The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1860-08-09

lars.
The damage by the food at Stanton, Va,
Saturday evening, was fully 100000. The
Spec tator en- umerating the losses gives among
the most serious that of DR.. II. S. Echelbsr-
ger, druggist, $500; Benz Crawford, $500; j.
p. Hulst, 1000; =. II. Trout Co., 5000; Jas.
Harmon and John OiHare, billiard saloon,
5000; Bledsoe & Davis SO, 900 +. q. Morris.
500; Wood & Gilkeson, s. 900; z. N. Powell
$500, and G.. +. Slick, $500. The Roman Cath
Ollie Church was considerably damaged, and a
new brick house of r. D. Imboden lost it's ga
BILE end. The Spectator adds:
Houses were undermined, walls driven in.
goods swept away, pavements torn up gas
pipes brt ken, hogs drowned, fences washed
away, gardens and crops destroyed. The
streets presented q spec tacle siUi Jar to the
rapids above the falls of Niagara. The winds
blew, the rain descended and the food came in
terrific violence. Stones weighing hundreds
OF pounds were borne upon the flood some dis
tancc, and drays, tables, boxes, hogsheads bar.
rels, ehildren's carriages, lumber and furniture
OF various kinds, were seen floating down the
streets upon the bosom of the violent current
The corporation and individual losses are i'm
mense. The individual loss is very great
much more than it has ever been on apy
former occasion of a similar kind. The flood
was greater than that of IS46, and much great
eT than the one of 1867 and the damage sus-
tanned, in the opinion of some, as great as in
otu COuuDiNtu al LlilS tune LDef6 is means
of ascertaining he amount of damages, or
even an approx with any degree of
certainty. Some suppose 1t will amount to
10000. but we think this estimate is rather
high. Persons walking the streets are now
compelled TO forsake the payements and walk
in the middle of the streets. Where the pave
ments were, there are now, in many places,
deep holes.
During the freshet on Saturday several per-
sons narrowly escaped being drowned One.
an lrishman, who seemed to be di sposed to ride
through the streets and alleys, on attempting
to ride down the alley at the Central Bank, be
and his horse plunged into hole some eight
or ten feet deep. He was saved with some diff
fculty. The aged faithful servant belonging
TO Mr.. BENZ. Crawford, known as "Oid Uncle
Sam" would have been drowned in the cellar
had not MS young master, Jas. S. Crawford,
gone to his rescue. He saved "Old Uncle
Sam" by breaking the lattice from a window
ana puiHng him out there. An Irish woman,
who was being borne off by the current of the
creek, was saved from drowning by being
pulled out by some one who happened to see
her perilous condition. / is fortunate that the
freshet occurred in the daytime for if il had
been at night 1t is probable that lives would
have been lost.
The THEATRES OF ADVANCING CIyILIZA-
TIoN-We extract the following from letter
written by Professor Anderson, at San Fran
cisco, and published in the LonIon Era:
mo country on the globe OF equal extent,
and OF the same age, possesses so many
theatres. Not every town only but every viii
lage has one. The theatre is an Institution
here, possessing an importance denied 70 it
elsewhere. 1t is paramount over church.
chapel, and school-house. a village starts up
two or three wooden huts are built in it then
wooden hotel, one store, and a lawyers
shanty forthwith the place is dgnified with
the name OF city and as soon q Whiskey
shop or two are added, and few ladies make
thelr appearance on the scene, up goes the
theatre. In six months afterWard they may
think about church, and probably in a
tWelvemonth there may be chapels of two or
three or four denominations, but l think
that the theatre generally gets the start. 1t is
thought 10 be good inyes trnent, and readily
obtains the attention of some speculative
hotel-keeper, carpenter, shoemaker, or tailor,
who is on the alert TO employ his spare capi-
tai, and secure the means of free admission to
"the play" The theatre, as n building as
sumes every conceivable variety of shape and
design in the various phases OF its develop
ment. At San Francisco it is a magnificent
opera house, brilliant with golden ornament IS,
while at I'D Spring it is 4 wooden shanty
with holes in the sides. holes, in the roof,
and multitudinous rat-holes in the floor
At Georgetown II was built for a chapel. but
became a play house at Timbuctoo il is up
stairs, over bar aud billiard room; At Muir
phys DiggingS it is upstairs also over q law
yer's office; the traps in the stage communi-
cate with the study of the district Judge; and
at Big Oak Flat it is at the Post Office the en-
which you apply for your letters. Anything
with a stage in it is called e theatre; aud it
matters little how primitive the construction
of the stage may be- Just as Professor Owen
demonstrates that the skeleton of every ami
| NAL, however complex, is but the development
| of a single human vertebrse, SO the thea
| tire in California, however mean, or how
| ever grand, is but the development of
| a floor with raised end to it, and half a
| dozen tallow candles placed as foot-lights
| in front of half Z dozen tin sconces. Stayers-
| at-home, who have read of the great audiences
| which have greeted Catherine Hayes, Lola
| MonteZ, and Anna Bishop, in California, little
| imagine the sort of places in which some of
| the performances OF those celebrities have been
| gYeu--that some of the "theatres' were not
| equal, in point Of architectural beauty, to a
| police-proscribed "penGy-gaff" in England,
and that five dollars, or one pound sterling,
| have been paid for admission to edifces in
com mparison with which old Richardson's
show booth was perfect palace; while TO
compare them with some of the structures
have seer upon Glasgow. green, at fair time,
| would be the comparison of Hyperion to a
Satyr.'"
SHODDY-This is an article often spoken of