Excerpt from Charles Allen of Worcester IF I need any justification for my choice of a subject, or for repeating things which will be very familiar to the elders in my audience, you will permit me to relate an anecdote. A few years ago an inhabitant of Worcester County, very well known and influential in the public life of this Commonwealth, told me that an aged townsman of his had said that the ablest man he ever knew was a former resident of Worcester, of whose character and influence he spoke with very great enthusiasm. But my informant said he could not remember the name. I said, Was it Charles Allen? Yes, was the reply, I think that was the name. Our associate, Mr. Rhodes, in his admirable History, mentions Judge Allen in but a Single sentence, and that one expressing an emphatic disapproval of one of the important acts of his public life. To those of us whose memory goes back to the great days of the anti-slavery struggle it seems as surprising to find a man who had never heard of Charles Allen as to find a man who had never heard of his illustrious kinsman Sam Adams. Yet, I suppose that thirty or forty years after the close of a great political career or a great his toric period is generally the time when mankind at large know least about it. Memory has begun to fade. Con temporaries are dead or grown old. History is not yet written. The documents and records which are the mate rial for accurate history have not yet come to light. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.