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BY PAUL H. HAYXE. IS DEMOCRACY V FAILURE.* democratic government, and be moved serious- Familiar Talks About New ,v ly to apprehend results as disastrous as any that have made France sadly famous in recent Communism in the United States, history. But there is no such similarity. A complete metamorphosis of the respective pop ulations would be necessary. It would require too much space to point out the leading characteristics in which the American people differ from the people whose examples erve Macaulay as ground for the belief, that Books. THE GHOSTLY HORSEMEN. A Scene in a Tunnel. A Legend of Stirling Castle. Review of Lord Macaulay's l.etter on the Subject of Labor vs. Capital. BY CHARLES W. HTBNER. LIFE OF DeQUINCEY—No. IV. Before passing to the subject-proper of this article, I have a few words to say upon the ec centricities of “printer’s devils.” These ink- besmirched and sometimes malicious little imps, T , ,, , , ... . , whenever they get possession of an author’s More than twenty years ago Lord Macaulay Democracy and the destruction of liberty and ma nuscript, are almost su -e to misinterpret it, wrote a series of letters to Henry S. Randall, an- civilization are equivalents. However, there are presentin £ such versions in type as have often thor of the “ Life of Jefferson in which he dis- three factors whose sum presents an insurmoun- cansed th | luckless litterateur frantically to tear cussed, at length, the political prospects of the table obstacle to the success of communistic h is hair; or in default of that graceful covering, United States, and the Jeffersonian doctrine of vagaries in our country, and which will preserve tQ luck off his wi and dash it eart hward with government. it from the mischief and dire effects of French pie expletives” In the Sunny South estab- The letters are very interesting, and were re- pure democracy, so called. These factors lishment there is a “printer’s devil” of more cently republished in Harper s Magazine. They are Religion-the influence of the pulpit, the than ordinary ingenuity in evil-doing. I arraign are worthy of profound respect, because they religious training of the masses by an open blQ1 now> and 0 “ ce fo ; alli because of his nu- embracethe judgment of a master mind, and Bible tree churches, and unlimited Sabbath- merous offences one whereof, especially calcu- th- views of a man whose genius and scholar- schools; a blessed tn-une power, whose potency lateJ t0 provoke hair-scattering and anathemas, ship command the admiration of the world; alike for good is immeasurable Secondly, the general occurred j n my paper on “Gill’s Life of Poe.” distinguished in statesmanship, in the splen- intelligence of our people; our six millions of j should like to know what this pestilent imp did domain of history, and the charmful walks children in the common schools, managed by a meant by introducing the adjective “coarse ” in of poetry, rhetoric and criticism. system superior to any other in the world; our tbe sentence which follows : I desire to call especial attention to one of the hooks in every household; our libraries in every ..p oe - s career remained a perplexed one until most pointed and suggestive of these letters, : village and town and, above all other literary : b iu3men8e labori & 0>> his last biographer wherein Macaulay predicts the destruction of ; alda . our Press, religious and secular; the “voice brou „ bt order out of chaos, and lurnished the our form of government, and consequent despot- th e people; their guide counselor, and clue tQ a ijf e —coarse, sad, and painful indeed, ism, or anarchy, as the result of a general revolt champion; free as the air and as penetrating; - — - (See Engraving.) Stirling Castle -historical old Stirling—with its great stone towers, turrets, ramparts and battlements, ivy-grown and mouldering, seems a tit location for a ghostly legend; and accord ingly one hangs about it more stern and gloomy than any Banshee story that gives romance to castles less historical and martial in their tradi- Railroad tunnels have their romantic and ri diculous phases. Many stories are related in which curious facts are developed when the passenger cars emerge from subterranean dark ness into the full sunlight. Vails are displaced, feminine hair winds its seperate threads about some masculine beard, and the shirt bosoms just from the laundry of some Ah Sin are rum pled suddenly and strangely. What rollicking apparitions visit tunnels, especially long ones! People go into the bath of darkness, and come tions. In former years, it was the custom to , . . . , , , , , leave the ponderous gi Ues of the castle-wall I ? at had just awoke from sleep, look of the laboring classes of our people against law the welcome daily and weekly visitor in almost and order, and in the interest of Communism. ever y home in this broad land; unfolding to the In view of the recent extensive strikes in the i comprehension of the humblest citizen the plan eastern and western states, and the fearful loss ■ or purpose of the mightiest; causing every man of life, and destruction of property which fol- to feel that he is intimately concerned with the lowed the movement, and that grew out of the affairs of his country, and that, to the extent of reckless disregard of life and property on the his individuality, he is a judge and arbiter of its part of ungovernable mobs, Macaulay’s ominous [ destiny. It teaches him the divine truth of the prophecy confronts us again with peculiar sig- j Gospel; enforces the mandates ot an enlightened ificance. It becomes a matter of grave impor tance to know whether the argument of Macau lay is based upon sound premises, and whether his conclusions are logical. We want to know whether government by the people inevitably leads to despotism, or anarchy, and whether our laboring classes are actuated by the same spirit of evil which characterizes French Communism, and whether the American labor ing man is, really, a steadily developing Hun or Vandal. The following in substance, is the letter un der consideration “I am certain that I never wrote a line, and that I never, in Parliament, in conversation, or even on the hustings—a place where it is the fashion to court the populace—uttered a word indicating an opinion that the supreme authori ty in a state ought to be intrusted to the major ity of citizens told by the head; in other words to the poorest and most ignorant part of society. I have long been convinced that institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization, or both. What happened lately in France is an example. In 1848 a pure democracy was established there. During a short time there was a reason to expect a gener al spoliation, a national bankruptcy, a new par tition of the soil, a maximum of prices, a ruinous load of taxation laid on the rich for the purpose ofsupporting the poor in idleness. Such a sys tem would, in twenty years, have made France as poor and barbarous as the France of the Car- lovingians. Happily, the danger was averted. You may think that your country enjoys an ex emption from these evils. Your fate I believe to be certain, though it is deferred by a physical cause. As long as you have a boundless extent of fertile and unoccupied land, your laboring population will be far more at ease than the laboring population of the Old World, and while that is the case the Jefferson politics may continue to exist without causing any fatal ca lamity. But the time will come when New Eng land will be as thickly peopled as Old England. Wages will be as low and will fluctuate as much with you as with us. You will have your Man- chesters and Birminghams, and in those Man chesters and Birminghams hundreds of thou sands of artisans will assuredly be sometimes out of work. Then your institutions will be fair ly brought to the test. Distress everywhere makes the laborer mutinous and discontented, and inclines him to listen with eagerness to agi tators, who tell him that it is a monstrous iniq uity that one man should have a million, while another could not get a full meal. In bad years there is plenty of grumbling here, and sometimes a little rioting. But it matters little. For here the sufferers are not the rulers. The supreme power is in the hands of a class, numerous in deed, but select; of an educated class; of a class which is, and knows itself to be, deeply interest ed in the security of property and the mainten ance of order. Accordingly the malcontents are firmly yet gently restrained. The bad time is got over without robbing the wealthy to relieve the indigent. The springs of national prosperi ty soon begin to flow again—work is plentiful, wages rise, and all is tranquility and cheerful ness. I have seen England pass three or four times through such critical seasons as I have de scribed. Through such seasons the United States will have to pass in the course of the next century, if not of this. I seriously apprehend that you will, in some such season of adversity as I have described, do things which will pre vent prosperity from returning; that you will act like people who should in a year of scarcity devour all the seed-corn, and thus make the next year not one of scarcity, but of absolute fam ine. There will be, I fear, spoliation. The spoliation will increase the distress. The dis tress will produce fresh spoliation. There is nothing to stop yon. Your constitution is all sail and no anchor. As I said before, when a so ciety has entered on this downward progress, either civilization or liberty must perish. Eith er some Cajsar or Napoleon will seize the reins of government with a strong hand, or your re public will be as fearfully plundered and laid waste by barbarians in the twentieth century, as the Roman Empire was in the fifth, with this difference, that the Huns and Vandals who rav aged the Roman Empire came from without, and your Huns and Vandals will have been engen dered within your country by your own institu tions.” With proper deference to the learning, wis dom and scholarship of Lord Macaulay, I pro test against his argument, and dissent, decidedly, from his conclusions. In the first place I question his ability to judge our people correctly. What he knew of us was acquired by reading, and by hear-say. He had no practical knowledge of our political or social institutions; he made no spec ial study from actual observation; he could not familiarize himself with the tone and spirit of the American public; he could not thoroughly comprehend our peculiar necessities, nor the peculiar means adopted by us to meet these ne- cessitiest—he material, moral and political forces, by whose application our country has grown great in all the essentials and attributes of a powerful and illustrious Republic. Macaulay’s opinion of our people and their peculiar system of government, suffers from the defect common to aristocratic foreigners; they have no love for what they are pleased to call “the populace,” making this epithet synony mous with ignorance, poverty, and degradation; to these the melo-dramastic incidents of French revolutions, and the burlesqe Republicanism of that mutable nation, afford an easy solution of the value of democratic principles; to these I ranee is the prototype of states whose sover eignty lies in the hand of the people. ft the condition of France could be consist ently considered the condition of the United States; if the people of that country were similar to our people, in all important respects, then the conclusions which Macaulay draws from his Christianity, and, in the secular field, tenders to old and young, rich and poor, alike, knowledge of every passing event, and of every interesting incident in the political, literary, commercial and social world, at home or abroad. A third powerful factor is the isolated situa tion of our country; free from entangling alli ances; backed by the limitless resources of a continent; untrammeled in the development of Science, Commerce, Art; untainted by the prox imity of corrupt governments, and the influence of discordant nationalities; we are exempt, by nature, from the ruinous conditions which have so frequently deprived France, and her neigh bors, of the opportunity for testing the manhood of true Democracy, even were it possible for the chronically unstable character of the French to appreciate a free, permanent, constitutional government, when the whirligig of time presents the opportunity for securing one. Our liberty and civilization can never be endangered by forces engendered by despotism, or growing out of conditions of general ignorance and supersti tion, and vacillating character, such as are ex emplified by the countries Macaulay exhibits to prove the worthlessness of Democracy. He thinks that the fertility and extent of our coun try, alone, defer our eventual ruin—a calamity which he believes nothing can prevent. He places no value upon the moral causes to which allusion has been made, and which, in my opin ion, are far more potent for permanently pro tecting and conserving the prosperity of Demo cratic principles, than all the physical causes mentioned combined. In his vivid description of the threatened mutiny of our laboring classes, Macaulay paints from the pattern furnished by the laboring classes of Europe, ignoring the integral differ ences in the character of the two—the superior intelligence of the American; his greater advan tages; his hardihood; his ready adaptation to surroundings; his deeply-rooted love for, and appreciation of, the benefits of a free and law- consecrated government, whose privileges are enjoyed in common, and which ho desires to see perpetuated for his own sake, and the sake of his posterity. Communism is the horrid spectre which the imagination of Macaulay beholds quitting its native haunts, to revel upon the shores of the New World ; he sees it running amuck in our streets, dressed in blouse and red cap, applying the torch to our cities, and hanging rich men to convenient lamp-posts, amid demoniac cries of “ ca ira," and cutting the throat of Liberty and Civilization with all the frenzy and dexteri ty of the genuine sans culottes of the time of Danton and Robespierre. The world, on this side of the Atlantic, has advanced too far to make any such retrogression into the domain of barba rism possible. The conservative forces of which Macaulay boasts, are equally potent in this country, though they are more generally distril- uted, and not as much concentrated into one paramount class,a3 in the case of England, leav ing a wide and almost impassable chasm between the governing class, and the subordinate orders of the population. We, too, have seen seasons of great adversity, but the manhood of our country has been a match for them ; from the nettle, Danger, we have plucked the flower, Safety ;— nor will the American people fail to profit, in the future, from the experience and wisdom gained in the past. No matter how boldly liberty and civilization may be assailed, the rebutting power of justice, truth and wisdom will repel the assault; the great common sense of the people will predom inate, and the treacherous schemes of the haters of Right and Liberty will come to naught. The right of a people to self-goverment is a divine right; to believe in the distruclion of this right, is to believe in the final obliteration of every vestige of modern civilization, and the establishment of a chaos of utter anarchy and ruin. No such destiny is inscribed around the motto- stars of this Republic ; esto perpetua is the beautiful legend, and, despite the clouds which may temporarily obscure it, there it will remain, to illumine the coming ages with prestine splendor. The Origin of Shylock. A correspondent of Jewish Chronicle calls atten tion to the fact that the original of Shakespear’s Shylock was a Christian and not a Jew. He quotes from the eleventh book of Gregori Leti’s “ Biogra phy of Sixtus V,” in proof of this. A Roman, merchant named Sechi heard that Admiral Francis Blake had conquered St. Domingo, and communi cated the news to a Jewish merchant named Cene- da. The latter was so confident in the falseness of the news that, after repeated protestations, he said, “ I bet a pound of my flesh that the re port is untrue.” “ And I lay a thousand scudi against it," rejoined the Christian, who caused a bond to be drawn up to the effect that in case the report should prove untrue, then the Christian merchant, Signor Paul M. Sechi, is bound to pay the Jewish merchant the sum of 1,000 scudi; and on the other hand, if the truth of this news be confirmed, the Christian merchant, Signor Paul M. Sechi, is justified and empowered to cut with his own hand, with a well-sharpened knife, a pound of the Jew’s fair flesh, of that part of the body it might please him. When the news proved true, the Christian insisted on his bond; but the Gov ernor having got wind of the affair, reported it to the Pope, who condemned both Jew and Christian to the galleys, from which they could only be ran somed by paying a fine of 2,000 scudi to the hospi tal of Sextine bridge. The early bird having caught the worm, wonders what the dilapidated man with the red nose is out so early for. Two things in nature are detestable—A girl who premises would be just, and every intelligent is trying to be a woman, and a woman who is try- man would have reason to doubt the stability of j ing to be a girl. but fairly comprehensible now in all its parts !” Just look at the truly diabolical cleverness with which this “little familiar,” by printing a word I never wrote in its present connection, has managed to contradict the entire tone of the rest of the article, and set—so to speak—its other sentences by the ears ! Had the whole dictionary been searched, no term could have been discovered more teasingly inappropriate. However, I pardon my fiendish hobbledehoy, if he will only mutter a “yeccavi,” and promise to sin no more. Otherwise, let him “beware!” The cap of the Eastern Dervish may still exist, and may even, for aught he supposes, be within my reach! Mysterious pin-pricks, and sharp twitchings of the ear from invisible fingers, are pretty sure to be my young “devil’s” portion, unless straightway he amends. Verbum sap! ! Who that reads at all, is unacquainted with the genius and works of the great English “opium eater?” His genius was cast in a mould poetical and spiritual, with profound metaphy sical depths in it, leading towards the mystical kingdoms of Dream and Reverie; and of his works it may justly be said, that in their nobler parts, they illustrate the rhythmical eloquence and force with which English prose is capable to a degree unrivaled in v>ur literature, except ing the essays of Milton. At length this remarkable man is presented to us in all his most interesting personal relations, through an elaborate and sympathetic biography by Henry Page, just re-published in America by Scribner A; Co., in two especially elegant duodec imos. Herein we have DeQuincey faithfully portrayed. His subtle humors and unaccount able idiosyncrasies; his tenderness of heart and breadth of brain; his enormous learning (never ostentatiously displayed); his love of Nature in all her moods and aspects, but particularly among the solitudes of vast mountains and on the gray Scotch moorlands; his impassioned visionary raptures, alternating with visionary tortures, if possible, more impassioned still: his utter, unpractical, child-like bewilderment in matters of worldly concern; his oddities of in dividual habit and bizarre appearance; in fine, his entire marked, interesting, but grotesque individuality, stands before us as prononce al most as life itself! Our conviction, after maturely studying De- Quincey’s character and genius under the many new lights .ifbiography, is un hesitating as to the Existence in his nature— deeply veining it from beginning to end—of a streak of eccentricity so strong and ineradicable as to approach what may be termed a quasi-in sanity; that half-latent species of craziness which never breaks forth into outrageous actions, but is manifested by great oddities of sentiment and oddities of behavior— by absurd contre-temps and ludicrous misadventures. Two “phases of extravagance” will serve to illustrate the man’s unbalanced j udgment. From the first of these — a wanton, indiscriminate charity—he derived, no doubt, a personal satis faction ; but its ultimate results were always un fortunate. His presence at home was the signal for a crowd of beggars, among whom borrowed babies and drunken old women were sure of the largest share of his sympathy; but he refused it to none, and was often wearied by the necessity he laid upon himself of listening to all the woes which were heaped upon him. As for his other extravagance, it grew out of the morbid value he set upon his papers, and their not being disturbed. He accumulated these until he was “snowed up;” which meant, when matters came to such an extremity, that there was not a square inch on the table, and no possibility of making his bed for the weight of papers gathered there; that there was no chair to be used for legitimate purposes, and that the track from the door to the fireplace bad been blotted out, even for his own careful treading. Then he locked the door, leaving his landlady, if simple and honest, fearfully impressed with the mysterious sin of meddling with his papers; but if dishonest, with such a handle for playing upon his morbid anxieties, as was a source of livelihood ! Gradually he has been known to paper his family out of a house; but subsequently, his daughters in the home at Lasswade were wary, and the smallest amount of papers was handed down into the one irrecoverable desert in which he worked! Nervous people must have found a residence with DeQuincey charming—nay, beatific! It was quite an exceptional night upon which he did not set something on fire; the commonest inci dent being for somebody to look up from book or work to casually remark, "Papa, your hair is on fire!” to which comes the philosophic re sponse, “Is it, my dear?” followed by an ener getic hand rubbing out the blaze. And yet, DeQuincey lived to be upwards of seventy, and finally died quite peacefully in his bed ! There’s an oriental proverb to the effect that the Fates take special care of drunkards, madmen and children. A little mad (as hinted before) was our eloquent DeQuincey. Yet, all who knew him well seemed to have loved him. He had a heart of gold. His sympathies were deep and noble. For little children, especially wide open upon a certain night in every year— the anniversary of a terrible tragedy. He who braved superstition’s terrors and watched on that night, would hear in the dead midnight the rapid tramp of iron-shod steeds along the ave nues of the castle, and see through the gloom two coal-black coursers, ridden by stalwart knights in full armor with visors down, one of them bearing in his arms a muffled burden. On swept the ghostly steeds, passing through the castle gates, leaping down the terraced height, while wild laughter and a blood-curdling cry came from the riders, until they were lost to view in the gloom of the forest. The legend explaining this apparition of the phantom riders, tells that more tfian a century ago, the governor of Stirling—the knightly, brave and handsome Sir Alberic Ruthven—saw and loved a beautiful maiden, whom he acci dentally encountered in a secluded portion of the castle-grounds. An exquisitely lovely crea ture, with all the fresh innocence of an un taught child, and all the graceful dignity’ of a high-born, courtly lady. At this last Lord Alberic marveled, not knowing that her birth was more noble than his own, and that the blind old hermit who had reared her in such seclusion was the once proud and mighty Earl of Lauris- ton, Lord of the Western Islands, who, for rais ing the standard of rebellion against Scotland's king, was forced to fly from his estates and seek refuge in these wilds with a price set upon his head. Joletta herself was ignorant of her illus trious descent. Not so her brother, who, proud and ambitious, dreamed of reinstating himself in his rights; though he disguised his purpose, and under the assumed name of St. Clair, became the trusted and confidential friend of the gov ernor of Stirling, who, however, did not guess that his handsome squire was the brother of the girl whom he had met in the castle-grounds, and whom he sought, wooed and soon won to love him. One so utterly unsophisticated—a motherless child, reared in nun-like seclusion— was not hard to deceive; Joletta trusted her splendid lover implicitly, with the innocent faith of a loving heart; and for a time he was sincere in his passion and in his intention to marry this peerless creature, peasant-born though he believed her to be. But sudden war summoned him to a distant battlefield; victory perched on his banner; he was called to the royal court, and the rank and power of an Earl con ferred upon him. Thus loaded with favors from the king, the princes and the lovely, high-born ladies of the court, he forgot his brief romance in the woods of Stirling and the faith he owed to the blind hermit’s daughter. He had con fided the affair to his squire, still ignorant that St. Clair was Joletta’s brother—who, smothering his bitter resentment for his sister’s sake, waited to see if his master would redeem his promise to take her as his wife. The stifled fire of revenge burst into flame when he found that the Earl of Ruthven had j ust led to the altar the king’s stately niece, and had sent a message to him directing that the castle be prepared to receive his bride with due splendor, and that, especially, the old hermit and his daughter were to be sent far away from that portion of the country. A purse heavy with gold accompanied the message. St. Clair threw it into the river and planned his re venge. Joletta, who had existed on hope and counted the days till her lover should return, when the sudden truth came to her that he had forsaken her, cast her off utterly, that she was disgraced, bowed her head over her babe with one low, deep cry of agony, and never spoke again. The bridal party arrived, and were received with joyful festivities; but when the bride re tired to her chamber, and drew back the rich, gold-embroidered curtains of her marriage-bed, she found lying there a dead infant in its shroud. Her shrieks of terror rang ominously through the castle, and silenced the minstrel's joyous music. ‘ It is your child!” St. Clair cried to the Earl. “ I could not induce the old man and his daugh ter to go away; they vow to denounce you to your bride. Go to them yourself to-night, and with gold and your persuasive tongue you may make them give over their revengeful purpose. I will go with you.” They went that night, disguised in full armor with closed visors, St. Clair bearing in his arms the dead babe—his sister’s child. Out on a lonely heath they stopped, dug a shallow grave with their swords, and buried the ill-fated babe by the faint light of the moon. Then they made their way to the lonely cabin, hid under the cliff like a swallow’s nest. Silence reigned within, but the single lamp shone wanly tnrough the window. The two mailed figures entered; there Earl Ruthven saw a sight that transfixed him with horror—Joletta robed from head to foot in a white shroud, her arms crossed on her breast, her eyes closed; her face, her limbs fixed in the marble rigidity of death. The blind exile, her father, knelt beside the pallet where she lay. The anguish of his features changed to a fierce, ing relieved, and busily engaged in readjusting their apparel and themselves. The man who had his hand on his pocket-book, and he who had kissed his sweetheart on the sly, and the woman who steadily looked at the dim lan tern or shut her eyes where there were none, to prevent a nervous fit—these and others af fect a philosophical observer queerly. There are interesting things which sometimes make one laugh, sometimes make one sigh, while dashing under a mountain. Not every day can be seen so laughable a spectacle as was pre sented by the young man who got into an un enviable PREDICAMENT IN A TUNNEL. Simpson received a two weeks’ leave of ab sence, not long ago, from the dry-goods store where he labors ingloriously for four dollars and seventeen cents per month. Simpson was so happy when he had drawn his salary in advance, that he actually asked j the boys out to take something. Than he started home and packed his valise with paper piccadillies and white neck-ties, I with a view to setting the country girls crazy. After all was in readiness, he bade the old ! folks an affectionate adieu, and started on a two-forty gait for the B \rclav-street ferry. On the way there he indulged in sundry and divers beers, and, after reaching Hoboken, he J thought he’d try a snifter of brandy, just to ! straighten him up, previous to boarding the train for his long ride. He hadn’t time to look up a sample-room, as the train was about to start, so, seeing a | drug-store near by, he rushed for it to indulge i in some soda water with a stick in it. Walk- j ing up to the fountain hurriedly, he said to j the woman: “Give me some plain soda.” ' She was about to obey, when, by accident, ! she looked up at her customer, and was some- I what surprised to see him wink at her. She J didn’t know what to make of it. She didn’t know that the wink meant to put in some bran- ; dy. Suddenly she looked up, and he winked I again. Then she threw the soda water in Simp son’s face and colored deeply. Simpson was about to explain, when her hus- ' band came out, grabbed him by the collar, walk- i ed him out of the place in lively style, and I knocked him kicking in the gutter. Then Simpson got up and ran as fast as he could to catch the train. He was soon on board, “the observed of all observers,” on account of having a large plas ter of mud running latitudinally across his oth erwise snowy shirt front. It was attracting more attention all the time, and he determined to free himself of it as soon as possible. “I have it now,” he soliloquized, with a hap py smile. “I shall change my shirt as we go through the tunnel, blow me if I don’t.” So he unlocked his valise and unbuttoned his shirt, so that everything would be in readiness at the eventful moment. Finally the train reached the tunnel and was soon immersed in inky darkness. Simpson lost not a single moment. With hair on end and his heart beating against his palate, he whipped his soiled shirt off and crammed it into his va lise. Then he took the clean one out and tried to get into it. There were no lights in the car—an unusual thing—and Simpson struggled in the dark to get into the shirt in the usual fashion. First he drove his arm up through the neck, and got his head up one sleeve almost to the el bow. Then he took breath for the next essay. The second wasn’t very different from the first trial, except that he got the shirt on with the bosom on his back. He ripped it off pretty lively, and as the train was almost through the tunnel, every minute was of value to him. He got the shirt in the right position, and commenced pulling it on as fast as he could. He just got his arms up through the neck when the train shot out into broad daylight, and the racket that followed wasn’t much infe rior to a Nicaragua earth-quake. Men laughed and howled, and the women looked out of the windows and giggled in spite of their united efforts to appear calm. Simpson felt so flat and mean that he drew his head back in his shirt to be screened from view. Tne conductor, hearing the racket, came in and marched Simpson out into a baggage car. After he fixed himself up he got off at the next station, snd took the next train. I don’t think he’ll ever attempt to change his shirt in a tunnel again. Locomotive. Athens. The State Sunday-school Convention met in the city of Athens on the 24th 25th and 26th of revengel’nl expression when he heard the ring ! August. T-ie meeting was the best ever held in of the mailed feet." j the State. The Citizens of Athens were a unit “ He has come!” he cried, starting up. “ My j in extending to the members of the convention son, is the murderer here?” j the most generous hospitality. Large audiences “He is here, father,” St. Clair answered. ! governed by superb order greeted all the exer- “ The villain is in our power. Know, wretch, cises of the convention. It is gratifying to know that this betrayed and murdered girl is my sis- , that the convention proved to be to the delegates ter—no peasant maid, but the daughter of the j and the citizens of the place, a source of spirit- noble Earl of Lauriston. Thus her father and ual strength, and a spiritual feast. upon her de brother wreak their vengeance stroyer!” Quick as thought he seized the Earl of Ruth ven, bore him to the floor with his fierce strength and held him while the old man pierced him to the heart. Then the two turned their swords upon themselves, and the illustrious house of Lauriston was extinct. Athens is noted as the seat of culture, refine ment and science, throughout the south. To this, the writer can add, from personal experi ence, the citizens are characterized by a broad catholic Christianity, and warmhearted hespital- ity. We learned from a well-informed citizen that Four corpses filled the rea i estate has suffered very little depreciation narrow room ! _ there, and rents have fallen only fifteen percent When the fearful tidings reached the bride, j s j nce i860. Her merchants do a large and safe she lost her reason and was borne back to her ; business. Her banks have never ceased to pay father’s house a raving maniac. On the anni- ! jq percent dividends, although their rates of nWL - he exhibited in several cases a 'sort *of versar y ni 8 ht of the terrible tragedy the figures interest have never exeeeeded 13 percent. Their d S ’ tion 6Xhlblted m SeV6ral CaS6S a SOrt 0t j of two mailed knights, riding coal-black horses, i trade is steadily augmenting, and there are a rUn, „.;„ „ j , one with a dead child in his arms, were seen to several houses who sell over a million dollars Jof the Poei issne fr ° m the dark Shad ° WS ° f , ‘ he Caatle -™“ 8 ’ worth of goods annually. append almost broken hearted. “Over and gcared ^ threw e the portals wid | and fled. and beautiful points. A visit through the libra- ?^' e , r) i an imnorannnHni f Ever afterwards on that night the gates were left ry 0 f the State University and of the apparatus open, and the ghastly pair rode through on their J lh . u„ 0 „ Colleg.e will amply repair the the Dawn, ana tne spirit oi lniancy fire-breathing steeds, and the sound of galloping ; t i me expended. n l nnn h th 1 it^chndl prave-" “ not ” he hoofs ' and the wild laugh and blood-curdling The people revere and esteem Dr. Lipscomb, the nigh p , , ’ . ’ ■ cry, woke the echoes of the old castle and struck Dr .Tucker and Dr. Lane knowing no denomi- says, “ in any parade of sorrow; but in mere in- £ the heart3 of all who hear d the sounds. national f ee lio K of bitterness. 8 Wit i. ,ho country coming i, A »dd.n Th. North Lutor. ***** -nnning from I have been able to give a most imperfect out- dra’t of hot air is reported to have passed Athens to Lula on the Airline R.R., a distanoe line ot Mr. Page’s admirable biography. No through a cotton field and peach orchard m of forty miles, is in fine order. The trip is made person of literary tastes ought to be without it. western Texas a few days ago, scorching and in^two^houre. ^The m^inera^springs near^the The style is scholarlike and pure; the incidents are clearly narrated; and the biographer’s sym pathy with his subject, while sincere, is by no means bigoted. What is the difference between a girl and a night cap? One is born to wed and the other is worn to bed. Asparagus is like a sermon. It is the end of it that people enjoy most. killing every green thing it touched for a space North Easton depot are visited daily by large 140 yards wide and 400 yards long. numbers . and a number of persons have been rr, . . —-T . , , , . . cured ot their ailing, by the use of the water. The New lork Herald has been in g Dr. Carlton is throwing much life into his the heavy wholesale merchan sin a c , tri-weekly Georgian, and the old Watchman is finds the belief general that the moving on swimmingly. Thomas A. Burke is year will prove the best and t e g h Mayor pro tern, and “bears his blushing honors 1873. Their confidence in improved times is r B based on the abundant crops throughout the South and West and the political relief felt in , That thou m?v»t injure no man, dove-like b the former section. i and serpent-like, that none may iDjnre thee instinct print