Charles B. Lewis, who is the proprietor of that typographical _nom de plume_ “M. Quad,” began writing for the Free Press as far back as 1870, and since that time the success of the paper has been almost phenomenal. The Detroit Free Press has not only attained an immense circulation in this country, but has carried its success across the Atlantic, where in the great English metropolis a weekly edition of the Detroit Free Press is issued for the amusement and gratification of all English-reading Europe. The life of M. Quad has been a most romantic one, and if properly told would fill a volume. He is now over fifty years of age, and is a native of East Liverpool, Ohio. At the early age of fourteen, Lewis became “printers’ devil” in the office of the Lansing (Michigan) Journal. At the breaking out of the war he enlisted in a Michigan regiment and served both in cavalry and infantry, winning many laurels on the field of battle. After the war he went West and tried Indian fighting for a time. Winning a lieutenantcy he retired and entered journalism. In 1868 he came near being killed by being blown up on the steamer Magnolia, on the Ohio river. When he came down he was dragged out on the shore by an old woman, who laid him out unconscious, among the dead and wounded on the beach. He was taken for a dead negro and was carted away to the morgue for burial. He revived after a time, his wounds were dressed and he recovered in a few days. Afterwards he wrote a humorous account of the explosion, which was in a vein so irresistibly funny that it started him on the road to fame. In 1870 he finally settled down as a humorous writer on the Detroit Free Press, with which journal he has been connected ever since. Lewis published Goaks and Tears in 1875, which he prefaced by a “a brief biography of M. Quad, the Free Press man, written by his mother-in-law.” In this production he says of himself: BIOGRAPHY OF M. QUAD. There was nothing remarkable about his babyhood except his red hair and the great quantity of soothing syrup necessary to keep him toned down. He was born of humble parents. His father had never been on a jury, delivered a Fourth of July oration, or been sued for slander, and his mother had never rescued anybody from drowning, or delivered a lecture on woman’s rights. He never had any brothers or sisters. He might have had in due time, but his midnight howls wore his mother out when he was two years old, and she went to join the angels and left him to howl it out. His father was accidentally shot while courting a second wife, and the boy kicked the clothes off the bed to find himself an orphan. He was the sole heir to all the property, and the property consisted of a wheelbarrow, a toothbrush, and one or two other things. The boy’s uncle swooped down on the estate, stole everything but the debt it was owing, and the orphan was given a grand bounce into the cold and heartless world.