Peace With China.- Washington, Aug. 29- The Navy Department is in receipt of a letter from Commodore C. K. Stribbling, flag officer of the East India Squadron, in which he says that Lord Elgin and Baron Gros are endeavoring to settle their difficulties with China without resort to force.
Douglasism In Georgia- Washington, Aug. 29- Hon. Alex H. Stephens writes to his friends here that he is about to enter the canvass in favor of Senator Douglas.
Gov. Letcher For Douglas- Richmond Va., Aug. 29- Governor Letcher has published a letter in which he declares that he enthusiastically supports Hon. Stephen A. Douglas.
Connecticut Democratic Convention- Hartford, Conn., Aug. 29.- The Democratic State Convention has voted down the proposition to place two Bell electors on one ticket.
ARCHDUKE MAXICILLIAN COMING TO AMERICA- Washington, Aug. 29- Intelligence has been received in this city, that the Archduke Maximillian of Austria is about coming to the United States on a visit.
Telegraph Extension- Brownsville, Nebraska, Aug. 29- The telegraph line has been completed to this point and is working successfully. St. Paul, Minnesota, Aug. 29- The workmen engaged in building the telegraph line arrived here to-day. The wires are in successful operation.
NATCHITOCHES PARISH- Fears of a Famine. The total failure of the corn and cotton crops in Natchitoches Parish is exciting the serious apprehensions o four fellow-citizens there, and efficient measures are being adopted to avert the worst of all calamities, a famine, and to relieve the distress of those who are totally dependent upon the productions of the soil for the sustenance of life. In view of this distressing state of affairs, not only in Natchitoches, but in several other parishes of the State, a writer in the Natchitoches Chronicle proposes petitioning the Governor to convene the Legislature at an early day, for the purpose of appropriating funds to meet the exigency of the case. The writer says:
The people of this portion of the State are now in utmost need of help from some source, to prevent a famine and its consequent miseries and death.
Every day brings to our ears the distressing information of the blasting of the husbandman’s hopes. Thousands of acres of grain have not yielded the seed planted. The forest crop of acorns and nuts is blasted and gone. The grass is dried and there is no hope for grain or meat for the year’s supply being raised by our farmers. The cotton crop is ruined except on the margin of the rivers and bayous and on the low lands. All the upland cotton is a failure, so the dependence on cotton to afford means to purchase corn and meat is lost to hundreds.
In this alarming position I suggest that petitions be addressed by the people to the Governor of the State, requesting him to convene the Legislature without delay, for the purpose of appropriating funds to purchase corn and flour for the supply of the famishing people, under such regulations as their wisdom may decide on.
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“Prairie Schooners.”- A train of forty-six “prairie schooners,” drawn by four hundred and sixty cattle, reaching nearly a mile in length, arrived in Kansas City a few days since, form Fort Union and Santa Fe, where they had taken out government supplies. They all came in loaded with wool, bringing over seventy thousand pounds.
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The Boston Herald says it is rumored that Governor Banks is about to assume the management of one of the Western Railroads at a salary of $7000 per year, and that Chicago will be his future residence.
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Hicks, The Pirate, Still Alive.- The New York Leader of the 25th has the following, which resembles very much a canard:
The is now no further use in concealing that A. W. Hicks, who was ostensibly executed for piracy on the 13th ult., is still living, though in a dangerous state, but likely to recover the full use of his faculties and limbs. The sight of his left eye is gone and his left arm and leg continue paralyzed; but, apart from those injuries, he would appear to have suffered nothing.
It is said that Hicks was pulled up only 2 ½ feet and suspended only 13 minutes, being afterwards restored by the electro chemical bath.
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Changed His Tactics.- The Rev. H. W. Beecher, formerly an advocate of Sharp’s rifles, has recently become a convert to the breech-loading principle, as my be seen from his “advice to parent,” in a late sermon: “Never strike a child on the head. Providence has supplied other and more appropriate places of punishment.”
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Mr. B. F. Perry, of Greenville Courthouse, South Carolina, Delegate to the Charleston Convention writes:
Lincoln will be elected President in consequence of this disruption of the Democratic Party. He will be elected by one-third of the voters of the United States. Two-thirds of the votes polled will actually be cast against him. And yet he will be elected by the division of the opposition. He will barely get a majority of the non-slaveholding votes, and none in the slaveholding States. In New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois and Indiana, he will not receive a majority of the votes, but carry those States, and perhaps Oregon and some others, by a plurality vote. Bell and Everett will carry Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, and perhaps Louisiana and Florida, if the first is not given to Douglas, and the two latter to Bell.
If elected Lincoln will come into power with two- thirds of the people of the United States opposed to his administration. This ought, in some measure, to appease the apprehensions of those who affect to be so much alarmed for the South. His administration will commence a weak one, and it is not probable that he can, backed by one-third of the people of the United States, seriously injure and oppress the other two-thirds.
But we have another check on his ability to do mischief. A majority of the Senate of the United States will be opposed to his administration, and no bill can become a law till it receives the sanction of the Senate. This majority in the Senate cannot be changed for several years to come. It is doubtful, too, as to the majority of the House of Representatives. More than likely the next election will give a majority of the members of the House in opposition to the Black Republicans. This is to be inferred from the popular vote of two-thirds against Lincoln in the Presidential election.
Mr. Fillmore became President of the United States with a worse record than Lincoln has on the slavery question, and he went out of office a very popular man at the South. He signed the Fugitive Slave Bill, which Lincoln is pledged to enforce. He prevented bloodshed in New Mexico and Texas, which Taylor was about to inflict on the country. According to Senator Benjamin’s speech, Lincoln does not stand pledged to the unconditional repeal of the Fugitive Slave law, or against the admission of any more slave States into the Union, or to the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, or to the prohibition of the slave trade between the States, or to the acquisition of more slave territory.
Judging from the course pursued by other Presidents, and that policy which usually governs politicians whilst in power, instead of doing any rash, violent or unconstitutional act to injure or offend those opposed to him, it is likely Lincoln will pursue a very cautious, politic and wise course towards the South. It cannot be in the nature of any man elevated to the Presidency to wish to see the government broken up under his administration, the republic dismembered and the country plunged in a civil war. Very likely his great effort will be to acquire popularity in the Southern States, and appease their opposition by a rigid adherence to the constitution and respect for the rights of the South. It is not at all improbable that the South may find more favors under the administration of Lincoln than they have under any democratic administration. It may be that “Old Abe” will go out of office quite a favorite with the Southern people. At least we should give him a trial.
[Rebuttal] Can anything be more assuring than the above? Does any Southern opponent of Stephen A. Douglas require any stronger, clearer or better recommendation of the only real opponent he has got, than Mr. B. F. Perry, of Greenville Courthouse, South Carolina, has accorded good, kind, South-loving “old Abe?” If Fillmore was made President, with a worse record than the Illinois rail-splitter, and proved sound on the goose, what on earth’s the reason Abe cannot have a fair trial, as Mr. Perry patriotically demands? Has not Benjamin, Slidell’s lacquey, stated that his record is pure, and have we not Mr. Perry’s unqualified assurance that “it is not at all improbable that the South may find more favors under the administration of Lincoln than they have under any Democratic administration?” After that, can any Douglas or Bell man hesitate or refuse his sympathies, if he cannot conveniently cast his vote, to the cause of Lincoln and the irrepressible conflict.
The enemies of Douglas, we think, are slightly overdoing the thing. A little less plain speaking will serve the Lincoln cause more efficiently. Plain people are apt to take words in their natural sense.
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David Upton