Lectures by Hon. John Sergeant Wise, author, lawyer, orator, lecturer, soldier, sportsman and raconteur

              LECTURES
BY
HON. JOHN  SERGEANT WISE
Author, Lawyer, Orator, Lecturer, Soldier, Sportsman and Raconteur
MANAGEMENT
THE CENTRAL LYCEUM BUREAU OE HARRISBURG PENN.
JOHN S. ARNOLD, Manager
THE CENTRAL LYCEUM BUREAU has the honor to announce to its patrons that arrangements can be made through this bureau for engaging the Hon. John Sergeant Wise who is available for lecturing during the season of 1907-1908.
Mr* Wise has a National Reputation in many things of which we mention the following: As the boy soldier of General Lee who bore his last despatch to Davis. As a distinguished lawyer who has successfully conducted important litigations in many States of this country and in England. As a politician who has served in Congress, been candidate for Governor. Presidential Elector and National Campaign Orator in several Presidential Campaigns. As a platform and postprandial orator As a raconteur and with whose bright sayings have gone the rounds of the press. As a writer, being author of "Diomed," "The End of an Era," "The Lion's Skin," "Recollections of Thirteen Presidents," "Citizenship," etc., etc. As a sportsman, whose fame as a crack shot, and the breeder of famous strains of setters and pointers is known throughout the land to lovers of dog and gun. As a member of two of the oldest and most distinguished families of Virginia and Pennsylvania, with a kinship, and personal acquaintance, made through business or politics, with public men and in private life, in all parts of the country, as great, perhaps, as that enjoyed by any American citizen.
SUBJECT OF LECTURES By HON.  JOHN S.  WISE.
Conceits and False Claims of Cavaliers and Puritans.
This lecture has been delivered to the Congregational Club of Chicago and the Union League Club of New York and was enthusiastically received. It shows great study of the origin of our settlement and by historical facts, the important part played by the Dutch, Scotch-Irish and French in the framing of our Constitution; in the selection of our flag; in the adoption of our school and prison systems and in the organization of criminal justice and eleemosynary institutions; in the pioneering of new settlements, and in our great achievements, civic and military. It is full of most interesting and surprising matter.
Robert B. Lee.
Wise was a boy under Lee and bore the last despatch to him from Mr. Davis, found Lee near Farmville after Sailors Creek and bore his last despatch to Davis. He passed through the Federal lines going and coming. After that he often met General Lee, with whose family the Wises were connected through the Custis'. Wise was devoted to Lee and in mature life has been an intense and close student of his great career. The lecture does not dwell on dry details of battles, but states only the sequence of events, and the salient features of each of Lee's conflicts in his three crowded years of command. It is an eloquent and noble tribute to a great character, in language which does not offend partisan feeling. This is shown by the enthusiasm with which it has been received in Ohio Massachusetts, New Jersey and elsewhere.
Five Great Confederates.
This lecture is a sketch of Lee, Jackson, Johnston, Longstreet and Gordon as the speaker knew them in his youth. It deals in descriptions of their personal appearance, peculiarities and deeds, in such manner that one thinks, after hearing the lecture, that he had seen them in the flesh and heard their voices.
Virginia Folklore Concerning General Washington.
Mr. Wise is decended from one of Washington's most devoted soldiers. Tradition concerning the Father of his country was part of the atmosphere of his home, for his father was reared by a grandfather who had but one toast in all companies, and that was "God bless George Washington." The Speaker knew and talked with many people who had known Washington, and the lecture is filled with anecdotes concerning him many of which are new. These relate to his manner, his personal appearance, even his com¬plexion, and his eyes, and many other details which have been pronounced to be most fascinating, as is everything which focuses up to us this wonder¬ful and peerless man.
Recollections of Thirteen Presidents.
These are personal, not hearsay, and present to us the thirteen Presidents Mr. Wise has known in fifty years, in phases altogether different from the ordinary and conventional descriptions we have. We may not always agree with the Speaker in his views of the Presidents described but no one can hear him without feeling that he knew them and has told us things about them that are new and that we never knew before. His opportunities have been rare and he has been blessed with a most attractive way of nar¬rating his experiences. Everybody enjoys hearing about the private life of the great.
VI.    Centralization by Construction.
The title of this lecture may be alarming but that is all, for the lecture it¬self, while on a political subject, is one possessed of deep and abiding interest to every citizen who feels an interest in the form of Government under which he lives.
Mr. Wise, in the various cases in which he has been employed, involving the constitutional questions discussed, has become so familiar with his subject that he is enabled to omit its abstrusities and technicalities, and discuss it in form so simple that every layman understands and is interested in his presentation. It is with an eye single to that that the address has been prepared. When it was first delivered extracts were reproduced from it, with the highest endorsement by the press, in all parts of the country. It is a dispassionate and clear statement of the difficulties of changing a Government, to either extreme of centralization or individualism, in the face of a constitution written, fought over, amended and construed, for over a century.
VII.    The American Race Problem.
Mr. Wise has not only been an active participant in all the political measures that have attempted to deal with this subject for the past forty years, but has argued, in the inferior Courts, and in the Supreme Court of the United States, some of the most important causes to which they have given rise. Nobody therefore is better prepared to state the law. Personally he is well known as a man of much more advanced views upon the negro question than the average Southerner and free from many of the prejudices of his section. He is also a close and thorough student of the history of the races. His views have attracted marked attention in Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, and elsewhere North and South, and while he is in no sense the advocate or apologist of race prejudice, his conclusions, arrived at, by close reasoning and historical facts, are not very flattering or hopeful for the future of the negro. There is no prejudice against the negro in this lecture, nor is there any enthusiasm for him. It is a strong presentation of facts -a close argument from them, and a conclusion, which may not convince, but is bound to excite interest and induce reflection, upon a most vexed issue.
VIII.    Men I Have Hunted With.
This lecture, in a lighter vein, is full of charm for those interested in field sports and gives incidents and anecdotes concerning many happy outings with distinguished people such as the son of President Hayes, Frank Thomson, President of Pennsylvania Railroad, Buffalo Bill, Grover Cleveland, Mr. Justice Gray, Mr. Justice McKenna, and many others; with most entertain¬ing, laughable and surprising anecdotes.
IX.    The Last Days of the Confederacy.
This lecture is pronounced by many who have heard it, to be the most vivid and absorbing description ever given of conditions in the Confederate Capitol in the winter of 1864-5 and of the final breaking of the Confederate lines, the retreat of Lee's Army and the surrender at Appomattox. Mr. Wise was in the thick of it, saw it all, knew everybody, and tells it all in a manner that is inimitable.
X.    The Ancient Honorable and Extinct Practice of Dueling.
This discusses the origin of dueling, the rules governing duels, the man¬ner in which it was resorted to in the South in ante bellum days, and de¬scribes several celebrated conflicts which attracted National Attention.