damages resulting from the cyclone were repaired, at a cost of $7,500, a large portion of the money used for that purpose having been procured by Governor George Hoadly and Hon. John Little, they having given their joint promissory note for $5,152.50, and Mr. Little his individual note for $508.75. This was the same cyclone which visited Jamestown in this county, with such disastrous results, an account of which is given on another page. In 1888 the institution was under the superintendence of Major Noah Thomas, with Mrs. Alice Thomas matron, Leigh McClung physician, George H. Harlan financial officer. The Educational Department, with Horace A. Stokes as principal, had sixteen lady teachers. The cottage matrons numbered twenty, also a hospital matron, Mrs. Ephraim Hardesty, and Miss Rosa Bauerle supply matron and teacher. The number of children November 15, 1887, were 668, of whom 242 were girls, 426 boys. The occupations taught are domestic economy, stenography, shoemaking, farming, carpentering, painting, girls' sewing, printing, tinning, gardening, engineering, baking, tailoring, dressmaking, blacksmithing, cutting and fitting dressmaking. Board of Trustees.-Charles H. Grosvenor, Athens; Nelson A. Fulton, Xenia; William C. Lyon, Newark; John S. Jones, Delaware; and Andrew Schwarz, Columbus. The average age of the children is about eleven years, and were it double its capacity the Home would speedily be filled with orphans of the class contemplated by the law. The annual expense is for each orphan about $140. This is about what it is with the inmates of the other charitable institutions, as the Deaf and Dumb, Blind, Imbecile and Insane. 66 TRAVELLING NOTES. The Soldiers and Sailors' Orphans' Home" at Xenia is one of the bright places in the State. It pays the people largely to sustain it. I was a guest over night March 17, 1886, and then, passing there a few hours of the next day, saw much to admire and nothing to condemn. It is as one great household where system and order and a conscientious spirit everywhere prevails. The Food and Health.-At these various State charitable institutions the inmates all live well. The food is of the very best, much fruit, vegetables and milk; with no dishes of flummery for cloyed appetites, but all simple, well cooked, and healthy; far better than in most private families or hotels. The sleeping apartments are well ventilated, am ple washing facilities are supplied and a healthy temperature maintained by good heating facilities. Aside from this comes the element of uniform employment without the fret, worry and hurry and idleness that often attend life elsewhere. Hence the health of the inmates generally surpasses that of any like number of people outside of such institutions. Only one death had occurred here in the three years prior to my visit. The Ages.-Children are here of all ages from the infant of nineteen months to those of sixteen years. Beyond the sixteenth birthday none are allowed by law to remain. Places where they can earn their own living are generally found against the arrival of the sixteenth birthday, and by that time they have been taught some industry to help them do So. Some who have been bred here are among the teachers, and in time the entire supply may come from the institution itself. I visited the various shops, among them the printing office, where they print a weekly newspaper, the fruit and vegetable storehouse, and the greenhouse, with its array of flowers. The hospital I did not enter; it is not much used, as there are rarely many in mates. Uses of Children.-A school-room, especially if filled with very small children, is always attractive. A world without children would be a stupid spot. They make things lively, are the best sort of instructors, their ignorance, helplessness and trustful leaning so developing to our own high good, often so warming the heart in delightful emotion, that, even before the Master himself came to utter the words, "Suffer little children to come unto me," multitudes of our race must have experienced the angelic glow that comes from their appealing presence. Beauty of the Dawning Intellect.-No flower opens with more beauty to sip the morning dew as it glistens upon its fragile petals, than the heart of the young child to the reception of kindness and love, while it literally hungers and thirsts after knowledge, finding itself in this great storehouse of creation, with everything around new and strange, made for its use and development. Yes, everything: the glory of the earth by day; the glory of the vast dome by night; time, that never was, but ever is; space, with its immensity that has no bounds; and, moreover, the qualities of justice, truth and love, higher than all material things, which always were, before anything was, ready existing for their exercise whenever sentient life could spring into creation. And then a Supreme Intelligence and Supreme Power over all, that creates, bringing these qualities into the uses of the thinking life he has created, and to fill it with joy and gratitude as it learns to discern more and more, through all time, through all eternity, the full perfection and superlative beauty of the universe, of which not the least wonder will be that he finds himself a part. It is in this view to what children are the heirs, that to supply their highest wants, to give to them the noblest, purest development, is among the highest, most bliss-filling of duties. An Exhibition of the Little People.-I entered the far building in the picture, the school-house. The first room I went in was for small children, about eight years of age. There were forty boys and girls under the charge of Miss Dix. The room was on the ground floor, spacious, and lighted on two sides by nine windows. These gave a pleasing outlook upon green fields and noble trees, with the early buds of a spring morning unfolding in the sunlight. I now state what happened. 1st. School opened with the Lord's Prayer. 2d. With folded hands and bowed heads the children repeated: 'One step and then another, And the longest walk is ended," etc. After these preliminaries they went through exercises on the blackboards, and their proficiency was surprising. I then arose to go into some of the other rooms, when the teacher called out a little one as a guide. As the midget came to me I lifted him up under the arms. He was as light as a kitten, and as his little legs dangled in the air I kissed him, whereupon the other thirty-nine midgets burst forth with a simultaneous laugh, in which their teacher, Miss Sarah Belle Dix, joined-making forty laughs as the product of a single kiss. The Cottages.--A little later I went exploring the twenty cottages, each cottage with its family of thirty-four, presided over by a matron or cottage mother, thirteen cottages occupied by boys and seven by girls, and sixteen cottages in a straight line, facing the town of Xenia a mile away, with two others at each end facing at right angles. A plank walk passes in front of the cottages, over which is a continuous roof, as shown in the engraving. This is a shelter from the rain and the sun when the children march out from their cottages to the great dining-hall in the main building. The dining-hall has four long tables, with a seating capacity for 700 children. They march in with military tread, accompanied by the matrons. When seated, they repeat the Lord's Prayer in concert. The matrons wait on and serve the children under their coutrol. When I approached the doors of the cottages I found them all open and no persons present but the matron of each, the children being at school and some in the shops at work. One matron after another invited me in, as I came to their open doors. None of the matrons are teachers in the school. Each matron simply has charge of her cottage as a mother does of her children at home; in each the children are of about the same age. The matrons are fully occupied in school hours, the Grand Army. Last Christmas there was a great celebration here, and a deputation from them who distributed presents. The pictures and ornaments on the walls are paid for by saving the rags and old papers of the Institution. In the small picture are shown three doors. That in the centre leads up-stairs. That on the left is to the sitting-room of the matron; on the right is the children's store-room, where each child's clothes are laid away in a series of drawers against the walls, a drawer to a child, and each one with its name or number. Over these rooms is the wash-room and the matron's bed-room. The children's dormitory is over the sitting-room, and of the same size. The floor is uncarpeted, the walls white, the coverlets to the beds white; the bedsteads are of oak, seventeen in number, arranged in rows. Two children occupy a single bed. Everything there is neat, sweet and clean, as it indeed is about everything connected with the Home. Many housekeepers might learn much in these regards by visiting the various State Institutions. general tone of the bed-rooms is a snow-like whiteness and purity, with floods of light from ample windows. The The Matrons welcome visitors and take a just pride in showing them through their cottages. Among them one sees a variety of character. There is the large, fleshy woman with rosy cheeks, who has charge of the smallest troop of boys. Her face is redolent with goodness and smiles, and it is pleasing to see the little ones clustering around her to be caressed and share the envied kiss. Then there is the tall, strong woman, somewhat advanced in years. She has no especial call for the exercise of the softer motherly qualities. Her expression shows determination and executive capacity: and she should have these. The question of strong government is ever before her, for her charge is a family of thirty-four boys from fourteen to near sixteen years of age. They all sleep in one room, are naturally full of the exuberance and strength of dawning manhood, and how she manages to keep them from occasionally engaging in a pillow fight and frolic on retiring, after the manner of boys elsewhere, is a mystery. To one such I carelessly remarked, "I suppose you have an easy time here in managing your charge."' The moment I uttered this I wished I hadn't. I saw by the change of countenance, half comic and half anguished, I had made a mistake, for she at once ejaculated: "Humph! I should think so!-Boys are not angels; did you ever see any boys that were angels? The Soldier's Widow.-Then there is the short, small, delicate matron. She is a blonde about forty-five years old, and her face ineffably sweet and gentle, and very sad; oh, so sad! There is a history of suffering in that face. Instinctively you are drawn toward her as to the face of the suffering Christ as portrayed by the genius of Raphael or Da Vinci. You inquire, and maybe learn she is a soldier's widow and now motherless. Her husband fell upon no battle-field in the heat and glory of patriotic conflict to find a grave of honor upon Southern soil. Worse than that. He was one of the thousands of victims to the horrors of Andersonville; was exchanged and came home to die, a mere skeleton, wasted by starvation, his mind gone, a hopeless driveling crying idiot. Then her two little ones were taken from her, and she is alone in the world. She is here and fills out her life in ministering to the little waifs of the departed heroes. Religion offers to her its cup of anticipatory FOUR LITERARY MEN. Four literary men of note and now living come under notice in connection with Xenia-William D. Gallagher, Coates Kinney, William D. Howells, and Whitelaw Reid. WILLIAM DAVIS GALLAGHER was born in 1808, in Philadelphia, and when a lad of eight years came with his widowed mother to Mount Pleasant, Hamilton county, Ohio, and was for forty-seven years a resident of the State; his home is now Peewee Valley, near Louisville, Ky. He learned the printing business in Cincinnati, and, in 1830, when but twentytwo years of age, came to Xenia, and started a campaign newspaper, which he entitled the Backwoodsman, giving it that name because it was peculiarly Western, a strong characteristic of his being an ardent affection for the West. Mr. Gallagher was an enthusiastic Whig, and the main object of his sheet was "to hurrah for Clay and to use up Jimmy Gardner, editor of the Jackson organ of Xenia." After the lapse of a year he returned to Cincinnati and took the editorship of the Cincinnati Mirror, which had a life of several years, and his prose and poetic writings were of so much merit that he was soon regarded as the leading imaginative writer of the West. Later he edited two other literary journals, was for a time on the Ohio State Journal, of Columbus, and from 1839 to 1850 was associate editor on the Cincinnati Gazette, when he went to Washington with Thomas Corwin in a confidential capacity, Corwin having been appointed Secretary of the Treasury again in the civil war he was employed in the United States Treasury Department at Louisville by Mr. Lincoln. In 1853 he was on the editorial staff of the Louisville Courier. Mr. Gallagher's father, Barnard Gallagher, was an Irish Roman Catholic, a participant in the rebellion in 1803, that cost Robert Emmet his life; and his mother, Abigail Davis, daughter of a Welsh farmer, who lost his life in the American Revolution. Com ing from a liberty-loving stock, Mr. Gallagher inherited the spirit of freedom and philanthropy and could not be otherwise than an opposer of slavery. His biographer, Prof. Venable, in the Ohio Archeological and Historical Quarterly for 1888, says of him in his early days: He sang the dignity of intrinsic manhood, the nobleness of honest labor and the glory of human freedom. Much he wrote was extremely radical. Such lines as these, and as compose the poems Truth and Freedom,' Conservatism,' 'The Laborer,' 'The New Age,' 'All Things Free,' went to the brain and heart of many people, and it is not to be doubted but that they exercised a deep and lasting influence. "Mr. Gallagher first became known as a writer in 1828 by the publication of A Journey through Kentucky and Mississippi' in the Cincinnati Chronicle. His first poetical contribution that attracted general attention was 'The Wreck of the Hornet;' this was reprinted in a collection of his poems entitled 'Errato (3 vols., Cincinnati, 1835-7). He edited Selections from the Poetical Literature of the West' (Cincinnati, 1841). In 1849 he delivered the annual address before the Ohio Historical and Philosophical Society, of which he was President, on The Progress and Resources of the Northwest.' One of the most elaborate of his agricultural essays is his Fruit Culture in the Ohio Valley.' His latest volume is Miami Woods: a Golden Wedding and Other Poems' (Cincinnati, 1881). Venable says: 'Gallagher's verse paints the forest and field with Nature's own color, and glows with the warmth of human love and joy. Miami Woods' is a sort of Thomson's Seasons' adapted to the Ohio Valley.' FIFTY YEARS AGO. A Song of the Western Pioneer. BY WM. D. GALLAGHER. No man was ever more thoroughly imbued with a love of the West than Mr. Gallagher. The memories of his boyhood were rich with the glow of enthusiasm for its free and manly life, when everything was so rapidly expanding and prosperity seemed to be so assured to the humblest who would but exert his powers. Annexed is one of his songs that was widely published in the papers of the West forty years ago: A song for the early times out West, A song for the free and gladsome life In the days when we were pioneers, The hunt. the shot, the glorious chase, The camp, the big, bright fire, and then In the days when we were pioneers, We shunn'd not labor; when 'twas due Our children bless us still. In social converse met; And fires of love were kindled then O, pleasantly the stream of life In the days when we were pioneers, We felt that we were fellow-men; Our temples then were earth and sky; In the days when we were pioneers, Our forest life was rough and rude, O, free and manly lives we led, But now our course of life is short; And on our way to it we'll soon Yet while we linger we may all A backward glance still throw Many of his songs were set to music and sung in theatres, and in 1845 was published his famous ballad, "The Spotted Fawn," which became immensely popular, being sung everywhere. The Spotted Fawn was the beautiful daughter of an Indian chief, who dwelt in the valley of the Mahketewa, who, with her bridegroom, White Cloud, was slain on her bridal night by the cruel white man who in time of peace stole in upon them in their slumbering hours. The Mahketewa is the Indian name for a stream that empties into the Ohio at Cincinnati, commonly called Mill Creek and largely at that point inhabited by frogs. Some wicked wag |