The Columbian fountain., 1846-04-15
WAsHlNGToN, April 18th, 1916.
LOND

"That stifled hum of midnight," says
Carlyle, "when traffic has laid down to
rest, and the chariot wheels of vanity, still
rolling here and there through distant
streets, are bearing her to halls rooted in,
and lighted to the due pitch for her, and
only vice and misery, to growl or to roam
like night-birds, are abroad-that hum,
say, like the sturtorous, unquiet shmber
of sick life, is heard in heaven. 0!under
that hideous coverlid of vapors, what a
fermenting vat lies simmering and hid.
The joyful and the sorrowfu are there;
men are dying there men are being born
men are praying-on the other side of
brick partition men are cursing and around
them is the vast void night The proud
grandee still fingers in his perfumed sa-
looms, or reposes within damask curtains
wretchedness covers into truckle beds, or
shivers hungerst stricken into its lair ofslraw.
In obscure cellars, Rouge et-noir languidly
emits its voice of destiny to hungry, hag-
gard villains, while counselors of state sit
plodding, and playing their high chess game
whereof the pawns are men. The lover
whispers his mistress the coach is ready;
and she, full Of hope and fear, gides down
to fly with him over the borders the thief,
still more silently, sets to his pickIocks and
Crowbars, or luIks to wait till the watch
men first snore in their boxes. Cav man
sons, with supper rooms, and dancing
rooms, are full of light and music, and
high swelling hearts but in the condemn
ed cells, the pulse of life beats tremulous
and faint, and bloodshot eyes look out
through the darkness, which is around and
within; for the light of last stern morn
ing. Riot cries aloud, and staggers and
swaggers in his rank dens of shame, and
the mother, with streaming hair, kneels
over her palid, dying infant, whose crack
ed lips only her tears now moisten. All
those heaped and huddled together with
nothing but little carpentry and masonry
between them"
EFFECTS OF THE CLIMATE of Western Af
rica, on the European constitution, by British
officer. U. S. Journal.
ain May, 1926, one hundred rank and file were
sent to the Gambia in less than two months, not
one remained alive. A second draft of nearly the
same strength, shared an almost similar fate for in
oSop0', uic Ciosc VI rainy season. only tuHty
shattered beings alive Of the one hundred and
twenty men stationed at the Rooma, Isle de Los; the
greater portion perished, but it must be admitted
their accommodation was insufficient for any climate
far less an African one. The soldiers were lodged
in room eighty feet long by twenty broad without
ventilation in rear, the means OF circulating alr.
double row Of beds were huddled down this black
hole, and the breathing of so many human beings,
crowded into so confined space, rendered the at.
mostphere impure and oppressive to degree almost
to produce suflocaton. Should any one enter this
den from the open air it followed that the wretched
inmates, gaspng for breath, rushed out occasionally
from the Barrack room; when the chill night wind
blowing from tho sea, and the heavy dew, though
cool and refreshing deadly in their efectsthe
often repeated consequence took place. Profuse
perspiraon checked, the pores became closed, burn
ing heat and thirst, succeeded by shivering fits, and
in the morning. the fearful scourgc Of Africa had h
ken firm and fatal hold upon the victim"