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FOR LITTLE FOLKS
YOUNGEST COLONEL.

How Harry Mulligan of Louisville Won This Distinction.

The youngest colonel in America lives in Louisville. Little Harry Mulligan is only 13 years old, but he is a full fledged colonel and is attached to the staff of Governor Bradley of Kentucky.

It is the first time in the history of any state of the nation when circumstances might be such that a child could officially represent the governor of a commonwealth, and no man five times his age could deny his right to do so. If the governor of the state of Kentucky and the lieutenant governor and half a dozen other functionaries became suddenly ill at the same time the duty of officially representing the governor would fall upon America's youngest colonel, who is a member of the official state family.

No one to see him would imagine the gallant way in which he can don his gay uniform and add dignity and grace to the public appearance of the chief magistrate of the state.

He was born in Ottawa, Canada, both his father and mother being Canadians. He went to Louisville with his parents in the fall of 1883, and ever since that time his father, who is popularly known as Tom Mulligan, has been connected with the management of the Louisville hotel.

In this way young Harry Mulligan came to know every politician of any prominence in the Blue Grass State, and during the last gubernatorial campaign he was as well posted on the candidates and their chances for and against election as was any working politician. He is naturally quiet; but, like all quiet boys, he listens to all that is going on around him and hears a great deal.

It was this faculty—which was the direct cause of his military appointment. Among his other political friends was the governor of Kentucky, who was often a guest at the Louisville hotel. Often in the hotel corridors political discussions waxed warm, and to these the future "boy colonel" was an attentive and interested listener.

He never ventured a word there, but he was a political authority among boys of his own age and often talked in boyish language and enthusiasm to child audiences of the issues of the day.

Colonel Bradley one day, a year before he was elected governor passed through the corridors of the hotel, where young Harry was standing talking with a companion. Harry saw him and in return to his greeting, "How do you do, colonel?" received from the future governor the remark: "How do you do, Harry? Glad to see you."

"Who is that gentleman?" asked some guest of the house of Harry.

Quick as a flash came the reply, "That is Colonel Bradley, the next governor of Kentucky."

The colonel overheard the remark, and, turning to the boy, asked him to repeat it, which he did.

"All right, my boy; if that prophecy comes true," said he, "I will make you a colonel on my staff."

Everybody apparently forgot the remark until after Governor Bradley's surprising victory over all opposition in Kentucky. Nobody seriously considered 13 year-old Harry Mulligan a candidate for a colonelcy until a few weeks ago, to the surprise of everybody, and to the young recipient more than any one else, Governor Bradley issued a commission to Colonel Harry Mulligan of Louisville.

That is how Kentucky came to have the youngest colonel in America.—New York Herald.