The Scioto Company was to purchase some 3,500,000 acres in the valley of the Scioto River. They sent Joel Barlow, a fair poet perhaps, but of questionable business sagacity, to France to dispose of these lands to fear-worn French. Barlow employed one William Playfair to sell the lands, and it was in the booklet the latter prepared that the fantastic statements as to candles, custard, etc., appeared. The sale was highly successful. Middle-class French in such jeopardy between the revolutionists and the aristocracy, hastened to emigrate to the new land of dreams. What became of the moneys they paid for their new homes has never been proved. Someone absconded and when they landed at Alexandria, Virginia, they learned that the Scioto Company had never acquired title to the lands sold to them. One interesting incident of this skullduggery is worth mention. Among the French settlers was François D’Hebecourt, a close boyhood friend of Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte had originally considered joining the party, but remained behind to follow if his friend’s reports substantiated the claims made. In case the new country did come up to expectations, he was to follow D’Hebecourt, and establish a new empire somewhere in western America. Of course, D’Hebecourt’s reports of the villainy of the Scioto Company, the hovels they found for homes and the ensuing famine which the French settlers endured changed Bonaparte’s intentions, and he remained in France to leave his mark later on all Europe. There are two very interesting suppositions suggested. Suppose the Scioto Company had kept its word, what might have been the subsequent history of the world? And suppose, as is altogether possible, that Bonaparte’s revulsion at the treatment of his countrymen had influenced him 13 years later in selling Louisiana Territory to the United States. The portent of such possibilities has no direct connection with our story, except to show what small affairs of men may affect all history and the millions of people who live afterward, and, an indication that the world is not worse, morally or ethically, now than it was then. [Illustration: SPINNING _Drawn by Lloyd Hune, Marietta, Ohio_]