The Sun.
London, England, 1844-10-04 00:00:00

MEDICAL TIMES.

A cheap and serviceable periodical, confined, like its
contemporary the Lancet, to the discusion of medical
subjects.

LITERATURE.

FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW. No. 67.
Chapman and Hall, London, 1894.
In an elaborate notice of Mr. Featherstonhaugh's
recently published "Excursions through the Ameri-
can Slave States," the Reviewer points out the demo-
ralising effects produced on all classes in the Southern
States of Yankee-land by the prevalence of this ac-
cursed system—a superfluous task, by the bye, since
no one needs to be told of the debasing influence that
slavery exercises over the human mind, even in its
most mitigated form. Of the newly- formed State of
Arkansas, which has only been admitted within th-_!
Union within the last five or six years, he draws a
most flattering sketch, observing that it has become a
sort of Alsatia for all kinds of thieves and gamblers,
forgers, horse-stealers, and the like, who, "flying from
the inconvenient inquisition of the laws which they
have outraged, take refuge in this happy district, where
they may enjoy the luxury of lawlessness to their
heart's content." In the article on " French Aggres-
sions in the Pacific," Great Britain is taunted with
having been baffled and laughed at by the crafty ag-
gressors, of whose proceedings in Otaheite a very mi-
nute, and apparently authentic account, is given,
though it does not add much to the knowledge which
the majority of our readers already possess on the sub-
ject through the medium of the public press. The
" Military Power of Russia"—a theme always inte-
resting to Englishmen—is suggested by a work that
has recently appeared, and which maintains that the
military strength of this immense empire has been
considerably overrated by all foreigners, a statement
in which the Reviewer seems disposed to coincide.
When we bear in mind that it took Nicholas not less
than two campaigns to put down insurrectionary Poland,
and that with all the vast resources at his command,
he has been able as yet to make little or no impression
on the brave Circassian mountaineers, who scarcely
number two hundred thousand souls, we can scarcely
believe but that the German accounts of his prodigious
military influence are greatly exaggerated. The
" Punjaub" is a graphic description' of the past condi-
tion and present prospects of this remote Indian dis-
trict. We subjoin, from the article on American
Slavery, a fearful sketch of a duel that took place not
long since in the State of Arkansas :
" Out of the whole population there are hardly twelve
inhabitants who ever go into the streets without being
armed with pistols or large hunting-knives, about a foot
long, and an inch and a half broad. These formidable
instruments,' says our author, with their sheaths
mounted in silver, are the pride of an Arkansan blood,
and got their names of bowie-knives from a conspicuous
person of this fiery climate.' Amongst other illustra-
tions
of the red -hot temper of the people, Mr. Feather-
stoishaugh relates a story of two persons who, without
any quarrel, except of that brutal kind which originates
in pure wanton aggression, fought a duel after a fashion
which, even in America, must have been regarded as
something extraordinary. They were placed in a room
totally dark, from which every glimpse of light was
carefully excluded, stripped to the skin, except their
trousers, their arms and shoulders well greased, and a
brace of loaded pistols and a bowie-knife given to each.
A signal was to be given from the outside before the
butchery beoisan ; but a quarter of an hour elapsed after
the signal before the slightest noise was heard. The
two men were cowering and glaring in the dark, sup-
pressing their breath, and watching their advantage.
All of a sudden a pistol went off, then another, then two
more. The survivor afterwards stated, that becoming
faint from loss of blood, he stumbled against the wall
and fell. The other approached stealthily with his
bowie-knife to dispatch hits. The prostrate man clutched
his knife, raised himself, listened, but could hear nothing.
At last he saw a pair of cat like eyes gleaming through
the darkness—he lifted his knife with a desperate effort
and stuck it into the heart of his opponent. When the
door was opened and the seconds catered, they found the
survivor still holding his knife up to the hilt in the dead
man's body ! Such horrible examples of unmitigated
ferocity ferocity ought not to be quoted against the morality
case
'
social civilisation of any country, unless,
i as t
rdiner•
of those States, they are not exceptionable,, butln the
ordinary
illustrations of the habits of the people. Iss
and
r
duels in former periods have taken place n
ShrewsburyEngland—
such as the duel between Buckinghamof peculiar heartlessness
0
sitnasntcaensc e in our annals, or in the
—surrounded ;
bbuyt, ciirncu no m
annals of any country in Europe, can there be traced,
even in standing out solitarily from the chronicles of the
most brutalised chivalry, an example of that fierce and
reckless spirit which is common to the duels of America,
in greater or lesser degree of intensity. There is an-
other peculiarity worth noticing in these duels, over and
above their mere criminal ferocity. It is this, that they
generally take place in the open streets, and ordinarily
on the Sabbath-day, because we presume it is the idle day
when the victim is sure to be met with lounging at his door,
or smoking in perfect unconsciousness of impending
danger. This would be incredible, if we had not the
best authority for the facts themselves in the daily papers
of the Union, and if the character of the society out of
which these atrocities spring were not authenticated by
a cloud of witnesses."

PERSECUTIONS OF POPERY. 2 Vols.
Bentley, London, 1844.
"A morbid liberalism, which seems to be gaining
ground, and which would fain pass for philosophy,'
says the author of the present volumes in his pre-
face, " may, perhaps, be disposed to cavil at some of
the sentiments expressed in this work ; but if 1 have
occasionally hazarded warm remarks, or drawn severe
conclustons, I can only plead that they have been irre-
sistibly forced upon me by the facts and circumstances
which the nature of the subject brought under my
consideration." At the hazard of being classed
among tt:o;e morbid Liberals of whom Air. Shuberl
speaks so contemptuously in the above passage, we
must express our disapprobation of the spirit and
tendency of this work. In point of execution we
have no fault to find with it ; the materials are skil-
fully put together, and the author's diction is simple
and perspicuous throughout; but the spirit of his
work, we repeat, is objectionable, for it is an attempt
to revive the old, worn-out " No-Popery" cry, by
raking up, with the most assiduous peneresuneo,
every instance of persecution of which the Vatican
or its agents have been guilty, and bringing all the
most inveterate prejudices and bigotry of Pro-
testantism to bear against the antagonist religion.
Nothing can surpass the virulence of the author's
denunciations against Catholicism and its confe-
derates, the Jesuits—denunciations which will he
pretty sure to find an echo in the bosom of the
Exeter-hall Saints, and will, we fear, be read
with approbation by a numerous class a the
community, who think that it is the chief duty of
a pious and orthodox Protestant to hate Popery as
the Devil hates holy water. However ingeniously
and cleverly executed this may be, we must confess
that we entertain great dislike of productions such as
the one before us, which can be attended with no other
result than to revive religious animosities and jea-
lousies, which, for the peace and happiness of society,
had far better be buried in oblivion. If Popery have
its annals of persecution, so has Protestantism ; wit-
ness the closingyears of the reign of that sanguinary
tyrant, henry the Eighth.