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of service, or the diminished service of recruits for any one year who enlisted after the beginning of that year.

The truth of the matter, then, is that the figures of the usual table are worthless as representing the number of men which made up the Continental line, and also as representing the actual service by years, to which the different States are entitled, and have only a value as enabling us approximately to judge how much more or less, relatively, one State contributed year by year than another to the military force that gained our independence. So far as I know there is yet to be the first statement in print which shall explain accurately the figures which Knox reported to the President in 1790.

A new serial, including the Proceedings from June to November inclusive, was laid on the table by the Recording Secretary.

FEBRUARY MEETING, 1886.

The stated meeting of the Society was held on Thursday, the 11th instant, at the customary hour and place, the chair being occupied by Dr. ELLIS.

The Secretary read his report of the last meeting.

The Librarian presented his monthly list of donors to the Library.

Mr. Samuel F. McCleary, of Boston, was elected a Resident Member of the Society.

The PRESIDENT then said:

Since our last meeting death has removed from us our highly honored and distinguished associate Francis Edward Parker. His name has been upon our roll for twenty-three years.

His various and engrossing responsibilities of trust and business did not consist with his attendance at our monthly meetings as often as we should have gladly welcomed him here. But few of our members exceeded him in an hearty and intelligent interest in our objects; and he showed that interest by giving us wise counsel when we needed it, and by generous presents to our Library. In the various professional, business, and social circles, where his great capacities and his admirable qualities had secured for him an enviable degree of confidence, respect, and warm personal attachment, his decease has drawn forth the sincerest tributes for his character, and for his wisdom and fidelity in the care of great trusts. This Society can only, in the usual form of a Resolution, add its grateful tribute to the many which enshrine his memory. The Council commit the preparation of a memoir of Mr. Parker for our Proceedings to our associate Mr. Edward Bangs.

The Hon. ROBERT C. WINTHROP made the following remarks:

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I am unwilling, Mr. President, that the name of Francis E. Parker should pass from our rolls without a few words from one who, though much his senior, had known him so long and valued him so highly as I have done.

Of his abilities as a lawyer, his fidelity as a trustee, his accomplishments as a scholar, his wit and his wisdom in social or in practical life, I can say nothing which has not been said already in the admirable tributes which have been paid to his memory in the public journals.

But it was my good fortune to have him as an associate and assistant for nearly thirty years in the management of some of the great charities of our city. He was with me at the original organization of the Boston Provident Association, as long ago as 1851, under the auspices of the late excellent Dr. Ephraim Peabody and the late Hon. Samuel A. Eliot; and during the whole five and twenty years of my presidency of that institution he was the chairman of its executive committee, and was unceasing in his devotion, in season and out of season, to the cause of the poor of Boston.

I may recall the fact, as a striking illustration of his disinterested liberality, that when the treasury of that institution was exhausted, during an exceptionally severe winter, many years ago, I received a confidential note from him, inclosing four or five hundred dollars, which he claimed the privilege of adding to our resources, with the injunction that it should not be known to any one but myself by whom the money was contributed. I observed his confidence sacredly as long as he lived, but I can have no compunction about betraying it now that he is gone.

Within a very few weeks past, I had another uote from him, - the last, alas! I can ever receive, reminding me of our united efforts in securing the erection of the Charity Bureau in Chardon Street, in which almost all the relief societies of our city are concentrated for mutual reference and associated action. He spoke of it as my own original design, as it was; but no one has done more valuable work within the walls of that noble building than our lamented friend.

To this Provident Association, it now appears, he has bequeathed a third part of his property after deducting his private legacies to relatives and friends. Familiar as he has been with its whole history, and practically acquainted with

all its principles and methods of dealing with the poor, such a bequest from such a source is at once a tribute and a testimony, and cannot fail to inspire fresh confidence in the institution, while it adds largely to its means of usefulness. There ought to be a portrait of Mr. Parker on its walls, if nowhere else, and I trust there will be.

Mr. Parker was associated with me also as one of the Overseers of the Poor of Boston from 1864 to 1867, when the organization and operations of that board were the subject of a complete and most salutary reform. As president of the board I was specially indebted to him for aid and counsel, and I can bear personal testimony to the signal ability and practical wisdom which he displayed during all our proceedings.

Let me only say, in conclusion, that in speaking exclusively, as I have done, of Mr. Parker's devoted labors in the cause of our charitable institutions, I feel that I have paid him the most enviable tribute which could be offered to his memory, and that which he himself would most have valued. Wit and wisdom, abilities and accomplishments, private virtues and public services, may secure a wider popular fame; but a life-long care for the condition of the poor and needy at our doors may look for a record above all earthly renown.

Professor TORREY continued, nearly as follows:

Certain qualities in Mr. Parker's character had their growth in a home which was lighted up by a noble example of devotion to the duties and sympathies of a sacred office, and was adorned with winning manners and attractive conversation. Mr. Parker himself more than once dated back his opinions to this early period. Great, however, as were these influences, he did not inherit or imbibe his originality. In after years it needed no long familiarity with him to show him to be eminently a man by himself. I have lately received a letter in which a very intelligent man describes at a distance of some years the marked impression made upon him by the fine presence, the charming manner, and the excellent judgment of Mr. Parker, whom he had never before seen and has never met since.

Mr. Parker, at twelve years of age, lost his father. His youth was not spent in comfortable ease. He had to endure

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hardness, and probably owed something of his rare knowledge of character and power of dealing with all sorts and conditions of men to this discipline. He took the highest honors at college, no insignificant achievement and no bad sign even forty years ago. Though he did not afterwards take up the calling of a professed and technical scholar, he knew wonderfully well how to read and what to do with what he had read; and he kept up his scholarly tastes.

In his early manhood his agreeable address, his kindly bearing, and his intellectual and moral force opened the way to that influence over younger persons which he so strikingly exerted, and which some of our now middle-aged citizens remember and feel. His aptitude for making his way with young and old it was a pleasure to him in later years to try occasionally, even with persons of a humble station whom he casually fell in with, who opened their lives to his friendly questions and gave new food to his insatiable study of character, in fields quite outside of conventional position. He liked to relate in his interesting manner the little occurrences of his annual journeys. In one of them he made in the streets of Verona the acquaintance of an Italian peasant-boy, learned of him his whole way of life, and treated him with characteristic kindness. The men with whom he had to do professionally or socially, he made it a habit to be interested in, but with a tacitly reserved right to take their dimensions.

He was one of the keenest of observers. His inevitable eye was backed by a mental vision that as a rule was singularly quick and sure. Double-dealing and meanness had no chance with his piercing search and implacable scorn. It is related that the Emperor Charles V. once said of a noted diplomatist, that, if you would baffle his sagacity, your silence would not be enough; you must not think in his presence. Stripped of its extravagance, this saying offers something that brings up Mr. Parker significantly to mind. As Mr. Winthrop has reminded us, Ephraim Peabody and Francis E. Parker are foremost names in the charter of incorporation of the Boston Provident Association, the founding of which makes an epoch in the history of the charities of this city. One of Dr. Peabody's closest friends called him "a sworn measurer.” The description might be extended in no small degree to his associate in that instrument.

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