Pasadena, CA: Radiant Life Press, 1917. First Edition. Softcover. Near fine. 8vo, pp. 48 + 7 b/w plates, in original stapled pictorial wrappers. Touch of foxing and wear to the edges, else fine. James first saw Captain, a performing horse owned by W.A. Sigsbee of Chicago, at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco in 1915. Amazed by the horse's apparent ability to count, add, and subtract; play "Nearer My God to Thee" on the chimes; and perform a variety of tricks in response to verbal commands, James resolved to learn more about the horse and his trainer. Here their story is told in full from Captain's point of view ("There are some people who think I don't like to give performances. I don't know why, except that I do get tired a little once in a while, and sometimes my master wants me to be quiet and good when I feel frisky and frolicsome and want to kick up my heels. I always feel better the busier I am...."), and Sigsbee has his say as well. After conducting his own "scientific investigation" of Captain's abilities, James concludes that there is no explicit trickery involved in their show, but that the horse may pick up on cues of which the audience--and likely even the trainer--is unaware. This leads to his more general observation that there is still much to learn about animal intelligence. "There is too much assumption in human beings about most things, animal instinct and human reason not excluded. What I wish to protest against, with emphasis and vigor, is the assumption that we know all there is to know about intelligence, that we know the limits Nature herself has placed upon its development, and that all efforts to foster further development are useless. I affirm that we do not know; that we have never, as yet, even tried to know; and that until men with loving, devoted, sympathetic singleness of heart and purpose seek to develop all there is in the mentality of all the lower animals, dogs, cats, deer, as well as horses, shall we begin to have a real foundation for our assumptions upon the subject." (Item #17628)

Branson, MO: The New Menace, [1921]. [11] pp. Stapled wrappers, lightly toned, a few spots of foxing. Very good. The New Menace was a virulently anti-Catholic newspaper founded in 1911 (as The Menace) and boasting a subscriber base of more than a million after just three years. Circulation declined during World War I as fears focused on the German enemy, but grew again in the early 1920s, a time when new Ku Klux Klan organizations were being formed around the country. In August 1921, three priests were murdered in separate incidents in Alabama, South Dakota, and California. The Knights of Columbus and other Catholic organizations argued that the murderers were the result of hatred incited by anti-Catholic newspapers. This pamphlet responds to that accusation, insisting that one case had no "point of contact with anti-papal political activity until Rome instructed her lecturers to attempt to make out a murder indictment against the anti-papal movement." The other two dead priests, they claim, had documented records of lewd behavior and "probably would have been killed by any father zealous for the sanctity of his home and the chastity of his daughter." Not found in OCLC. (Item #18043)

Washington: Robert Armstrong, 1854. 4to, pp iv, 186, complete with 54 folding maps, charts, and tables. Original brown with gilt titles. Some foxing in the text, some charts mis-folded, a few with tears or small splits at the intersections, but overall very good. The surveys covered by this report include the Atlantic, Gulf and California coasts. Among the notable maps are the Cape Fear River, Galveston Harbor, San Diego, San Francisco Bay and Vicinity, Santa Barbara (Preliminary Sketch), and the north coast of Washington State, including Cape Flattery. This copy has the bookplate of the Bureau of Navigation, Navy Department and compliments label of Prof. A.D. Bache (Superintendent of the Coast Survey) on the front pastedown. (Item #18147)

New York: 1863. 14 pp, in original printed wrappers. One tear extending 3/4 in. from the spine (affecting inner margins, but no text), else a very good copy. A defense of Fremont’s 1862-63 campaign against Stonewall Jackson in Virginia. Schalk was critical of Fremont’s actions in his book Summary of the Art of War. Pilsen, who served as Fremont’s Chief of Artillery, accuses Schalk of numerous factual errors and “plain villany” in his attack on “a man who has spent his life in the civil and military service of the country, and who, besides the skill and energy he displayed in the West, in this particular campaign brought a striking example of what true zeal and ingenuity can perform.” Sabin 62870. (Item #18121)

Folio ledger in original reverse calf binding, with c. 180 pages used. Boards worn and detached, contents very good and easily legible. A valuable record of commercial activity in early nineteenth century New York City, as seen through the records and correspondence of textile merchant James Rushton (1769-1845[?]) and his son Joseph Rushton (1798-1861). The first c. 50 pages of the ledger are taken up by detailed records of expenditures and income in 1812 and 1813; the remainder consists of copies of correspondence by both men dating from 1818 to 1822. The accounting section shows that the Rushtons dealt primarily in textiles, with numerous transactions recorded for broad cloth, drugget (a coarse woolen), Holland (a plain linen used for upholstery), serge, crepe, and shalloon (a lightweight woolen used for linings). However, they also frequently bought and sold wine (French, Lisbon, Oporto), tobacco, hops, and pepper. Each transaction includes the quantity of goods purchased, name of the other party involved, and price. The Rushtons were originally from Yorkshire, and they retained strong ties in England, importing goods and serving as agents for several British textile manufacturers and merchants. A contract for one such arrangement, with Leeds cloth manufacturer John Garforth, is laid in. They corresponded regularly with their business associates, occasionally sharing personal and family news, but primarily reporting sales and discussing the prices and demand of various types of cloth. On October 9, 1818, for example, James writes to Manchester merchant Nathaniel Briggs: “This may inform thee that I have made sales of the Bale N3 except one piece…and may inform thee that fine goods is very dull at present, but expect they will sell better in a few months…Blues is the best coller at present. Shawls has been very plenty in the market but they are getting scarce and would sell well at present. Bottle green and red browns is very bad collers for cloths. Thou may have an idea by the sales what is the best collers….” He also reports on changes in import laws (“there is a new law at the customs house to open one package out of every shipment to have it appraised that people may be detected if they invoice these lower than the cost”) and the best procedures for moving material though customs (and possibly avoiding duties: “the customers like the cloths a great deal better to be tilited [i.e, to have customs information stamped on the bale] and lay the cost on the cloth and not to mention the cost on the invoice.”. (Item #18164)

Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, 1896. Hardcover. Good. 692 pp + ads (some chromolithograph) and approximately 50 colored maps, most double-page. A good copy in original blue cloth, with some soiling and edgewear, discoloration to head of spine, front hinge cracked. A valuable resource and snapshot of American finance at the close of the Gilded Age. Each bank in the United States and Canada is listed, with details of deposits, loans, securities, etc. Also includes lists of bank directors and more than 6000 commercial lawyers. In addition to maps of states, territories, and provinces, there are city maps of Baltimore, Boston, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Chicago, Macon, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, St. Paul, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Although these directories were issued by Rand McNally on a semi-annual basis beginning in 1883, they are relatively scarce in commerce. (Item #15614)

NP: 1930. 8 x 12 inches, printed in black, red and purple. Old creases from folding, all else very good. Broadside advertising an interdenominational religious revival to be led by Thomas Noah Carter, a reformed “drunkard, dope fiend, criminal, leader and character in the underworld.” Carter was converted in 1922 while in the Arizona State Prison. Upon his release the same year, he began conducting revivals in churches and correctional institutions around the country. In 1927 he published From Prison Cell to Pulpit, Being the Personal Testimony of Thomas N. Carter, Jr. By 1935, newspapers were reporting that he had visited 3000 correctional institutions in North America. (Item #18127)

6 x 9 inches, 24 pp, in original pictorial wrappers. One woodcut illustration. Some chipping and one short tear; very good. One of two sensational pamphlets published in the wake of an 1872 police investigation into mysterious sounds and sightings reported at a Newburyport, Massachusetts primary school. The first chapter offers a general history of the town's odder elements (eccentric citizens, unusual laws and punishments); the second gives an account of witchcraft accusations, arrests, and trials in the Puritan era; and the remainder is devoted to "Modern Witchcraft," namely ghostly manifestations and at the Charles Street Schoolhouse. These included the appearance of disembodied hands and faces, doors opening and bells ringing by themselves, unnatural illumination of the classroom, etc. Although the police soon determined all of these manifestations were the work of three mischievous boys, Davis knew a better story when he heard one. He reports that "it has been said" a boy was once whipped to death at the school, and "many believe that the Charles-Street School-House troubles arise wholly from this source." (Item #18037)

Very good. Thirty-five original sepia prints, 5 x 7 inches., showing scenes from some of the many camping trips of the group of prominent men who called themselves the Vagabonds—Ford, Edison, Burroughs, and Firestone. Two matted, the rest loose. Minor rippling, else very good. The idea for the Vagabonds summer camping trips originated in 1914, when Ford and Burroughs visited Edison in Florida. “In 1916, Edison invited Ford, Burroughs and Harvey Firestone to journey through the New England Adirondacks and Green Mountains. In 1918, Ford, Edison, Firestone, his son Harvey, Burroughs, and Robert DeLoach of the Armour Company caravanned through the mountains of West Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia. Subsequent trips were made in 1919 to the Adirondacks and New England; in 1920 to John Burroughs' home and cabin retreat into the Catskill Mountains; in 1921 to West Virginia and northern Michigan; and in 1923 to northern Michigan….The trips were well organized and equipped. There were several heavy passenger cars and vans to carry the travelers, household staff, and equipment; Ford Motor Company photographers also accompanied the group. The 1919 trip involved fifty vehicles, including two designed by Ford: a kitchen camping car with a gasoline stove and built-in icebox presided over by a cook and a heavy touring car mounted on a truck chassis with compartments for tents, cots, chairs, electric lights, etc. On later trips, there was a huge, folding round table equipped with a lazy susan that seated twenty” (Henry Ford Museum). The group offered here includes some well-known and often reprinted images (e.g., Ford repairing one of his boots, Burroughs picking berries, the men traveling the countryside on horseback), but also several less common, possibly unpublished images, including one of Ford washing handkerchiefs in a creek, several showing the women of the party, and one of Ford’s personal photographer George Ebling, who likely took many of the photos in the group. President Warren G. Harding joined some of these excursions, and he appears in at least four of these images. (Item #18152)

9 x 16.5 inches, oblong, two-hole punched and bound with cord. 20 leaves printed rectos only, on which are mounted 37 original 5 x 7 black and white photographs, each with a printed caption. The volume as a whole is a bit warped from poor storage, one leaf detached, images fine. A yearbook of sorts from an annual Department of Justice event that brought together employees from the Border Patrol, U.S. Marshals, and U.S. Prison Service for training and friendly competition. The men (they were all men) attended lectures and demonstrations and then competed in pistol shooting events, with trophies awarded to the high-scoring individuals and the winning teams. The photos show the six member teams, the “top brass,” and the competition, winners, and awards dinner. Also pictured are several demonstrations—on prisoner transportation, judo, “shake-down” technique, and use of smoke and tear gas—and a display of contraband collected from prisoners. Some of the captions are straightforward (e.g., “H.H. Raney, Jail Inspector, Instructing the Proper Way to Transport Prisoners”), while others offer some choice law enforcement humor (“We ain’t lost one yet, Guard, hit that chicken snatcher with the whip, he’s dragging his feet!). A curious and entertaining artifact, apparently unrecorded. (Item #18170)

A fascinating archive of letters from Rev. Charles Wesley Parsons (1851-1907) to his close friend Henry M. Quackenbush (1847-1933), gun manufacturer and inventor of the extension ladder and the nutcracker. Once a highly respected Methodist Episcopal minister, by his late forties Parsons had begun to suffer severely from both the symptoms and the treatment of tic douloureux (also called trigeminal neuralgia), a neurologic disorder that causes intense pain in the face. The pain was treated with topical cocaine, which over time caused Parsons to experience paranoia and hallucinations. In series of letters written to Quackenbush between 1895 and 1902, Parsons writes repeatedly of being watched in his home, followed by detectives and "sneaks," and harassed by gangs and policemen. On December 26, 1901, he writes:I’ve been so persecuted & abused. Oh, Henry, it isn’t my imagination. Two men sent to Watertown to destroy me & gave their whole time to doing everything that hellish malice could invent. I am weak, sick man, sitting on my bed, in my room half the time in pain, was under the eyes of a paid sneak (Emma too) night and day – a gang formed -- and they hounded and pursued my every step. If I dared go out the doors, one would stand on the corner, wave a signal, one on to the next, and turn and sneer in my face and say "You are our slave, belong to us." And I never committed a crime or immoral act in my life. … And the police in sympathy with it. Oh, your blood would have boiled if you had been by my side. This poor, weak American Citizen dared to board a train to go down town to get some Christmas things. A uniformed police officer slipped on the car ahead of me and cried, "Parsons is coming – don’t watch him." He might just as well have said, "Watch him" – for everybody looked out of the corner of the eye at me, as though I was an insane person – and 20 went ahead and they were the gang organized to kill me, and one stood on every corner ahead of me and said "Parsons is coming, watch him." And a thousand persons passed me by as though as pestilence. Oh it is awful.On January 28, 1902, he told Quackenbush he was out of cocaine and desperate for more to ease the pain, asking Will you please (I beg) send me by the quickest way possible (mail, I think best) one oz. of cocaine…. The next letter thanks his friend for the package, saying the pain has diminished, but reports that they tapped the wires of our telephone, put a microphone on and heard every word spoken in our house. And on March 9: I am cutting down, and by summer will hardly use any at all…This is the last time I’ll ask it of you, I feel sure – just mail me one more oz. of cocaine…The archive includes 17 letters and a postcard from Parsons to Quackenbush (three typed and the rest handwritten, c. 70 pages in all), as well as 3 letters to Quackenbush from a mutual friend, expressing concern that Parsons' "brain power" is failing and enclosing two postcards he received from Parsons complaining of abuse by the police. In all, a compelling archive offering firsthand insight into addiction and the treatment of chronic pain at the turn of the twentieth century. (Item #18131)

New York: Phair & Co., Steam Printers, 1867. 8vo, 27 pp, with a real photograph of the deceased young mother as frontispiece. Original boards, spine covered (neatly) with cloth library tape. Text has several manuscript corrections. Inscribed on the front pastedown "For Libbie's dear Aunt Percy. From the bereaved Mother, with much love, and gratitude for the unbounded care and affection bestowed upon her dear Child, through all the years of her girlhood and still on, even to the closing of her early pilgrimage. Eliz. Ransom, 1867." Written to memorialize the author's daughter, Elizabeth Waterman Ransom Cornell (who died at the age of 29), this work reflects the popularity of a genre that could fuction as both an expression of grief and an antidote to it--creating a sense of connection with the absent loved one and also presenting death as comforting escape from daily toils. One copy located in OCLC (AAS). (Item #18150)