Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1871-12-31
THE OLD YEAR AND THE NEW.

With the setting sun of this evening the
year will draw near its last hour. 1t has
been all eventful one, both in the history
of our own and of European governments,
and will take its position in the past as
measuring events of marked Importance
Beginning in the far off Orient, where
the civilization of which we boast began
its westward march, ages ago. we find in
the reluctant but radical changes now be-
ing effected i'll the social and political in
situations of China and Japan, the pangst
of its second birth.
In Persia an awful pestlence has filled
homes with misery and her sands with
graves, and still stalks over her thickly
populated plains, threatening further desc
lation. In Russia, fast moving to the front
in the work of reform, religious and
political federation and material prosperi-
ty have been the gifts of the expiring year.
Austria, with the shadow of Sadowa how
ering over her, has in her humility accept
ed the teachings of her Beust and in her
schoOl-hCuses and progress in political re-
forms, sees the hope of a speedy recupera-
ton. Turkey, farther removed from pro-
gressive influences than the people of
Germany or Russia, still looks to
the mere multiplication of her armies as
her only hope for higher position inEurope
and yet clings to the follies of her past
Nowhere in Europe has more substantial
progress in material advancement or great
er concessions of personal liberties been
made than in Germany, cemented into one
powerful nation by the blood and bones of
her SaXOns, and sons of every State, on the
hard fought fields of Gravelotte and Sedan.
We cannot recall a year that has brought
to France so much misery or so little hope
as 1871. Utterly Overthrown by the strong
arm of Germany left to recuperate from her
desolation, she only experienced the deep
er humiliation inflicted by the excuses of
her own sons in the Paris Commune
With the scars of the wounds left by Ger
nlan needle guns and the fester-
ing sores of her communes still dis
figuring her whole organization,
she stands at the beginning of
the new year, with industries paralized
and society demOralized, begging for new
levies, and sending menaces over the
Rhine to her prosperous conquerors, and
over the Alps to Victor Emmanuel tri-
umphantly sitting under the shadows of
st. Peters.
Italy stands to-day nation resurrected.
Her young king sits on his throne in Rome
and fulfills the prediction almost as old as
the Eternal City itself. Italy is a nation
and her King rules in Rome, are facts the
dying year bears away, recorded on the
same page that proclaims the Infallibility
of the Pope and the end of priestly rule in
Rome.
England, shaken to her foundations by
the struggles between the monarchists and
rep, Jlicans, still stands anXiously by the
beG sfde of her heir to the throne, looking
with unsteady gaze into the new year, bu t
strong as ever in the wealth and intelli-
gence of her subjects, whether to be ruled
the crown or by the ballet.
In our own land, we had a year
of peace and prosperity. Under an
honest and capable administration at
Washington, our Industries have -four
ished, our riches have multiplied and
our prosperity been uninterrupted. Sec
tons of our country have suffered griev-
ously from the fire fiend, our own fields
have yielded the husbandman but par