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LASSALLE  around his rock of St. Louis. Louis XIV, le grand monarque, knew a great man when he saw him, and gave La Salle everything he asked for, but jealousy and malice prevented many things from reaching him. Three times he built up the structure that was to support New France; three times he saw the result of his toil and genius crumble into dust. Nothing daunted him or turned him from his purpose. Only death could defeat “the undespairing Norman.”

With four laden vessels, soldiers, arms, colonists and supplies, he started on his return from the third voyage to France, coming by way of the Mississippi, at whose mouth he had planted the French banner in the spring of 1682. The naval commander, Beaujeu, carried the expedition past the river, whether by intent is a disputed question. Certain it is that he landed the company on the coast of Texas, 1,000 miles from Ft. St. Louis on the Illinois, in an unhealthy country, among hostile tribes and in Spanish territory, and sailed back to France. Battle, famine and disease soon decimated their number and bred mutiny. La Salle was assassinated on the bank of Trinity River, in March of 1687. Tonti's red warriors were scattered by the savage Iroquois.

Early in 1700 France took up La Salle's task, proceeding westward along the lakes and northward up the Mississippi. But Illinois, the connecting link in the imperial chain, was never reforged. No new Vulcan appeared. The disastrous end of La Salle's enterprise must, in part, be ascribed to his own character. Wrapped in his splendid dream, reserved and naughty, he gave his confidence, his love, to no one but Tonti. By his Indian allies he was worshipped as a superior being, but it was this all too patent superiority that was resented by his white followers. It is improbable that anyone beside Tonti was with him who was capable of understanding him and his magnificent plan. He had powerful enemies in Canada and in France who finally were able to thwart him. The malice and treachery that hunted him to untimely death undoubtedly changed the course of American history. See Parkman's Discovery of the Great West and Mrs. Catherwood's romance: The Stury of Tonti.  Lassalle, Ferdinand, the originator of the social democratic movement in Germany, was born on April 11, 1825, at Breslau, of Jewish extraction. He attended the Universities of Breslau and Berlin, afterwards going to Paris, where he met Heine. Returning to Berlin in 1846, he took part in the revolution of 1848 as supporter of a democratic republic, and spent six months in prison. In 1861 he published a legal work on the philosophy of law, called System of Acquired Rights. In 1862 his lecture on the working class called particular attention to his views, and in 1863 his Open Letter to a committee of workingmen at Leipsic still more clearly expounded his theories of a social democracy. His success encouraged him to found the Universal German Workingmen's association at Leipsic. He was mortally wounded in a duel, and died at Geneva on Aug. 31, 1864. See W. H. Dawson's German Socialism and Ferdinand Lassalle and George Meredith's Tragic Comedians.  Las′so, a thin, plaited rope of rawhide used for catching wild animals. One end is fastened to the saddle of the hunter, and the other, ending in a ring, forms a loose, sliding noose, which, after being whirled around in the right hand, is thrown over the object. In Mexico, where it is called la reata, and in the United States, where it is called a lariat, it often is made of plaited hair.  Last of the Mohicans, The, A Narrative of 1757 is a novel by Fenimore Cooper. It is a tale of the disappearance of the Mohicans, a tribe of Indians, before the inroads of civilization. See.  Last Rose of Summer, 'Tis the. Words by Thomas Moore. Tune The Groves of Blarney, which is a variation of The Young Man's Dream, by R. A. Millikin of Cork. This beautiful song appears in the collection of Irish songs arranged for voice, piano, violin and 'cello by Beethoven. It also is the subject of Mendelssohn's Phantasie in E, op. 15, and is a leading feature in Flotow's opera of Martha.  Las Casas, Bartolome de, bishop of Chiapa, in Mexico, called the Apostle of the Indians, was born at Seville in 1474. He studied at Salamanca, and with his father set out on the third voyage of Columbus, and in 1502 accompanied Nicholas de Ovando to Hispaniola. In 1511 he was sent to Cuba to help to pacify the island. But soon sympathy for its piteous condition moved him to go to Spain and ask for a commission to investigate the conditions. He further sought that negro slaves be imported to take the place of the Indians in the heavier work, and thus prevent their total extermination. He also attempted to take out Castilian peasants as colonists. Failing in this, he retired to a Dominican convent in Hispaniola to spend eight years in solitude and study. In 1530 he again visited Spain; and, after four years of missionary work in Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru and Guatemala, he returned to spend four more years in the hope of gaining his purpose. During this period he wrote Twenty Reasons and Short Narrative of the Destruction of the Indies, which has been translated into all European languages. He preferred the poor bishopric of Chiapa, and arrived at Ciudad Real, its chief city, in 1544. Here he persisted in his campaign against the allotments of Indians, but the revocation of the new laws by Charles V caused him to resign in 1547. In 1555 he prevailed upon Philip II not to sell the reversionary rights of the allotments. The