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WILLIAMSON & BURNS, Publishers, )
OFFICE! 61 ANN STREET. J
Startlfnfl; ©rfflfnal Warcatiim
ELLEN —^ADVENTURES:
A PICTURE OF CITY LIFE AND MORALS. ‘
CAREFULLY COMPILED FROM FACTS IN POSSESSION OF THE WRITER,
BY A MEMBER OF THE BAR.
Egrttten Eypresslij for Hjijj Will'!'. uupi! jum uilblbinu to it'atoZ'
. CHAPTER. I.
THE HUSBAND AND WIFE OF FASHION-AP
PEARANCE OF ELLEN.
It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. The
first day of July 184-.
The rays of a mild yet brilliant sun streamed
through two windows of a magnificent mansion
in one of the fashionable streets of New York,
which opened towards the west, into a large li
brary furnished with uncommon splendor as wq)l
as remarkable taste. Everywhere the fine/resco
of the walls had been wrought to represent the
charms of natural scenery, such as mountains,
cascades, trees, fields, and flowers. Scattered
over these at proper intervals, and not too pro
fusely, all in their frames of radiant gilding,
were rich and rare pictures— chef (Cceuvrex of im
mortal masters. There also Sculpture, patient
queen of the inspired chisel, vied with her twin
sister goddess of the rainbow-brush. Costly spe
cimens of statuary—blossoms and birds, and wild
beasts in stone —were arranged on different small
stands of mahogany, encircled by curious peb
bles, crystals and shells. Such inferior products
of art and nature, however, might be deemed
trivial when compared with three massive
marble busts, of life-like proportions, occupying
as many opposite angles of. the room, and each
placed on its cylindric pedestal of fluted granite
In these might be recognized Tully, Napoleon,
and Washington. In another corner was a fourth
figure, but some unknown feeling had prompted
the owner to disguise it under a long veil of
crimson damask, which loft only the general out
lines of form, together with the base of the column
beneath it visible. Four ample and exquisite
mirrors, each hung on a contrary wall, and act
ing by twos as mutual reflectors, served to mul
tiply the images of beauty and wonder in the
apartment, giving to the whole a similitude of
enchantment, or rather of optical illusion.
A stranger might have mistaken this elegant
retreat for the studio of some royal artist; a poet
would have pronounced it the saloon of Vonus
and the Graces. But as I have already said, it
was but a library. Ig was the library of the Rev.
Henry Hewet, pastor of the “Holy High” church,
in the great city of New York. The books, how
ever, were in a reom adjoining to the left, with
which there was communication by a narrow
door, of the same color as the surrounding wall,
and fitting so perfectly that its very existence
remained a secret to all save the sacred gentle
man and his particular friends.
The Rev. Henry Hewet was alone in his su
perb library: and to his credit, be it recorded,
his imposing personnel harmonized admirably
with the grandeur of the decorations around him.
Here is his portrait.
He was twenty-five years of age; tall, fair,
and in every limb and muscle, modeled for beau
ty as well as strength; with large symmetrical
features, a high, haughty brow, bright grey eyes,
shining auburn hair, and nose long, thin, and
slightly aquiline. A critic in physiognomy
would, perhaps, have objected to his lips as be
ing too heavy; the lower one especially was
loose, pendent, and of a deep purple. In short
he was precisely such a man as pretty women
would term “divine,” and jealous Husbands
swear to be “ dangerous.”
Seated at a centre table of veined marble, he
had been busily employed for hours in rounding
a fashionable sorxuon, which was intended, on
the very next Sunday, at the dedication of a
new church, to bewilder the bishop, dazzle the
inferior clergy, and take the elite by storm.
Like most authors in the heat of composition,
he was addicted to soliloquy, and thus his three
fold purpose escaped, occasionally, in audible
murmurs.
“ I must have more crooked roots for the bi
shop,” he said, with contemptuous emphasis,
and laying down his heavy gold pen, he recurred
to the lexicons of the old mummy languages.
Having dug out the barbarous etymon required,
he scrawled it hastily, adding with a sneer,
“ there, that will tickle the fancy of his right
reverence — I trust he will understand it. I’m
sure 1 do not.”
The writer did not perceived at the moment
listener, so thoroughly was ho ab
sorbed in his subject. A tall, voluptuous look
ing lady, habited in changeable silk, and bediz
ened with jewels like the image of some Mexi
can saint, had thrust in her head through the
half-opened door, and stood amusing herself by
a series of scornful grimaces, aimed at the back
of the minister. Unconscious of the fact, he
proceeded “ I must excogitate novel and astound
ing tropes for the young preachers.” He pressed
the upper end of his gold pen against his high
forehead, a minute, as if to conjure up luminous
thoughts, and then muttering with a smile,
“ that will do,” again his white fingers flew over
the gilt-edged paper like race steeds. All the
while that rosy, luxurious female mouth, so rich
ly moulded by beauty and sensuality, continued
its silent mimicry and disdainful face-making in
the student’s rear.
“ Oh ! 1 had almost forgotten the fair moiety
of my congregation —Heaven bless them!” he
exclaimed warmly; “I must allure the sweet
creatures to Paradise with strains of poetry soft
as their own silvery voices. Gospel fishermen '
can find no bait so tempting for fashionable wo
men as poetry.” And he turned over the leaves
of a splendid Byron to select his glowing ex
tracts.
At this point, an interruption happened to
break the charm of the Rev Henry Hewet’s me
ditations ; for, lifting his eyes, in a fit of glow
ing enthusiasm to the mirror on the wall before
him, the reflex of a too familiar face met his
glance. He colored to the tips of his ears,
frowned till his brows met, and cried: “Mrs.
Hewet!”
The lady answered with a loud, mischievous
laugh, and rushing forward, stooped over his
ehair and embraced him tenderly.
“Mrs. Hewet!” he said angrily, “ this is in
sufferable ! Have I not told you a hundred times
never to disturb me in the act of composition 3”
She replied in a coaxing voice, with her red
lips touching his cheek—“ Yes, my dear Henry,
&nd I’ll not offend you so again; but 1 had a fa
vor to ask.”
“A favor!” he exclaimed with a frightened
look, as if it were a word of evil omen.
“ Yes, a favor,” she repeated, stealing a kiss
from his mouth ; “you must let me have money
to buy a new diamond necklace.”
“ Impossible!”
“ That’s a vulgar term, to be found in no fash
ionable dictionaries.”
“ A proper one, in this case, at least ”
“lwi/Z have it,” said the lady; “the dia
mond necklace is a positive necessity. Next
Sunday is the great dedication. All the elila
will be there. Silks will rustle ; gems will gleam.
Would you have your wife eclipsed 1” Besides,
the bishop VS-U1 dine_with
us.”
“ Isabel, I have not. the money,” rejoined_the
husband in a deprecatory tone.
“ Get it of your father.”
“Alas! that young scape-grace, my brother
Tom, has swept him clean by his excesses.”
“ You know that you can borrow it from the
bank.”
“ My last note has not yet been taken up,”
said Henry sadly—retreating, but still fighting
his way, inch by inch.
“ Then I’ll tell you what to do,” answered the
wife, strengthening the line of her attack by an
irresistible smile, and a volley of fiery kisses:
“ write me an order for a thousand dollars to the
good colporteuse sister Bertrand.”
The husband started and writhed in his seat,
as if he had been shot with an arrow !
“ Never,” he cried, in a voice so horribly
hoarse, it seemed to be tearing open his
throat; “Never! never!”
“ Then you will not get me the money 3” Isa
bel interrogated, towering up to her full, stately
height, and fixing on him a scowling glance, dark
with the vengeance of a thousand curses.
“ I cannot?’
“It is false—you know the good colporteuse
will accept your order.
Again Hewett writhed like a worm on red-hot
coals, yet he remained silent.
The proud woman watched his agony for a
brief space, as a spider watches the contortions
of a doomed fly, and then said calmly, with a
slow, thumping accent on every syllable of every
word: —
“ If you do not, this instant take that gold pen
and write the order to the good colporteuse
for the sum I have specified—7 willy She hesi
tated, but the thought flashed dreadfully irom
her burning black eyes.
“ You will do what 3” asked the husband in
tones of mingled astonishment and derision.
She bent forward, placed her lips against his
car, and hissed through her ivory teeth, a low
whisper—something that caused him to tremble
like a leaf in the whirlwind, and turn as pale as
a shrouded corpse!
“ I was but joking, Isabel, dear,” he gasped in
terror. “ I meant all the while to get you the
money Here, you shall have the order in a mo
ment.”
And he immediately, traced the instrument
and gave it to the victorious wife, who then
floated on her silken plumes out of the apart
ment, saying as she vauished—
“ Good-bye, Henry; b e Buro to stuir plcnty of
poetry into the peroration of your sermon, for
the use of the fair moiety of your audience, the
sweet creatu, es. Ha, ha, ha !”
He heard her silver laugh ringing merrily, as
the chime of holiday bells, in the long corridor
and striking his forehead a fierce blow with his
clinched fist, he exclaimed, .in tones of bitter
irony—
, “ What angel or fiend will now deny me the
title of a happy man I Am 1 not a fashionable
preacher I Have I not a fashionable church, and
a fashionable wife 3 One whose caprices would
beggar the. coffers of a king, and whoso prying
curiosity might baffle the disguises of the devil,
and rake the very bottom of hell for perilous se
crets 3”
Having thus relieved his brain and breast
somewhat, by those emifsions of steam through
the mouth —that common vent so wisely provid
ed by nature for the escape of the hot and burn
ing gorges of the over-burdened heart. Hewet
once more applied his pen and soul to the work of
composition. He was soon fated, however, to
experience another interruption.
. The sound of a tambourine from the opposite
side of the Place vibrated on his ear. 1c was
accompanied by the shrill voice of a child, and
from the noisy plaudits and* various cries, one
might have supposed that all the young raga
muffins of New York had flocked to the perform
ance.
“Perdition take the street-singers. 1 wish
they were all hanged !” muttered the annoyed
student, as his poetic ideas scattered in total
vant, like smaller birds at the scream of the
eagle. In vain he bit his lips, sec his teeth,
knitted his brows, and shook his head. The
bright reveries of fancy had all fled before the
din of the tambourine.
Hewet was becoming furious almost to desper
ation. “ What business,” he said, “have such
vagrants in genteel neighborhoods 3 Why do
not the police confine them to the Five Points,
or at all events in the dirty streets of mechanics
and vulgar people like themselves 3” He had
even resolved to call on the police for help, when
the tambourine and the shrill voice ceased to
gether.
But then came the tones of guitar, played with
consummate, skill. The air was one of those
wild mountain melodies, of mingled fire and pa
thos, such as bring tears to the eyes of lovers,
and incline the coldest heart to love. The young
clergyman listened as if enchained by a spell.
Presently, another voice ascended, loud, clear,
sweet, soaring. This was more beautiful than a
dream. It appeared to be the blended harmony
of every species of charming music—uniting the
warble of birds, the sigh of minda, the soft mur
mur of water-falls, the wild wail of bugles, the
pure tone of harp-strings, the sharp sonorous
note of metallic wires, with the rfttwie-human
octaves of the. living lip, rising winged over all
—into one delicious something, that the heaven
fancied, was that instant dropping out of
heaven.
Hewet bounded to his feet, and flew to the
window.
The singer was a young girl of scarcely fifteen
summers. She stood in tiie centre of a miscella
neous crowd—peddlers, rag-women, chimney
sweeps, beggars, and whole troops of that very
numerous class of idle boys in every street, train
ing for the gallows. These had followed the
voice of the siren, from the squalid lanes, from
the gay thoroughfares, from tne cellars of the
thier, and the counter of the rum shop. Every
eye feasted on the beauty of her face, every ear
drank the liquid cadence of her song. Yet no
admirer cheered her. The very urchins were
silent lest they might lose a tone or semi-tone of
the enchanting strains.
Lot mo paint Kor no chc tho» oo&med to the
Itev. Henry Hewet. She had the ordinary
stature of females of her age, though she appear
ed taller from the slightness and exquisite* sym
metry.of her shape. Her fair complexion had
been tinged a little by the kisses of the sunbeam,
and changeful breathings of the mind. Her
large lustrous eyes were of a blue so deep that
at a distance, or when viewed in peculiar posi
tions with respect to light, they looked of a
beaming black. . Her hair without a hood or
even a veil, waving in rich ringlets around her
graceful shoulders, was of a color impossible to
describe it was so chameleonized by the sun,
now seeming dark as the mantle of night, and
directly shining like tassels of golden thread.
Iler countenance wore the expression of the
three signs of virginity—innocence, simplicity,
and modesty—all steeped, however, in the
shadow of gentle sadness, which lay on her face
like a pale fling of starlight.
While under the double fascination of her
voice and beauty, Hewet did not observe the
presence of a smaller girl, a child not more than
twelve. . When the syren ceased, the younger
one carried round the tambourine to collect the
pennies.
The clergyman beckoned from his window.
The singers approached, and he threw them
downs, piece on the pavement. The little girl
uttered a cry of joyful surprise, as she grasped
the coin. It was a gold eagle. The taller song
stress took it, and holding it up iu her hand, said
with a blush,
“ Good sir, you have made a mistake; this is
not copper—it is gold.”
“ Keep it,” he replied, “ and”
“ What 3” she interposed, seeing him hesi
tate.
“ Never sing in this place again,” he said in a
tremulous voice.
“ 1 will not, if it annoys you 3” was the meek
■answer.
“ Why.do you not quit your vagrant, beggar
ly profession 3” Hewetinquired sharply.
“Oh ! sir, I have no other!” rejoined the poor
girl, in a tone and with a look so unspeakably
full of sorrow and wounded pride that it might
well have moved even a devil to pity; then seiz
ing the hand of her companion, they both hurried
away from the great man’s window.
Hewet remained a short time motionless as a
form of marble. His veins tingled, his heart
thrilled, he felt his brain turning to fire. The
deepest fibre of his bosom, the inmost source and
centre of his being, seemed agitated by some
strange power, some wild emotion, sudden as
lightning and strong as madness.
“ Ought 1 not to attempt to save a creature so
beautiful and so friendless 3” he murmured. He
paced his room, then paused again ; then frown
ed at his own flushed face in the glass, and then
smiled on vacancy. He walked to the door, came
back, sat down, rose up; wavered; and then,
pulling off his dressing-gown of brilliant brocade,
donned hastily a suit of glossy black, and went
forth after tiie lovely street-singer! Will he
save her 3 or lose himself 3
CHAPTER 11.
ELLEN’S FIRST AND LAST EVENING AS A
SINGER IN NEW YORK.
It may be asked, what was Hewet’s purpose in
following the street-singer 3 Perhaps he could
not, if the fate of his soul had depended on the
response, have answered the question himself.
Perhaps he did not then conceive any distinct ob
ac°tio a u by
nation and pointed design. We do not generally
steer our course with reason at the helm, like
ships on the ocean; we are rather driven to and
fro by gusts of passion, like balloons in the
realms of air, subject to storms that come we
know not whence or why, and then cease as sud
denly, we cannot tell wherefore!
. As a mere fact of history, let it be recorded,
simply, that the fashionable preacher followed
the young songstress, instinctively, as the bee
hums to tne blossom tinctured with honey-dew,
as the child chases the butterfly with golden
wings.
lie left his own aristocratic place, and proceed
ed swiftly down a narrow street, where he had
seen her turn when she departed from beneath
his window, but for a while his search appeared
to be hopeless. Only the rattle of wheels on the
pavement, and the discordant cries of pedalers
on the side-way<s, smote his ear like the noise of
some demon-masquerade. He could catch no
echo of the tones of that angelic voice ; and he
was about to give over the pursuit in despair,
when he heard at a distance the notes of a tam
bourine. He hastened towards it, and was soon
gratified with the vision he sought. The smstller
girl was playing and singing as a sort of prelude
to the main performance, while the other kept
her eyes fixed on the ground.
-Hewet now had leisure to examine that mar
vellous apparition of beauty more critically, as
well as to note the manner of her costume, tihe
was attired in a single long robe of whits lawn,
very loose and flowing in the sleeves and skirt,
but bound closely around the waist by a belt of
parti colored silk, which was fastened on the left
side below the heart with a circular buckle of
steel, that glittered in the sun like flame, so
smooth and perfect was its polish.
She began her song again. It was a merry
roundelay. Her countenance mirrored the ex
pression of the words and of the air, looking ra
diant with the light of celestial joy; every check
glowed in the motley throng; every coarse mouth
opened to drink the streaming ecstacy. All wore
silent —only a child of three summers, a little
bright-eyed boy, with face beaming from a win
dow overhead, stretched out and clapped his rosy
hands, crying, “Angel! angel! See, mother
angel !”
“ The child is right,” thought Hewet.
. She changed the song and the air, for a mar
tial lyric; and her bosom swelled with the sweep
ing notes, rising and falling as a billow in the
storm; and her blue eye snot lightning. The
souls of the vagrant crowd went with the thought
and the melody Ragged urchins clenched their
fists, and the eyes of beggars burned for battle.
Hewet thought of his marble Napoleon in the
library.
The girl paused, and then commenced a mourn
ful ditty—a wail for despairing love. Her voice
seemed to quaver with anguish. Her cheeks
were wet with tears. Contagious tears ! for even
rag-women and courtezans wept.
“Music,” murmured the young clergvman to
himself, “is the speech of the soul —t.be only uni
versal language —nature’s eternal tongue, that
ceuld not be confounded at Babel. The mendi
cants yonder understand it as well ag the elite of
the Opera
The singers gathered their pennies, and tripped
away to got another audience, and Hewet con
tinued to follow, though far enough in the rear
to avoid observation ; and be took the precau
tion to hold up a book that, be had brought along,
feigning to read as he walked. The sun wanted
an hour of setting when he entered Grand street
Here a different description of spectators attend
ed the brhf concerts Pretty miliincrs stood in
■xhftii- .1..Q1 * vAnj.uri.d-oat,an<l.
ir the truth must be related, quite a nuifioe!' OF
the latter appeared anxious to have a word in
private wtili the t>vrcn. She repelled all such
advances mild firmness, and yet without any
tokens of anger, as if accustomed to insults of
the kind.
Within two blocks of Broadway, she was stop
ped by a portly woman in black, who thrust into
her hands a couple of pamphlets.
“Dear lady, what are these 1” asked the
singer.
“ One is picture of heaven, and the other is a
map of hell,” replied the colporteuse, in sharp,
nasal accents.
“ I do not understand you,*’ said the singer.
“ Well, then, come to No —.in Prince street,
to-morrow at ten o’clock, and I’ll explain it all
to you, and make you a fine present to boot, —
will you come 3” ’ e
“ If I can.”
“Be sure. I'll make you a rich present, re
member” And the portly woman repeated the
direction how to find her, and passed on.
At the beginning of this little interlude, Hewet
had sheered oft* to the other side of the street,
afraid of being seen and recognised by the lady
in black. In truth, he had lost color, and his
brow and lips had writhed convulsively with the
same extraordinary expressidh of hatred and
agony which had, before chat, shaken hie soul in
the library, at one moment, during the colioqnv
with his wife.
“It is the colporteuse, the Demoness Ber
trand,” he whispered ; “what can she wish of
that girl 3 If she dare”
But the remainder of the mental sentence was
too horrible for even a whisper, and he crushed
it back into the darkest place of his heart among
other mysterious secrets, that he vainly deemed
were hidden till the last day.
“I will, at least warn the lamb against the
wiles of the she-wolf,” he said to himself, as he
quickened his steps to overtake the singer.—
Hitherto, he had not addressed her, perhaps for
fear of being observed, which would disgrace the
sacred sable, or perhaps, rather as he afterwards
confessed, he felt a strange foreboding that the
event would prove a crisis of awful import in his
destiny!
He had nearly reached the side of the girl,
within fifteen paces of Broadway, whan a man
rushed by and grasped her rudely by the arm.—
She suppressed a faint cry of supprise and terror,
and remained with pallid feature and trembling
form, unresisting in the clutch of the intruder
This being who could scarcely be called hu
man, appeared to have seen full sixty winters
But his white hair, and long silver beard flowing
down to his leathern girdle, were the only vene
rable things about him derived from age. His
monstrous hooked nose, sharp, projecting chin,
small, shriveled face, and low, sloping forehead,
all combined, gave him the front-view of an ape.
but the profile of a vulture. His eyes, of asred
dish hue, were unnaturally little, and gleamed
from their deep, sunken pits, with a look at once
fierce and cold, like those of poisonous reptiles.
His shape consummated the climax of thisgrand
nated scale of ugliness; a large and hideous
hump protruded six inches above the base of his
spine, while a similar deformity was visible be
twixt his shoulders. He was lean, yet sinewey,
and moved with remarkable agility ; clothed in
a coat and pantaloons, soiled and threadbare,
without a vest, but with a shirt of dirty calico,
that seemed to have been worn a whole year
without washing; a slouched wool hat hanging
about his face, a faded, red handkerchief tied
rouuil Ills tliroat like a wisp of straw. This per
son would have been a most proper scarecrow for
mothers who had bad children.
“ What business ca n that old beggar have with
that queen of beauty 3” thought Hewet, as he
paused, astonished at the others insolent famili
arity. In the meantime the hoary-headed mon
ster whispered some orders to the singer, and
leaving her with a gesture of anger, plunged
into the human tide of Broadway.
“ What pauper goes there 3” asked a dandy
pointing at the hunchback.
“A pauper ! that’s a good joke, Wild Bill,”
replied his comrade, speaking thick from intoxi
cation.
“ Why, what do you mean, Tom 3 Is he not
a pauper, and a ragged one at that 3” Bill inter
rogated, with a sneer.
“ 1 tell you it is Louis Menotti—the prince of
pawnbrokers, and emperor of ugly fellows,” re
joined Tom, emphasising with two sneezes and
hiccoughs.
“Oh ! yss; I’ve heard of him ; he’s an original;
but whois yonder sylph, seraph, or salamander,
weeping there, with the little girl trying to con
sola her 3”
“Never saw her before,” answered Tom, reel
ing, and clinging to his friend’s arm, as a sailor
clings to the ropes in a s squall; “ suppose she’s
slid down from the moon on a rainbow. But I’ll
make her acquaintance yet, if I ever have the
honor to get sober. A thousand curses on bad
brandy ! And he gave a magnificent lurch that
proved the beverage alluded to, was bad, by
measuring his length on the pavement.
The young clergyman saw and heard all this,
andhis feelingg may be imagined, when it is re
lated that the drunken dandy was his only
brother. He had also learned a fact well fitted
to inflame his curiosity to torture. The hideous
old hunchback—he had listened for months pre
viously to marvelous rumors of his wealth —was
a miser and a millionare, and he treated the
beautiful songstress as a slave! Was she his
wile 3 Perhaps so; such a hypothesis received
confirmation irom her obvious fears and hatred.
She seemed to both tear and hate as none but a
wife could do ! Was she his daughter 3 What!
A monstrous satyr procreate a divine Venus.
Impossible. No—she certainly must be his wife.
Then, was there not danger in pursuing her 3
He had heard strange stories of old Menotti’s
strength and ferocity. But then if he returned
now, he would in all probability never behold
her again— never ; the word rang in his ear like
a death-bell. For the first time in life, he com
prehended the terrible intensity of meaning in
the term —“never,” —because for the first time
in life, ho was mad with love !
/ill these thoughts flashed through his brain
as lightnings through its cloud, as quick, as lu
rid. He hestitated: ho could not makeup his
mind to go back ; if he stood still another minute
his bacchanal brother might be up and identify
him; so ho decided to embrace the third horn of
the tmlemma, and went on after the syren.
Alas ! for the Rev. Henry Hewet!
He crossed Broadway as the sun was setting.
The singer was but a few paces before. He re
solved to keep her in view, and by all means learn
where she lived. She turned from Grand into
Greene, and from there to Church street: he
turned too. She began another concert, and
again he was a listener.
Here a new class of auditors commenced ga
thering. In addition to the usual collection of
buys null txox/iaa nf _la.dieS
that certainly were courtezans, and groups of
gentlemen that looked like thieves. The ladies
.proffered him smiles and costlier sorrows: the
genrieznrn watch
chain All, however, appearecuro vu iiwwnftud.
by the voice of the young girl. They swarmed
from the cross streets ; they rushed from the dark
alleys; they rose up from cellars that had no
floors; they descended from garrets without
windows. Germans, Irish, Americans, Africans,
mongrels—shining with gay and jewels, squalid
in foul rags ; some with red paint on their hol
low cheeks, redder murder in their fallen hearts;
others pale as ghosts, and despair in their dim
eyes, in their countenances, in their inmost
souls, everywhere. And yet all where delighted
with the wonderful music of that sweet voice,
trilling its winding notes with variations that
might have filled a nightingale with envy, and
caused a mocking-bird to forswear the profes
sion of the imitative art!
Hewet half forgot his new born love in wonder
at the singular scenes, and wicked’or unfortunate
people around him; forgot for an instant even
the strains of the syren and the syren herself, to
scan the dark side of a great social problem—the
insoluable riddle of the sphynx of all large cities.
“What!” he thought, “is it indeed possible
that such places exist out one block irom Broad
way
Ah ! did he not know that one of the richest
and most beautiful segments of that splendid
promenade was then, as it is still, circumvallated
r>y parallel streets, where crime assumes its wild
est and poverty its most painful forms 3
But the mood o£reflection passed in a moment,
and Hewet continued to follow the songstress
until dark, when the servants of the city Kindled
their pale lamps, and God from heaven hung out
his chandelier of ever burning stars.
The youthful clergyman could gel no opportu
nity to address the singer in the interval betwixt
the performances, on account of the numbers pas
sing, among whom he frequently noticed ac
quaintances. At length, however, ho was over
joyed to perceive a chance. She went and seated
herself on a flight of marble steps leading to the
door of a church. From some unknown cause,
or casual omission, no lamp had been kindled
near that point, and her figure was illuminated
only by the star-light.
Hewet approached with his heart on his lips.
Ho saw that she was weeping with her head
bowed on her hands, while her smaller compan
ion was striving to administer comfort, clasping
her neck, kissing her brow, and whispering in
her ear the possibility of hope.
“Beautiful one, can 1 aid you 3” Hewetasked,
and started at the sound of his own voice, it was
so wild with fiery, ungovernable passion.
The girl looked up, and cried “ Is that you,
oh, is it indeed you 1” in such tones of mingled
surprise and pleasure, as to make Hewet’s deep
est cord of feeling quiver with vibrations of inef
fable joy; and he was in the very act of seizing
NEW TORE, SUNDAY MORNING, JULY 14/ 1850.
ber hand, when he became sensible of a gripe as
of iron fingers on his shoulder. He turned hasti
ly, and the ferocious eyes of grey Hunchback
glared in his face like those of a demon ! Before
he had time to shout for help, a blow, such as
might have been dealt by a sledge-hammer,
lashed him, bleeding and unconscious, on the
pavement!
(To be continued.)
[Original.}
W jf&fsjSi'oHarj? SnteryrtßS,
A.T HOM ABD ABHOAXf.
A KTICLE TH IRT Y- Till R D.
1 pen.a certain occasion , jv'.v x oors ago, when
the votaries of the pseudo-charity which mani
fests itself only in such enterprises as are likely
co attract public attention and receive praise o!
mtn, had their sympathy excited towards the
poor m Greece, and thought it their duty to ex
hibit their benevolence in making provisions for
their necessities, the oekbraud John Randolph,
of Virginia, called to see one of his neighbors,
the o wner of a large plantation, and consequent
ly the possessor of a goodly number of slaves,
whose appearance gave no indication that they
were better provided for in their state of servi
tude than they should be, nor perhaps, as well
as they might be by a benevolent master or mis
tress in return for the service they rendered.
When Mr. Randolph entered his neighbor’s
mansion, he found the lady of the house, sur
rounded by her female servants, very busily em
ployed, over heaps of materials, in the manufac
ture of wearing apparel of various descriptions
Upon enquiry, ne was informed by the laay that
she was engaged in a work of charity—that deep
ly sympathizing with , the poor Greeks ia this
destitute and necessitous condition, she consider
ed it her duty to do something towards provid
ing for their wants, and therefore was prepar
ing those articles of clothing to send to them.
Mr. Randolph heard the lady’s account of her
doings, and also her remaiks upon the duty oi
exercising charity towards the destitute and suf
tering pour in lands remote, but at the time made
no reply. Shortly after, when about to take his
departure, he stepped to the door, and looking
out, saw scattered around the premises a num
ber of young negroes in a state not far removed
from nudity, and whom he thought had some
just claims to the lady’s sympathy. Calling the
lady to him, and pointing to the negroes with
his finger, he said to her, “See Madam, here
are the Greeks before you.”
To be deeply interested in the welfare of the
poor of foreign nanons -r.-Eiic th© inter
est is felt in, nor the least attention is paid to
the welfare of those at home who have strongest
claims upon the Christian’s sympathy and
benevolence, is characteristic of the Chris
tianity of the present age. There are
indeed a few professing Christians to be
found here and there, (who must be regarded
as being an exception to the general rule,) who
cake an interest in doing goouto the poor around
them ; but as a general —nay, we may say, al
most universal tiling, the professing Christian
community, both clergy and laity, feel interested
in doing good to those only who are remote from
them, and of whom they know nothing except
by hearsay; the proper objects charity and
Christian philanthropy among whom they live,
and whom it is their especial uuty, according to
the laws of Christ, to benefit by their efforts for
their improvement and elevation, being altogeth
er overlooked, despised, and even regarded with
a holy abhorrence as reprobates wholly undeserv
ing of the mercy of Heaven.
The heavenly benevolence exhibited in the
course pursued by the Great Founder oi the
Christian religion, differs materially from that
exhibited by those who in the present day pro
fess to be his followers, la no instance what
ever did he overlook, despise and neglect the
poor oi his own land, for the purpose of extend
ing his sympathy and benevolence to those in
remote regions of the earth, upon whom his
labors would be thrown away, and be produc
tive of no good. To the poor and destitute by
whom he was immediately surrounded, and whom
his eye saw, he sho wed mercy and unremittingly
did good. Nor was he deterred from mingling,
upon all suitable Occasions, with the
whom he sought to benefit by the thought of
their unwortniness and moral depravity, nor by
fear of the disgrace and reproach to which he
might be subject in consequence of his being
seen in the company of the low, degraded, and
vicious. With such he did associate, as far as
it was necessary he should do so, in order to
effect their greatest good. Indeed so accustom
ed was he to mingle with them, that he was, by
way of reproach, called by the religious comma
nity of his day, “ The friend of publicans and
sinners,” and was also reproached for not only
being seen constantly among them, but for eat
ing and drinking with them, and thus in the
opinion of the pious Jews, so far degrading and
polluting himself as to bring himself to the
level of the publicans and sinners with whom he
associated. But to their accusations he merely
replied, “ They that be whole need not a physi
cian, but they that are sick. I came not to call
the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” As
the friend and physician of the morally degraded
and spiritually sick, Jesus Christ visited and as
sociated with such, that he might heal their in
firmities and make them whole.
Individuals of a similar character to those
whom Jesus camo to call, and with whom he for
this purpose so frequently communed, are not
less numerous, nor less degraded as to their
moral condition in our own cities at this day
than were they in the land of J udea at the time
that Jesus appeared there. Those among us
equally need to be elevated from their degrada
tion, as did the publicans and sinners among the
Jews : nor is the present and future welfare of
such now among us, of less importance, nor are
their immortal spirits of less value in the sight
of Deity, than were those of the presons to whom
Jesus ministered; nor, indeed, is their salvation,
by the use of proper means, less probable. But
those who profess to be the followers and servants
of Christ, imitate not his example with reference
to such characters ; so far from doing as he did,
and as he taught them to act, they, on the con
trary, imitate the example given them by the
self-important and self-righteous religionists who
condemned the Saviour for the course he was
pursuing, and who, while they regarded with
holy indignation and abhorrence publicans and
sinners oi their own nation, and without mercy
doomed them to eternal perdition, compassed sea
and land, said the Saviour, to make one prose
lyte, and whom, when proselyted, they made
more the child of hell than he was before.
It is absurd to suppose that the religionists of
the present day are actuated by Christian prin
ciples, that is, such principles as should actuate
the true disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, in the
religious and so called philanthropic movements
by which they undertake to bring the human
family to think, and feel, and act as they do, and
thus to renovate the world. All their proceed
ings and manceuvrings show that the men who
are engaged in these professedly holy under
taking®, have no understanding of wnat truly
constitute the principles which they profess.
Abolitionists, in their fanatical movements,
would have us believe that they, in their efforts
for the slave, are actuated by the love of God,
and are guided by, the wisdom which is from
above. But who, in the possession of a rational
mind, can for a moment suppose that God can
have aught to do with proceedings so perfectly
disorderlx-anxi ©nti-Ghristian I *• The wisdom
which is from above, ' saysxim apwih, *«_i« w,
pure, then peaceable, gentle, ana easy to be en
treated, full of mercy and good fruits, without
partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the
fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them
that make peace.” The very opposite of this is
the spirit oi Abolitionism. The Abolitionists of
the North feel for the slaves of the South, just
as Christians generally feel with regard to the
unconverted heathen, who are at a sufficient dis
tance from them to create an interest in their
mind on their behalf, this distance being indis
pensable to keep up in the mind the interest
which is felt. Abolitionists who go to reside in
the south, generally become anti-abolitionists
there ; and tnoee who remain in the North, and
make so much ado about Southern slaves, care
as little for the oppression and wretchedness of
the poor in their own neighborhood as any other
men, and not unfrequentiy are themselves guilty
of a tyranny and injustice, which prove them to
be in reality no better friends of human freedom
and equal rights than the Southern slave-holders
which they so mercilessly condemn. In like
manner, Southern Christians feel an intense in
terest in the spiritual welfare of the heathen on
the African continent, and give of their substance
to send out missionaries to convert them to the
Christian faith and instruct them in its doctrines ;
while in the mean time they take not the least
interest in instructing and elevating the condition
of the same races of men which are providentially
among them, and upon whom they are wholly
dependent for all the labor performed by which
their wealth is obtained. As in the South so in
the North, the heathen which are among us, and
may be reached with but little trouble and com
paratively but a trifling expense, are regarded
by Christians, who are making the effort to con
vert the world, as altogether undeserving of their
notice, and unworthy of the attempt to teach
them the laws of God and lead them to the king
dom of heaven. If Christians were influenced
by the love of God to feel for the heathen abroad,
that love would cause them also to feel for the
equally degraded and destitute heathen at home.
ii iinnunMi
Blundering upon the Truth.—A shrewd
little fellow, who had only recently “ begun to
learn Latin,” occasionally mixed his mother
tongue with a spice of the Head language. It
thus chanced, as one day ho was reading aloud
to his master, that he astonished him by the
translation: —“Vir, a man; gin, a trap; vir
gin, a*man-trap.” “You young rogue,” ex
claimed the pedagogue, “your father has been
helping you with your lesson.”
Not For Women.—One of the most import
ant qualities is sweetness of temper. Heaven
did not give to woman insinuation and persua
sion in order to bo surly. It did not make her
weak in order to be imperious. It did not give
her a sweet voice to be employed in scolding.
AS" The following lines were written not long
ago, by a young lady friend, and sent anonymously
to an incorrigible old bachelor, whose chief attri
butes are great wealth, and an inveterate dislike of
the female sex. We have not yet heard whether
the lines had any effect towards inducing the object
of them to enter matrimony, but we wish the writer
all success in her laudable undertaking. The con
tinued variation in style, gives value to the subject
matter, and evidence of strong originality
To Mr. T.
Who art thou, speak ! that on designs unknown,
While others wed thus pass thy life alone ?”
Art thou some fiend incarnate, from below
That durst not into matrimony go?
Art the dark soul of some sinner done,
Prowling about this earth in human form,
That swore by all its blackest sins to stay
In that form single till the final day,
Only permitted here on earth to tarry
By that most fatal promise—not marry
Then, by the saints, down to the'shades below
Down, down, foul fiend, 1 bid thee, charge thee Go !
Perchance that thus thou’st trodden earth for ages,
And roamed in Greece, the land of bards and sages,
Or Egypt seen when Cleopatra shone,
Ancmovveu tnu knxtr i?vfot-htst m«*g 1 c throne.
Or meanly served ’neath Nero’s base effront’ry.
Or fed “ The Geese” who cackled for their country ;
Or sipped choice wine from Caesar’s banquet-glass,
Or doffed thy cap to let Queen Dido pass.
Perchance thou’st j oin’d in Tarquin’s warfare dread,
Or hurl’d a stone at brave Dentatus’head ;
Or “ hung entranced” on Cicero’s magic wit,
Or clapped thy hands when Roscius made a hit.
<ll this, perchance, and more too, thou hast done
Since first, thou fiend, thine earthly cruise begun ;
So hast thou ever been, thou shade of dread
Keeping that awful promise— not to wed !
Now if thou arc the spirit which I think,
I bid thee quickly to thy birth-place sink,
Down to the shades ! and should the demons dare
To bar thy entrance, “ say I sent thee there !”
But stay, I fear me I have been severe
To chide thee so, and blame thy being here,
For tho’ thou art not of the race of men,
It was a fiend my frenzy painted then.
Now memory gives me no such form of dread,
But a sad “ fallen angel” in its stead.
Poor hapless being, both of earth and heaven,
To thee the keenest pangs of love are given,
And thou art doom’d on earth to pine away
Because in Heaven thou hast gone astray.
I know, thou mortal now, but angel first,
Too well the crime for which thy life was curst,
Too well what hurled thee from a heavenly sphere.
And doom’d thee tv a sad existence here !
I know that fallen angels must not wed
And that is why my pitying tears are shed ;
Oh ! would, that while m purity they flow.
They might absolve thee of thy love and woe.
Once thou wast pure as moonbeams, e’er they light
Upon the earth, unsullied by the night,
But now a mortal’s changeful lot is thine.
And thou art doom’d in “ saddest love” to pine !
un i bpiuta that dwell in the deep blae air.
Listen to a pitying p ra y er j
’Tis not to the ocean that on proudly
Nor the boisterous storm that thunders so loudly,
Nor the bright, joyous sun that laughs in each
streamlet,
And peeps in the gloom of yon dreary cave’s inlet;
Not to these does she now in sad suppliance kneel
But to thee, “Winds of Heaven,” she sends her
appeal;
Oh I bear on your light wings, all radiant with day.
This sorrowing being in kindness away.
“ Raise him up tenderly, lift him with care,
Fashioned so slenderly, young and so fair
Then on your light wings, all radiant with day.
Bear him, oh bear him in mercy away !
Alas ! it is useless, too vainly I try
From Fancy, the charming enchantress, to fly :
Let me think, let me speak, or write what I will,
She’s lurking around and tormenting me still.
It was she, my dear sir, by whom thou wast given
First a friend from the shades, then an Angel from
Heaven ;
But now she has lied, and my heart beats with glee
To learn you are nothing but human, like me.
I pray you, gentle sir, nor think me bold,
Nor foolish either, if I should unfold
Not Hamlet’s tale, but something quite as nice—
A roll of rhymes containing good advice ;
Full well 1 know it is your aim in life,
Like other men, to find yourself a wife ;
One who would be a pattern of devotion
And idolize your every look in motion,
But very loving women now-a days,
Are only seen in poetry and plays.
Yet if you must have such, why young Gulnare,
la Byron’s poem, would suit you to a hair ;
Or Juliet, perhaps, might please you better,
If not, take Zelica—if you can get her !
“ Ah ! there’s the rub !” they all are out of reach,
And tho’ they’ve spoken, they have “made their
speech,”
And cannot act, till ordered by the poet.
••No sooner than a sheep can be a go-at.”
Then to aspire to such a spouse is shocking,
Can Juliet ••pour out tea,” or mend a stocking ?
Think you that proud Gulnare, you hopeful sinner,
Would go to market, just to get your dinner ?
Or else that Zelica, in all her beauty.
Would ever tend to common household duty ?
Of course not, sir—then pray you let them be,
Nor wish such creatures on this earth to see ;
Content your heart with virtues suiting earth,
Nor seek in mortals for an angel’s worth.
Then when you have your perfect women book’d,
You’ll find our merits have been overlook’d ;
And we that once you deem’d beneath yourself
Will rival those upon the book-case shelf.
“ Come gentle T , etherial mildness come !”
Choose one of us to cheer your lonely home ;
The faults we have will make us pardon yours,
We’ll euro the way the homoeopathic cures ;
He bids you hold burnt fingers to the fire,
When your ire’s raised, you’ll find us raised the
higher ;
Your rage will be subdued by Caudle passion,
And when you smile, then smiles will be the fashion.
So be you gay or sad, gentle or furious.
We’ll be the same, sir, “ ain’t that curious.”
Sweet Sixteen.
LAW IN CALIFORNIA.
From a new work entitled “ Six Months in
the Gold Mine*, from the Journal of Three
Years* Residence in Upper and Lower Califor
nia—lß47-8-9,” by E. Gould Buffum, we ex
tract the following incident, showing the manner
in which rogues are dealt with in that golden
region:—
“A scene occurred about this time, that ex
hibits in a striking light, the summary manner
in which ‘justice’ is dispensed in a community
where there are no legal tribunals. We received
a report on tbe afternoon of January 20th, that
five men had been arrested at the dry diggings,
and were under trial for a robbery. The circum
stances were these: —
A Mexican gambler, named Lopez, having in
in his possession a large amount of money, re
tired to his room at night, and was surprised
about midnight, by five men rushing into his
apartment, one of whom applied a pistol to his
head, while the others barrod the door and pro
ceeded to rifle his trunk. An alarm being given,
some of the citizens rushed in and arrested the
whole party. Next day they were tried by a
jury chosen from among the citizns, and senten
ced to receive thirty-nine lashes each, on the fol
lowing morning.
Never having witnessed a punishment inflict
ed by Lynch-law, I went over to the dry dig
gings on a clear Sunday morning, and on my ar
rival, found a large crowd collected around an
oak tree, to which was lashed a man with a bared
back, while another was applying a raw cow
hide to his already gored flesh. A guard of a
dozen men, with loaded rifles pointed at the pri
soners, stood ready to fire, in case of an attempt
being made to escape. After the whole had been
flogged, some fresh charges were preferred against
three of thp same men —two Frenchmen, named
Garcia and.Bissi, and a Chileno, named Manuel.
These wore charged with a robbery and attempt
to murder, on the Stanislaus river, during the
previous fall.
The unhappy men were removed to a neigh
boring house, and being so weak from their pun
ishment as to be unable to eland, were laid
stretched upon the floor. As it was not possible
for them to attend, they were tried in the open
air, in their absence, by a crowd of some two
hundred men, who had organized themselves into
a j ury, and appointed a pro tempore j udgo. The
charges against them were well substantiated,
but amounted to nothing more than an attempt
at robbery and murder ; no overt act being even
alleged. They were known to be bad men, how
ever, and a general sentiment seemed to prevail
in the crowd that they ought to got rid of.
At tho close of the trial, which lasted some
thirty minutes, the Judge put to vote tho ques
tion whether they had been proved guilty. A
universal affirmative was tho response ; and then
the question, “ What punishment shall be in
flicted I” was asked. A brutal-looking fellow in
the crowd cried out, “Hang them.” The pro
position was seconded, and met with almost uni
versal approbation.
1 mounted a stump, and in the name of God,
humanity, and law, protested against such a
course of proceeding; but the crowd, by this
time, excited by frequent and deep potations of
liquor from a neighboring groggery, would listen
to nothing contrary to their brutal desires, a,nd
even threatened to hang me if I did not immedi
ately desist from any further remarks. Some
what fearful that such might be my fate, and
seeing the utter uselessness of further argument
with them, I ceased, and prepared to witness the
horrible tragedy.
Thirty minutes only were allowed tho unhappy
victims to prepare themselves to enter on the
scenes of eternity. Three ropes were procured,
and attached to the limb of a tree. The prison
ers were marched out, placed upon a. wagon, and
the ropes put round their necks. No time was
given them for explanation. They vainly tried
to speak, but none of them understanding Eng
lish, they were obliged to employ their native
tongues, which but few of those assembled un
derstood. Vainly they called for an interpreter,
for their cries were drowned by the yells of a
now infuriated mob.
A black handkerchief was bound around tho
eyes of each; their arms were pinioned, and at a
given signal, without priest or prayer-book, the
wagon was drawn from under them, and they
were launched into eternity ! Their graves were
dug ready to receive them, and when life was en
tirely extinct, they were cut down and buried in
their blankets. This was the first execution I
ever witnessed. God grant that it may be the
last.”
Invitation to Tea. —•• Mother sent me,” said
a little girl to a neighbor, “ to ask you to come
and take tea with her this evening.”
“ Did she say at what time, my dear 1”
“ No, ma’am; she only said she would ask
you, and then the thing would be off her mind ;
that was all she said I”
[Original.]
©ij£inic«l glfftnities.
THEIR EFFECTS.—OUR IGNORANCE OF
CAUSES.—ALCOHOL VS. NATURE. _
BY A PHYSICIAN.
Nature, in nothing, exhibits a disposition to
have everything peremptorily in her own way,
more than in some of the chemical affinities and
repulsions. In mathematics, if two quantities
are respectively equal to a third, they are equal
to each other. Not so with chemical sympa
thies. Water and any one of the volatile oils,
will individually unite freely with Alcohol; but
when placed in contact, are, themselves, mutu
ally repelled. The same is true of water and
one of the fixed oils, on one side, and potash on
the other. In this case, if the two former be
mixed simultaneously with the potash, their
antipathies are reconciled, and all three of them
afterwards maintain amicable relations. Other
curious freaks in the way of partialities, likes
and dislikes, are of common occurrence. Aqua
fortis corrodes iron with great avidity, but is per
fectly Indifferent towards glass, though no one
cnuld have judged, a priori, which of the tv/o
would be its favorite. Iron, too, has such an
affinity for the oxygen of the atmosphere, that
it oxides, or rusts, in the open air, at common
temperatures, while gold attracts oxygen so feeb
ly, that it may be kept a hundred years without
undergoing change in this way.
A change of temperature is a frequent result
of chemical combination. If a pint of alcohol,
and a pint of water, each at sixty degrees,
Fahrenheit, be at once compounded, rhe tempe
rature of the mixture will be found to be sensi
bly elevated, as indicated by the thermometer.
Sulphuric-acid and water, rapidly combined,
evolve heat, almost to the boiling point; and
nitric acid and oil of turpentine are heated to
combustion by this process, though both were
previously cold. In these cases, the compounds
are found to measure less in volume than the
parts before mixture, and it is this diminished
bulk, of which the exalted temperature is the
immediate consequence.
A change of color also, sometimes happens
Tartaric acid and carbonate of soda, are both
white ; yet the former will change a vegetable
blue to red; the latter, to green. Take two
ounces of lime-water, in a vial, and put into it
four or five grains of corrosive sublimate, a white
powder, and when shaken, it will appear a rich,
beautiful yellow. If calomel be used instead of
corrosive sublimate, the color will be black. To
a solution of sulphate of copper, (blue vitriol) in
a clear glass bottle, and a little ammonia, (harts
horn) and the color will be pale green. If more
ammonia be added, it will be a very splendid
purple.
A striking modification of other properties of
matter, besides color, often follow chemical
union. Oxygen and nitrogen »ro both colorless,
tasteless, inodorus gases. In a state oi mixture,
in the proportion of eight of the former to 28
of the latter, by weigh, they constitute atmos
pheric air—a bland insipid, elastic, invisible
fluid, indispensable to the organized beings.—
But if we combine these gases cnemlcally, in the
relation of forty parts of oxygen to fourteen
of nitrogen, we have nitric acid, or aqua fortis,
which, either in a dry, or liquid state, is a dead
ly poison to all animals, from the highest to the
lowest. Again, if oxygen be united with sul
phur in fixeu proportions, sulphuric acid, or oil of
vitrol is produced, which is also an intensely
sour, and corrosive poison. United with caustic
lime, however, this same oil of vitrol forms sul
phate of lime, (plaster of Paris) a tasteless and
inert substance, well known in agriculture and
the arts. But one of the most surprising facts
in the range of chemical phenomena,—and in
which that respectable old name, Nature, expos
es her caprices with great freedom—is to be seen
in the contrast, sometimes extreme, between
bodies formed from exactly the same elements,
with a difference only, and often inconsiderable,
in Was proportions of these, in each case. These
contrasts are most common in vegetable pro
ducts, though occasionally to be met with among
the minerals. According to some chemists, olive
oil has sixty parts of caroon, eleven of hydrogen
and eight of oxygen, in every seventy-nine parts
by weight; while camphor differs from it in
chemical constitution, in having only nine parts
of hydrogen, with sixty of carbun, and eight of
oxygen, in seventy-seven parts by weight. The
onion has the same constituents, if we except
their relative weights, as the apple; jalap the
same as an orange, and aloes the same as sugar.
Asafetida, with the like exception, does not dif
fer in this respect from the lilac, or the rose; and
kindred examples might be adduced, indefinitely.
It is deserving of remark that the resources of
art are more circumscribed in vegetable, than in
mineral chemistry. Epsom salt, gypsum, com
mon salt, and many other minerals "found in a
native state, are formed also by bringing their
elements together artificially. But though the
proximate vegetable principles, as the gums,
oils, tannin, starch, gluten, honey, &c., may be
resolved, by analysis, into their ultimate consti
tuents, yet this cannot, by any process of the
chemist, be re-combined, so as to produce these
products again, as we obtain them from plants.
By no importunity has this secret yet been extort
ed from nature’s laboratory. And in respect to
the true mode in which any of the occult causes
of chemical phenomena so act, as to produce
those changes of volume, temperature, color,
form and other properties of matter, resulting,
as wo say, from chemical affinity, we are—as we
always have been, and undoubtedly always shall
be—. profoundly ignorant. W e see that carbonic
acid, a gas, in forming a union with lime, be
comes a solid. But what are the ultimate pro
cesses concerned in such a result, or whether
there would be one, or many second, causes,
operating consecutively before we should arrive
at & final cause, we can no more demonstrate,
than we can number the hours of eternity. Our
faculties adapt us to obsevvQfacts. Beyond this,
speculation is fruitless. The admonition is, “be
silent and adore.”
Before concluding, wo will suggest a thought
respecting alcohol. Many persons are in the
habit of asserting, as if it were beyond contra
diction, that it exists in nature, in the grains
and roots —concluding so, doubtless, because they
see, that when these uro subjected to particular
treatment, it can be obtained from them. It is
true, that the elements of alcohol are abundant
in both the vegetable and animal kingdoms;
but these must first combine in exact alcoholic
proportions, or they are not alcohol, nor necessa
rily anything possessing its qualities, in the re-.
motest degree. It is now believed that no sub
stances are capable of yielding this powerful
stimulant, except such as contain sugar; and
these, only, as a result of fermnetation. Dur
ing this process, the saccharine principle under
goes important chemical changes, and is in fact
completely lost, while its equivalent, in weight,
re-appears, in the form, separately, of carbonic
acid, and alcohol — the former escaping by effer
vescence, and the latter remaining, to be sepa
rated and purified by distillation. Alcohol has
no being a moment anterior to this new arrange
ment ; but is created, by a law of chemical at
traction, at the instant in which it happens.
But the vinous fermentation, is as much one of
the arts, as the manufacture of calomel, or gun
powder. Instead, then, of having been bestow
ed by the “giver of every good and perfect gift,”
it is in trutn, but one of the “ many inventions”
which man himself “ has sought out.” We do
not mean to admit, however, directly, or by im
plication, that even could it be proved to be a
native ingredient, in the grains, or the grape, its
use, as a beverage, should, for that reason, be
commended. Should we do so, some subsequent
link in the concatenation, might require us to
adopt fox-glove, night shade, and other poison
ous plants, among vur culinary stores. Nor do
we assert that it is, of necessity, to be proscribed,
because it is of human parentage. Such an ar
gument, too, might prove too much, and there
tore nothing. It might enlighten us in the dis
covery that our dwellings, our apparel, and our
labor-saving contrivances are all held by unlavz
ful tenure. We simply wish to say that nature
creates neither alcohol, nor the appetite for it;
but that both are of our own procuring. In that
character, then, let both be treated. We object
to any sophism, or assumption, which shall pre
judice our claims to the and merit of ori
ginal discovery. We grant that alcohol and its
train of effects, are deserving of such praise, or
execration, as, by any special, but fair pleading,
they may make good their title to. But “ let
no man say, when he is tempted, I am tempted
of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil,
neither tempteth He any man.”
The Turk.—Although of a grave, phlegma
tic, and even a listless exterior, the Turk is re
markable for his gentleness towards his children,
and he makes no differences between them and
his slaves or other servants. In addition to alms
to the widow and the orphan, his generosity is
frequently exercised in constructing mosques,
khans, and fountains; trees and burial-grounds
arc his delight; and horses, dogs, cats, and pi
geons, share in his consideration : scarcely any
where else are birds so tame, and so much linked
with mankind as they are in Turkey; even chil
dren respect their nests, and it is not by any
means uncommon to find tombstones, on which,
in addition to the sculptured devices indicating
the vocation, and sometimes also, the manner or
the death of the deceased, a little basin has been
hollowed out by the workmen, in which the
smaller birds find a supply of water. These
tombstones arc usually beneath the shade of a
cypress tree or a rose-bush.
hi summing up the character, it may here be
observed that, in truth, openness and candor,
contentment and entire resignation to his lot,
are qualities seldom denied by any one to the
Turk; his memory is extraordinary, and his
judgment is generally sound, while the safety of
travellers, as well as the attention commonly
paid to them, sufficiently proves his fidelity and
Hospitality. Religion, such as it is, being found
ed on the Khorao, pervades almost every act of
his life, and mixes with every conception. Fre
quent prayer is universally practised, whether
tne individual is in the bath, the field, the coffee
house, or the mosque ; and, as alms are freely
bestowed, abject poverty may be said to be
scarcely known in th£ co untry.— Glimpses of the
East.
True Enough.—lf a man were to sot out call
ing every thing by its right name, he would be
knocked down before he got to the corner of the
next street.
A HORRIBLE ADVENTURE.
Fortunately tho horrible profession, of which
this adventure gives a slight picture, has nearly
ceased to exist. At least we hope this is the
case, and yet there are numbers of people who
mysteriously disappear from our midst and are
heard of no more. Whether any of them pass
through similar torture with tho writer of this
sketch must also remain a mystery until some
one like himself, is spared to tell the terri
ble story:
On a dark and dismal November evening in
1830, it was my chance to be journeying through
the neighboring county. My travelling was far
from pleasant or agreeable; and I urged my
wearied steed to greater quickness, in order to
reach the end of my day’s excursion. Tho deep
and sombre fog, however, which obscured every
part of the scene, prevented my progress from
being anything like rapid ; and the cold, inhos
pitable night began to set in long ere I could
reach tho desired goal. On a sudden I was sur
rounded by a party of disguised ruffians; and
though I tried by every possible promise to avert
their supposed intentions, it was of no avail.
My arms were quickly pinioned behind my back,
and no answer returned to my continued and
agitated questions, save a brutal, “Hold your
tongue, and be damned to you, and come along
with us to a good homo.”
My imagination was on the rack to know for
what reason I was dragged away by these ruffians.
If it was their intent to murder and rob mo, why
not effect their purposes where we met, and not
run the risk of detection by proceeding further I
All my thoughts, however, were of no comfort;
imaginary terrors of an awful kind vaguely ha
rassed my mind ; and though I gave myself up
for lost, yet still these terrors and agonizing
doubts as to what manner of misery 1 was re
served for, prevented my mind from any prepara
tion for the awful end. The most dogged silence,
interrupted only by an occasional curse, was pre
served by my conductors ; and my situation in
every respect was truly agonizing. Having
crossed a dreary common, and entered a gloomy
forest, the ruffians now dismounted, and, remov
ing me from my horse, led me on foot for a dis
tance through the thickly-matted copse. At
length we stopped; the door of a rude hut was
opened; and, on entering, a trap in tho floor,
most artfully concealed, was raised by the light
of a torch, which had been prepared by one of the
band. This showed me a long ladder, by which
I was made to descend, while my ears were as
sailed and my senses almost overpowered by tbe
dismal groans which ascended from the infernal
dungeon I was about to enter. On entering, I
observed numbers of poor wretches firmly fasten
ed, and left seemingly to starve in it. 1 was also
fastened, so as to prevent all possibility of exert
ing Liio least strength toescape. The ruffians
left me, the trap fell heavily, and all was dark
ness and horror.
None knew why or for what purpose this im
prisonment was made —no noise was suffered—the
least was followed by instant death; —but it
seemed the villains had dropped some hints of all
being released that night. O, God I what a bit
ter disappointment. Hours passed away, and
again the secret door opened- another victim
was added to the number. “Is it time, Jack
exclaimed one of the gang to an associate.
“ Yes,” replied another; and each of the four
drew a rope, with a noose, from beneath his vest.
My heart sickened, my eyes grew dim, and all
consciousness left me for a few moments. One
of the wretches approached me; he applied his
rope to the neck of the next miserable being—
pulled it—a fearful scream—a starting of the
eyes from their sockets —a gush of blood from
nose, eyes, and mouth—a hollow gurgling in the
threat —all was over with many of my com
panions in misery. “This will not do,” said
one of the murderous fiends, coolly, after dis
patching several victims: “ too much noise for
our safety, and too many marks ; our friends the
doctors will not like such black faces. 1 will try
another method;” —and saying these words, they
washed the blood off their butchered victims,
stripped them naked, and bore the bodies out of
tbe cavern. All was now apparent; we were to
be murdered for the awful traffic of the dissect
ing room. Home, kindred, friends, all rushed
confusedly into my mind. Long, weary hours,
—nay, days passed away, famine and thoughts
drove us to distraction; all was of no avail, there
was no relief. What pen can describe, what
heart can imagine, the agonies of that situation!
The door opened, and the murderers entered
for more victims; they came to mock us; food
was administered to us ; ravenous as wolves, it
was devoured greedily ; the well-filled cup was
applied to our lips and drained with rapacity. I
neither saw, thought, or felt more ; —a heavy
drowsiness overwhelmed me, and 1 sunk seeming
ly into tho deep lethargy of death.
I felt a sharp and severe pain,—l breathed and
sighed heavily ; something was administered to
my lips; it restored animation, and alter a long
time, mo also to consciousness. I opened my
eyes slowly, but could not believe what 1 saw;
the cavern, the prisoners, and the murderers were
gone. I was cold and naked, in a lofty room, at
tended by two or three genteel persons, who
viewed me with great anxiety; I threw my hand
around—it recoiled from the clammy touch of a
corpse —I was in a surgeon’s dissecting room;
tho cup I had drank had not been sufficiently
spiced,—the incision of the knife had recalled
life.
All my efforts to trace the haunts of the villains
who thus kidnap hundreds, and sell them to the
(perhaps) unconscious doctors, have failed ; and
1 can only thank the Almighty that 1 have es
caped their clutches.
A HUT FOR ABOLITIONISTS.
Orestes A. Brownson, in the July number of his
Magazine, published in Boston, goes into a thor
ough examination of the slavery question.
Among others, tho Hon. Horace Mann, Wendell
PkUlijML-Senator Seward, and the abolitionists
generally receive at iiis-handa a comfortable stir
ring up “with a sharp stick.” Wo make a few
extracts, for the benefit of our readers
“Mr. Wendell Phillips’ Review of Mr. Web
ster’s Speech we have not done ourselves the
honor to read. Mr Phillips is himself a man of
very respectable talents and attainments, —& man
abundantly able to distinguish himself without
resorting to eccentricity of movement, or wild
and savage fanaticism of conduct, —and is there
fore utterly inexcusable for taking the course he
does. Wo have introduced his pamphlet, pub
lished by the American Anti-slavery Society,
solely as an occasion to assure that society and
its friends, that we make it a point of conscience
never to read any of its publications, and to re
quest it and them to spare themselves the trouble
of sending us any Abolition publication what
ever. We know*already all we wish to know of
the Abolitionists, and we should be sorry to be
compelled to think more unfavorably of them
than we now do. They are a class of persons
who do not improve upon acquaintance, and wo
learned enough of them in iormer years to be
certain that the less we know of them, the higher
shall we esteem them.
“ Mr. Webster is far more strongly opposed to
domestic slavery than we are, and he has never,
during his whole public life, failed to do all in
his power to prevent its further extension. Wc
know no man in the country more strongly op
posed to slavery, or who would go farther, within
the limits of the Constitution, to repress and even
abolish it. But he is no fanatic, no revolution
ist, no mad philanthropist, who, in pursuit of a
particular good, is ready to trample down by the
way a thousandfold more good than he can pos
sibly gain in gaining the particular end he seeks.
He is a statesman, a moralist, and holds that he
has no right to trample on the Constitution he
has sworn to support, or to prove faithless to the
solemn engagements he has formed under it. As
a senator, he holds it his paramount duty to bo
loyal to the Union, and faithful to the Constitu
tion. He is not the man to hold office under a
constitution, to swear to support it, and, like
the radical Senator from New York, to deny its
binding force, and claim tho right to violate it as
often as it may fail to correspond to his private
opinion, private caprice, or personal ambition.
He is far enough behind the age, far enough be
hind the Hon. William 11. Seward, to hold that
law is sacred, and the Constitution inviolable.
This may bo unfavorable to his popularity with
mere radical politicians, and may down
upon him the censures of the New York Tribune,
the organ of tho American Socialists, and of the
Boston Atlas, the organ of the men, as John
Randolph termed them, of “seven principles,—
five loaves and two fishes ;” but we dare main
tain that it is honorable to him as a statesman,
and we doubt not will secure him the warm ap
probation of the majority of the American peo
ple, certainly of all whose approbation it would
not be discreditable to have.”
“ The whole difficulty on the subject of slavery
grows out of the fact that tho Anti slavery party
really denies ihe> obligation of all constitutions
and laws. It professes to appeal from the state
to the law of humanity, or the law of God, for
God andhumyiity are for it identical. Mr. Sew
ard appeals to the Bible, and professes to find
there a law of God which forbids him to do what
he is required to do by the Constitution. The
law of God is paramount to the Constitution;
we must obey God rather than man. And there
fore he concludes that he is justifiable in refusing
to perform that duty. If this be so, he is bound
to resign his seat in the Senate ; for, according
to him, the Constitution conflicts with the law of
God. No man can lawfully hold office under,
and swear to support, a constitution that is re
pugnant to the law of God.
“ The greatest evil in any country just now,
after the frightful infidelity so prevalent, is fa
naticism, which goes by the name of philanthro
py, and our grand error has been in indulging
it till it has become nearly unmanageable. In
no State in the Union, wo are sorry to say, is
this moral pestilence more rife than in this an
cient Commonwealth. It infects our whole socie
ty, and turns a large portion of our citizens into
madmen. It destroys our judgments, our moral
life, and is fast bringing us into a bondage to
which Southern slavery is freedom. It rages in
the legislature and in the halls of justice, and
spits its venom from sectarian pulpit and press
The well-disposed are overawed, the sober-mind
ed are browbeaten into silence, and even the
bravo well nigh quail before it. Something must
bo done to stay it, or all that is dear and sacred
Ito Christians and freemen is gone. Not a few of
| those who see and deplore the evil are guilty of
a shameful cowardice in regard to it. the
honest, sober and sensible portion of the commu
nity resist it boldly, denounce it, and give it no
quarter, not even a hearing, and it would soon
cease to exist. But we have not dared to do
this. We have tampered with it, we have court
ed it, hoping to turn it_ to the advantage of our
sect or our party. It is high time to put and end
to this worse than folly, aud to speak and act
like high-minded and moral men. Most happy
are we that Mr. Webster, from his place in the
Senate of the United States, has set us an ex
ample worthy of imitation, and we hope that his
timely word will rouse our courage, and inspire
us with resolution to shake off the tyranny of fa
naticism.”
MAN MIDWIFSRY.
We have been favored with the following ex
tract from a letter to a physician in this city,
written by a lady in the West, distinguished
alike L - her practical good sense and her lite
rary acquirements—an ornament to her sox and
country. The subject .of which she writes is be
ginning to attract attention, and her views are
of importance. There are no doubt thousands
of married women who will endorse what this
lady says:—
“And here I must say there is more imposition
practiced in the form of midwifery, than under
any other pretence in the world. Not in one
case of a hundred, is the presence of a midwife
necessary, except to dress the child. I have al
ways abhored the idea of male midwifery as a
most outrageous and barbarous indecency, sc
gross that no daughter of nature will submit to
it. The savage woraan could not be forced to
such indelicacy. There is no necessity for such
attendance. Any interference with the opera
tions of nature, in such cases, cannot fail to be
injurious. If the child can be excluded, nature
will effect her end, and without lacerating and
destroying the mother, as midwifery does nut
unfrequently. 1 have been present at eighty
three accouchments, where there was no doctor,
or professed midwife ; and in every case, except
when premature, the child lived, and in overv ;
case the mother recovered, rapidly and entirely
Of all these children not one died under four
years old, and except mine who died of typhus
or black-tongue, a few years ago, and two who
met accidental deaths, they are now all living.
I know as many as twelve women, who have had
from twelve to sixteen children, not one of which
(children) died in early childhood, and the mo
thers are halo and lively as girls, but they were
not attended by doctors, and drenched with phy
sic as soon as they were delivered. Permit rue
f.n sin-y, sir, that, t.ha almnaf. of-
giving physic in these cases, is iu my opinion, a
most ruinous mistake. The woman should be
kept on light food, and nature will effect a pas
sage, about the fourth day, which will be attend
ed with chills and pains, but she will be far bet
ter than if the efforts of nature to rally and re
sume her wonted arrangements and operations,
be interferred with, and prevented by the action
o’f cathartic medicine. I know that ic frequently
causes the evils it is intended to obviate. Since
we have had doctors amongst us, I have seen wo
men die, I verily believe, in consequence of taking
violent aperients. 1 never knew one die who
took none. 1 have four children; I had three oi
them with no person present in the room, and il
I was to have a dozen, I would be alone etery
time, though I would have women in the home.”
A BRIDGE OF MONKEYS.
The following curious incident is related by
Capt. Reid, in his “Adventures in Southern
Mexico.' 1 This is the most novel way of erect
ing a Suspension Bridge, ever invented, and we
think the Mexican Monkeys are entitled to the
patent:—
“ They are coming towards the bridge ; they
will most likely cross by the rocks yonder,” ob
served Raoul.
“ How—swim it 3” 1 asked. “Itis a torrent
there!”
“ Oh, no ! answered the Frenchman; “mon
keys would rather go into fire than water. If
they cannot leap the stream, they will bridge
it.”
“ Bridge it! and how 3”
“ Stop a moment, Captain—you shall see.”
The half human voices now sounded nearer,
and we could perceive that the animals were
approaching the spot where we lay. Presently
they appeared on the opposite bank, headed by
an old grey chieftain, and officered like so many
soldiers. They were, as Raoul stated, of the
comadreja or ring-tailed tribe.
One —an aid-de-camp, or chief pioneer, perhaps
—ran out upon a projecting rock, and, after
looking across the stream, as if calculating the
distance, scampered back, and appeared to com
municate with the leader. This produced a
movement in the troop. Commands were issued,
and fatigue parties were detailed, and marched
to the front. Meanwhile several of the comadre
jas—engineers no doubt—ran alongthe bank, ex
amining the trees on both sides of the arroyo.
At length they all collected around a tall cot
ton-wool, that grew over the narrowest part of
the stream, ana 20 or 30 of them scampered up
its trunk. On reaching a high point, the fore
most —a strong fellow ran out upon a limb, and
tabing several turns of his tail around it, slipped
off, and hung head downwards. The next on
the limb also a stout one, climbed down the body
of the first, and whipping his tail round the neck
and arm of the latter, dropped off in his turn
and hung head down. The third repeated this
manoeuvre upon the second, and the fourth upon
the third, and so on, until the last one upon the
string rested his forepaws upon the ground.
The living chain now commenced swinging
backwards and forwards, like the pendulum of
a clock. The motion was slight at first, but
gradually increased, the lowermost monkey
striking his hands violently on the earth as he
passed the tangent of the oscillating curve.
Several others upon the limbs above aided the
movement.
This uontinued-tmULiha monkey at the end of
the chain was thrown among theofSumeu—vf—.
tree on the opposite bank. Here, after two or
three vibrations, he clutched a limb, and held
fast. This movement was executed adroitly,
just at the caluuiinating point of the oscillation,
m order to save the intermediate links from the
violence of a too sudden jerk !
The chain was now fast at both ends, forming
a complete suspension bridge, over which the
whole troop, to the number of four or five hun
dred passed with the rapidity of thought.
It was one of the most comical sights I ever
behold, to witness the quizzical expression of
countenances along that living chain !
The troop was now on the other side, but how
were the animals forming the bridge to get them
selves over 3 This was the question that sug
gested itself. Manifestly, by number one letting
go his tail. But then point d’appui on the
the other side was much lower down, and number
one with half-a-dozen of his neighbors, would be
dashed against the opposite bank, or soused into
the water.
Here, then, was a problem, and we waited
with some curiosity for its solution. It was soon
solved. A monkey was now seen attaching his
tail to the lowest on the bridge, another girded
him in a similar manner, and another, ana so on
until a dozen more were added to the string.—
These last were all powerful fellows; and run
ning up to a high limb, they lifted the bridge
into a position almost horizontal.
Then a scream from the last monkey of the
new formation warned the tail end that all was
ready; and the next moment the whole chain
was swung over, and landed safely on the oppo
site bank. The lowermost links now dropped off
like a molting candle, while the higher ones
leaped to the branches and came down by the
trunk. The whole troop then scampered off into
the chapparal and disappeared!
A Boy or Girl. —We copy the following novel
method of deciding the sex of an infant, before it
makes it debut into this noisy world of curs,
from a correspondent of an English paper. It
will no doubt be of interest to all newly married
people:
“An old lady of the village (Denbighshire)
who was strongly attached to the family, asked
permission to uso a harmless charm to learn if
the expected infant would be male or female.
Accordingly, she joined the servants at their sup
per, where she assisted in clearing a shoulder of
mutton of every particle of meat. She then held
the blade-bone to the fire until it was scorched,
so as to permit her to force her thumbs through
the thin part. Through the holes thus made she
passed a string, and, having knotted the ends to
gether, she drove in a nail over the back door,
and then left the house, giving strict injunctions
to the servants to hang the bone up in that place
the last thing at night. Then they were care
fully to observe who should first enter that door
on the following morning, exclusive of the mem
bers of the household, and the sjs of the child
would be that of the first comer. This rather
vexed some of the servants, who wished for a
boy, as two or three women came regularly each
morning to the house, and a man was scarcely
ever seen there ; but, to their delight, the first
comer on this occasion proved to be a man, and
in a few weeks the old woman’s reputation was
established throughout the neighborhood by the
birth of a boy.”
jj®’ A young lady thus writes anonymously in
the columns ot an Irish paper
“ For my own part, I confess that the desire of
my heart and my constant prayer is, that 1 may
be blessed with a good and affectionate husband,
and that 1 may be a good and affectionate wife
and mother. Should Ibe denied this, 1 hope for
grace to resign myself—but 1 fear it will be a
hard trial to me.”
An old farmer, who had, dropped into a
book store to see what he could discover in a lit
erary way, after looking round for some time,
finally discovered a volume, which was labelled
on the back in gilt letters thus: “ on the
Horse— Skinner ” He took down the volume
and walked up to the bookseller, and asked,
“ Mister, what do you ax for the ‘ Horse-Skin-
Her* Book!”
VOLUMB S.— NUMBER 33
? PRICE THREE
STfet ISiesft m e iJarsgray??.
. A. man named C. Pinckney Henson, an Eng
lish schoolmaster, under 30 years of ago, has
been arrested in Thomas County, Ga., for tho
murder of R obert A. Pearce, a respectable plant
er, who had befriended him, and with whom ha
boarded when Mr. P. died suddenly in March
last. Henson then removed to another board
ing-house, but continued to visit Mrs Pearce,
the widow, who is but 13 years old, although she
has three children. It being rumored that she
and Henson intended to be married, her friends
sought to defeat it, and succeeded in inducing
her to give him a negative answer—whereupon
he became furious, declared that ho had poisoned
her husband to obtain her, and that no one else
should ever possess her. Seeming to comply,
Mrs. P. soon after lodged a complaint against
Henson, and ho was indicted for the murder. In
his trunk were found several love letters from her,
and the prisoner has confessed the crime, hut im
plicates her as an accomplice, and says he bought
the arsenic with which Mr. Pearce was destroy
ed for the purpose of killing a negro boy who
had witnessed liis_ improper familiarities with
Mrs. P. Henson is a good scholar and orator,
and had been selected by tho Sons of Temper
ance, of which body ho was a member, to deliver
a J ourth of July oration. He avows that he de
sires to live only that he may revenge himself on
the woman. She is very respectably connected.
Depredations upon the mails have been of
more frequent occurrence during the last few
months than we have ever known them to be be
fore, and wo would also state that we believe in
almost every case the rogue has been detected
and punished. Tn the United States District
Court, now in Session at Williamsport, Pa., a
young man named George Baldwin, late Post
master at Great Band, Susquehannah County,
was convicted of embezzling letters containing
money from the U. S. Mail, and sentenced to ten
years imprisonment in the Western Penitentiary.
His defence was insanity. A sort of Galphinic
affection, we suppose. Charles M. Gearhart,
formerly a clerk in the post office at Danville,
Pa., was also convicted by the same Court of pur
loining money from the mails, and sentenced to
ten years imprisonment—tho shortest term pre
scribed by law. Gearhart made a desperate ef
fort to implicate Mr. Shoop, the postmaster at
Danville, in the transaction, but failed entirely.
At Albany, N. Y., a young man named Rufus
B. Pemberton, formerly employed in the post
office in that city, was detected on Monday last
in purloining a package of letters from the New
x ork mail bag, and was almost immediately ar
rested by Mr. McLaughlin, Deputy Postmaster,
who was on the watch at the time. There has
been a large amount of money lost on this route
daring the past year. Pemberton inndieafe.d-w—
--.r mio, wim'himself, are
now in prison. In the case of Jonathan Gib-
bons Mills, convicted some months ago lor seduc
ing three sisters, tho Supreme Court of Pennsyl
vania have reversed the decision of the lower
court, and ordered a new trial; for the edification
of public morals, wo suppose, by the rehearsing
of all the details of tho disgraceful affair. A
British officer named Elliot, who recently made
a journey in the interior of Western Australia
has discovered a race of cannibals who devour
dead bodies, whether of friends or foes. The ago
or fox of tho corpse is no obstacle to their horri
hie appetites, and the heart of the deceased is al
ways awarded to tho mother, under the idea that
its digestion tends to assuage her griefTha
amount of money coined in the New Orleans
• , S : M' nt during the last month
is $1,200,000. Of this $193,000 wore coined into
hal , f s 7 >°oo in dimes, SIOO,OOO in eagles,
and $7115 000 in double eagles. The receipt of
on * lon the same time amounted to
20,000 ounces. The Receivers of the New
Hope ana Delaware Bridge Company give notica
to the creaitors of that Bank, to present their
Ciaims before the 24th day of December next. Tf
they are net presented by that time, they will ba
debarred from all dividends that may be declar
. “ Elbridge E. Eastman, formerly a printer
yoncord, N. H., and the publisher of the Abo
litionist, the first abolition paper ever iyublishe<i~~ *
in that State, was chief Secretary the late
Convention at Nashville. He had graduated by
passing through a clerkship in Washington-
Hon. Thomas Fennon, one of the State Senators
of Pennsylvania, on the 9th inst. happened to
meet Mr. Andrew Miller, Esq., President of the
Moyamensing Commissioners, in the streets of
L’hiladalphiri., n.n/1 ac a naU r r. -i-nrviAs
of the papers that morning reflecting on the Sen
ator, which he attributed to Mr. Milkly ha
“ ■walked into him,” and gave nim an awraSJunr-’
ishing. Conrad Rodeneaugh, of East Pike-
land, Chester County, Pa., was killed bv light
ning on Tuesday last. Mr. R. was swearing at
some little impediment given him by the limbs
of the tree, the moment before he was struck
dead. Mr. Kendall, one of the editors of tha
New Orleans Picayune, has been received in tha
Crescent City, on his return from Europe, with
all the honors Tho Newfoundland seal fishery
of this season has terminated most successfully.
In St. John’s alone 350,000 seals are now being
cured, and the arrivals into the different sea ports
are set down at 150,000. Mrs. Humbert com-
mitted suicide at McConnellsburg, Pa., on Wed
nesday last, by hanging herself, caused by ill
treatment. and desertion of her husband*
The Legislature of Virginia has subscribed
$30,000 to tho Colonization Society, conditioned
upon an equal sum being raised by individuals.
We regret to learn that the cholera is on the
increase at Nashville, Tenn. The malignity of
the disease appears without precedent. A
wild deer made his appearance in Maine street,
Bangor, a few evenings since, and dashed through
the $75 squares of glass in the windows of Hersy
& Heinen way’s hat and fur store; after which
he entered the store of G. T. Stickney, smashed
a SIOO mirror at the end of the store, which re
flected his likeness, and after other eccentric
tricks, ho was captured and killed. An in-
tensely exciting trial, in which Michael Kesvep—
was Dr. Wm. R. Winston defend
ant, came off' at the last term of court in Eaton,
Preble county, Ohio The action was to recover
damages frem defendant for seducing plaintiff’s
daughter, who had been placed under the charge
of Dr. W. to be treated "for club feet, and who
resided with the doctor for the purpose of being
so treated. This was an aggravated case, and
the jury, after a short absence, returned a vep
diet of $15,000 damages for the plaintiff The
Boston Transcript says that a reconciliation has
taken place between Littlefield and Prof. Web
ster, and that a mutual wish for an interview has
been expressed, which the sheriff has consented
to grant.— —Charles Sutherland, a young man
scarcely arrived at manhood, of Bank Lick, near
Covington, went armed with a rifle into his
father’s bedroom, and while he lay beside his
wife, (step-mother to this young man,) shot him
through the head. The report of the gun startl
ed the wife, and she inquired what was the mat
ter, when the old man replied he had been struck
•by lightning, and in a few minutes died. Re
venge was the cause ——Governor Ujhazy and
his Hungarian compatriots, have made a loca
tion in Denature county,’ lowa, upon the head
waters of Grand River, a tributary of the Mis
souri. They have found a beautiful spot, uniting
the advantages of abundant water and timber
with prairie adjoining, and some improvements,
such ns cabins and garden spots. The liberality
of the citizens of St. Louis provided them with
farming utensils and furniture for their humble
style of life. They are to become tho nucleus of
a Large colony of the martyrs of freedom from
their native Hungary Tho Franklin (La.)
Banner says:—“ This parish made, the last sea
son, 24 531 hogsheads of sugar, and about the
same number of barrels of molasses. The value
of this is but little short of a million and a half
of dollars. Much of the sugar, if not by far the
largest proportion, is shipped to the'Eastern
States.” Mr. Wise the mronaunt, is making
a balloon at Pittsburgh, to measure fifty feet in
its greatest diameter, with which ha intends to
make long voyage, and furnish .accommodations
for six passengers We have not yet been made
acquainted with tho terms they are t aken on
On the 21th day of May last, a government
order was published at Messina, forbidding the
entrance of all American vessels from any of the
ports of the United States. Tho known exist
ence of the yellow fever at Rio Janeiro is sup
posed to have caused these stringent measures to
be adopted against us and our commerce, tho
wise men of. Naples, doubtless, thinking that
this sickness might, be shipped to Nev/ York or
Boston, and from thence to Sicily, bag of
coffee. The Vermont Democratic Convention
met on Thursday, at Montpelier. They nomi
nated as candidates, Hon. John Roberts, of
Townsend, for Governor; Horace Clark, of
Middletown, for Lieutenant Governor; and
Lucius H. Noyes, of Hyde Park, for Treasurer.
Fred. Douglass, the copper-colored indivi
dual who has such an affection for white ladies,
is in Cincinnati. The nigger is smart, and has
a good stock of cool impudence always on hand
—rather think he’ll get on, if he don’t get trip
ped up by some kidnapper, or negro stealer, on
his journeys. The St. Louis Intelligencer
gives an account of a singular suicide committed
by a German, in that city, named Henry Lam
mert. Tho deceased has been married only
about four months, and jealousy is said to have
been the cause. Instead of loading his pistol
with a ball, he filled tho barrel with water after
wadding the powder down tightly at the bottom,
and placed another wad in the end of the barrel
of tho pistol on top of tho water, to prevent its
spilling out. He fired the contents at bis head,
and was found with his upper lip and upper part
of the face, and also about one half of the skull
blown away An eccentric old English gen-
tleman named Hartly, recently died m Calais,
France, very wealthy. In his youth he was a
resident of Southampton England. Owing
to some domestic trouble he closed up his resi
dence, furniture and all, and went abroad. From
that time up to his death, he neither visited it
nor allowed it to bo opened, nor would he sell
though offered a high price, in consequence of a
part of the ground being wanted tor a street.
He was the owner of another piece of ground, a
portion of which was taken for public purposes
by Act of Parliament, and tho price tendered
him, which was refused, and still remains in
bank. Jn his will he requested to be buried in
London Wesleyan Burial Ground, and bequeath -
ed to tho Corporation of Southampton, certain
property which will yield about SIOO,OOO, for
the purpose of forming a Library and Scientifiq
Institution in that town.