Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1883-06-07
MICH
GENERAL NOTES.


Nine. Jenny Lind Goldschmidt does
not seem to be growing old gracefully.
Now at the age of sixty-three, she is
described as possessing, from the crown
of her bewigged head to the sole of her
No. 8 shoe, not one line of grace
or beauty. Her form is angular,
her face hard, her eyes are dull and
passionless, her features irregular and
inharmonious. But when she speaks,
the plainess of her face and form is for
gotten for her tones are still those OF
the ''Sweedish Nightingale" and the
features light MP in sympathy with the
music of her voice. She lives in a big
house in South Kensington, surrounded
by spacious and we'll shaded lawns. She
seldom sings now-only occasionally at
Royal request, or at the Bach choir OF
which her husband was the founder.
A GROWING evil which those who
are interested in the youth of our land
will have to combat. is the excessive
use of tobacco, and more especially in
the form of the seductive cigarette
That the use of the cigarette
slowly but surely sapping their brains
and vitality is readily admitted by the
men who believe that a moderate use
of the weed is beneficial, or to say the
least, harmless. The use of tobacco in
any form is vice, and too frequently
precedes the use of intoxicants. But
aside from this, the disgusting practices
connected with its use-smoking when
offensive to others, and making a pig
stye of pavements, cars, halls and the
like, ought to made every pure-minded
youth abstain from its use. 1t is a mat
ter upon which legislators cannot act
as body, but is to be treated in the
family circle. and the teachings OF wife
and mother supplemented by all the
sacred influences of home.
CARDINAL NEWMAN recently wrote as
follows to a gentleman who had re-
quested statement of his views on the
subject of the Affirms ton bill: 81 can
not consider the Affirmation bill in
wolves religious principle; for, as l
had occasion to observe in print more
than thirty years ago, what the political
and social world means by the word
God is too often not the Christian God,
the Jewish, or the Mahommedan-not
personal God, but an unknown God
as little what Christians mean by God
as the Fate, or Chance, or Anima Mum
di of Greek philosopher. Hence it as
little concerns religion whether Mr..
Bradlaugh swears by no God with the
government, or swears by an imperson-
nj or material, or abstract and ideal
something or other, which is all that is
secured to us by the Opposition. Neither
Mr.. Gladstone nor Sir Stafford North
cote excluded from Parliament what
religion means by an Atheist Ac-
cordingly it is only half my meaning if
am made to say that Il do not APP
prove, in any sense of the word, of the
Affirmation bill | neither approve
nor disapprove. | express no opinion
upon it, and that, first, because l do
not commonly enter upon political ques-
tons; and next, because, looking at the
bill on its own merits, | think nothing
is lost to religion by its passing and
nothing gained by its being rejected"
The Atlanta Constitution, Athens
Banner, and other Georgia newspapers
are inveighing against the practice OF
making the execution of murderer a
holiday affair in that State; and it is to
be hoped they will be able to effect re-
form. A hanging is horrible under any
circumstances, and especially SO when
the revolving spectacle is turned into a
public exhibition. A crowd will attend
wherever and whenever the opportuni-
ty is offered; for large class of people
in every community seems to have an
ungovernable curiosity to witness any
thing peculiarly shocking. The Consti-
tuition says of recent execution at Way
cross that all business was suspended
for forty miles around, the plows were
left in the burrows, and the turpentine
stills were closed, and not less than
eight thousand people gathered to wit
ness the hanging of miserable crimi.
nal, "the spectators having the air and
attitude of people who gather to see a
sleight-of-hand performance, or any
other interesting show" A public
hanging at Lexington, Georgia, was
witnessed by large and boisterous
assemblage. 1t was so large, in fact,
that the Athens Banner estimates that
the hanging cost the farmers of Ogle
thorpe at least $4,000 in loss of labor
at a most critical period. "In this
large crowd there were many drunken