of form and ceremony. Semi-royal levees were discontinued. Dinner-parties given by the President were as informal as those of any private gentleman. Congress ceased to wait upon the President in a body, and the President ceased to come in state to Congress to deliver his "king's speech."

When Jefferson had occasion to go to the Capitol upon any matter of business he rode horseback, hitched his horse to a peg under the shed which stood near, and walked in as any plain citizen would have done. It was probably this habit (it angered and disgusted the Federalists so much) which gave currency to the rumor that he rode to his inauguration on a brood-mare, followed by a suckling colt. The writer is personally acquainted with good citizens who seem to consider the legendary brood-mare and her mythical colt as a part of the stage property of modern democracy.

The Government had only recently moved into its new home (1800), and Washington city was at this time almost a wilderness. The White House was unfinished, and Jefferson had no lady of his family living with him; consequently it became the easier for him to indulge his preference for the informal style, both in matters of dress and of etiquette. His garb was frequently a mingling of several different fashions, none of them elegant, and his slipshod appearance gave pain to many very worthy people. An international complication was

threatened because he received the British minister in slippers and undress. In avoiding one extreme, Mr. Jefferson was guilty of another. He at first went too far in his disregard of forms and of apparel. He adopted no laws of precedence, and went by the miller's rule of "First come, first served." Almost anybody could go to the mansion at pretty much any time and be graciously welcomed. A more promiscuous multitude than that which often paid its hearty respects to the President could not have been raked together. In theory, the White House belonged to all, and the practise, for once, rubbed noses with theory.

Even at state dinners there was no law of precedence. If Jefferson happened to be seated next to Mrs. Madison when dinner was announced it was to Mrs. Madison that he would offer his arm, no matter who else might be in the room. If the wife of the British minister were present, her husband had to be alert and strenuous, else she would not find one of the best seats at the table. Such a state of affairs was horrible to the British minister, and he wrote indignant letters of complaint to his Government.

It is barely possible that Mr. Jefferson bore in mind the time when he had been given the cold shoulder in London, and that he definitely preferred Mrs. Madison to Mrs. Merry. At any rate, the British minister got precisely the same treatment

as others, and his efforts to secure better terms failed.

We think Mr. Jefferson made a mistake in all this, for he wounded pride, hurt feelings, and accomplished no good. But when Mr. William Eleroy Curtis finds the origin of the War of 1812 in Mr. Jefferson's behavior to the British minister, he becomes a source of amusement. Two Italian states

once went to war about an old well-bucket, and ten thousand lives were lost in the debate; a coarse joke flung at Henry II of England by the King of France, and a contemptuous reference by Frederick of Prussia to Madame de Pompadour, may have been the sparks which set war-flames to burning in those countries, as we have all heard; but if personalities caused the War of 1812 we should go further back than the era of Jefferson's old slippers and corduroy breeches. would certainly have to return to that shameful scene in London in the year 1786, when the King of England, in his own house, and before all his court, wilfully and deliberately snubbed the ambassador of the United States.

We

But all this is idle. Great Britain and America did not go to war on account of King George's rudeness nor Jefferson's heelless slippers. The causes which led to the clash lay deeper. These instances of bad manners in King George and President Jefferson were but surface symptoms.