possible space, to make what he printed readable as well as reliable, to make the paper better every year than it was the preceding year, and to furnish the weekly edition at a price which would give it an immense circulation without the help of travelling agents or the credit system: and to this policy he has adhered. Besides this, he spared no expense which he judged would add to the value of his publications, and his judgment has always set the bounds far off on the very verge of extravagance. Whatever machine promised to keep his office abreast of the times, and increase the capacity for good work, he has dared buy. Whatever man he has thought would brighten and strengthen his staff of assistants, he has gone for, and if possible got, and whatever new departure has seemed to him likely to win new friends for the Mirror he has made.
In this way he has gone from the bottom of the ladder to the top. From time to time rival sheets have sprung up beside him, but only to maintain an existence for a brief period, or to be consolidated with the Mirror. All the time there has been sharp competition from publishers elsewhere, but this has only stimulated him to make a better paper and push it succesfully in fields which they have regarded as their own.
In connection with the Mirror a great job printing establishment has grown up, which turns out a large amount of work in all departments, and where the state printing has been done six years. Mr. Clarke has also published several books, including "Sanborn's History of New Hampshire," "Clarke's History of Manchester," "Successful New Hampshire Men," "Manchester Directory," and other works. Within a few years a book bindery has been added to the establishment.
Mr. Clarke still devotes himself closely to his business six hours each day, but limits himself to this period, having been warned by an enforced rest and voyage to Europe in 1872 to recover from the strain of overwork, that even his magnificent physique could not sustain too great a burden, and he now maintains robust and vigorous health by a systematic and regular mode of life, by long rides of fifteen to twenty-five miles daily, and an annual summer vacation.
In making the Mirror its owner has made a great deal of money. If he had saved it as some others have done, he would have more to-day than any other in Manchester who has done business the same length of time on the same capital. But if he has gathered like a man born to be a millionaire, he has scattered like one who would spend a millionaire's fortune. He has been a good liver and a free giver. All his tastes incline him to large expenditures. His home abounds in all the comforts that money will buy. His farm is a place where costly experiments are tried. He is passionately fond of fine horses, and his stables are always full of those that are highly bred, fleet, and valuable. He loves an intelligent dog, and a good gun, and is known far and near as an enthusiastic sportsman.
He believes in being good to himself and generous to others; values money only for what it will buy, and every day illustrates the fact that it is easier for him to earn ten dollars than to save one by being "close."
A business that will enable a man of such tastes and impulses to gratify all his wants and still accumulate a competency for his children is a good one, and that is what the business of the Mirror counting-room has done.
Nor is this all, nor the most, for the Mirror has made the name of John B. Clarke a household word in nearly every school district in Northern New England and in thousands of families in other sections. It has given him a great influence in the politics, the agriculture, and the social life of his time, has made him a power in shaping the policy of his city and state, and one of the forces that have kept the wheels of progress moving in both for more than thirty years.
In a word, what one man can do for and with a newspaper in New Hampshire John B. Clarke has done for and with the Mirror, and what a great newspaper can do for a man the Mirror has done for John B. Clarke.
DENMAN THOMPSON
Throughout the United States where-ever the name of New England is held in respect there is the name of Denman Thompson a household word. His genius has embodied in a drama the finer yet homlier characteristics of New England life, its simplicity, its rugged honesty, its simple piety, its benevolence, partially hid beneath a rough and uncouth exterior. His drama is an epic—a prose poem—arousing a loyal and patriotic love for the land of the Pilgrims in the hearts of her sons, whether at home, on the rolling prairies of the West, in the sunny South, amid the grand scenes of the Sierras, or on the Pacific slope.
That Denman Thompson was not a native of New Hampshire was rather the result of chance. His parents were natives of Swanzey, where they are still living at a ripe old age, and where they have always lived, save for a few years preceeding and following the birth of their children. In 1831 the parents moved to Girard, Erie County, Pennsylvania, when, October 15, 1833, was born their gifted son. The boy was blessed with one brother and two sisters, and death has yet to strike its first blow in the family.
At the age of thirteen years Denman accompanied his family to the old home in Swanzey, where for several years he received the advantages of the education afforded by the district school. For his higher education he was indebted to the excellent scholastic opportunities afforded by the Mount Cæsar Seminary in Swanzey.
At the age of nineteen he entered the employ of his uncle in Lowell, Massachusetts, serving as book-keeper in a wholesale store, and in that city he made his debut as Orasman in the military drama of the French Spy.
In 1854, at the age of twenty-one years, he was engaged by John Nickerson, the veteran actor and manager, as a member of the stock company of the Royal Lyceum, Toronto. From the first his success was assured, for aside from his natural adaptation to his profession he possesses indomitable perseverance, a quality as necessary to the rise of an artist as genius. On the provincial boards of Toronto he studied and acted for the next few years, perfecting himself in his calling and preparing for wider fields. Then he acted the rollicking Irishman to perfection; the real live Yankee, with his genuine mannerisms and dialect, with proper spirit and without ridiculous exaggeration, and the Negro, so open to burlesque. The special charm of his acting in those characters was his artistic execution. He never stooped to vulgarities, his humor was quaint and spontaneous, and the entire absence of apparent effort in his performance gave his audience a most favorable impression of power in reserve. His favorite characters were Salem Scudder in The Octoroon, and Myles Na Coppaleen in Colleen Bawn.
In April, 1862, Mr. Thompson started for the mother country, and there his reception was worthy a returning son who had achieved a well-earned reputation. His opening night in London was a perfect ovation, and during his engagement the theatre was crowded in every part. He met with flattering success during his brief tour, performing at Edinburg and Glasgow before his return to Toronto the following fall.
From that time must be dated the career of Mr. Thompson as a star or leading actor and manager, at first in low comedy, so called, or eccentric drama, and later, in what he has made a classic New England drama.
Mr. Thompson is the author of several very pleasing and successful comedies, but the play Joshua Whitcomb is the best known and most popular. The leading character is said to have been drawn from Captain Otis Whitcomb, who died in Swanzey in 1882, at the age of eighty-six. Cy Prime, who "could have proved it had Bill Jones been alive," died in that town, a few years since, while Len Holbrook still lives there. General James Wilson, the veteran, who passed away a short time since, was well known to the older generation of today. The last scene of the drama is laid in Swanzey and the scenery is drawn from nature very artistically. Mr. Thompson is the actor as well as creator of the leading character in the play. The good old man is drawn from the quiet and comforts of his rural home to the perplexities of city life in Boston. There his strong character and good sense offset his simplicity and ignorance. He acts as a kind of Providence in guiding the lives of others. To say that the play is pure is not enough—it is ennobling.
The success of the play has been wonderful. Year after year it draws crowded houses—and it will, long after the genius of Mr. Thompson's acting becomes a tradition.
Mr.
