The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1861-03-07
The Greatest struggle of History

The young-and, for that matter, the old
are apt, in reading history, to feel that
almost any epoch of the past was superior
TO the present in dramatic energy, and was
of really far more importance in determin-
ing the social destiny of the world 1t is
always ''the distant and the dim which we
are prone to greet"
But regarded from an all-embracing point
of view, assuming the solid well-being of
humanity as the crowning glory of history,
the present day-nay, the present hour--is
witnessing the most widely extended strug-
gle between Might and Right ever seen on
earth. If we indeed are not as yet in the
very melee of the fight, we are nevertheless
in the most thrillingly anxious moment
The trumpets of the heralds have sounded
the spectators lean over the barrier-the
lancers are in rest-some have splintered---
thousand years hence it will all live in
legend, in chronicle, in picture and in
song.
Let US see how the battle may go In
Russia the most stupendous emancipation
ever proposed at single sweep will, in al
most certain probability, be carried out dur
ing this year. The cost of this benefit has
been, however, enormous. It's history is
that of all Muscovite reform, beginning
with Peter the Great, and first made clear
by the marvellous labor and devotion of
Gar Nicholas, the most thoroughly misun-
derstood and best-abused man of history
To hope that this great victory is to be
gained without convulsion, is to be indeed
sanguine A nobility, whose control over
the people has been again and again stength-
ened by murder, will not readily yield its
power. if we look to Austria, we see the
purest European despotism-the only one
in which old diplomatic sins against hu-
manity and Camarilla crimes, have been
preserved almost curiously intact, fairly
forced into reform, and bewildered amid
the most congruous elements. We see her
holding fast to the sum of all modern fol-
lies, the Concordat, with one hand, and dis
pensing from the other in tremulous, uncon-
scious profusion, reforms, which, as dis
pensed, turn to curses. Nine dlsafected ma
tions have been ruled by her with the
sword; ninety and nine times have they
risen in one form or the other against her
and now the hundredth and the last is close
at hand.
In France, the worlds frebrand and its
waning political experiment, the battle is
not less strongly marked to the observant
eye. Though no literal revolution now
threatens that land, though no Jacobins and
Red Republicans sing carmagnoles around
CORY guillotines-still the slow progress Of
it's ruling mind into the harmony of mutu-
al interests between the governing and the
governed, is really a spectacle of tremendous
interest. 1t may possibly be the first real
advance towards rational liberty which
France has after all gained. 1t moves very
slowly, almost imperceptibly, under the
strongest disguises, epur 81 ngu0Uc, and get it
does move.
In Italy, the great consolidation dreamed
of by Caesar Borgia, that Louis Napoleon of
the middle ages, who dreamed of raising his
country with himself, TO an unexampled
pitch of prosperity, and that freedom from
the barbarism prophesied by Machiavelli,
are both in the lists. Slavonia even, and
Hungary, speak of 1861 as the year of de-
liverance. And when struggles are going
on, can any country in Europe escape their
influence In this year Sweden, Prussia,
and France have made an extraordinary
concession in beginning the abolition of the
passport system, and it is not impossible that
ere many months, we shall witness a fierce
struggle between barbarous fanaticism and
civilization in the Ottoman dominions.
Finally, on our own soil the great battle
between humanity and the old dragon of Op-
! preston has taken a definite shape, and is
being gloriously fought out Whatever
form this struggle may now assume-how-
| ever compromised and deprived of deadli-
ness-one thing may be taken for certain,
! that it's result in any case, will be a tri-
umph of the right. 1t is not possible to de-
stroy it moral effect. The rights of free la
/ bor, of man, will have been vindicated not
less emphatically than they were by oul
| first Revolution.
Such is the great battle of the age Will
any one say that history has ever, at any
one time, embraced so wild a field of war
fare IN 7. Times.
Eg- Seventeen hundred and fifty-ont
Norwegians emigrated to Canada during th(
past year.
Bss@ @Michelets work on the sea has in
duded the French Government to establish
numerous sea bathing establishments.
nEa.A smart Vermont butcher dressed
thirteen sheep in twenty-five minutes re
Gently, at Woodstock.
pI- The Belgian Government is strikin,
coin of nickel, like our new cents, of th
appearance Of the one and two franc pieces
and the value of ten and twenty centimes
BSgH Admiral Mundy, an English nava
veteran, died in London on the 9th ult.-
He entered the Royal Academy in 1875
and commenced his active career as mid
shipman, in 1892.
Rea steam-train of barges. connecte
by Joints, has been built at Glasgow, to nav
igate the winding rivers of India.
Bg@Greek coins have been found in Eng
. land within a short period-supposed t
have been brought there by the Romans.
Asa-That dreadful disease, cancer, is no
very much treated after DR.. Arnott's pla
$ "of cougelation, methodical compressio
J and cauterization,' the knife being pre-
nounced complete failure.
: H@- Under the more liberal policy
J. Louis Napoleon in relation to the press an
the freedom of debate in the Corps Legis
tiff, there is a sudden demand for short-har
= writers to report the debates
o pkS7sThe official cpnsUc raturpe sbovy II