The weekly ledger., May 30, 1857, Image 1

About The weekly ledger. (Jackson, Amador County, Cal.) 1857-1857

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VOLUME 2. ]
£I)C lUcckln Ccbgcr,
rrnM f!iren KVFRV SATrRDAT. BT
T. A. SINGER &C°.
t .(’mSOEB. E - B - DAINOERriELD.
T o r xxl s s
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0 ., c Square of 10 line?, first insertion, s3—each
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I, KG AI. ADVERTISEMENTS
mbo inserted at the following rate*:— Two Dol
i- pijiiare for the first insertion, and One Dol
‘r 1 1 square for each sul>soquent insertion.
JOB PRINTING.
W. ~r e prepared to do Job Printing of every de
in a style superior to any other office in
J , Southern Mines, and at ns fair rates.
kolcano l-odge, M<>- •"»«, F.uiul A. M.
1 . snt.-U Meetings on ouch Saturday evening
preceding the full of the moon.
prc 8 W. AVER. W. M.
E. PKEV, Scc’y.
Volcano It. A. Chapter, Mo. 11.
IP-mlar meetings Ist aud 3d Tuesdays in ouch
south.
OFPOKRS.
V >.• ,i W.Bicknkl, 11. P.: E..J. I’. Williams. IC.r
| pV rw! Daily.; 8., A. B. Hot. Sec’y
Maniuel J> K. II and y,
(latk of AMADOB C 0.,)
CO UNSELLOR A T LA W,
1 T WLXG retunred to Plan rrille. will strictly nt-
I J ;i ,i 1,, all Professional Business confided to
I . District Courts of Amador, Calaveras
' vado counties, ami in the Supreme Court
It the State. ~ .
OlBee In Dorsey a fire-proof building, Main
mir 14
7-Iy
A. C. liitmu,
attorney and counsellor at
LAW,
)Ci Cl . ep stairs, opposlt ■ the Union Hotel, Main
street, Jackson,
nnr 18 * C-ly
Thomas 1). liraut,
tTTOIINEY AND COUNSELLOR AT
LAW.
D over Wells. Fargo A Co.’s Express, Jackson.
Amador County,
pr 18 2fi-ly
A. ti. Crawford, 11. l>.,
,U KSON, AMADOR COUNTY, CAL.,
Ollit at the Louisiana Hotel, Main street,
npr 18 2ii-ly
John \V. Anu (i t.'i;:,
Attorney and Counsellor at Law,
rVVFICE with A. C. Brown. Esq., Multi street,
1/ .1 ickson. Will attend to nil business entrust
-1 tu his care.
I r.iay 16 30-ly
JAN. I’, 111 UItA It l>,
ATTORNEY AT LAW,
JACKSON’, CALIFORNIA.
jan. 31 15-ly
IV. W. COPE,
ATTORNEY AT LAW,
JACKSON, CALIFORNIA.
jan. 31
15-ly
I'AULEV A PAWURO,
ATTOUNKYS AND COCNSKI.I.ORB AT LAW,
fficc ill Hale's lire proof building, up stairs, Maiu
street, Volcano,
mar 7 1-4- 20tf
R. M, BRIOOS.] [S. n. AXTSLL.
EIKICiiS A. AXTELL,
A T TO RNE YS A T L A IV,
JACKSON, AMADOR COI’NTY, CAL.
OFFICE—At the Court House.
[ nov 24 5-ly
W. lIEMKV .POMES,
ATTORNEY AT LAW,
[til pay strict attention to making collections and
I iid to all Legal Business entrusted to bis care.
Hire on Union Square, next door to Johnson &
[’• ■ tore, Volcano.
je7 33- ly
Coimt y Surveyor’*! Olliee.
JAS. MASTERSN,
I'TY SUBVBVOR AND CIVIL ENGINEER, OFFICE IN
TMK COURT IIOrSB, JACKSON.
J.VVIN’G assumed the duties of my olliee, I am
J prepared ro attend to all professional calls
Jin my friends and the public, both promptly and
mrally,
I I h2B 19- ly
V. 15. U VI.!. VIXl>,
'V 5 Tic E 0 F TH K 1‘ E.IC E ,
omcE,
NATIONAL HOUSE,
lorner of Main mid National streets, Volcano.
■tDel! 7 if
CiEO. lIIK hilD,
K 1 ’ S T ICE 0 F Tll E PEA C E,
■ OFFICE,
■ ■'tiuncltton A Warner’s Drug Store, Main street,
H, Volcano.
7-ly
<«*’«». u. Miniih. n. i».
0 11 VBlf IA .V .1 .VI) SVH d E O .V.
.*! *' ut Hoy A Smiths Drug Store, Main st..
oleano. Residence on the alley, in the rear
Mm Drug Store.
•i>- 1 lie books of th late firm of Goodin A
I !' 111 ~c found at my odice. I'eraoni indebted
I do well to call and settle.
B* :iB;tf.
11. MARI.HTTI',
I /; r E YOR CIVIL ENGINEER,
1 RUNG to ruaume the practice of my profeg-
I ' ' u>y Old friends of Amador and
L u i • 1 respectfully solicit their or
'■ rms W 1 promptly attended to, on reiuou-
Ollier at Jackson’s News Depot, Jackson,
ttdnr county, (f tt iif oru i o .- tt^
1 - !m S. U MARLETTE.
THE WEEKLY LEDGER.
Life is but a span—of horses;
One is‘Age.’ the other ‘Prime,’
Up and down the hill our course is:
‘Go in,’ ponies—‘make your time.’
Boyhood plies the whip of pleasure;
Youthful folly gives the stroke;
Manhood goads them at his leisure,
‘Let 'em rip,’ ‘they're tough as oak.’
'lli, ya! there;’ the stakes we’ll pocket;
To the winds let care be sent;
Time, 2.4o—‘whip in socket;’
‘Give ’em string and let ’em went.’
On the sunny road to fifty,
‘Prime’ is drowned‘in Lethe’s stream;’
‘Age’ is left, lame, old, unthrifty:
Life then proves‘a one horse team.’
‘Age’ jogs on, grows quite unsteady,
Reels and slackens in his pace;
'Kicks the bucket,’ always ready,
‘Give it up’—Death wins the race.
At this particular time, the following re
marks upon the subject of comets generally,
from the Alta, California, will he read with
peculiar interest at this particular time :
These most wonderful of the cosmical bod
ies that belong to our solar system, have, from
the earliest historic period, excited the wonder
and attention of mankind. Their extraordi
nary and abnormal appearance—their rapid
and apparently irregular motions—the unex
pected manner in which they burst upon the
unassisted eye, and the imposing magnitude
which they occasionally assume, have natural
ly conspired to render them objects of aston
ishment and superstitions dread to the unin
structed, and a speculation and enigma to the
philosopher. At the present time no branch
of astronomy is more replete with interest,
or more eagerly pursued, inasmuch as the
hold which exact calculation gives us upon
it, may be regarded as fully established.—
Through this medium, comets have become
the unexpected instruments of inquiry info
questions of the profonndestimportance in the
theory of the planetary system, and by means
of the dissimilar eccentricity of their orbits,
have, in the most brilliant manner, enriched
our knowledge of the solar system.
The feelings of awe and astonishment that
naturally excite the imagination upon the
sudden and unexpected advent of great com
ets, ns those of 371 15. C, 43 15. C., A. I).
60, 837, 1402, 1456,1566, 1618, 1680, 1689,
1741, 1769, 1811 and 1843, have not pre
vented the diligent searcher into nature’s laws
from investigating the comctary elements ;
and we find that they are governed by the
same laws that retain the planets in their or
bits—that they shine by reflected solar light
—that they have elliptical orbits—that by the
perturbations which they experience passing
near any of the planets, they have afforded
us the best means of determining the mass of
the planet —and, not least, that they have
established the fact of a universal resisting
medium.
The nature of the comctary matter yet
remains a mystery, but such is the extreme
tenuity of the tail, that the lightest cirrus
cloud floating in our atmosphere must be look
ed upon as a dense and massive body, com
pared with the barely visible texture of a
comet. Stars of the smallest magnitude—
only seen in telescopes of great power and a
good definition —remain distinctly visible, al
though covered by the densest portion of the
comet Halley’s comet, in 1835, was within
two seconds of arc (the onc-lOOOth of the
diameter of the sun) of conjunction with a
star of the ninth or tenth magnitude; yet the
star remained constantly visible, and its light
was not perceptibly diminished, whilst the
nucleus of the comet seemed almost extin
guished by the radiance of the star. Another
proof of the extreme tenuity of comctary
matter is seeu iu the fact that the light of a
star, in passing through the densest portion,
suffers no refraction.
That the tad is an emanation from the nu
cleus is an established fact; it developes as
the comet approaches its perihelion, decreas
es soon afterwards, and usually disappears
before the comet has attained the distance of
two hundred millions of miles from the sun.
The rapidity of the increase of the tail is
marvelously astonishing. That of the great
comet of 1680, immediately after its perihe
lion passage, was found by Newton to have
been sixty millions of miles in length, and to
have occupied only two days iu its emission
from the nucleus! Its greatest length was
one hundred and twenty millions of miles.—
The comet of 1744, which was so bright ns
to be seen with the nuked eye an hour after
mid-day, had six tails, spreading out like a
fan and, about thirty-five millions of miles in
length. The tail of the comet of 1760 was
forty-eight millions miles in length; that of
the great comet of 1811 was one hundred
and thirty millions; and Chladiu noticed a
rapid shortening and lengthening of the tail,
which amounted to several millions of miles
per second! a velocity of motion (if motion
it was) far exceeding that of light. The
comet of August, 1853, presented a similar
phenomenon. The tail ol the great comet of
1843, whose appearance must be still fresh iu
the memories of our readers, was one hun
dred and thirty millions of miles in length.
The question of the materiality of the tail
has excited the deepest investigation and
speculation. The mind is almost bewildered
by the infinite sweep which it makes round
the sun in perihelion, in the manner of a
straight and inflexible rod, in defiance of the
law of gravitation, and even of the received
laws of motion. The tail of the last men
tioned comet, was whirled, unbroken and
without distortion, through an angle of 180°,
JACKSON, AMADOR COUNTY, CAL., SATURDAY MORNING, MAY 30, 1857.
Life is But a Span.
THE JUNE COMET
iii little more than two hours. If therecoald
be conceived such a thing ns a negative shad
ow a momentary impression made upon the
luminiferous ether behind the comet, this
would represent, in some degree, the concep
tion such a phenomenon irresistibly calls up.
The particles that form the tails of comets,
and the extreme portion of the nebulous en
velope about the nucleus, having passed be
yond the sphere of active attraction of the
head, can never return, but are lost to our
view and knowledge in space. Several
known comets, that in early times were de
scribed ns “exceedingly terrific,” have lost
much of their splendor and magnificence;
and comets of recent date and short period,
are decreasing in brightness, and may finally
be precipitated upon the sun.
Of the effects of comets upon the solar
system of the earth, we may very confident
ly draw conclusions which fully substantiate
the stability of our system. The body of
the great comet of 1843 passed its perihelion
at a distance not exceeding one seventh of
tiie sun’s diameter; cy silencing at that dis
tance an intensity of heat more than 47,000
times greater than the earth receives; or 25
times more intense than is required to melt
cornelian, agate or rock crystal! While sub
ject to this heat it passes through its orbit at
the rate of 3C(i miles per second. The com
et of 1680 passed its pcrlulion at the dis
tance of one sixth of the sun’s diameter, and
at the rate of 200 miles per second.
On account of the great eccentricity of
the orbits of comets, they must, in many in
stances, intersect or puss very near the or
bits of some of the planets. Lexel and
Burcthard’s comet of 1667 passed Jupiter at
a distance of only one-110th part of the di
ameter of that planet’s orbit. On the 28th
of June, 1770, its distance from the earth
was only six times that of the moon—this be
ing the nearest observed approach of a comet
to the earth. In 1779 it again approached
Jupiter within the one-4'Jlst part of the di
ameter of that planet’s orbit, and thus being
only four-fifths of the distance of that planet
from its 4th sntelitc! By this remarkable
rencontre with the system of Jupiter’s satel
lites, none of their motions, in their well
known orbits, suffered the slightest percepti
ble derangement, but their repulsive power
threw out the cornet, and its orbit was so
changed that it has never returned.
Halley’s 76 year cornet has also suffered
from the perturbations of Jupiter and Saturn
—Clairaut having computed that it would he
retarded 518 days by the former, nnd 100
days by the latter, in its appearance in 1759,
with a probable error of thirty days. It ac
tually reached its perihelion within the pre
scribed limit of error.
The third cornet of 184.3, (Fay’s) ap
proached so near to .1 noiler in 1539 and '4O,
that the planet’s attraction wa- . out one
tenth part of the Sun’s, and must L"'t pro
duced considerable alteration of the coir -t's
orbit. Its period is about seven years, bat
there is no doubt that on some future occa
sion J npiter may possibly cause it to move
in such an orbit as to become invisible.
The cornet of 837 recorded by the Chinese
astronomers, remained, according to Hu Se
jeur, twenty-four hours within a mean dis
tance of two millions of miles from the
earth.
Biela’s comet presents the first example of
the orbit of a comet intersecting that of the
Earth. It is very small and hardly visible to
the naked eye even when brightest. This is
the cornet which, on the 13th of January,
1846, presented the extraordinary spectacle
of the primitive body seperating into two
comets! The phenomenon struck astrono
mers with amazement* nnd gave an interest to
this wanderer in our system, which recent
predictions seem determined to keep alive.
Each comet pursued its own path, and before
they were lost to the telescope, their elements
were determined sufficiently close to predict
their re-appearance, which actually took place
in 1852, although made under circumstances
unfavorable for observing. They performed
their orbits without exercising any percepti
ble amount of pertubative gravitation on
each other, as, indeed, from the minuteness of
cometnry masses, we might have reasonably
expected.
The orbit of this comet so nearly intersects
that of the Earth, that an actual collision is
not impossible, and must happen in the course
of some millions of years, if neither orbit
varies. Should it approach as near the earth
as Lexel’s comet did to Jupiter’s system,
there is not the slightest doubt hut that its
orbit would be effectually changed, and the
comet, perhaps never again be seen. We
must not confound the passage of any cosmi
cal body through the Earth’s orbit, with its
proximity or collision with our globe. Great
excitement was produced in 1832 by the an
nouncement of the orbits of the Earth and
this comet intersecting each other, but when
this passage took place ou the 29th of Octo
ber, it required a full month before the Earth
reached the point of intersection Bearing
in mind that the Earth moves in its orbit at
the rate of nearly 1,640,000 miles per day, it
is easily perceived how remote was the chance
of a collision.
We have already observed that the tails of
some of the larger comets are greater than
the distance of the Earth from the Sun, and
the computations of astronomers show thut
it is probable the vapors of the tails of the
comets of 1819 ami 1822 mingled with our
atmosphere.
The orbits of Biela and Eucke’s comets
intersect each other, and it is probable among
the many partubutions experienced by such
small bodies from the larger planets, that
the inhabitants of the Earth may, in millions
of years, witness the extraordinary spectacle
of an eneontre between these cometary bodies,
and the possibility of their reciprocal pene
tration and amalgamation, or of their de
stmction. Events of this nature must have
happened, but they can exercise no more
effect upon cosmical relations than the rasing
of a gale of wind upon the sphere of our
earth, Should the largest comet actually im
pinge upon the earth, such is the extreme te
nuity of cometary matter, that the atmosphere
alone would resist it as effectually as a solid
body.
It is enrions to study the changes of pop
ular feeling that have taken place with re
gard to cometary influences. In the earlier
ages they was supposed to portend war, pes
tilence, famine, the deaths of great men, etc.,
etc. The comet of 43 B. C. was so bright
as to be seen iu (he day time, and was sni>-
posed to be the ghost of Ctezar, who had
just been assassinated. Louis 1., of France,
was terrified to that degree that he busied
himself building churches and founding mon
astic establishments, in the hopes of appeas
ing the evils threatened by the appearance of
the comet of 837. The Chinese astronomers,
at the same time, were calmly observing and
recording its path through the heavens.
So great was the alarm in Christendom in
1456, during the appearance of Halley's
comet that I’ope Calixtus, believing it to be
the instrument of Divine wrath, ordered
prayers to bo offered up in every town, and
the bells to be tolled at noon of cacli day, to
warn the people to suplieate the mercy of
God. At the same time he excommunicated
the comet and the Turks, whose armies had
proved victorious against the Christians, and
established the custom —still existing iu Cath
olic countries—of ringing the church bell at
noon. To the terror inspired by the appear
ance of the comet of 1556, some historians
have attributed the abdication of the Em
peror Charles V,
Previous to the fourth undoubted appear
ance of Halley’s comet, iu 1662, it hud been
looked upon as a forerunner of the direst
calamities; but in the time of Newton it was
regarded as a friendly visitor.
It seems to be an inherent attribute of the
mind to experience fear, and not hope and
joy, at the advent and aspect of phenomena,
which are unexpected and extraordinary; and
wdien learning hud but little bold upon the
great mass of mankind, this was peculiarly
the ease. To the appearance of comets were
attributed the various changes and irrcgnlar
i'ics of the seasons but when we reflect that
probably uo season passes without our having
at least one comet us near to us ns Jupiter,
we find no just reasonable ground for attribu
ting to this source any of the calamities with
which the world is occasionally afflicted. In
our own day public sentiment Las taken a
more cheerful aud natural, although singular
turn, with regard to comets; and in the Ger
man vineyard of the beautiful valleys of the
Rhine and Moselle, a belief has arisen as
cribing to these once ill-omened bodies a ben
iticial influence in the productiveness of the
vine and the ripening of the grape.
There arc not a few vis.ouury scientific
men who delight to bring forward the proba
ble, and impart to it an air of possibility, for
the sake of an ephemeral reputation. To the
assumed near approach of the comet of 1680
to the Earth, about the biblical time ascribed
to the deluge, Whistou attributed the over
whelming tide wave. It is the easiest thing
imaginable to propound those reckless hypo
theses, but quite another thing to prove them.
If any one is disposed to accept the ipse dix
it of such authority, they would show some
little sense aud Intelligence by saying not a
word to betray themselves. It is strange and
humiliating to think that at this late day any
one should believe our system approaching a
violent disolutiou from such inadequate caus
es, after its having, for millions of years,
stood a monument of the omnipotence and
omniscience of that incomprehensible and in
finite power which establish the laws that
govern onr own, and the myriads of systems
surrounding it.
As a tail-piece to this lengthy cometary ar
ticle, we append the following sensible lan
guage of the Chronicle:
Seriously, if one can be serious upon this
subject, will some one inform us upon what
scientific basis and calculations Ims arisen all
this talk about the comet anticipated by so
many timid souls ? Do they think that lie
who made the planets, the stars and the com
ets, and sent them from His hand upon their
prescribed orbits, has forgotten the works
which Ho has made? The great roads
through immensity which He has built, are
not like our earthly ones, nor are the orbs
that obey the Almighty, like our locomotives
or cars to be run of] - the track, or dashed
over a precipice. The worlds which make
their trips upou the tracks He surveys, are
guided by uo fallible engineer, subject to uo
over presuro of steam, liable to no breakage
of an axel, no jarring of machinery. We
read iu the chronicles of the skies uo ac
counts of accidents, uo negligeuee of the
switch, uo bull ou the track. God did not
think it necessary to put a cow-cutchur ahead
of his speedy worlds, nor breaks to retard
their progress. They have traveled for thou
sands of years safely aud their machinery
ueeds uo oil. No sensible mau need fear that
they will bounce the track, or come iu con
tact. Rut if they do, why we shall all go in
company, and there will he no regrets behind
us. Let the comet alone.
In the museum at Hifalutin is a flea skin
containing seven miser’s souls, seven rich
men’s consciences, the "principles” of seven
leading politicians, seventeen old bachelors’
hearts, and all the remaining sweetness of sev
enty old maids.
A biography of Robespierre, published iu
a late Irish paper, concludes with the follow
ing remarkable sentence:
"This extraordinary man left uo children
behind him, except his brother, who was kill
ed at the same time.”
A Husband and Wife.
A young man and his wife were prepar
ing to attend a Christmas party at the house
of a friend, some miles distant.
“ Henry, ray dear husband, don’t drink too
much at the party to-day: you will promise
me, won’t you ?” said she, putting her band!
upon Ids brow, and raising her eyes to his
face with a pleading glance.
“ No, Millie, I will not: you may trust me.”
And he wrapped his infant boy in a soft
blanket, and they proceeded.
The horses were soon prancing over the
turf, aud pleasant conversation beguiid the
way.
" Now, don’t forget your' promise,” whis
pered the young wife, as she passed up the
steps
Boor tiling ! she was the wife of a man
who loved to look upon tiie wine when it was
red. But the love for his wife and babe,
whom they both idolized, kept him back, and
it was not often that he joined iu the bacch
analian revelries.
The party passed off pleasantly, the time
for departing drew near, and the wife des
cended from the upper cnamber to join her
husband. A paug shot through the trusting
heart as she met him, for he was intoxicated
—he had broken bis promise.
Silently they rode homeward, save when
the drunken man would break into snatches
of song, or unmeaning laughter. Rut the
wife rode on, her babe pressed closely on her
grieved heart.
" Give me the babe, Millie, I can’t trust
you with him,” said he, as they approached a
dark and somewhat swollen stream, which
they had to ford.
After some hesitation, she resigned her
first-born, her darling babe, closely wrapped
in the great blanket, to his arms. Over the
dark waters the uoble steed safely bore them,
and when they reached the bauk the mother
asked for the child.
With much care and tenderness he placed
the bundle in her arms, but when she clasped
iit to her bosom uo babe was there ! It had
j slipped from the blanket, aud the drunken
lather knew it not.
A wild shriek from the mother aroused him,
! aud he turned just in time to see the little
{ rosy face rise one moment above the dark
waves, then sink for ever.
What a spectacle ! the idol of her heart
i gone—gone forever ! and that, too, by his
own intimperanec. The anguish of the moth
er, ami the remorse of the father, are better
imagined than described.
There was an exciting time at Relvillo,
j Ohio, a few weeks since, when thirty women
1 were arraigned for a riot, iu spilliug the liq
i uor aud breaking the bottles aud jugs of one
j John Morris, a retail dealer. There was
I abundant testimony ns to the facts, but the
I defense was a laudable desire to abate a nu
| isance, and although the judge was strong
1 against the woman, the jury rendered a ver
-1 diet of not guilty. Morris, the dealer, was
j then tried and convicted of selling liquor
without license, and was lined S4O aud scu
teuccd to jail for twenty days.
Revival Incident.— The following might
have occurred, a second time, if Chas. Lamb
■ had been present at a religious revival :
Brother Stern was giving the sinners their
deserts, aud shouted with peculiar emphasis;
“What shall you Mo to be saved?”
"Yes,” cried ho, looking directly at Billy,
; the absent-minded one—“what shall you. do
j to be saved?”
! "Excuse me,” said Billy, in a flustered, con
■ fused way, “but I—am—uot good at couuu
| drums!”
“What are you about, my dear?” said
his grandmother to a little boy who was sli
ding along the room and casting furitive
glances at a gentleman who was paying a
visit,
“ I am trying grandma,’ to steal papa’s
hat out of the room without letting the gen
tleman see it, for papa wants him to think
he’s out.”
A lad who had lately gone to service, hav
ing had salad served up everyday for a week,
ran away, because, said he, “ they made me
i eat grass in the summer, and I was afraid
i they’d make me eat hay iu the winter, so 1
i wur oil - .”
Recreation is a second creation, when wea
riness has almost annihilated one’s spirits. It
is the breathing ol the soul, which otherwise
; would be stifled with continual business.”
“Conscience!” said Mr. Hopkins indig
nantly, “do you suppose that nobody has got
any conscience but yourself ? My conscience
is as good as yours; aye, and better, too; for
it has never been used iu the course of my
life, whilst yours must be nearly worn out!”
A very striking picture of coolness ami
compassion, occurs iu Hood’s Waterloo bal
lad:
“ O prithee tell, good sentinel,
If hereabouts be lies—
J want a corpse with redish hair,
And very sweet blue eyes,”
He sorrows ou the sentinel
Appeared to deeply strike;
“ Walk in,” lie said, “among the dead,
And [lick out which you like.”
The man who thought ho could learn to
make boots by swallowing sherry cobblers,
has just written a work iu which he attempts
to prove that by eating hops you will acquire
a kuowledge of dancing.
What we commonly call a falling star, is
believed by the Arabs to be a dart launched
by the Almighty at an evil genius; and on
beholding one, they exclaim, “ May Ood
transfix the enemy of the faith !”
[NUMBER 32.
The Genius of Poe.—At a course of lec
tures recently piven in Baltimore, By Hr. Mc-
Cabe, the following tribute to the genius of
Poe was strikingly and impressively read:
Ho was presented as a stranger and won
derful man of our times and acquaintance—
mighty in his weakness and weak in his
mightiness. A subtle mind, a wizard of the
pen, a combinationiof the worm and the god,
of dost and the deity—a modern Prometheus
chained tojthe rock of a fatal malady—a man
who come an age before his time, and passed
away like lightning upon the scroll—who
conquered ere he fell from the topmost round
ol fame’s ladder, but foil ingloriously; from
the ark of whose spirit the dove wont forth
to bring back no olive branch from the sub
siding deluge ot sorrow; in whose window'
come the “dark and ominous bird of yore,”
croaking its “ nevermore,” forbidding the cup
ot the Nepenthe, and staring with its wild
and fiery eyes into all the convoluted laby
rinths of the past, plunging its beak into his
proud, sensitive, and bleeding heart; a child
of sorrow and of song, whose death robes
were put on in a kennel, and whose last sigh
was breathed out in a hospital. .Misfortune
seemed to mark him from the cradle to the
grave. The house of a stranger was the
home of his infancy; he never knew a
mother’s love, and, like the wandering Jew,
his restless spirit seemed ever crying for “sur
ceas of sorrow;” and when, in the deep and
passionate eloquence of despairing grief, wo
hear him shrieking to the dark impersonation
of destiny—
“ Tell me truly, I implore,
Is there, is there balm in Gilead? Tell me truly,
X implore?
Tell this soul w ith sorrow laden, if within the dis
tant Aidcn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angles
name Lenorc—
j Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels
named Lenore?”
j That sad, solemn, solemn, hopeless response—
I “ Nevermore!” tells that not only did he nur
| turo the cypress for his grave, but that no
I voice from out that “ distant Aidcn” whisper
ed of peace beyond the portals of the tomb.
Never wound wantonly the sensitive na
ture of the constitutional invalid, nor by rude
jests ami sarcasms send a blush to the temple
of modest merit.
Never insult the modest by ribaldry, tho
grave by levity, nor the pious by contempt of
sacred things.
Never pass annged man or woman without
making a reverential obeisance, unless your
house is on fire.
Never remind other people of personal de
formity, or of the relatives who have disgraced
them.
Two Items.—A picture surrounded by a
frame, ami a woman looks best surrounded
by her family; and the most beautiful
circle when handsomely filled—is a Judy’s waist
O Dear.—“ Cut my straps and let me go
to glory,” as pow, Jr., exclaimed when ha
took his first favorite kiss.
A New Pun.—Somebody speaking of the
new cent, says:
“They are a beautifuTcoin, all but tho ea
gle, mid he seems to be going somewhere in a
desperate hurry, probably because he has just
got ou a new s-ceut ”
That which is to be loved long, is to b«
loved with reason, rather than pa.->siou.
Hood gives this graphic picture of an irri
table man:—“lie lies like a hedgehog rolled
up the wrong way, tonneutiug himself with
his own prickles.”
Tho facetious Mr L. said to a fashionable
lady that "ladies that wish to be kissed lisp.”
The young lady, who had.before spoken unaf
fectedly, replied “Tho I’ve’heard they.”
The greatest pleasure of life is love; the
greatest treasure is contentment; the greatest
luxury is health; the greatest comfort is sleep,
and the best medicine is a true friend.
Tho gentleman who attempted tol cut hi*
throat with a sharp joke, a few days Kibe,
has again made a rash attack upon K'.s “ vic
tualing department,” by stabbinglumself with
a point of honor.
Woman.—The morning star of manhood
—the evening star of age. Bless our stars I
May we always bask iu the skyey influence
till we are sky high.
An Illinois editor, -peaking of a rogue who
lives in his vicinity, says ; “ Tharascal has
I broken every bank, jail and Sabbath we have
had in this country for the last live /ears.”
If you are disposed to lie polish or insclent,
ills bettor to exercise your ill humor on $ our
dog, or your eat, or ou your servant, Umn
ou your friend.
There are 1111 grist mills in California, ca
pable of manufacturing 1,000,000 of barrels
of flour per annum.
An English writer classified old maids and
bachelors as “solitary mature men and wo
men having nothing happening to them.”
Washington Irving is now seventy-five
years old. A good old ago, and he is still in
vigorous condition.
Aristippins said he liked no pleasure but
that which concerned a man’s true happiness.
A rapid mind continually struggles, the
feeble one limps, but a great mind selects thu
surest points and upon these it stands.
On a child being told that he must be bro
ken of a bad habit, he replied; “Papa, hadn't
1 better b« mended!”