Middletown transcript., 1877-01-13
A Black Year.

The old year went out bathed in
blood Never we're SO many horrible
disasters as were crowded into the clos
ing months Of the year seventy-six =
And during the last month it seemed to
gather a. much horror as possible into
a small compass, like grim old tyrant
who delights in sending the young and
happy to the fate that is coming swiftly
to him The whole year has been dark
with death. It dawned upon the ship
wreck Of the Deutschland The first
day Of January, '76, broke upon
stormy North sea, whose icy surges
we're beating over the lost ship, and
numb fingers relaxing their grasp, and
giving up at last to the fury Of the
waves. And all through the year the
number Of disasters at sea has been
heavy Pleasure yachting has not es-
capped the general i'll fortune, and the
yacht Mohawk hurried gay party Of
young people into swift and dreadful
death. The year closed upon the wreck
Of the Circassian, in which a crew Of
thirty-two brave men all perished, ex-
cept three or four The year ended as
it began-iD winter shipwreck War,
not less than shipwreck, has been at
tended with unaccustomed horrors In /
the East the Bashi- Bazouks, turned |
loose to glut their bloodthirsty natures
in christian blood, massacred twelve
thousand men, women and children 10
cold blood. The great cry of women,
outraged and butchered, and old men
and babies slaughtered, and land laid
waste and desolate, thrilled Europe to
its centre In our own country brave
Custer rode, with three hundred men,
into the jaws of massacre, and the
bodies Of the slain we're desecrated with |
mutilations not to be spoken Of Pes
thence has sent fearful visitation into
the southern country. In Savannah
and Brunswick the yellow fever and |
black vomit ragged most fearfully In
Brunswick four-ffths Of the people were
smitten with it. and the city was hung
in black Famine has spared u.s. But
in the East there is now a scarcity so
severe that the famine of three years
ago seems threatened with eclipse The
Hindus were starved by the hundred
thousand On the last night of Octo-
Der the sea rose like wall Of water,
twenty feet high, and swept across the
low land at the mouth of the Ganges.
and 10 few minutes over three hun
dred thousand lives were blotted out of
existence. The magnitude of this
calamity is almost unparalleled in his
tory Fire has quenched its fierce
thirst in blood as never before A year
or two ago it attacked our cities and
Chicago, Boston and Baltimore we're
successfully destroyed BY tue acre or
by the square mile This year it has
attacked human life rather than houses
Early in the year it seized on the Cath
olic charitable home in Brooklyn, and
in little while eighteen human bodies
were writhing in the flames This was
only the prelude to the terrible disaster
Of the theatre in he same city This
is fresh il the minds Of all. One calam-
ity befell theatre; the other place
of christian charity and devotion The
fire spared neither the one nor the
other Last of all comes the crashing
Of train through bridge down seventy
feet into frozen river, and fire that
consumed the wreck and over one hun
dred lives within. This was on the |
last day but one Of the year Truly
this has been a twelvemonlh of strange
and appalling disasters May the new
one bring us better fortune Baltimore
G0zefte