trained boys tackled subjects that have puzzled the best intellects of the country; and it is remarkable with what good sense and justice they decided them. In nearly every instance these boys of from 12 to 15 years of age, living in a small town in eastern Ohio, placed themselves squarely upon the side of questions that since then have been maintained by the best minds and consciences of the country. For instance, on the questions, 'Should flogging be abolished in the Navy?' 'Shall Canada be annexed to the United States?' and 'Will the conquest of New Mexico and Upper California result in more good than evil?' the society said 'Yes.' On the then comparatively new question of 'Should women be allowed to vote?' the boys also said 'Yes.' On the question, 'Have the Negroes more cause for complaint against the Whites than the Indians?' the Polydelphians even at that early day decided wisely in the affirmative; and your friend and townsman, Mark Hanna, took the side of the black man and won his cause. On the question, 'Should the United States take any part in the Hungarian struggle for liberty?' the boys stood by our traditional policy, notwithstanding the temptation to be led off by spread eagle oratory. With scarcely an exception the boys placed themselves on the side of justice, humanity, good morals and good government, and that speaks pretty well, it seems to me, for the atmosphere and influences which surrounded these boys."

Although one of the younger members, Mark Hanna was active and prominent in the Polydelphian Society. In his "Threnody" on the Senator, Dr. Henry C. McCook reproduces a copy of the minutes for one of the meetings at which Mark acted as secretary. On this occasion the portentous subject was discussed, "Which does the most good to a republican government, Virtue or Intelligence?" The secretary states that the question was decided in favor of the "negitive"; but whether the "negitive" is equivalent to Virtue or Intelligence the scribe fails to record. Mark was one of the jury. His handwriting at that time (he was just thirteen) was awkward and unformed, his spelling was far from impeccable, and his power of composition probably inferior to that of an average well-trained boy of the same age to-day. But his handwriting shows the general characteristics of his later penmanship.

As was natural in a community just emerging from the roughness of the frontier, the games of the New Lisbon boys sometimes took on a semblance of war, and the warring factions took their names and recruited their forces from different parts of the town. The nature and circumstances of these combats have been told in so lively a manner by Dr. Henry C. McCook, that I shall merely transcribe his account.

"The inherent tendency of men to divide into parties, factions, sects, and to contend with and for the same, often without the least apparent reasonableness, was well shown among our village boys. The town was divided into two great sections, known in the graphic rather than elegant diction of boyhood as Sheep Hill and Frog Pond. Between the two was a narrow belt called Mid-town or Middle-town, whose boundaries and subjects were determined partly by location and partly by natural and social selection. The Hanna boys, Mark and Melville, belonged to this section, and there the writer had his citizenship. For the most part the down-town boys went with the Frog-ponders, and the up-town boys with the Sheephillers. But there were not hard and fast lines, and the Middle-towners had recruits from both sections, determined by personal preference, special friendships and boyish fancy.

"The rivalries between these parties grew into feuds, and these were at one time so intense that individual fights and boy riots occurred, in which, as a rule, Mid-town and Frog Pond were allies. I remember one battle in which the parties met by challenge in a field and grove north of the Hanna place. The three clans marched to the rendezvous in companies, and after some preliminary skirmishing it was proposed to settle the controversy not by arbitration, but by the method of ancient chivalry, a fight between the captains of two of the factions. The Middle-town captain promptly accepted for himself and the Frog-ponders, and joined in fisticuff combat with the Sheep Hill captain, a stout and plucky lad called Loot Smith, two years older than he. Luther got the better of his opponent, and had him down, pummelling him badly, when the impatient partisans of the worsted Mid-towner broke bounds, and with a shout rushed into the fistic ring, rescued their fallen chief, and a general battle began over and around the two leaders. In this melée

one of our side he was a Frog-ponder

- who carried a real sword, an ancestral relic of some war, badly hacked the arm of a young Sheep-hiller."

On another occasion the hostilities assumed such a serious form that a crowd of citizens, including the mothers of the combatants, gathered on the street; but in spite of weeping and imploring the boys were too excited to abandon their rough war game. It took John McCook, the father of Henry, a stalwart man, six-feet-two in height, to end this particular battle; and even he might have failed without the assistance of a "red rawhide, mighty as the sword of Gideon." Thereafter the easy-going parents of New Lisbon decided to put an end to these puerile combats. Some witnesses assert that Mark Hanna was for a while captain of the "Sheep Hill" crowd, and that the "Mid-town" gang mentioned by Mr. McCook was also called "Dutch McCook's" crowd-"Dutch McCook" being no other than Henry McCook himself. His crowd, while an independent command, usually fought with the Frog-ponders.

Boys whose mimic battles could cause such consternation to their parents came of fighting blood; and indeed in no part of the country was a more manly, vigorous and sturdy lot of people gathered together than in this particular part of Ohio. The community subsequently proved its mettle in both peace and war. One family in particular of ScotchIrish Presbyterians, which was allied to the Hanna family by marriage, bore an extraordinary record in the war. Everybody has heard of the fighting McCooks, but everybody does not know they came from New Lisbon. George McCook and Mary, his wife, two of the early settlers of New Lisbon, had three sons. The first of these sons, Dr. George McCook, was the father of one son and seven daughters, two of whom married sons of Benjamin Hanna. It was this particular McCook who made the famous retort to a heckler, when he was urging his fellow-townsmen to enlist at the outbreak of the war. He was asked by an auditor, "Why don't you go to the War?" "Young man," Dr. McCook loudly answered, "if this war lasts six months, there will be more McCooks in the army than there are Indians in Hell."

The boys who played and fought with Mark Hanna have al