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Show ' Captain Gridley's Mother l pp HE mother of Captain Grldley died on Wed- I J nesday last aged eighty-four. The account 5( says she was obliged to work to the last. That Is a reproach to our government and country. f- Captain Grldley was fleet captain of Admiral J Dewey's little fleet. He was the executive officer I of the Olympla; It was to him that Admiral Dewey I said on that fateful Sunday morning In Manila f hay: "When you are ready, Captain, you may open Are." During that battle he "Was so injured by the fall of a box of amunitlon that he was disabled, and a few months later die1 After that record his aged mothe should have been a ward of this nation. After that we would i have expected that the city of Erie, where the ' Grldley home is and where Captain Gridley's body is burled, would have seen that her declining ' years were sheltered against care and want. Her a son in his youth consecrated his life to the defense of his country. He wore out his life in its service. i His name is indlssolubly linked with one of the chlefest glories of our navy, and on that memorable memor-able day ho received the injuries from which he, a little later, died. Was it well, then, to see his aged mother at k eighty-four years of age obliged to earn her bread by daily toil? It seems to us that it was a disgrace, dis-grace, and that a statute should be passed making a repetition of such a case impossible. |