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A PROSPEROUS CITY. The Trade issue of the Charleston News and Courier shows, by the con vincing proof of figures, that that city is prospering in a remarkable degree. This prosperity shows itself in all branches of business, and is based upon a solid basis of legitimate trade and manufacture. Looking over the array of statistics, the News and Courier has good reason to be proud of the result, and it is right when it says that at no time in the history of the city was the future as rich in reasonable hope as it is to-day. In the staples, the business of the last year leaves no room for complaint. Cotton, 629,187 bales. Rice, 53,871 tierces. Spirits of turpentine, 51,386 casks. Rosin, 231,417 barrels. Crude phosphate, 108,183 tons. Lumber, 18,610,857 feet. These are the receipts of the year, the increase in cotton and crude phosphate being the most note worthy. The value of the staples re ceived at Charleston is estimated at $36,216,000, and the whole trade of the city amounts to no less than $71,211,- 000. An analysis of the business proves it to be worth even more than that amount, expressed in money, would indicate. Commenting on the fact that trade in raw products alone will not support a large city, as the margin of net profit is too small, the News and Courier gives expression to, and illustration of, a fact well worth consideration by other com munities who wish to avail themselves of the best means for promoting com mercial prosperity; it says : “In manufactures, on the other hand, the gains are heavy, and are diffused throughout the community instead of being concentrated in few hands as is the case where business in raw products is relied on. It is an outside estimate to say that Charleston’s profit on the cotton received here last year amount ed to SBOO,OOO. Taking S4O as the price of a bale of cotton, and assuming that each bale can be spun into SBO worth of yarns, it will be seen that the manufacture of 100,000 bales of cotton (less than one-sixth of the in Charleston would yield a profit of four million dollars, which amount would go out in wages to thousands of opera tives and in dividends or interest on capital. What is true of cotton is true of iron, of timber, of jute, and of crude phosphates. Charleston is not near the time when a hundred thousand bales of cotton can be manufactured here in the year; but a beginning has been made in the direction of manu facturing, the factories of different kinds have had no backsets, and some of them have enlarged their capacity. The value of the local manufactures in Charleston for the year 1880--1 is at least seven million dollars. And this is doubtless thrice as much as the profit derived by all parties from the trans portation, manipulation and sale of the staples, valued at over thirty-six mil lions. It is not surprising, then, that additional companies should have been organized, and that the present year will witness cheering additions to the sum of our local manufactures.” The most important branch of Charleston’s manufacturing business is the preparation of commercial fertili zers. The extent and profitableness of this business is wonderful. Here are the items: Last year 287,133 tons of phosphate rock were shipped, or ma nipulated in Charleston. The cost of mining and washing, including the royalty on the marine phosphate, did not exceed three dollars a ton. This includes probably half a million dol lars paid to laborers and others. Tak ing $7 a ton as the average selling price, the companies and individuals engaged in phosphate mining have made $4 a ton, or $1,148,532. This is not the end. The phosphate, when ground and manipulated, sells readily at S2O per ton and over, and the facto ries in and around Charleston manu factured during the year at least 100,- 000 tons of fertilizers, the basis of which was South Carolina phosphate rock. Well may it be said that the phosphate deposits are a mine of wealth. Already the total yield is two million tons, valued at $12,000,000, and the supply is practically inexhaustible. Alluding to the various railroad combinations in which the city is in terested, and concluding its review, the News and Courier says: “Sagacious observers are satisfied that the com binations most dreaded heretofore will not be hostile, and that Charleston should find much that is encouraging, and see nothing that is alarming, in the railroad situation. The vigor with which the work on the national jetties has been pushed forward strengthens Charleston’s position. In eighteen months or less the jetties can be finished, if the requisite appropria tions be made. This port will then have no equal on the South Atlantic Coast, and nothing can prevent it from becoming a great commercial centre. “With merely such railroad connec tions as Charleston now has and can rely on, the city will live and flourish. There is warrant for looking forward to changes in the course of trade that will cause Charleston to leap forward. Whether this happens or no, Charles ton will advance. The corner has been turned, and good times will grow bet ter as the years roll on.” —William E. Holmes, the student assistant in the faculty of Atlanta Bap tist Seminary, was ordained to the min istry in Augusta, September 2d. He is. an unpretending but intelligent and worthy young man. Ex Secular Editorials—Literature— ' Domestic and Foreign Intelligence. LITERARY NOTES AND COM MENTS. —There is hardly a literary man in America whose writings have been more widely read than those of Dr. J. G. Holland, nor one whose name is better known among the people. It is said that nearly 600,000 copies of hie books have been sold, to say nothing of the enormous sale each month of Scribner's Monthly, over which he presides as Editor in-chief. The Century Co., publishers of Scribner's (to be known as “ The Century Maga zine" after October), will soon issue a portrait of Dr. Holland, which is said to be a remarkably fine likeness; it is the photograph of a life-size crayon drawing of the head and shoulders, recently made by Wyatt Eaton, and will be about the size of the original picture. It is to be offered in connection with subscriptions to The Century Magazine. —The possession of the manuscript of the first poem which Mr. Whittier ever published leads the Portland (Me.) Transcript to recall the young poet’s sensations when he first saw his pro duction in . print. He was working one day with his uncle repairing a stone fence when the postman- in pass ing tossed to him a copy of the journal to which many weeks before he had sent his poem. Tremblingly young Whittier opened the paper, to find the verses at the top of the first column. He was so 1 delighted and bewildered that he stood lookipg at it for a long time, and is sure he did not read a word. At length his uncle called him back to his senses by bidding him .:eep at work. —Replying to the statement made that the sale of Jefferson Davis’ book is slower in the South than in the North and West, Appleton & Co., the publishers, write to the New York Evening Post: “The sale of Mr. Davis’ ‘Rise and Fall of the Confederate Gov ernment’ has been remarkably large in the South, and much better there than in the North. Twenty thousand sets were delivered in the Southern States within twelve weeks from the day of its publication; and although the hot weather has temporarily somewhat checked it, we have a large number of subscriptions for delivery early in the the autumn, so that eventually the sale will greatly exceed the number men tioned. When it is remembered that the work is published in two large octavo volumes at the price of s.' 0, it will be seen that the sale, even to this period, has been very great; in fact,we believe it to be wholly unprecedented.” —Mrs.Mary E.Bryan’s “Wild Work” has been issued from the press of the Appletons. It is uniform in style with “Manch”—Mrs.Bryan’s very successful novel of last year. —“I wish that Tennyson had not writ ten‘Maud,’” says R. H. Stoddard, in the North American, “or if he must write it, I wish that he had not pub lished it. It is, in a certain sense, such a study as he undertook in ‘The Lover’s Tale’—a study of overmaster ing passion, which in this instance is steeped through and through with bit terness and with morbidness. ‘Locks ley Hall’ showed us what he could do in this direction, and surely ‘Locksley Hall’ was enough. That he was eighteen years over ‘Maud’ proves tenacity of purpose, but not wisdom of intention; if he had been eighteen hundred years over it he could never have made it a good poem. I wish it could be blotted out of his writings— wish it so heartily that I would even give up the ‘Garden Song,’ which is the only noble thing in it. We do not want a nineteenth century Hamlet, and if we did, it is not to Tennyson that we should look as his creator. I also wish—for while I am about it I may as well free my mind as not—l also wish that Tennyson had not writ ten ‘Queen Mary’ and ‘Harold.’ They do not detract from his reputation, except with the unthinking, for good work at one time is not destroyed by bad work at another time, but they add nothing to it.” —A writer in The Chicago Dial relates thejollowing anecdote of Bayard Tay lor : “Speaking of Taylor’s reading his own poetry reminds me of an anecdote that he told me about Tennyson,whose style of reciting verse he imitated to my hearty delight. While he and "his wife were visiting Tennyson, some years ago, at the Isle of Wight, in con versing about the Laureate’s poems, Taylor said that he could never read aloud the scene of the parting of Guin evere and Arthur in the ‘ldyls of. the King’ without breaking down. “I can,” said Tennyson confidently; “let me show you.” And there in the sacred upper room of his house, before his ATLANTA, GEORGIA, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1881. wife and guests, he began. As he went on with his deep, sonorous voice, chanting like an old British bard and was getting fairly into the pathetic part, Taylor said, “as I glanced around, Mrs. Tennyson was in tears, my wife was Vainly attempting to repress her emo tion, a great lump came into my throat, my own eyes filled, Mr. Tennyson’s voice was becoming more and more tremulous and husky, till finally he choked with feeling and broke down utterly. “I thought 1 could do it,” was the only explanation of his fail ure. —With much force and point the Sun day- School Times says: “There is no department of newspaper work which is more trying, than book reviewing; nor is there any department in which a more serious, and often unwelcome, reponsibility rests on an editor. Books multiply. In every line, there are books of all grades competing for pub lic favor. In noticing these books, an editor’s first duty is toward his readers. It is for him to indicate, to the extent of his ability, just what each book is worth to a purchaser who has but lim ited means, and who wants to use to the best advantage his money in buy ing, and hie time in reading, selections out of the multitude of books in the market. In discharging this duty to wards his readers, an editor is liable to give offense to both authors and pub lishers. This is obvious, and an editor must act always in view of it. In the long run, his reputation must depend on the ability, the fairness, and the fearlessness, with which his duty to his readers is performed.” —Miss Frances E.Willard is contribu ting a series of brief, gracefully written articles on “The Literary Men and Women of the South,” to the New York Independent. A growing inter est in the work and the individuality of the Literary Guild of the South is ob servable among their brethren of the pen in the North. “The best that the South can do,” as Dr. Holland ex presses it in Scribners, finds apprecia tive admirers there. We are glad of this fact. There should be no sectional ism in literature. No boundary save the circumference of the world should circumscribe the genuine work of tal ent and of genius. —With deep regret and pain we an nounce the death of Sidney Lanier, Esq. After a lingering illness and much suffering, surrounded by his loved ones, his spirit passed to God at Asheville, N. C., last Thursday. He leaves a wife and four children to mourn an irreparable loss. Thus has passed away a rare and radiant genius, a most lovable man, an artist-soul,a master in prose and verse. A noble man, a true poet —what more than this is needed to write his epitaph? Dead in his prime, yet a full harvest of fame he had gathered. From the me ridian of his life he ascended to im mortality. Peace to his mortal dust — to his soul glory everlasting. The discoveries of modern science are truly marvelous. The Electro phone, is the name of a new kind of telephone, recently patented with which remarkable interesting experi ments have been made at Calais, in France and Dover, in England, between which places conversation was kept up through the sea. A Paris correspondent says : Not only were the words whis pered into the apparatus at Calais dis tinctly heard at Dover, and of course vice versa, but the listener at one end was perfectly well able to distinguish by the mere tones of the voice the per son who was speaking at the other end. It should be observed that while the hnman voice was being transmitted through one wire the other were em ployed for the transmission of tele graphic messages. Moreover, experi ments were connected between the hours of 10 and 4—that is, in the busi est part of the day, when the wires are in unceasing operation. The voice of the speaker was distinctly heard as soon as the wires were joined to the apparatus and conversations were car ried on without interruption in the presence of competent specialists. The experiments with the same apparatus were then continued with the same re sults, and in the midst of the confusion produced by the simultaneous working of several machines at the London ter minal station the voice of the speaker was heard as plainly as though he had been in the same room. There can no longer be any doubt that it is perfectly practicable to converse across, or rath er under the sea, by means of any sub marine cable. The inventer maintains it is just as easy to talk across the At lantic as from one room to the other, NOTES. Irish Nihilists recently attempted to blow up the Infantry Barracks at Castlebar. The Apache Indians are murdering settlers and prospectors in Arizona. Many bodies have been found. Troops are hastening to the Territory. A gen eral Indian war is apprehended. It was intensely hot last week all over the United States. At Little Sil ver, N. J., the thermometer recorded 108 degrees in the shaije. In New York City and Baltimore the ther mometer noted 100 degrees. Numbers of people were prostrated by the heat, and many deaths occurred. In Michigan there are miles of blaz ing forests. Whole families have been burned to death, and many villages are reported to have been destroyed by the forest fires. During the hottest day of last week, when the mercury was at one hundred degrees and more, North and South, and people dying from the heat by scores, dispatches from Deadwood, Da eotah Territory, were received announc ing heavy snow storms in the Black Hills. Snow lay five inches deep on a level at Deadwood, and at points in Wyoming, Montana, Wisconsin and Michigan, the thermometer marked as low as fifty-three degrees. The weather record of this year is strange indeed. The Russian government is at last taking active steps to suppress vigorously any further outrages on the Jews. Germany is doing the same thing, and it is to be hoped that the revived barbarism of the Middle Ages will be effectually exterminated. The village of Reichenbach, in the Bernese Oberland, Switzerland, has been almost destroyed by a fall of stone. Seventy-nine slaves were liberated during the month of August by the officer for the abolition of the slave trade in Egypt. Prof. King has made a balloon one hundred feet high and two hundred feet in diameter, with which he pro poses to undertake a voyage across the Atlantic ocean. The troubles of the Khedive of Egypt with his ministers and mutinous troops are so complicated that an occupation of the country by the European powers is imminent. Such a step will add fuel to the smouldering war-fires of the Old World. The French army of occupation in Tunis is seriously threatened by the Arabs and other native tribes. Large reinforcements are being forwarded from France. It is stated that diplomatic relations between the German government and the Vatican are to be re-established. Another train was stopped by twelve masked men in Missouri and robbed. The daring robbery occurred on the Chicago and Alton Railroad, near Kansas City. In the Methodist Ecumenical Con ference, in session at London, a majori ty of the speakers decidedly favored the maintenance of the present system of itinerant preachers. Mr. Warren, an American delegate, in consequence of the facts adduced relative to the spiritual destitution in London, sug gested that there should be a traveling evangelical ministry throughout the world. Dr. Peck also testified to the value of itineracy in America. There was a similar expression of opinion in favor of a system of lay preaching, the Hon. J. M. White, an American dele gate, especially pointing out its adap tability to the needs of the working people. Lord Derby takes a very cheerful view of England’s condition. He does not believe that English agriculture is to be destroyed by American compe tition. England has unbounded resources. A Congress of Socialists is to con vene at Berne, in Switzerland, on the 23d of October. Destructive forest fires have occurred in Algiers. Over six hundred dwel lings were destroyed in one day in a single province, and sixty-three per sons burned to death. The feeling between Italy and France is becoming more and more threatening. The French annexation of Tunis and the Marseilles riots are causes of this belligerent feeling. The London Morning Post publishes the following significant dispatch: “We understand that after the Italian military maneuvers Signoi Firrero, minister of war, will proceed to inspect the fortson the French frontier. French officers have arrived in Pied mont for the purchase of horses fo' ! the army. Several Italian papers urge the government to prohibit their ex portation.” It may be imagined that, in the meantime, Prince Bismarck is watch ing the gathering cloud with grin; satisfaction. An engagement has been signed at New York by E. W. Cole, president of the East Tennessee, Virginia and Geor gia system of railroads, and C. P. Huntington, which secures for Cole’s system 1,400 miles of road—a connec tion with Cincinnati and West Vir ginia, via Knoxville and the Knoxville and Ohio division of the East Ten nessee, Virginia and Georgia railroad, and over the Kentucky Central rail road. The work of connection is ex pected to be completed by next July. The forest fires now raging in Penn sylvania cover many thousand acres. The Pomeranians are a thick-skulled set, they fail to perceive that their barbarous treatment of the Jews in their province is a disgrace to civiliza sion and the German name. We hope the military authorities will make short work of the rioters hereafter. The Berlin correspondent of the London lime} says: “The issue of the Nihilist newspaper, the Will of the Peo ple, is convincing proof that during the summer the Nihilists quietly carry on a propaganda in the interior, and only recommence their activity in the win ter. There seems, therefore, no doubt that the coming winter will bring more plots and panics, in spite of the success of the authorities in arresting them and in unearthing secret presses.” In a paper before the American Society of Civil Engineers, Mr. C. Shaler Smith gives the results of many years’ observations of wind pressure and its effects. He has personally vis ited the tracks of destructive storms as soon as possible after their occurence, for the purpose of determining the maximum force and width of the path of the storm in every instance. The most violent storm in ,his records was at East St. Louis, in 1871, when the wind overturned a locomotive, the maximum force developed in so doing being estimated at no less than ninety three pounds per square foot. At St. Charles, Mo., in 1877, a jail was des troyed, the wind force required being eighty-four and three-tenths pounds per square foot. At Marshfield, Mo., in 1880, a brick mansion was leveled, the force required being fifty-eight pounds per square foot. Below these extraordinary pressures there were sun dry cases of trains blown off the rails, and bridges, etc., blown down by gales of wind of from twenty-four pounds to thirty-one pounds per square foot. Mr. Smith observes that in all hie examples he has taken the minimum force required to do the observed dam age, and has considered this as the maximum force of the wind, although, of course, it may have been much higher. Some of the hurricanes were very destructive, the one at Marshfield having cut down everything along a path forty-six miles long and one thousand eight hundred feet wide, kil ling two hundred and fifty people.—lt would be interesting to know what the maximum force of the wind was during the recent terrible hurricane on the Georgia coast, especially at Tybee. It was certainly as destructive as the memorable cyclone that overwhelmed Marshfield. Dispatches from St. Petersburg!! state that recent arrests have been made including an official of the gen eral staff, who is accused of advising revolutionists of the precautions which the government is taking. Although the prisons are filled with persons ac cused of political crimes, very few are brought to trial. A new plan in the construction of steamships has been discovered, by which it is claimed that vessels will be able to glide over the waters at the rate of forty miles an hour. This would enable a steamef to go from New York to Liverpool in about three days. Bev. J. M. Stansberry, pastor of Tunnel Hill church, writes: “Dele gates attending the Middle Cherokee Association, on the 22d inst., will pur chase excursion tickets at the office t hey start from at two and a half cents per mile, each way. This is in accor dance with an order of B. W. Wrenn, Esq., General Passenger Agent of the W. & A. R. R.” —/Talbotton Register: Dr. Campbell. of Columbus, arrived in town last Fri day and has preached several excellent d scourses at the Baptist church. He in rendering valuable and appreciated services to a protracted meeting now in progress. GEORGIA NEWS. —Pean and grapes are fine in Oglethorpe county. —Lands are advancing in price in Henry county. —Oglethorpe county will make a good corn crop. The grape crop of Randolph county is very large. —The Quitman cotton factory has received its new machinery. —A spring mattress factory will soon be established in Columbus. —The American Public Health Association will meet in Savannah in November. —A “Hackman's Union,” to regulate hack-fare, has been organised in Macon. —Barlow county will make only one fourth of a crop of both corn and cotton. —Thousands of tons of fine hay have been saved in Oglethorpe county this year. i’he crops of Monroe county will be bet ter than an average. A better corn crop than last year. —Prayer-meetings were held generally throughout the State last week for the recov ery of the President. —The water-works at Macon are now completed, and the water has been turned into the reservoirs. —Augusta has now in operation 175,000 spindles in her cotton mills, representing an investment of $5,000,000. —Columbus Times: “There is more sick ness in Stewart county than there has been at any other time during the summer.” —The Augusta Chronicle says: “ The steamer Katie reports that the river is lower than it has been for the last twenty years." —The Franklin News says there is not a liquor shop in Heard county, the last one having closed for the want of patronage. —Senator Hill has had another surgical operation performed on his tongue. The disease is cancer. The case is a serious one. —There is a movement among the farmers in Houston county to fix the maximum price for picking cotton at forty cents per uundred. —According to the tax receiver’s digest for 1881, the taxable property of Cobb county foots up $3,317,541, an increaseovei last year of $242,826. l'he Columbus Steamboat Company has increased its capital stock to $50,000, and resolved to put a new boat on the river within fifteen days. —A singular exhibit at the Atlanta Expo sition will be by a North Carolina firm of over two thousand specimens of the medici nal herbs which grow in that State. —The Atlanta Constitution has changed its form to an eight page paper and put on a new dress. This is characteristic of the en terprise of that excellent journal. —A survey is being made of the line of the Marietta and North Georgia railroad as far as Canton, with a view of straightening some of the sharp curves and lessening some of the heaviest grades. —All the cars and rolling stock of the Ma con and Brunswick railroad are being let tered E. T., V. & G. —meaning East Tennes see, Virginia and Georgia railroad, and the locomotives are being numbered. —An Oglethorpe county farmer recalls the fact that tne year 1828 was the exact coun terpart of the present one, so far as regards crops, but that one of the largest ones ever known was raised the next year. —Although the General Assembly did not vote $20,000 to the Cotton Exposition, Geor gia will be fully and propeily represented. The Agricultural Department, the Augusta and Columbus cotton factories, and the rail roads, will make fine exhibits. Dalton Citizen: "We will have lean pork the coming year. Owing to the failure o f the corn crop it will not pay to keep hogs through the winter, and they will be killed early in the fall before they are fattened." —Mr. Butler Martin, of Carroll county, has a patch of cotton so heavily fruited “that it is all falling on the ground, and to keep it from rotting he has decided to stake it and tie the cotton up. The patch is planted in hills three feet apart." —There are forty-one fire insurance com panies now doing business in Georgia, sev enteen of them foreign. The premiums re ceived by these companies during the year, ending April 1, 1881, amounted to $975,014, and the losses paid $380,448. —The Marietta Journal says: “Some of our more sensible farmers, notably the larger and more thrifty ones, have discovered their mistake, and will hereafter sow down their lands in wheat, oats, clover and the grasses, and increase their herds of cattle, sheep, hogs and horses.” —The authorities of the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia railroad contemplate reducing the passenger fare on their entire lines from Bristol to Meridian, Miss., to the uniform rate of three cent* per mile. The change will probably go into effect next month. - Macon Telegraph and Messenger: "There are now five vacant scholarships in Mercer University, to be filled by the City Council, and a probability that three more will exist. Applications for the scholarships, which are free, must be made in writing to the Coun cil, and the applicant must be over fourteen years of age.” —lt is said that an organization has been made among the house servants of Atlanta, for the purpose of caliing a general strike just as the Cotton Exposition opens. The same persons that engineered the washer woman’s strike are said to have the new movement in hand. The pleasures of house keeping in Atlanta have never been fully realized by our rural population. —Augusta Chronicle: “Gen. Alexander says traffic prospects are exceptionally good in all Southern States. He is not afraid of the drought. A falling off in the grain crop will be compensated for elsewhere. He thinks the cotton and tobacco crops are ex traordinarily good; the grain crop will be short, but not to a serious extent—very little below that of last year.” —The ladies of the Women’s Silk Culture Association are busily preparing an exhibit tor the Atlanta display, which shall repre sent the results of their labor and show the possibility of producing first-class material in this country. Eine specimens of home raised cocoons, quantities of floss and worked silk and some completed fabrics will be sent. Reeling is now in progress at the As sociation’s rooms in Philadelphia. —The Savannah News says the loss of life among the colored people on the rice plans tations on the South Carolina shore, and the islands along the river, will probably never be known, out there is sufficient data to place it between one hundred and fifty and two hundred. Besides the bodies upon vhich inquests have been held, many have been found and buried by their friends with out a legal investigation, because they were offensive, and it was necessary to inter them at once. —The Western and Atlantic railroad has secured 1,000 feet of srace at the Interna ti >nal Cotton Exposition, lobe held in At luuta beginning the sth of October next, for e exhibition of minerals and other pro i icts along their line and in the adjacent unties. Mr. H. B. Lee, the General Agent f r the road has appointed Mr. H. C. Garri n as agent for the counties of Murray, ibert and Fannin, to procure specimens lur the exhibition.