AMERICA.

Grey River Argus, Volume IX, Issue 646, 10 March 1870, Page 4

AMERICA.

:The Fenian Brotherhood in America have recently issued an address, countersigned by John Savage, chief officer of the organisation, congratulating their brothers . across the Atlantic on the steady and -important advancement of the cause. The disestablishment of the Anglican Church is alluded to as a cause for congratulationj while the land of Ireland is said to belong to the people, hence the actual cultivators I alone should hold it. " There are," the . writer says, "three first-class grievances oppressing the Irish people, any one of which would justify a revolutionary war : -^-Firstly, landlordism ; secondly, maladministration of justice ; thirdly, excessive taxation. It is useless to look to legislation for an amelioration of the present system, so long as the laws are illadministered. The magistrates are, with few ;, exceptions, taken from one creed and one class. The creed is the Protestant, hi a country where five-" sixths of the people are Catholic ; the class ib the landlord, in a country where the 'rights of tenants' involve the liberty to live. The administrators of justice are all appointed by the Crown. So are all the public prosecutors in criminal cases. The sheriffs have unlimited power, which they never scruple to exercise, of packing juries. The magistrates act under the direction of the police officers,, and all are directed by the Irish Minister, of Police, otherwise the Under- ■ Secretary^ who, is generally conspicuous: for his ignorance of laws arid Irish affairs. The English Exchequer is replenished with, revenues ta*t en out of Ireland, in defiance.of express laws and covenant, £ndiby.:.the of taxes vastly in excess of Ireland's ability to pay." . ; ..... Ore night in the middle of , November,, the people at Dartmouth, on the opposite side- of Halifax Harbor, were awakened by rocking as if in a cradle, and at the san.e moment- the atmosphere was filled with a sulphurous matter. The sky at the time was covered with thick clouds. .For'uj nately no damage was done to life or pruperty. The most remarkable part of the matter is the fact that. nothing was experienced of the shcfck; at -Halifax, although the two places arft only separated by the breadth of the harbor, •whzc.h at this point is only two mills' and 'ajhalfY/ The Canadian papers report ,sa|; Mjss Rye's Home for Children; a| Niagara v : wa's formerly opened on Dec;,.!. ■'-■ AinjUmber of invitations had beeri>s&n* :{^tt,oigae -An--1 terested in the work, and the attendance of visitors in response wa# highly satisfactory. In the, course V>f Borne remarks I explaining the objects of the House, Miss [Rye said iti was not the lack of money j. that prevented a large flow of young emigrants to Canada. The British public only Wanted to see that a suitable outlet could be had for its homeless little ones, and the means for sending and maintaining them for a time would not be wanting, lytoj'c than a hundred thoxisaod could be

had at once if the colony could find homes for them. Miss Rye said si c did not ask the people of Canada for money but for their sympathy and moral support in finding places for the orphan children. Prince Edward Island had a narrow escape from having all telegraphic communication with the mainland cut off for the winter, The cable ceased to work, and Mr Hyndman promptly had it underrun. On the New Brunswick side, says the Patriot, "He .found the wire ci t diagonally in several places by a sharp ii - strument, apparently a half-inch chisel, inserted between the threads of the outsMe wire covering. Thirty-five yards of the submerged cable had to be taken out a'ld replaced by a new pieoe." The discovery and punishment of the scoundrel who wis base enough to commit such an outrage is urged. The New York Tribune says :- t( We grieve to say; that an old and eloquent friend of ours, who has often been particularly mentioned in. these columns — the American Demosthenes, otherwise known as Mr George Francis Train — is most disrespectfully spoken of by several of the Western journals, and that he never was pasquinaded before with such versatility of rhetoric and ingenuity of abuse, except, may be, in some woman's convention. He is called — 1. 'An addle r pated swindle-bag.' — 2. He i 3 thus ad^dressed ; ' Good-bye, old windy, goodbye, old gas-pipe ; go home and soak your head in whisky, so as to give some strength to your apology for brains.' — all which, to say the least, is not complimentary to Mr Train phrenologically. We must, with all our force, protest against this light method of mentioning a man who, in our opinion, can in one hour talk more and say loss than any other being that ever existed, or is ever likely to exist. Honor to whom honor is due." The question of women's rights seems to be practically settling itself in the United States, at least, if we may judge from the following announcement from the "personal and general" column of an American^ paper :— - Mrs Arabella Mansfield is the grace and beauty of the lowa bar.— -Miss Ella Yates took the premium for pistol shooting at the Danville (Va.) Fair. — Miss Mary Hovey has been offered the chair of Horticulture in the Kansas Agricultural College.— Miss Julia .0. Addington has been elected superintendent of common schools in Mitchell county, lowa.— -Amy Wilkinson, of Ben ton county, lud., believing Bhe could not' enjoy her rights on account of her sex, commenced chewing tobacco, and persevered in the practice until she was lodged in the lunatic asylum, her reason entirely wrecked. . Mr Parton, in an, article in the November number of the Atlantic Monthly, states that he has tried in vain to ascertain the total cost of a session of the Congress of the United States, but that it is certain that it costs the country as much as 4,000,000 dols., or taking the Session «,t twenty days a month for six months, more than 33,000 dols. a day. The chaplain's prayer, which usually lasts one minute, consumes 338 dols. worth of time every morning. The mei-e list of contingent expenses of the House fills a volume of 220 pages, with its mass of charges, such as 200 portmonnaies, above 10Q pen-knives at about three dols. each, ink-stands, pocket scissors, hair brushes, tobacco, cotton, stay laces, newspapers, stationery by the mountain. Mr Parton says, "I spend my whole time from January to December in one unending task of spoiling white paper, but I ca'.inot gei through more than three reams per annum, which cost above 20 dollars. 1 read with amazement of the quantities consumed about the Capitol." He maintains that privileges and perqoisites will always be the occasion for profusion and moans of corruption, and that members should increase their salaries, but pay their own mileage and their own postage, buy their own writing paper, and pay all their officers by salary ; "row that a member from Oregon can , get to the Capitol in 11 days, it is too absurd to pay. him 1 5. _ times as much mileage as Henry Clay used to get for his six weeks' horseback ride from Kentucky." Dying is an expensive affair; the bill of the Sergeant-at-Arms;fo'r conveying the body of a deceased : member from Washington to Easton, in Pennsylvania, amounted to 2144 dols. It cost the country 18,000 dols. to publish, in a volume of 9G2 pages, the addresses of condolence called forth by the assassination of President Lincoln ; there. may be, perhaps, ten pages worth preserving. A joint resolution, in 1864, ordered that 50,000 copies of the Army Register of Volunteers be printed for sale, at cost, in eight volumes ; a little experience of the demand for the work led to a reduction of the order to one thousand copies. Those who have held the office of public printer are of opinion that 500,000 dols. a year are wasted at the public printingoffice. An article headed "Mr Beecher's Private Habits," which appeared in a recent number of the Philadelphia Simday Despatch, makes some amusing, if not authentic contributions to the "great ' preacher's " biography. After telling us at what hour Mr Beecher goes to bed, and. that he never dines with }iis h.at on, the writer enlarges upon his peculiarities as a farmer. Mr Beecher cultivates thirty-six acres on scientific prpciples. He does nothing withbut . consulting books.. "Upon one .occasion, when it j seemed morally certain that the.hay ought to be cut, the hay-bjook : could' not; be .found, and before it was found the hay was all ■ spoiled.'.' But, apart from acciI dents, Mr Beecher is successful with tyay, .and "" raises some of the finest crops of wheat in the country." His strawberries would. rival either crop "if the robins would eat turnips, bnt they won't, and hence failure." Mr Beecher makes jnistakes some times.' Two years ago he sowed twenty-seven acres of watermelons, which came up pumpkins; A grand idea of " concentration " -that occurred to him was even, a greater ..failure. Having discovered one egg in every hen's nest, he gathered them, al! vinder an experienced old ' fowl, ' " which roosted over that contract night SncT day for. eleven weeks," anxiously supervised by Mr Beecher himself*., but notjhing came of it. The eggs were "infamous porcelain things." Finally we learn itia.t, though Mr Beecher's farm does not, pay how, it. ia expected to" do so' wh&n the outlay for books ceases. Under the jhead of moral habits, the writer assures us that Mr Beecher never swears ; but, if he| did, "he would throw into it an amount of pathos, and splendid imaginary, and moving earnestness, and restless energy, topped off and climated yritli a gorgeous

pyrotechnic conflagration of filagree and fancy swearing that would astonish and delight the hearer, and for ever after quiver through his bewildered memory an exquisite confusion of rainbows, and music, and thunder and lightning. A man of high order of intellect could sit and listen to Mr Beecher swear for a week, without getting tired." Nearly all the courts of Washington are just now occupied with caaea arising from the equality recently conceded to the negroes. One is brought by a woman who had a limb fraotnred by being thrust out of a railway train, and another by sons of the negro orator Frederick Douglass for a similar outrage upon them. The National Theatre is sued for ejection of negroes who had' purchased places. The Rev. Sella Martin, lately of London, sues the trustees ot a. district school for refusing; admission to his daughter on account of her scarcely perceptible African blood. The suit instituted by the sons of Mr Douglass brings to mind a story lately told of their father, who, having to pass the night in a train, wrapped himself up in his cloak and stretched himself on a seat made to hold two. Congratulating himself that his colour would keep the other part of his seat vacant, he had hardly entered on his nap when a white claimant for the place entered. " I am a nigger," growled Douglass. lt I don't care who you are," said the other, " I want that seat." Mr Douglass gave way, grumbling at the hardship that the negro should have at last " lost his right to two seats." As it is now generally admitted that the adoption of the fifteenth amendment to the American Constitution is inevitable, it 3 practical effect is a matter of interest. There are about 4,500,000 negroes in the United States. Of these 3,500,000 reside iv States where the franchise is already extended to them, so that 1,000,000 remain to be enfranchised by the amendment. Of this latter number, 600,000 reside in the four States of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri. These represent about 140,000 votes, the entire colored vote being 640,000. p is probable that the new enfranchisement will affect the political complexion of Maryland, where 25,000 negroes will be added to the register ; of Pennsylvania, where, their 8000 votes may be felt in the evenly-balanced state of parties ; and of Kehtnckyj where the. addition to the Republican ranks will be so large that the Democratic .journals strongly advocate a conciliatory policy towards the negroes similar to that which has induced the Virginian democracy to elect five negro senators to the State Legislature. In Missouri the colored vote will probably secure the Republican rule in the State. Of the old Free States, besides those mentioned, the one which will be affected will be New York, which, by the recent defeat of the proposed new Constitution, "has decided to continue the pecuniary qualification demanded of the negro voter — aiatnely, 250d01s more than he owes. It is, perhaps, a subject for warm congratulation that we now see the end of that "negro question" which has so long divided the country, envenoming the politics and hampering its progress.