John Proctor

“ Further activities of Wotton and Wilkinson have faded into the mist of time past, but Captain John Smith recorded for posterity the names and deeds of other surgeons and physicians who came to Virginia before 1609. Dr. Walter Russell, the first physician—as distinguished from surgeon—to arrive, came with a contingent of new settlers and supplies in January, 1608. Post Ginnat, a surgeon, and two apothecaries, Thomas Field and John Harford, accompanied the physician. Also in Smith's record is the name, Anthony Bagnall, who has been identified as a surgeon and who came with the first supply. ”

“ The labors of the ship's surgeon at sea, no matter how valiant, could not offset the miseries of the long sea voyage, and the sight of Virginia's coast greatly cheered all hands. After the foul air, crowded quarters, and inadequate provisions of the ship, many settlers must have reacted to the Virginia land as Captain John Smith did: "heaven and earth never agree better to frame a place for man's habitation." It is not surprising then that the first permanent settlers were somewhat less than careful when evaluating, against standards of health, the possible sites for settlement. ”

“ I may note here in passing that Sir John Herschel's delineation of the northern portion of the Milky Way, though a great improvement on the views given in former works, seems to require revision, and especially as respects the very remarkable patches and streaks which characterise the portion extending over Cepheus and Cygnus. It seems to me, also, that the evidence on which it has been urged that the stars composing the Milky Way are (on an average) comparable in magnitude to our own sun, or to stars of the leading magnitudes, is imperfect. ”

“ The star δ (Plate 3) , or Mintaka, the uppermost of the three stars forming the belt, is a wide double. The primary is of the second magnitude, the secondary of the seventh, both being white.
The star α (Betelgeuse) is an interesting object, on account of its colour and brilliance, and as one of 39the most remarkable variables in the heavens. It was first observed to be variable by Sir John Herschel in 1836. ”

“ Common sense dictated a freeing of the body of the corrupt or corrupting matter; drugs were a means to this end.
The use of drugs for vomiting, sweating, and other forms of purging seems excessive in the light of present-day medical knowledge, and at least one seventeenth-century Virginia student of medicine also found such use of drugs by his contemporaries open to criticism. In the opinion of the Reverend John Clayton, Virginia doctors were so prone to associate all drugs with vomiting or other forms of purging that they even thought of aromatic spirits as an inferior "vomitive." ”

“ Yet a proctor is only human. Strip him of his gown and bands, examine his flexors and extensors, and you might even come to a profound contempt for him. This, unfortunately, is not permitted even to the most curious freshman; the giant's robe hedges about even a liliputian proctor with the glamour of the unpleasant office. Your cigar goes up your sleeve, driven there by a subtle instinct, when he approaches; your broken hat seems to gather itself together and to tremble upon your head. ”

“ It is that of a man in a black morning coat and a tall silk hat. The man has a vulgar face and does not always pay tribute to the aspirates. He is a college servant, in fact, a butler or gyp promoted to the honours of the bulldog's state during his master's term of office. And now he stands before the amazed freshman proffering his meek request—
"The proctor would like to speak to you, sir."
The freshman takes his cigar out of his mouth, and is conscious of a curious sensation. Is this, then, the moment he has looked for? Has a proctor really come down to earth? ”

“ Soon a vast mob pressed on the terrified little man—the rare swimmer in that tremendous human sea. It shouted, danced, crowed with joy. From room to room and court to court the great news spread, "They have bagged 'Stony's cap in the Market Place!" Nearly an hour passed before the excited, yelping throngs bore the little man, shoulder high, to the gates of his college and there took their leave of him with three times three. It was positively his last appearance in the rôle of a dogless proctor. ”

“ The freshman believes no such tale. A proctor to him is a ghostly apparition rising up from the limbo of lost policemen. The bulldogs are resurrected assassins lusting for horrid deeds. By-and-bye when he has forgotten his desire to see such rogues, and has brought himself to believe that proctor are myths, and that practically you can wear any sort of cap, and smoke where and when you like in Cambridge, his system receives a shock. ”

“ There was a tremulous lightness in Singleton's tone as he spoke to this in oblique language—
"And yet Proctor has attractions, has he not? I have somewhere heard so—a fine person, good features, even handsome. He is young, too."
"Few better-looking men, sir, and making due allowance for an enemy, a clever sort of fellow enough. A good officer, too, that knows what he's about, and quite a polite, fair-spoken gentleman." ”

“ Yet a moment's reflection should convince us that the soul of the good proctor goes to Andrew's Street, there to stalk a heaven paved with the third parts of pounds, and peopled with undergraduates who cannot run. No Sisyphine tortures mar this haven of bliss. Fines are not paid with farthings; strangers are not arrested to mock and scorn. The good proctor demands his six-and-eight through eternity. The ages are forgotten but his mouth is perpetual, and his bulldogs never lose their wind. ”

“ He died in 1924, in California, where he and his wife spent their winters. Buried in Schuyler. John Prokes was an esteemed citizen and active in political office. He was a member of the city council and board of education. In later years president of the Schuyler State Bank.
Frank Prokes married Marie Sobolik in 1888. They have two daughters, Edith (wife of Dr. Jos. Lauvetz in Wahoo) and Sylvia. Frank Prokes was for many years in the meat market business, also proprietor of a saloon, and a member of the firm of Higgins & Prokes. He too is a highly esteemed citizen. ”

“ To resist violence, says Tacitus, is implanted in the nature of man. The same spirit animating youth, we may suppose, contrives that instinctive hostility with which even the freshman regards the proctor. From his first day at Cambridge the undergraduate is taught that no friendship is possible between him and the gentleman in bands who goes forth by night seeking whom he may fine. There is, indeed, something not to be forgotten in your first meeting with a proctor. ”

“ It is therefore quite probable that the "fifteen acre" lot which John Procter owned was the other two thirds part of the "twenty three acres," and that he became possessed of it [Pg 15] in the same way that his brother, Joseph Procter, became possessed of the third part, perhaps in the division of an estate. What the estate was may be ascertained by future investigation.
The first we know positively of the lot in question as being John Procter's is through the record of an action which he brought at the County Court, in 1685, against Steven Fish for nine pounds ten shillings due for rent. ”

“ They had (p. 286) fought gallantly, and it mattered not to them the victory or defeat, for they had gone to that still land where human strifes are forgotten, and the clangor of battle never comes.
This impressive scene occurred off the shore where the massacre of Raisin was committed, and what a striking contrast does it present to the day that succeeded the victory of Proctor. By his noble and generous conduct Perry won the esteem and love of his enemies, while Proctor by his unfeeling neglect and barbarity received the curse of all honorable men. ”

“ They drank together again and again, and, at eleven o'clock that night, just as the theatres were coming out, Rothesay suddenly left him, and Proctor found himself staggering across the street. A policeman took him to his hotel, where Proctor sank into a heavy, deadly stupor. He awoke at noon. Two letters were lying on his table. One, from the owners of his barque, asked him to call on them at ten o'clock that morning, the other was from Nell Levison. The latter was short but plain: “I shall never marry a drunkard. I never wish to see you again. ”

“ But as the Indians retired, as is their wont after success, to enjoy their plunder; and as many of the militia were also returning to their homes, Proctor was compelled to raise the siege of Fort Meigs. Having re-embarked his small force of regulars, chiefly of the 41st, and the whole of his ordnance and stores, he proceeded to Sandwich; while General Harrison abandoned all intention of advancing against Detroit until the American squadron had gained the command of Lake Erie. ”

“ But since it was nothing for him to win the Roman Empire alone, he succeeded in subjugating Libya and Italy for no other reason than to be able to destroy the inhabitants of these countries along with those previously under his sway. Indeed, when he had been not yet ten days in power, he slew Amantius, Director of the Palace eunuchs, together with certain others for no cause whatever, charging the man with nothing except that he had spoken some hasty word against John, the Chief Priest of the city. And as a result of this conduct he became the most dreaded man in the world. ”

“ This controversy was probably between Anthony Needham and John Procter as tenant of the Downing Farm, as appears by an action at the Salem Court, Nov., 1685, for damage done to John Procter in claiming "land belonging to the plaintiff as being in possession of, and hiring the said land of the Worshipful Symon Bradstreet Esq.," said land being part of a farm "formerly belonging to Mr. ”

“ August 1 the woods were already filled with Indians, and retreat was impossible, when the British boats appeared on the river, and Proctor sent to demand surrender of the fort. Immediately on Croghan’s refusal, the British howitzers opened fire and continued until it became clear that they were too light to destroy the stockade.
If experience had been of service to Proctor, he should have learned to avoid direct attack on Americans in fortified places; but his position was difficult, and he was as much afraid of Harrison as Harrison was afraid of him. ”

“ And when Silverius and Vigilius had come alone into the salon, the patrician Antonina was reclining on a couch and the patrician Belisarius was sitting at her feet. And as soon as the patrician Antonina saw him, she said to him: 'Tell me, Master Silverius, Pope, what have we done to you and the Romans that you wish to betray us into the hands of the Goths?' And even while she was still speaking these words, there entered John, the regional sub-deacon of the first ward, lifted his collar from his neck and led him into a chamber ”

“ But Procopius himself appears to have possessed neither letters nor tools nor instruments or forms at the beginning of these proceedings; it was Menaldus Vitalis, a bachelor of law and student at Avignon, who entrusted to him the “two steel alphabets, two iron forms, one steel screw, and forty-eight tin and other forms,” mentioned in the first document of 1444. Procopius, however, appears to have seen no permanent value in these letters, forms, &c. as he, of his own accord, promised to return them at the first request of Menaldus, who had handed them to Procopius without asking for a receipt. ”

“ On the contrary, he becomes terrified not by his discoveries but by the use men will make of them, and he refuses to surrender the secret of his formula to the rival emissaries of States, militarists, great capitalists, and others who, having got wind of it, come swarming round him. Prokop is a dogged, determined man, but innocent of worldly wiles, and one of the many clever things in the book is the way his honest figure shows up against the machinations of certain “highly born” personages and their agents, who kidnap him and keep him prisoner in the Castle of Balttin. ”

“ Four years afterwards, she succeeded in finding two of the Green faction who had taken part in the sedition at Cyzicus, and were accused of having been accessory to the assault upon the Bishop. These she attacked with flattery, promises, and threats. One of them, alarmed and inveigled by her promises, accused John of the foul crime of murder, but the other refused to utter falsehoods, although he was so cruelly tortured that he seemed likely to die on the spot. ”

“ They are preparing for an American attack.
Rhea hears some things. While he is on the Maumee he tells Colonel McKee and other British officers that he has seen Colonel Thomas Proctor on his way to the Senecas and has talked with him. That Proctor told him he was on his way to Sandusky and the Miami villages, and that he expected the Cornplanter to accompany him and bring about peace; that he (Proctor) , expected to get shipping at Fort Erie, The British officers who hear these things, say that if they were at Lake Erie, Proctor would get no shipping. ”

“ Miss Procter was born in Bedford Square, London, on the 30th of October, 1825. Her love of poetry was conspicuous at so early an age, that I have before me a tiny album made of small note-paper, into which her favourite passages were copied for her by her mother’s hand before she herself could write. It looks as if she had carried it about, as another little girl might have carried a doll. She soon displayed a remarkable memory, and great quickness of apprehension. When she was quite a young child, she learned with facility several of the problems of Euclid. ”