Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-04-22

| TIL the parties desiring to be married
take the oath of allegiance to the United
| States, and no clergyman, magistrate,
or other person authorized by state laws
to perform the marriage ceremony will
officiate in such capacity until he him
self and the parties contracting matri-
mony have taken the oath of allegiance.
Both papers are largely filled with re-
printed war news from the Northern pap
ers, chiefly from the New York Herald
Paragraphs from the Raleigh Press of
May 1 relate to the flight of Jefferson
Davis.
We are informed that Jefferson Davis
in this state on the 10Th of April. Our
informant states that the cavalry forded
the Yadkin, the infantry and wagon train
crossed on a bridge, and Davis himself
was ferried over in fiat. Mrs. Davis
was with him in a carriage. The wagon,
it is said, contained his treasures of gold
and silver. The soldiers who were with
him were picked men, of known and des-
perate courage, and it is said that Davis
had promised each of them $3.50 in gold
if they would see him safe in Texas. Our
opinion is that this great sectional i'm
poster and robber has struck for the sea
coast, and that his purpose is to escape
! to the West Indies.
| The same paper in its issue of the fol-
lowing day contained this further intelli-
gence concerning Davis movements:
Before leaving Charlotte, Davis made
a speech, in which he promised to have
larger army in the field than ever before
! very soon. He had with him a train of
about twenty wagons. His escort were
mere desperadOes and adventurers, many
of whom were formerly under John Nor
| gan. On the oath they burned the navy
| yard, ransacked the stores and dwellings,,
| and committed various OutrageS on the
property and persons OF the inhabitants.
Conspicuously printed are long ex-
cerpts from editorials in the London
Standard. Doubtless many readers, both
old aud young, will be interested in the
perusal of a few paragraphs from the re-
markable fulminatiOns of one of Eng
lands leading papers. The Standard, of
| April "a, 1865, after trying almost in vain
! to convince itself and its readers that the
surrender of Lee and the Army of North
ern Virginia did not by any means make
certain the fall of the cOnfederacy, con-
| cludes as follows:
| Under any circumstances the news
| from America for the next month will be
! of momentOus importance to this coun-
try and Europe. We have from the first
asserted that the south was fighting our
battles; and we do not hesitate to say that
we regard the disaster that has befallen
| Lees army as an untOward event, and one
which will not fail ultimately to exercise
! a serious influence upon our imperial in
terests. We have been false to our prin
ciples, and neglected our opportunity.
We have been guilty of a crime as well as
IL .ooT1
dren will have to pay for both.
One more extract will be sufficient to
show the feeling of the party for which
the Standard stood as spokesman the sue
cess of the union cause. The following is
and editorial published in the latter part
of April:
The south is doomed. With the sur
render of General Lee ends, not indeed
the possibility of military defense, but
the hope of final success. After four
| years of war, sustained with gallantry
and resolution that have few, if any pre-
cedents in history; after such sacrifices as
| perhaps no nation ever made IN valn at
ter losses that have drrined the life-bloOd
of the country; after serious of brilliant
victories gained under unequalled disad-
| vantages, courage and skill aud devotion
have succumbed to brute force, and by
sheer power of numbers race, inferior
in every quality of soldiership and man
! hood, have prevailed over the bravest and
most united people that ever drew the
| sword in defense of civil rights and ma
tiOnal independence.
The part which England has played in
this awful drama adds tenfold bitter
ness to the grief with which we regard its
! deplorable catastrophe. Every generous
heart must be wrung in witnessing the
death agony of & gallant nation; but we,
| its nearest kinsmen, whose sup1neness per-
mitted, whose policy furthered and hast
ened its destruction, have to bear not only
the pang of sorrow, but the worst tortures
of self-reproach. England (may heaven
forgive her) has cast away the noblest op-
pOrtunity and been accessory to the great
est crime that modern history records. A
single dispatch, a single stroke of the
pen, requiring no more than the common
est foresight, and the most ordinary cOur-
age, would have enabled her to deserve
the gratitude of generations yet unborn.
| More than once it has been in her power,
! without single blow, to establish in the
new world that international balance of
power without which neither peace nor
| liberty is desirable. She might have Civ
| en- independence to the south; have stay
ed the carnage of war; have secured
firm, loyal and powerful ally; have made
Canada safe forever. All this she might
have done without overstepping by a
hairs breadth the duty of neutrafs and
the law of nations; aud there was not
found in England a statesman who had
the courage to seize the opportunity.
| Worse than this; the men to whose feeble
and unworthy hands her great power and
vast responsibilities were intrusted not
only shrank from casting her moral weight
into the scale of justice, order and civil
ization, but they lent her aid to the cham
pions of tyranny within the Union and of
anarchy abroad.
Both numbers of the Press contain
many military advertisements, orders, ETC.,
relating to the administration of army
and local affairs. Thus Lieutenant Gay,
Sixth New York Artillery, is by one order
appointed superintendent of the white
labor, aud all destitute persons warned
that rations will be no longer issued to
them unless they register their names as
Drillipcr 70 work in case no work