“Nasby” was married to a very estimable lady, upwards of twenty-six years ago, and is the proud father of three children. He lives in a quiet, but elegant manner in the city of Toledo, and is considerably engrossed with the business interests of the city. Under his able management the weekly Toledo Blade has become one of the leading family papers of the country, and circulates in every State and Territory of the Union. Locke writes solely for his paper, even his most successful books being made up of material taken from the columns of the Toledo newspaper. ROBERT JONES BURDETTE. The famous funny man of the Burlington, Iowa, Hawkeye, was born at Greensboro, Pennsylvania, on the 30th of July, 1844. At the early age of seven months he went West with his parents, to grow up with the country. They settled in Peoria, Illinois, where at the age of eighteen Robert enlisted as a private, in 1862, in the Forty-seventh Illinois Infantry. He served through the war as a private, was present at the siege of Vicksburg, and was a member of the famous Red River expedition. He showed himself to be a brave and fearless man on various occasions, especially at the battle of Corinth. Robert J. Burdette, at the close of the war found life’s struggle rather severe. He was the oldest son of a family of nine, and aided them as best he could. In after years he made the remark: “As the oldest son I saw it was my duty to help pull the others through.” His facilities for acquiring an academic education were limited, and his ambition to enter college has never been gratified. While on a visit to New York he penned several letters from that city to the Peoria Transcript, and the publication of these letters betrayed his natural inclination for the journalistic life. Upon his return to Peoria he secured a position as proofreader on the Transcript. In the meantime he wrote numerous sketches for the different New York magazines, but few of which were published or even accepted.