The Man Without a Country and Other Tales Part 21

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FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: After Chapman.]

[Footnote B: After Cowper and Pope. Long after!]

[Footnote C: Iliad, vi.]

[Footnote D: Iliad, vi--POPE.]

[Footnote E: Iliad, xii., after Sotheby.]

[Footnote F: I do not know that this explanation is at all clear. Let me, as the mathematicians say, give an instance which will ill.u.s.trate the importance of this profession. It is now a few months since I received the following note from a distinguished member of the Cabinet:--

"WASHINGTON, January ----, 1842.

"DEAR SIR:--We are in a little trouble about a little thing. There are now in this city no less than three gentlemen bearing credentials to government as Charges from the Republic of Oronoco.

They are, of course, accredited from three several home governments. The President signified, when the first arrived, that he would receive the Charge from that government, on the 2d proximo, but none of us know who the right Charge is. The newspapers tell nothing satisfactory about it. I suppose you know: can you write me word be fore the 2d?

"The gentlemen are: Dr. Estremadura, accredited from the 'Const.i.tutional Government,'--his credentials are dated the 2d of November; Don Paulo Vibeira, of the 'Friends of the People,' 5th of November; M. Antonio de Vesga, 'Const.i.tution of 1823,' October 27th. They attach great importance to our decision, each having scrip to sell. In haste, truly yours."

To this letter I returned the following reply:--

"SIR:--Our latest dates from Oronoco are to the 13th ultimo. The 'Const.i.tution of '23' was then in full power. If, however, the policy of our government be to recognize the gentlemen whose princ.i.p.als shall be in office on the 2d proximo, it is a very different affair.

"You may not be acquainted with the formulas for ascertaining the duration of any given modern revolution. I now use the following, which I find almost exactly correct.

"Multiply the age of the President by the number of statute miles from the equator, divide by the number of pages in the given Const.i.tution; the result will be the length of the outbreak, in days. This formula includes, as you will see, an allowance for the heat of the climate, the zeal of the leader, and the verbosity of the theorists. The Const.i.tution of 1823 was reproclaimed on the 25th of October last If you will give the above formula into the hands of any of your clerks, the calculation from it will show that that government will go out of power on the 1st of February, at 25 minutes after 1, P.M. Your choice, on the 2d, must be therefore between Vibeira and Estremadura; here you will have no difficulty. Bobadil (Vibeira's princ.i.p.al) was on the 13th ultimo confined under sentence of death, at such a distance from the capital that he cannot possibly escape and get into power before the 2d of February. The 'Friends of the People,' in Oronoco, have always moved slowly; they never got up an insurrection in less than nineteen days' canva.s.sing; that was in 1839. Generally they are even longer. Of course, Estremadura will be your man.

"Believe me, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

"GEORGE HACKMATACK"

The Cabinet had the good sense to act on my advice. My information proved nearly correct, the only error being one of seven minutes in the downfall of the 1823 Const.i.tution. This arose from my making no allowance for difference of longitude between Piaut, where their government was established, and Opee, where it was crushed. The difference of time between those places is six minutes and fifty-three seconds, as the reader may see on a globe.

Estremadura was, of course, presented to the President, and sold his scrip.]

[Footnote G: Newspaper men of 1868 will be amused to think that half past one was late in 1836. At that time the "Great Western Mail" was due in Boston at 6 P.M., and there was no later news except "local," or an occasional horse express.]

[Footnote H: The reader will observe the Arcadian habits of 1836, when the German was yet unknown.]

[Footnote I: Anno Christi, 60.]

[Footnote J: Tacit. Annal., xiv. 9]

[Footnote K: Anno Christi, 60. See Neander, P. & T., B. iii. ch. x]

[Footnote L: This correspondence, as preserved in the collections of fragments, has too much the aspect of a school-boy exercise to claim much credit, though high authorities support it as genuine. But the probability that there was such a correspondence, though now lost, is very strong.]

[Footnote M: The Fire Alarm is the invention of Dr. William F. Channing:

"A wizard of such dreaded fame, That when in Salamanca's cave, Him listed his magic wand to wave, The bells would ring in Notre Dame"]

[Footnote N: I am proud to say that such suggestions have had so much weight, that in 1868 the alarm strikes the number of the box which first telegraphs danger, six-four, six-four, &c., six being the district number, and four the box number in that district.]