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LETTER FROM VIRGINIA.
Maltoo»e—Tlie Course of True Lore
roughened by Relntivei—Tourna
ment at Powhatan Court House
— Exciting Voting Content
at Amelia Court House—
Judge Farrar (Johnny
Rehj Commence
ment*.
Getting off at Maltoose, I stopped at Mr.
Ulysses Teletnachus Jones, brother to the cele
brated Doctor Tiberius Gracchus Jones, now
in Nashville, Tennessee.
“Where on earth did they find such names?'
once exclaimed a lady friend of mine, whose
reading was confined strictly to the Bible and
cookery book.
The negroes around here call Mr. Jones
“ Mass Useless.” A great misnomer, for there
never was a more useful man: “the friend of
man—to vice alone a foe— even his failings lean
to virtue’s side.”
While in the neighborhood I heard the parti
culars of the attempted runaway love match.
The parties, of course, must be nameless, but
the young lady, like “gentle Anne Page,” had
three lovers; fortunate girl for these times! One
lover was warmly recommended by her father,
another by her grandmother, and a third by that
mighty wizard
“ That rules the heart of man at will;
From ill to good, from good to ill;
In cot and castle tower.”
And so, though others planned, the young
lady chose for herself. But as the course of
true love is a rough and dangerous current, these
young lovers were shipwrecked by the grand
mother's Argus eyes, in the last moment, seated
in the buggy, when one crack of the whip would
have started them off.
Too bad, wasn't it ?
The young man was inconsolable; the young
lady bore it better. Probably she is biding
her time.
These was a grand tournament at Powhatan
Court house, strictly among the F. Fs., of
Virginia,
And fair ladies saw with merry eye
The flower of chivalry march by.
Bobert G. Southall, of Amelia county, deli
vered the charge to the knights. Mr. Southall
was a graduate last year, at the University of
Virginia, and is said to be a young man of rare
talent. His speech upon the occasion was beau
tiful and appropriate, and was received with
rounds of applause.
Miss Fannie Harvie, of Powhatan county, was
crowned Queen of Love and Beauty. Her father,
Doctor Harvie, is a man of great wealth, owning
so much of Kichmond that a large portion of
that city is called “Harvie Town.”
Taking the train we soon found ourselves at
the pretty little village of Amelia Court House,
and found the gentlemen there generally much
excited over an election; an election which seem
ed to me—with my non voting powers—to be a
very small matter. But such was the interest
prevailing, I did not dare to hint my opinion.
Judge Farrar, better known to the public as
“ Johnnie Reb,” presides as judge in Amelia
county. The superintendent of the public
schools was lately dead, and another had to be
appointed in his place. The supervisors of the
county had thepowerto do this, and recommend
to the judge, and the judge has to sanction their
choice
The supervisors are led by Drs. Cheatham
and Southall, two old and gray followers of i£s-
culapius, and both grown so skillful in their
art, that Death is no doubt grumbling greatly
that
“ Six thousand years are nearly fled,
Since I was to the hutching bred;
And many a scheme in vain's been laid
To stay or hceat me.
Till Cheatham and Southall’s ta’en up the trade.
And faith! they’ll beat me.”
These gentlemen, not content with their sup
eriority over this great foe, are politicians also.
They are the leaders of the supervisors in
Amelia county, and keep a watchful eye upon
the judge. Parson Barnes, a most excellent
man and of high war repute, wanted the office
of Superintendent of the Public Schools, and to
secure it got up a petition signed by three hun
dred people; and this he presented to the judge.
The judge favored Mr. Barnes’ claim, and pro
ceeded to appoint him, disregardful of the watch
ful law present, in the body of the Supervisors.
Mr. Gregory, of Petersburg, spoke long and
fluently, recommending Mr. Barnes; and Judge
Farrar spoke also, both reminding the people
of Mr. Barnes’ claims upon them as a soldier.
Mr. Wood, the commonwealth attorney, then
rose, saying Mr. Barnes’ appointment was ille
gal, end bespoke in defence of the majesty of the
law, majesty superior even to the high claims of
friendship and gratitude. He eulogized Par
son Barnes, or rather spoke truly of him. As
a minister, he said “he reverenced him; as a
soldier and Captain in the army, he admired
him. and as a man, he honored him. For four ]
years he had served in the field, and never for i
one single moment during that time of trial, had j
he lost a single attribute of his noble character,
but most beautifully blended the Christian, the j
patriot and the man together.
“ Virginia honors Captain Barnes, I honor j
him now—but his appointment to the present
office is illegal. In the war, that period of
honor and of woe, other bright careers arose
also. Marked on the roll of blood we find many
names dear to fame and Virginia’s memory. No
two men had perhaps more keenly felt war’s
fierce delights than Judge Farrar and Mr. W. !
F. C. Gregory. True their peculiar forte had
not been to fight like Captain Barnes; but j
being gifted with a great flow of eloquence, j
their forte had a wider scope and perhaps was j
more beneficial. They had mustered up comp- :
any after company for the field, and marched \
them to the depots. There ‘on, on,’ was their I
fierce exclaim; ‘confront the battery’s jaws of {
flame; push on to the levelled guns.’ And so i
they led the bravest and the best out, time and j
again, to dare a fate that they themselves shunn- j
ed to share, and then hastened home to look
up others for a similar fate.”
But I can give no more of Mr. Wood’s speech,
though it was so much talked about. Suffice it
to say the war of words ended in the old body
of Supervisors resigning, declaring they would j
no longer serve under a judge, himself the first .
to forget the law. A new body of Supervisors 1
was started, called the Judge’s party, headed by I
William Norfleet. Then—with man’s characte
ristic constancy and consistancy—the old body
of Supervisors, led on by Cheatham and South-
all, determined to run for the same office again, j
The day of the election came on, and every
man in Amelia county turned out to the polls.
There was immense hurrahing for “Cheatham
and Southall.” It's always unsafe to hurrah
with the smallest crowd, so there was no hurrah
ing done for the other side at all. Over the
court green far and near could be heard
Cheatham's voice, exclaiming “ It was the great
est triumph of his life.”
As the dusk of the evening drew on and the
curfew should have tolled the knell of parting
day, the Judge’s party, roughly d-efeated
and demoralized, retreated and close! their
doors. Mr. Norfleet, it is said, has not issued
since, except late at night and very early in the
morning.
Cheatham and Southall remained together
for several days alter their victory, Cheatham
still declaring “it was the greatest triumph of
his life.”
Judge Farrar is a man of inimitable wit and
humor, and has made quite a fortune with his |
“Johnnie Reb ” lectures. But I am by those
lectures, like old Billy Wright, an unlettered
but highly intelligent country man of ours.
The first time he heard “Johnnie Keb" portray
so comically and ludicrously the dying Confe
deracy—the starving, poor, ruined, fallen coun
try—the broken down aristocracy, learning to
cook and plough, he exclaimed:
“Why, the man mocks at his own calamity.”
“Johnnie Reb is truly a wonderful man—a
combination of wit and humor, and pathos. He
can, when it is necessary, weep so abundantly,
j that one is really tempted to ask him how he
j does it. His manner in telling a story is so
| good, his acting so perfect, that they can neither
! be borrowed or imitated. A German once in
speaking of him to me said:
| “Dat man did make me larf; I did fall down
! on the floor and larf. I tell my friend what dat
: man did say, and my friend he no larf.”
[ Shakespeare says: “The prosperity of a jest
j lies in the ear of him that hears it, and not in
the tongue of him that utters it.” The German's
comment upon Johnnie Keb shows how largely
he calls the eye in also, to assist in the success
(which is always great? of his jokes. He is so
I gifted in music, he might have stood before
Saul in his darkest moods. Johnnie Reb has
been several times a widower, and at those
weeping times most faultlessly attired, with his
dark, melancholy eye fixed upon the lady of his
next choice; he plays on the gnitar, and sings
in a truly magnificent voice “Lady, twine no
Wreath for me, save of the mournful Cypress
Tree;” that lady succumbs at once and twines
a bridal wreath.
But the noblest trait of Johnnie Reb is his
great liberality. He gives generously to the
poor; in Biblical language he never says to his
neighbor: “Go and come again, and to-morrow
I will give,” when he has it by him. He will
even give his children away, if his neighbors
are childless and without.
Bat enough of Amelia.
We took the train for Farmville, and being
delayed several hours at Burkeville, waiting for
the connecting train, we were most delightfully
entertained by Col. Alpheus Bolling, editor of
the South Side Sentinel. Burkeville is destined to
be one of the largest cities of the state. Houses
are just going up there, as if Aladdin was about
with his wonderful lamp.
Taking the train for Farmville, we reached
Rice depot, and then crossed the Appomattox
river on the High Bridge, one of the lions of
Virginia, almost as high as the tower of Babel,
and a mile (a fearful mile) long. If the cars
were to vary, or the slightest obstruction were on
the track, ruin and death would be inevitable.
As the cars neared the bridge they slackened
speed, and cautiously dragged their length over
it, while the passengers stopped conversing,
and looked out in the almost illimitable space
brought to view, and I thought fearfully of the
Great Beyond we seemed so near
elevated even, might hurt us there.
Appomattox is a name famous in the history
of Virginia. The queen of Appomattox brought
Smith when he was about to be doomed to death
by Powhatan, water to wash his hands.
The flag of the Lost Cause was furled at Appo
mattox Court House; and this great bridge across
this little river grandly commemorates the name.
We reached the happy valley of Farmville
about four o’clock in the evening, and were
glad to be at home and among friends again.
We found everything here in a happy state
of excitement. Reverend President Whitehead’s
female college was about to close for the summer
holidays. There were many young ladies to
graduate and receive their diplomas. Their
mammas were duly bxsy in preparing costumes
for the occasion. Spotless white with white
silk bodices were to be the order of the night.
And the young ladies looked beautiful and were
all happy—happier, poor young things, than
they perhaps will ever be again.
The Sunday before, the Baccalaureate sermon
was preached by the Rev. Dr. Thomas, a Bap
tist minister, and son of Mr. Thomas, of Rich
mond, said to be the wealthiest man in Rich
mond. Never in my life did I listen to such a
flow of eloquence as fell from tho lips of Dr.
Thomas upon that occasion. His text was: “But
Paul preached to the devout women there as
sembled.” I am sure, in long after years, those
graduates will bear in some still corner of the
mind’s cherished store-room Dr. Thomas' words
on that day. When the grand closing services
commenced, a noble band of music from Lynch
burg was present, and most delightfully played
away.
The graduating class presente l|Dr. Whitehead,
their preceptor, with an elegant gold-headed
cane.
Mr. St. Andrew, editor of the Farmville Mer
cury, facetiously reported “An Able Man
Caned.”
In quick succession, drew on the commence
ment exercises at Hampden Sidney College. Mr.
Wherry delivering the Baccalaureate sermon.
These over, a band of music from Richmond re
paired to the scene, sweeping gloom and silence
and science before it. And the classic shades
and halls of the old H. S. College became
“ Mount Cithera; and Venus, queen and god
dess, filled the throne, sharing her kingdom
with her darling son.”
The many belles and beaux of Farmville were
present. Conspicuous among the belles was one
wondrously fair, the lovely Miss Lizzie N . . .. |
of Farmville. Her ancestors graced the Royal
court of Sir William Berkeley, when held at
old Jamestown—her family dating back with
the history of Virginia, to tbe exiled cavaliers of
Charles the second. The mother of States, as
she gave in the beginning territory to other
states, has also given many of her grand names,
descendents of those same cavaliers, to other
states. Prince Edward county (she has so
many good names) has done so much of this
that it was once facetiously remarked “Prince
Edward was a great place for great men to emi
grate from.” Mbs. Lucy Henry Wood.
A Southerner's Opinion of Mrs. Hayes.
I found Mrs. Hayes quite alone on the prom
enade deck, so I introduced myself to her. She
is a superior woman. V here Mrs. Hayes is
known I’ll wager she carries a strong influence
for good. She is a more refined woman than I
had expected to find, and a handsome woman
too. While I was talking to her Mr. Hayes came ;
along remarking “Well I thought I d lost my
wife.” Mrs. Hayes talks as if she had a bnrden
to carry too. My impression is that Mrs. Hayes i
has and is going to have a powerful influence
in the administratiqn. I found her up this
morning on the boat bright and early. It was a
pleasure to me to be of some little service to
her in pointing out the localities on the Sound
and East river as we came along. The young
Hayes were on board and it was quite evident
from their conversation that they never saw salt
water before.
Force or Habit.—Sir George Staunton visitel a
man in India who had committed murder, and in
order not only to save his life, but what was of !
much more consequence, his caste, he submitted to
the penalty imposed: this was that he should sleep •
for seven years on a bedstead without a mattress,
the whole surface of which was studded with points
of iron, resembling mils but not so sharp as to
penetrate the flesh - Sir George suv him in the j
fifth year of his probation, and his skin was then
like the hide of a rhinocerous, but more callous:
at that time however, he could sleep comfjrtabh
on his “ bed of thorns” and remarkel that at the
expiration of his sentence he should most probably
continue that system from choice which he had
been obliged to adopt from neerssity.
Eve and the Tree of Knowl
edge.
—
BY B. M. O.
j Some of tbe advocates of “Woman’s Rights”
■ of the masculine gender, and not a few of the
I “Woman Righters,” hold and argue that if the
All-wise Creator instructed and explained to old
i mother Eve the command He had given to old
father Adam, the Serpent would never have
persuaded her to touch the fruit. That as she
had received her instructions through Adam,
the Serpent beguiled her by convincing her that
she did not exactly understand the meaning her
j hasband intended to convey; andfurther, that
: Adam did not understand his Creator. And fur
ther still, that God was jealous of those he had
made, and wished to keep them in ignorance of
the knowledge of good and evil. He positively
and pointedly denied the truth of Adam’s asser
tion that they would die, and even dared to im-
| peach the word of God himself.
It was the Serpent's bold and daring effrontery
his supreme impudence and unblushing asser
tions, which won upon our old mother’s ear.
Did she, she thought, really understand her
husband? Did he really understand the instruc
tions given him by God? Might he not be mis
taken as to the meaning of the word “die,” and
as the Serpent says, mean a knowledge of good
and evil? So thought and argued mother Eve,
as tradition hands it down to us.
The Serpent accomplished his end by sowing
doubts in the mind of the “good old lady.’
Doubts lead to reflection, and reflection to reason,
and reason to argument, and argument to con
viction - Eve was convinced, and conviction
led to action. She was no match in an argument
with the Devil in disguise, and few people are,
and hence, she came out second best.
Her error, as she afterwards admitted was not
in going after her husband and bringing him
face to faee with the one who impeached his
intelligence and his word. “Had I done that,
sue said, the Serpent would have excused him
self with having an engagement elswhere. God
knew best what relationship I should bear to
my husband, and my condition is tbe represen
tative one my daughters are to bear to their
husbands through all time. I am called “woman”
because I was taken out of man; I am called Eve,
because I am the mother of all living; and I am
called wife, because my life is woven into the very
texture and tissue of that of my husband. I am to
be dependent up*on, and not independent of
him.
My husband is my natural and lawful guar
dian; my protector, and adviser and counsellor.
Betwen us shall no third person ever be allowed
to come. Nor should I ever listen to or go to
another for advice, information or instruction,
when he is about to answer to my call. Had God
intended me to be independent both in mind
and action of my husband, He would upon my
creation, have taken me to tbe Tree and there giv
en me his commands. But He did not. My hus
band was held responsible for my acts, and when
He called us from our hiding place, He called
for Adam, not me. And though each and all of
us received the cursedue for this sin committed,
the greatest curse fell upon my husband. Not
j only were we both doomed to death in time but
j the ground was cursed for his sake; “in sorrow
shall thou eat of it all the days of thy life.” My
curse was light compared to his; and as to the
Serpent, he got off comparatively easy, judging
from the immense amount of damage he did me
and my children through me. It would have
been better in my poor opinion to have mashed
his head then and there instead of sending him
through the world on his belly. That 1 hate
! him, I harr cnu«?T ail'd my children through
j future ages to come will have still more.
Let no daughter; of mine disregard the voice
or instruction of Her husband. Argue with no
I man who would weaken her confidence, love or
j judgement in her husband. Tell him of all ap-
5 proaches that any one would make her for in
| that lies her security and safety.
I argued, and the Serpent seduced me into
sin; I listened, and heconvinced me; he tempted
! me and I fell, or rather plucked the fruit. It was
[ good to the taste, hut terrible in its revelations,
j I knew too much and that too quickly. S n like a
j poisoned arrow, corrupted bo.h my body and
! soul and my children have been attainted
i throng me. ”
“My sphere in life, reaches not beyond my
husband and children. He holds my earthly
| happiness in the hollow of his hand, and my
life can be made joyous and happy as he rrgards
I and treats me. Love and confidence in my
I husband constitute my greatest happiness; and
1 an abuse of them, would change my loving and
i confiding nature into sorrow, sadness and pain.
I am the honored repesentative of my daughters
for all time, and what is true of me will be true
of them. The Almighty decree is,that man will
never change his nature, nor woman her sex;
and as the vine Daturally through its tendrils
clasps a stronger support, so woman through
her loving, clasping and confiding nature throws
out the tendrils of her love and affection, and
winds them around her husband and children.”
Voltaire in Love.
There lived then at the Hague a Madame Dun-
oyer, a clever but very singular woman, who
had been unhappily married in Paris to a French
nobleman and writer, named Dunoyer, and had
tied to Holland with her two daughters. Origi
nally a strict Protestant, she had even been im
prisoned for iwo years on account of her religion.
She abjured it at the time ofher marriage, but re
sumed it in Holland, where she was living in des- ;
titute circumstances, principally by the profits of j
her pen. Her youDgest daughter, Olyrope, who [
went by the name of Mile. Pimpette, was a clever,
beautiful, and coquettish girl. Yuuag Aronet |
was soon caught iu her nets, and desperately in ;
love. He committed all sorts of follies with a
complete indifference to the remarks of the inhab
itants of the Hague, and was even on the point of
eloping with his beloved Olympe, at whose feet the
painter Schlesinger has represented him, when
the mother, who seemed to have other plans with
her daughter, and did not wish to bestow her on
“a page like Voltaire,” put an end to the affair.
She complained to the Marquis de Chateauneuf,
who was afraid of the writer of the “Lettres His-
toriques,” and specially of the “Mercure Galant,” !
and who soou, by the strong measures he took,
showed that he was les3 indulgent thin his broth
er the Abbe had been. He wrote a long letter to
the father, ending. “I hope nothing more from ,
your son now; he is twice mad; in love and a po- j
et.” Voltaire's departure was inmeliately decid
ed upon. He wrote in despair to Pimpette that .
all he had been able to do was to obtain a delay,
but he was forbidden to leave his room. He com
plains bitterly about his arrest, and urges her to
leave her unnattura! mother and follow him to
France. Without her portrait he caunot live,
nor without her letters to assure him of her eter
nal love. These seatimeutal effusions are accom
panied with the prosaic recommendation to send
the shoemaker with her letters, as if he came to
try on a pair of boots.
Xew York City has, it is said, an excess of 10,0-
00 marriageable women.
“What is editorial courtesy?” asks a New Jer
sey paper. Why, it is whe" an editor is caught ;
stealing chickens at midnight, an! his brother ed
itors kindly allude to the matter as a strange
freak of a somnimb .list.
Ridimron the Rail-
Considering its many advantages over other
modes of travel, rail-riding falls far short of per
fection. Its speed is delightful to be sure, but
its haste is barely tolerable. Its beginnings,
lunchings, changes, all are horrid. One must
leave his coveted coffee to cool for the next cus
tomer; throw away his cigar half smoked; dash
from his wife and baby half kissed: part from
his friend with a break-neck jerk of the head
for a bow, and with a ridiculous grab at thumb
or wrist instead of a lingering clasp of hands
whose touch thrills musically in fellow spirits.
I don’t like it.
And yet, forty miles an hour is inspiring, fifty,
sixty electrifies one. Rare rates these, to be
sure, but one may sample them occasionally be
tween New York and Philadelphia; and some
times between Albany and Niagara, along the
Northern shores ot the Cayuga and theSenaca;
and then on the lake shore, while you look
Northward upon the billowy, sea-like Erie.
But even the speed is not a faultless feature
of rail-riding. When it is quite moderate, as
along the Piedmont, one feels that he is borne
away in heartless haste, from the grand vistas of
the Blue Ridge. He could stay there indefin
itely, and least upon the distance-softened gran-
duerof Table Rock and Ca?sar’s head. And on the
Pennsylvania Central—spanning the Allegbanies
like a rainbow—how one would like to linger
upon those weird eyrie outlooks and gaze down
ward upon mountain tops and downward upon
clouds that fioat above deep, darkened valleys
and black abysses. But “corporations have no
souls, ’ no sympathy with sentimental saunter-
ers in this work-a-day, whirlaway world, and so
the traveler is whirled away and if he sees more
of the awful granduer of those bights and deeps
he must look inward, upon the photograph that
one brief glance has printed there. Speed is
delightful where there is nothing else to delight,
and wheD your great want is to overreach space.
Surpassingly pleasant is it to leave lines of
railway whose tameness tires, lines whose mag
nificence of scenery enchants yet cheats, by ex
citing a desire that may not be satisfied, and to
glide over one like the Mobile and New Orleans.
If you have grown weary with works of travel
among the bustling cities oi the sea-board, or
the bristling mountains of the midland, or the
sea-like prairies of the west come here to rest.
The graceful yachts that cleave the waters of the
bays at your left do not move more smoothly
than the car in which you sit in luxurious ease.
The stillness causes one to wonder if the track
can be of iron or if the wheels are not muffled.
There is no dust—indeed the dark, damp soil
looks as if it never had known thirst—no smoke
pouring in at your open window, for the breath
ot the gulf catches it as it leaps from the smoke
stack and whisks it out of sight. And that same
breath , refreshingly cool, and fragrant with the
blended myrtle and oleander and magnolia, fans
you into dolce far niente, in which, if you have
come here very tired, yon are persuaded that
“If there is an Elysium on earth, it is this.” You
may close your eyes and enjoy it all. If it is
night you will appreciate it all the same. Nay,
sleep will not cheat you of it.
But there is a banquet for eyes too. Come in
the doze and keep them open. How unlike the
world we live in, the regions of former travel!
No busy towns, no enquiry of art, no martyred
forests giving place to farms, nothing to mar the
completeness and harmony of nature in this
semi-tropical forest garden, save the line of road
that admits you to it. It is as if hedged from
the hands of men, that God may keep it for his
own use, and men will praise Him when they
see the peerless prodigality of His planting, and
when they note the completeness of the hedge
which excludes human efforts to destroy it—the
water just beneath the surface of the teeming
soil.
There is much to be seen, yet you need not
break your neck to look out lest a vision of beau
ty be lost. Not that we are in a “ slow coach”
either. I look forward and see a cluster of mag
nolias, twenty or more, with arms interlocked,
whirling in a wild waltz. I try to point them
out to my companion but they sweep past too
soon. Never mind we shall see as fine groups on
almost every mile of the road, overtopping the
oaks, riveling the pines. Real Titans of the
wood are they, a fathom in the girdle and fifteen
fathoms high.
The palms sway and tremble in the edge of
the hurricane created by the passing train.
Beyond them the pines dance a round polka
and the grandam live oaks shake their beautejus
silver-grey tresses to the breeze and join the
stately youngsters, whirling by.
Sixty miles in sixty minutes (not consecutive)
with the gorgeous low-land forest on your right
and many a broad, clear view of the gulf on your
left; with the mingled breath of forest and sea
tossing your hair and filling your lungs and giv
ing you a sense of multiplied life—sixty miles in
sixty minutes, yetstill enongh for easy converse,
smooth enongh to render writing easy pleasant,
and with the panorama of luxuriant beauty so
often repeated that you see and enjoy it fully,
nor wish to check the bird-like speed of the train
for you do not feel that you are being hurried
away from the bewildering charms of this
“ Clime of tropic ray,
When summer clasps the hand of May
And bloom and beauty reign for aye.”
Recreation a Duty.
But to benefit by rational recreation we must be
capable of enjoying it. This is the greatest stum
bling-block; the capability for it is wasted. Peo
ple will laugh at you, if you tell them one must be
educated for recreation. It is loss of time, they
will say. Why should recreation be founded on
anotner principle than labor? We have to be ed
ucated for labor. But so it is, for even Govern
ment cannot be made to see that tbe cost of the
singing master in the people’s education will be a
hundredfold compensated for by the means it will
give the children of doing something better for
amusement than pitch and toss, the roaring of
obscene songs, and the torturing of little animals.
We maintain that the education for recreation must
go hand in himd with education for labor to make
a good and strong member of society: and all those
who preside over educational establishments, from
the governing bodies of University colleges to
guardians of workhouse schools, ought to lake this :
subject in hand seriously, if they will not gloss over
secret license by superficial observance of proprie
ties, and thus allow the future of those who are
under their care and are to sow the seeds of their j
success in lifa, to be endangered and destroyed, j
Boys and girls cannot be sufficiently taught how \
i0 use their leisure, and men and women cannot j
have too many opportunities in meeting to exercise I
these faculties. All those who preside over large
establishments, and who draw from the labor of
ot iters in some measure the means of their subsist
ence and perhaps their wealth, have a duty to per- |
form in giving means of recreation to those whom j
they employ. The mass of young humauity thrown j
annually upon large towns is excessive, and we, a
church-going Christian nation, let thes young full j
blooded men and women flounder loosely for
pleasure among the shoals and quicksands of our j
not over nice social life of pleasure, and drive them
into the Scvlla and Charybdis of Anonymas, bet- {
ting men, public houses, and exhibitions of a lower
class.
Women Doctors.
The propriety of having female doctors is being
scientifically discussed. Learned men are batting
their brains over it, and producing voluminous
pamphlets pro and con. In the meantime, pend
ing the discussion, a good many of the fair sex all
over the country and Europe are moviug briskly
forward and in dead earnest clutching at the pains
and honors and toils of the Doctor’s commission.
We hear elsewhere of women Doctors, and occa
sionally a really successful one pops to the surface.
New York has a lady physician of such skill and
popularity as to glean her fifteen or twenty thou
sand dollars of yearly practice.
Atlanta has had one or two suggestions of the
thing, but no substantial reality as yet.
The University of Zurich in Europe, admits wo
men to the regular course in medicine, and gives
the successful applicants the Doctor’s degree.
This inauguration of equality iu that famed insti
tution has started a right lively fusillade of pam
phlets. Dr. Von Btschoff, a learned physiologist
of Munich, blazes away at the thing. In his view
women are incapable—intellectually and physically
—of being physicians, and their modesty is an
insufferable barrier.
Dr. Hermann, of Zurich, another equally eminent
physiologist, takes up the cudgels for the petticoats
inclined to dosing pills and grappling with human
ills. His experience has been that his female pu
pils went through lectures and heard all sorts of
delicate scientific immodesties, in the presence of
the male students, without any loss of dignity or
immoral engenderment. A careful professor and
an aesthetic feeling of scientific duty, can banish
any improper result.
It is strenuously contended that the best way
to educate doctors is by throwing open the medical
colleges to both sexes, and not having separate
schools of medicine.
It is noticed that the women graduates in Europe
rank up in their subsequent success with the men.
They win position in the colleges and command
practice.
The writer met a Dr. Foster in Florida a year or
two ago, who is the principal of a large medicinal
spring institution in northern New York. Dr.
Foster said that some of his best physicians were
ladies whom he had taught.
Well, what does it meau? What is to be the end
of it?
A Calculating Husband —In some eastern
lands fatners consider it a great misfortune when
a female child comes into the world, and don’t
care much what sort of Syriac or Anatolian fel
low takes her to wife when she grows to woman
hood. These foolish fathers think a great deal
more of an Arabian horse than ot their daughters,
however beautiful and dutiful they may be.
Sometimes—yes rather oftener than most good,
American barbarian is found who prizes his live
stock above his wffe, and would lament like
Jeremite over the loss of the one, and console
himself by taking another womai.when he laid
away his first love under the grass. Hardened
sinners and short-sighted mortals are such speci
mens of humanity.
Professor Langley, of Alleghany Observatory,
states, as the resuit of his own investigations, that
“sun-spots do exercise a direct and real influence
on terrestrial climates, by decreasing the mean
temperature of this planet at their maximum.
This decrease is, however, so minute, that it is
doubtful whether it has been directly observed or
discriminated from other changes. The whole
effect is represented by a change in the mean tem
perature of our globe in eleven years not exceed
ing three-tenths, and not less than one-twentieth,
of one degree of the Centigrade thermometer.”
‘•She'll be a Madonna one of these days,” said
another of the Malaprop family of a young lady
who was preparing to make her debut in opera.
A distinguished writer takes the position that if
there is any one thing more beautiful than all other
beautiful things put together, that thing is a beauti
ful young lady with a sunbonnet on her head so wide
and capacious that you have to get right square
before her and pretty near her to see the glowing
cheeks that are sure to be there, if she is at all
accustomed to garden walks and work. Physically
there can be nothing better for daughters, and,
indeed, for many wives, than to take sole charge of
a small flower garden.
The Queen of the Netherlands, just dead, who,
from her liberal tendencies, was styled “ la Reine
Rouge, ” was one of the most accomplished and in
tellectual women in Europe. A correspondent
gossips that she was an excellent linguist .being able
to speak with tolerable flueney almost every Euro
pean language. As is well known, she was for
many years separated from her royal husband.
There was a meeting of the pair once a year in a
vault-like apartment in the Royal Palace at Am
sterdam. It lasted only a few minutes, and wis
always conducted with the gravest formality.
Brain Work in Paris.
THE TEBBIBLE CONDITION OF JOURNALISTS AND
AUTHORS.
When brain work is not the noblest of all the
professions, it is the vilest of all the trades. De
spair, envv, hatred, destitution, vice and madness
are at the end, sometimes in the middle of this
contemptible career, in which popularity robs
glorv, in which money is the only atm in which
debauch becomes an incentive, and drunken
ness a muse.
Look at that miserable young fellow over there,
with his contorted features, yellow cheeks, grim
acing mouth and vagabond eyes. He was born
to walk free and joyful behind the plow, and
proudly to sow the seed of the next harvest. In
the evening, at the farmer’s fireplace, he would
have eaten the bread he had earned during the
dav. Every step, every movement of bis would
have vivified something. And now look at him in
this vast city, pressing day and night his poor
head between his two bands to squeeze ont of it
its tales and adventures for a hungry crowd, who
devour him to-day, and take to somebody else
to-morrow, if nothing more can be got out of
him.
For a more or less extended period of time he
will make Henriettas marry Arthurs, will make
husbands catch lovers, will poison some of them, f
and send others to the guillotne, keeping, o
course, the sensational interest duly alive til 1
the end of the chapter or the feuilleton. He I
will sell everything in succession; love, jealousy,
tears, history, scandal, slang, satire, morals,
laudations, insults, politics, sentiment, obsceni
ty, religion—in a word, everything out of which
manuscript can be made, at from two to five
cents a line, according to tbe momentary taste
of the public, or the tendencies of this or that
journal. When he shall have eaten up his own
contents he will live upon the contents of others.
He will patch up old comedies and novels; warm
up the arras of past centuries. He will swallow
whole libaries and second-hand book-shops.
He wants ideas, anecdotes, witty Bayings, pleas
ure, money and notoriety. No time to be lost
now! He must get celebritj ; he must get money.
The journal goes to press, the theatre cannot
wait and there is no time left to get up anything.
What does it matter? Two or three men of us
will put ourselves together and spend nights at
work. And the bodily force, where is it to come
from? We will take strong black coffee. And
the inspiration? We take absinthe.
Go on, human brains! Throw out sentences,
lines, pages and volumes! Swell yourself like a
sponge and squeeze yourself like a lemon, till
lunacy and paralysis take possession of you, till
besottedness strikes you. and death comes to
finish the whole.
H6TINCT PRINT