Historic leaves, volume 2, April, 1903 - January, 1904

[4] to abstain entirely from the use of liquor. The little volume in which this tale appears is a quaint example of book-making two generations ago. The wood-cuts are especially noteworthy in their crude simplicity, and suggest comparison with the consummate art of our contemporary magazines.

Not yet come into the world when this little book was published, our next author gives the impression of having been a young man when he left the world. Lewis Cass Flanagan was born in Somerville in 1850, and died at North Weymouth in 1900. He was graduated from the Franklin grammar school. Later, though practicing pharmacy, he showed much interest in parliamentary law, conducting a class in this subject at the Young Men's Christian Association of Boston. He was also a student of forestry. Early in life he manifested a taste for literary composition, publishing many articles in prose and poetry in the Cambridge and Somerville papers.

Mr. Flanagan attended the Unitarian church in this city, and wrote a number of prose essays for the meetings of the Unity Club. Selections from his writings were published after his death, under the title, ‘Essays in Poetry and Prose.’ Among the prose essays is one containing curious information on ‘Some Minor Poets of America.’ Another treats at length the career of Miss Kemble, the actor. A third describes the gray pine of New England. But the most original of the printed prose writings are the burlesque fables. These are whimsical in character, and point a moral, sometimes severe, as often gay. One of the very shortest is as follows—–