SHERMAN, JOHN. 



645 



Railroads, Posts, and Telegraphs. The rail- 

 roads completed up to the end of 1899 had a total 

 length of 554 miles, consisting of the Servian sec- 

 tion of the trunk line to Constantinople, 230 miles, 

 and several branches. An extension of one of them 

 from Nisch to join a Roumanian road by a bridge 

 across the Danube was arranged in 1898, and one 

 is authorized to run from Nisch to the Turkish 

 frontier to join a line to be constructed through 

 Albania to the Adriatic. Ten others are projected 

 as feeding lines. The cost of the existing railroads 

 was 98,955,980 dinars. 



The post office carried 12,844,000 internal letters 

 and 410,000 internal money letters and postal 

 orders amounting to 117,114,000 francs in 1899, 

 and in the external service 3,933,000 ordinary let- 

 ters and 191 money letters and postal orders 

 amounting to 60,437,000 francs, besides 1,666,000 

 ordinary letters and 71,000 letters and orders re- 

 mitting 31,179,000 francs in transit. 



The telegraphs have 2,562 miles of line and 

 5,041 miles of wire. The number of messages in 

 1899 was 1,078,420, of which 901.929 were internal, 

 155,298 international, and 21,193 in transit. The 

 postal and telegraph receipts were 2,242,802 dinars, 

 and the expenses 1,400,425 dinars. 



Change of Cabinet. King Alexander, by an- 

 nouncing his intention to marry a civilian lady, 

 a Servian subject, Mme. Maschin, not only dis- 

 appointed his father, who resigned his post as 

 commander in chief of the Servian army, and 

 vexed his mother, but caused much dissatisfaction 

 at first in Servia. His ministers resigned, and on 

 July 25 the King appointed a neutral Cabinet, as 

 follows: President of the Council and Minister of 

 Foreign Affairs, Alexa Jovanovich ; Minister of 

 the Interior, Lazar Popovich; Minister of Justice, 

 Nastas Antonovich ; Minister of Finance, Dr. Mika 

 Popovitek; Minister of War, Lieut.-Col. Milos 

 Vassich; Minister of Public Works, Col. Andreas 

 Jovanovich ; Minister of Commerce, Dusan Spa- 

 sich ; Minister of Worship and Public Instruction, 

 Paul Manichovich. The new ministers were 

 judges, departmental chiefs, and army officers who 

 liad no party ties. A partial amnesty for political 

 offenses was proclaimed, those who had been sen- 

 tenced to hard labor having their sentences com- 

 uited to simple imprisonment and those who were 

 jndemned to imprisonment having their sentences 

 reduced. The defection of most of his prominent 

 ind influential supporters, who were identified 

 ivith the Austrophil policy instituted by King 

 Milan, drove the young King to seek friends rather 

 miong the Radicals, to whom his choice of a Queen 

 "rom among the people was not displeasing, and 

 ay drawing nearer to the Radicals, who have al- 

 ways leaned toward Russia, he attracted the good 

 will of the Czar, who hastened to congratulate 

 him on his approaching marriage. Draga Maschin, 

 born Sept. 23, 1867, was the daughter of a Servian 

 magistrate and the widow of a surgeon in the 

 army, and had formerly been a lady in waiting at 

 the court of Queen Natalie. The royal marriage 

 took place on Aug. 4. 



SHERMAN", JOHN, an American statesman, 

 born in Lancaster, Ohio, May 10, 1823; died at 

 his residence in Washington, D. C., Oct. 22, 1900. 

 Mr. Sherman came from the noted Connecticut 

 family of that name, the most noted of whose 

 members in colonial days was the stern Puritan 

 Roger Sherman. His father, Charles Sherman, 

 of Xorwalk, Conn., married Mary Hoit, of that 

 place, in 1810, and they immediately emigrated 

 to Ohio, then a frontier State, a large portion of 

 its territory being an unbroken wilderness. He 

 died in 182!), leaving eleven children, of whom 

 William Tecumseh, who became the famous gen- 



eral, was the fourth, and John, the subject of 

 this notice, the eighth. The family was left with 

 but scant resources, and soon scattered, John 

 going to live with a relative at Mount Vernon, 

 Ohio, where he attended school three years, when 

 he returned to Lancaster and entered an acad- 

 emy, studying mathematics, in which he became 

 proficient. Becoming impatient of the restraints 

 of school, after two years of academy life he 

 secured a place, though hardly fourteen years of 

 age, as junior rodman in a survey then being 

 made of Muskingum river from Zanesville to Mari- 

 etta. In this work he remained about two years, 

 when he was turned adrift on account of politics. 

 It was then arranged that he should study law 

 with his brother Charles at Mansfield, but, as he 

 could not be admitted to the bar until he was 

 twenty-one, he read meanwhile much of history, 

 especially that of the United States, travels, and 

 general literature, writing deeds and contracts, 

 later dabbling in politics and looking after cases 

 arising in the office, and earning enough to pay 

 his expenses. His admission to the bar changed 

 the course of his life but little. Mansfield was 

 his home for the rest of his life. His interest in 

 politics grew with his years, and in 1848 he was 

 appointed a delegate to the Whig National Con- 

 vention that nominated Zachary Taylor for the 

 presidency, and in 1852 he was a delegate to the 

 Baltimore Convention that nominated Gen. Scott 

 as presidential candidate. Two years later he 

 became a candidate for Congress as a Whig, and 

 was elected. 



Hardly had he familiarized himself with his 

 new surroundings when he became conspicuous 

 as a stanch opponent of the scheme to extend 

 slavery over the Territories. Before the end of 

 his first term, by direction of the House, a com- 

 mittee of its members, of which Representative 

 Howard, of Michigan, was chairman, investigated 

 the turbulent conditions in the Territory of Kan- 

 sas, where the importation of slaves from Mis- 

 souri (consequent on the repeal of the Missouri 

 compromise) was being strenuously opposed by 

 the settlers from the free States. Mr. Howard 

 became ill, and Mr. Sherman, second on the com- 

 mittee, wrote the report thereon, which was 

 widely circulated, and became the substance ,of 

 the creed of the Republican party then crystalliz- 

 ing into form out of the disintegrating elements 

 of the two old parties, both of which were seek- 

 ing to avoid the impending storm. The Buchanan 

 administration, which followed, if not friendly to 

 slavery, was opposed to taking any steps to pre- 

 vent its spread into the new Territories, a policy 

 satisfactory to the slave owners. The debate in 

 Congress on this matter became very angry. Mr. 

 Sherman, to checkmate the moves of the adminis- 

 tration, offered an amendment to the army bill 

 then pending, which was adopted, providing that 

 the United States troops should not be used to 

 enforce any of the enactments of the so-called 

 Legislature of Kansas which had been organized 

 in the interest of the proslavery settlers. This 

 measure thwarted for a time the purpose of the 

 administration, but it served to inflame the dis- 

 cussion on the floor of the House, where the tall 

 form of Mr. Sherman became the rallying point 

 for the adherents of the new party, who began 

 to align themselves for the impending struggle 

 which could not be long deferred, and which was 

 destined in the end not only to give freedom to 

 Kansas, but to uproot the institution of slavery 

 in the States where it already existed. On the 

 opening of Congress in December, 1859, Mr. Sher- 

 man lacked but three votes of being elected 

 Speaker, and these were withheld because of his 



