otwithstanding the statement to the Contrary in Alfred R. Conkling's blography of his relative, it is certain that the death of Roscoe Conkling was due to exposure on the day of the blizzard. He lived then on Twenty-fourth street, opposite the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and walked all the way home from his office. It was a matter of universal belief among medical men that the disease that killed him dated from that day. He died of abscess of the brain, following mastoiditis, which in turn was due to an acute purulent inflammation of the mid-l dle ear. To be sure he attended to business for a time before he was taken down, but his friends noticed that he was getting deaf in one ear, and lawyers in court had noticed him leaning that side upon his hand and now and then pressing the ear and its vicinity with his finger, as if he felt something wrong there. He was very proud of his physique, and made no complaint until the development of the disease compelled him to call on the doctors for advice. That connected and consecutive series of middle ear inflammation, mastoiditis, abscess of the brain, is often slow in development and until the mastoid process became involved he was able to attend to business. It was only a little over a month after exposure that he died-March 13-April 18. Dr. Henry B. Sands operated upon him, but the operation came too late. If he had consulted a physician when he felt the first symptoms of ear trouble, the disease could probably have been arrested. ROGER S. TRACY, M. D. Ballardvale, March 14/15 17 Conkling and Potter. As the World Wags: Reading your column of last Saturday I recalled that Clarkson Potter, a New York congressman, was said to have taken pneumonia, which caused his sudden death, from walking down town in the blizzard of 1888, without an outside coat, which was the boasted habit of his 60 years or more. This may have been the explanation of the story about Conkling. This Potter was a brother of Bishop Henry Potter, one of several sons of Bishop Alonzo Potter of Pennsylvania. L. P. W. Cambridge, March 15, A Reasonable Doubt. As the World Wags: Throughout his long career in the United States Senate George F. Edmunds retained the respect and the affection of his colleagues irrespective of party. His ability was recog nized and his abhorrence of any dealings which might bring him personal profit through his position as a senator from Vermont. His tact, many times displayed in the midst of exciting debates, preserved him the |