Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1872-01-03
THE OLD YEAR AND THE NEW.

With the setting sun of this evening the
year will draw near its last hour. 1t has
been an eventual 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 in the social and political in
stitutions of China and Japan, the pangs
of its second birth.
In Persia an awful pestilence 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
political liberation 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-houses 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 vet 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 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
man needle guns and the Tester
| 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 trl-
umphantly sitting under the shadows OF
1 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 nation
and her King rules in Rome, are facts the
dying year bears away, recorded on the
same page that proclaims the lnfallibility
of the Pope and the end of priestly rule in
Rome.
| England, shaken to her foundations by
the struggles between the monarchists anC
republicans, still stands anXiously by the
bedside of her heir to the throne, looking
with unsteady gaze into the new year, bu
strong as ever in the wealth and intelli
gence of her subjects, whether TO be ruled
the crown or by the ballot.
In our own land, we had q yea
of peace and prosperity. Under al
honest and capable administration a
Washington, our industries have flour
ished, our riches have multiplied anC
our prosperity been uninterrupted. Sec
tions Of our country have suffered griev
, ously from the fire fiend, our own field
have yielded the husbandman but par
tlal return for his work, but, as a people
we have been blessed and the New Yea
opens before us with cheering prospects.
With the downfall OF Tammany's cor
{ rupt rule is blotted out one of the darkes
stains upon our institutions. The fearless
; incorruptible ballot has triumphed owe
] the Ring, and the men whose Grim
: against free institutions was the argumen
of monarchists, stand to-day arraigned a
, felOns before the courts of justice.
In these events prominent in the recor
D of the wear that closes to-day, we see hop
4 for the future of all mankind and ever.
reason to believe that the veal. before u
will be one of general peace and prospect
. ty. That it may be Happy New Year
d one and all is certainly our wish.
e Alex. H. Stephens, the laconic editor c