resenting St. Louis offering to Christ the sword with which to
vanquish his enemies.

While in Paris I visited Mrs. Mason, widow of James Mason, deceased. Mr.
Mason was formerly a member of the Arkansas Senate and Sheriff of Chicot
County. It will be remembered by old residents that the death of Mason's
father, an old bachelor and rich planter, who died intestate, caused a
suit at law of great interest and importance. It was an exciting trial,
as many thousands of dollars were at stake in the issue. The fatherly
care he had ever evinced for the education of his children (James having
been educated in France and Martha at a Northern college); the
solicitude and unfailing recognition, the many instances of which he had
designated them as direct heirs, and other evidence, collateral and
convincing, were availing. They received a jury award.

[Illustration: HON. JOHN C. DANCY,

Recorder of Deeds for District of Columbia.

Born at Torboro, S. C., May, 1857--Entered Howard University--Elected
Recorder of Deeds of Edgecombe County, S. C., in 1880 and 1882--Late
Collector of the Port at Willmington, S. C.--Christian and Progressive
in the Church--Eminent and Eloquent in the State.]

An appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States was taken, which
dragged its weary way for a number of years, but resulted in confirming
the decision of the lower court. Mrs. Mason was for many years, through
the patronage and kindness of Senator Garland and other members of
Congress from Arkansas, a clerk in the Land Office at Washington. I
found Mrs. Mason living in well-appointed apartments with her daughter,
an artistic painter of some note, with studio adjoining, where I was
shown many beautiful productions of her brush. I was conversant with
many instances in the North where Southern planters had brought their
colored families to be educated, purchasing and giving them property for
settlement and sustenance, especially that their girls might escape the
environments which undoubtedly awaited them at the South. These were in
fine and valuable contradistinction to many cases similarly related,
where they were sold on the auction block to the highest bidder. But in
all candor it cannot but be supposed that in many instances the sale of
the planter's own flesh and blood was involuntary. High living, neglect
of the comparative relation of resource and expenditure, gambling for
big stakes on steamboat and at Northern watering places, brought