FADING AWAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 7002, 26 April 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

FADING AWAY.

Few people know that the original Declaration of Independence is kept in the library of the State Department. It is in a cherry case, and under glass. But the doors are thrown open all day long, and strong rays of light are eating up its ink day by day. The Constitution is written on parchment. The text of it is in a hand as fine as copper-plate, and the ink of this part can still be plainly read. The signatures, however, are written in a different ink,' and they are very fast disappearing under the action of the light. The bold signature of John A. Handcock is faded almost entirely out; only a "J," "o, " "h, " and an "H" remain. Two lines of names are entirely removed from the paper ; not a vestige of ink remains to show that names were ever written there. Ben Franklin's name is entirely gone. Roger Sherman's name is f astfading. 1 could not find the name of Thomas Jefferson, and Elbridge Gerry has lost its last syllable. Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Charles Carrol, and John Adams have been scoured off by the light, and only eleven names out of the fifty-odd can be read without a miscroscope. Just below the Constitution lies the original of it in Jefferson's handwriting. It is on foolscap paper, yellow with age, and worn through where the manuscript has been folded. The writing is tine and close, and the whole Constitution occupies but two pages. The ink is good, and it remains as fresh as when it left the quill of Jefferson over one hundred years ago. It is full of erasures and interlineations, some of which are in Franklin's hand writing, and others in the strong script of John. Adams. —Washington Letter in the Cleveland Leader.