JEFFERSON DAVIS AT EIGHTY.

Bush Advocate, Volume I, Issue 41, 9 August 1888, Page 2

JEFFERSON DAVIS AT EIGHTY.

4 THE AGED CONFEDERATE Iff HIS HOME AT BEAUVOIR. Yesterday, June 3, was the eightieth birthday of the great' soldierstatesman, Jefferson Davis, but there were few of the signs of an octogenarian visible in his presence as he came down the long hall, of Beauvoir to greet a Picayune |representative, who added another to the many congratulations that were pleasant reminders of the honour and love in whibh he is held. Immaculately dressed, . straight and erect, with the traces of his long military service still showing in his carriage, with his eightyyears resting as lightly on Ms head as a silver orawn and with the. flush of health on his pale, refined face, such is the portrait of the famous President pf the Confederacy as he looks at four-score The mail had brought Mr Davis many letters from people who sent their congratulations, and the house was gay with flowers and little tender souvenirs of friends, who, to use the homely old phrase, "re. membered him" upon his birthday, and he seemed deeply touched by the knowledge of the affection and revorence in which he is held by the Southern people—" his people," for whom he planned and fought and struggled and for whom he is disfranchised. Out of doors the bay was siill and calm, and looking from the high, wide windows of Beavoir House one saw a sea as blue as turquoise, with scarce a ripple on its surface and it seemed almost a prototype of the quiet life whose last year? were being spent by its edges —quiet and. peaceful, and blue with heaven's benediction after tho s.tQrma that had convulsed it. MrDavis looks back from the heights of his four score years on an eventful lixe that has brought him in contact with most of the prominent men of the century, although his public career naturrlly ended with the war, and the politicians of the present day belong to the era in which he has had no part. His mind is as vigorous and activo as it was in earlier ye^rs, showing none of the failings of &ge, and he takes a keen interest in the questions of the day, political, religious, and social. \q genial

and witty! apt i at repartee, and most delightful of all when he can .be won front N His reserve long enough to speak of : the ' great - events in "Which he trass an actor. 'in his' home life Mr Davis is exceptionally fortunate. No Southerner but is prbud-to own the cultured, dignified mistress of Beauvoir / as the best example of what Southern civilisation" has done for womanhood, and as for Miss Winnie she is one to whom the tenderest and the heartiest toast is drunk at every reunion of veterans — "The, • Child of the Confederacy."— New Orleans Pioapme.