Page images
PDF
EPUB

Editorial-Literary-Miscellaneous, Etc.

87

strike of sugar at once, and all of the same and the nation, it is dead to every feeling of consistency, causing thereby a less quantity of molasses.

"The above are great improvements in the manufacture of Muscovado sugar, and worthy the attention of sugar planters."

patriotism and brotherly kindness, full of strife and pride, strewing the path of the slave with thorns, and of the master with difficulties--accomplishing nothing good, forever creating disturbance."

A friend in Virginia has kindly sent us a circular, showing the liabilities and resources of Lynchburgh, from which we perceive that the liabilities reach $398,990, of which $50,000 was for the water works, $52,000 for James River Canal, $283 for Virginia and The reTennessee Rail-road Company. sources of the city are valued at $387,620. Upon the subject of the James River Canal, the circular says:

We continue to receive, through J. B. Steel, the numbers of Lippincott, Grambo & Co.'s edition of Sir Walter Scott's novels, which are printed in beautiful style and on fine white paper, with illustrations. The work will be published in 24 parts, semimonthly, each containing a complete novel. We have now before us Rob Roy and the Black Dwarf. From the same house we received Wild Western Scenes; or, Adventures in the West, with humorous designs- "This work is finished to Buchanan, a embracing exploits of Daniel Boon, bear, distance of 1964 miles from Richmond. deer and buffalo hunts, conflicts with savages, When time and experience shall have proven wolf hunts, &c. Mr. Steel also sends us the fallacy of making state interests subserthe History of the Mormons, or Latter Day vient to federal politics, and sectional jeaSaints, in the Valley of the Great Salt lousies shall have given way to a desire for Lake, by Lieut. Gunnisson, of the Topo- the general good, this great work will be susgraphical Engineers. The work, in treating tained and pushed forward as the main artery of the rise, progress, doctrines, &c., of this of the state, on whose capacious tide the imsingular order, and of the country which they mense tonnage that lies land-locked in the inhabit, is one necessarily of great interest, region it was designed to penetrate, will be and will receive more elaborate attention borne through the centre of the state to the from us hereafter. We make the same re- sea-board. Then will this work take its true mark in regard to Cassiday's History of position, and its stock approximate that due Louisville from the earliest settlement till appreciation which time will and must give 1852, which Mr. Steel has kindly furnished it. The tonnage and travel have greatly inus. It is a carefully prepared work, cover- creased during the present year; and when ing a wide and interesting field, valuable in the North River improvement is completed, facts and statistics, and affording material and the Virginia and Tennessee Rail-road, for quite an interesting article which we shall stretching one arm towards Tennessee, and furnish. the other towards Kentucky and Ohio, shall begin to attract the immense tonnage of those regions, there is every reason to anticirevenues--especially if enlightened policy pate a very large increase of its annual shall dictate a judicious revision of its present tariff of tolls. The capital of this company is $5,000,000, three-fifths of which is owned by the State of Virginia.

In regard to the Virginia and Tennessee Road, we have the following: (Will not gentlemen in Virginia complete our information upon the rail-road system of that state?)

Mrs. Eastman has written, perhaps, the very best answer to that gross libel upon the South, denominated "Uncle Tom's Cabin." She has entitled her work Aunt Phillis' Cabin, or, Southern Life as It Is; and has furnished many admirable and truthful pictures, contrasting the slave of the South with the free laborer of other countries. The work is already popular, but can we expect the remedy to extend as far as the poison has so quickly gone! If any one will prepare for us a review of this new class of literature which is springing up, and of which Mrs. Stowe's Fifty miles of the most difficult part of work was the precursor, we shall be most this road have been completed and equipped, pleased to publish it. Indeed, if time admits, and an additional ten miles (to Salem) will and nobody else will undertake the task, we be finished by the 1st day of December. It almost feel determined to set about it ourself. has already passed the Blue Bridge, is laid with Mr. Thompson, of the Literary Messenger, a heavy U rail, and, when completed, will exRichmond, has set the example by preparing for his own journal a most triumphant vindication of the South. In the preface to Mrs. Eastman's book, she says of abolitionism: "Born in fanaticism, nurtured in violence, it exists. Turning aside the institutions and commands of God, treading under foot the love of country, despising the laws of nature

tend from Lynchburgh to the Tennessee line, a distance of 205 miles, where it will connect with other improvements of a like character, extending to Memphis on the Mississippi river, thus affording, when the South-side and Petersburgh and Norfolk Rail-roads are completed, a continuous line of communication from Norfolk, Richmond and Petersburgh

to Memphis, and that through the portion of our state most remarkable for its fertility and agricultural products, and the abundance of its water-power for manufacturing purposes: not to speak of the magnificent cabinet of minerals which Nature, from her vast laboratory, has deposited along the route selected for this road, and which, like the treasures in the cave of the Genii, remains hid from mortal sight, only awaiting the tramp of the iron horse' to cause the charmed doors to fly open and exhibit the gorgeous display to the astonished gaze of the world. The capital of this company is $3,000,000, of which the state owns three-fifths. The whole of this work is now under contract, and is to be completed by the first day of January, 1855. Before that day, however, the rich products of the southwest--its salt, lead, copper, iron, gypsum, coals of various kinds, &c., &c., will have commenced to pour through this grand thoroughfare in a stream that will waken the drowsy energies of commerce in our old mother state, and quicken the already active pulse of trade in our own thriving city. From the large and increasing business which this road is now doing in tonnage and travel, we feel authorized in putting it down as an 8 per cent. stock: some think it will pay even more."

The following embodies many beautiful thoughts, and is one of the most appropriate tributes ever received by the old "Father of Waters." It is from the pen of a young poetess, whose laurels are clustering thick, and who, in the fulness of time, must become one of the first stars in our literary constellation. She is at present one of the editors of the Ladies' Book, published in New-Orleans, a monthly, beautifully printed and illustrated, and quite equal to and more worthy of patronage at home than any of those of the North.

THE MISSISSIPPI.*

Strong, deep, restless, through Columbia's heart
Thou rollest, mighty river! coursing on
Like some great, shining thought Omnipotence
Has awakened in its depths.

Sublime, serene,
Through summer's gorgeousness, or winter's gloom,
When glassing back the sunshine, or the dark
And tempest-tossed battalions in the sky-
And like a great soul, beautifully calm,
When star-showers fall, as though the frenzied gods
Would weep upon thy bosom tears of flame.

Most beautiful art thou! majestical
And panoplied in grandeur, by repose,
As others by the tempest. Thine is not
The crested multitude of warrior-waves
That boom and battle on the "stormy Gulf;"
The wild Atlantic billows, shivering white
Upon deceitful breakers, murmuring
Low curses round their torturers; nor yet
The rush of rapids, gloom and glory blent,

It has been decided that the name Mississippi is composed of two words, Messes (great,) and Seppe (river,) consequently the original signification is the "Great River," and not the "Father of Waters."

Tell us, when far away

Where might and madness struggle in the heart
of dread Niagara. But glorious
And lovely as the "Milky Way"-the stream
Oflight that courses through a starry land
And far beyond the night-cloud, is to thee
What leaves of heaven are to the loved on earth!
Thou too art flowing through the "land of stars,"
A blessed bond of Union." Never may
Its links be sundered, till the sky-stream fades
In ether, and its golden shores dissolve
To nothingness!
In Time's gray dawning, still the nations slept,
Did'st thou all proudly cleave the wilderness,
As sweeps a mighty vision through the brain
Whose path of empire lies amid the clouds
Of slumbering Titan? Tribes of long ago
of mystery, have fled, and left no voice
To whisper their glories. Warrior-chiefs
Whose council-circle on thy margin shone,
The Indian maid whose shallop swept thy wave,
Swift as the swallow's pinion, too have passed
As foam from off the billow. Now the Power
That rules an iron-arteried domain-
Sails with the steam-fiend-chains the fiery tongue
Whose voice is in the hurricane-and make
A slave of wild Impossibility—
The Genius of my country furls his wing
Still thou art the same,
O'er thy broad bosom.
And hoary centuries shall fall, like plumes
Slow-dropping from the weary wing of Time,
Yet leave thee changeless, proud, and stately stream.
No haughty heights are here, like those that pour.
Red lava to the equinoctial sun,
No mural palisades of iron ice
As curb the surges of the frozen Pole;
Yet one may stand on thy long, wooded shores,
And, from the summit of some mountain thought
Gaze forth upon a continent of time,

Beholding too, how dark behind it lies
Eternity incomprehensible.
Eternity inscrutable-before

Thou hast a voice, proud river, and my soul
Springs forth to meet its lessons, like a child
To meet its mother's smile. The morning brings
Thy soft, clear hallelujah, and my heart
Echoes in unison, "praise God! praise God!"
The deep meridian reigneth, light, and strength,
Have met upon the waters, teaching me
That power is only greatness, when 'tis blent
With truth immutable. 'Tis midnight lone,
Yet, bearing on the steamer's stately form,
hear thy never-resting waters flow,
And murmur as they glide-"oh! weary not,
LIFE lies in action, and the use of Time
Is DESTINY."

[ocr errors]

Mr. Thompson of the Literary Messenger has in preparation a work to be entitled the "Authors and Writers of the South," which, with brief biographies, will include selections, etc. The Messenger itself is one of the best repositories of such material, and is deserving of a circulation in every part of the Union.

We regret to understand that the Southern Quarterly Review is not sustained so well as its eminent merits should claim. Mr. Simms has labored assiduously in the service of the work, and has deserved a better reward from the Southern people. As an author he has been untiring, and the most of his illustrations have been taken at home. We have before us now his last work, entitled the "Sword and Distaff," a capital story, the chief incidents of which are of the revolutionary period, and are located in South Carolina. No man of his age in America has

Editorial-Literary-Miscellaneous, Etc.

89

written so much as Mr. Simms, and many of the chances of success in deepening the Bar, his novels have had wide and deserved repu- a matter of vital importance to Charleston if tation both in this country and in Europe. she would carry out her steamship lines to In the same position with the Quarterly is Europe, etc. The same importance attaches the Literary Gazette, to which Mr. Simms to our own movements at the mouth of the contributes, and which is edited by Mr. Mississippi, as was fully shown in our DeHayne, one of the most talented gentlemen cember No., and we are glad to see that a and finished belles-lettres scholars yet sent out Tow Boat Company have now undertaken the by our old alma mater, the College of Charles- work for the money appropriated by Congress. In regard to Charleston, Prof. Holmes says:

ton.

The New-Orleans Medical Journal speaks consolingly of the future prospects of NewOrleans. It regards the yellow fever as accidental and not original, and a disease that may be expelled by sanatory regulations. The summer which has just passed has been one of unusual health. The following is the list of deaths for the weeks ending

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

In Charleston, on the other hand, the present season has been disastrous in many respects, though more from false and exaggerated rumors than from the actual mortality. The first case of yellow fever took place, says the Charleston Medical Journal, on the 8th August, from that period the deaths ranged from 15 to 45 weekly, and the total of deaths up to 1st November, when the disease ceased, was 279. The number of deaths in 1838, before the city and Neck were consolidated, was 353. The disease was, for the most part, in its fatal effects, confined to the Irish and other foreign residents.

[ocr errors]

When in Philadelphia last summer we were presented by Mr. Job Tyson, whose acquaintance we were happy to form, with a copy of his admirable Letters on the Resources of Philadelphia," addressed to the British Consul, Mr. Peter. The letters are classical as well as statistical, and we shall hereafter extract liberally from them. Mr. Tyson also presented us a copy of his address before the Girard College.

Prof. Holmes, of the College of Charleston, who was kind enough to exhibit to us the magnificent museum of natural history and geology which has been collected in one of the halls of the institution, presented us at the same time a copy of his report upon the nature of the Borings" now being conduct ed by Capt. Moffitt, at the bar of Charleston, in order to remove the impediment to its navigation. In the opinion of Capt. Moffitt, the existence of a bed of calcareous or limestone rock in the channel would greatly promote

of these beds of calcareous limestone rocks
"The borings have been made, the extension
Bar is no longer a doubtful question.
proven, and the practicability of deepening the

"It would be presumption in me, even to intimate the mode of accomplishing this great desideratum, but with deference I may be permitted to suggest, that the excavation be extended to eight or nine feet below the surface of the calcareous bed, which is of such consistency as to resist the erosive action of currents and waves, and preserve the walls of the submarine canal.

"The sand accumulating with the flood tide, will undoubtedly be removed by the fourknot current of the ebb."

In the October number of the Review we extracted a page or two from the work of Mr.Wheeler, on the History of North Carolina, and by mistake credited to Mr. Williams. The work has had extensive circulation, and is well worth the study and perusal of the very many citizens not only of our state, but of the whole valley of the Mississippi, who have emigrated from the good, old and unpretending State of North Carolina, and who are proud of their " fatherland." It proves that North Carolina was the first state of the old thirteen, upon which the colonists landed (in 1584), the first in which the blood of the colonists was spilled in defence of the principles of liberty (in 1771), and the first to declare their independence of the English crown at Charlotte, in May, 1775.

We have lately received in pamphlet form two addresses upon the death of Henry Clay, one by W. H. MacFarland, Esq., of Richmond, and the other by Alexander McClung, of Miss. They are both interesting productions, reflecting honor upon the heads as well as hearts of their authors. Mr. Macfarland tells us, "as we meditate upon the illustrious life of Mr. Clay, our faith in the reality of public virtue, and in the certainty of Christian truth, grows stronger." Mr. McClung, most eloquently and truthfully adds: "His memory needs no monument. He wants no mausoleum of stone or marble to imprison his sacred dust. Let him rest amid the tokens of the freedom he so much loved. Let him sleep on where the whistling of the tameless winds-the ceaseless roll of the murmuring waters-the chirping of the wild bird, and all which speaks of liberty, may chant his eternal lullaby."

Jefferson Davis delivered the last annual during our stay in New-York last summer, address before the Societies of the University and of which the particulars were furnished of Mississippi. The effort was worthy of his reputation as a man of high intellect and scholarship, a good citizen and pure patriot. His concluding remarks are worthy of note:

"If I am competent to form an opinion in a case where I am certainly not free from prejudice, there is enough of talent, enough of energy in the youth of Mississippi to war rant the expectation that they will reach the highest degree of attainment, and in their day and generation, as circumstances may permit, fill the brightest pages of their country's history. Such is the cherished hope of him who addresses you. Of him who, as a Mississippian, has spent a large portion of his life in the service of his country; whose heart from youth to age has ever beat responsive to the demands of Mississippi's interest and honor; who has rejoiced in the power and glory of the Union, and loved it for the objects it was established to secure; who has striven against the perversion of its grants, as the means of destroying either the Union, or the more sacred ends for which it was founded, and who now appeals to you by all that is ennobling in the memories of the past, and inspiring in the anticipations of the future, that you will address yourselves earnestly to that highest duty of a citizen, to know and to maintain the permanent welfare of his country; and that, at whatever sacrifice, you will discharge your trust to guard and to uphold the principles confided to your care as an inheritance for all posterity."

The Rev. J. H. Thornwell's Report on the Subject of Slavery, preached to the Synod of South Carolina, is a masterly paper, which, whilst it defends the rights of the South, marks out the duty of the Christian master in all the matters of moral and religious culture of the slave, &c. The South has an important part to perform, and will conscientiously do it, if left alone by the meddlesome and officious people who have hitherto so much interfered with the true happiness of the negro. The Lemmon case in New-York is the last of these acts of aggression, and it would have set the South on fire again but for the liberal and patriotic course of the merchants of New-York, who, in raising the amount necessary to indemnify the master for the loss of his slaves, and in furnishing the means requisite to carry up the case before the highest court of appeal, evidenced their determination to protect the laws and constitution of their country. We cannot doubt that the opinion of Judge Payne will be reversed as false in principle, subversive of the rights of the South in the Union, and calculated to lead to the most mischievous consequences. We cannot quit this subject without recurring to a case which happened

us at the time. Mr. Simonds, of New-Orleans, executor under the will of Mr. Creswell, arrived in New-York with thirty-eight slaves for the purpose of emancipating them. His plan of sending them into the country was interfered with by the abolitionists, who persuaded the negroes that the purpose was again to sell them into slavery. The largest proportion of them therefore refused to go. Having interrogated Mr. Simonds in regard to their condition afterwards, we received in reply a note, from which a brief extract will be interesting:

"Most, if not all, of those that refused to leave the city of New-York have done very badly. Some are in the most abject and degraded condition. Several of them have begged me to take them back with me-saying I might keep them as slaves, or sell them— that they were happy before and wretched now.

A

"There was, among these emancipated slaves, a very interesting quadroon girl, about 12 years old, in whom I had taken special interest. Agreeably to her wish, I had procured her a most desirable situation. highly respectable merchant of New-Orleans had agreed to take her to Vermont to his mother, who had no young children, to be by her brought up and educated as one of the family. Accordingly the gentleman started with her from New-Orleans in companionship with his own daughter, of about the same age. I was to meet him in NewYork, and furnish the girl with her emancipation papers. But on the gentleman's arriving at Buffalo, and just before the steamer landed, the emancipated girl was kidnapped by abolitionists, transferred to a British steamer and conveyed to Canada.

"The gentleman having her in charge, employed an attorney-at-law, and spent several days in the endeavor to recover her. He went over to Canada, and ascertained where she was, but was not permitted to see her. He was even in imminent danger of being mobbed.

"In the New-York Tribune of July 19th, is published a letter, dated St. Catharine's, Canada, boasting of the abduction and rescue from a slaveholder.

On my arrival at New-York with the other slaves, a friend showed me the letter in the "Tribune," and informed me that he had addressed the writer, stating the facts, and urging him to send the girl to New-York, to be properly disposed of by me. In the answer, which he afterwards received and showed me, he met with a flat refusal and a volley of abuse of the inhuman and hellish slaveholders.'

"I presume the girl is still in Canada. Whatever may be her condition, it cannot be any better than that I had secured for her.

Editorial-Literary-Miscellaneous, Etc.

J. W. Randolph, of Richmond, sends us a copy of a Plantation and Farm Book, which he has published, the object of which is to promote the more systematic management of our estates. It contains blank pages, ruled and lettered for inventories of negroes, stock, utensils, products, etc., with rules and regulations in regard to a hundred matters of plantation management and detail. In truth, we consider it an invaluable work for planters. It can be had from J. B. Steel, of New-Orleans. We shall refer to it again.

Through T. L. White, Bookseller, New Orleans, we have received several of the valuable series of scientific and practical works, which Henry C. Baird, of Philadelphia, is now issuing from the press. These volumes are handsomely executed, and they are calculated to advance very greatly the progress of the arts in our country, by diffusing the most valuable practical information at an insignificant cost. The volumes before us embrace :

1. The Arts of Tanning and Leather Dressing, from the French, with emendations and additions by Campbell Morfit, chemist, with 200 engravings, 550 pages. The volume is prefaced with a portrait of Zadoc Pratt, the great American tanner, and gives all the details of his extensive operations.

2. Electrotype Manipulation, or the theory and practice of working in metals, by C. V. Walker, with wood-cuts.

3. Complete Practical Brewer, by Dr. M. L. Byrn.

4. Pyrotechnist's Companion, or a familiar system of recreative fire-works, by G. W. Mortimer.

5. Rural Chemistry, in relation to agriculture and the arts of life, by Edmund Solly, F. R. S. A very valuable volume for plantters, who should all study it.

6. A Treatise on Screw Propellers, and their steam-engines, with rules to calculate or eonstruct the same; and also, a Treatise on Bodies in motion in fluid, by J. W. Mystrom. We have been favored with a paper from J. W. Scott, of Toledo, one of the best statistical writers in the country, upon the commerce of that city, which shall appear in our next, when we expect also to resume the publication of the interesting papers upon "Taxation, Ancient and Modern," which have been interrupted, as the author, Judge Shortridge, informs us, by unavoidable causes.

CLOSING NOTE.

Subscribers to the Review, who have not paid up their dues, will ask themselves if it is fair and just to us. In the universal prosperity of the country now, towards which our

91

labors for many years have contributed, ought we not to be among the very first remembered? What we ask is small, and has been earned ten times over. Remittances are frequently neglected from an oversight. Many think that another time will do as well, and thus they embarrass us without serving themselves. Our bills have all gone out—we ask the money or orders upon merchants, assuming ourselves all risks, and acknowledging payments on the cover. If there are errors in accounts, we are prepared to correct-if numbers have not been received, we are prepared to supply them. In fact, we want to do everything that is right, and want every one to do the same to us. Our expenses have been greatly increased in the improvements now made upon the Review.

Again, we solicit orders for the new work we have published, entitled INDUSTRIAL REsoURCES OF THE SOUTH AND WEST, of which, prospectus appears in another place, and of which the general index appeared in December number. It is embraced in three large and beautifully bound volumes, and supplies a mass of information which can be had from no other source. It is intended to bind the volumes of the Review, hereafter, every six months, uniformly with these, and no subscrîber should be without the complete set. We have incurred an enormous expense upon the work, and appeal to the friends of the South for reimbursement. Subscribers who wish their volumes of the Review bound, can always have it done at the office, at cost. We trust it will not be considered immodest, from the numerous complimentary letters which the publication of the "Industrial Resources" has induced, to extract from one addressed to us by the Hon. George Bancroft, the brilliant historian of the United States, a man whose good opinions upon such matters are very gratifying to us to have won. He says:

"Be assured, I value exceedingly the work you were so good as to send me, both as evidence of your kindness, as also, for the wonderfully rich and carefully prepared information with which it abounds. If the statistics and past and future of the South and Southwest have been less displayed than those of the North, it can be said so no longer. Your work exceeds in merit any similar one with which I am acquainted, in any other part of the Union.

"It will be a work to which I shall constantly look for instruction and for a solid foundation for my habitual and ever unshaken confidence in the durability of the Union and the glorious future that awaits the near development of its resources."

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »