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Officers Augusta W. T. A Society* •
Dr. JOS. A. EVE, President.
Dr. DANIEL HOOK, i
Rev. WM. J. HARD, > Vice Presidents
HAWKINS HUFF, Esq- )
WM. HAINES, Jr. Secretary.
L. D. LALLERSTEDT, Tbeascrer.
W MANAGERS:
James Harper, Rev. C. S. Dod,
John G. Dunlap, E. E. Scofield,
John Milledge, James Godby,
i^ng©gLL^iNiE@li ß
Respect for Mechanics.
It is true that there are those in this
country of civil equality, whose social
practice proves that they submit to the
operation of the political theory only be
cause they' cannot help it; but it is also
true that "they constitute a very small
numerical minority, insignificant as com
pared with the vast number of those
having equally good reason to assume to
themselves a superiority of worth, and
hence to argue their right to special priv.
ileges, but whose private feelings and so
cial practices are in exact conformity
with that theory of political equality
which lies at the base of our national re
publican fabric, and gives vitality, force,
virtue and efficiency to our system of
government. The former reduce the j
principle to practice only in their political {
capacity; they do it ex necessitate rei, j
and of course reluctantly, though they
not unfrequently find it necessary as a
matter of good temporary policy, to ap
pear to do it willingly, and then they
“ put a good face upon the matter ;” the
latter acting in the same civil sphere, do
no violence to their feelings. They sim
ply obey the promptings of a cardinal
principle in our republican code of politi
cal etbics, and they carry it with them
out of the public ways into the walks of
private life.
These are to be found in all parties,
though not in every clique; or self-con
stiluted “class;” and they aro of that
kind who in making up their estimate of
the individual man, rejects the accidents
of birth, as well as those of either wealth
or poverty, and make his moral and in
tellectual worth, as seen in his conduct
and developed in his conversation, the
chief elements in their calculation.—
They are also to be found in every walk
of life, public and private. Wealth can
irot destroy the good principles in some,
nor elevated public stations in others.
An illustration is betore us: Mr. Buc
hanan, of Pennsylvania, recently it ap
pears addressed a letter to the editor of
the Newark Post, authorising him to con
tradict some statement made at that place
prejudicial to his character. What was
said against him we know not, nor have
we seen his letter, but from the follow
ing‘extracts, which we find in a cotem-=
porary journal, it would appear that he
had been charged with saying or doing
something disparaging to the character
and prejudicial to the interests of mechan
ics. He says:
“So far from having ever said or
thought any thing to the prejudice of me
chanics, one of my nearest and dearest
relatives, upon my urgent advice, was
bound an apprentice to a trade, and is at
the present moment a mechanic; and this
was a matter of choice, not necessity. I
have thus afforded the strongest practical
evidence of the estimation in which I hold
this highly meritorious class of our fellow
citizens.”
“Good practical evidence” this, un
doubtedly as good as any man could give
who was too far advanced in life to learn
a trade himself. There was no false
pride or vanity, but good sense, sound
judgment, and correct principle. His
young relative, “ nearest and dearest,”
was under no present necessity to learn
a mechanical trade that he might get a
living, yet by his advice he is now a prac
tical mechanic instead of “ studying a
profession,” and flattering himself with
the deluded idea that therefore the future
had in store for him a far higher degree
and order of respectability than could
possibly be derived from the labor of the
workshop. If there be any thing in ele
vated and honorable public station desir
able, as there appears tq be, or any thing
calculated to promote t&e true happiness
of the incumbent, which is doubtful, it
may yet be his, even as though he had
spent his early years in a lawyer’s office,
reading “the perfection of human reason,”
and dreaming of his future elevation to
“ the highest office in the gift of the peo
ple.” W :
And why not ? Is there if any thing
in the occupation of the mechanic to dis
qualify him for political elevation ? No
\ t *' •
AUGUSTA WASHINGTONIAN.
A WEEKLY PAPER: DEVOTED TO TEMPERANCE, AGRICULTURE, & MISCELLANEOUS READINGS.
J •• '• ; 'W~- 4 " ■- - v / ■? •.’ Vv' 14 ■- »
I voi. lii.j
thiog, in this country. Or for social i
elevation ? Nothing. The history of the i
country gives copious evidence that the
mechanic may render himself competent
to discharge the duties of the highest and
most important public stations with credit
and honor to himself and benefit to his
country; while the annuals of private life
most abundantly testify to his competen
cy to make himself equal to any and
inferior to none in all the qualities that
render the social circle agreeable to the
wise and good. The American mechanic
ought, therefore, to lie proud of his occu
pation always—never ashamed of it. If
he will estimate it as inferior to no other,
and so cultivate his mind and his moral
system, that he may rise to the honorable
level of it, and never fall beneath it, he
will not long have to complain of a want
of respect on the.part of those who have
been want to arrogate their own spheres
a monopoly of respectability, and to look
with contempt upon the occupation of the
mechanic.— Balt. Sun.
Washington AUston's Exactness as an
Artist. —A writer in the Post in an able
critique upon “Belshazzar’s Feast,” the
last great work of this lamented master,
says that, “ the amount of study, and the
application of the exact sciences to his
I works, resorted to by Mr. Alston, can
hardly be conceived, even by those fa
miliar with the usual routine of artists in
the execution of their designs.” The
following anecdote in point is thus rela
ted :
An artist whose knowledge should have
taught more modesty, once found fault,
with Allston’s picture of Spalatro, or the
Bloody Hand, remarking that the shad
ow thrown upon the person of the monk
was incorrectly painted. This was re
peated to Allston for an explanation.—
“He has spoken without knowledge,”
said Allston—“ I do not trust to my eyes
or chance in matters of this sort: I tried
the effect with a light upon a lay figure
first, and tested the truth of my drawing
bv geomatrical projections, itc thinks
it is incorrect, but I know it to be cor
rect.” This single fact should induce us
to rest satisfied that whatever inaccura
cies we may think we discover, our ob
jections must either be without founda
tion, or the fault would have been reme
died before finishing. It was a maxim of
AUston’s, that “ it requires no skill to do
tect a glaring fault, but to praise judi
ciously implies an intimate knowledge of
■ the rules of the art.”
Nicholas, Emperor of Russia.
A towering plume moved, the crowd
fell back, and enframed in a vacant space
stood a figure to which there is no sec
ond in Russia, if in tho world itself—a
figure of the grandest beauty, expression,
dimension, and carriage, uniting all the
majesties and graces of all of the Hea
then gods—the little god of love alone
perhaps excepted—on its ample and sym
metrical proportions. Had this nobility
of person belonged to common Mougik
instead of to the Autocrat of all the
Russians, tho admiration could not have
been less, nor scarcely the feelings of
moral awe. It was not the monarch who
was so magnificent a man, hut the man
who was truly imperial. The person of
the Emperor is that of a colossal man,
and in the full prime of life and health,
42 years of age, about six feet two inch
es high, and well filled out without any
approach of corpulency—the head mag
nificently carried, a splendid breadth of
shoulder and chest, great length and
symmetry of limb, with finely formed
hands and feet. His face is strictly Gre
cian—forehead and nose in one grand
line; the eyes finely lined, open and blue,
with a calmness, a coldness, a freezing
dignity, which can equally quell an in
surrection, daunt an assassin or paralyze
a petition: the mouth regular, teeth fine,
. chin prominent, with dark moustache and
small whiskers; but not a sympathy on
his face! His mouth sometimes smiled,
his eyes never. There was in his look
which no monarch subject could meet.
His eye seeks every one’s gaze, but none
can confront his.
Letters from the Baltic.
1 Kak •■■■■- - '"7"" ■’
A Thrilling Incident.
I passed up the natural avenue and
came upon the green. My feelings were
very poetical as I walked slowly towards
the village church. I entered. A popu
lar preacher was holding forth, and the
little meeting house was much crowded.
Several persons were standing up, and I
soon discovered that I mdst retain my
perpendicular position, as every seat was
AUGUSTA, GA. AUGUST IT, 1844.
crowded. I, however, passed up the aisle
until I gained a position where I could
have a lair view of the faces of nearly all
present. Many of the congregation look
ed curiously at me, for I was a stranger
to them all. In a few moments, however,
the attention of every one appeared to be
absorbed in the ambassador of grace, and
I also began to take an interest in the
discourse. The speaker was fluent, and
many of his flights wei;c even sublime.
The music of the woods and the fragrance
of the heath seemed to respond to his
eloquence.
Then it was no great stretch of the
imagination to fancy that the white hand
ed creatures around me, with their pout
ing lips and artless innocence, were be
ings of a higher sphere. As my feelings
were thus divided between the beauties
and blessings of the two worlds, and
wrapped in a sort of poetical devotion, I
detected some glances at me of an anima
ted character.
I need not describe the sensations ex
perienced by a youth when the eyes of a
beautiful woman rest for a length of time
upon his countenance, and whbn he ima
gines himself to be an object of interest
to her. I returned her glances with in
terest, and threw all the tenderness into
my eyes which the scene, my meditations,
and the preacher’s discourse had inspired
in my heart, doubting not that the fair
young damsel possessed kindred feelings
with myself—that we were drinking to
gether at the same fountain of inspiration.
How could it be otherwise ?
She had been born and nurtured amidst
. these wilds and romantic scenes, and was
made up of romance, of poetry and ten
derness ; and then I thought of the puri
ty of woman’s love—her devotion —her
truth. I only prayed that 1 might meet
with her where we could enjoy a sweet
interchange of sentiment. Her glances
continued. Several times our eyes met.
My heart ached with rapture. At length
the benediction was pronounced. I lin
gered about the premises until I saw the
tkuk-eyed damsel set out for nfrffie, alone
and on foot. Oh! that the customs of
society would permit; for we are surely
one in soul. Cruel formality! that
throws up a barrier between hearts made
for each other. Yet I followed after her.
She looked behind, and I thought she
evinced some emotion at recognizing me
as the stranger of the day. I then quick
ened my pace, and she actually slacken
ed hers, as if to let me come up with her.
“Noble young creature!” thought I;
“her artless and warm heart is superior
to the bonds of custom!”
I reached within a stone’s throw of her.
She suddenly halted and turned her face
towards me. My heart swelled to burst
ing. I reached the spot where she stood.
She began to speak, and I took off my
hat as if doing reverence to an angel.
“Are you a pedlar?”
“No, my dear girl; that is not my oc
cupation.”
“ Well, I don’t know ;” continued she,
not very bashfully, and eyeing me very
sternly: “I thought when I saw you in
the meeting house, that you looked like
the pedlar who passed off a pewter half
dollar on me about three weeks ago, and
so I was determined to keep an eye on
you. Brother John has got home now,
and he says if he catches the feller he’ll
wring his neck for him ; and I aint sure
but you’re the good for nothing rascal af
ter all ?”
Reader, did you ever take a shower
bath ?
Lynching. —A case of lynching oc
curred a few days ago, in Panola, Missis
sippi. A laborer, in the employment of
a clergyman ia Holmes county, stole from
his employer a negro man, two or three
horses, and his two daughters, one about
twelve and the other ten years of age.
He was caught near Helena, on his way
to Arkansas or Texas, where he and the
negro intended to make wives of their
little captives. By terrible threats they
had prevented the young girls from giv
ing any alarms. The rest of the tale is
thus told by the Memphis Enquirer;
After the two fiends were taken, they
were handcuffed and brought back to Pa
nola. The citizens, hearing the'circum
stances, and fearing that they might in
some way escape the punishment due
their crimes, organized themselves into
an extra-judicial tribunal, and appointed
a jury of twelve men, who sentenced them
to be severely cowhided, the sentence to
be executed by one upon the other.—
This was accordingly dorte, the negro
receiving thirty-five and the white man
twenty-five lashes, well laid on with a
cowhide. The sentence was for each to
receive fifty lashes, but they were so
gashed with the number above stated,
that the popular mercy remitted the bal
ance. They were then handed over to
their guard, to be taken back to Holmes.
Our informant heard in Panola that the
white man had been whipped to death by
the citizens of that county, but it is not
certain that his information is correct.
No violence had been offered to the
two little girls. The white man had been
employed some two or three weeks, by
the father of the little girls, as a common
laborer, is about thirty-five years of age,
appears to be an Irishman, and has sever
al names. lie was said to be a Mormon.
A Highland Wedding Party in Lon
don.—Pindar, the new London corres
pondent of the “ Post” gives the follow
ing description of a wedding procession
he encountered in the Great Metropolis:
“ Elbowing my way through the mass
es of people that throng this great thor
oroughfare, I had not proceeded far when
the shrill notes of a bagpipe burst upon
my ear from behind. I turned myself
about and met full in the face a graceful
Highland piper, in his ‘plaiddies gay,’
approaching at a quick pace, playing
‘ Greegs Pipes.’ Close behind him fol
lowed a laddie and his lassie, arm and
arm. The young man was slim and
graceful, though not tall, with light com
plexion, and brown hair, which shaded
the fullness of his cheeks and hung in
thick short curls behind. He was dress
ed in a costume of his clan, among High
lands where he belonged, and was evi
dently one of the independent class.—
He wore leggins of red and black plaid,
which were fastened below the knee with
a broad red ribbon; a mantle of silk
plaid swung over his left shoulder and un
der his arm, confined about the waist
with a black leathern belt with a broad
silver buckle in front, and knob of silver
up«n Ids shoulder. He wore shoe-buckles
and a bonnet of plaid trimmed with black
' plumes, with a straight white leather be
hind, tipped with red, and a large silver
rose near his forehead. He had various
other silver ornaments than those I have
mentioned about his person. The bride
—for such she was—was dressed taste
fully in white, a zone of plaid about her
neck, confined in front with a silver bow
and a cupid, and a sash of the same ma
terial around her waist. She was really
beautiful; her skin was almost as fair as
alabaster; her eyes were of sky blue,
with a laughing expression, and her hair
of a hazel brown, which formed a rich
contrast with her otherwise blond fea
tures, and flowed in full, graceful ringlets
upon her snowy neck and bosom, which
were partially uncovered, and voluptuous
by tlieir plumpness and the disposition of
her attire. Next behind the happy pair
came the brideman and bridemaid, fol
lowed by several couples and another pi
per, all of whom were dressed in a simi
lar manner. This was a wedding party
going to Greenwich. The procession
marched to the pier surrounded and en
compassed by a crowd of people, where
they embarked on board a steamer.”
New Liile Preserver.
BY HOOD.
“ Os hair-breadth ’scapes.”— Othello.
I have read somewhere of a traveller,
who carried with him a brace of pistols,
a carbine, a cutlass, a, dagger, and an
umbrella, but was indebted for his pre
servation to the umbrella; it grappled
with a bush when he was rolling over a
precipice. In like manner my friend
W , though armed with a sword, rifle,
' and hunting knife, owed his existence to
a wig!
He was a specimen hunting (for W
is a first rate naturalist) somewhere in the
backwoods of America, when, happening
to light upon a dense covert, there sprang
out upon him—not a panther or a cata
mount —but with terrible whoop and
yell, a wild Indian—one of a tribe then
hostile to our settlers. W ’s gun was
mustered in a twinkling, himself stretch
ed on the earth, the barbarous knife, des
tined to make him bolder than Grandy’s
celebrated Marquis, leaped eagerly from
its sheath.
Conceive the horrible weapon making
its preliminary flourishes and circumgy
rations ; the savage features, made sav
agerby paint and ruddle, working them
selves up to a demoniacal crisis of trium
phant malignity; his red right hand
cletching the shearing knife; his left the
frizzle topknot; and then the artificial
scalp coming off in the Mohawk’s grasp 1
WASHINGTONIAN
TOTAL!ABSTINENCE PLEDGE.
I
„ We, whose names are hereunto an
nexed, desirous of forming a Society for
our mutual benefit, and to guard against
1a pernicious practice, which is injurious
to our health, standing and families, do
pledge ourselves as Gentlemen, not to
drink any Spirituous or Malt Liquors ,
Wine or Cider.
[No. 5.
W says, the Indian catchpole was
for seme moments motionless with sur
prise ; recovering, at last, he dragged his
captive along, through brake and jungle,
to the encampment. A peculiar whoop
soon brought the whole horde to the spot.
The Indian addressed them with vehe
ment gestures, in the course of which
W was thrown down, the knife
again performed its circuits, and the
whole transaction was pantomimically
described. AH Indian sedateness and
restraint was overcome. The assembly
made every demonstration of wonder;
and the wig was fitted on, rightly askew,
and hind part before, by a hundred pair
of red hands. Capt. Gulliver’s glove was
not a greater puzzle to the Honhyhums.
From the men, it passed to the squaws,
and from them down to the least of the
urchins; W ’a head in the mean
time, was frying in the midsummer sun.
At length the phenomenon returned into
the hands of the chief—a venerable grey
beard: he examined it afresh, very at
tentively, and after a long deliberation,
maintained with true Indian silence and
gravity, made a speech in his own
tongue that procured for the anxious
trembling captive very unexpected hon
ors. In fact, the whole tribe of women
and warriors danced around him with
such unequalled marks of homage, that
even W comprehended that he was
not intended for a sacrifice. He was
then carried in triumph to their wigwams,
his body daubed with their colors of the
most honorable patterns; and he was
given to understand that he might choose
any of their marriageable maidens for a
squaw. Availing hiuiseif of this privi
lege, and so becoming, by degrees, more
a proficient in their language, he learned
the cause of this extraordinary respect.
It was considered that he had been a great
warrior, that he had, by mischance of
war, been overcome and tufted; but that,;
whether by valor or stratagem, each
equally estimablo among the savages, he
had recovered his liberty and his scalp.
As long as W kept his own coun
sel, he was safe; but trusting his Indian
Dalilah with the secret of his locks, it
soon got wind among the squaws, and
from them became known to the chiefs.
A solemn sitting was held at midnight
by the chiefs, to consider tho propriety
of knocking the poor wig-owner on the
head; but he had received a timely hint
of their intention, and when the toma
hawk sought for him he was on his way,
with his life-preserver, towards a British
settlement.
Bathing. —Winslow, an able writer on
diseases of the mind and hotly, is a great
advocate of bathing. The state of the
mind, says he, is closely dependant upon
, the condition of the cutaneous secretion.
I would advise those who are subject to
mental depression hypochondriacism, va
pors, ennui, by whatever term it be des
ignated, to try the effect of bathing. I
Teel assured that in many cases, violent
attacks of insanity may be warded off by
the use of the warm or cold bath. In
cerebral irritation, evidently the result
of vascular excitement, bathing the head
every morning with cold water, or vinegar
and water, will be found highly advisable.
To prevent Horses being teased by
flies. —Take two or three small handsful
of walnut leaves, upon which pour two or
three quarts of cold water; let it infuse
one night, and pour the whole, next
morning, into a kettle, and boil for quar
ter of an hour; when cold, it is fit for
uses Moisten a sponge with it, and be
fore the horse goes out of the stable, let
those parts which are most irritable, be
smeared over with the liquor. Every
“merciful man” who uses a horse during
the hot months, should promote his com
fort by this simple measure.
Fence Posts. —A practical farmer in
forms the Hartford Times, that in taking
up a fence that had been set fourteen
years, he noticed that some of the posts
remained nearly sound, while others rot.
ted ofi’at the bottom. On looking for the
cause, he found that those posts that
were set limb part down, or inverted
from the way they grew, were sound.
Those that were set as they grew were
rotted off. This fact is worthy the at
tention of farmers.
An insect Trap.— Scoop out the in
side of a turnip; scollop the edge of the
shell, and place it downwards on the
earth. The insects will pass into it as a
place of retreat, through the holes; and
the beds of squashes, melons, cucumbers,
&c., may thus soon be cleared of them.