St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1879-11-21
Our New York Letter.

To the Editor of the CdledOniaR:
The arrival of the first number of a
new mystical magazine from India, the
1HeoSophist, edited in Bombay by the
famous Russian lady, Madame Blavat-
sky, suggests the number of people of
intelligence, who, in spite of Outspoken
public sentiment, secretly believe in
various queer manifestations of COM
munion with denizens of other worlds
which scientists cannot explain. Some
remarkable condolences occasionally
occur that would stagger the increduli-
ty of the most confirmed sceptic. For
instance, in the case of the disastrous
collision between British ship and the
steamer Champion, bound to Charles
and only few hours out from New
York, one of the victims was a bright
young bridegroom, who had just been
promoted to second engineer after a
short but meritOrious service, ranging
upward from the very lowest grade,
and got married on the strength of it.
His young wife woke up screaming on
the very night and hour of the catastro-
phe, when the vessels were far out on
the ocean, and sObbingly told the
alarmed occupants of the house of a
frightful dream that had oppressed her,
and how her husband had been lost.
She described the incidents of wreck
and ruin with absolute accuracy, every
detail agreeing in every particular with
the account rendered by the survivors
on their arrival many hours afterward,
within the Delaware breakwater.
The pilot boats of New York and
New Jersey, have long been the pride
of our ports, and the admiration of
mariners from all over the world. On
their model was built the famous yacht,
America, which so thoroughly trounced
the pleasure squadrOns of England in
1851. They are SO staunch that no
transatlantic steamer affords so safe a
resting place in the severest weather,
and theiI hardy crews have and deserve
the highest reputation for skill and
courage. Alas! there is war among
those careful guides of the trackless
waters. Some Innovators have actually
flown i'm the face of all precedent, and
discarding their time-hOnOred schOOn-
err, have built la steamer. A putting boil
er box is to compete for fees with the
pretty gull-winged beauties which so
saucily await the incoming ships hun
dreds of miles off shore, and fury reigns
il, hn hrAn1aI nf 10 ma "
of the brotherhood. There is likely to
be quite Il warm legal scrimmage on the
question.
BY the way, there is always great
waste of money in legal contests among
official people which the taxpayers usu-
ally suffer for. Half of them seem to be
got up for no other purpose than to
make business for the lawyers. An ex-
Sheriff sends in his bill for balance
said to he due for services rendered
the Comptroller poOh-poOhs the whole
thing; the law is called in, and after
the expenditure of several thousand
dollars, the Comptroller signs checque
for the full amount then the Mayor,
who is fighting the Comptroller, refuses
to endorse the check then there's some
more law. Finally, the amount pitched
away in II dispute that might be settled
in five minutes between two honest
men, amounts to perhaps three times as
much as the original claim. And so it
goes on. The Brooklyn Aldermen have
just perpetrated job which exceeds in
audacity and originality anything ever
before carried through by the most in
genious money grabbing municipality.
They have actually added $4,000 to
the budget, in order to grant unsolicit-
ed increase of salaries to useful ''heel-
ers." OF course, the community is very
indignant, but before the wrong can be
remedied, if it ever is, many thousands
of dollars will be spent in litigation.
We are having quite an epidemic of
suicides. One of the most romantic in
its way was the sequel of an adventure
in which Il certain notorious medical
man, who has suffered prosecution by
the United States on account of some
peculiar publications, narrowly escaped
being shot. A visitor came to him one
morning, and after few fOrcible re-
marks produced huge revolver and
proposed to try little surgery on his
own account. The doctor objected, and
in the struggle managed to wound his
assailant, who escaped, and secured
the weapon. A letter mailed to friend
of the rash person who proves to be a
TeutOnic barber of Hartford, Conn.,,
reveals the cause of the trouble. The
doctor, it seems, had bled his pockets
to such a degree that the poor man
grew tired of life. He disposed of his
affairs in the most business-like man
ner, asked his friend to act as trustee of
his estate and console his mother, and
then explained that he meant 'just to
get square once" with that doctor and
then retire from this scene of pills and
other disagreeables. Two or three wo-
men of certain or uncertain age have
been casting themselves before the
wheels of locomotives, and another was
saved by friend of mine and her own
Petticoats, an evening or so ago, from
a long swim in the East river. Com
fortably primed with morphene she
strobe tragically at rapid gait to the
end of a ferrybOat. She got one limb
over the chain, when she was grabbed
almost simultaneously by two bystand-
ers, one of whom decorously hoisted
he outer boot back again inside the
chain and then braced up against her
frantic struggles till she swooned in his
hashful arms. Quite a stirring sort of
affair.
There are some pleasanter epidemics
looming near in the shape of Winter