The Portland daily press., 1876-12-30
The Passing Year.

tion on looking over the record of the year
just closing. The world as is its wont has
intensely interested itself in trifies and has
speedily forgotten them. Few of the occur
rences over which we have gloried or fumed
during the twelvemonth are borne in mind
now. The distance which but a few weeks
perspective lends reduces them to a dead
level. But while mere chronicle of events
would be dry and profitless recapitulation
some occurrences stands out so prominently
that word in the way of review is not
amiss.
In our own country the unexampled
wrangle over the Presidency, too fresh in its
inception to need description, will influence
the history and policy of the nation for years
to come. 1t has clearly brought forward
certain grave defects in our system of gov
ernment, and is sorely trying the patience,
the good temper, the patriotism of the peo-
pie. While the sturdy sense, the love of coun-
try and the regard for law which character
ize our citizens will doubtless carry us safely
through the crisis, it will yet be seen that it
is unwise and unsafe to subject popular
government to so severe a strain, and the
contest will breed great constitutional changes
in the method of choosing our chief mags-
trate. We have been celebrating the centen-
NAL anniversary of our independence by
great industrial and art exhibition in which
the nations of the earth have participated
an exhibition which has not only been most
gratifying to our selfpride but which has
increased our material prosperity, enlarged
the circle of our industries, quickened our
sense of the beautiful, and stimulated us to
emulation of the high progress in the arts
which older peoples have attained. The
great industrial triumph and the success Of
the hundred years. experiment added already
to large national self-complacency, and
while acknowledging that in some arts we
were excelled by others we held that we had
formed perfect system of government.
Perhaps our trouble is sent as rebuke to
our pride and to teach us that admiration of
the instrument of liberty wrought by the
patient wisdom of the fathers should not
blind US to its defects.
In our years history little else than the
choice of chief magistrate and the interna-
tional exhibition will long claim the attention
OF posterity, though the massacre of Clusters
command and the burning of the Brooklyn
Theatre will not easily fade from out the
minds of men. Nor too is the great engi-
neering feat by which the encroaching rock
that the Dutch colonists so picturesquely
named was removed from out the path of
commerce to be lightly borne in mind among
the scientific achievements of a scientific age.
In the old world the march of events has
not been rapid. A year ago the expulsion of
the Turk from Europe seemed imminent, but
he still holds his camp on the Bosphorus, and
the Russian cream of reviving the Byzantine
Empire is yet far from fulfillment. Indica-
tions however are not few that the end OF the
long term OF Moslem supremacy is approach
ing. and that the crescent will soon begin its
backward movement into Asia. What ban
ner will supplant it on the walls of the new
Rome is still subject for conjecture. Tie
Turks only friend in Europe, England, has
uSoOilOu ullil3 utEScll CiStluS d iOu9lu9
eye upon his lands, wishing to add the
domain of the Fatimite caliphs to the posses
sions of her many-throned Queen. Mean
while she has revived in name as well as in
fact the empire of Aurunzgebe and added
Lord of India to the titles of her Sovereign.
But while thus easily conquering the allegi-
ance of men to the South in the North nature
offers an insurmountable barrier to the prog
ress Of her flag, and the expedition which
was to find the Poe has returned from a
quest that was useless. Elsewhere in Europe
little of startling interest has occurred. The
French Republic, more fortunate than its
predecessors, is prosperous beyond its neigh.
bors and gives promise of long continuance
while the great German empire which came
to its birth on French soil six years ago is
fourishing apace.
In wo-d, the year 1876 has been like mos
of its undistinguished predecessors, more
lavish in promising than in fuitillment, bu
bringing on the whole more good than evil in
| its train and marking the steady though slow
progress of the world in wealth and learning
and happiness.