The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1876-01-05
what a Year has brought Forth.

Mr.. Buckle, in his efforts to show that the
actions of mankind are not governed by the
whims and preferences of individuals, but
by certain fixed general laws, urges that
statistics prove the regularity of their oc-
currence. Thus he shows that not only are
about the same number of murders commit
ted every year, but that even the instru-
ments employed in their preparation bear
about the same proportion to each other;
that very nearly the same number of per-
sons take their own lives one year as an
other; and that, most marvellous of all, even
the alterations of our memory are of regular
occurrence and certain fixed proportion
of letter writers every year forget to put the
address upon letters which they drop into
the postoffice. This being the case, we
ought to find the story of our lives from
year to year very much the same, and that
Hope and dependency, pleasure and pain,
we mlngle together In sunshine and rain;
And the smiles and the tears, the song and the
dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge"
Such we find by experience to be the case,
and after CHANGING over the record of the
year which has just expired we ought TO be
able to sit down and compute a horoscope
for 1876, fixing the number of moving acct
dents by flood and field as we would con-
tract for our eclipses, calculating the maxi
mum amount OF crime which can possibly
be crowded into S66 days and employing
the result Of our labors as basis for fixing
upon the amount of legal machinery which
will be required to defeat the ends OF justice,
and determining with perfect accuracy the
number of South American revolutions and
Carlist victories which we may expect.
Considered in this light the review of the
defunct year which we present below ought
to be Of iuestimsble value.
The curtain rose on the opening month of
1875, discovering in the foreground two con-
gressionsl committees, one in Louisiana
and the other in Mississippi, busily en-
gagged in the manufacture of public senti-
ment In the background could be seen Spain
Offering submission to King Alfonso, who
bad on the last day of the preceding year
been placed on the throne. A side show at
Washington presented the spectacle OF one
of those Investigations, which are becoming
so common of late years. that of the Pacific
Mail, which resulted in the exposure
OF Schumacher and the smoking out at last
of old Bill King. The scene changed and
we Deheld the outrage of the 5th of January,
which turned the blood of freemen to fire.
For it was on that day that the legislators
of sovereign state, sitting in elaboration
upon the affairs of their commonwealth,
were dragged from their hall by the military
arm OF the United States. At such a time
the sffixipg of the presidents signature to
the resumption biil-so-called- passed al
most unnoticed, and even the report of the
three honest men who had investigated the
affairs of Louisiana paled its Intellectual
fires. Eyes and ears were, however, LETT for
one event and that was the beginning of the
great suit of Tilton against Beecher, at
Brooklyn, the colossal bore OF the 10Th GEN.
fury.
February witnessed quite sensation over
certain memoirs of George w., and the re-
vivsl of the scandals of that period, as If we
had not already a sufficient supply for home
consumption. The civil rights bill was
passed by means of all night sessions and
changes in the rules of the House, and old
blue-coated and brass buttoned Luke Po-
land made gallant and successful stand for
the right OF the people OF Arkansas to gov
ern themselves. The wounds of Louisiana
were pllstered after fashion with the
Wheeler adjustment. In the Beecher case
the plaintiff rendered his version of bis
wforgs, aud before the month was over the
defense had made a beginning with their
evidence. Abroad, the French assembly
was taking up It's time with the Senate bill
and In England Kenealy and John Mitchell