| Show CAPITOL GOSSIP r Stories of Mrs Sprague and the Great Chief Justice 1 MRS KATE CHASE AS A MANAGER Her Marriage and How President Lincoln c Kissed the BrIdeStorIes of Salmon Sal-mon P Chase VASUINGTOX October 151S90 Special correspondence of TUB HERALD The suicide sui-cide of Willie Sprague the grandson of Salmon P Chase at Seattle a few days ago is bringing forth a number of new stories about the characters in the Chase SpragueConkling scandal Here at Washington Kate Chase has always been considered as having been more sinned against than sinning Sprague was a very rich man at the time of his marriage and his money and position overshadowed his real character i DRINKING TENDENCIES were not known and he acted in such a manner soon after the marriage that Kate Dhaso who was in intimate connection with the greatest minds of her day lost all respect for him She tried for a long time to conceal her disgust and she kept him many times from public disgrace I heard last night of a state dinner at the White louse which gives a faint idea of the indignities in-dignities she had to undergo This dinner was given by President Lincoln to Chief Jpointment Chase in honor of his appointment f ap-pointment as head of the Supreme court Jt was a swell affair The justices of the Supreme court and the highest officials were present with their wives and Mrs Kate ChaseSprague and her husband were among them She was the centre of admiration ad-miration and she sat on Mrs Lincolns left gland opposite her father who had the seat on the right of the Presidents wife as the guest of honor Sprague was then in the United States Senate and he had taken one of the other ladies out to dinner and had a seat on the other side of the table some distance from his wife He evidently had taken several drinks before he came to the White house and at the third course his eyes became glassy and his voice thick At the end of the fourth he sank back in his I chair in a deep sleep Mrs Sprague know ing his condition had kept some watch of him and as she saw this her face turned toale but she did not give any other in dication of her trouble She at last managed to catch her fathers ey3 and no saw at once that she was in agony She looked at her husband and the chiefjustice then said to Mrs Lincoln I see that Senator Sen-ator Sprague is ill Will you not have jour butler take him out quietly to the cloakroom cloak-room Mrs Lincoln gave the directions jind > two waiters carried l Him this husband pf the then brightest woman in Washing ton out and laid him on the lounge where he slumbered until dinner was over Then he chief justice superintended putting him nto his carriage and he was taken home irs Sprague was almost dying with mor ification but throughout that long dinner the gave no signs of her pain She was aright s a-right in her repartees as ever and she listened with a smile to the complimentary jpeeches and congratulatory remarks that were given to her father This happened arly in her married life Is it any wonder hat her disgust grew as time went on and iuch excesses became frequent p KATE CIUSESIIUGCES MARRIAGE Kate ChaseSprague was only twenty four when she was married but her life had been suchthat she knew more of men and things than the grayesthaired lady among her guests on that occasion She was her fathers confidential secretary She had presided over her home in Columbus Colum-bus while he was governor of Ohio and she was his chief lieutenant and most ardent worker in his campaign for the Presidency of the United States It may be that her ambition to have her father in the White House made her marry Governor Sprague for Chase though he had been Senator of the Uoited States and had had a long public pub-lic career was far from wealthy and he had no money to put where it would do the most good Sprague was the richest man in Rhode Island and he was thought to be several times a millionaire He met Kate Chase when her father was governor of Ohio and when he was governor of Rhode Island It was at Cleveland Cleve-land where Kate Chase was visiting visit-ing The wedding took place herein here-in Washington while Salmon P Chase was secretary of the treasury His house was on Sixth street near the patent office a place that is now far out in the fashionable part of the city It was in the days of President Lincoln ono of the finest houses here and the bridal chamber the library and parlor which the young couple were to occupy were furnished with every luxury which wealth and rood taste could supply Marble mantels were imported from Ttaly oriental rugs covered the floors and the parlor was luxuriously furnished The wedding was a grand one and President Lincoln was among the guests He reached the house just after the ceremony had been performed and he gave the bride a hearty kiss when he came in He was told that the wedding was over and replied that he regretted it but if it was so ho had to submit sub-mit and added I suppose you cant burn that gunpowder twice for even a President Presi-dent now KATE CHASE FIXED THE COACHMAN Mrs Chase is now living on her farm Edgewood near Washington It was the country homo of her father during his last days and the city has gradually crawled up to it until it is now worth a fortune Ii t contains fifty acres and Mrs Chase farms it so that she makes money out of it and that is doing more than most farmers do about Washington She manages everything every-thing and sometimes even follows the ploughman to see that he does his work properly She buys everything that goes into the farm and is a good financier and a good manager It was the same when she was the wife of Governor Sprague She controlled her household and her servants with an iron hand encased in gloves of velvet She had a big retinue of servants and her French cook got a hundred dollars a month In hdr use of servants she would not tolerate toler-ate impudence or disobedience and as an instance of her methods of dealing with them she once asked one of her coachmen to do something in the house The man objected and said that he had been hired to attend to the horses and that his only place of duty was on the box of the carriage carri-age and in the stable All right sale Mrs Spague And she thereupon ordered out the carriage and kept the coachmen sitting on thobox all night And his place vas a rood one he submitted rather than throw up his job but he never refused to do anything that Mrs Sprague asked thereafter KATE CHASES LITERARY WORK Kate Chase is still a very fine looking woman She looks ten than years younger n I she really is and she as hard I in works as hard as any woman in Washington She is writing a life of her father and her work will be full 1 of unwritten history In addition to her wonderful reminiscences gathered during a period covering a quarter of a century in which she was in the closest confidential re lation with the greatest statesmen and generals gen-erals of her day she has bushels of letters made up of the private correspondence of public men and she has her fathers diary and letters Not long ago she said that she t < 1 < t4 considered this diary one of the most important im-portant historical papers in existence She keeps it in a fireproof vault and she will quote from it very freely in her work Salmon P Chase kept a diary throughout his whole public career He had it in his bedroom and he jotted down his memoranda in it of the oncurences of the day every night before he retired It is probably as valuable as the diary of John Quincy Adams SALMON r CHASES FIRST LOVE It is hardly probable that the story of Salmon P Chases first love will be included in-cluded in this biography but the truth is that the chief justice was married three times before he was forty and he did not get the girl he first paid his attentions to This was a Miss Cabell whom he met herein here-in Washington He came here while his uncle was Senator to get a place in the departments de-partments but his uncle told him that ho would give him a dollar to buy a spade to die with but that he would not help him to the living dungeon of a government department depart-ment The result was that young Chase had to go to teaching school and he studied law at the same timo under William Wirt who was the father of one of his pupils It was here that he met Miss Cabell who was visiting at the Wirts He fell deeply in love with her wrote verses about her and the story is that he finally proposed She was however of one of the first families of Virginia and thought herself too good for a school teacher like young Salmon Chase What finally became of her I never heard but if she lived to see her rejected lover become the most noted jurist in the United States it must have been a source of bitter regret to her now SALMON P CHiSE SHAVED A HOG They tell a funny story out in the country near Columbus Ohio about Salmon Sal-mon P Chases boyhood He spent a part of it with his uncle Bishop Chase who believed be-lieved in the young man earning his salt for the board and schooling which he gave him and who expected him to attend to all the duties about his farm One day in the fall as the bishop was starting away to ride the circuit of his congregation he told Salmon Sal-mon to quit school at noon that day and come home and kill and dress a pig Young Chase had never seen a firstclass hog killing but ho thought he could do it He knew that the first thing he must do was to catch the pig which he finally did after great trouble and killed it The dying hog however did not look anything like those he had seen dressed in the butcher shop and it puzzled him as to how he was going to get the hair off He had heard how over that the farmers usually scalded hogs to loosen the bristles So he heated an applebutter tub of water poured it into a barrel and soused the borker in it Now in order to get the bristles out of a pig it is said that you must leave it in the water only a short time At any rate whether this is true or not whether the pig was left in too long or whether the water was too hot the result was that the bristles were firmly set and would not come out at all Young Salmon dug away with his fingers until they were raw He scraped with a knife and pulled them one by one but all to no effect It was getting far into the night and he was in despair when he thought of the bishops raizors and getting them he shaved the pig from nose to tail It was a beautiful job and he was congratulated upon his success The bishop did not try to shave until he went to preach one day and then his temper by no means improved his sermon KATE CHASES RETIRED LIFE Mrs Kate Chase has practically dropped out of society since she came back from France She has her own friends who go to see her but she does not seem to take much interest in society She has tasted the best of it and found that it is like the apples of Sodom beautiful without but ashes within Shortly after she left Governor Gov-ernor Sprague for good she was not in the best of circumstances and I saw once in an old antiquarian store in New Yorlf beautiful beau-tiful water pitcher of solid silver which antiquary said belonged to Kate Chase Sprague and had been left there to besold I t i f i I 1 This was years ago however and the rise of Washington real estate if nothing else must have placed her in much bettor circumstances cir-cumstances Edgewood itself must Tae worth ut lest one hundred and fifty thousand thous-and dollars she probably has other sources of income THE COMTE DE PAUIS AND THE PRINCE oF WALES A striking difference is seen between the treatment which the Comte De Paris is receiving from the United States government govern-ment in comparison with the entertainment furnished the Princa of Wales when he visited Washington just thirty years ago I There is of course a difference in the positions posi-tions of the two men but both era of royal blood and though the count comes as a private gentleman to the United States there was a time when his chances of becoming be-coming Bins of France were decidedly good The Prince of Wales was the guest of the President and he stopped at the White house The Comte Do Paris has been entertained at the Arlington hotel and he has not as yet seen the President A diplomatic breakfast was given to the Prince of Wales Tho count received a dinner from his old friend General Schofield but the French legation have as yet paid no attention to him The Prince of Wales was given a big feed and taken to Mount Vernon on the revenue cutter Harriet Lane and the Comte do Paris has had his trip to Mount Vernon on the naval steamer Dispatch Tho expenses of this trip of tho Prince of Wales were paid by Howell Cobb secretary of the treasury out of his own pocket and it now remains to be seen whether Secretary Tracy will pay the expenses of the counts trip on the Dispatch Howell Cobb had no idea of paying for the trip when he got up the excursion He expected the bill to be footed by the department and lie invited the President the foreign legislations and a number of other distinguished guests to take a sail with him down the Potomac He did not say anything to President Buchanan about it and when Buchanan Bu-chanan found that the revenue cutter was to be used he was very angry He sent for Jere Black and when Black came in he said Black are you going on this blanked frolic I want to know what you think of Cobb using the public property for private uses I dont know replied re-plied the attorneygeneral Cobb has started the affair has sent his invitations to the Prince of Wales and he has the steamer already packed full of provisions I dont see how he can back out if he tries and I propose to go along with him and see how he comes out Well I wont go replied Buchanan It will be a blot on my administration and I am going to stop it Judge Black then said that all the English would laugh at him Cobb would be humiliated and it would be better for him to defray the expenses himself than to stop it Buchanan grasped at this solution of the matter and said he would fix it in that way The excursion wentfoff and the President and Miss Harriet Lane were apart a-part of it At the first cabinet meeting after the Prince of Wales left Buchanan said to Cobb Mr Secretary I want an itemized item-ized bill of that Prince of Wales trip down the river I want a detailed account of everythingthe coal consumed the salary of the officers the expense of the dinner and everything else down to the smallest item Cobb did noi understand what to make of this but no said Certainly Mr President As he went away from the White house with Jere Black he burst out What in thunder does the old squire mean about that Mt Vernon trip After much I urging Black told him of Buchanans intention in-tention to pay the bill Howell Cobb gave a long whistle and answered So thats owhat old Buck is up to is it1 Well Ill see if I cant surprise him He did not see the President until the next cabinet day and he came up to the White house the happiest man of the council Now Buchanan fully appreciated the value o f the dollar Be had not gotten the bill as yet and he was waiting anxiously for it He looked glum and asked Cobb to remain re-main after the other members of the cabinet cabi-net had gone As the coattails of the last I t r nne of them vanished through the door ho said Well Mr Secretary where is that bill Cobb assumed an innocent air and answered What bill do you mean Mr President You know very welhv hat bill I mean replied Buchanan sternly I mean that bill for the expenses for the Prince of Wales tap to Mt Vernon Oh that bill said Cobb Ive got it somewhere about me and he went through pocket after pocket until he finally drew out a long piece of crumpled paper which he handed to the President Mr Buchanan took it and his face was a study of disgust as he read the items and the exhibortant prices affixed to them His face grew darker and darker as ho went on until he reached the end when he jumped jum-ped to his feet and exclaimed Why this bill is paidits paid in full by Howell How-ell Cobb Who in thunder should have paid it but Howell Cobb broke in Cobb looking the picture of injured innocence Wasnt it my frolic Who but me could have paid for it1 Sure enough sure enough was all that Buchanan said and camethe wrinkles out of his forehead his face brightened and for the rest of the day he was the happiest man in Washington FRANK G CARPENTER |
