-slavery
fair, an entire stranger to every one present. "She looked around over
the few tables, scantily supplied, and stopped by some faded artificial
flowers. The poor commodity only indicated the utter poverty of means to
carry on the work. We thought her a spy, or maybe she was a
slave-holder." From that time she entered heartily into the work. She
became the life of the Female Anti-slavery Society in Boston, she spoke
often in public; her pen was never idle when it could advance the cause
of equal rights and freedom.

Mr. Lowell, in his rhymed letter, descriptive of an anti-slavery bazaar
at Faneuil Hall, and the celebrities of the cause there assembled, drew
the portrait of this gifted woman with his usual felicitous touch:--

"There was Maria Chapman, too,
With her swift eyes of clear steel-blue,
The coiled up mainspring of the Fair,
Originating everywhere
The expansive force, without a sound,
That whirls a hundred wheels around;
Herself meanwhile as calm and still
As the bare crown of Prospect Hill;
A noble woman, brave and apt,
Cumaea's sybil not more rapt,
Who might, with those fair tresses shorn,
'The Maid of Orlean' casque have worn;
Herself the Joan of our Arc,
For every shaft a shining mark."

* * * * *

It is one thing to be a good ship-builder for the government, and quite
another thing to be in favor with the Secretary of the Navy, at
Washington. This is the lesson, and the only lesson, which can be
deduced from the two dispatches which have been transmitted over the
country, namely: that the "Dolphin" has been rejected, and that John
Roach, her builder, has failed.

The case has its value as a warning to American ship-builders. They are
given to understand that the closest compliance with the requisitions of
the department in the process of constructing a vessel, and that under
the direction of experts, perfectly competent to determine what is good
work and what is bad, will avail them nothing unless they are in favor
with the Secretary when the vessel is offered for acceptance. And they
are warned that the Department of Justice holds it perfectly legal for
the Navy Department to lay upon them such conditions as to construction
as must determine the capacity of the vessel for speed, and yet reject
the vessel as not fast enough. They may be fined heavily for not having
used their discretion, and yet may have been denied discretion