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Collection: Frank Leslies Weekly
Publication: Frank Leslie's Weekly
Date: OCTOBER 25, 1873
Judge Co.Title: THE NEW STOKES WITNESS.MRS. MILDRED BENTON WHITE SHOTWELL.“MRS.
Author: FRANK LESLIE'S
Location: NEW YORK

THE NEW STOKES WITNESS.

MRS. MILDRED BENTON WHITE SHOTWELL.

“MRS. GENERAL BENTON,” OTHERWISE MRS. MILDRED BENTON WHITE SHOTWELL, THE PROPOSED
NEW WITNESS IN THE STOKES CASE.

DENVER, COLORADO.—A STREET SCENE—BUYING OUTFITS FOR THE MOUNTAINS AND THE MINES.—SKETCHED BY J. HARRISON MILLS.—SEE PAGE 112.

O NCE more the bell rings, the curtain rises, and we raise our glasses to gaze for the third time upon the “Fisk-Stokes Tragedy.” Outside of the interest naturally attaching to a murder trial, and especially one of such romantic details as this, there is a new fascination presented in the person of a lady who has made her appearance as one of the performers in this play of the period for the first time. We allude to Mrs. Benton, the new witness, whose name, properly worded out, is Mrs. Mildred Benton White Shotwell. For weeks back the papers have been full of her remarkable history, which has certainly been a dashing and adventurous one.

Beauty and brains have been the weapons with which Mrs. Benton has fought the world. She was born at Maysville, Ky. Of her childhood there are no interesting facts known, save that she was reared in humble circumstances, and was, when seen in her youth by a correspondent of one of the Western papers, “a dark, swarthy, barefoot girl.” Then there is a mist of uncertainty surrounding her movements until the war broke out, and then she appeared resplendent in the red fire of the battle as the bride of a dissolute colonel named Tom Benton. It was at this time that she first demonstrated the possession of first-class business abilities, inasmuch as she managed all the details of the office he then held under the Government. Her beauty now began to tell, and that Parisian dash which she seems to come by naturally was a powerful argument in her golden—or, rather, greenback —crusade. She traded in army contracts, she dabbled in land warrants, she ran the blockade. Eventually, Colonel Benton died, and left his widow one more name, and her untrammeled, dangerous beauty as an inheritance. It is not strange that from that time out her career should have been an eccentric one—a strange mélange of love, wine, diamonds, silk and gold.

She came to New York and lived in rega style at the hotels, shining at the opera, flashing through the Park, lustrous and queenly upon the promenade. That Saturday afternoon, when the smoke curled up from Stokes's pistol as he stood at the foot of the ladies’ staircase of the Grand Central Hotel. and Prince Erie fell mortally wounded upon the landing above, she was stopping at the Southern Hotel, next door, living luxuriously under the guard of some Southern military man. Her name had changed color this time, and she was Mrs. White. Subsequent to the murder she had a little disagreeableness with this same protector about some bonds, and in that trouble she was Mrs. Shotwell. The scene shifts again, and we see her in New Jersey negotiating a tremendous loan with Colonel Tom Scott; shifts once again, and she is in Philadelphia, engaged in importing Texas beef by means of a refrigerator-ship. Once more the mist closes about Mrs. Shotwell, and save a transient glimpse of her living royally in Lexington Avenue, she was not much heard of from that time until quite recently. But she knew Stokes, and is supposed to know something important about the shooting. To find her has been the task of the detectives, and she has been found. When she comes upon the stand, and removes the vail from an almost faultless face, we can well imagine the sensation she will create.

“LIBERTY IS CONSERVATIVE.”

S O said the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher last week, at one of the meetings of the Evangelical Alliance. And it is a fact that the American people dislike change. When men have been for thirty years becoming convinced of a principle, they do not easily forsake it during the rest of their lives. It is also a fact, and a surprising one, that so few of our young men are Radicals. The young Republican shakes his head sadly over the corruptions of some of the leaders of his party, and says, “Well, let them go; but the old party of Fremont and Lincoln and Grant is good enough for me.” During the presidential campaign of last year it was a surprise to the Liberal Republicans that the young men of the country were not fired with an enthusiasm for Mr. Greeley. “Here,” they said, “is a man of ideas, of progress, of literature, of all that is tempting to the youthful mind;” but most of our young men were either Democrats or Republicans. If you look to-day for the most earnest Democratic supporter of the doings of Calhoun. Jackson and Van Buren, you will discover him among the young men. We have few Kenelm Chillinglys or Felix Holts; and the existence of Rochefort is possible only in France. In our recent financial panic, the hands of Grant were upheld by young Republicans.

So that we must not be hasty in believing that the Republican or the Democratic Party is dead. Colfax may be gone, and Tweed's example may be a stigma upon the Democratic Party, but Barlow and M'Cormick, and John Quincy Adams and Abraham Lawrence remain. If an autopsy could be performed on Horace White, Whitelaw Reid and Murat Halstead, it would be found that they are essentially Republicans. Divide the country to-day, and the party principles of Republicanism and Democracy would be found to be held in respect by one or the other half of American voters.

Truly, “Liberty is conservative,” and we do not love change. We are Republicans or Democrats, and any new party that shall claim the sympathy of the people must do so by coaxing their conservatism. We find much that is inspiring in the action of the Liberal Republican Party at Elmira. They were wise in their platform; they disdained to accept the nominations of the Republican Party, except those that were forced upon that party by honest public opinion; and for the people who were not Republican it claimed the right of voting that portion of the Democratic ticket which in all the essentials of honesty and ability was the most Democratic.

537 PEARL STREET, NEW YORK.

FRANK LESLIE, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR.

TERMS TO SUBSCRIBERS.

Table

CLUB TERMS.

Five copies one year, in one wrapper, to one address, $20, with extra copy to person getting up club.

FRANK LESLIE'S ILLUSTRATED NEWSPAPER   is the oldest established Illustrated newspaper in America .

THE success of the new publication, FRANK LESLIE'S BOYS OF AMERICA, was so great from the outset, that we take sincere pleasure in recommending it to families. If every father who reads this notice will examine the new serial, he will discover that it is the most appropriate magazine for boys that has yet been offered to parental criticism.

MODERN SKEPTICISM.

T HERE is a good deal of loose talk in current literature, especially in our newspapers and reviews, about modern skepticism, which it is worth while to stop and examine. Real skepticism is wholly and always bad and dangerous. It is the doubting of those eternal truths which are the basis of our lives, which make hope possible, which make human intercourse real and noble, and which sustain virtue in private and public life. To be skeptical, for instance, touching the obligations of honesty and purity, the nobility and necessity of self-restraint, the beauty of generous and charitable thought and act, the wisdom and sweetness of love and of friendship; to doubt that there is a beneficent Ruler of the Universe, to whose laws are attached sure penalties, while to live in harmony with them is the only sure means of solid and enduring happiness—this, certainly, is something to be profoundly deplored, and to be checked by the most earnest efforts of all good men.

But it is a serious question, whether a good many things are not regarded as evidences of skepticism which in reality are not so. So far as this is the case, it is very unfortunate, for it does no cause, great or small, any good to cherish the belief that it is assailed when it is not; that those are its enemies who are in reality its friends, or, at the worst, are only neutral. We do not desire to be uncharitable in enforcing a lesson of charity; but it seems to us that a good many of the writers who bitterly bemoan the progress of “modern skepticism,” and who bitterly denounce certain distinguished men for fostering it, have mistaken unbelief, in their applications of the great truths, for unbelief in the truths themselves. This is obviously a danger to which we are all exposed. Our own views of religion are in a sense the thing itself to us; we cannot resist a tendency to regard those who reject them as rejecting religion. Yet, if we would pause a moment to reflect, most of us would see that hardly any view of this subject now entertained has not, when it was first suggested, been scouted as opposed to religion itself.

Protestantism, with its present vast variety of dogma and rules of life, was the essence of irreligion to devout souls of the sixteenth century. The Catholic Church—ancient mother of us all, as we may well acknowledge —was the outgrowth of a struggle in which each party denounced all others as seeking to overthrow the basis of belief, and to pave the way to universal skepticism. Even Christianity was a butt of the boldest doubt, and had to contend with those who looked on it as an insurrection against all that was holy and enduring. It brought not peace, but a sword, into the world of that day. Surely these prominent, universally conceded facts ought to give us faith in the essence of moral and spiritual truths, and prevent us from too hastily accepting differences of opinion as necessarily the fruit of skepticism and hostility; for, while the essence remains the same, the form and the application vary constantly. We will see the force of this as relates to our own time, if we look at one or two instances.

We presume every one will recognize a spirit of reverence as an indispensable requisite to a truly religious mind. Among modern scientists, Professor Agassiz is selected by the critics, who think they see skepticism in so many others, as possessed in the necessary degree of this admirable quality. He demonstrates it by the profound aversion he has for the doctrines and disciples of Darwin. Yet, as pointed out recently by Dr. John Fiske, it is only a few years ago that Agassiz was dismissed as the arch-skeptic of the time, because he could not accept the Bible theory as to the origin of the human species. He believed the origin to have been multiple. The Bible plainly teaches that it was simple. Now, if a scientist may change from a skeptic to a sort of apostle in this way, without altering his views on the original question, ought it not to make us a little cautious about accepting the current theory of who are and who are not skeptics? Again, Professor Tyndall is frequently cited as a most dangerous and insidious teacher of skepticism. Yet those who heard Tyndall's wonderful lectures in this country could hardly have had their faith shaken in the power and goodness of God. They must rather have had it greatly deepened and confirmed. When he is denounced as a disciple of skepticism, one involuntarily asks, “Skeptical of what?” Those who denounce him can hardly see, what an impartial observer does see, that it is for the safety of their own rather limited ideas, and not for that of the central truths of religion, that they are in dread of this simple-hearted and really reverent student.

It would be folly to deny that there is real skepticism abroad in the world to-day, and of the most deplorable kind. But there has never been an age without it. What seems to us to be the worst feature of the modern skepticism is, that it is so largely immoral. The skepticism of Wall Street is, in our view, far worse than the skepticism of the laboratory or the naturalist's closet. The one is a doubt that goes to the very foundation of things. The other is more likely to be the doubt of a man who may go never so far from the accepted pathways of theological science, but whose heart may be pure and his life reverent. There is no hope for the man who thinks there is no law of God to punish stealing, or who acts as if he thought so. But there are two sources of hope for the man who differs with us as to the origin of species. One is, that he may be wrong and still be as religious as ourselves; the other is, that he may be right after all.

THE SOUTH.

E VER since this Federation has had a history, the South has suffered from the want practical tact, in her leaders of sentiment and her framers of public policy. Able as many of these men have been, and blindly followed as many of them have been who were not able, few indeed have been practical to the extent of preferring a result to an idea.

The few years preceding the war were the zenith of Southern power and the field for Southern opportunity. The South's influence in the Union was not to be denied, but her leaders carried her out of it; and doing so, lost her not only that influence, but the material good which would have been born out of it, for at least a score of years. Not satisfied with the solid thing they had, these leaders of Southern sentiment wanted an intangible something they had not; and, unmindful of the fabled dog that crossed the stream, dropped the meat of material prosperity in the hope of a shadowy possibility even they could not have described. And the theory that obtained before the war has scarcely lost its hold upon the politicians of the South, for all the rude and cruel experience of the past decade. For the besetting weakness of our Southern sister has ever been her refusal to utilize what was , in vague aspiration after what might be; and that weakness shows its outcropping still, in all cases where the so-called leaders of the South retain their sway.

It is in no carping spirit that we note this fact, but in the truest sympathy and most practical fellowship. And in doing so we only strike hands with those most progressive —yet most truly Southern—journals, which have shaken the sleep of yesterday from their eyelids and awakened into the practical life of to-day; which have gone further, and have boldly pointed their people the to-morrow they see over the heads of old theories and old leaderships.

We have no desire to fight the war over again on paper. It was serious enough and sad enough to both sides, to let its very memory die, if that were possible. But, because that war is over, and because the stalking among us of its unquiet shade can do no possible good to either section (while it does work positive evil to the South,) we would urge that the theories which generated it, no less than those which were born out of it, should be modified to fit the present day and its present needs for a common people.

Realizing fully as we do that the climatic influences and the habits of life change the people of that section, we do not expect them to make the effort even to range alongside of the North in the special departments of national greatness which are hers by nature no less than by pre-emption. But a vast field is open to the South, by which she can not only recover her prestige among the members of this Union, but can greatly increase that, in the same movement that doubles her material and productive wealth. For neither climate, nor habit, nor enforced poverty even, can effect the true means by which alone the South can rehabilitate herself. As a Southern journal has lately condensed the whole Southern theory of to-day: “The future of this section must come out of the ground!”

With politics she has nothing to do at present, further than they may tend to the making of good governments in her local boundaries of City and State. This is a matter of fact, not even an assertion, nor even a matter for argument; for we do not touch the question of the South's right to be heard in national politics; we only stop at the patent fact that she is not heard there. She has one way to make herself heard, the only way in this age that has crystallized the unclean wisdom of Iago . She must put money in her purse; and that money, as the Southern paper tells her, is to come out of the ground at her own bidding. And that it will come easily, all who know the exceptional richness of her soil and the geniality of her climate must comprehend.

In two products, at least, the South has a clear monopoly. Even neglecting her rice crop, which is still of immense annual value, she cannot find competition in her growing of cotton and cane. Yet there are millions of acres less in cultivation to-day in the South than before the war; a result that cannot be attributed to emancipation, save in small part. Rather let us attribute it to its true cause, unthrift which cannot utilize its full possessions, and halts on the way to asking others to help in the useful work. For the acknowledged difficulties the South finds to-day in the very van of her march to recuperation and power, are sparse population and demoralized labor. And as far as we can see, she takes no step towards increasing that population which she does not nullify by one in another direction; and she seems to find no other use for the freed negro than to make him a political opponent. A brave and practical journal will stand up and tell plain, provable truths about the advantages the South offers to a large portion of foreign immigration to these shores; but before the sound of its words has fallen upon the public ear, another raises its plaintive wail over the sorrows of the South; pictures her fruitful fields as a desert sowed with salt, her people as manacled serfs; and worse than all, her local finances as utterly rotten and worthless. This wail may be a natural offspring of the wear and want of the past ten years; but it is weakness itself to yield to a memory of the past, in the face of an exigeant present, even if it be really a matter of fact and of existent influence. But in a great measure this is hyperbole at least; and the politicians who write these high-flown appeals to a fast dying sentiment of their people should be made to remember that they subtract directly from that people's substance.

When the immigrant, fresh landed upon these shores, has wide and varied attractions thrust upon him from every section, he will scarcely be apt to volunteer his useful presence in a State, the very leaders of opinion and retailers of fact in which declare it a desert, with a starving people and empty treasury, and an unendurable tyranny grinding it deeper in the dust each day. Nor will his eagerness be heightened if he chance to meet “able leaders” in the same journals, in which the political attitude of an alderman's election is painted as an impending “war of races!” Nor is the effect of this much better at home; for the capital of the North and the trade of the West—both of which the South needs, and openly asks—are in nowise sensitive to sympathy. They are coldly practical in searching their market for investment; and they will have none of an investment which is advertised as sure not to pay and equally sure of prospective repudiation.

Herein, then, in this self-depreciation for the sake of being felt a martyr do we find the folly of the would-be leaders of the South to-day. Warmly sympathizing with her political wrongs, under the experimentum Cæsaris; realizing her tribute to the Carpetbag leeches that this has fastened upon her body politic; and believing that her sole escape from these is through the now open door of organized labor and free immigration of new and useful population, we cannot but put our protest against a system of self-depreciation which is both weak and ruinous.

We see strong symptoms of an intent among her people and her Press to do away with this whine after what might be, and to apply themselves with zeal and with discretion to what is. To such as mean this we extend the hand of aid in every way we may; and the wide circulation of our ILLUSTRATED NEWSPAPER shall ever record all progress on that good road; for in it we recognize the mutual interest of their section and our own, the speediest and surest method to an oblivion of sectional bitterness, and a flat refutation to any charge against a silly South.

THE SADDEST DAYS.


“The melancholy days have come,
The saddest of the year.”

S O says Mr. Bryant when describing October —and he ought to be a competent authority on melancholy, since he is the editor of a newspaper.

It was not, however, necessary that a poet should take the trouble to point out the melancholy character of October. It was patent to every one before Mr. Bryant wrote the foregoing couplet. Indeed, it is doubtful, judging from the rest of the poem, whether the author had any just conception of the true source of October sadness. He evidently regarded the month solely from a sportsman's point of view, and his mention of the rabbits running over the echoing leaves, as an element of the month's melancholy, must be interpreted as a gloomy reminiscence of the number of those interesting animals at which he had shot and missed.

That the present is, beyond doubt, the saddest of the whole sisterhood of months, no one can doubt who resides in the country. Early in October the suburban person begins to shake and to burn in the alternations of chills and fever. No matter how firmly he believes that his constitution is proof against the disease —no matter how proudly he may point to an entire Summer without a shake—the month of October comes, and the fever promptly seizes and literally throws him. As he goes forth to business shivering beneath his Winter overcoat, and returns home at night burning with fever and clamoring for quinine, he feels the sadness of the month, and inwardly vows that before a twelvemonth passes he will have fled to even the cheapest of metropolitan boarding-houses, as to a city of refuge against the malaria.

But after all, his condition is hardly worse than that of the city resident to whom October brings the largest bills to which householding flesh is heir. He has to lay in his Winter stock of coal—and it is a curious fact in connection with coal that the amount required uniformly increases each Winter in quantity and cost. Then there is the overcoat and Winter clothes to be bought, and in order to procure them it is first necessary to pay up the tailor's previous bill—it being one of the singular peculiarities of that enemy of man that he insists upon being paid once in the year, and always selects for that exasperating ceremony the time when you desire to obtain fresh and large credit. Of course, one's wife and children also need clothes—thanks to the expensive transgression of Eve—and these are always to be bought in October. Add to the bills for coal and clothing, the tardy bills of liverymen and other devourers of one's substance, incurred during the Summer's holiday, and abundant reason for calling October melancholy is easily perceived.

But there are worse woes than those that money can heal. It is in October that the cousin from the country descends like a wolf on the metropolitan fold. He utterly devastates that peaceful household into which he effects his entrance, by breaking of chairs and tearing of lace curtains. It is with him a matter of principle to scratch matches on the white wall, and a point of honor to upset the mantel-ornaments while in search of the match-safe. He is insatiable of theatres, and although he affects to deride the opera as a fashionable vanity that cannot flourish amid the virtuous good sense of the country, he still insists upon dragging his host or hostess to the Academy, and by vigorous applauding with too generous feet, to attract the gaze of the audience to the box where he looms in conspicuous amplitude of red necktie and inordinate hair. With him, too, comes not unfrequently the feminine cousins, and the maiden aunt suspected of the same sex. These, however, are more manageable, and by sacrificing to them a few valueless young men or a casual feminine acquaintance of objectionable character, they can be kept from assuming a virulent and deadly type.

October, however, chiefly earns its melancholy pre-eminence by the fact that it is the chosen period when the mother-in-law infests the city, and lies in wait for unhappy husbands at their very thresholds. That most mysterious of providential dispensations, the black bombazine mother-in-law, with her sense of duty and her umbrella, rarely fails to visit the victims whom she cynically terms “her children” when October hints that her Winter's clothing must be made up. She usually stays the month out, and in that time completely reorganizes the household on the general basis of complicated discomfort to its head. She never fails to be present at the breakfast-table, and to madden him throughout the meal by a thorough conversational exhaustion of the topics of his health and the weather probabilities. The morning is devoted to instilling into her daughter the duty of never acceding to her husband's wishes, and of always suspecting him of atheism, drunkenness, gambling and libertinism. In the afternoon the mother-in-law harasses the children, and makes life a boneless burden to the unhappy dog. Refreshed by these devotional exercises, she is ready to spend the evening in exasperating the husband with theology and reminiscences of eligible clerical lovers whom her daughter unaccountably failed to marry. If he grows restive under the infliction, she hints of his manifest desire to join his boon companions at the club, or to meet depraved persons of the other sex at worldly balls and parties. If he is a bold man, with nerves of iron, he covers himself in a cloud of smoke, and endures the infliction to the end. If he is weak and cowardly, he rushes from the house, singing that touching line of John Howard Payne, “There's no place like home, thank God!” and leaves the mother-in-law an untrammeled opportunity to pour the poison of “duty” into the ear of her daughter.

Yes, October is full of melancholy days. In fact, it has none other; and if the poet who complained of the waste of dead leaves and the survival of rabbits as the direst of October sadness were to set forth in verse the real wretchedness of the month, he would touch a chord that would make melancholy music in the heart of every man.

EDITORIAL GOSSIP.

HARTFORD, Conn., is now a capital place to live in.

JOHN C. HEENAN is in Montana dying of consumption.

WHENEVER times are tight there are plenty of fires and burglaries.

TRUE political wisdom consists in a faculty for making the present successful, and not in talking about the future.

The Tribune's correspondent discovered that purchases of mowing-machines on tick by farmers was at the bottom of the farmers’ poverty.

W. H. SEWARD expressed a great deal of regard for HORACE GREELEY in his late years, and said that he wanted to write his life “as a labor of love.”

IT is singular and fortunate that your uneducated shop-girl, and even she who talks the loudest, is less likely than the nice miss to display her skirts on a muddy day.

IF GENERAL GRANT wishes to spoil a good deal of political opposition, he ought to return his back-pay. He can afford to do so, and he would gain great applause for his action.

A YOUNG lady of Cedar Falls, Iowa, whistles one hundred and fourteen tunes; seemingly unaware that “a whistling girl and a cackling hen always come to some bad en’.”

SOMEBODY accuses MAYOR STOKELY, of Philadelphia, of having sold ice-cream for a living; but his friends say he always gave a big plate, which must be cold comfort for him.

WHITTIER, BRYANT, LOWELL, LONGFELLOW, BRET HARTE and BAYARD TAYLOR are the best paid American poets, and receive from $50 to $100 for almost anything in verse that they write.

DAVID DUDLEY FIELD has started on a tour around the world, with several of his family, but what a different journey from that of W. H. SEWARD, at the close of the latter's most honorable career.

WHEN men applied to HENRY CLAY for information about the tariff, he used to send them to HORACE GREELEY, as “the best informed man in the world.” Who could be insensible to such marks of appreciation?

THE minion lead man of the Tribune is down on poetry, and he loses no opportunity to suppress it. This is the plan of the shopkeeper, who, when he has a plenty of anything himself, is likely to run down the stock of his neighbors.

TOM HUGHES told an American girl in London that she was the only lady he had ever met of the same name as the heroine who married “Tom Brown,” and he seemed to think it very odd that she should come from this side the water.

PARTON used to say that a young unmarried literary man could live luxuriously in New York on $750 a year and a dress coat, by working in the Astor Library, and occasionally dining out with his friends, thus saving any expense except for board.

THE wisest woman we hear of is the wife of a man who don't go out to the “club” nights. She is an adept at oyster stews and eggnog, and wages eternal warfare against “club”-tenders with their own weapons. The happy man has no excuse to go out.

WILLIAM B. ASTOR is to be seen almost any fine day on Broadway, below Prince Street, walking vigorously, yet without haste. He is portly and rather stolid, and has an over-fed look, while he dresses all in black, with kid gloves and a wide black band round his hat.

A YOUNG American lady who has just returned from abroad tells of her meeting HERBERT SPENCER at dinner, when he gracefully handed her a rose, with quite a pretty compliment, and looked anything but like a great man and the author of a whole system of philosophy.

GENERAL BARLOW'S record as a soldier under General Grant, his fidelity to his party, and his honesty, are so great, that one is shocked by the action of the Republican Party in throwing him overboard. He was too good a man to keep on the ticket, and the small politicians feared him.

MANY so-called thinkers know about things, and very few know things. Some of our divines, when they come to cross over Jordan, will find that, though they have been talking all their lives about the width and length of the sacred stream, they forgot to learn that it is very deep and very wet.

THE story about PRESIDENT GRANT having a tin box handed him by the Cookes from the First National Bank of Washington, in order to save him from loss by the failure of that institution, is explained by the New York Times , which says that he received no money, and that the box containing the Rawlins Fund bonds was given him a week before the panic.

THE  Sun derides the idea that Germany has designs of obtaining possession, though in a fair way, of Lower California; and it believes there is too much sand and water lying around loose in the peninsula to please new settlers. We don't see how they could be scared by the sand, but it is reasonable to suppose that they do not want so much water.

A KEEN critic who has had ample opportunity of observing TOM SCOTT, and whose opinions ought to carry weight, says of the great modern railway king: “He is a man of vast capacity, enormous industry and comprehensive mind, but he will certainly destroy himself, because he has an inordinate ambition and don't know when he has had enough of anything.”

THERE is enough virtue in the Republican Party to give it back its old glory, if the masses would only have the energy to take the reins out of the hands of the small politicians. Why, for instance, should the file of the party in New York City allow itself to be “represented” by men like DELAFIELD SMITH and GEORGE SHARPE, mere traders in principle, when it has an element headed by PAT JONES, GENERAL BARLOW, and POSTMASTER JAMES?

WILLIAM M. EVARTS and CHARLES O'CONOR are both to be seen quite often, except in the Summer season, walking on Broadway or Wall Street, usually alone, and almost unnoticed in the crowd. Neither dresses pretentiously, though Evarts has the best clothes of the two, while O'Conor has long been famed for wearing the most “shocking bad hat” of any one in New York, and always tilted back, so as to rest just on the nape of his neck.

PROF. HUXLEY is a married man with a large family, and not an enormous income to support them on. He works very hard, but is very fond of society, where his hearty, jolly manner and great animal spirits make him a universal favorite. PROF. TYNDALL, on the other hand, is a bachelor, and rather given to the congenial company of one— while his wonderful daring is shown alike in the highest fields of investigation, and in climbing the loftiest heights of the Alps.

BEECHER'S manuscript notes for his sermons are remarkable for their brevity, being rarely more than mere hints, which his fertile mind easily expands to an indefinite extent. Two specimens which we have lately seen are curiosities in their way. Neither contained more than fifty words, while one of them was scrawled on the back of what had been the wrapper of a parcel, with torn and ragged edges, yet its few disconnected and incomplete sentences were the basis of an hour's discourse, and one of the finest ever preached in Plymouth Church.

MOSES TAYLOR had his house entered by burglars not long ago, and all his silver-plate stolen. He took the matter very coolly, and when a frightened servant woke him up with the news of the robbery, he quietly turned over and went to sleep again. When he went down-town he stopped at a jeweler's and ordered another set of silver, and there let the matter rest, without informing the police or taking any steps to recover the property, in spite of his wife's protests. Perhaps he was wisest, after all, and his peace and quietness were worth far more than the stolen articles.

WE have received several communications from artists in the West and South, asking for letters of authority to represent FRANK LESLIE'S ILLUSTRATED NEWSPAPER. Letters of authority are of very little account, and no artist need ever hesitate to do good work and send it to us speedily because he cannot show our name over a request to do it. Some of the best outside work ever done for this journal has been done by men whom we did not know by name or reputation from a side of sole-leather. They were enterprising, and they got paid for enterprise, not in letters of authority, but in greenbacks. One of these days we shall hope to pay them in specie.

REV. O. B. FROTHINGHAM is busy over his “Life of Theodore Parker,” which is to be finished this Winter, while he has just issued a second edition of “The Religion of Humanity.” Fortunately for his own peace of mind, he has an independent fortune, and does not rely upon his professional income for a support. He is perhaps the least trammeled preacher in America, and can say just what he thinks without fear of any one. He is a hard student, and his sermons are remarkable for their literary finish, though usually composed very rapidly. He always writes standing, a practice which saves the chest, while he takes a great deal of physical exercise.

THAT the Commercial Advertiser should not like CONTROLLER GREEN is not to be wondered at; but that the World should acknowledge that Mr. Green, in allowing suits to be brought against the City, is only making Judge Fancher one of the functionaries of the Finance Department, is both funny and incorrect. The person who is empowered to give opinions on matters of law to all the City Departments is the Corporation Counsel, whose assistant, George P. Andrews, is as able to give an opinion as Judge Fancher is. Besides, suits are not taken before Judge Fancher by the Controller, but by the creditors of the city. But—the World retains its old faculty for sarcasm.

COLONEL T. W. HIGGINSON is not so well-known to the general reading public as he ought to be. He is a writer of unusual refinement and literary culture, and whether writing for the Atlantic , or in his various newspaper articles in the Tribune, Independent , or Woman's Journal , he never does slipshod work. He has had a wide and varied experience in the pulpit, the camp, Press and lyceum platform, and has everywhere made his mark very high up. He lives at Newport all the year round, occasionally running up to Boston to attend the Radical Club, or taking a lecturing trip, but owing to the long and severe illness of his wife he leads a rather recluse life. It should be added that he is a devoted believer in physical culture, and his superb physique is largely due to his constant gymnastic exercises, long walks and rowing excursions.

JOURNALISTIC GOSSIP.

COLONEL JOHN W. FORNEY likes people.

AMOS J. CUMMINGS is in California, and is still going West.

W. L. ALDEN, formerly of the Times , is now on the Graphic . He is a delicately humorous writer.

T. C. DE LEON, of the Mobile Register , is on a visit to New York, and he is an elegant conversationist.

MISS ANNIE C. HOWELLS, sister of the editor of the Atlantic Monthly , is now the literary editor of the St. Louis Globe .

FULLY two-thirds of the writers on the Metropolitan Press are under thirty-five years of age, and nearly one-half are scarcely thirty.

MR. BACON, formerly of the New York Times , and now its regular Boston correspondent, has a responsible position on the Advertiser .

CHARLES A. DANA once said that RICHARD HILDRETH was the most admirably equipped and generally available journalist whom he ever knew.

COLONEL JOHN HAY, WHITELAW REID, MR. HOWELLS, MARK TWAIN and J. M. BUNDY, are Western men. BRET HARTE was, and is again, a New Yorker; while G. A. TOWNSEND, JOHN RUSSELL YOUNG and G. O. SEILHAMER are Philadelphians.

OLIVER JOHNSON, who has successively held positions on the Anti-Slavery Standard, Independent , and Tribune , is now managing editor of the Christian Union . He was lately married to one of the Abbott family—a lady who is a great invalid.

MR. POMEROY, who edits the Springfield Union , is an old associate of SAM BOWLES on the Republican , and has made the Union a very readable evening paper, with plenty of news, brief, sensible editorial comments, and excellent selections and clippings.

JOHN SWINTON, who was long H. J. Raymond's right-hand man on the Times , and who originated and wrote most of the famous “Minor Topics,” now has his headquarters at the Galaxy office, and is doing miscellaneous literary work and correspondence.

MR. WILLIAMS, late managing editor of the Times , and the originator of the children's exclusions, has resigned his position, and is rusticating in Canada, after his severe but useful Summer's work.

IT is said that an offer of the editorship of the Boston Globe has been made to JOHN DAMRETT, of the Nation , who has written many of the sharpest and smartest literary reviews and items in the latter journal, and is thought to be a great literary light at the Hub.

NEARLY all the city staff of the Tribune are college graduates, and there is not a better corps of reporters in the country. They nearly all came on the paper during Mr. Greeley's life, and considering the latter's dislike to such “horned cattle,” the fact is curious.

MR. BRIDGEMAN, who for some time has been resident correspondent either at Washington or New York for the Boston Advertiser , has just taken a position on the Tribune in connection with the publication department, where his experience and industry will be put to good service.

THEODORE TILTON is a great lover of art, and his house contains many fine engravings before proof, besides four of Page's masterpieces, viz., his “Christ” and “Shakespeare,” with portraits of Wendell Phillips and Mrs. Tilton, all of which attract many visitors and cause much admiration.

THE  Tribune does not want the people to send back to the Assembly the greater number of the delegates from New York City: and it is evident, from the plump, blunt way in which the assertion is made, that HORACE GREELEY is either alive or else his teaching is. The Tribune is usually fair, and always fearless.

CHARLES F. ADAMS, JR., is home from Vienna, where he acted as Commissioner for the State of Massachusetts. He is at present occupied in writing his report, but it is hinted that he will, with his cousin Henry, soon take hold of the North American Review , and write up the Tammany frauds and the lost details of the Erie Railway row.

GEORGE WILKES might have been Minister to Brazil for bringing Grant and Butler together. If it had not been for Wilkes's onslaughts on McClellan, Grant would never have been President; and, though we sometimes think he was very harsh on Little Mac, he ought to have had a bigger compliment than even the offer of the Brazilian mission.

THE admirable letters in the Tribune descriptive of the Farmer's Granges and the railroad war in the West have been by Z. WHITE, the regular Washington correspondent of the Tribune , and one of the most conscientious and hard-working men on the Press. The Nation has taken special pains to commend these letters, which is not its usual style of action.

KEMBLE and EVANS, of Pennsylvania, have their weekly obituaries continued in the Sun . DANA has added them, divided them, and silenced them, and probably before he gets through he will reduce them to vulgar fractions and show them up in equation of payments. This little ring tried the subtraction table on him, and he is now squaring their little circle.

JOHN HAY is one of the best equipped journalists in America, and his experience as Lincoln's private secretary, in the diplomatic service, and elsewhere, has given him a wide and comprehensive knowledge both of men and of affairs. Yet he is indifferent to the attractions of his present life, and he would like to go and live in a quiet Western town, in obscurity.

ALFRED FORD, the journalist who went up with Donaldson and Lunt in the lost balloon, has been a stenographic reporter on the Metropolitan Press for some years; is a graceful writer in both prose and verse, and has paid considerable attention to English poetical metres, on which subject he read a paper before the American Philological Association last year, which attracted not a little attention.

RUSSEL STURGIS, former art-critic of the Nation and a devoted believer in the pre-Raphaelite faith, is now too absorbed in his regular profession, architecture, to find time to write, for which the artists whom he used to scarify may be thankful. He has designed and built a number of the finest private houses in the country, especially at Newport; for one of which, at his suggestion, separate patterns of wall-paper of a Japanese design were specially manufactured for each room, at a cost of several thousand dollars.

H. J. RAYMOND had a right conception of the way to pay writers, so as to get their best work. While he was alive the salaries on the Times were more liberal than those paid to the staff of any other paper; he was content to have a man do little or nothing for some time, so long as he wrote a telling article afterwards. WILLIAM SWINTON would thus pass weeks without writing a line, and would then send in a splendid war letter or book review, which would so delight his chief, that the latter would send him a check and a letter of thanks in addition to his salary.

IT is something of a feat for a young graduate of the New York Press to take hold of an old established and rather inanimate paper like the Indianapolis Sentinel , and transform it into a bright, vigorous, enterprising journal. This task, however, has been accomplished by HENRY KEENAN, who obtained his training partly with Robert Carter, on the Rochester Democrat , but also under the able direction of Whitelaw Reid, on the Tribune . The thoroughness of this training and his unusual journalistic talent are fully shown by the nature of the work which Mr. Keenan has performed.

THE staff of the New York Times consists of the following persons: LOUIS J. JENNINGS, editor-in-chief; Mr. Read, managing editor: Mr. Mills, night editor; R. McDonald, telegraphic editor; Jacob Thompson, exchange editor: Messrs. Crapsey, Foord and Cary, editorial writers; Mr. C. C. Norvel, financial editor; Mr. Bassett, librarian; Middle Morgan, stock editor; Mr. Pulham, city editor Mr. Lee, literary critic; Charles Worley, art critic; F. A. Schwab, musical critic; Mr. Hennessy market reporter; Mr. Bacon, Boston correspondent; Messrs. W. H. Russell, F. H. Jennings and Samuel Edwards, London correspondents.

JOHN D. STOCKTON is the subject of a paragraph that speaks of him as being the leader-writer of the foremost Democratic organ of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Age . A rumor places him also in the chair of the managing editor of that paper. Mr. Stockton is one of the half-dozen leading newspaper writers in America. As night editor of the Tribune it was once said of him that he had exquisite tact and judgment. As editor of the Philadelphia Post he was brilliant. The Age was a good paper before he became connected with it; but we believe that it will now be the brightest paper in Philadelphia. If Stockton did not live in the indolent atmosphere of Philadelphia, he would be known as a journalist-writer second to none in America. We congratulate the Age , and deplore our own loss.

FRED. HUDSON, once the efficient managing editor of the Herald under the elder Bennett, took part in the late dedication of the public library at Concord, along with EMERSON and JUDGE HOAR, while CHARLIES SUMNER, VICE-PRESIDENT WILSON, and EDWARD JENKINS, author of “Ginx's Baby,” were present. Mr. Hudson read a letter from Mr. JAMES T. FIELDS, who was prevented by lameness from being present, but who sent up five precious autograph manuscripts which had passed through the printer's hands in his days of publishing. These were the “copy” of Emerson's chapter on “Culture,” of Thoreau's on “Walking,” of Motley's Address before the Parker Fraternity in 1868, of Lowell's poem, “The Cathedral,” and of Dr. Holmes's “Dorothy Q.” Each is bound by itself in a thin morocco-covered volume, and the whole may be considered quite a literary treasure.

THE  Tribune is the subject of more gossip than any other journal in America. It is certainly a great newspaper. Its reports of the proceedings of the Evangelical Alliance, of the Bradlaugh lectures, and of recent political proceedings, have been fair, correct and complete. The Tribune correspondent at the New York State Conventions was a fine writer as well as a fine critic. The paper owes much to brevier, bourgeois and leads, but its style is elegant besides, and its subjects are always well chosen. WHITELAW REID deserves credit for his enterprise in the management of great news subjects; and he has shown remarkable tact in his selection of subordinates. He could not very well avoid making a good paper with his own keen watchfulness, with the nervous enterprise of SHANKS, with the editorial pens of HASSARD, HAY, BROOKS, HARTE, and a host of outside contributors, with MRS. MOULTON, DR. RIPLEY, WILLIE WINTER, SMALLEY, WHITE, RAMSDELL, HUNTINGTON and MRS. DAVIS. Here is a great paper, with great journalists on it; and we cannot miss praising it and them.

THE position of resident, telegraphic correspondent at New York for one or more out-of-town newspapers may be considered a very desirable berth, excepting for its want of permanency. It is, perhaps, as well paid and as independent a position as any with a salary on the Press. A Washington special ranks higher, but he is not much better off. The New York correspondents, such as JUNIUS H. BROWNE, COLONEL KNOX, D. W. JUDD or LARRY KANE, can have the use of the proofs of some paper, and thus are saved much mechanical labor in obtaining news and writing it out. From $15 to $20 per week is paid for sending dispatches to an afternoon paper, and $30 to $40 to a leading morning journal like the Chicago Tribune or Cincinnati Commercial . A man can thus earn $50 to $60 a week with but little trouble, and still have leisure for other work. It is a common thing to send the same dispatches to papers in different localities in duplicate by a special arrangement, and in this way a much larger amount may be earned. New York ought to be as important a news centre as Washington, and it is fast becoming so since Black Friday, the Tammany Ring row, the Orange riots, the late Wall Street panic, and like events of transcendent importance have taken place.

The Pictorial Spirit of the Illustrated European Press.—SEE PAGE 107.

FRANCE.—THE EVACUATION—PURIFYING THE STREETS OF VERDUN WITH FIRE.

SPAIN.—THE INSURGENTS AT THE MARINE SCHOOL.

ASIA.—THE RUSSIANS TRANSPORTING PRISONERS FROM KHIVA.

CHINA.—RECEPTION OF FOREIGN MINISTERS AT PEKIN.

ENGLAND.—TRIAL OF THE STEAM LIFE-SHIP “PERONNELLE.”

FRANCE.—THE PILGRIMAGE TO PARAY-LE-MONIAL.

EASTERN AFRICA.—THE KING OF THE ASHANTEES AND HIS WARRIORS.

ASIA.—MEN AND WOMEN OF GEORGIA.

CHARLES BRADLAUGH,

THE ENGLISH REPUBLICAN.

THE ENGLISH REPUBLICAN, NOW LECTURING IN AMERICA.—PHOTOGRAPHED BY MORA.

NEW YORK CITY.—THE MANHATTAN MARKET, FOOT OF THIRTY-FOURTH STREET, HUDSON RIVER.—SEE PAGE 107.

C HARLES BRADLAUGH, who has kept Great Britain in a fever for years past, by the constant agitation of religious and political questions, is a fine-looking man of forty, with a large frame, a massive head, large, piercing blue eyes, and a heavy mouth and chin, which indicate the possession of such courage and will as are rarely met with, even in men whose lives are passed in the excitement and dangers attending the public discussion of interdicted subjects. In manner, he is easy, affable and winning. His voice is remarkable for its strength and smoothness, and in the use of vigorous English he is almost a match for our own Wendell Phillips, whom he surpasses in fluency.

Mr. Bradlaugh began taking active part in public affairs at the early age of fourteen, during the height of the Chartist movement in England. Meetings were held every Sunday in the fields, and the speakers—generally from among the working classes—discussed with great warmth all the important theological and political questions that were then stirring the subjects of the Queen. Young Bradlaugh was at the time a member of the Church of England, and a teacher in the Sunday-school. While preparing to be confirmed by the Bishop or London, he wrote to the clergyman of his parish, begging for an explanation of certain discrepancies which he thought existed between the Thirty-nine Articles and the Four Gospels. His letter was not answered, but the young thinker's parents were at once informed by the bigoted clergyman that their son was an Atheist. He was suspended from duty in the Sunday-school, and with his one day of rest entirely at his own disposal, he began to take part in the public discussions then so common. At first he spoke on the orthodox Christian side, but finding that his views were becoming more and more tinged with free thought, he joined the ranks of the Skeptics, and little by little drifted into Atheism.

In 1840 he became a teetotaler. This, to the parish minister, was a crime fully equal to that of denying the existence of a God; and with no loss of time, and with his blood warmed with generous wine—so-called—he called upon the boy's employer and secured his discharge. Thrown upon the world for a living—for his parents were poor— young Bradlaugh now entered the lecture-field in earnest. He talked on temperance, and was warmly greeted by thousands.

His oratorical powers attracted crowded audiences, and when he began to debate with wellknown churchmen and learned theologians on questions touching the authenticity of the Scriptures, on the divinity of Christ, and on the existence of a Supreme Being, the halls in which he held forth proved too small to accommodate the throngs who came to hear him.

Until 1850 he had advanced towards his extreme views only as far as Deism; but in that year, after having been bitterly denounced by the Rev. Dr. Campbell in a long leading article in the British Banner , he announced himself as an Atheist, and fought for his opinions with a courage and skill worthy of a better cause.

After failing to make a fortune at the coal trade, into which he entered about this time, and finding himself miserably poor, with too much pride to borrow, and too much true manliness to do a dishonest act, he enlisted in the army, and served three years as a private soldier in Ireland. On returning to civil life, with a small legacy left him by an aunt, he again began to write and speak, occupying his leisure hours in the study of the languages, including Hebrew.

His lectures and articles gave much offense to the authorities, and sometimes created great alarm lest the populace might, taking a step beyond the teachings of their young leader, resort to violence in order to gain their usurped rights. In 1855 he gave evidence before the Royal Commission ordered by the House of Commons to consider the right of the people to hold meetings in Hyde Park. At the conclusion of his testimony against the authorities, the President of the Commission, the Right Hon. Stuart Wortley, publicly thanked him, and the people lustily cheered him for the manner in which he had denied the right of Sir Richard Mayne to forbid the Park meetings. Two or three times his lectures were prevented by the police. In 1860 he lectured under some difficulty at Wigan, the resident clergy having actually incited the populace to physical violence. “I visited Wigan frequently afterward,” said Mr. Bradlaugh, a few days ago to a friend “and so improved the manner of the people, that I am now a welcome speaker there. I could not improve the manners of the clergy, but that was their misfortune, not my fault.”

Early in 1861 he went to Guernsey, in consequence of an attempt made by the Government to punish for blasphemy a gentleman who had distributed some of his pamphlets. They did not attempt to prosecute Bradlaugh, although he challenged them to do it; but on the evening of the lecture the authorities gave liquor and leave of absence to the garrison there, on condition that they would drive the speaker out. Yet he lectured in spite of them. Just after this he was arrested at Plymouth. He was locked up all night, bail having been refused; and in the morning he was tried before seven judges, on the charge of exciting a breach of the peace. Two lawyers appeared to prosecute him, but after a three-days’ trial several Nonconformists, finding that Bradlaugh's witnesses were to be thrown out because they did not believe in a hell, came forward and testified in his behalf. The result was a triumphant acquittal.

Bradlaugh delivered his lecture the same day from an open boat in the River Tamar, his hearers lining the banks and applauding to the echo, and the authorities standing by powerless to prevent, as the speaker was on the Devonport side, and beyond the jurisdiction of Plymouth. Bradlaugh opened suit against the police authorities for illegal arrest, and he won the case; but as the jury awarded him only one farthing damages, he carried it to the court in baneo , where he argued it for two days, the judges sustaining the decision of the lower court.

In March, 1868, the Disraeli Government called upon Mr. Bradlaugh to give sureties in the sum of £800 against blasphemous or seditious libel in his paper, but he refused to comply, and was ordered to stop it. Instead of obeying, he issued the next number in due time, printing over the title: “Published in Defiance of Her Majesty's Government.”

He was at once summoned to answer for contempt, but he argued his own case, and the Government let the affair drop. When the Gladstone Government came in, they prosecuted him, but he beat them again, and then the obnoxious statute requiring sureties was repealed.

This was a great victory, as it broke the shackles binding the Press of Great Britain, and established the right of free speech. Another victory gained by this one man over the mighty Government or Great Britain was in forcing the repeal of the statute denying the competency of a witness who did not believe in a God, and in a future state of rewards and punishments.

Mr. Bradlaugh is now lecturing to crowded houses on “Republicanism in Europe,” and “The Irish Question as viewed by an Englishman.” He will not touch the subject of religion while in this country. His success on the night of October 3d, at Steinway Hall, was most flattering, and the manly way in which he silenced a clerical gentleman who grossly insulted him established him at once in the minds of his audience as a man who could easily take care of himself.

BLUE VERSUS GRAY.

“C ONGRATULATE me, dearest! Papa's consent has at length been won, and Thursday six weeks has been fixed upon for my wedding, which, of course, will be a military one. I expect to be totally obscured with so many charming girls eager to usher me into a new era of life and happiness, and six gallant soldiers to perform the same office to my hus. Beware, chèrie , for, according to Oscar, Colonel Bernard, who is to be your groomsman, is perfection's self perfected. Blue eyes, melting in their own sweetness, or flashing ineffable scorn, may flash once too often, and droop conquered and submissive beneath those belonging to him whom I predict your Fate. I know he must be the style of genus homo you most admire. Do come to me on Saturday. I shall be so disappointed if you fail me. Au revoir .

“Lovingly, yours,

EDITH MARTON.”

“LOCUST LAWN, Tuesday morning.

“MA PETITE—Your little scrap has but just reached me, and was eagerly welcomed. I will be with you on Saturday, and long for the day to come. How can I give you into the keeping of that great six-footer, to whom, by-the-way, present all due respects. I am delighted to learn my groomsman is so fascinating. Doubtless, owing to my extreme susceptibility, I shall pine away in the hereafter, having found in him my ideal of the one whom I could ‘love, honor and obey,’ and he failing to cherish me, exactly in the same manner, leaves me the victim to unrequited! Adieu until Saturday.

“Yours,

MARION GRAY.”

To describe the writer of the letter just penned would be to give no just idea of her beauty or character. That she was beautiful, none could deny, and when with the sun or gaslight gleaming on the wealth of golden hair, her dark-blue eyes sparkling as she uttered a gay repartee, or for a moment deepening into shadow, yet brilliant with the unshed tear at another's grief, you could not withdraw your eyes, fearing that the perfect vision might escape you. In character, none would have called her perfect. Yet to know Marion Gray was to love her, willful little coquette as she was. Even women acknowledged her sceptre, and allowed her to wield it most royally.

The few days intervening between that marked by the date of the all-important letter and the still more exciting hour of departure rapidly rolled away, and with a parting kiss, and last tender injunction from the doting father, she sprang into the train, which soon pursued its lightning course, bearing with it at least one happy girlish heart. “Oh, how stifling!” was her inward comment as she vainly strove to raise the window, aside which some gouty individual had previously taken his seat.

“Can I assist you?” were the commonplace words addressed her, and yet something in the tone made her glance upward as she uttered the necessitated “Thank you!” A pair of dark-gray eyes, lighting strangely the handsome face, met hers, and unconsciously the dark-blue fell; then peeping again from the long lashes fringing the cheek, she saw that the stranger was an officer.

“One of Major Howard's friends, perhaps,” she thought; “or, who knows, perchance my Fate!” and the bright smile parted the full cherry lips, disclosing the tiny pearls within.

New York, the great metropolis, soon was reached, for Miss Gray's country home, situated not far from it bustle, nestled in all its beauty amidst the Highlands.

As the two girls met in warm embrace, Edith Marton suddenly and delightedly exclaimed:

“Why, Colonel Bernard, how glad I am to see you! Will you not accept a seat with us? Miss Gray, Colonel Bernard.”

A bow recognizing the introduction, and then the same frank, manly tones, “Thank you, no; I am not presentable at present, but will see you ladies this evening. I shall probably find Oscar at the hotel. You are looking charmingly, Miss Marton.”

“No flattery, colonel! it is no longer allowable. But au revoir until this evening;” and the spirited horses, prancing impatiently, were soon dashing along the avenue.

Is not a bride always beautiful? Certainly Edith Marton was no exception as she stood at the altar beside her hero. But no less lovely was the first of the six charming girls gathered round her. On that, her friend's wedding night, Marion Gray was utterly bewitching. Evidently Colonel Bernard thought thus as she leant upon his arm. For the few weeks preceding the ceremony they had been thrown constantly together, and Edith, quietly looking on, had little doubt as to the result at first laughingly predicted. As the words, “Love, honor and obey,” tremblingly yet lovingly fell from the lips of the fair bride. Marion Gray, unconsciously almost to herself, echoed in spirit the phrase she had a few short weeks before so jestingly written, “My ideal of the one whom I could ‘love, honor and obey.’” Even at the thought, a scarlet flush mounted to cheek and brow, and Colonel Bernard, glancing downward, gained therefrom fresh hope, and determined that he must speak. Finally extricating themselves from the mass of congratulating friends surrounding the bridal party, he proposed that they should seek a moment's quiet, to which Marion readily acquiesced, for she was weary with excitement.

Strolling into one of the conservatories, and standing under the luxuriant growth of grapevine and tropical plant, weaned from their native clime, Colonel Bernard broke silence:

“Marion, I cannot speak idle words, for my heart is burning, almost bursting, with what can no longer be hid from you. Need I tell you that I love you as a man can love but once; that you are all the world to me? Darling, will you share a soldier's life?”

And the eager, passionate tones thrilled Marion Gray's soul, as none other had ever done. Glancing upwards, half shyly, half confidingly, she met his eye, lighting up and sparkling, eagerly waiting for her answer, and she knew she loved him. Yet no answer came, but, placing her little hand in his, he felt that he had won his wife.

Army rules are unrelenting, and ere long Harry Bernard left his parting kiss upon the brow of his betrothed—a seal that she was given into his keeping, to be guarded lovingly for ever.

What was it prompted her request that the engagement should be kept secret until he came again?—a request which he complies with, though for a moment a dark cloud hovers o'er his face, but which the better nature of the man soon scatters. Yet so it was, and Marion Gray, seemingly heartfree, is pitiless to her many victims. Three months quickly pass away in a whirl of gayety and excitement, and scarcely more had sped since Marion bade her brave lover God-speed.

But good news has reached her on this bright morn in early Winter. His regiment is to be quartered at one of the posts surrounding the city, when he can see her daily. There will be no more separation, for when again he is ordered away he will not go alone. So he writes, and so she believes.

It is her birthday night? Eighteen Summers have perfected the beauty of her glorious womanhood. Her father's handsome home is thrown open to their host of friends, that they may acknowledge his triumph in the possession of so priceless a treasure, a jewel the wealth of the Indies could not purchase; yet he who had won it for his own stands apart, and a shadow rests upon his brow. Surely his betrothed is beautiful enough for any king; and never did gay repartee and sparkling jest flow more readily than when she, the centre of the group of officers surrounding her, charmed all with her loveliness. Amongst these was one you could not fail to notice in a great crowd; one who, though gloriously handsome as Apollo, you shrank intuitively from; yet it is upon the arm of this man Marion leans, as the band begins the inspiriting waltz; it is his arm which encircles her as they whirl into the dance, a very perfection of motion; and the shadow grows deeper, even settling into gloom and sternness, on the face of Harry Bernard.

“Miss Gray, I am broken-hearted this evening. A strange tale has reached me,” were words spoken in the quiet but peculiarly fascinating tone of the man on whose shoulder the tiny hand rested.

“Indeed, Major Hartly, I am glad you told me, that I may be prepared with any amount of sympathy. Pray what has Dame Rumor now in circulation, to cause so disastrous an event as the loss of something which, I believe, she condescends to agree with all of Major Hartly's friends does not exist?”

“Do not be satirical, Miss Gray. I cannot bear it. Frankly, I heard that you were engaged to Colonel Bernard. Is it so?”

Who could resist those whispered words? Oh, man! ever conscious of your power, ever reckless in your self-conceit, have you no mercy upon a woman's heart? Is it so trivial a thing that you may use it at your pleasure and then toss it, rudderless and wrecked, to drift and perish on the sea of life? What evil spirit prompted Marion Gray's reply:

I engaged, Major Hartly! Really, Dame Rumor must for once be voted wrong. Do not broach such a thing to Colonel Bernard. It would place us in too ridiculous a light. Please deny it for me. How charmingly you dance!”

“I feel as though I might dance for ever with so fair a partner. And you have given me glad good news. But here comes Colonel Bernard to seek you—‘Speak of the angels,’ etc. Yet, one word. Patti is to be at the Academy this week. May I be allowed to escort you, as at least one of many?

“Many thanks. I should be most happy. Ah! colonel, have you come to claim your dance? Excuse me, Major Hartly;” and she took the other's arm.

“Marion, I am in no mood for dancing. Come, take a little stroll in one of the conservatories with me. I wish to speak to you.”

“Oh, Harry, no. The music is so fascinating, and I would rather dance with you than any man in the room. Don't be so cruel.”

“I must beg you will gratify me now. I cannot dance. Don't ask it.”

And frightened at his strange expression—almost one of suffering—the girl, with all her willfulness, said no more in opposition.

“Marion, my darling!” were the words with which he broke the stillness of the room into which they had wandered, “I must make of you one request. I overheard you to-night promise Major Hartly that he should have the privilege of escorting you on Thursday evening. For my sake break any such engagement, not because it is my right, but for many reasons. It almost made me mad to see that man's arm around you. That is my prerogative alone, darling, and, believe me, I prize it too highly to see it lightly valued.”

“Harry, how strange you are to-night! As though I had committed a heinous crime in whirling through a waltz with Major Hartly! He dances delightfully, and is, in my opinion, quite charming. I cannot refuse his polite offer for Thursday evening, now that I have given my consent.”

“Marion, it is not according to our code of honor to speak ill of a brother-officer, and so far as man meeting man, I have no word to utter against Major Hartly; but my promised wife shall not be seen with him in any public place!”

“’ Shall not ’ are words to which I am unaccustomed, Colonel Bernard—nay, more; which I will not hear. I have pledged my word, and I would scorn to break it on such pretense. Major Hartly is received by all our friends, and your scruples are absurd. Shall we resume the dance?”

“Marion Gray, do you not know me better? Will you persist in acting in direct opposition to my wishes? Yet I will not be harsh, little one? Darling, I would ask you nothing unreasonable, but do not let this man come between us.”

“I did not know that Colonel Bernard would stoop to jealousy!”

“It is not jealousy, and you well know I would trust you as my life, or what to me is dearer still, my honor; but, Marion, forgive me, darling, when I tell you that in this case you must not act contrary to my wishes.”

“Colonel your language is unjustifiable. Willingly will I release you from the slightest feeling concerning it. But our absence will be noted.”

“Willingly, do you say? You will cancel our engagement because you cannot once give up your wishes, for my happiness and your own , if you would but acknowledge it! Have you so little heart?”

“I cannot submit to dictation, and now know that such a course is better for us both.”

“Is our engagement at an end, then, Marion? For it cannot last if you will still persist; but, oh! my darling, think one moment before taking so rash a step. God knows how hard it would be for me to bear—almost beyond my strength;” and the broken, passionate tones thrilled and made quiver every nerve of the girl standing in that little bower of luxuriant fragrance. Yet no sign of weakness betrayed her, and with unfaltering voice she replied:

“We are, then, both free. Allow me to congratulate you, and pardon me, Colonel Barnard, if I extend the congratulation a little further. Will you be kind enough to take me back to mamma? I am engaged for the next dance.”

Not for four long and wearisome hours could Marion Gray throw off the mask she had worn so gracefully, and alone battle with her own heart. And then her strength seemed scarcely equal to the self-imposed task, and sob after sob racked and seemed to rend her very soul. Bitterly did she repent of her rashness, and even Harry Bernard, pacing his room with firm, measured tread, but with an agony of suffering depicted on brow and in eye, would have been moved to pity, and sought a reconciliation.

But the beautiful features of the girl bore no trace of the night's passionate sorrow, as, leaning on Major Hartly's arm, she entered the box at the opera. A buzz of admiration ran through the house at her exquisite loveliness.

“By Jove! but she is pretty!” was the exclamation of a young lieutenant of cavalry, seated with a group of brother-officers in an opposite box. “I must get an introduction. Hartly is a lucky fellow. I heard that Bernard, the unimpressible, was gone beyond hope, but he seems to be cut out. He's too good a fellow for that!”

“Hush your nonsense, Fred! Harry Bernard will be cut out by no other man. I wouldn't care to contend against him in a woman's favor, and I flatter myself the ordinary amount of self-conceit men possess I can claim with equal right;” and the handsome captain tugged at his mustache and took another look at his fair vis-à-vis .

Once she, too, glanced at the box where so often she had met a quick, delighted glance of welcome, followed almost momentarily by a presence at her side. A place to-night was vacant. So she had hoped, she told herself; and yet a little feeling of disappointment caused the color to mantle her cheek and brow. The curtain rose, and deafening shouts of applause welcomed the sweet songstress, as she gracefully received all homage as her due. Showers of bouquets fell round her, and the house could scarce restrain its enthusiasm even to attend to that which called it forth.

At the close of the first act, as the curtain fell amidst a second rain of flowers, Marion again almost unconsciously glanced towards his accustomed seat. Ah! that he were there to have heard the passionate plea for forgivenenss which the heroine had but just uttered! And he was there , quiet, firm and seemingly unconscious of her presence. But there was magnetism in her glance, their eyes met, and, as once before, the dark-blue fell. For a moment only had that look rested, yet each had pierced the other's innermost soul.

“We were talking of you only a moment before you entered, Bernard. How charmingly Miss Gray is looking this evening!”

“She is, indeed; but I am going home early to-night, and believe, boys, I will say good-night. Take care Patti does not inveigle you too deeply. Women are dangerous things, ignorant even of the theory of truth. Au revoir! ” and he has gone.

But, Marion, who had caused the utterance of that bitter sophistry, sat there till the end, drinking in the music, and seeking to find therein some comfort —some rest; but none dreamt that night of the struggle in her heart.

Weeks passed. She and Colonel Bernard met constantly in parlor and drawing-room; but with the exception of a few cold words of formal greeting and farewell, they were as strangers.

Major Hartly was her constant companion, so that she was hardly surprised when, one day in early Spring, he had told her of his love, and asked her to be his wife. Ah! blame her not too severely, merciless critics, that, with a wild, ungovernable love for another raging in her heart, she promised to be his. She felt that with Harry Bernard the past had sealed all hope for the future. She reasoned that he was tyrannical and overbearing—yet felt conscious that he was not. She told this man she did not love him as she ought; but, proud in his egotism, he was assured that the fascination he exercised over her would deepen into love; for, in his own selfish way, he cared for her; but his love was as a drop of water to the ocean's might, when weighed in the balance with that which she had so ruthlessly thrown aside.

Yet her proud heart was almost breaking, unknown to herself. She was longing once again to have his arm around her, and, with her head resting low upon his shoulder, to tell him all she had suffered —to feel again his warm, passionate kisses—in fact, to be Harry Bernard's wife.

But, poor, weak girl—weak in her very pride— she thought to bury all by rushing recklessly into a sin exceeding all—a promise even to the man against whom her lover had warned her. Would he have done so without reason? But she had decided on her course, and so she told him when, on that bright morning, he came for his answer. But, as he clasped her in his arms, and kissed her, how the nobler nature of the girl revolted, and rose in rebellion at the unnatural sacrifice she was making; and she saw, as if by inspiration, the gulf of despair yawning beneath her feet, and into which she had wellnigh plunged. Tearing herself from his embrace, she rose eagerly, her slight frame trembling as a reed shaken by the wind, and bade him go.

“I cannot love you, Major Hartly, now or ever,” she said. “For the wrong I have done you, I pray forgiveness, hardly hoping it may be granted. But God knows I have suffered sufficiently for my folly. Do not make it harder than I can bear.” And, burying her face in her hands, she gave way to a burst of grief, that for a moment softened the heart of the man before her. But he could not understand her—he could not see the battling for the right within her—his baser instinct only beheld the prize he had almost clutched fading from him, and he powerless to retain it.

Yet, not so easily should he be cheated of that which he had sought and so nearly won; and, clasping her tiny hands as in a vice, he swore by the Eternal he would not resign her; she should be his. Ah! Ralph Hartly, for once you have taken the wrong part—not thus can the proud nature be brought to bend.

“Go!” she said. “Let me see you no more. For God's sake and your own honor, spare me further.”

“Ah,” was his answer—and the bitter, taunting tones fell like scathing iron upon her heart—“I see it all; I am the dupe—the victim of a heartless flirt, who loves another! Yes, even—–”

“Colonel Bernard,” was the haughty reply; “yes, I love him! Your are right, for his was the name you were about to speak. I will not hear it, though, and I feel you have canceled all my wrongdoing. We are quits now, Major Hartly. Leave me.”

He saw all was in vain, and, vowing vengeance, the door closed upon him. Going directly to the Club, he drank deeply, and lost heavily at cards. Excited almost to madness, and some one casually mentioning Miss Gray's name, he forgot himself— his honor as a man and a gentleman—and half betrayed what should have rested with him to his grave. But, only half betrayed; for, Harry Bernard entering the room, gained the import of his words, and springing forward, his face of an ashy paleness, his dark eyes dilating with their depth of feeling, he struck the other with his glove. Forgetful that his was no longer the right, forgetful that she, whom he now so bravely defended, had embittered his whole life, he thought only of his all-exceeding love for her, and out of the depth of that he spoke.

“God will judge between us, Ralph Hartly, who is best worthy to live; but one of us must die. Gentlemen, fortunately the club-room is almost deserted, and those I see beside me are my brothers-in-arms. I need not, therefore, ask that this affair be hushed. Of course my resignation will be necessary, but that can soon be arranged. I shall meet Major Ralph Hartly when and where he will. All may be left to him, and I shall be happy to hear from him at any time, or must post him as a liar and a coward!

That afternoon Marion sat in her own room, worn out with the suffering she had experienced, when a note was handed her, sealed with Harry Bernard's signet-ring. It ran thus:

“Your name has been slightingly uttered this morning in a public club-room—the name of her whom once I hoped to call my wife! Forgetful for the moment that that dear hope was no longer mine, nor regretting for an instant that I did so forget, I sprang forward and confronted the base slayer of a confidence which we will both regret ever was bestowed. One week from to-day we are to fight. When this note is handed you, I shall be en route to Canada. These may be my last words to you, so let me unbare my heart, let me once more believe you, my own, my beautiful! Should I fall, my darling, your name will be the last upon my lips, and a blessing and prayer for you in my heart. Forgive me if I seemed harsh, even as I have forgiven the wrong you did me. If he whose name I cannot speak lies smitten to the ground by my right hand, I shall go abroad, to remain probably many years. America is full of bitter memories to me; but in either case, in spirit, I kiss you, my own, for the last time. Let me linger on it long; and, oh! my precious, priceless Marion, God be with you!

HARRY BERNARD.”

A shriek of agony, and the paper fell from the girl's hands. For long hours she lay unconscious. For many days did the shadow of death hover near, and tender watchers by her bedside thought often to see the flame of life flicker and die. But God was merciful, and slowly she was restored to life and reason.

“Is he safe?” were her first words of returning consciousness; and at the blessed assurance that he was, she sank into a tranquil sleep, and the crisis was passed.

Not till long after was she able to hear of the great cause she had to be thankful—that Ralph Hartly, coward to the last, had fired before the time, wounding his opponent, so that his pistol went off at random, thus sparing him the sin of murder. At first his wound was thought fatal; but he, too, recovered; and during the long, weary days of convalescence both had time for thought and reason.

And as Harry lay watching the sinking sun at the close of one unusually long afternoon, his valet handed him a letter, and respectfully retired.

Very dainty was the monogram, very delicate the superscription, yet it had power strangely to move the man so proud of his strength and firmness. Breaking open the seal, he read these words:

“HARRY—With my whole heart I plead for pardon. Come back to me, my darling. Do not refuse my prayer.

MARION.”

This was all, but he needed nothing more. Not caring for the world's verdict, nor regarding its cold charity, he gladly took back to his heart—ever firm to its allegiance—the willful, erring girl, shielding her for all future time with his own brave nobility; and, folding her tenderly in his arms, he sealed the kiss of forgiveness and forgetfulness upon her brow.

SCENE AT A COUNTRY FAIR.

W E all know the picture presented by a country fair, for we have all witnessed it. Who is there that, in some time of his boyhood, at least, has not strolled through the country fair, and gazed, open-eyed, at its wonders? And those days will never be forgotten, however much the latter time of life is crowded with events. It was the great feature of the early Fall. The farmer, for months before, dreamed of possible prizes in store for him, and examined daily, with keen anxiety, the condition of his favorite pumpkins. The small-boy, softly whistling to himself as he drove the cattle home, counted the pennies he had already saved for the fair, and wondered what the horse-race would be like. Coy maidens selected their prettiest ribbons, with which to tie up their “bonny brown hair,” and mused upon just such untranslatable things as the combination of a country fair and a young girl's mind will produce. Up at the village, where the creaking, weather-beaten sign told of good cheer within, there gathered nightly about the stove those whose homely talk was of pigs and fowls, horses and calves, mowing-machines and the sharp-edged scythe. Blazing upon the wall, glorious in heavy head-line of red, was the racing programme; and, as the converse waxed fast and furious upon the respective merits of pacing mares, many were the wagers laid. Everywhere, for miles around, the fair was the sole topic of conversation, the sole fountain of thought.

And it is of just some such a fair that we give a sketch this week. The artist has been particularly happy in his penciling, and has deftly caught the most salient features of the scene. It is a keen character sketch, the like of which may be seen in almost any New York village during fair-week. Look with what a critical observation the old ladies are examining the quilting-work on exhibition! They may have contributed specimens of their own handicraft in that line, and it behooves them to see how their chances stand. The group of farmers seem to be more interested in the samples of apple-jack; and we could wager, from the lurking twinkle in their eyes, that, were their good dames not around, they would not be averse to passing judgment upon its merits. The others passing before the tables are those people that we always meet at fairs, whose presence goes far to make it the lively, bustling scene that it usually is.

THE ARKANSAS BETHESDA.

OUR GREAT SOUTHWESTERN HOT SPRINGS.

P UBLIC attention is beginning to be directed towards the hot springs of Arkansas. So far they are but little known, but the wonderful cures that they are rumored to have effected will undoubtedly produce for them a world-wide fame, and it is not at all improbable that in the more or less remote future the primitive village of Hot Springs will become one of the chief Spas of the American continent.

It is only of late years that the Springs have been readily accessible. Time was when the journey had to be made from Memphis by boat, down the Mississippi, and up the Arkansas. But since the building of the Cairo and Fulton Railway, the best route from New York is by way of St. Louis; the shortest by Vincennes, Ind., and Cairo, Ill. Then you take the cars at Little Rock and proceed to Malvern, whence the route is by stage to the Springs, a distance of twenty-three miles. The fare is about fifty dollars, and the time occupied seventy hours.

The village boasts a continuously resident population of six hundred, which number is increased by about fifteen hundred invalids during the season, extending from May to October. The earliest white settlement was made there sixty-eight years ago by a Frenchman named Jean Prudhomme. He built a cabin, tilled a few acres of ground, and then abdicated in favor of James Percival. In 1812, the invalid planters of the vicinity were wont to visit the Springs, but beyond that there seems to have been no knowledge of their efficacy. Since then the popularity of the place has slowly grown, and as an evidence of the fact it is only necessary to mention that in this year, since June 1st, there have been 12,000 visitors. No one seems to own the land, the ownership, if there be any, being obscured by a cloud of litigation arising from cross-claims between a score of people, and their united fighting of a claim which the United States has put in for the possession of the land. The village contains about a dozen ordinary inns, and about forty boarding-houses, while nearly every family turns the necessary penny by quartering the visitors. Says the Tribune : “The climate is reported as very salubrious at all seasons, the mercury ranging from about 30 degrees in Winter to 85 and 90 degrees in Summer —the latter being an extreme. The hottest part of the day is from ten to three o'clock, during which feeble patients are not allowed to expose themselves to the sun for fear of fever and ague. The nights and early mornings are invariably cool and refreshing in consequence of the elevation, 1,600 feet above the sea-level.”

The Springs are on the western slope of a mountain, within an area of 50 acres, and 54 in number, varying in temperature from 100 degrees to 160 degrees, Fahrenheit, and discharging 320 gallons per minute, or more than 460,000 gallons every 24 hours. The quantity discharged differs at all the Springs, which are, however, qualitatively allied. The waters do not depend on their heat alone for efficacy; they contain carbonates of the alkalies and alkaline earth, which, possessing active eliminative agency, produce valuable alterative effects in chronic diseases. The diseases particularly benefited are those of the skin, scrofulous ulcerations, glandular enlargements, debility, or prostration from long sickness, neuralgia, gout, dyspepsia, lead palsy, spinal and nervous affections, muscular contractions, partial paralysis, St. Vitus's dance, uterine troubles, syphilis, stiff joints, and diarrhea, ophthalmia and liver complaint in chronic form. The diseases not benefited are bronchial and pulmonary, affections of the heart and brain, determination of blood to the head, or any apoplectic tendency, dropsy, and aneurism of any of the larger vessels. The waters are regarded as a specific for neuralgia, rheumatism, syphilis, and chronic ailments generally not mentioned as exceptional. Sufferers from partial paralysis have often been permanently cured, and greatly helped in most cases in which the disease arose from other than apoplectic causes.

Chemical analysis, frequently made, show the waters to be composed of silicates with base of bicarbonate of lime, bicarbonate of magnesia, carbonate of soda, carbonate of potash, alumina with oxide of iron, sulphate of magnesia, chloride of magnesia, sulphate of lime, arseniate of lime with traces of bromine and iodine. The Springs are completely impregnated with free carbonic acid.

THE MANHATTAN MARKET.

T HE company by which this immense domestic depot was erected was chartered by the Legislature of 1870. On Washington's Birthday, 1872, the corner-stone was laid with interesting ceremonies, Mayor Hall and Rev. Dr. Osgood participating. The building is at the foot of West Thirty-fourth Street, and rests upon no less than 3,000 piles. It is 800 feet long by 200 wide, and is surmounted by a tower that may be seen from a distance of several miles. Over 600,000 slates and 25,000 sheets of tm were required to cover the roof. The square upon which it is built is one acre in extent.

From these figures it will appear that the Manhattan Market is the largest structure of its kind in the world. To up-town residents it has proved a great convenience; and the necessity for the erection of a first-class market so far from the lower part of the city is the same as that which has insured the success of other commercial enterprises that constituted the “up-town movement.”

JOHN T. IRVING,

THE CONFESSED PARTICIPANT IN THE NATHAN
MURDER.

I NTELLIGENCE was received several weeks ago that one John T. Irving had confessed to a participation in the murder of Mr. Benjamin Nathan in July, 1870, to Mr. Crowly. Chief of the San Francisco police force. Captain Irving and Detective Dusenbury, of the Central Office in this city, were sent to California to arrest the man, although many of the officials believed the confession was merely a scheme on the part of Irving to secure a free trip East.

On Thursday morning, October 9th, Irving reached New York in custody of the officers named, and was locked up in a strong cell at Police Headquarters. Although no representatives of the Press were permitted to see the prisoner, the “confession,” as made in San Francisco, with some additions, is substantially as follows:

The men engaged in the murder were himself, Dan Kelly, William Forrester, and William F. Carr. George Ellis was to have formed one of the party, but previous to the murder, was arrested in the Twentieth Precinct, and sentenced to the State Prison for the robbery of S. Migel's jewelry store. The object was robbery, not murder, and none were interested in the success of the venture except those mentioned. Forrester gained access to the house during the daytime, concealed himself in the cellar, and waited for night to come. When the time came he opened the door of the basement for Kelly and Carr, who entered. Irving remained outside, watching the police. Forrester, Kelly and Carr went upstairs, entered the room, stole the studs, watch, money, and safe-key from Mr. Nathan's clothes, and then opened the sale in the adjoining room. Startled by the noise, Nathan rushed to the door, and grappled with Kelly, who, holding the “dog” in his hand, struck the banker down. Then the safe was ransacked, and, leaving the body of the murdered man on the floor, the murderers crept out of the hall-door into the street, and rejoined Irving. He received for his share $10,000 in bonds, which were in the sale, and a memorandum-book. The watch was pawned in Abraham Goodman's, No. 31 Centre Street, on the morning after the murder, and was subsequently redeemed. Irving claims to be able to produce both watch and bonds.

Captain Kennedy, of the Sixth Precinct, gained valuable information about these parties, which will explain the mystery of the “dog.”

Jones, who was better known as “Nick” Jones, was a man of social habits and generous disposition. He worked as a ship-calker in the Brooklyn Navy Yard from 1866, and usually, in the evening, went to a saloon called “The Senate,” then on the corner of East Broadway and Grand Street. In 1869 and 1870 this saloon was a headquarters for John T. Irving and two other desperate burglars named Willie T. Carr and Dan Kelly. Jones became acquainted with them, not knowing them to be thieves, and frequently accompanied them to the different saloons in the neighborhood. Early in 1870 all four had been drinking heavily, and Jones asked the three others to his house in Stanton Street. While there Dan Kelly saw a “dog” lying among Jones's other tools, and picking it up said: “I'd like to have this; will you give it to me?” Jones said, “Certainly, take it along,” and Kelly did so. This was the “dog” used in the murder of Mr. Nathan, and according to the story which Irving will tell, it was used by Kelly. After the murder, Jones, afraid to speak, yet having the terrible burden on his conscience, fell sick, and died in January, 1872.

Irving is said to have been a professional thief for about twenty years. He has served a term of nine years in Sing-Sing. The Forrester mentioned above is the person brought from Joliet Prison, Illinois, to New York to make a confession about the crime; but in consequence of failing to obtain a pardon from that institution, which he had entered for a long term of service, he refused to reveal the secret.

ILMA DI MURSKA.

A LMOST unheralded by preliminary praise and precessive eulogy, Madamoiselle or Madame Ilma di Murska—which style we may have to give her we neither know nor care—made her first appearance on Tuesday night, October 7th. It was at the Grand Opera House, and under the baton of Mr. Maretzek, in Bellini's “Sonnambula.” The house which greeted a vocalist so well known and valued in Europe was singularly thin. Yet, thin as that house was in number, her success was a positive and unprecedented one. There was no doubt about it. Her first aria settled all question of her standing as a singer. From it until the close of the opera, she increased the impression which that aria had made.

We call her success “unprecedented” for two reasons. The first is, that for many years we have never had any leading vocalist introduced to the public without the blatant heralding of the puff-bugle. The second is, that in the whole of her musical experience, no singer of her own class has ever equaled or even rivaled her . She stands decidedly alone. The affluence, brilliancy and originality of her musical ornament are superb. From Persiani to Carlotta Patti, no vocalist we have ever listened to has approached her in these respects. All of them have had one or two arias , on which their reputation has been built. Ornamental and florid they might be in their general execution, but these were seemingly a studied necessity to dazzle the public with. Murska dazzles her hearers with everything she sings. But, in addition to this, none of the great vocalists in her own line, who have preceded her, or been her contemporaries, have even touched her quality in the feeling which she combines with the marvelous flexibility of her voice, and the fluent ease and precision with which she develops it. This feeling necessarily lacks the breadth and fullness which characterize the delivery of the more purely dramatic soprano . The florid wealth of her execution somewhat vails it. She, however, posseses it, and for the first time, a voice may be heard on our stage which is supreme in its ornamental facility, without rendering its possessor absolutely incapable of the exhibition of some amount of soul.

Of course, she has faults—or, rather, she lacks that, which if she possessed, would deprive her of the capability of vocal embellishment to the extent which she possesses.

The voice of Ilma di Murska is not as sensuously round and rich in quality as many of the great dramatic soprani we have heard. This is a matter of necessity for her style of vocalization; but it is neither hard nor thin in its timbre . Its delicacy is by no means cold or chilly. The best proof of this may be shown by the fact that the small audience which received her on her first appearance were literally carried out of themselves. Their applause was a perfect frenzy, not proceeding from the outskirts of the house, but from every part of it. There was no claque , after the fashion of all well-regulated operatic theatres, because all present were wild with surprise and enthusiasm.

We might have hesitated in writing of Murska's début as unqualifiedly as we have done, had we only heard her in the opera in which she at first appeared. We might have fancied the Sonnambula the best, perhaps the only example of her superior qualities as a singer which she could offer us. But on October 9th she appeared in Donizetti's “Lucia di Lammermoor”—this time to a crowded house, more unusually critical than the first had been. Those who had heard her had slept off the strong edge of their first astonishment; those who had not heard her had come, in many cases, with the amiable intention of showing those who had, they were not such fools as to give the new singer so exalted a rank as these had done. The same enthusiasm as that which had attended her first appearance, or an even wilder one, marked this. Her Lucia was even more marvelous in its singular originality and abundance of vocal ornament and the subtle feeling which gleamed through the wealth of audible glitter. A more declared and emphatic triumph we have never heard upon any stage, and Ilma di Murska has taken rank with the sufficiently few great operatic “stars” who have visited this country during the last quarter of a century. In the present week it is the intention of the management to give us Lucca and Murska on the same nights in the same operas. Verdi's “Trovatore” and Mozart's “Zauberflotte” have been mentioned, and when we publish this will probably be announced. The different qualities of the two singers, and their being thus brought together, must render this week a decidedly memorable one in the operatic annals of New York.

PICTORIAL SPIRIT OF THE EUROPEAN
ILLUSTRATED PRESS.

SPAIN.—CARTAGENA—INSURGENTS AT THE
SCHOOL OF THE MARINE GUARDS.

Unhappy Cartagena still continues in a demoralized state. The insurgents hold the town at this writing, and return with a vigorous fire the bombardment to which they are subjected. Our picture represents the scene in front of the School of the Marine Guards during an engagement. Along the quay are ranged the guns, which are being rapidly worked, while in the foreground are the mortars. It is merely an artillery fight, for we see the men of the musket lounging around as idle spectators. Probably by the time the paper reaches our readers other startling changes will have taken place, as the map of the war in Spain is one subject to much mutation.

FRANCE.—THE EVACUATION—PURIFYING THE
STREETS OF VERDUN WITH FIRE.

As soon as the Germans had gotten out of Verdun, the joy of the inhabitants was almost indescribable, and found vent in a storm of cheers and a sea of tricolor bunting. Then they gathered the sentry-boxes occupied by the Prussians and burned them. Our sketch represents what they were pleased to call the purifying fire. No sooner had the last Uhlan passed through the city gate, than all the straw they left behind was piled in little heaps in the streets, and set ablaze. This may have been rather childish work, but finds some excuse in the mercurial nature of the people. The middle figure represents one of the local revenue collectors; the others are inhabitants dressed as ordinary people.

TRANSPORTATION OF PRISONERS OF WAR BY
  THE RUSSIANS TO FRONTIER FORTRESSES.

This last act of the Khivan drama was lately performed, as may be seen from our engraving, by the conquering hosts of Russia. The strength of the Northern Bear was too much for his more Southern adversary; but now that the war is ended, and that the Czar has accomplished all that he had sought, it is to be hoped that both the vanquisher and the vanquished may settle down into more friendly relations than have hitherto characterized them, and that they may take such lessons in liberty and the love of peace as shall tend to the happiness and advancement of the peoples they rule individually.

AUDIENCE OF THE EMPEROR OF CHINA.

One of the most positive proofs of the assimilation of the manners and customs of the various governments of the earth to each other may be found in the recent reception in a body of the foreign Embassadors at Pekin by the Emperor of China in person. The Sun of the Celestial Empire had not been previously visible to such distinguished personages in a manner consonant with their ideas of national courtesy, and had besides been subjected to some ceremonial usages which, however gratifying to Celestial vanity, were considered far from complimentary to that of other nations. Now, however, all difficulties in this direction are removed, and upon the closest inspection, his Imperial Majesty— if he be satisfied with such a modest appellation—is even in the Audience Chamber a very unassuming young man, dressed in plain bluish gauze, without the slightest ornament, and a perfect gentleman, in the Chinese sense of that term. Our sketch represents the Prince of Kung informing the Emperor that the letters from the sovereigns of different States had been laid before him. These letters were placed on the long table in front of the Ministers. The Emperor wore no ornament of any description; his dress was of lilac gauze. The princes had gold dragons worked on the round talbards they wore on their backs, chests and shoulders. The civil mandarins had storks embroidered on the square tabards, and the military mandarins had leopards; the mandarins, both to the right and left, wore their swords at their sides. The central figure of the five diplomatic representatives, whose backs only are shown in this drawing, is Mr. Wade. C. B., the Envoy of her Majesty Queen Victoria, On his right hand are Governor Low, the United States Minister, and General Vlangaly, the Russian Embassador, behind whom stands Herr Bismarck. Interpreter to the Prussian or German Legation. On the left hand of Mr. Wade are the French Minister, M. de Geoffroy, and Mr. Ferguson, the representative of Holland. The Chinese official personage who stands a little in advance of this group to their left is their Grand Secretary of State; the kneeling figure near the Emperor, on the raised floor, is the Prince of Kung; and four other princes stand behind the Imperial throne.

ENGLAND.—THE STEAM LIFEBOAT
“PERONNELLE.”

We give this week a sketch of a new lifeboat just built in England, and launched a week or so age, upon the River Itchen at Southampton. Its inventor and builder. Captain Hans Busk, of Ryde, has long devoted his attention to the improvement of the lifeboat service. The great point was to build a boat that could put out from shore in rough weather to the aid of ships in distress. The result was the Peronnelle . She is a pole-masted schooner of 70 tons. Her length is 75 feet 6 inches; beam, 15 feet; depth, 7 feet, and draught of water, 5 feet. But before she is perfect it is necessary to fit her with engines of from 70 to 80 horse-power. Then, as is represented in the picture, she could approach within cable's length of a ship, lower her boats, and rescue the drowning men.

THE PILGRIMAGE TO PARAY-LE-MONIAL.

Now that this pilgrimage has come to an end for the present, we trust most sincerely that it has resulted in abiding good to those who needed it, or some reformatory measure, if such be the term. That it was in every sense of the word a pilgrimage, there can be no doubt, for much discomfort and annoyance in relation to clean lodgings and food obtained to many who took part in it. However, when a religious spirit is aroused it can put up with a great deal. We illustrate to-day one of the closing acts of this movement, presenting to our readers a scene in what is known as the Grove of the Apparition, where the votaries of the famous shrine are breaking twigs as mementoes from the trees, and are otherwise engaged in reverential acts. It is noteworthy, however, that all the banners and flags borne in the procession were left behind on the altar of the saint, with the exception of the Union Jack, carried by Admiral Jerningham. This officer, whether wisely or unwisely, permitting his patriotism to get the better of his religious sentiment, refused to leave the standard behind, lest it might be said at some future period it had been taken in battle. That will be a step up on the Navy list, for Admiral Jerningham.

AFRICA.—THE WAR WITH THE ASHANTEES.

The English find themeslves engaged, at the present time, in a war which bids fair to attain as serious proportions as the conflict which Holland had with the Sultan of Atcheen, on the Island of Sumatra; namely, the war with the negro king, of the Ashantees, on the coast of Guinea, in Eastern Africa. This war had its origin in the hostilities existing between the Ashantees and the Fantees, which latter tribe lived under the protection of the British flag. The Ashantees marched upon them with forty thousand men, and they appealed to the English Government for aid. Whereupon Colonel Harley, Governor of the Cape Coast, sent some troops to their assistance. The capital of the Ashantee nation is called Coumassi, and in order to attack it Commodore Commerell directed an exploration up the River Prah, where he was attacked by the enemy, and suffered severe loss. As soon as the news reached London energetic measures were at once taken to fit out an expedition, and it is highly probable that the Ashantees will come to grief.

EUROPE—GEORGIA.—TYPES AND COSTUMES
  OF THE NATIVES.

From all time the world has taken an interest in Georgia, that fair land on the confines of Europe and Asia. The beauty of its woman, no less than its delicious skies, have made it famous, and it stands to-day as the producer, physically speaking, of the finest types of the Caucasian race. The picture we present represents a group of Georgians in their national attire. The soft, sensuous beauty of the women, which makes them so desirable in the slave-markets of Constantinople, is apparent. But the men are fierce and brigandish in appearance, for the fertile, smiling land produces a race of warriors who have always arms in their hands, and whose object is rather to attack than defend.

JOCOSE JINGLES.

TEACHER to pupil: “Where does tea come from?” “Out of the tea-pot, ma'am.”

YOU can use a postage-stamp twice. The first time it will cost you three cents, the second time fifty dollars.

A MINSTREL troupe which failed to meet its engagements out West is said to have “floated out upon the treacherous sea of impecuniosity.”

A PRUDENT match-making mamma gave the following candid advice to her daughter: “Oh, marry the man you love, girl, if he is as rich as Crœsus.”

A SHARP boy in Cincinnati was sent after kerosene, but he spent the money, filled the can with water, and his father went over and pounded the grocer for swindling him.

MISS ANCELIA NINE was married to Mr. Brown, in North Adams, the other day. It was something of a come-down for Miss Nine, as together with her husband she is now only one.

HONESTY is the best policy. A reporter of a Boston paper recently found a pocket-book filled with money, and immediately handed it over to the police, because the money was counterfeit.

HERE is the latest description of a kiss: “’Twas night. A real warm couple stood in the pale, cold moonbeams. Their lips touched, and there was a sound like a cow hauling her hoof out of the mud.”

A BOY eight years old, in one of our public schools, having been told that a reptile “is an animal that creeps,” on being asked to name one, on examination day, promptly and triumphantly replied, “A baby.”

SOME wag at Fort Wayne mailed letters to a score of business men telling them to look out for a man who would visit their houses that evening to see their wives, and twenty business men surprised their wives by coming home two hours ahead of time.

OUR sympathies are with the second boy in the following, most decidedly: At a juvemle party one little fellow, rejoicing in the splendor of his new-clothes, went up to another with the triumphant remark, “You ain't dressed as well as I am.” “Well,” retorted the other, “I can lick you anyhow!”

THE other day an Irishman with a very heavy trunk got into an omnibus, and sat himself down and held the box on his knees. The conductor wanted to take it from him. “But,” says Paddy, “sure the poor creatures of horses have enough to do to drag along without that, and I'll carry it meself.”

AN Ohio sub-editor who acknowledges that he ain't funny a bit, but is endeavoring to be so for a dollar and seventy-five cents a day, is occasionally discouraged by having the editor-in-chief strike out one of his most facetious paragraphs, and then writing on the side of the proof, “Put this in the moral columns.”

THE story is told, illustrative of the effects of Concord atmosphere, that a little chap who lived next door to Emerson was engaged one day in digging a hole by the roadside. A worldly trifler, passing by, asked him. “What are you digging after, little boy?” With gravity he answered, “After the Infinite.”

UNDER the head of “Personalities,” the Cincinnatti Commercial contributes this to the current literature of the day: “The power of love receives a striking illustration in the case of the Milwaukee girl who knocked her lover heels over head down a flight of stairs because he wanted to stop kissing long enough to get a good breath.”

AN uncouth child of nature writes feelingly anent a popular topic: “I could stand bein’ called a liar an a thief,” says he, “or even be told the ole man kep’ a hoop-shirt factory; but when one of them loafin’ goslins come aroun’ me a-sayin’ as I had suthin’ to do with that ere “Betsey nor I is Out,” I jes riz on my hind legs and combed him down.”

AN Ohio clergyman relates that as he was once about to marry a couple, the man said: “Be short, be short!” I said, “Yes, I can do it in three minutes.” “That's right,” he said. I saw that there was some dissatisfaction on the part of the woman. I said, “You don't want in have it too short?” “No,” she said; “a body don't want to get herself up so for nothing.”

A SUNDAY-SCHOOL teacher was explaining the omnipresence of the Deity to his scholars, and ended by telling them that He was everywhere. Whereupon a red-headed boy asked: “Is he in my pocket?” The teacher answered that the question was rather profane, but he would answer, “Yes, He is everywhere.” “I've got you there,” said the boy. “I ain't got no pocket.”

A REPORT having obtained currency that a resident of a city in Kansas had offered $10,000 to any man who would marry his cross-eyed daughter, the hotels in that place were so overrun with visitors that the landlords had to roost some of them on poles projecting from the windows. The excitement was somewhat allayed when it was discovered that the daughter in question was “colored, not plain.”

“A HOUSEKEEPER” writes to us, asking “How to dress a lobster.” We don't know. We never dressed a lobster. If the lobster is about seventeen years old, maybe it would look well in a plain waist with demi-trained skirt of blue silk and a medium-sized pannier, and an organdy polonais with a pinkish mauve challie, six-buttoned gloves, and a white chip hat. We say maybe it would; but perhaps “Housekeeper,” before dressing her lobster, had better subscribe for a fashion magazine, which will tell her all about such things.

“RULES to govern people who are drowning,” are published at length in a Milwaukee paper. This is a good idea, and should be followed by several similar codes, such as, “Directions for ladies and gentlemen blown up in a steamboat;” “Guide for the victims of a railway collision;” “System to be pursued by aeronauts who fall from their balloons:” “The whole duty of man after a nitro-glycerine explosion;” “Regulations to be followed by all persons struck by lightning;” and “Proper deportment during a rapid descent from a sixth-story window.”

WREXHAM.—The Grosseddorffddldrrwydr, an Eisteddfodd, to be held at Coedpoetherwyrthdyr next year, under the designation of Eisteddfodfd Cadcorywhyriolddr Dyfrwryhrywrnddolwyhn Maewhydlor, has been proclaimed with all the ancient ceremonies, a Welsh rabbit being slaughtered by Clwywhywyddwdwdtwyardd, the principal bard, who was assisted by lololululo Trewhyfddewilwhn and others, who helped to drink all the whisky. The old practice of outlandish names for these ceremonies has been entirely discarded. [Weather mysterious.]— Hornet .

THE AUTUMN FAIR.—HELD AT NEW CITY, BROOKLAND COUNTY, N. Y., OCTOBER 1ST.—SKETCHED BY J. BECKER.—SEE PAGE 106.

IN A FOG.—THE TRANSATLANTIC STEAMER AND THE FISHING-SMACK—A NARROW ESCAPE—SCENE OFF THE BAKS OF NEWFOUNDLAND.

SKETCHED BY THOMAS WORTH.—SEE PAGE 110.