Newspaper Page Text
[From the Griffin Daily Nowf.]
THE SPEECH of the CENTURY.
-BY-
COLONEL JOHN H. SEALS,
OF THE SIXW SOUTH.
A NEW DOCTRINE PROCLAIMED.
Wo Lost Cause—Wo Conquered Ban
ner—Wo Conquered South.
GOD ON THE SOUTHERN SIDE!
A BRILLIANT FUTURE.
Delivered in tirillin, Ga., on flic 301 li
of April ISIS, to an Immense
Audience.
We copy the speech of onr Col. Seals, with
the head lines, from the Griffin Daily ftews. It
is eliciting the most favorable comments from
every one who reads it, and should be generally
read as it certainly opens up a new Held for re
flection.
What is the meaning of all this demonstra
tion? Why have the people with one accord,
the old and the young, the middle-aged, the
mother and the maiden, the widow and the or
phan assembled together this day with flowers,
wreathes and crosses? It is the date of no great
battle, no great victory, nor is it the birthdty of
any great soldier, statesman, plilosopher or
philanthropist. Indeed it is the date of no great
event in history. True, thirteen years ago the
last considerable army of the South surrender
ed with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, but the gal
lant little Confederacy had already gone down
forever with Lee at Appomattox. Then why
this grand assemblage of the good people of
this city and community ? Do we, as a people,
properly comprehend it? Do these bright-eyed
boys and girls properly understand it? No, it
is not understood. There is no day like it in
all history, and no people but those who livp
under a Republican form of Government where
the will of the people is the supreme law,
could have such a day. The Greeks could not
have had it, because their peculiar mythology
was introduced into all public ceremonies, and
they deified their heroes into gods. The Ho
man’s could not have had it, for the patricians
would have scouted the idea of paying suc-
houors to the plebeians. The old feudal sys
tems and the monarchies which succeeded them
would not have tolerated such ceremonies; and
only here in America, where liberty is a senti
ment and not a nationality as in Europe, could
such a custom be established and receive such
universal sanction. And being the anniversary
of no particular event it has a broad and na
tional sublimity which attaches to no other day
in the world’s histpry. It is not dwarfed and
circumscribed in its significance by one event,
but like “All Souls Day” in the Roman Catho
lic church, it has been set apart by special arbi
tration as a day when all could unite in a spon
taneous outgushing of gratitude and respect to
the dead heroes of a noble and gallant struggle.
At first it was an occasion when hearts bled
afresh at the recollection of personal losses, and
each bereaved friend scattered flowers upon the-
graves of the loved ones as a token of personal
regard and affection; but the sentiment now
takes a broader character, and a higher glory
consecrates the ceremony. Wherever a soldier
sleeps to-day his sepulchre is a sacred Mecca
frrim which the living of any oor.'atry oi clime
may breathe new inspiration. Liberty stands
with classic form and angelic beauty beside
each grave with the laurel wreath of victory
poised above it, while “glory guards with sol
emn r»nnd," and sanctified spirits look from the
battlements above with kindliest benedictions
upon th<- ineffable pageantry of this day through
out the Gulf States. In Virginia the 10th of
May is the day for this ceremony, and in the
Northern States the :30th of May. Each grave is
the nation’s legacy, whether its occupant fell in
the blue or died in the gray, and the patriot will
shed a tea upon it wherever it may be found.
And is there a human being in all this land who
does not feel his pulses quicken and his heart
to swell with pride and gratitude as he walks
amid the graves of these Confederate dead?
They were a glorious band. Bat I come not,
Fellow Citizens, to utter gushing and empty
sentiments to their memory, nor to recount
their gallant deeds; these belong to the poets
and the historian.
No tongue with eloquence ever so impassion
ed, could add aught to the glory of their achieve
ments, while the finger of the Almighty has re
corded upon immortal pages the annals of their
sufferings.
“They fell devoted but undying,
The very gales their names are sighing,
The waters murmur of their name,
The woods are peopled with their fame;
Their spirits wrap the dusky mountain,
Their memory sparkles o’er the fountain:
The meanest rill, the mightiest river,
Boll mingling with their fame forever.
Despite every yoke she bears,
Our land is glory’s still and theirs,
’Tis still a watchword to the earth
When men would do a deed of worth.”
But the bloody scenes have long since passed
away; and let them be hid forever from our
sight. I would not recall them. Let us rather
dwell upon the heritage which they have left ns.
I come to proclaim a new trnth in this coun
try, and I wonld that I could sound it in the
ears of the people of all lands.
Onr statesmen and poets and editors, onr
preachers and all the people are in the habit of
speaking of ‘The Lost Cause,’ and lamenting
these dead soldiers as having ‘died in vain.’
Bat I proclaim here to-day from this stand that
the cause was not lost, and that these soldiers
did not die in vain. What was the cause for
which they died ? I want yonr close attention
for only a very few moments. Speeches on
these occasions are expected to be brief, and I
have had scarcely a moment from my ten thou
sand unremitting duties to elaborate the argu
ment which I shall present. You all know the
history of this great country. In the blood of
our sires and under the special guidance of
God himself a grand system of Republican gov
ernment was established on this continent with
the necessary checks and balances embodied in
a wise, if not an inspired Constitution, and
under it for CO years the country prospered as
no nation on the globe had ever done. Law,
order, peace and good will to man reigned in
all its borders. The people accumulated wealth
and were protected in life, liberty and prop
erty. Its ensign was honored upon all the seas
and the proudest of all titles was to be called
an American citizen. In the beautiful words of
Story ‘the spirit of the young nation swept
across the waters, ascended the Andes and
snnffed the breezes of both oceans; infnsed
itself into the life-blood of Enrope; warmed the
snnny plains of France, and the lowlands of
Holland. It touched the cold philosophy of
Germany and the North; and moving on to the
South opened to Greeoe the lessons of her better
days.' Kingdoms and monarchies trembled
under the shadows of its ascending wings, and
toiling millions of other lands hailed it as the
grand asylum for the weary and heavy ladened.
Every man wu a king in his own oastle and a
peer before the law, and he rested under the
(•hade of hie own trees where none dared molest
or make him afraid. He lived under the Con
stitution of his fathers which protected him in
all his rights and the very shekinah of the
Almighty seemed to rest upon the Republic.
Bnt the old serpent finally made his aDpear-
ance in this Western garden—the same old rep-
tile that poisoned the paradise of the East. Ag
itators and teachers of a “Higher Law” came
upon the scene and began to teach the people
that the Old Constitution under which the
country had thrived so long, was a “league with
Hell and a covenant with death.” They poison
ed the minds of the yonng and raised up preju
dices in one section against the people of the
other. A vast crop of pernicious ‘isms’ from
atbeism, abolitionism and free’ loveism down to
a lesser species took possession of the masses at
the North, and finding the Constitution of the
fathers a barricade to the promulgation of their
sentiments and the ultimate accomplishment of
their purposes, they denied the fundamental
principles upon which the government was bas
ed and made war npon our Republican theory.
They taughttbat the General Government was
not Federal in its nature, but a great central au
thority in which all power should be concentra
ted, and that the people owed it supreme allegi
ance.
All authority was to be merged into this great
central head and States rights and individual
rights were to be obliterated or ignored. These
pernicious doctrines in the course of thirty or
forty years made alarming headway. Preachers,
Sunday-school teachers, statesmen, editors, au
thors and all those who moulded public senti
ment, forced these ideas upon the masses of the
North. The South bitterly opposed them, and
was therefore hated with an intense hatred, and
patriots everywhere trembled for the safety of
the Republic. You all know how often it came
near going to pieces, but was patched up by
compromises like the Missouri compromise and
others. Everything was inevitably drifting into
Centralism, which is hut another name for Im
perialism. The cry was general among the
Northern masses for a monarchy. Republican
government was a failure, and they demanded
a change. Constitutional liberty was to he ban
ished the realm forever. Bnt that must
not be. But where could it look for defenders?
It couldn’t look to the North, for that was lead
ing the crusade against it. It couldn’t look to
the East nor the West, for they were infected
like the North. It couldn’t look to tho Old
World, for there they hated a republican form
of government.
Then where could it look ? Only to the
despised, villified and abused South, where its
bravest, truest and most consistent friends had
always resided. This section had always clung
steadfastly to the Old Constitution, and thank
God, our brave people rushed to the rescue and,
like the heroic Roman youth who threw himself
into the yawning gulf to save Rome, they plung
ed into the breach to save Republican govern
ment and Constitutional Liberty. And did
they fail ? TVas their cause lost ? I appeal to
the world for an answer; and it comes in the
negative from all portions of this great Repub
lic which lives to-day as in the days of Jefferson,
Madison and Monroe. It comes from the halls
of Congress, where Southern statesmen are the
most honored representatives of the nation; it
comes from the Executive Mansion itself where
a wise and brave Chief Magistrate has planted
himself squarely upon the Constitution of the
fathers and administers it in the East and the
West, the North and the South without fear, favor
or affection to either section. And who is this
President? Strange to say, he is one of their
own party ; and why this great conversion ?
The answer is that the courage, heroism and.
persistent defence of these sacred principles by
the South has given them new charms for the
American people, and no President who has
any regard for the welfare of the ^nation will
ever dare to violate them agaAi. Mr. Hayek is
a man of conscientious scruples, and I believe
him to be a patriot and Christian. He is mak
ing a good President. Let him stay where he
is. frauds or no frauds. He did not place him
self there. Congress did it when they decided
upon a commission to determine the result of
the election, and it has all worked out right.
He’was selected to bring order out of chaos, to
restore the government to its ancient landmarks,
and to put to eternal shame the anti-republi
can anti-constitutional shriekera of his own
party. And are they not now gnashing their
teeth and gnawing files m the mountains? Ho
is doing a good work. Let us hold up his hands.
A loud and convincing answer, then, comes from
the Executive of the nation; it comes ringing
across the waters from the Old World, that the
blood and heroism of the South have saved Re
publican America, and still it stands as a great
asylum with open gates for the oppressed of all
lands.
Then where is any ‘lost cause?’ At no time
since the days of Mr. Monroe has the Constitu
tion had a firmer hold upon the great American
heart than at this very moment, and Constitu
tional Liberty is now the watchword of the na
tion.
We lost men; we lost treasure and millions of
property of all kinds, but these were the sacri
fices to be made for the'great boon to be enjoy
ed in the future. No great revolution in public
sentiment has ever been effected without the
shedding of blood and wasting of treasure. It
is one of the peculiar characteristics of the Al
mighty in his dealings with nations. From the
beginning of the world down to the present,
blood has marked almost every great event. At
one time, you know, He destroyed nearly the
entire human family with a flood; He engnlfed
Pharaoh and his legions in the Red sea; He de
stroyed Sodom and Gomorrha with fire from the
heavens; the old Scriptures are a record of
blood; through the blood of His own Son on the
cross He established His kingdom on the earth;
and in the blood of the martyrs was the Chris
tian religion perpetuated. Yes, Fellow-citizens,
Christ died as a rebel and malefactor, bui
His^kingdom lives to-day, Cranmer, Ridley
Latimer, and their followers, perished in the
flames and in horrible pits and dnngeons, but
the Christian religion still lives and is the hope
of the world; these Confederate soldiers died,
but their cause lives to-day and is the glory of
their country. In the old wars, God made Him
self almost visible to the eye, as when he direct
ed Gideon how to destroy the enemies of his
country, and it was the cry in the camp of ‘the
sword of Gideon and of the Lord’ that put the
Amalekites to flight, and caused them to destroy
each other. It is easy and glorious to read God
in all things—in war and in peace—in nations
and in individuals.
I see Him everywhere—in the grand old
monntains and flowery savannas—in the deep
rolling rivers and murmuring rills—in the fall
ing snowflake and flashing oascade—in the sur
ging billows and the dancing foam-bells upon
the lake—in Orion with his silver belts and the
oorgeous rainbow arch which spans the firma
ment—in the deep old forest where the breath
of the pines smells sweet, and where He has
planted the wild flower and painted its tiny
petals as none bnt the finger of God can paint
them. I read Him throughout all onr late cony,
flict, and I assert that He fought on the side of the
South. .
We did not establish an independent govern
ment, for that was simply an impossibility
from the beginning without the intervention of
a and the day of miracles had long
ago passed away. It was indeed a ridiculous
absurdity to talk about ten millions of people
with no guns, no ships, no factories, no powder
mills, no cap factories, no nothing, save a little
cotton and four millions of slaves who might be
tamed against ns at any time, whipping 990
millions. The trnth is, the South had to fight
the whole world. It had no real friend any
where save that great and good man who has
lately died, Pope Pius the IX, and he was pow
erless. But God did not intend for us to es
tablish another government. That was not the
purpose for which the war was inaugurated,
and it was at variance with his own great plans.
The whole history of the conflict demonstrates
two facts as clearly as a sunbeam : First, that
the Lord was on the side of the Southern sol
diers ; and second, that He did not intend for
us to establish a separate governmont. Look at
it one moment! You all know that success at
tended onr arms in nearly every conflict with
the eneqay. no matter how great the dispari
ty in numbers. The North removed general
after general for defeat, and added battalion
after battalion to their forces, and yet the same
results followed almost every engagement. But
you all know again that in every decisive en
gagement something prevented our armies from
reaping the advantages of the victory. After
tae first great victory at Manasas it would have
been an easy matter for our forces to have
marched into the Capital of the nation, and no
doubt throughout the North, for their armies
were demoralized, and the people fright
ened. This is true, no matter what
others may say. Bnt they stopped and
thereby lost the advantage. In .terrible
battle of the Wilderness when the destruction of
the Northern army was imminent an<| there was
nothing to save it, just then our immortal Jaok-
sod fell and that put an end to the pursuit.
And, again, in almost the very same rlsce, and
when the enemy were in the same terrible di
lemma, Gen. Longstreet was wounded in the
same way, which saved them the seeVmd time.
General Albert Sidney Johnson fell just as he
was winning a great battle. Had our troops
pressed forward after the battle of Chiokamauga
they would have greatly demoralized the Wes
tern army. And at Gettysburg a‘ter victory had
perched upon the Southern cross for two days
or more, a small circumstance made it necessary
for the Confederates to retire before that same
son, Johnston, Polk, Bartow, Cobb, Patrick
Cleburne and all that martyred host who have
passed fron the cypress shadows to the shining
asphodels of Paradise are hovering over it as
beneficent presences with thanksgivings and
rejoicings to the Creator for the grand fu
ture that awaits it. Then let it be the most
glorious day iu the year. Let it be not a day
for mourning over the past and grieving over a
lost cause, but let it be a day for reconsecrating
ourselves to the principles of a free Republican
government and renewing our determination to
build up the waste places and reap the benefits
conferred by the sacrifices of onr heroic dead.
And if there is the grave of one who wore the
bine in your cemetery, let it be covered this day
with choicest flowers. While the Southern sold-d’ haps was cured of her belief in dreams. One of
ier fought to perpetuate Constitutional libert;
he fought to perpetuate the union of the States.
Both were essential and both must be preserved,
and now that their work is done, both sleep
side by side waiting the judgment day. As far
back as 1874 “The Grand Army of the Repub
lic” passed a resolution in New York that there
should be no more distinction on decoration
days between Federal and Confederate graves,
but that every mound which marks a soldier’s
grave should be decorated with wreaths and
flowers. Yes,
“The North anS South, East and West
Have set one day apart as blest,
An 1 strew with flowers ali the graves
That hold in trust Columbia’s braves.”
And
“No more shall the war-cry sever,
Or the winding rivers be red.
They banish our anger forever
When they laurel the graves of our dead.
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day,
Love and tears for the blue,
Tears and love for the gray.
And in conclusion, shall these beautiful and
impressive ceremonies be kept up ? By all
means. Let them be continued from year to
year through the next hundred years. Con
ceived, as they were, in the sentiment of chiv-
Drcaras, Pleasant, Unpleasant and
Grotesque.
Several highly gifted men and women have
had a certain faith in dreams. In one of his
published letters, Charles Dickens relates a
dream he had had, with a seriousness and cir
cumstantiality which reveal plainly enough
that, to him, it was no shadow of empty air.
We read in Fredrika Bremer’s life that she lully
believed she should die at a certain age, be
cause she had once dreampt that a departed
friend had come to her and told her that in such
a year she would be with him. She, howevqr,
outlived the appointed date, and thereby per-
army which they had so often defeated in bat- , ^’^c^
t e. .These things were surely Providential, and & m6 and beautitul f Let us baptize anew
thus it is easy to see the hand of the Almighty
all through the conflict. He was working out a
great plan which is new apparent to our senses.
terfered with it. The South did not care for a
baptize
the Roman Flora in the limpid waters of a liv
ing patriotism, and in the bright trinity of
heroism, beneficence and love, and let our wo-
He intended to purify this country and then to; men ma ’ ke thege places M9CCas of worship holier
remove all irritating causes between the two sec- r — ■ •
tions and re-nnite them in stronger bonds than
ever. He intended to wipe out all those isms,
shameless heresies, and ail that puritanical self-
righteousness which had taken possession of the
Northern masses; and from the So;*tv He inten
ded to obliterate African slavery which has so
long huDg like an incubus upon fb^' real pros
perity and energies of our people. He intended,
to purify both sections in the smcJce of battle
and baptize them in tho blood of t o Hr best sons,
and then re-unite them in fraternal bonds and
start the nation upon another hundred years
round of glorious prosperity. And i3 He not
accomplishing his plans? Where now are all
those preachers of a higher law ? Where are
those clamorers for a monarchy ? All gone!
Slavery is gone; Thadens Stevens, tho most in
veterate hater of the Constitution, is gone; Abra
ham Lincoln is gone; Charles Sumner is gone;
Oliver P. Morton is gone ; Horace Greeley is
gone; the carpet-baggers are all gone or trying
to change their skins; and peace, law, order and
the Constitution reign throughout the nation.
Then there is no lo3t cause. Let us hear no
more of it. Let our poets and orators change
their themes. The South did not fight for sla
very, for that was in no danger at that time.
Tne election of Mr. Lincoln was no ground for
a war on that subject for he could not have in-
than that of the Saracens. The custom origi
nated with our women who are always foremost
in all good works, and we trust they will not
suffer it to die. No, we have faith in onr wo
men. Their pure and unselfish natures always
prompt them to noble deeds like this. What
ever is pure and good is sure to win their de
motion, and in the heavens above they wiil sit
nearest the throne and play on the sweetest harps.
Noble woman, the last and best gift to man ! She
is the poetry of our humanity. And wherever
you find her, whether in cooling the brow of the
Turcho or staying the blood of the wounded
Prussian; whether in tieing the bandage around
the wounded Frank or holding the cup to the
Ulilan’s parched lips; whether comforting the
dying Russe or smoothing the brow of the suf
fering Gaul; whether in the Confederate or Fed
eral camp or hospital; wherever she may be she
the strangest effects of dreams is, when, as we
say or do something, we suddenly have a feel
ing that we have said or done it before. If we
follow back carefully the train of ideas thus
called up, we shall find that it originated in
some dream we had forgotten, till our present
action or thought all at once called it up; but
in onr first bewilderment the sensation is, for
the moment, singular and uncanny enough.
We think that from this sort of feeling might
first have arisen the creed of the transmigration
of souls. Healthy dreams are usually to be ex
plained by looking back to the past. Dreams
are very often an odd jumble of things we said;
or did, or thought yesterday, and of things wa
said, or did, or thought long ago. It is this
confusion which makes them sometimes, at
first, seem so incomprehensible; but if we
patiently trace out every feature in one vivid
dream, we find almost to a certainty that it
arises from events which have happened in our
lives perhaps a f different periods. The mind,
in sleep, loses all sense of time, and embraoes
a whole existence at a glance. In their dreams
the most commonplace men and women are
poets. The cook dreams that she is a lovely
flower garden, the city clerk that he is a knight
at a tournament, the village schoolmaster that
he is William the Conqueror. This power of
dreams is a sweet and blessed one, for often it
is tht only ideal gleam which falls npon some
hard, gray path of life. Old people often tell
us that their dreams generally carry them back
to the days of their youth. The old man sees
again in his dreams the smile of his mother in
her early womanhood, and hears again the
brother, from whom he has been long estranged,
prattling as a baby at his side, and gallops his
pony across country in all the wild joy of a
first fox-hunt, and steals a shy kiss from his
first love. Thus do dreams come as kindly
sprites to the grandfather, dozing in his arm
chair by the fire, when the young ones waltz
and flirt and make sweet hay while the sun
shines. Some people are always seeing over
and over again in their dreams a certain house,
or a certain estate, or a certain landscape. They
know every room in the house, ev9n to the pic
tures on the wall; they could almost draw a
map of the estate; the trees in the landscape
are as familiar to them as the bushes in their
garden, and yet they declare that they never
beheld either house, or estate, or landscape,
with their waking eyes. This phenomenon
seems certainly difficult to explain. We sus-
“ v “ , i pect, however, that it usually arises from a mass
is always the same sall-sacrmcing and devoted , „*• „„ „
Then
of indistinct, confused memories of scenes and
being striving to do good in the world, j p laceg tbe dr9am e r Las once beheld, perhaps in
to our noble brave aud generous women ui tu„ - ftrlv chi i dbood) but wbich in his waking
South must be left the task ot keeping up these hfl has fintirelv f 0r30 tten. We often,
impressive ceremonies.
“Women ofGeorgia—women of the South,
Revere the sacred dust
Of our warriors tried and true,
Who bore the flag of our nations trust
And died for me and you;
We care not whence they came,
Dear is their lifeless clay !
Whether unknown or known to fame,
Their cause aud country are tile same,
f They died n n/l wore the grey V’
separate government. All it wanted was the
protection which the Coostitu Jv luaranteed.
It as\ed nothing more, and at'Tmi*rt3'ilrne the
gun-boats left Washington to leinfdrce Fort
Sumter we bad commissioners there authorized
to settle ali matters, and there was no time j
during the whole conflict when the South would j . .
not have laid down its arms and gone back into | A Str&llgO I il®110111611011 ill St. LOUIS--
the Union if it could have had satisfactory guar- j
antees of Constitutional protection. The Con- j
j stitution was the rock upon which it planted !
itself and it must have that or it would sacrifice J
all its blood aud trea-ure in its defence. It;
A SHOWER OF FISH.
Thirty Acres of Ground Covered
with Citifisli and Croppies.
greatest mistake was in going out of the Union.
It should have made the war in the Union, for
then all the good and true men of the North
like Douglas and Vallandingham would have
joined ns, but it plunged in regardless of the
consequences, to rescue the nation from the
great gulf of centralism into which it was inevi
tably rushing, and, thank God, it saved it
anyhow. As the blood of the martyrs was
the seed of the church, so the blood of
these Confederate soldiers was the salvation
of this nation. And wherever one sleeps this
day, whether upon the heights of the Alleghan-
ies or on the banks of the Potomac, the James,
Rapidan or Susquehannah; whether in the
granite hills of old Tennessee, or in the far off
fields of Texas and Louisiana; whether here in
beautiful * Stonewall Cemetery ’ or amid the
wild flowers of Florida; no matter if his he one
of
‘The graves which no man names or knows,
Uncounted grave which never can be found;
Graves of the precious missing where no sound
Of tender weeping is ever heard; Wheregoes
No living step of friend or kindred,’ ♦
Wherever his bones sleep this day it is the
grave of a conquering hero, and not the hero of
a lost cause.
‘Such graves as his are pilgrims shrines,
Shrines to no code or creed confined.’
And when all faction shall have hushed; when
all passion and prejudice shall have died away
and even justice shall hold the scales, then
shall constitutional liberty ascend the heights
of government for its permanent abode, and
pilgrims from other lands will tread with reve
rential step amid the graves of onr Confede
rate dead, while those who follow tfs’ will trea
sure their names as household gods. And
when the impartial historian shall go down into
the vaults of the dead for traditions of liberty
he will record it in living glory that the world
is indebted for their perpetuation to onr gal
lant dead. Then let us thank God Jhat we had
such heroes to die. They died iot in vain.
Their banner is furled,
‘Yet’tii wreathed around with glory,
And ’twill live in song and story,’
hut 'twas not conquered. There is no conquered
banner — no conquered South. Where is the
battle in which they were conquered ? History
does not record it. Then pile up wreaths and
immortels npon her sleeping heroes this day.
Let your children and your children’s children
visit their graves as the resting places of trium
phant martyrs. Let the wild birds warble their
grandest diapason and the flowers breathe their
holiest incense on their sepulchres; let the hills
clap their hands with joy and the waters min
gle their musical monotones in the grand jubi
lee of song to their memories. Their blood was
an acceptable sacrifice, and coming generations
shall reap the heritage which it purchased.
Constitutional liberty will be written npon the
lintels of every man’s door, and Republican
America, re-baptized and re-united, is already
starting out upon its second century of trium
phant progress to startle the world.as in the past,
with its ultimate gran dear. And oar own Son
ny South, where the ‘Oriole swings her nest*
and the ‘mocking bird trills his descant free,’
rich in all that makes a nation prosperous and
happy, and freed from all shackles, is now enter
ing npon the grandest career ever known in its
history. The world is gazing npon it with pride
and admiration, and the spirits of Lee, Jaok-
Occasionally an article will find its way into
the newspapers and go the rounds, depicting in
glowing style the shower of minnows in John
Smith, Esq.’s, backyard, and the statement is
vouchsafed for by all of Smith’s relatives; but
the storm of Monday night and Tuesday morn
ing causes the insignificant little minnow story
to pale into nothingness. At 11:130 o’clock'on
Monday night the storm burst in all its fury at
the Tuscan mills on the St. Charles Rock Road,
and tor almost an hour rained fish, crawfish,
lizzards and leeches, and when day dawned and
the good denizens of that part of the city looked
out over the surrounding neighborhood it was
literally alive with fish, both small and large,
ranging from the wee innocent fresh hatched
one to the five pound cat with a head as large as
a saucer, and as cruel as a steel trap. They
were not confined to one species alone, but con
sisted of catfish, bass, salmon, croppies, sunfish
and a fish similar to the Louisiana goggle-eyes,
that are only found in the bayous and lagoons
of the south. They covered a tract of ground
extending from the St. Charles Rock Pond on
the east to the Tuscan Mills on the west, and
from the German Lutheran Church and school
on the sonth to the St. Charles Rock Road on
the north, about thirty acres in all. During the
forenoon the citizens worked incessantly with
baskets, buckets, wheelbarrows and carts, and
when a Journal reporter visited the neighbor
hood at a late hour yesterday afternoon there
were still tons of them laying in winrows as it
were.
The first man found who know anything pos
itive about the miraculous sUower was James
Kavanagh, the conductor of street car No. 1, of
the Crtizens’ Railway. He was the last man in,
and, after turning his car into the stable, he
smarted home. The rain poured down in torrents
but he was already wet to the skin, and, palling
his hat a little lower down he strode on. When
opposite the German Lutheran Church aud
school he was struck on the head by some heavy
body that partly stunned him, and in another
instant he was pelted all over at once by a host
of slimy, wriggling creatures. He at first thought
that he was afflicted with the jim jams, hat
catching a large catfish in the neighborhood of
the waistband of his indispensables, he grappled
it and carried it home through the live shower,
and then ascertained what it was raining.
Captain Powers, an old river man, who took
the first steamboat up Red River, was not caught
in the shower, but saw the ground covered in
front of his residence at daybreak yesterday
morning. The captain had heard of such occuren
ces before, bnt had never seen them with his own
eyes, and now expresses himself as both ready
and willing to be called home.
Mr. Weber, a butcher on the St. Charles Rock
road, gathered np five barrels of the fish, and
Mrs. Fleming, who resides just east of the Tus
can Mills, secured a cart-load.
There are always some doubting Thomases
around, and as the St Charles Rock road neigh
borhood is no exception to the rest of earth,
there are a few people who make no bones of
saying that, owing to the heavy rainfall, the
pond west of the oar stables overflowed and
the fish swam out with the current, and, as the
volume of water spread oat and receded, the
fish, orawfish, lizzards and leeches were left on
the sward; bat of coarse that idea is prepos
terous, and will not be entertained by a sane
person for a moment
mo
ments he has entirely forgotten. We often, too,
meet in our dreams people whom we cannot
ever remember to have seen when awake. We
believe that these mysterious dream acquain
tances are, like the houses and the landscapes,
made np of dim remembrances of the faces and
figures of persons casually seen somewhere by
the dreamer when awake. If our theory about
this phenomenon in dreams is true, sleep must
have the same power of bringing back lost col
ors to Luijmory, that certain oheoncils have of
bringing back the colors of the Pompeian fres
coes. When the mind is in a morbii state
from disease or over-work, a- dream will some
times produce a roost unpleasant feeling of
vague discomfort, by first startling us from
sleep, making itself distinctly remembered; and
then, as soon as slumber falls again upon the
j weary senses, flitting a way, so that in the oiorn-
j ing no trace of it can be recalled. All day the
| dream hovers about the sickly fancy, never far
j off, and never near enough to take hold of. It
was surely some such feeling as this which,
exaggerated by divine wrath of old, tormented
the Babylonian king, and doomed to death all
the wise men except the chosen prophet of the
Lord. The dreams we remember are never
dreampt when we are in deepest sleep, but al
ways a few minutes before we awake, so that
outward things often have a considerable in
fluence in producing them.—[Argosy.
THEY KISSED OFTEN.
WIDOW WHO SET HER CAP, BUT FOUND IT DID NT
FIT,
At Bristol, England, recently was tried the
breach of promise case of Newcombe vs. Simp
son. The suit was brought by a widow, thirty-
two years of age, against a retired merchant,
aged fifty-five. The defendant was a friend of
the plaintiff's late husband, and when he died
defendant called upon the widow, condoled with
her, and continned his visits daily till he be
came strongly attached to her. He nursed her
baby ou his knee aud taught it to call him
‘Papa.’ The marriage was fixed to take place in
February last, but the defendant’s ardor sud
denly cooled down. He was confined to his
house by illness, and when the plaintiff called,
he said he did not remember any promise to
marry, and if he had promised, every man had
a right to change his mind. In the meantime,
the plaintiff had given up business in view of
her approaching marriage. The plaintiff, in her
examination, said the defendant had asked her
if she would he kind to him in old age, and she
had promised to be so. He was always received
as a lover, and kissed her at the door. He had
stated that he had never kissed her, but that
she used to kiss him, but that was not true. Mr.
Cole, for the defense, suggested that they kissed
each other. The plaintiff also said that she never
kissed the defendant unless he kissed her. Men
did not generally ask women to do that kind of
thing; they generally did it for themselves. The
plaintiff was struck with her, and kissed her in
July, but did not propose till February. She
was sure it was not the old story of a widow
setting her cap at a widower. (Laughter.) Her
lawyer had written him a letter. She called to
see defendant during his illness, and he then
said he should like a kiss, only he was afraid
she would tell her solicitor. She could not
say that he suggested that he might have
a kiss without prej udice. Daring his illness she
sent her little boy daily to inquire after him,
and sent him any little dainties she thought he
might like. She asked him to come again, as
he always did; and, if necessary, she would
wait two or three years: The defendant was
examined, and denied that he courted her, bat
said the widow made love to him aud pat her
arm around his waist She got rather familiar,
and thinking it was a “bit of draw,’’ he was very
cautious. After farther evidence, the jary
stopped the case and found a verdict for the de
fendant
A Chicago man says that he is going to pat
1,000 hires of bees on bargee drawn by tog,
starting from Louisana northward on the Mis
sissippi, halting every fifty miles to allow the
bees to feed, arriving at the olover fields of Min
nesota in July.