Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

SAVANNAH DAILY HERALD. VOL. 1-NO. 79. The Savannah Daily Herald (MORNING AND EVENING} IS PUBLISHED BT S3. W. MASON & CO., At 111 Bat Street, Savahnah, Georgia, terms: Per Copy Five Cents. Per Hundred $3 50. Per Year $lO 00, advertising: Two Dollars per Square of Ten Lines for first in sertion; One Dollar for each subsequent one. Ad vertisements inserted in the morning, will, if desired, appear in the evening without extra charge. JOB PRINTING every style, neatly and promptly done. NEW ENGLAND CORRESPONDENCE. The Jury Bill Vetoed—One Man's as Good as Another , aud Better too—The Ijottery in Massachusetts — How the Devil is Whipped Round the Stump —An Interesting Case Touching Contractors—Justice vs. Sympathy and “ Influence "—lncrease of Population — The Great Demand for Houses Boston Spreading Herself — Etc., etc., etc. Boston, March 31. I told you in a recent letter about the nar row action of the Legislature of Massachu setts in passing a Jury Bill, disabling from that unpleasant duty of the unwilling citizen all who, by smiling socially or causing others to smile—that is by selling rum or drinking the same as a beverage—may be considered in an illegal business. The Boston press was unanimous in opposition to the bill, of course, and poked muoh fun at the Solons from what Dr. Holmes calls “ the deep-rut ted communities on the unsalted streams.” But they, believing that they were doing the work of hired hands in God’s mill, did not stir a peg from their position. There was a great deal of interest felt in the probable course of Gov. Andrew on the bill. He had always been known as an ultra man in every reform of this reforming age, and I think that the tough-hided total abstainers had considerable hopes of his aid, as he has never been known to pass along the street intoxi cated, singing bawdy song3,and laughing the unwholesome laugh of the debauchee. But the “Gov.” has proved his belief that there is more sediment in blood than there is in water: fer he has come out with a veto, ac companied by a lengthy message which con tained several very sarcastic hits. The Gov ernor evidently thinks that one man is as good as another for jury service, while bis judgment is unwarped. But there should be an improvement in liquor. Meanwhile the Legislature had another scheme for the bet ter enforcement of “the laws”—which, with the leatherskinned obtainers, nevei means anything else but the prohibitory liquor law. Still, I think the quality of the beverage usu ally sold at our bars ought to be improved.— The Legislature has decided, very emphati cally decided, against the license law for vum-sellers, and seem determined to make dealing in the ardent a crime where the law can be enforced. I wish they would do something to make the “barkeeper” sell bet ter stuff; and as that is where I am bound to conclude, I will leave the subject. The magnificent Gift Enterprise, yclept Presentation Concerts, which cast a blaze of cheap jewelry and such over our city for a whole week or two, came to an untimely end the other day by the interference of the Po lice on the charge that it was a lottery, against the laws of the Commonwealth, for such cases made and provided. The Police had not received so many pianos and sewing machines as they thought they deserved— hence the -complaint. It is denounced by the press, and by most ot the citizens as small business. It was not a lottery, inasmuch as every ticket was good for a concert, and whatever else it happened to draw. Os course the average of presents was not ex tensive. But the lotteries that are counte nanced in church fairs are of an unmistak able character, and should not have any pre ference over others. I believe the authori ties intend to let the concern go on under a new name on the condition that they will take care to make it appear in their adver tisements that their principal* business is to sell concert tickets and that the presents are only incidentals. That is the way his Sul phuric Majesty is castigated around the stump when conflicting interests twitch the pride of municipal power. Perhaps this was to show the country people, who are very much worried about the morals of Boston, that a metropolitan police is not needed in this fair Utopia of respected law. •The case of the Smith Brothers, Govern ment Contractors for various naval supplies, has excited no little interest in our commu nity. iThe parties are merchants in this city, who have supplied the Navy Agent at this post with millions of dollars worth of goods since the war commenced, out of which they have undoubtedly made a very good thing. They were suddenly arrested by the Navy Department nearly a year ago, their papers seized, their store closed, and their bodies imprisoned—bail being refused for a long time. They were tried by a Naval Court Martial at Charlestown, which dragged its slow length through many months, and finally ended in a sentence to pay a fine of twenty thousand dollars with imprisonment for five years. Suddenly every body who had been denouncing swindling contractors be came very gushing with sympathy. The press bewailed the persecution of our dis tinguished fellow citizens, and questioned the arbitrary nature of the arrest aud the trial. The Massachusetts delegation in Con gress looked into the matter—l know not through what spectacles—and saw a good deal of persecution too. They bee&me satis fied that the Smiths had been harshly and unjustly dealt with; that they were really innocent of any frauds ; that the most that could be made out, in dealings of many mil lions, was something like two thousand dol lars excess in charges over just rates, and they, therefore, demanded a reversal of the judgment at the hands of the Navy Depart ment and the President. But the Navy De partment choose first to put the case in the hands of an eminent Washington lawyer (Mr. Charles Eames) for review and judge ment, and the conclusion he comes to is an approval of the decision of the court mar tial against the Smiths. The Secretary of the Navy, consequently, stands by the re cord, and his case goes up to the President for final decision ; and to him Senator Sum ner now appeals in behalf of the prisoners in this strain of injured innocence : It is hard that citizens enjoying a good name, who had the misfortune to come into business ralations with the Government, should be dragged from their beds and hur ried to a military prison; that they should be obliged to undergo a trial by court martial, damaging their good name, breaking up their business, and subjecting them to un told expenditure, when, at the slightest touch, the whole case vanishes into thin air, leaving nothing behind but the incomprehen sible spirit in which it had its origin. Os course, the finding and sentence of the court martial ought, without delay, to be set aside. But this is only the beginning of justice.— Some positive reparation should be made to citizens who have been so deeply injured. Well, there are many who don’t agree with Mr. Sumner and the Congressional delega tion, but believe that the members of Con gress are more likely to be decieved or biased than the members of the naval court martial. However, the President has reversed the de cision of the court martial, and the Smith Brothers are now free from the. restraint of the law. Great is Shoddy, and Contracts are his profits 1 The demand for houses and store# in this city was never so pressing *as at the pres ent- A person experiences the utmost difficulty in procuring an eUgible place of business or residence in the city or suburban towns. The high cost of materials has pre vented the ordinary amount of building for the last two years, and the population has been steadily increasing in number and wealth. As people grow wealthy, you know, they want larger and more commodious ac commodations. There is no grass in Boston streets, and the sign “tolet” is rarely seen on the streets devoted to business or resi dences. Rents are consequently advanc ing; and our sidewalks never seemed so narrow for the crowds who fre quent them on business - or pleasure intent. Something - must be done soon or we shall slop over. We have always been as thick as three in a bed on this little peninsula, and our only hope is in growing out over the Back Bay with the strides of piles and pile drivers. This we are rapidly doing, and now we want buildings erected on the new land —one thousand dwelling houses at once.— Why have we not a Napoleon to order these improvements at once ? or, still better, an Aladdin to rub his lamp and wish a little easy ? One project to increase the valuable area of the city is to level Fort Hill, a steep eminence overlooking the harbor, once the court end of the town, and now the Police Court end of the city, which would, if level ed down, give something like ten acres to business. It is'now a hive of Irish, swarm ing through four story houses, once the abode of wealth and fashion. These houses face on what was once an elegant public area of two or three acres, crowned with beautiful shade trees, and carefully kept. It is now a smooth worn play-ground and breathing place for thousands of Irish children, with abraded clothing aud dirty noses, who make dismal music to take the place of the songs of birds, when irate dams appeal to their tender side 9 with persuasive but much worn shoes. Crime, corruption, disease, pov erty and death lurk in these parlieus and “shake” for mortals that are scarcely fit for anything better than eternal salvation. Business men with faith, together with capital enough, are waiting for the authority of law to say unto this mountain—which is only a hill, anyway—Be thou removed aud cast into the sea; and it would be done. I am a poor weak mortal, full of sympathy for my fellow beings, and not at all given to levity; therefore I shall not say that I wish the inhabitants would cling to the hill in that great day, and go into the sea too. I think it would be a potent emetic enough to make the sea “ throw up ” all its fished and what ever else it had in its stomach. The Republican victory in New Hamp shire was so sweeping that the other side were routed and demoralized. The popular majority was larger than had been rolled up in the State for twenty-five years. Theatricals are lively here. Booth is at the Boston, drawing large houses. The weather is fine and the season is forward. lota. SAVANNAH, GA., TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 1865. INDIAN CONJURING. Early in the morning after our arrival at! Poomah, we were lounging in the veranda of the Dawk bungalow, when a loud tom-tom ing called attention, and we saw a procession entering the comppand of the bungalow.— First came two yellow-looking fellows with long black hair and red puggerees, beating like madmen with thqif horny fingers on a couple of tom-toms, ffeten followed three or four boys dragging huge snakes over their shoulders. Next marched a tall old man, richly dressed in shawls, followed closely by two or three coolies carjgying boxes. Some ragged foHowers with shears closed the pro cession. The party went round to the back of the bungalow, and presently our syces brought to us the old gentleman in “the 9hawls, who bowed to the grotind, touched his forehead, mouth, and breast' to us, and began a long address, in which we were plentifully honored as protectors of the poor, ana as lords, masters, and royal high nesses. In a few minutes the whole party came round from the back of the house, and form ed a semi-circle with on jervants and follow ers. In the middle, with at least ten yards of clear space around him, sat the conjurer. By his side squatted a little negro boy with a large box in his arms, which/ after a word or two in the Mahrattee language from the old conjurer, he opened and brought for our in spection. On looking in, we saw a mass of cobras twisted in a lump, lying in a blanket fast asleep. The box was put on lbe ground a few yards from the conjurer, with the lid open. He then proceed a sort of Pan-pipe, aiid began to play allow and mournful air. We, from our post on the veranda, could look, down into the box; and in a few seconds we saw the snakes beginning to uncurl. The one that was first detached from the lump slipped over the side of the box to the ground. The moment he was on the sand, he stiffened, reared his head, opened the hood which extended on both sides of his face, aud hissed violently, shooting his tongue very swiftly in and out. Meanwhile the charmer began to play more quickly on his pipe, and the snake, turning towards him, gradually approached him. Mpre snakes now rose in the box, some came out, and others look ed over the edge; but all were hissing and looking venomous. Some went close to the man and boy, and even crawled on their clothes. They were handled with the greatest composure; both the old man and the boy taking hold of their necks C e> behind, as a keeper handles ferrets, m whenever any of the snakes approach*/ A r circle of spectators, it was broken <s■ treat, with great appearance <» dismay! 1 1: these occasions, the old man redoublea’the energy of his music, and generally succeed ed iu enticing the snakes back; but some times the boy bad to go and fetch them. After we had looked at this performance for some minutes, one of our party Observed that he believed that it wa9 all a humbug, that their teeth had been extracted, and their venom-bags cut out. At auy rate, he an nounced his intention of collaring the first snake that came near the Verandas We" ob jected in vain; and when presently a very active looking cobra, that had been several times fetched back by the boy, approached our veranda, and the’ coqjurer had turned his head away for au instant, with a sudden dart our friend had it by the back of the neck, and jumped down with it into the compound, holding it high over his head, and shouting to the conjurer that anybody could do that. As soon as the audience saw what he had done, they set up a tremendous yell. The conjurer seemed terrified, and rushed at the rash Englishman, playing his pipe like a madman. But our friend kept away from him, and swung the hissing cobra in the air. The old man entreated him to throw it in the box; and after marching all round the com pound, and frightening the public by pre tended lunges with it at the faces in the little crowd, he threw the snake into the blanket. The boy, in the meantime, had picked up the others, and returned them to the box. When he had them all iu, the old charmer shut the box, aud sat on it, panting. This interruption put an end to the snake-charm ing. I do not believe that the snakes had been tampered with : but our friend, who has a grip of iron, held the snake he had seized so tight, and so close to its head, that it was powerless. * He told us that it nearly got away, and was almost as bad to hold as au eel. Our slave in the shawls V r . S taken up his position in the same place as before, the boy held in his haud a common basket about two feet high and a foot across. The old man announced that he would cause a mango tree to grow out of the sand. We had heard this triGk much talked about, and watched it closely. The conjurer first scraped a little hole in the sand, and put in it a mango seed. When he bad covered it up, he asked us for a little water. I went out and poured half a gallon over it, wetting the sand all around. The old man then put the basket over the hole, and said he would have a tree in about twenty minutes. While we were waiting, he asksd for three teacups, and said he would show some little-child's play, as he called it, to while away the time. He put the three cups on the ground in front of him, the hole with the basket over it being on the right, the boy on his left, and no one else within at least four yards, except ourselves, and we sat in the veranda about six feet from him. He then asked us to mark a piece of chupattie. I marked a piece with tho number of my reg iment, and at his request put it upon bis tongue. He closed his mouth, chewed, swallowed, then opened his mouth, which we examined, and it was apparently empty. He then asked which cup the piece of chu pattie should be under. I whispered to a comrade, “Run and put your foot on the middle cup before the boy can get to it.” I then answdted, ‘The middle.” My comrade immediately kjeked that cup over, and there was nothing to be seen. We laughed at the old fellow; but he said, '“Hai,’’-(it is there,) and, turning to the boy, said, “Scrape the sand.” The boy went on his knees, and with his fingers scratched the sand till there ap peared a piece of chupattie with “one hun dred and fifty-seven” on it, and otherwise corresponding to the piece he had eaten. The conjuror then took a piece of chupat tie, aud in our presence marked it with an Arabic character or two, and gave It to one I of ourselves to eat. Then, walking back, he sat down behind the cups facing us, and, taking some sand in his baud, shook it over each cup, and said: “Where is it, my Lord?” The one of us who had eaten it thought it a sure joke to cry out iu answer, “ Under all*” But he quietly lifted up each -cup, and under each lay a piece of chupattie exactly corres pending to the one our “friend had eaten. — This trick could not have been done with apparatus, as the cups were ours and the ground was open road. It was pure sleight of hand. But now it was time to look for the mango tree. We stood round when the old man lifted the basket, and there, from the centre of the wet patch, rose a green shoot about two inches high. We went down on onr knees and examined it. We were told not to touch it, as it was delicate; but it was evidently, to our eyes, something growing. The old man then covered it up, and said, “ In two minutes the tree will be made.” We now asked after the two huge boas we had seen the boj's dragging along, and they/ fetched them from under a piece of old sail cloth where they had been, lying, asleep.— They were as large round as a man’s thigh, and apparently about five feet long; but the charmer said they could stretch themselves to twelve or fifteen, feet. He had had them since they were a tew inches long, when he found a nest of them. They were very tame and torpid; there were no tricks in them. We handled them and stroked their skin.— The old conjurer said the only thing they could do worth seeing was to eat. He asked whether we had a goat or a sheep to give them; but we had none. A couple of dogs were brought in a sack—one a wretched looking pariah dog with a piece of cloth tied over his face; the other a big, rough, yellow fellow, wriggling and snapping like a fresh caught pike. The moment the dog yapped, the boa who was to exhibit—one had been taken. away, as, if fed in each other’s presence, they are apt to fasten on each other—became lively, and opened his eyes. A piece of string was fastened to the dog’s hindleg, and, the cloth being tom off his face, he made a rush away, but was "brought up in a few yards by the string. He turned savagely round to bite at the string, and cought sight of the boa now approaching him with rapid wriggles. His jaw dropped, ; and he crouched down, easting his eye about, and uttering a low snarl as the foam ran out of his mouth. We pitied the poor brute, and wanted them to let him go ; but 4 he charmer said that boa-sahib was rather customer when" his gastric juice cod i stimulated, until he got a mouthful. The f uoa, now close to the dog, was twisting, wri thing in every direction—at one time shoot’ ing himself out until be was a dozen feet long, and hardly as thick as a man's arm; then shutting up into a mass three or. four ieet long, and as thick round as a fat man. At last, raising half his body in the air, he brought it down with whack on the unfortu nate beast’s back, the dog appearing by this time almost inanimate. It was thus killed, and in three minutes became a misshapen mass. The boa then covered the body with saliva, and, turning his head round, his tail still encircling the dog, he took the head into his mouth with one suck. At this moment, one of the boys who had carried the animal up, and with a chopper Cut off the four legs of the dog at the knees. We were told they were apt to disagree with the snake, and make him sulk. In fact the fewer bones the boa eats, the better for him. It was rather a sickening sight, and we urged them to let the other dog go. They did so, and the poor brute ran away at a great rate when they started him. We left the boa to gorge bis dog, which was slowly disappearing, and went back to the basket where the mango was growing, and on which some of us had been keeping our eyes all the time. The conjurer lifted it up, and there appeared a little mango-shoot, in fact a young tree, about a foot high. We touched and pulled off several of the leaves, and ate them. They had the peculiar scent ed taste of the mango. I wanted to pull it up, and see whether it had any roots; but the old man would not consent to that on any terms. We wished to see more tricks, or I fear I should have pulled it up in spite oft him. However, he sent for an old pot, carefully transplanted the mango, taking up a good oall of earth, and sent it away by one of his boys. He said it was to have it planted in some garden. This is the most famous trick in Hindos tan, and is done in all parts, I believe. The jugglers, throughout Asia, are all of one clan, and their sons become jugglers or mu sicians, their daughters dancmg-girls, the secrets of the trade being handed down from father to son. Certainly the tree had every appearance of growing; it was bright and fresh looking, and its leaves and stocks were stiff. Theie was none of that draggled ap pearance which hangs about anything just transplanted or stuck in the ground. The old conjurer now said that, for his next trick, he must be somewhere out of the glare of the sun, and sheltered from any air which might be stirring. We accordingly adjourned to the veranda. The dbjurer spread a piece of matting, and squatted, pro duced from his shawls a bag, and emptied it on the stone in front of him. The contents were a quantity of Httle bits of wood—some forked like the branches of a tree; some straight; each a few inches long; and, be sides these; there were some fifteen or twenty little painted wooden birds, about half an inch long. The old man choso one of the straightest and thickest of the bits of wood, and, turning his face up in the air, poised it on the tip of his nose. The little boys who sat by him henceforth, handed him whatever he called for. First, two or three more pieces of wood, which he poised on already there, then a forked piece, to which he gradually made additions, until he had built upon his nose a tree with tw T o branches. He always kept its balance by adding simul taneously on each side, holding a piece in each hand, aiffd never once taking his eyes off the fabric. Soon the two branches became lour, the four eight, and so on until a skeleton of a tree was formed about two feet high, and branching out so as to overshadow his whole face; he could just reach with his hands to put the topmost branches on. It was a wonderful structure, and we all held our breath as he PRICE. 5 CENTS added, the last bits. But it was not done yet. The boys now handed him the little birds, and still, two at a time, one in each hand, he stuck them all over the tree. The complete immobility of his head and neck, while he was balancing this structure on the tip of hia nose, was something wonderful; and I think he must have breathed through his ears, for there was not the slightest perceptible mo tion about nose or mouth. After putting all the birds on, he paused, and we, thinking the trick was finished, began to applaud. But he held up his forefinger for silence. There was more to come. The boys put into one of his hands a short, hollow reed, and into the other some dried peas. He then put a pea into his mouth, and, using the reed as a pea-shooter, took aim, and shot off the branch one of the birds. The breath he gave was so gentle and well calculated that it. gave no perceptible movement to his face; it just sent the pea far enough to hit a par-> ticular bird with perfect aim, and knock it over. Not another thing on the tree moved. Another pea was fired in the same way, and .another bird brought down, and so on until all the birds were baggea. The fire was then directed at the branches and .limbs of the tree, and, beginning from the topmost, -the whole of this astonishing structure was demolished piecemeal even more wonderfully than its manner of erection. A BALL-ROOM REMINISCENCE. Airily beautiful, Daintily dotiftil To her mamma in the elegant shawl; Gleaming so purely. Glancing demurely. Fair was Floretta that night at the ball. Sailing divinely, Dancing supinely. Waltzing confidingly, sinking away; Whispering caressingly, • Sighing distressingly. Hid by the shrubs that encircle'toe hay. Wheedling csjolingly, Wondering stroUingly, Into the ante room, shady and cool; * Proving convincingly. Mimicking mincingly, Magnates and stagnates that whirl in the pool. Toying deliciously, Tugging maliciously. Gloves that are “sixes" and stick to her hand#; Showing right (Viciously, Not ostentatiously, Destitute fingers awaiting commands. _ Champagneing elpplneiy, • Nibbling ap trippingly, Bisoutta and ices and Jelly and cream; Laughing melodiously, Picturing odiously, Bachelor .habits and serfdom supreme. Looking up poutlngly, Looking down douotingly, Conning her cord with a wo-begone glance. Yielding unwillingly, » Answering chillingly. Withering the Captain who claims her to dtnee Fanning ferociously, Grumbling precociously, Seeking rest after a whirligig brief; Lecturing icily, Smiling enticingly. Making me slink round the wall like a thief Rising up buoyantly, Breathing out Joyantly, "Dear Mr. Robinson, what a relief j” Sparklingly so wittily. Moving so nrettily, Filling my heart with an exquisite grief. Leaning recllnlngly. Starting repiningly, Horrid announcement, “The carriage la here I” Pausing coquettiibly. Hurrying pettishly, Goaty papa holds the horsea ao dear. Argned lltiglously. Treasured religiously, Now in my memory’s innermost hall. Dearest Floretta, I’ll never forget a Phase of the rapture that night at the ball. [London Society. Lifb of Casar.—A London correspon dent of the Cincinnati Gazette thjis does up Napoleon’s Life of Caesar : The Emperor Napoleon’s Life of Caesar, translated admirably by Thomas Wright, M. A., the Homeric translator, is the sensation of the week. It pleases the multitude, but grievously disappoints scholars. The age of scepticism, which has brought forth the la bors of Niebuhr and Arnold, and which baa sq silled the actual from the legendary in Roman history, is entirely misrepresented In the Imperial history. Buch a book would have done very well sixty-years ago; it is now an anachronism. He builds his struc ture upon old authorities, long since proved to have been mere panegyrists. All the sift ings of modern scholarship are unknown to him. He appears among classic scholars as Rip Van Winkle did among the republicans, still Imagining himself under the reign of King George. Louis Napoleon imagines that we are still under the historical sway of Dionysius and Livy. Thus he imports into his book a lot of well-dressed but utterly inadmissible legends. There is also a lack of thoroughness in details, all of which proves that there is no royal road to litera ture or learning. Here are some examples of what I have stated: The Emperor states that Servius abolished imprisonment or slavery for debt. It has been proved again and again that he did not. Nor is there any evidence for the statement of Dionysius, which Napoleon adopts, that the kings admitted freedmen to citizenship. He says that the aid of the eighteen colonies s&ved Rome after the battle of Gannas, when the appeal for that aid was not made until seven years after the battle. The defeat of Mallius and Csepio by the Cimbri is placed on the Rhind instead of the Rhone, where it occurred. In point of style, the book has noue of the free, sparkling characteristics of the best French writers. It is a heavy imi tation of the English essay style, and its rhetoric is what Dr. Holmes would call the 44 Macauley flowers of literature. ’’ The book is no addition to human knowledge. It is an attempt to cover the despotic policy of Na- * poleon the Little in the leonine skin of Caesar. It will sink very deep into the gulf of ob livion, and curious slimy creatures will crawl through its gilt-edged pages, and feed upos* its fiae morocco covers. Acbret. By those ladies who in Paris lead. th© s fashions, erinoline is now completely taboo ed; their ball dresses are made in the style of the first Empire, or the English fashion of 1811, with the skirt gored and the body cut extremely low in front and back, while the train is very long.