smithclay/nortonstories huggingface dataset:
Year: 1879

Has il occurred TO any of our Democratic
friends who have the Obsequies in charge that
they are hurrying up the proceedings in a
manner not at all in accordance with
the usages of civilized life 2 There are
reasons, of course, why the body of the late
Mr.. Tilden should not be kept in the Demo
cratic house any longer than is absolutely
necessary. There are several members of the
family who are anxious to get the body
ont of the way as soon as possible.
But it seems pity that a gentleman who went
about everything so lcIsurey while he was
alive should be wbisked off with such indecent
rapidty almost before it is absolutely GER
tam that he is dead. For although
it has been asserted, with a p0sliveness
that in some cases has risen to vehcmence,
that there isn't the possibility of pulsa-
ton in the old mans Frame that his breath
has clean gone out of him beyond any
chance of recall, it must not be forgot
ten that a good many of his intimate
friends are winking mystenousy at each
other and insisting that there's a good deal
of life in the old man yet. This notwithstand-
ing the fact that the newspapers for the past
fortnight have been loaded down with obitu-
aries of the most sweeping character obitu-
aries which, reversing the old de mOrtuis maxim.
gave his memory nil nisi mdlum instead of
Jonnn and which not merely disposed of his
body and appointed the place for his soul.
but actually settled his estate. Notwith-
standing, too, that many statesmen of the
Democratic variety have procured them
selves to be interviewed. and have talked
about him in the past tense, and have leaned
over the casket rs it were, and said after the
manner of mourneIs, "Ile looks SO natural /;
=" he almost seems alvej" and notwithstand-
ing that the Honorable Mr.. Blackburn. of Ken
lucky. has gone to the trouble of putting him in
" hermetically sealed terra Gotta caskei," from
which it Is fair inference that he is pretty
dead, and has buried him twelve feet under
ground (Which would seem to be deep
enough TO keep him down, and has said
:" he Is as dead as Thurman (Which is
carrying the thing about far as could be
reasonably imagined. And still there are men
who insist that the old man will attend the
funerals of several of the leading statesmen
who affect to be weeping over the bier.


Now this as we have had occasion to re-
mark heretofore. Is no funeral of ours. II our
Democratic friends sec fit to conduct 1t as O
Year: 1879

| private and personal funeral, lnsteau Oh
party affair, it is their business, not ours we
have no right to insist that they sha'i


lclay the procession until they have
Obtained the consent Of the corpse. But we
20 take leave TO say, on the score OF common
lumaniy, that they seem to he going TOO ias' T.
ard that they really ought to "give the Ola
"man n chance" II docs not look wei
To fire out tie remains in this abrupt
and sudden fashion, and we submit that
q funeral procession on n dead run to the
cemetery is a very unsecmly spectacle. IL Is
especially 80 when there is reasonable
doubt whether the remains are anywhere
near rs dead rs the rest Of the pro-
ccssion. 1t would be well for the man
ayers to take the fact into serious con-
sidefation that there is an extreme liaDIiity
on the part OF The deceased to rise mp on the
edge of the grave and say: "This looks too
"much like condoning fraud. The remainder
"cf these solemnitics will be postponed
until that question is settled Of
course we do not undertake TO say
positively that there's any breath lcit IN the
body OF the late NJ. Tilden. We only take
leave to interrupt the services for single
moment with lhc remark thai several OF lis
friends insist that it is TO carly TO
bury him. They s9y that julius Crsar
Is very mach deader than he -. and
that it isn't any two to one that he
won't be the next Democratic candi-
date for the Presidency. They recall with
much perinency the fact that the gentlemen
who are so theoretically sealing hlm mp her
metioaly in teTra-cOita caskct nave tired the
same thing once or twice before. notably when
he refused to take the White House by
force, and when he seemed 10 be smothcrcd
by ciphers but they say he came NJ smiling
alter each funeral, and that you never can
count on Uncle Sammy's being dead
Just because he is cold and clammy Ihey
are willing to admit that lie does seem
little further gone this time than ever
before, but he has come out of the same
c0matOse condition 80 many times that they
are quite hopeful of him yet.


He may not be nominated for the Prcsi-
dency, they say; it is not impossible that so
lar as thai is concerned he is dead; but they
are very confident and boastful about one
thing, and that is that-as Sam Cox
said about the Spcakership, when he
thought he was running for it-if he
does not get the nomination himself he can
name the candidate. In other words, they be-


icve that, even though the old man is politi-
cally dead himself, the Democratic can
didate will be like the hymn given ont at
Western funeral which the minister said.
with a jerk of his thumb toward
the coffin, "was selected by the CORPSE
They may be right about it. And i'll this view
of 1t, as we'll as in Difference to custom and the
usages of civilized life it would seem to be well
for the gentlemen who are sealing up Uncle
Sammy on keen jump, and burying him
by a much more rapid transit than that he
made a million dollars out Of, to go slow with
the remains. He will have the New-York
delegation to the next Convention sure. Bet
ter not seal him up too suddenly.
Year: 1879

The President evidently proposes to put the
responsibility of all political and commercial
disturbance, if there is any. upon Congress.
1t Is announced that his message will be
brief, and will purpOSely avoid harassing
questions. The Democracy should he graie-
full. for this ought to Ike it easy for them
to keep their promise, and behave themselves.
Year: 1879

Every new instalment of evidence i'll the
inquCs; over the murdered farmer of Passaic
make, it seem more remarkable that his life
should not have been saved by the inter-
ference of neighbOTS and friends. The son
seems to have fairly published his murderous
intentions toward his father, and openly
threatened him on several occasions with the
axe with which there is every reason TO believe
he was killed. A number of persons, including
the pastor of the church, have now testi-
fed that the father cOniide0 to them
the threats made against his life and
his fears of being poisoned. Indeed
these threats were so boldly and recklessly
made, that they suggest the possibility that
the supposed murderer is insane, though for
q wonder he will not plead insanity as a de-
fence Ii he Is a sane man, then this KOmah
Nyman-whO was quite as ready to
butcher his fathers aged mother a. he WAS 10
Kill bis father, and who could not even be
bri5cd 10 speak to his mother upon her death
beds one Of the most extraordinary bTutes
the human race has produced
Year: 1879

Foolish wills are proyerbial; ; wise wills are


rare, and deserve notice. The testament of
one of our adopted German citizens, which


was lately flied IN Brooklyn, is peculiar for
its practical and sensible tone which at the
same time shows deep affection for those who
survived him. The testatOr was not content
with directing the distribution OF his prop
erty, but left careful suggestions as to the
education of his children. He desired that
they should be instructed in all necessary


branches of leaning, and also IN the use of
"at least one musical instrument" un-
less there should be a positive lack
of talent for 1t. He wishes the at
tention of his sons TO be TUNED early 10
some practical occupation" snch as "civil
" and mining engineering, architecture, chem
"istry, or something similar" He does not
favor business cat eers for them. but Is
anxious that they should acquire clear hand
Year: 1879

A French physician is out in long
dissertation On the advantages of groan-
ing and crying in general, and especially
during surgical operations. He COM
mends that groaning and crying are two
grand operations by which nature allays
anguish; that those patients who give
way to their natural feelings more speed
lily recover from accidents and opera.
tions than those who consider it unwor-
thy man to betray such symptoms of
cowardice to either groan or cry.


He tells of q man who reduced his
pulse from l26 to GO in the course Of o
few hours by giving full vent to his emo
tions. If people are at all unhappy
about anything, let them so into their
rooms and comfort themselves with a
loud boo-hoo, and they will feel one hun
dred per cent afterward.


In accordance with the above, the
crying of children should not be too
greatly discouraged, If it is systemati-
cally repressed, the result may be st.
Vitus's dance, epileptic fits, or some
other disease of the system. What is
natural is nearly always useful, and
nothing can be more natural than the
crying of children when anything occurs
to give either physical or mental pain.
Year: 1879

From my Intercourse with the Mata.
bles | know tn Zulu style of fighting


Even since the dreadful tidings | have
had constantly before me the vision of
that infuriated mass of Zulus. like
thousands Of s,vage gorillas, rushing
on those devoted men of the Twenty
fourth. Their style is not to be con-
trasted for Il mment with that of the
Colonial nativS, or those with whom
our forces haze been engaged in Chi.
quiland West or in the Transvaal.
The Zulus plsfer, and strive, 10 throw
themselves il overwhelming numbers
on the weakest point of the enemy.
With dauntlsss courage and the fury of
tigers they rush on, without the least
concern for the hundreds falling in
their ranks, or the bodies barring
their way; they press on to get to
close quarters as speedily as possible,
looking neither to the left or right,
nor dreaming of hiding for moment
behind stones or bushes. They charge
forward, for this reason preferring the
open field. Naturally courageous and
vain of their prowess, they firmly be-
lieve they need only follow these tactics
and they must win the day. AS for
the loss they suffer in thus advancing
in great numbers, they are indifferent
to it, for the simple reason that they
are so accustomed to Wholesale. slaugh-
ter as one of their daily customs that
the sighU of their comrades falling in
all directions has no effect on them.
Where is there another tribe like the
Zulus and their branches in South
Africa? These men are ruled by a
savage despot. They are trained as
soldiers all their lives in regiments,
properly otiicered-all, in fact, in correct
military style, as near as they can follow
it. When ranged in order of battle,
each man holds a gun in his right hand,
a small shield is strung around his left
arm, and in his left hand he holds a long
and short assegai. Their skill with the
gun being anything but great, they con.
tent themselves by beginning the attack
with couple of volleys. The gun is
then thrown down, and they rush upon
their opponents in dense mass, taking
the long assegai in the right hand. At
about Forty to fifty PAGES they pause in
theiy headlong career, and hundreds and
Thousands of spears are hurled at the
enemy Then the short assegai is taken
IN the right hand and the charge is re-
newed. When within few yards Of
the enemy they make one last momentary
pause, only to snap the assegai short of
across the left knee, and then their
tavorite hand-to-hand conflict ensues.
fhSs the fight becomes o slaughter, gen
orally ending III th~ eosapisto aueeess ct
the Xulus -Cradock Register.
Year: 1879

Even if the bill for the protection of New
York Harbor gets through Congress-and we
suppose there will be powerful lobby
against it, as there was against similar
bill at Albany-it will not 40 to take 1t for
granted that the law will protect us from
the danger it is aimed at So many enemies
are leagued against the welfare of the
city on this point that it is scarcely
to be hoped that we can get rid
of them all by SO simple a measure
rs this bill. Every captain Of steamer,
great or small, every dredger of slips,
official or private, and every dump contrac-
tor seems concerned in the common en-
deavor to fill up the harbor. Some of them
proceed in open defiance Of the law, but
hundreds Of them continue the furtive dis
charge of ashes night after night the year
around. The ashes and cinders from nine
tenths of the coal burned by steamers
in the harbor goes regularly overheard. It
is evident that it will need an efficient
machinery for the discovery of the offenders
and severe application of penalties to
insure respect for the law. State and city
authorities have, however, absolutely failed,
and our only hope is in the bill which
gives the general government full power.
Year: 1879

The suggestion that the nation shall erect
prison building and look after the pris-
oners and convicts who by the present
system are lodged in State and local
prisons is a good one. Counterfeiters,
smugglers and other offenders against the
country at large are greatly superior to the
ordinary run of evil doors; SO, whether
restraint or reformation is necessary, better
men should be in charge than the State
system of managing prisons through pol
iticians and contractors can supply 1t is
possible, too. that the hideous farce of
reformation, as played in most State
prisons, might be shamed out of existence
by the intelligent efforts Of honest man
ayers in an institution as prominent as one
belonging to the nation would necessarily
be.
Year: 1879

Monarchy would be more successful in
the world if mon archs understood the i'm
portance of concealing if they cannot pre-
vent the operation of personal impulses and
passions in public concerns. In comment
ing the other day upon the attempt to as
sassinate the Emperor of Russia we ex-
pressed an opinion Of the imbecility of
such q crime If intended to force
political changes, basing our opin-
ion upon the assumption that the
sense of his personal peril could not extort
from the Gear his assent to any policy not
deemed wise in itself and determined upon
apart from all such strictly personal con-
siderations. It seemed impossible that the
political destinies of that immense Empire
by any reference to the insane fury of q
few banded rufians bent on murder.
And as we did not believe that
advances toward more liberal ideas in gov
ernment could be extorted by these threats
and dangers to the Emperor. SO we did not
suppose that changes already determined
in principle would be abandoned on ac-
count Of them. But that opinion was er-
roneous if the latest news is true, which
represents that the whole scheme for the
organization of national partly elective
chamber of delegates has been abandoned
because of the attempt made OF Moscow.
Such change in policy exhibits the i'm
perial government as amenable to in
fuences to which it should be superior. It
is an unmistakable sign of weakness. It
gives to the enemy On Importance that will
entitle him to respect before the people.
It should be taken for granted That the
would-be assassins are only q knot Of in
considerable persons with savage discon-
tents, and concessions pledged to the ma
tion should not be withheld because of the
existence of such fellows But the govern
ment's attitude holds the people RESPONSE
BILE for the rogues, and they certainly cannot
prevent their activity if the police cannot;
or it deals with them as if they were the
people, which is the greatest possible mis-
take.
Year: 1879

All over Europe there is now extremely
severe winter weather. There is heavy
snow in Italy, intense cold at Vienna, and
the news from Paris is that the River Seine
is completely frozen over. For the Seine
to be frozen over does not imply such cold
as we have in those years when the masses
of floating ice fn the East or North River
get frozen together and form bridge
from side to side, for the Seine is fresh
at Paris, and is not SO large river as thes
Connecticut at Hartford yet this degree of
cold is very unusual for that country, us is,
indeed, indicated by the statement that the
river has not been frozen over before this
for eighteen years. This exceptionally Sc
we're weather in Europe, taken with the
comparative failure of winter weather in
this country, gives additional evidence of
the profound disturbance Of the ordinary
equilibrium of atmospheric phenomena.
Year: 1879

A passage from Virgirs 'Georgics' is
quoted by a correspondent as sustaining


the superstition of the i'll luck of Friday


by its association with a multitude of dis
orderly NEUROLOGICAL personages. But it is
the fifth day of the. moon, not of the week,


which the Roman poet means II our
correspondent had extended his reference
SO as to include q few more verses, to which


he incidentally alludes without quoting
them, touching the seventeenth and ninth


days of the moon, he would have made his
error still more patent on the face of his
quotation. He does not touch the issue
nor refute Robert Southey's opinion that
the Friday superstition is entirely Chris
tian and has arisen since the Christian
cru. He merely proves that Virgil DIS
agreed with Rory O'Mores maxim that there
is luck in odd numbers Such disagree
ments are not uncommon. In Karstens
Niebuhrs record of travels in Arabia
ho mentions that the Mohammedans
believe that the lucky days of
the week Tor beginning journeys are
the second. fourth and sixth. The point at
which we have specially directed inquiry
still remains obscure. Even suppose that
Southey's opinion concerning the origin Of
the superstition can be refuted and 1t can
be dated back of the Christian era. No
matter what is its origin, when did it irst
become dominant over the minds of men
of the first order of intellect and achieve
ment like Byron and Bismarck Can any
instance be cited of an eminent man whose
life was controlled by it prior to the six


teenth century, And II our suspicion is
Year: 1879

The new series of meteorological charts of
the North Pacific now issuing from the Hy-
geographic Office have recently been elabo-
rately explained by Lieutenant Lyons in his
contribution to the Popular Science Monthly.
No work which that Office has ever undertaken
can be of more value to the nautical world
than the discussion Of the daily observa-
tions at sea of the whole navy and the def
milton of the results on every oceanic square
of five degrees The object of these charts
is to exhibit the experience of the past re-
duced to probabilities for the future" in
every part of the ocean along which lay the
frequented maritime routes. BY collating
the data of naval logbooks and charting the
mean values of each element under observa-
tion the marine novice or the merchant in
the counting room can see what has passed
over the waste of waters during the last
hundred years, and be more accurately in
formed Of the weather his ship will proba-
bly, encounter in an ocean voyage than the
most weather-beaten tar that ploughs the
main.


This method of studying ocean meteor





on which it proceeds, however numerous,
afford the seaman no insight into the laws
which govern the aerial phenomena with
which he has to do. But when sailing on
long courses its results enable him to as
certain in each month the general weather
changes due to the region he is traversng,
or at least the wind zones most propitious
for his voyage. The total number Of obser-
vations of each atmospheric element re-
corded in the data for his Pacific charts,
Lieutenant Lyons states, is over hundred
thousand, which have been skiliully and
carefully compared by this able meteor
ologist and photographer. 1t is, of course.
impossible from such data to predict the
weather which on any given day will pre-
vail on any specified tract of ocean. "The
most that can be done in this way" he
frankly tells us, 'is to warn European
countries by telegraph Of the approach of
Year: 1879

representation in the Convention as great a
mockery as their right of suffrage is said to
be at home? If republicans shall think
their National Convention ought not to be
controlled by mass of ignorant negroes
they will have taken long step toward
justifying the political action of the South
ern whites. But if they give the negroes
the same fair play which they demand tor
them in the elections they may find them
very troublesome element in the National
Convention.


This is pretty much all there is that is
practical in the Grant movement in the
South. 1t has developed the fact that if
the negroes are truly represented General
Grant will have the one hundred and
thirty-eight Southern delegates unless he
peremptorily refuses to allow his name to
be used in the Convention.
Year: 1879

true that this superstition is more active in


its influence upon human conduct in the


present enlightened century than it was in
the dark medieval times, what is the ex-
PLANTATION? A superstition which has grown
to dominate the whole maritime world and
regulate the business of every shipowner
in New York. Liverpool, Hamburg, Mar
seiiles, Genoa, Trieste and Rio Janeiro,
which hampers public convenience in the
movement of passengers and freight, and
which endangers the safety of navigation, is
a very serious and important matter for
public debate.
Year: 1879

THE WEATHER-The storm centre Is now
moving into the ocean off the Nova Scotia
coast. While it was passing over the lower
lakes and the st. Lawrence Valley it was at
tended by heavy rains and brisk winds The
barometer rose rapidly throughout the North
west and West and the gradients for northerly
winds were very steep over the upper lakes.
The pressure continues relatively low over the
Gulf coasts Rain fell in the Middle Atlantic,
New England and South Atlantic States
and OH the Gulf coasts, and snow in
the upper lake regions. The weather
was clear in the Northwest and West.
The temperature remained nearly stationary in
the Middle Atlantic and New England States
and fell decidedly in the lake regions, central
valley districts and the Northwest 1t is now
below in all the territory west of the
Mississippi River and north of Kansas. The
winds have been from brisk to high in the lower
lake regions, the New England States and the
Northwest, brisk in the central valleys and the
Southwest and fresh elsewhere. The weather
in New York and its vicinity to-day will be very
cold and fair, preceded by light rains in the
morning. Tomorrow also will be cold and fair.
Year: 1879

THE UNFoRTUNATE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE is
avenged. Another woman observed the first
Napoleon critically for years, and our extracts
from her memoirs give distinct idea of the
story that soon the whole civilized world will
be readino
Year: 1879

AGAIN THE STREET Boy is the cause of q
serious casualty that may result in death. If
most reformatory institutions were not worse
than the streets such boys might be taught bet
ter manners.
Year: 1879

AN ARCTIC OWL has been picked up in mid
ocean. Perhaps there has been general cleo
ton among the feathered population at the
Pole. The wisest owls in our part of the world
are generally at sea after elections.
Year: 1879

TWENTY-FIVE more women have graduated
from the Training School for Nurses, which
means that a great many persons otherwise
likely to die will be saved by that intelligent
personal attention which generally is worth
more than medicine