The Emigrant aid journal of Minnesota. [volume], January 13, 1858, Image 1

About The Emigrant aid journal of Minnesota. [volume] (Nininger City, Minn. Terr. [i.e. Minn.]) 1856-1858

Image provided by: Minnesota Historical Society; Saint Paul, MN

                
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VOLUME l
ft? emigrant ilib ’Sonrnol,
CITY OF NININGER, DAKOTA CO., M. T.
AT TWO DOLLARS A YEAR, IX ADVANCE.
i atm or abtmtiiiks :
light linM, one lime, --**-*-***
•• “ three limee. 200
contract! will be made with Iboee deeiring to
advertue by the jeer
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A. W . MACi#*lALi.
K OITOR AND f ROPSHIOI,
ts iMim *T*ar wsDsasuw at tb*
Written for the Emigrant Aid Journal.
THE STORM.
BV L. N. COONTEYMA.V.
Tis night,—the storm howls Serce and loud
In wind and snow without;
The trees, wrapped in a snowy shroud,
Are swung in wrath about.
The broken shutter, creaking, swings;
The doors and windows rattle, —
Each moment some new horror brings,
Of this unequal battle.
I s-aw the way pile full of snow,
And still the snow sheets come,
Full in the face of him who’d go,
Onward to reach his home.
There, beating hearts wait his return ;
There comfort is, and rest.
These thoughts within his bosom burn,
And onward fast he pressed.
But human strength cannot avail
To longer brave the blast.
The drifts increase—At* powers fail—
Nut longer can they last.
But now a light bursts on his sight;
New strength is to him given—
And in the dark and fearful night,
He gains his home—his haven.
* * * * * *
L saw a frail and tender form
Pass o’er the lonely street.
She had no shelter from the storm,
No rest her wandering feet.
Above— around —bright lamp-lights shone,
She merry music heard ;
But she, alas ! is poor and lone ;
She shuddered at the word. .
’Twas not so once ! She, too had frieuds —
Such friends as fortunes make,
Who, when they’re gone, their friendship ends,
They former vows forsake
She tottered on—her fragile frame,
Still shivering with the cold,
While ever and anon there came
Sad thoughts of days of old.
But as she walks, oue hope revives,
Perhaps one friend remains;
Against despair she nobly strives,
Until his house she gains.
She knocks —a welcome voice bids, come !
He knows that tender form,
And pitying, thenceforth gives her home,
And shelter from the storm.
Thus, in the darkness of that hour,
When storms avound us rave,
The light of some supernal power,
Avails from death to *ave.
And though the storms may not abate,
There’s joy and peace within,
Where, rescued from a fearful fate,
A home of rest we win.
Niniager, Min., 1858.
Tbe Lml Arts
One of the particulars in which the present is dis- i
tinguished front all past eras is the success with which
physical investigations havo been prosecuted, as illus.-
rated by the progress of manufactures and the arts, an 4
the diffusion of commerce. At the base of the mighty
impulse in these departments is the steaui engine. The
myriads of applications of that mighty, yet tractable
power, have transformed society, and language can hard
ly over-color, in depicting the achievements of the steam
boat, the locomotive and railway, and the ocean steamer.
Only less important than the wonders of steam arc those
of electricity as applied for telegraphic communication.
Bv this mysterious agent, when as fully extended and
ramified as the present age will witness it, the mind not
only of a whole nation, but of the entire world, will
be concentrated simultaneously upon a single subject—
a despatch far surpassing that of Mercury and Iris, the
fabled messengers of Olympus. As results of recent
improvements iu chemical processes, the images formed
by the subtle rays of light in the camera obscura, have
been made to fix themselves in pictures of permanent
beauty, and by the aid of superior analysis, the metallic
basis of an alkali aluminum has been obtained in solid
substance of great beauty, and of an applicability and
■cheapness almost equal to that of iron.
Who shall say that the ideas of the alchemists were
but dreams, and that gold itself shall not yet be shown
to he the combination of simpler elements! By science,
coupled with mechanical skill, iron has been taught a
ductility which fits it for structures of almost every de
scription, aud lightness combined with strength, * oru »
a uew feature in modern edifices, while bridges o an
elegant beauty, before unknown, yet with a firmness
scarce inferior to the ltomau, are spanning the uroad
rivers of our continent. Mountains interpose butfeeble
barriers to the daring genius of man, and the ponderous
rain ru>Les along its iron pathway with resistless en-
Iwperfest
ergy for thousands of feet under ground. While the
structure and rig of sailing vessels have brought them ,
to a closer approximation to steam, the genius of our :
countryman, Maury, by his wind and current charts,
which are the result of long and multiplied observation
aud careful deduction, is materially shortening their
track over the ocean. , .
The power of mathematical analysis and calculation,
as attained in our day, is seen in the designation by Lc
Verrier of the place of a new planet, unseen as yet by
mortal eyes; while the mammoth telescope of Herschel
gives sublime confirmation of the prediction. This, and
the still greater instrument of Lord Ross, has extended
our knowledge of the nebular portion of the universe.
The telescope of Roas has proven the moon to be with
out inhabitants, while the numerous glasses, which sweep
: the sky, from observatories in every portion of Christ
j endom, are still adding to the number of asteroids which
I form a portion of our planetary system, and extending
i meteorological lore. AH these are the fair fruits of
that inductive or experimental system of philosophizing
which was inaugurated by Lord Bacon, and which,
followed up with such brilliant results at the close of
the last century by the philosophers of the continent,
has ripened, in this age, and in great part in our own
country, into a fruitage of unprecedented richness and
'exuberance.
: The diffusion and growth of commerce within tlie
: present century has not been less remarkable. Only a
! quarter of a century ago, the intercourse between this
! country and Europe was by sailing vessels, and was
! attended by the evils of tardiness and irregularity, and
! was of comparatively limited results. At this time,
! almost every considerable portion of the earth which
! affords a market for commerce is tied to the other by
lines of swift and commodious steamers, defying alike
i the wind and the wave, and bearing with, admirable dis
! patch, and regularity, and safety, their teeming cargoes
jof the rare and valuable products of distaut lauds, or
! those of agriculture and the arts, with multitudes of
| intelligent and stirring adventurers, inteut on spreading
' civilization to every portion of the earth’s habitable
surface.
It is within the brief period which I have mentioned,
that the Cunard and Collins lines commenced their trips
between New York and Liverpool j that steam commu
nication has been established between England, through
the Mediterranean to Egypt, and through the Red Sea
and the Arabian toludia; that a line of ocean steamers
plies between London and Australia, and from Panama
to Valparaiso, and that two lines of steamers pass weekly
to and fro from New York to the Isthmus, and from the
Isthmus to San Within that time the great
commercial port of Bremen has also been constantly
! extending, and bringing to a regular and quicker com
munication, the connections with her vast shipping with
South America, California and Australia. No part of
i the world has been left unexplored, and even in the
hitherto deemed impenetrable regions of frost, our coun
tryman Kane has found a stretch of three thousand
miles of open sea, whose waves, tossed by the violence
of the elements forever break against shores of perpetual
ice.
What, indeed, was the condition of the refined nations
of antiquity, in comparison with that of the moderns in
the single respect of physical comforts ! True, the
ftrincipal personages enjoyed whjt was then regarded as
nzury , but in many respects, how iuean and sorroy ,
would appear the splendor of kings compared with what j
many a private citizen is able to enjoy in these days, ;
without bestowing a thought upou the high progress in i
civilization of which it is the index. Where was the
universal diffusion of silk and cotton fabrics which now
furnish so large a portion of the clothing of the human
family ? Even as late as Queen Elizabeth, silk stockings
for ladies first came into use, those previously worn
having been of woolen cloth, cut to the shape, and
sewed together; and the extensive production and con
sumption of our great southern staple was a consequence
of the spinning jenny of Hargraves, ‘the spinning frame
jof Arkwright, and the cotton giu of Whitney—all
j invented smee the middle of the last century.
Glass, though in sqme degree known in the time of
our jSaviour, was yet of great rudeness in comparison
; with the resplendent crystal productions of our day,
which are in general domestic use, and for ornamental
purposes. The potato and Indian corn were first in
troduced to the knowledge of Europeans with the dis
i covery of America, as well as the luxury of tobacco;
coffee and tea have come into general use only since the
' Cape of Good Hope was doubled by the Portuguese ;
and sugar extracted from cane has been in genera) use
: less than two centuries and a half. Superior physical
development may. hate been the censequenee of the
ancient simplicity Of life and manners ; but privation
and destitution were probably quite as great in propor
j tion to numbers.
What were the means of knowledge enjoyed by »n
--l tiquity in comparison with those at our command ?
i Teaching was oral in the schools of the philosophers,
§ud their knowledge of the world being so restricted,
their basis fojr generalizing was extremely narrow. TLen
. their mechanical helps were few and insignificant. A
, Swammerdam and Lewenboeck had not yet opened tip,
by microscopic research, that wondrous world of organic
life, invisible to the naked eye ; nor had Galileo, by the
invention of the telescope, and its direction to the heav
ens, demonstrated the falseness of the Ptolemaic theory
of our planetary system, which recoguised the earth as
the centre, and established tfie truth of that of Coper
nions, which all succeeding observations have confirmed.
No wonder that the ancient philosophers, when they left
the domain of geometry and pure mathematics, became
such dreamers.
In painting and music the moderns have gone im
measurably beyond them. Nor was paper yet invented.
The Egyptiau papyrus, or waxen tablets and the stylus,
formed the means of recording events, and the mighty
power of the press had not appeared, to move with its
mute eloquence the popular mind.
The time has gone by, perhaps forever, for the erec
tion of those great structures, whose ruins have come
down to us from antiquity, sad monuments of the waste
of human effort. Wc shall no more build pyramids,
and hanging gardens, nor rear again those glorious min
sters and cathedrals which it required the unintermitted
labors of centuries to complete. Wc shall bo sparing
henceforth in the erection of columns and triumphal
arches. Vet while the demands of our republican in
stitutions, of science, and of religion, call into being
architectural structures which shall rival those of the
Parthenon and Xhcaeua, au ,j inaQ y a city, of little less
splendor tbau Thebes and JJpbylop, will yet, on this
continent lift its proud turrets to heaven.
Vast is.the field open for the exercise of art in its
higher departments, and the grand events of our history
• CITY OF NININGER, DAKOTA COUNTY, MINNESOTA TERRITORY. JANUARY 13. 1858.
are yet to find expression in the forms and groupings of
sculpture, and be made to live again in the happy crea
tion of the pencil. Our uational peculiarities, and.
social characteristics and manners, are also, with each
generation of our progress, still to find embodiment in
a living literature
History of Tobacco.
Ages before the discovery of America the savages in
some parts of this continent had learned to seek sen
suous gratification in chewing and smoking tobacco; and
the evidence of the employment of this narcotic, fur
nished by the specimens of pipe-making found among
the Mongol tribes, points to a period long anterior to
that era. On his arrival at Cuba, Columbus beheld for
the first time the strange phenomenon of a man drawing
tobacco smoke into his mouth through a burning cigar.
Hernandez de Toledo soon after introduced the plant
into Spain and Portugal. John Nico, after whom the
plant has been namea, sent the seeds to France about
the year 1560. Sir Francis Drake, on returning to
England with the Virginia colonists, in 1586, intro
duced there the use of the article; and about the year
1589 the Cardinal Santa Croce, conveyed ‘the weed ’
from France to Italy. From these points it spread rap
idly over almost the whole of the inhabited portions of
the globe.
The plant is now cultivated and used throughout the
whole extent of the United States, Canada, New Bruns
wick, Mexico, the Western Coast, the Spanish .Main,
Cuba, St. Domingo, Trinidad, Turkey, Persia, India,
China, Australia, the Philippine Islands, Japan, Egypt,
Algeria, the Canary Island, and the Cape of €hj6d'Ho^e.
Its use was first opposed, then tolerated, next em
braced, and finally eulogised. Dr. Paris remarka:—
‘ It has been successively opposed and commended by
physicians; condemned and eulogized by priests and
kings; and proscribed and protected by governments/
King James the First of England, and his successor
i Charles, prohibited ita use under severe penalties, James
; wrote a book, the * Counterblaste to Tobacco,’ in which
’ be declared that smoking is a custom ‘ loathsome to the
' eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous
to the lungs, and, in the black, stinking fumes thereof,
j nearest resembling the horrible stygian smoke of the pit
j that is bottomless.’
‘ Quaint old Burton ' expressed himself in the fol
lowing strain —more truthful than elegant perhaps—in
relation to the common use of Tobacco, which he termed
its commou abuse : 1 It is a plague, a mischief, a violent
parger of goods, lands, and health; hellish, devilish,
damned Tobacco, the ruin and overthrow of body and
soul.’ Queen Elizabeth published an edict against its
use in 1593, Shah Abbas iuterdicted its use in Persia
by penal statutes. In 1624 Urban VIII. excommuni
cated all snuff-takers who defiled St. Peter’s Church by
taking a pinch within its walls. In 1853, a severe
punishment was decreed against all who smoked To*
bacco in the canton of Aspenzel. In Russia, about
the same time, the penalty of death was proclaimed
against the offence of Tobacco chewing, while those who
smoked were coudemned to have their noses cut off. In
1690 Pope Inuoceut XII. renewed the bull of Pope
Urban ; but in 1724, Benedict XIV., having become a
snuff taker himself, repealed the ediet. Iu Constanti
nople about the same time, 1690, every Turk ought in
the indecent act of smoking was conducted in ridicule
through the streets, seated on an ass, his face directed
i toward the animal's tail, and a pipe transfixed through
; his nose.
In some countries, men, women, and even children,
are addicted to smoking. In Campeachy, we are told,
it is common for children, two and three years of age,
to smoke cigars. Kotzebue tells us that iu the Sand
wich Islands children often smoke before they learn to
walk; apd that adults frequently fall down senseless
from excessive indulgence in this habit. In India, all
classes and both sexes smoke. In Hindostan, boys of
fourteen and fifteen use tobacco excessively. In the
Burmao Empire, both males and females smoke inces
santly; even nursing infants have the lighted pipe put
iu their mouths occasionally by their smoking
In China, young girls wear, as an indispensable appen
dage to their daily dress, a silken pocket to carry a pipe
ana tobacco. In South America, both'sexes .use tobacco.
In Lima, women are daily seen puffing cigars in the
streets; and iu Paraguay the 1 fair sex ’ befoul their
mouths every day by cheyipg.
The Germans smoke a large portion of their time.
The French and Spanish smoke to great excess. The
English consume immense quantities of tobacco, apd
take the lead in snuffing. And, lastly, in the United
| States mope tobacco is raised and consumed in proportion
j to the population than in any other country. . Most of
| the foreign population of this ediintry are inveterate
| smokers; and a large and increasing proportion of the
natives, particularly great boys and small young men
are addicted to the general folly. To the credit of our
fair sex, it may be asserted that they do not indulge in
any of its filthy forms. A practice prevails in the
South, however, among a certain class, of scouring the
teeth with snuff; to some extent it is indulged in it the
North also. This is only a guise of the same vicious
i habit.
'f |pe Mftßaftectur* of |f«Na.
No permission has been so much abased in our days
as that of Horace for the manufacture of words. Would
he not hare sto«>d aghast at the term “ antigropylos ?”
Would it not puzsle.a Scaliger or Bentley ? It is time,
we protest., to put a* stop to these vile coinage*, when
every breeobes-tuakeF or blaeking manufacturer invents
a compound word of six syllables as expressive of his
wares. Ladies do not wear petticoats now-a-days, but
crinolines. Men do no not ride as horseback as afore
time—they take equestrian exercise; women are not
married like their grandmothers—they are led to the
hymeneal altar. A bookseller, forsooth, becomes a bib
liopole ; and a servant is converted into a maneipe. Bar
bepj do got sell tooth-powder aud shaving soap as their
fathers did, but odontq, and dentifrice,, and rypophagon:
hair wash has passed away—it is capillary fluid. Can
any one tell what is the meaning of “ diagnosis ” as
! applicable to disease? If it has a signification at all,
we will guarantee to balf-a-doxen Saxon monosyllables
expressive of the same idea. Medieal gentlemen, too,
talk of phlebotomy ; we know that it has some connec
tion with blood letting. Who would believe that “ epis
taxis” means simply bleeding at the nose ?or that
*< taxidermist ” means a bird-stuffer ? Fancy one school
boy doubling his fist, and telling another to “ look out
for epistuxis.” What is meant by that fashionable word
“esthetics?” We take up the first book within reach,
and open it at random. It is “ William Wordsworth;
an Esthetic Biography,” by Edward Paxton Hood-
Well, wbat do we read ? “BJ esthetic biography,” he
i.ffltfll'l'
(iff) -
' : flWfo ”- i ftr. 11 * Imr mf 1
IF
says, w is simply intended a life in its ideal attitudes.”
Simply intended ! Did ever mortal man listen to such
verbiage rail mad ? W hat, again, are' we to understand
by the words “objective” and “subjective,” which
every goose with his sham metaphysics has now-a-vays
on his lips ? These Titanic G-ilfillanisms will certainly
be the death of us.
The Public Lauda of the United States have so long
been regarded as National property—assets —merchap-
dise —an inexhaustible mine not merely of National
wealth but of Federal revenue—that the bare sugges
tion of their allotment in limited tracts to pioneers who
will convert them into fruitful fields and homesteads, is
regarded by many as a proposition to alienate and
squander an immense National resource a barrier
against exCUSsive taxation and possible Government
effects of the, present system of land sales, with its in
evitable concomitants of boundless speculation, monopo
ly, forestalling, add racing across the continent by thou
sands after thousands in eager quest of town-sites, water
privileges, timber-tracts and other choice locations, to
be held out of market till they can be sold at large
E rices to the future settlers around them, there would
e little difficulty in arraying a majority on the side of
Land Reform. The money which the present system
puts into the Treasury is a tangible, palpable sum ; that
which it takes out or kteps out in the shape of needless
Indian agencies, Indian negotiations and Indian wars, of
premature surveys, multitudinous Land Offices with
their heavy annual cost, and in their necessary obstruc
tion bf the settlement and cultivation of the Natioual
Domain, is imperceptible to the careless or ignorant.
We. bold that the system of selling instead of allotting
the Public Lands has actually impoverished the Treasury
as well as the People; that both would have been richer
this day if no acre of Public Land had ever been sold
for cultivation, but every quarter section or eighth made
over to the 'first actual settler upon it on the payment of
the necessary cost of surveying it and making out the
necessary papers. We are accustomed to speak of the
Public Lands as afforded to the settlers for ten York
shillings per acre, but such is by no means the fact.
True, the Government receives no more than thatj and
a settler willing to banish himself from all society,
neighborhood, intelligence, comfort, civilization, may
procure land at that rate; but land of a decent quality
is rarely to be found within twenty miles of a store,
grist-mill, saw-mill, school-house, &c., which is open to
settlement at Government price. On the contrary, all
that is thus eligibly, located is snapped up by speculators
and held for a much higher price, or sold to some needy
settler at 95 to 910 per acre, payable with interest at
some future day. We estimate the average actual cost
of our Public Lands to those who really improve and
render them fruitful at fully 95 per acre, and this sum
4 exacted from them at the outset of their struggle for
ad independence, when every dollar costs them more
than'three dollars' would ten or fifteen years later. The
pioneer has to build, and clear, and break up, and fence,
aqd make roads and bridges, so that half his labor for
the first ten years produces nothing that he can eat or
wear or sell. He is exposed to the voracity of all man
ner df destroying beasts and vermin, so that the average
amount of his crop is apt to be small, and his land is of
ten paid for by denying bis family the actual necessaries
of life. We do firmly believe that if a quarter section
were allotted without charge to each actual settler, and
no land sold dr given to any hut actual settlers, the net
annual receipts into the Treasury would be more than
they now are—that is to say :- the pioneers, relieved
from the heavy cost of redeeming their farms from the
grasp of the land-speculators at three to eight times the
Government price, would be able to buy necessaries and
comforts for their families which they are now compell
ed to go without, on which the revenue from customs
would more than counterbalance the loss ef the ten shil
lings per acre now paid to the Government for lands.
Rut the cost of the lands to the settlers, heavy as it
is, is not the tfheif objection to the present system. Its
necessary tendency to isolate and scatter the farmers is
its greatest scourge. Now a settlement is instantly sur
rounded by a wide belt of speculators’ land, held for
prices based on its contiguity to such settlement. Be
cause A., B. and G. have made a hole in the wilderness,
and caused a store, grist-mdi, saw-mill, blacksmith’s
shop apd school-house to appear there, therefore D., E.
and F- must plunge afresh into the wilderness beyond
the sound of church-bells oir'the Bight of school-houses,
or pay treble price to speculators for the tracts thus ren
dered eligible fori settlement. Hence, too large a aharo
of the children in the West are growing.up in ignorance
and relatiye barbarism, becaqse they are out of reach of
school-houses and other facilities for instruction. The
Western people are this day Supporting six times as
many miles of road as they need, because they are dis
persed over an immense area beyond all necessity or
reason. They have mills, stores, &c., enough —more of
the latter than they should have, if they were only so
located that a smaller number eould accommodate them.
Their dispersion over as many square miles as there are
families, is every way a subtraction from their efficiency
as producers, and their advance in education, comfort,
refinement and thrift as citizens. Abolish the laud
ge}liqg system, aqd a|lot each quarter-section to the first
pioneer who actually makes his home upon it, and it is
not possible that sueh a Babel-like dispersion would con
tinue. The pioneers of 1859 would choose homes be
side those of 1858, did not the land-speculator's inter
position of a factitious and exorbitant price compel them
to struggle further in quest of laud not tet forestalled.
Then roads, mills, stores, schools, churches, would be
found wherever needed, because the settlers, no looger
dispersed, a hundred or ao to the township, but located
on contiguous quarter-sections, would easily establish
and maintain them. And every city, every manufac
turing village, every factory, every shop, would be bene
fited by a change whiefi, releasing the pioneers from the
grinding exactions of the hmd monopolist, would enable
them, at a much earlier day than at present, to fill their
homes with olothing, furniture aud other ministrants to
comfort and enjoyment.
We could write columns to favor of Land Reform,
but let this suffice for to-day. We rejoico that Mr.
Johnson of Tennessee has so early ealied attention of
the present Congress to this benefioent measure, and we
cherish the hope that not many months will elapse ere
we may Congratulate the country on its triumph.—[New
York Tribuue.
One of the old philosophers Used to say that life .aud
death Were just the same to him. 1 Why, then,’ said
an objector, .‘do you not kill yourself?’ 4 Because it is
just the same/ replied the philosopher.
Freedom ef the Public Lands,
DEFECTIVE PAGE
Lavender Farming.'
There is one sight in Old England that I love be
yond measure and that is,a lavender field; it pleases
1 from its intrinsic beauty. The lovely eolor offts fitters
all the silk dyers are trying to imitate but can’t exaotly
i hit on the shade. Then its fragrance! how inimitably,
as the sprays wave with the breeze ! It pleases me,
1 simply because it cannot be matched in all the world,
and lam proud of it accordingly. In England there
' are no less than about two hundred and seventy' awes
!of its precious land devoted to lavender farming.! Each
acre yields, say, two,, thousand sin hundred pounds of
flowers. Every hundred pounds of flowers give up by
distillation about one pound of the otto of lavender;
and thus we learn that there is an average production
! of 7000 ponnds of lavender otto annually. It requires
six ounces of this to malfte a gallon of lavepder waser ft so
i that Brittannia and her children—Jamaica, Canady and
j Australia—together with a few visitors—America, Ger
many and Russia—use and take bome with them the
! enormous quantity of 17,000 gallons of this favorite
| spirit. The lavender farms of England arr situated, at
j Mitcham, in Surrey, and at Hitchih, in Hertfordshire,
i At Mr. Perks’ farm, of the latter place, the
j when in blossom, is resorted to by all the bees for‘miles
I around. The sound of their bum in such vast numbers
jis quite enchanting. Nor do the butterflies neglect to
| visit so luxurious a feast, the taste of which appeals' to
jbe particularly grateful to them. The bees’ love for the r
i lavender is so excessive, that at the harvest time, as the
sprays fall before the sickle and are tied up into sheaves,
! they will follow it, even at a sacrifice of life, into the
I boiling still!
Good Old Advice.
Noah Webster, the great lexicographer Wrote a letter
to his neighbors in 1786 in relation to hard times, which
reads as though it might have been written this morn
ing. It concludes as follows:
‘ Never buy aby useless clothing. Keep a suit for
Sunday and other public days, but let your common
wearing apparel he good substantial clothes and linen of
your own manufacture. Let yoUr wives and daughters
lay aside their plumes. Feathers and fripperies suit the
Cherokecs or the wench in your kitchen, but they little
become the fair daughters of America; out of the dry
goods imported you may save 50,000? a year, more than
enough to pay the interest of our public debts. My
countrymen lam not trifling with you. lam serious;
you feel the facts I state; you know you are poor, and
ought to know the fault is all your own.
Are you not satisfied with the food and drink which
this country affords ? the beef, the pork, the wheat, the
corn, the butter, the cheese, the cider, the beer, those
luxuries which are heaped in profusion upon yonr tables ?
If not, you must expect to be poor. In vain do you
wish for mines of gold and silver, a mine would be the
greatest curse that could befall this country. There is
gold and silver enough in the world, and if you have
not enough of it, it is because you consume all you earn
in useless food and drink. In vain do you wish to. in
crease the quantity of cash by a mint of paper emissions.
Should it raiu millions of joes into your chimneys, on
your present system of expenses, you would still have
no money. It would leave the country in streams ‘‘Trifle
not with serious subjects or spend your breath in-empty
wishes. Reform, economise; this is the whole of; your
political duty. You may reason, speculate, complain,
raise mobs, spend life iu railing at Congress and your
rulers, but unless you import less than you export—un
less you spend less than you eart —you will eternally be
oor. ’
Docks off FcoHs.
The Siamese spend three fouHh's of their existenee in
the water. Their first act on awakening is to bathe;
they bathe again at 11 o’clook; they bathe Mays at 3,
and bathe again about sunset; there is scarcely an hopr
iu the day when bathers may not be seen m an the
creeks, even the shallowest and mnddiest. Boys go to
play in the river, just as poor English children go to
play .in the street. I once saw a Siamese woman sitting
on the lowest step of a landing place, while* by a girdle,
she held in the water her infant o| a few months, old,
splashing and kicking about' with evident enjoyment.
Were not there people expert swimmers many livta
would be lost, for the tide flowh so swiftly that it needs
the greatest skill apd care to prevent boats from running
foul of oue another; and, of course, they are frequent
ly upset.
On one occasion our boat (an English built gig) ran
down a small native canoe containing a woman and two
little children. In an instant they were all oapsimd and
disappeared. We were greatly alarmed, apd 0. was on
the point of jumping in to their rescue,. when they
bobbed up, und the lady, with the first breath she re?
covered, pouted forth a round volley of abuse. Thus
relieved in Iter mind, she coolly righted her canoe—
which had been floating bottom upwards—ladled ant.
some of the water, and bundled in her tjro children,
who had been meanwhile composedly swimming round
her, regarding with mingled fear and curiosity the bat
barians who had occasioned the miabap.-—^Dickens’
Household Words. •\ io-.-;' is
r f; ' : m A
How to Estimate Chops.—A
the foliowing method of making ah estimate tfTtfil£yl§W c
par acre of a growing crop of idlest, vye, oats, or barley*
which he says has been found oorrect. in England , As
it seems easy of application, and approximately .correct,
we give the plan; and hope it will be tn&) at the next
harvesttime. " ' isf; '
Frame together four light sticks, measuring exaotly a
foot square inside, and with this. lit .hand, walk intotfca.
field and select a spot of fair average yield, and
the frame square over as many heads as it will enclose,
and shell out the heads thus enolosed carefully, ana
weigh the grain. It is fair to presume that tlte product
will be the 43 560th part of an aore’a produce. To
prove it, go through the field aodmake; ten or twenty,
similar calculations, and estimate by tbe mean of the,
whole number of results. It will certainly enable a
farmer to make o closer calculation of what his field 'trill
produce than be can do by guessing.—A?. % Trihmie.
r ■' - .. •• urit vo
Edward Highton, C. E., of England, has just obtain-'
ed a patent for, firstly, sending telegnpbfc WfemgeataA
ways through one and the same wire, at the same mV
■ stant, without interfering in any war jritk eaeh < ier>
secondly, for preventing the destruction or a wire in the
sea or underground; and, thirdly, fiwW^ditfgltdeeky- 1
| cd telegraphic wire; iir the ocean. wftboet’Wfeisißg it oat-of
! the wad.
A Fearful Spectacle.
The Russian ship of war L*fort, which lately cap
sized at noonday in the Bay of Finland, when closely
surrounded by numerous vessels of the fleet On their
ay. from Revel to Cronstadt, has since been examined by
English divers at the order of the Russian Government.
It will probably be still in recollection of our readers
that the vessel Bad, in addition to about 800 troops and
crew, full 400 passengers on board, chiefly women and
children, who, with quantities of bulky house furniture,
occupied the whole 'tween decks. Oat of consideration
for these unwonted passengers, the port, holes of- the
yesfce! had been left open, and when a sadden squall
came on could not be closed in time, and so, when the
wind took her, the vessel heeled over, filled, and atonOe
capsized. Such persona as were on deck at the time
were of course at once washed away, bujt the diver
found no .less. than. 1100. bodies in the rl cabins, ’tween
decks, and in the bold of the vessel, all clinging to some
portion of the timbers of the ship, or til each othef.
The horror of this fearful sight appears to have ben
Aggravated by the circumstances that the bodies worn
already far gone in decomposition, and, with few, ex*
Captions, the eyes of all the corses were wide open and
glaring. The effect of this dreadfnl spectacle on the
divert-was such, that one off them was totalljf -iifiabte,
for many days, to recount the ghastly scene titohad
Witnessed down in that hive of petrifying corpus, i*nd
on his persistent refusal to repeat his visit there,- was
sent home.
The Westerly Case.
There has been much talk and considerable excitement
for the last few days in consequence of what has been
called a ‘ singular case.' * It appears that & man by the
name of Ansel Bourne, aged about thirty-five years, in
August last suffered a * sun-stroke,’ which was of a
very formidable character, and from its powerful effects
ho nearly lost hie life. On the 28th of October, Mr.
Bourne left his residence to go to the village, which is
about a mile distant. Ha had not proceeded far on* his
way, when, as he says something seemed to tell him that
he ought to go to ohureh. A query then arose in bis
mind where he should go. He first thought of the
Christian church; then a former animosity against this
place arose in his mind, and he said to himself that he
would rather be deaf, dumb and blind all This life than
to go there. In a few moments after, he was deprived
of his hearing, speach and sight. He was perfectly con
scious of his situation, although a weakness came over
him, and he sat down by the wayside, until some per
sons came along, who accompanied him home. Is the
afternoon of the day following, he received his r sight,
but neither his speech or bearing. Mr. Bourne now be,
came convinced of his need of the Christian religion
end sent for Rev. John Taylor, pastor of the Christian
chuireh, and with whom he bad had some difficulty to
prey with him. At this time there was a revival of re
ligion in the church referred to, and Mr. Bourne signi
fied by writing on a slate, that he had obtained * the
pearl of great price,' and commenced attending the
meetings where he made known his feelings through Mr.
Taylor from the slate to the congregation. On Sunday,
the 15th inst., as Mr. Taylor finished reading his mes
sage to the people, his speech and hearing were restored
to him as suddenly and as mysteriously as they had been
taken from bim. He cried aloud * glory' to God,’ and
fell upon his knees, and prayed peat
sensation among the multitude that crowded the boose*
In the evening, he returned to his home, rejoicing that
he was able to to his family, which he had not
been permitted to do for eighteen days.
The case is a remarkable one, whether it be attributed
natural causes or Whether it be looked upon as a mira
cle. The people in tbe vicinity are divided as to the
jeaqae, and while many believp that it was no more
strange than St. Paul’s conversion, another portion be
' lieve, among whom is Dr. Thureton, his Attending phy
sician, that the loss of bis senses are simpty attributa
ble, to a remarkable paralysis.-—[Rhode inland Pendu
lous
Money Brought bt Immigrants wile amount of
money brought into the country by foreign immigrant*
is touch greater than is generally supposed, though
cannot be aotually ascertained. Each immigrant is
questioned as to hia possessions, but it 4s believed these
are in amajority of sales underrated, under the few of
tax or robbery. A record, kept at New York for aer
eral years past, showa an average of $43.25 to each im
migrant. Vie aggregate sum brought by 105,707 im
migrants, arrived during the sloven months ending July
30,1850, was *5,398,3«&*4, and average of $50.79 to
eachpersou. The number ef immigrants arrived’in the
United >Btaii» during the hat six years and at 'quar-
from September, 1040, to Beeember, 1856* was
2,270,000. If they brought on an 1 average 150 sack—
and it was doubtless mare than that—the money in their
; hands amounted to *1 13,950,350. The 878*620 poo
tsengera eaoh year fbr the last fire years have brought
jan annual average of 618,981,000, or almost nineteen
millions of dollars a year. One German, whnlaaded
in New York lately, reported hia ready eash at
which, bo and hia wife bore in sovereigns, in belts, about
their persons. i It was ascertained that in addition to
this sum, tbdyhad 120,000 in drafts.—[Ch&ago Tti-
buie.:' ■ vjr ' ' ••• • •
, _ -f iiii ••
Dollars amp Bents in Canaba^TM
Legislature of Canada, having passed an act retiring'
and oents, after the thl of
banks of the Provinces hue given formal noticba
all bills or notes iutendedfar discount or collections, End .
! faUing
all checks jlhd otberforms In nsefdr mult- ’
ing purpose, be adapted.to the decimal system.
' :-•« ■; “.iaii i-f/ttU. * To J-laaiKwil si wew. t E.v-smrilteSri> -aft
Case oY and intiißijg
ing operation of transfen^gjb^d^
Eir husband into her veins, with tbe bapjsieSl fdHitt’fta i:
few minutes after the current of MoodJje|gfll~tG frtw,
id the ebbing of life was ohbeked, thoNistAtioiHMbg
re-esteWished, and deHveranee^fro*^
; SSS3S:
other moans kayo fcijed.—{English pap*. .
id «19C
au
9dt i
• . .
NUMBER IT.
c 43.1