"Scatter," he commanded. "Get out of your uniforms and into civilian clothes. Meet in Montreal. We have struck a blow that the Yankees will remember, and we'll strike another before long." Wildly hilarious at their success, they scattered. They knew there was money for Marse Robert, and in their youthful enthusiasm they believed they had accomplished a feat to make the whole Northern Government totter. Besides, they were in Canada and safe. But Conger was not a man to concern himself too greatly with boundary lines. Back in St. Albans there was a fury of excitement. The telegraph operator, during the firing, had sent out a despatch that “a regiment of rebels" were plundering the banks, burning the whole town, and shooting down citizens right and left. At Burlington the alarm bells were rung, and five hundred men left for St. Albans by special train. By another special from the capital the Governor rushed forward all available companies of the invalid corps. Albany and New York sum moned the militia. The War Department at Washington wired hither and thither, ordering troops to the border. Young's twenty boys were making history for a few minutes. Meanwhile, Conger arrived at the line. By this time it was dark. Conger's troops had notions of law and neutrality. A non-military body, it had no great taste for a battle in the darkness on the Queen's soil. But there was no denying Conger. "I want you," he said, "to follow me into Canada. We have got to have another fight." Twenty-two of his men followed him. The rest went back to St. Albans. Conger pressed on, in immediate expectation of an ambush, but by this time Young's party had dispersed in small groups. As a matter of fact, all but one of the fourteen apprehended were taken by Canadian officers. Conger, however, did not lack for official indorsement of his course. Next morning there was forwarded to him by Colonel Redfield Proctor a despatch from General Dix which read : "Send all efficient force you have and try to find marauders, who came in from Canada. Put a discreet officer in charge. In case they are not found on our side of the line, pursue into Canada if necessary and destroy them.” That despatch afterward took some explaining, but Dix at that time resembled Con ger in his disregard of geographical divisions. 683 He had, it will be remembered, a particularly ardent form of expressing himself about the American flag. Secure in the confidence which they reposed in the British Neutrality Act, the Confederates were easily captured. The Dominion authorities were stirred into prompt action. Whitman, a Canadian justice of the peace, arrested Bruce and Spurr, whom he found asleep in a tavern at Stanbridge, with $21,395 in their satchels. He also arrested Collins and Lacky, who had $44,679. Doty and McGorty, who were found snoring in a barn at Dunham, had $13,525. Scott, picked up at Farnham, had $2,851; his first act was to demand protection as a "Confederate subject." Moore, taken at Waterloo, had $950. Hutchinson, who got through to Montreal before he was apprehended, had $10,000. Squire Teavis, Swager, Wallace, and Gregg were arrested near Phillipsburg. Conger's only capture was Young himself, and, although Conger was not permitted to retain his prisoner long, he made the period of captivity interesting. Young spent the night alone beside a little fire in the woods. Morning found him cold, wet, and hungry. A passing farmer told him that five of his men had been arrested at Phillipsburg. With the idea of exhibiting his Confederate commission, and thereby securing their release, Young started for Phillipsburg, but first he made his way to a farm-house in search of breakfast. He was busily engaged with ham and eggs when Conger and his men rushed in. Young's revolvers were in the next room. He fought with his fists, and Conger fought to prevent his followers from venting their anger, but the Kentuckian was sadly battered with pistol butts before he was borne to the floor. 66 Now, you murdering reb," panted one of his captors, "we'll take you back to Vermont and have a first-class hanging." Young's protests concerning the neutrality of British territory naturally had little weight with these men. Conger, having received his telegram from Dix, was confident of his authority. Even had he dissented, it is doubtful if his followers would have consented to hand over their prisoner to the Canadian officials. Young was loaded into an open wagon, where he started another battle, in the course of which two men were thrown out into the road, but he was, of course, subdued. Still arguing and protesting, he was driven rapidly toward the American line. He was confident that something very serious was going to happen to him immediately, and he was, so he admits, badly scared. One of the most beautiful sights I ever beheld," he says, "was that uniform coat on a British captain of infantry when we came upon him at the bend of the road." It may be imagined that Young's appeal to the Englishman was fervent. His guards were voluble too, but the Englishman was not to be shaken in his conception of what was due the Queen's soil. Conger reluctantly took his prisoner to Phillipsburg, whence he was promptly forwarded to St. John's, where was then a small British garrison, the officers of which were by no means unfriendly to the Confederate prisoners. A few days later they were taken to Montreal, where the fourteen captured were arraigned in the police court before Judge Coursol. The other six utterly disappeared. The contention of the prosecution, aided by eminent counsel supplied by the American Government and including Senator George F. Edmunds, was that the raiders were mere bandits, who were not recognizable under the laws of war, and who, under the Ashburton Treaty, should be extradited for trial in the courts of the United States for murder, robbery, and arson. The arguments waxed hot in the court; also they waxed hot in Downing Street and in Washington. Seward wrote prolifically. So did Lord John Russell, who, although he deprecated its form, consistently maintained his recognition of the raid as an act authorized by the Confederate Government. On the 13th of December Judge Coursol finally handed down his decision. It was to the effect that he had no jurisdiction in the case, that the prisoners should be discharged, and that their property should be returned to them. This brought forth a great demonstration in the court-room. Coursol's action also brought forth another remarkable order from Major-General Dix, in which military commanders on the frontier were instructed in case of "further acts of depredation and murder, whether by marauders or by persons under commission from the rebel authorities at Richmond, to shoot down the depredators, if possible," and to cross the boundary if necessary. Five of the raiders were subsequently retaken by the Canadian authorities on new warrants secured by the United States attorneys. They were held for trial before the Supreme Court. Young had driven a sleigh from Montreal nearly to the Nova Scotia line when captured. In this second trial the validity of Young's commission and the Confederate authority for the acts of his band were most rigorously attacked. The papers did not bear the great seal of the Confederacy, and the securing of those which did taxed the resources of counsel for the prisoners. The prisoners were discharged on the ground that they were within their rights as belligerents. "As a matter of fact," the Judge wrote in his decision, "raids of this description have been constantly permitted and justified by and on behalf of the United States. On what principle, then, can they be denied to the so-called Confederate States?" Still persistent, however, the United States secured the arrest of Young and his five companions on warrants charging violation of the Neutrality Act. The five were taken to Toronto, where the case dragged on, with the prisoners at large on bonds of $20,000 each, until the close of the war. Then the action was dropped. Young went to Europe, where he remained until the amnesty proclamation. The others drifted back to the Southland. Downing Street and Washington exchanged bulky communications for a time. Lord Monck, the Governor-General of Canada, recommended that the Dominion reimburse the St. Albans banks, and the Canadian Parliament voted them $50.000 in gold, equal to some $80,000 of the currency they had lost; a force of frontier cavalry was raised and kept in the vicinity of St. Albans for a time; and presently the war was over. The dream of succoring the stricken Confederacy by terrifying the North, of helping Marse Robert's starving men, of young lives gloriously yielded in mad dashes upon a hated enemy, had faded in the musty atmosphere of law courts. Not a cent of the $208.000 taken from the banks had ever reached Marse Robert. Most of it was spent in the defense and in aiding the escape of the unarrested prisoners. Perhaps a little of it went into the general coffers of the Confederacy. But there was no more Confederacy. Of the twenty raiders, Young, the leader, became a prominent lawyer and railway operator of Louisville and Commander-inChief of the United Confederate Veterans. The others, if alive, are scattered in the South or Southwest. AN IROQUOIS THANKSGIVING' BY MABEL POWERS Now this is the appointed time. (YEH SEN NOH WEHS) Now we give thanks to our Creator. Now we sprinkle the sacred tobacco on the fire. Now the smoke rises, Now we speak to Him, the Dweller of the Heavens, the one Great Spirit. Now we have spoken in this incense. May He breathe the smoke and listen to our words! Now we give thanks to the Great Spirit. Now we speak of all He has created for His Red Children. We thank Him that we are here to praise Him. We thank Him that He has created men-beings to oe brave and strong. We thank Him that He has created women-beings in whose arms we see little children. May little children continue to creep and run about! We thank Him that He has made for them the Earth, our mother from whose breast all things spring and grow. We thank Him that He thought there should be forests for the people and that He filled them with game. We thank Him for the animals that give us food to eat and skins to wear. We thank Him for the herbs that heal and that make the sick well. We thank Him for the grasses, the fruits, and the flowers, for Di-o-he-ko, "those we live by "the three sisters, the corn, the bean, and the squash. For all these good gifts of life we offer thanks to the Great Spirit in song and dance. May we again see the season of growing things! Continue to listen. Now again the smoke rises. Now again the incense ascends. It lifts our words to the Great Spirit. Now the whole people are giving thanks. We thank Him for all the waters, the springs, the streams, the rivers, and the lakes. We thank Him for the creatures that live in the waters. We thank Him for the Thunderers that feed the springs and make the waters to flow, for the rains that bring the harvest. We thank Him for the sky and for all the lights He has placed in it. We thank Him for the Sun, our brother, that he looks in on us by day. We thank Him for the Moon, our grandmother; may she continue to light the night! We thank Him for the stars that guide men-beings, and for all the bright fires in the Happy Hunting-Grounds. We thank Him for the winds-for the north wind that brings our winters, for the south wind that brings our summers, for the east wind that brings our sun-risings, for the west wind that brings our sunsets. We thank Him for the gift of the fire that warms us and cooks our food by day and protects us by night. We thank Him that all things are doing that for which they were created. From the low earth upward to the great sky where He is living, with all their strength the people thank Him in song and dance. Now the smoke rises. He has seen it. Now we have spoken. It is done. Na ho. The paleface has one festival of Thanksgiving, the Iroquois four. In the spring he gives thanks for the sweet waters of the maple. The Strawberry Feast follows at the time of the "Berry moon." Then comes the Green Corn Dance, which requires three days to name all the gifts of the Great Spirit to the Red Children. In midwinter, the Indian New Year, thanks are again offered for five days for the gifts of the entire year. The true Iroquois also never plucks a flower or bit of fruit without silently giving thanks, and he always leaves something of everything that grows for his little brothers of the wood. 1890 1991 1892 1893 1894 1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1919 1312 1913 1914 1915 WHOLESALE PRICES IN THE UNITED STATES, 1890 TO 1915 This calculation does not include rent, taxes, transportation, or ice, which vary so widely that it is impossible to make a statistical average of them, though they are all important items in the cost of city life. Rent and transportation are, however, indirectly represented by the allowances made for fuel, lighting, metals, lumber, and building materials, and we shall probably be well within the mark in assuming that out of every dollar spent for necessaries in the United States twenty-five cents goes for food. We have a total population of about 100,000,000 souls. Estimating the average expenditure at $1 a day for men, women, and children alike, our total necessary cost of living is $36,500,000,000 a year. Of this one-fourth, or, say, nine billion dollars, is spent for food. This is twentyfive cents a day per capita, which about squares with the experience of the establishments or institutions in which the cost of feeding men, women, or children in large numbers has been accurately ascertained. Returning again to the figures of the Rice .76 Salt.. .55 Spices. .12 Tallow.. .33 69.72 19.20 6.63 4.45 30.28 100.00 |
