Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-12-04
TIMELY TOPICS.


blackmail Jay Gould brings to mind an at
tempt made thirty years ago to blackmail
William B. Aston to the amount of $4,000.
A letter threatening his life, unless he handed
over $4,000, was sent to Mr.. Aston. Heput
the matter into the hands of the police, and
the rascal was detected, and sent to the peni-
tertiary.
CHIEF BROOKS, of the secret service, has
just made his annual report at Washington,
in which he states that the circulation of
counterfeit treasury and national bank notes
has not been less since the war of the rebellion
than at present. Counterfeiting coin is more
rife than ever, and the short sentences imposed
upon the coin counterfeiters may, as a rule,
be regarded as acts of misapplied leniency, for,
in large majority of instances, the liberated
prisoner of last year becomes the convict of
this.
StrGngulatus pro Republica: SLAUGH-
TERED FOR THE REPUBLIC. The above Latin
words have now become historic. Col. Rock
we'll states that on Sunday, July II, at noon,
fifteen days after President Garfield was shot,
he called for writing materials, and clip and
pencil were given him, and lying on his back
he wrote his name, and under it, the prophetic
words, ''strangulatus pro republica," the fac
smile of which is placed in Scribner's Centu-
ry magazine for December, Col. Rockwell
exclaims: "What epitaph more significant,
eloquent, and truthful than this-his own
MOST unfortunately the widow of President
Lincoln is woman of hallucinations. She
| imagines that she is physically very infrm
when she is not; she imagines herself to be
in the depths of want and poverty, when she
is not. There seems to be very little doubt
that there is i'll feeling between Mrs. Lincoln
and her SOL Robert, now secretary of war. 1t
was Robert who favored her consignment, a
few years ago, to an insane asylum, and it
was Robert who, afterwards yielding to the
| strong appeals of his mother, exerted his in
| fuence to have her released from the asylum.
Their lack of agreement with each other has
probably continued ever since.
THE religious denomination to which Presi-
dent Garfield belonged, is known as 'the Dis
ciples, or Complexities" so called because
they were followers of Alexander Campbell,
of Bethany, Virginia. Mr.. Campbell was,
himself, a Scotch Calvinistic Presbyterian.
The Disciples are evangelical Baptists, each
church being independent. They repudiate
the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, which
has been attributed to them; but preach that
repentance and faith are prerequisites to bap-
tism, which must be by immersion. There
are 5000 Disciple churches at present, many
of them feeble. They also have four colleges
The denomination is on the increase.
The Rev. Benjamin Woodbridge, NJ A.,
rector of Newbury, England, from 1919 to
1862, was the graduate whose name appears
first in the list of Harvard alumni. The Lon
don Times says that Mr.. Woodbridge, who
was member of the Savoy conference, and
chaplain to Charles H., was elected by the Act
of Uniformity, but received Episcopal ordina-
ton few years after the restoration. BE,
however, subsequently returned to the same
principles he had formerly professed; and, re-
firing to Englefeld, near Reading, died there
in November, 1854. His body was escorted
from Englefeld to the parish church of st.
Nicholas, Newbury, where he was buried by
vast concourse Of Nonconformists, but there
is no record to mark the spot where this note
worthy Puritan divine, the first graduate of
the Oldest American university, Is inferred.
THROUGH all her troubles-and they have
not been few-Mrs. Christiancy has had the
sympathy of a considerable portion of the
public, and the number of these who thus ar
rayed themselves on her side was largely in
creased by the plain and undenied testimony of
the Washington druggist to whom Mr.. Chris
tiancy applied for aid in the work of pre-natal
murder. The lady's latest appearance before
the public is of such sad character that even
those who do not hold her entirely guiltless
cannot but have their contempt for the hus-
band vastly increased. Mrs. Christiancy may
have done wrong, but with his OWE record to
look back upon her husband had little justifi-
cation for taking the legal proceedings which
have already rnined him, SO far as political life
is concerned, and made a lunatic of the girl
whom he chose for his wife SO short time
ago.
IT is stated that President Garfield was the
only church commitment among all our
presidents while occupying the executive
chair. President Washington was a pew
holder in the Episcopal church, but it is not
certain that he was communicate. John
Adams, and his son John Quincy Adams, held
the religious views of the Unitarians. Jeffer-
son, Madison and Monroe, like many public
men in theiperiod of the revolution, were
tinctured with the French infdelity of that
day, and were not Christians, but claimed to
stand in the role of philosophers. Jackson
joined the Presbyterian church and was COM
municant therein, after he retired from the
presidency to the Hermitage. Van Buren,,
Harrison, Polk, Taylor, Pierce, Buchanan,
Lincoln, Grant and Hayes were not communi-
| cants:in any church while they were in office,
if any of them, indeed, were ever afterwards.
One of our earlier presidents was charged with
being French atheist, but his biographer
denies the charge.
The Nihilists of Russia are still active
New plots against the life of Alexander III.
are being discovered. An anonymous letter
addressed to Gen. Koslof, grand master of
the st. Petersburg police, a few days ago. in
formed him that the Nihllists had resolved to