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JOHN ll. SEALSi - Editor and Proprietor. IV. B. SEALS, - - Business Manager. HRS. MARY E. BRYAN (•) Associate Editor. ATLANTA, GEORGIA, JANUARY 12, 1878. As announced beforehand, no pa per was issued last week. A New Year’s Greeting. After a few days rest we again take on the harness, and now send happy greet ings to all our friends and patrons. We sincerely trust that a happy and prosper ous new year has dawned upon each and every one of them, and that our whole land may abundantly rejoice in the rich est blessings of a kind and bountiful Providence. Our Sunny South has lived in spite of a few envious predictions to the con trary, through some of the hardest years our people have ever known, and we now think every good man and woman in the land should see to it that its pat ronage this year shall exceed that of any preceding year. Will not each patron send us a small club of subscribers as a new year’s gift ? The Boys and Girls of the South. Send for a specimen copy of this bright little paper. It has been enlarged, and now comes out in a new dress. Don’t fail to send for a specimen. The price is only $1.00, and it comes out twice a month. Sunny South and “ Boys and Girls of the South ” both for $3.50. The Battles Around Atlanta. This interesting series of sketches will be resumed in our next issue. Sketches of Southern Literature will be continued next week. The Thin-Skinned. The rinoceros-skinned individual through whose epidermis no arrow of contempt, no dart of satire can penetrate, whom no slight can wor ry and no hint can reach, is a sufficiently ag gravating type of humanity, and one can hardly see him without itching to take him by the shirt-collar and shake him out of his shell of self-conceit. But though aggravating to others, he is happy in himself. The atmosphere of self-sufficiency he carries about him is rose-col ored. Not so his brother of the opposite extreme— he of the thin skin, th6 sensitive temperament that is forever sniffing a slight—he is the most unhappy and self-tormenting of mortals. These mimosas of society who shrink and shrivel at the suspicion of an unkindly breath, not only needlessly afflict themselves, but they make their friends suffer on their account. Of one of these it has been well said that, “We are never safe with him, never certain that we have not unwittingly and in the purest good faith annoy ed or insulted him beyond forgiveness. He seems to be continually asking us to tread upon his toes; taking it for granted, and generally gratuitously, that we give him no credit for good intentions, misconstrue his motives, deny liis good looks, ignore his talents and claims to respect, and throw cold water upon his efforts to please.” It is a step-motherly trick in dame Nature that she^often counterbalances.her gift of genius by fastening this unfortunate temperament upon the gifted. It was the bane of poor Poe, of Kirk White, Keats, Chatterton and many who have lived and suffered since. Male Flirts in Gotham. When a young girl is to make her debut in New York society, it is the married men and not their wives or the young beaus that her manag ing mamma desires to conciliate. The young married men of the first water are the ones whose verdict determines whether the debutante shall be a rushlight or a star—a wall flower or the “fash ion.” Accordingly, mamma gives a dinner and invites all these social Warwicks who can make ormarabelle; and the young lady pays her court to them. A recent writer upon fashion, able American Society says: The unmarried men take their queues from the older hands, who in spite of having wives are the most indefati gable ball-goers, the recognized leaders of the German, and the established authorities on mat ters of fashionable etiquette. Where society has no regular hierarchy, as it has in England, its leaders are self-constituted or tacitly acknowl edged. The men, as a rule, marry so young that they have not had time to become biases; and the con sequence is, that they flirt as actively with un married girls, and flutter about as flippantly as if they were still single. In some cases they keep this up till their own daughters come out; overwhelming the girls of their choice with bouquets, bonbonnieries, and trifling presents, taking them solitary drives, giving them dinners, boxes at the opera, and distinguishing them by such marks of delicate attention as are always grateful to the female mind. Occasionally these are pushed to such a point that they give rise to unpleasant gossip, but I have never known any real harm to come of them. 'The girls are thoroughly well able to take care of themselves; and upon the occasions, which sometimes happen, of a man becoming so desperately in love'as to forget his conjugal du ties and propose an elopement, he invariably meets a positive and decided refusal.” Salvini’s Othello. A strong and vivid piece of word-painting is John McLandburgh’s description of Salvini’s Othello in the last Capital. He says the great Italian’s conception of the character is purely animal: “His huge frame, great muscular develop ment and vast accumulation of adipose tissue, all yield him an admirable natural outfit with which to play the animal. He is not tall enough for a giant, nor small enough for the natural man. Huge is the word, and elephant is the animal which best describes our impressions of this actor in Othello. He is a kind of mon strous man-elephant To these qualifications of person Salvini seems to have added, by close analysis and patient elaboration, all the usual attributes and accompanying circumstances of savagery and barbarism. All through the play his body is either in complete repose or under thewrithings of suppressed rage—either torpid or rampant. There were times in the latter acts, when Des- demona and Iago were present, when the au dience could distinctly hear a wolf bark in the direction of the stage. And again, just before the lamb was seized, they heard the treble cry of the leopard, Often, when Salvini sat in that arm-chair near the footlights, he appeared to be a huge rhinoceros in his lair that Iago was try ing to goad into activity, and which rushed at length upon his tormentor with the crushing force of an avalanche. The play of rage over his features was terrible to behold, but it was often merely the workings of instinct. The lines of character in his distorted and greasy face then took the form of welts and knots, which gave it a truncated and volcanic appear ance. He has too much intelligence for a brute, but not enough for a man, and in this respect is like the elephant, which frequently appears to get one leg over the barrier which separates the human from the animal kingdom^ Salvini has created a great tropical man-monster, and it is not difficult to imagine that his hideous buffalo-like head may, after all, grow from below his shoulders. In all the exciting passages which occur late in the tragedy his movement over the stage is the charge of an enraged beast. But Salvini does not always rely upon his genius to gain applause. There was a place near the close of an act, after Iago had scourged him to madness, and the muscles of his neck and chest had commenced to twitch convul sively, that he sprang upon his assailant, swept him from his feet, throwing him lengthwise on the stage, and then, amid the clamor of shrill trumpeting, he lifted his elephantine leg to crush him. Then the people sprang to their feet and cheered him. Booth’s Othello loved one woman out of all the world, who so twined herself about bis affec tions that even after he thought her false he could not quench his love. He had a hard fight with his soul. It was a desperate, frenzied struggle to beat down a light that always sprang again. But Salvini looked upon Desdemona as the newest one of a hundred or a thousand wives. Between his love-making and the audi ence there should have been drawn an impene trable veil, for his desire was beastly. At the final moment Booth’s Othello stabbed himself to the heart, and died like a man. Salvini ripp ed open his throat and floundered like a brute. From first to last Salvini is faithful to this ani mal conception of the character. Salvini’s ren dition is powerful and awe-inspiring. It is full of great, salient points, which take hold of our imaginations like the rents in the ruins of Kar- nak and Luxor. It would be well for young artists and those older ones with uncertain con ception and deficient magnetism to keep away from the dange.rously impressive Italian, lest coming too near his huge idea it should suedden- ly become unmanageable and step on them. * Stand up to Each Other Girls. Kate Field—(we are sure it can be nobody but Kate, who behind the ambush of an incognita pops away so pleasantly at New York society in the last Blackwood.) Kate Field then gives the girls some good advice in the matter of standing up to each other against the opposite sex, She is right, and it is this co-operative, clannish feel ing among women that we need at the South, where our women both in business and social circles are too coldly selfish for their own good if they but knew it-—and seek rather to pull each other down than to join hands and produce the strength that comes from union. But Kate Field doesen’t discuss the question so seriously seriousness is not her forte, though she catches many gleams of truth in her pretty plays upon the surface. She is giving a sugges tion to girls in society, and says: “ I am convinced that there is no greater mis take for a girl than to be misled, by the admira tion of the opposite sex, into losing her popular ity with her own. Young men are intimidated and kept in their proper place by a strong phalanx of girls, if these hold together properly. It requires a youth of uncommon nerve boldly to face half-a-dozen girls all tittering together in a corner, who, he knows, will pick him to pieces the moment he leaves them. We New York girls used to keep our little heels on the necks of our beauxs, and trample over them ruthlessly. In London, the case is exactly re versed, and the poor girls are crushed by the aw-too-awfully-aw kind of youth, to a degree which makes my blood boil.It is because Lon don girls don’t understand how to combine and organize, so to speak against the men.” • Christmas Daises and Dandelions. What does a New York Cockney, born and bred among brick walls, know concerning the ways of nature out in the far free woods and fields? One of these shows his ignorance in an at tempted description of sylvan aspects—as he imagined them—on last Christmas. “It is Christmas tide,” he writes, “but the air is balmy, and the daisy and dandelion lift their heads above the verdure of the unwithered fields.” If there was a daisy or dandelion even in tropi cal Florida, it is more than we imagine—and if our Gothamite could go out into those “un withered fields,” the only verdant thing he would find would be himself. * Drawing Straws for a.Life. John Aiken of Shanneeton 111. was recently sentenced to be hung. His lawyer Albright soon afterwards discoved that the jurymen had determined the prisoners fate by drawing straws. They had stood nine for and three against ac quitting him, when they decided to leave the matter to the straw-drawing lottery. They did so; the hanging straw won and the verdict “guilty” was the consequence. Three of the jurors afterwards “ blabbed ” and the sharp lawyer immediately went to Judge Allen, secur ed Aiken a new trial and got the three jurors fined a cool fifty each, while one of them had to pay $100 for forgetting his solemn duty as a juryman. This is the first time we ever heard of drawing straws getting a man into a difficulty, though drawing “something” through straws gets many an one into trouble. , Christmas in Washington Donn Piatt’s account of Christmas in the nation's capital—the present gathering place of fair women and brave (!) men—is certainly a gloomy one. He must have forgotten to put the egg in his nogg, and viewed things through a jaundiced medium, occasioned by a splitting headache and a generally demoralized condition of the system. “ This Christmas,” he declares* “ was one of the dullest, bluest frauds ever per petrated upon a Christian community. “Times are so hard, money so tight and the weather was so bad, that the average Washing tonian waxed angry, swore, got drunk and awoke next day with a headache. “In addition to our other miseries the police force gave a carte blanche to the public nuisances, composed of hoodlums possessed of the devil, toot-horns and pistols, who made night hideous and day diabolical. “ It was a starvation Christmas, and we are glad it is over. The entire year was a starvation year, a fraud on the face of time, and we are glad it is assuming the blanched deathliness of a corpse. We bid it good-bye without sighing.” Numerous things, not nice, happened that day in the Capital. A young milliner girl, going home with her packages, was knocked down, robbed and brutally .kicked by a negro who got away; anothe^oi the nation’s wards killed a fellow negro duAifg the holidays; a dreadful instance of juvenile sensuality and brutishness took place, and the perpetrators got off with a paltry fine. To offset this, however, the authorities illus trated the majesty of the law by arresting and dragging to the lock-up, through gaping crowds a young girl of respectable parents, who had been beguiled into a restaurant by a companion, where she was stupefied with liquor, “without, ’» says the newspaper account, “ recognizing the danger she was in.” Was there no humane person in all that “gaping crowd ” to interfere and save the girl from a public humiliation that will probably render her reckless and seal her ruin ? After all, it seems the Don was right in being disgusted with Christmas in Washington. * Poor Birds. We were just g^ugratulating ourselves that the cruelty-suggesting fashion of wearing birds’ birds’ heads and wings upon hats and bonnets was falling into disuse, when here our eye catches a paragraph announcing a Parisian nov elty—all the rage—a cloth made of the down of birds, water proof, five times lighter and three times warmer than wool. Of course, the very novelty and expensiveness of the new fabric will make Miss Flora McFlimsy eager to possess a cloak of birds’-down cloth, and there will be a renewal of slaughter of the innocents—a fresh sacrifice of gay, sY.eet, tuneful life to the insatia ble hydra headed monster, called Fashion- * Excellent Sport. They had last week, what the crackmen of tb e turf and field call, “ capital sport ” at Herring Run Trotting Course, near Baltimore. A deer was brought there to be run down and lacerated by dogs for the amusement of the young bloods, the boys, negro* crowd generally. When let loose, the po<fr creature, instead of dashing off, “followed the keepers around like a kid.” Then the eager, blood-thirsting dogs—fifteen in number—were let loose upon the hapless vic tim. We read, that the deer, “after a short run, bounded over the inclosing fence and dashed in among the crowd of spectators. By waving of hats and loud shouting the deer was fright ened once more to the track, but, after a brief chase, butted his head against a stone wall and lay calmly down and died.” We are ready to exclaim bitterly against such cruelty, but we remember that a sight even more harrowing may be seen by looking out of our window—a street-car on Whitehall, drawn through the heavy slush and mud by a single worn, panting and badly crippled mule. A Young Lady’s Baby Show. A nice charitable young lady of Brooklyn, announced a “baby show” at her home on Mon day before Christmas. Her friends came in large numbers, and the show was unveiled— no specimens of Caucasian infantility nor (what the Herald pronounces—the infinitely more at tractive) Bhow of Afri can picaninnies, but an as sembly of silent, smiling, serene beauties—fifty doll babies, prettily dressed, which our Brook lyn girl “had prepared as Christmas gifts for the little girls at the Church Charity founda tion.” The proceeds of the “Baby Show” (twenty cents admission) sufficed to arm each doll with a huge cornucopia of sweet meats,” as an additional gift to make glad the hearts of the children of poverty. That Brooklyn girl de served a happy Christmas, and no doubt she enjoyed the result of her expenditure better than if she had bought her a pearl necklace, or a lace set to excite the envy of her less fortu nate friends. Instead, her money went to make fifty of Christ’s little ones happy upon His birthday. * An Atrocious Suggestion. The Editor of the Chicago Tribnne, formerly one of the loudest of the howlers over the cruel ties of Slavery, recently wrote an article on the “tramp-nuisance,” that inexhaustible source of Editorial growls and weeps at the North. These tramps, who are laborers thrown out of employment by the greed of Capitalists, nave become desperate and somewhat dangerous through starvation, and the good Tribune hu manitarian proposes the following remedy. “In view of the number c r tramps that crowd our highways and annoy jople by asking for some thing to eat, it is suggested that persons so an noyed, procure a supply of strychnine and mix it with the food they dispense. This will effect ually dispose of the vagabonds.” Such are the tender mercies of a philanthro pist The Bear Pen, in New York. Where is Mr. Bergb, and where is the “higher culture” that New York has lately delighted it self with gladiatorial wrestling matches, be tween two brutes—the one human, the other a bear. We are told that immense crowds of peo ple attended these refined entertainments, hoping like “Budgie” to see plenty of “blood” and mangled limbs. If we did this down South, we should hear of “Southern barbarism” the half- eivilized Southern masses etc. * ocahoutas ns an Acronat. The gospel of New Things is being preached so effectually in these progressive days, that every one of our old beliefs, that were thought grounded immovably on the rock of truth, bids fair to disappear like the baseless fabric of a vision. Shakspeare is found to be but a commonplace fellow after all,—a mere skillful rehasher of old stories,—Bacon is proved an idi otic plagiarist, and Homer a mere clever rhy mer; William Tell is a myth, and George Wash ington a well-meaning, bat an obtuse and fogy- ish old gentleman. Lately, another historical idol hab been broken to pieces on the merciless wheel of progress, and declared to be worse than clay—Pocahnn- tas, the beautiful Indian princess—the saviour of Gapt. Smith, whose story historical tradition has embalmed, and romance and chivalry have delighted to adorn—Pocalinntas, from whom the very foremost of the F. F. V’s, are proud to trace their lineage—Pocahuntas is shown up in an old, recently unearthed “History of Travaile” written by one Stranchley (secretary of the colony in Virginia, in 1610) in the following un- poetical light. “The young women go not shadowed in their own company, until they be nigh eleven or twelve returns of the leaf old, nor are they much ashemed thereof; and Focliahuntas, a well featured but wanton young girl, Powatan’s daughter, sometimes resorting to our fort, of the age of ten or twelve years, got the boys forth with her into the market piace and made them wheel, falling on their hands, turning their heels upwards, whom she would follow, and wheel so herself, naked as she was, all the fort over. The great King Powatan called this young daughter of his, whom he loved so well, Pocha- huntas, which signifies a little wanton.” A Christmas Eve Tragedy in St. Louis. While the Christmas guns and bonfires of the great Missouri metropolis were ushering in the holidays, a sudden and startling announcement broke upon the festive mood of the city. Mrs. Annie Bowman the young and beautiful, wife of Hon. J. B. Bowman, mayor of East Louis, had committed suicide—shot herself through the heart “Only an hour previous to the fearful act she was in the midst of a gay and fashionable company, where her rare beauty and wit made her the belle and centre of attraction. Return ing home, she went to her room. Her husband heard a crash and a heavy fall, and hurrying to ner boudoir, found his wife gasping out her life, with a pistol in her hand and the bullet in her heart. There is much mystery connected with the suicide. Mrs. Bowman was the divorced wife of Alfred Becker, and married the mayor shortly after the decree dissolving her marriage bonds with her former husband. Young, beautiful and possessed of great wealth, her sudden severance from all by her own hand creates the idea that remorseful mem ory of the dead past impelled her to essay the dread future for a change from an unhappy present. “Robebts,” of the Capital, has her say about the Chandler confession—a sharp one as might be expected, for she usually speaks her mind. She says: “When rognes fall out wise men hear the truth. Denials will be the order of the day now, since the honest Chandler has turned State’s evidence and peached on his ‘pals.’ Who was it said that the Democratic party was corrupt and dishonest, and that the moral Re publicans were the only ones to save the coun try ? Whv don’t the Republicans pay their men when they do dirty work for them, or shut them up, so they can’t tell tales out of school ? Of course every one knew the electoral count was a fraud, and that the Presidency was gained by a steal; but we did not know just how it was done until Chandler plays the sneak and tells all about it, which settles him in my mind as worse than the rest.” * A Knight of the Golden Horse-Shoe. Caligula, who had the oats of his favorite horse gilded, has been nearly equaled lately, by an eccentric American girl—a Miss Thompson, whe has had her pet mare (which she took with her on a tour through the United States, last year) shod with solid gold shoes, mads by a firm of jewelers in Edinburgh. Quite a crowd gathered around the smithy of Prof. Beard, veternary surgeon in Edinburgh, to see this uni que shoeing done, the nails with which the glit tering shoes were fixed, being also of gold. The shoes cost $1000, and some of our exchang es bewail the extravagance of lavishing such a sum upon a mere auimal; but really we have seen larger sums wasted upon animals, inferi or to a fine, intelligent, and faithful horse. For instance, we have seen a fifteen hundred dollar camel’s hair shawl upon the back of a coarse woman, who had no gentle sensibilities, no feeling for the unfortunate, no nice sense of honor, no thought above eating, drinking, dressing and making a show. And we have seen a diamond pin and massive gold chain and charms adorning the shallow-brained heir of some hard-working father—a creature puffed up with conceit, until he is as light as the smoke of his inevitable cigar,—a social excres cence—a producer of nothing, except the weak est of jokes and the filthiest of tobacco juice. Lesson from a Cow. The following little apostrophe to a cow, very neatly satirizes, first that class of nervous, rest less mortals, with a “maggot in their brains” who are forever prying into the mysteries of life, digging into its roots and straining their sights to find where its top branches may reach, and second, that larger class, the great dissatis fied, who spend their lives finding fault with the world; with the government, churches, schools, men, women and children, everything but their own perfect selves ; TO a cow. Why, cow, how canst thou be so satisfied! So well content with all things here below, So unobtrusive and so sleepy eyed, So meek, so lazy, and so awful slow ! Dost thou not know that everything is mixed— That naught is as it should be on this earth. That grievously the world needs to be fixed; That nothing we can gain has any worth. That times are hard, that life is full of care. Of sin and trouble, and untowardness. That love is folly, friendship but a snare T Prtt! cow, this is no time for laziness 1 The cud thou chewest is not what it seems! Get up and moo 1 Tear round and quit thy dreams 1 Miss Mary Carroll, of Columbia, S. C.; a lady distinguished in literary and social cirples, has lately married, and is now Mrs. Scriven. We wish our accomplished contributor a happy mat rimonial voyage, and trust that the marriage ring may not cause her to lay aside the pen, whioh she wields so graoefully and well. * From Our Private Letters. A Social Interview witli Distant Friends— What They Say. We give below two specimen notes from young aspirants after money and literary fame, but more particularly the money. O Tempora! How the world is tilling with writers ! What hath so gulled the young people inio the idea that they can make money by writing for the press ? Opelika, Ala. Sie—Enveloped herewith you will find a pro duction healed, “ ,” which I send for your examination, and if you deem it worth the price, and are willing for it to appear in the columns of your paper, I would be highly pleased indeed. As you will ascertain, it has the signature of “ ,” which name I have adopted as a garb in which to appear before the public. This will be my debut as an actor upon the literary stage; and I expect in future, for the most part, to obtain a livelihood upon the stream tl at has its source in the inkstand. Being a novice, I scarcely know what would be an exorbitant price for this composition ; and being desirous to avoid the im putation of extortioner, I will be liberal, and price this to you at §2.50. If you are willing to accede to these terms, just send the money through the mail. The other one says : Dear Sir—I need money very bad; so I thought I might be able to obtain a little by writing a story. I know it is not worth much, but I am only fifteen, so you can’t expect much from a school-girl. Daisy Bell. R. E., of Stephensville, Texas: riease send to my address a few numbers of the Sunsy South. 1 wish to get a number of sub scribers to it in order to get its valuable literature introduced into our settlement. I deem it as good, if not the best paper of the kind on the continent. C. W. II., of Rockford : I can conscientiously say that I derive more pleasure from reading your paper than any liter ary paper 1 have ever taken. It has a tone so en tirely different from the Northern literary periodi cals of the day. It is permeated with a genial, good fellowship which makes every subscriber look upon it as a personal friend. Certainly 1 will use my influence in inducing my friends to subscribe for it. “Long may it wave.” L. T., of Pulaski, Tennessee, says : You may confidently count on me, as a sub scriber to your excellent paper, as long as I am able to pay for it. Enclosed you will find five dol lars to renew Mrs. and my subscription for another year, and as I am an old bachelor (49', please send me a ticket in your lottery. As my case is now growing desperate, l am constrained to try every available means to get spliced. Please accept my best wishes for the success of your most worthy enterprise. You shall have a chance in the drawing, and we hope the prettiest girl in the bunch will fall to your lot. Miss A. B., of Beaver Dale, Georgia, says: Enclosed you will find my photo., so please give me a chance with the five hundred girls you called for. I love your Sunny South more than any pa per in the world. 1 have been getting it since the first number, and feel like I could not do without it. Many wishes for your success. G. H. D , of Tallahassee, Florida, says: I love your paper very much, and expect ever to be a subscriber. I don’t feel willing to be with out it. I shall claim a ticket for the lottery, as I will renew my subscription when it runs out. Please don’t stop my paper when the time is up. If we could receive such assurances as this from every subscriber, it would encourage us so much in our severe labors. But so many fail, or forget to renew, that we often feel discouraged. Something Better,"(anew novel after the flim- sily sensational sort of “That Husband of Mine” gets smartly be-lashed by the critic whip of a New York Daily, who says: “ As a story it is absurd and trashy, and as for a literary effort, it is below common-place. The weakness of the old pans, the threadbare quality of the humor, the unreality of the story itself and the lack of backbone in the setting up the characters are to be felt on even a oursory reading. ” The Wallacks. This popular and versatile “tripologue troupe ” gave two very entertaining perform ances in this city the past week. Mrs. Fanny Wallack is quite a charming lady on the stage, and displays a most versatile genius. Her cul tivated and flexible voice delighted the au dience. The little ballad, “ There’s no harm in Kissing,” she sang with fine effect. Mr. Rider’s “ Hungry Army ” was good. We did not see Mr. Wallack’s Shifting Costume Scene. He is a genial and courteous gentleman. Propositions for 1878. All who subscribe oi renew in Decem ber, will receive the Sunny South to January 1, 1879. Now is the time to begin with the new stories. For a club of six at $2.50, we will send a copy free for one year. For $5, we will send two copies one year. For $3.50, we will send the Sunny South and Boys and Girls of the South one year. Each subscriber now on the books can have a year added to his time for $2.50 by renewing now and sending one other subscriber at same price. For a club of four, at $2.50, we will send a copy of any of the Standard poets or any novel that may be desired. For a club of six, we will send a hand some photograph album. For a club of sixteen, we will send a Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. For a club of twenty, we will send $10 in gold. (All the names must be sent at the same time when premiums are demanded.) Miss Hamblin, who was cut off from any share in her father’s $200,000, in Somerset, Maryland, has broken his will. He died at the age of nine ty-six, after turning his daughter out of doors at the bidding of a woman who had gained control of him.