The Civil War News & Views Open Discussion Forum

One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago - Oct. 2, 1860

David has been selecting articles from three New Orleans papers, one each supporting Bell, Breckinridge and Douglas. You may decide for yourself which one is which. Other than the political campaign of 1860, nearing its final stages, we cover the great drought, incendiarism in New Orleans, an accident in a University of Mississippi gymnasium, Garibaldi's red battle shirt, a change in the hour for "all good darkies to be getting home", cricket sports clubs in the Crescent City, and a love affair between two women, one of them pretending to be a man. Because these selections already approached 6,000 words, we are skipping good articles about a man-made cavern discovered in Lookout Mountain, a yacht race on Lake Pontchartrain and a hazing incident at Dartmouth College.

There's also an interesting article from the Montgomery Dail Mail about William Walker and his plan to create a slave republic in Central America. The Democratic platform since 185o advocated admission of Cuba as a slave state and expansion of the cotton kingdom into lands bounded by the Caribbean. Along those lines, a popular hotel in Barbour County in 1860 was named the 'Nicaragua'.

NEW ORLEANS COMMERCIAL BULLETIN


New Orleans, La., Tuesday October 2, 1860
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Destructive Fires -- The same paper [Alexandria Louisiana Democrat] has the following: Residents of Rapides north of the river have suffered and are still suffering from the numerous and extensive fires now raging in the pine woods. Whole square miles are overrun by the flames, which destroy also a large proportion of the timber and often endanger houses, mills and fences. The loss in pasturage alone is very serious.

Dry and Dusty -- Our weather is still dry and dusty, and no sign or hope of rain to cheer the husbandman and the parched earth. It is about time to commence putting up seed cane, but what can be done in that line without rain? The standing cane in many places in different parishes is dying. The fall gardens are in a hopeless condition. Franklin (St. Mary's Parish) Planters Banner, 29th ult.

An “Irrespressible” Juror Fined for Contempt -- Mr. Oliver Johnson, editor of an anti-slavery paper, has been fined $25 for refusing to act as a juror in the New York Supreme Court, because he conscientiously believed that the constitution of the United States was “A league with death and a covenant with hell.”

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A POWERFUL APPEAL -- We want our readers to peruse the following powerful appeal from the address of the Hon. Jeremiah Clemens, lately delivered at Huntsville, Ala., and we therefore make room for it in lieu of any remarks of our own. It contains matter worthy of profound reflection: [only two paragraphs of this long speech are quoted]

My purpose is to place before you a connected chain of facts which clearly prove that the Southern rights leaders have for ten years persistently and assiduously labored to destroy the government. There is no escape from this conclusion except upon a plea of lunacy. If they had the least conception of the necessary consequences of their acts, they were and are disunionists. First, the non-existence of the Missouri line was held to be sufficient cause for dissolution. Then came the recommendation to break up all national parties. After that we had resolutions declaring that the Compromise of 1850 ought to be resisted to the extremity of revolution.

I deny in toto the right of secession. I deny that any one State has the right to put in jeopardy the freedom and happiness of all the rest. I affirm that the Constitution is a perpetual compact in its nature, and its express terms – that it was so understood by the framers – that it contains no such absurdity as a provision for its own destruction, and that its authority can only be abrogated or destroyed by a resort to the natural right of revolution – a right that can be enforced by the armed hand alone. There can be no such thing as stealing out of the Union, or begging out of the Union. We must go out of it, if we go out of it at all, at the cost of civil war. The Chief Magistrate, and every officer under his control, are sworn to execute the laws. He and they would be perjured if they permitted you peaceably to withdraw.

THE COURIER


New Orleans, La., Tuesday October 2, 1860

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Letter from Mississippi
Cooper’s Wells, Miss., Sept. 7, 1860
The “Breckinridgers” of this state are pushing on the column with a vim. Old and young, rich and poor, are doing the very best service for the “Constitution,” the equality of the States and the preservation of the “Union.”

The people are beginning to understand that the most ultra “disunionists” the rankest “seceders” of the South, belong to the “Opposition”, and not to the “Breckinridge” party.

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That party, having for its motto that Slavery isa covenant with hell, and an agreement with eternal death, is the party we have to fight. This being the case, let every true Southerner fly to the rescue, and adopt as its motto: “The Constitution and our Equality of the States. These are the symbols of everlasting Union.”

Yours, as ever, S. B.

The following is from a Northern paper, the Indianapolis “Old Line Guard” It teaches a severe lesson to the Southern traitors who, not content with favoring the Abolition proclivities of Bell and Douglas, are constantly deprecating all patriotic efforts, the object of which is to assert our constitutional rights. Are all the offices within the gift of Lincoln – if he is elected – a fair compensation for such disreputable conduct on the part of Southern men?

“WIDE-AWAKES” -- The Hartford Times says that name “Wide-Awake” was the designation by which John Brown’s company was known in Kansas, and was adopted in complement to that "martyred hero.” Mr. Seward said, also, in one of his late speeches, that the Wide-Awake organization was relied on to assist at the inauguration of Lincoln; a fact which has before been hinted. The Wide-Awakes have a regular military drill, and an organization throughout the North. The avowal of Mr. Seward proves that it is designed to support by force, if necessary to their plans, the measures of an Abolition Administration. The organization has been effected under the disguise of campaign clubs; but, under this disguise, the Abolitionists of the North are at this moment completely organized as a military body outside the law!

Is not such a movement well calculated to to fire the Southern mind, coming, as it does, so soon after John Brown’s raid in Virginia? Can the people of the South be expected to stand still and keep their temper under such provocation? Should we wonder if they arm, also, in order to be prepared for another assault upon their soil, as well as upon their institutions? Should we wonder if they drill, too, in every Southern State, to keep up with this “military body” (of Wide Awakes) which has organized “outside of the law?” What will the consequence, if these Wide-Awake supporters of Lincoln should, in case of his election, march to Washington and take part in his inauguration? Will it not be sufficient cause to excite the whole Southern people to madness? Yet, no matter how much they may be provoked and goaded, Douglas says he will stand by Lincoln at all hazards!

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A FEW FACTS
We have before us the official proceedings of the Constitutional Union Convention which assembled at Baltimore on the 9th of May 1860, and nominated John Bell and Edward Everett. The proceedings of that Convention exhibit facts which demand the attention and condemnation of Southern men. [There follows a detailed description of the positions taken by John Minor Botts of Virginia and John McLean of Ohio. Both men appear to be in alignment with the Republican agenda. An opinion of Judge McLean is quoted as follows:

If Congress should deem slaves or free colored person injurious to the population of a free Territory, as conducing to lessen the value of the public lands, or on any other ground connected with the public interest, they have the power to prohibit them from becoming settlers in it.]

But then it strikes us as humiliating thin the extreme to the whole South to see Southern men standing on the floor of what they call a Constitutional Convention, and endorsing such men as Botts and bespattering with fulsome praise such men as McLean – willing to give up our Constitutional rights, willing to sacrifice the institution of slavery, which is “the very warp and woof of our social and political existence,” upon the altar of a Union which would then cease to carry out the ends for which our fathers formed it. Neill S. Brown of Tennessee, who figured in that Convention, says: “I would not give this Union for all the land and all the negroes of the South.” And Gustavus A. Henry, another delegate from Tennessee, says: “If civil war should ensue on this slavery question between the North and South, I would not fight the North. I would be hung first.”

We have given the reader facts – facts which should make Southern men pause ere they, at a time like this, endorse by their votes a Convention composed of “white spirits and black, blue spirits and gray” which refused to recognize your rights and equality in their platform, endorsed such men as Botts and McLean, and finally nominated candidates in whose records we search in vain for a single act to give to the South any guarantee that they are with this in the struggle for Constitutional rights and State equality.

THE DAILY TRUE DELTA


New Orleans, La., Tuesday October 2, 1860

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THE ELECTION
We fear our numerous correspondents who daily send us letters by the score, asking for enlightenment as to the probable result of presidential election, will be out of patience with us, more particularly those who are willing to invest their money upon our judgment. It is useless to repeat what our columns daily record – our sanguine expectation of the election of Douglas by the people; still we do not wish anybody to back our opinions with their money, and if we had the most positive certainty of being right we should give our counsel against betting. Our opinion, we say again, is that Douglas will be elected. He is, however, opposed by the abolition party, flushed with its past successes and its present strength, and supported indirectly, and directly when indirect means do not exist, by the whole Federal power and influence, most shamefully, disgracefully and profligately used by the miserable old man at the head of this government and the unscrupulous knaves who hold him in hand. The Buchananites, therefore, reckon confidently upon the election of the abolitionist. All their orators, west and east, from Bright down, proclaim it a certainty and we naturally infer that their confidence is based upon the disorganizing power they calculate on being available to bring to bear against the Douglas at the ballot boxes.

On the other hand the running of Bell has a distracting tendency; for while he has no more of a chance of an election than Breckinridge, the sham of the secessionists, he will divide the Union strength of the South, and make the opponents of disunion apparently weaker than they would otherwise appear. His supporters foolishly imagine that the election will go into the House of Representatives, and that there or contingently in the Senate, they and one of their men will be successful. We know nothing can be more chimerical than such an expectation, nevertheless, it operates upon a large mass of the dyed-in-the-wool enemies of democracy, and we have to deal with it as is, and not as we know it will be.
The running of these various tickets cannot, our reader will perceive, fail to make calculations of the next presidential result extremely hazardous, and when to these we add that at least half a million more votes will be cast in the free states this year over the vote of 1856, it will be evident that all predictions, no matter by whom made or under what circumstances, are at best unreliable.

The election is between Douglas and Lincoln, and the people will decide it. The Breckinridge ticket may, as designed, defeat the Douglas, although we apprehend no such consequence from its defection, but should the people possibly fail to elect, and of course it is possible, then the election will go to the House of Representatives and be decided there; and neither Bell nor Breckinridge, if both names should be before it, will be chosen. As between the latter, we need not say which the people should prefer, as we know very well nine-tenths of them will be for him who will stand by the Union at all hazards; practically, however, it is of no consequence, for neither has the remotest chance of ever filling the executive chair of the republic.

BRECKINRIDGE AND DISUNION
We are just as ready to admit the claims of Breckinridge to be considered an ultra Union man as we are those of the most rabid of that very extreme school. We believe him when he says he cherishes and will uphold this glorious Union of ours above all other considerations, and we willingly accord to him all the sincerity to which he can lay claim in making the profession. We conscientiously believe he holds as in thorough detestation the principles and doctrines of the nullifiers of Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas, and the mongrel tenets of the same school now for the first time broached in Virginia by the old anti-Jackson and Whig clique, who have managed to get themselves installed as high priests in the democratic temple, as the Douglas himself; but here our credit to him must stop, for either his silence in regard to those questions, answered by the democratic candidate for the presidency in Norfolk is attributable to a mean apprehension that a frank response to them would damage his prospects, or he aims at getting votes under a dishonest and disingenuous affectation of sentiments he does not and cannot entertain. We do not wonder that genuine nullifiers should be mortified and disgusted at his reticence, nor will any body be surprised to hear that Senator Yulee of Florida and other genuine fire-eaters, declare their purpose to vote against Breckinridge unless he answers the questions propounded by one of his own electoral ticket at Norfolk to Douglas, and answers them differently, too, which we all know he never will. It is in the last degree contemptible for any man to be a candidate before the American people for their suffrages pretending to opinions and principles he in his heart known to abhor; and indeed the support of such a political aspirant is one of the most powerful proofs it is possible to adduce of the degrading position into which the once proud and noble Calhoun party has been dragged by the Yanceys, Jeff Davises, Rhetts and others of their kidney in their base alliance with old Buchanan, Slidell, Bright, Bigler, Green, Rice & Co.

What man possessing a scintilla of genuine American independence can reconcile it to himself to refuse a reply to what his own chosen supporters required of an opposing candidate; and what man can be worthy of support of the frank, candid, free-spoken and generous south, who will not say whether the election of an abolitionist is not to be resisted by force? And whether Lincoln’s elevation to the presidency, without any invasion of southern rights or of the constitution by him, is not justification of a secession from the Union by any sovereign state? There are many sincere supporters of Breckinridge in Louisiana outside of the current clique of Buchananites; upright and honorable men whose votes will be cast for him under the impression that if it were possible to elect him he would be of the sound the soundest on the southern issues; but what must they think of him now, when he declines to answer those questions a man on his own electoral ticket in Virginia made a test with the Douglas? Has Douglas refused to answer in the manly and open way so characteristic of him, how would the old enemies of Andrew Jackson, now in control of the leading (so called) democratic organs of Virginia, have denounced him , and truly so as utterly unworthy of a place upon any ticket in this free and independent country? But their Lamb, who interrogated the Douglas, and was so promptly replied to, has utterly falsified his promise to make Breck respond in manner; and yet this innocent Lamb still continues to hold a place upon the Breckinridge electoral ticket of the new Virginia democracy. It is not yet too late to get old Breck to come out, and if some of our old Carolina friends in this quarter, upon who we have our eye, do not interrogate him about the matter, they also must be marvelously changed since lang syne.

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JUDGE DOUGLAS IN CINCINNATI – THE LARGEST POLITICAL GATHERING EVER HELD IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY
Judge Douglas left Columbus on the morning of the 26th by special train for Cincinnati, where he arrived at half past seven o’clock on the following evening. The greatest enthusiasm was manifested along the route, and at every stopping place. An addition of twenty-two cars was made to the train at Xenia, which arrived at Dayton as half past twelve. Here Douglas was welcomed by a tremendous crowd. He proceeded to the courthouse, where he spoke ten minutes, and immediately left for Hamilton. All along the route from Dayton to Hamilton he was received with enthusiasm. On his arrival at Hamilton, a procession was formed which escorted him to the courthouse square, which was filled to overflowing. Douglas spoke half an hour. When the cars reached Cincinnati, the Judge entered the carriage, and was escorted to the Burnet House, where thousands assembled to meet him. The crowd was so great that it was with difficulty that he entered the hotel. After an hour’s rest he was escorted to the courthouse square by a tremendous torchlight procession. The streets along the line of march were densely crowded, and Douglas everywhere was greeted with enthusiasm.

In its editorial columns, the Enquirer says of the demonstration:
It will be conceded, we believe, by all, that Cincinnati never saw such a splendid and extraordinary reception as was extended last night to Senator Douglas. Never, even on a fourth of July or a twenty-second of February, or any great public fete, was such fervent enthusiasm manifested as upon this occasion. The whole city was alive – men, women and children shouting for Douglas, from an early hour in the evening. Large masses of men from the country had come in to witness the scene, and if possible, to hear the great statesman and orator. They had come from Kentucky, from Indiana, for hundreds of miles, and by every possible mode of conveyance. As to numbers, no accurate calculation can be made. They exceeded the anticipation of everybody, and as we have observed, the like was never witnessed in the metropolis of the west. The torch-light procession was of the most brilliant character, and will long be remembered as an unequaled spectacle of its kind.

Few men that have lived in America, and none that are now on the stage of life, could have attracted such tremendous crowds and created such enthusiasm. If there was ever a popular favorite, a man whom they idolized and loved, it is Stephen A. Douglas. The reception came from the great mass of the people. It was their heart-offering of admiration for a great man and of attachment to the noble principle of which he is so conspicuous an exponent. Politicians and wire-workers had little or nothing to do with the manifestation – they were carried away on the ocean of applause which greeted Mr. Douglas at every turn.

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GONE TO MEET YANCEY – The “war horse”, Timothy Rives, Esq., left this city Wednesday morning for Abington, where he intends meeting Mr. Yancey in a rousing tilt with visor down and gloves off. He took with him a large bag, filled, he said “with every scrap of treason Yancey has uttered from his cradle up till now.” It was a ponderous-looking sack. Petersburg (Va.) Express

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COURTSHIP EXTRAORDINARY – About seven years ago, says the Northampton (England) Express, a girl of sixteen married and came to reside at Bedford, where the wife assumed the male attire and the name of Fred, and passed as the son of her husband, working with him at his trade. A Miss Smith fell in love with Fred, and Fred reciprocated affection. The intimacy has now lasted five months, Miss Smith entertaining no doubt whatsoever that her lover was a man. On the truth coming out, the police took Fred into custody. He – we continue the masculine gender – is now twenty-three years of age, of middle height, slender, and of handsome features. The motive for his conduct hitherto are inexplicable, and even the husband, who brings him food at the station-house, does not attempt to unravel them.

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YANCEY’S PLATFORM
So long ago as 1848, Yancey, in the national democratic convention, proposed as a test the protection by Congress of slavery in the territories, and his scheme was, by an almost unanimous vote, rejected. It fared no better in Alabama, where he endeavored at the time to find it fosterage, and he and it were allowed to slink into retirement until the present, when the alliance if the disunionists and Buchanan corruptionists to break down Douglas, took it up and have given it a little vitality.

The following, from the Palmetto State Banner, shows how he and his handling were regarded in South Carolina in 1848:

If the question were put to any southern slaveholder, of plain, practical, common sense, whether he would prefer that the introduction of slavery be left to the people of such territories, and the progress of emigration, denying to Congress all jurisdiction or right to interference with the subject, or that we should resort to Congress to protect us in our rights in the territories, and thus yield the point on jurisdiction over the subject matter, we apprehend there would be no hesitation in saying to Congress - “Hands off – leave this matter to us – if we cannot manage it to our satisfaction, yours is the last tribunal on earth to which we would resort.” We fear no flimsy territorial law – if the soil and climate are suitable to slave labor, slavery will be introduced in spite of any enactment which may be made on the subject by any miserable Mexican and Indian Legislature, which may convene in the territories. We have less fear of the territories than we have of Congress – all we ask of you is to let slavery alone.” Would not this be the reply which reason, experience and common sense would dictate? And is not this the position of the Democratic party and their nominee? What more could we desire?

Nearly all the delegates from the southern states were willing to place the rights of the south upon the platform of total non-interference laid down by the convention. Has Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, a large portion of Alabama, Tennessee and Arkansas, no interest in this question? And shall we separate from them upon an issue, which as a national question, either has no meaning at all, or involves a dangerous concession of southern rights? Grant that the people of the territories have no right to decide the question of slavery within their borders, to whom shall we apply for redress in case they should? Shall it be to Congress? If we carry our case before that tribunal, and thus yield the point of jurisdiction, will we not be bound to abide by their decision? And who that has observed the proceedings of that body in years past, can hesitate to believe that their decision would be against us? For ourselves we prefer to keep this matter out of Congress altogether, and leave it to the energy, enterprise and self-interest of the citizens of the southern and south-western states, who would soon occupy with their slaves which we may acquire suitable for slave labor, “in spite of any territorial laws which may be enacted to the contrary. Texas was populated with emigrants from the United States, and slavery introduced whilst the country was still a Mexican province, in defiance of Mexican laws, and a Mexican population.

To talk of a few thousands of miserable Mexicans and Indians being able to exclude southern slaveholders, with their property, from a fertile cotton or sugar region, is an absurdity. The only mode in which they ever can be excluded is by the interference of Congress. Their right to do this, the Democratic party and Mr. Cass totally deny, and upon this platform, we trust the whole south will stand firm and united.

The Hartford Press says that Sharpe’s rifle company has made a contract with the navy department for nine hundred breach-loading rifles adapted to the naval service, and also with the Egyptian government to furnish nine hundred arms that may be described as a breach-loading rifled musket, with a sword bayonet.

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DESIGNS OF GENERAL WALKER
INTERESTING DISCLOSURES

In an editorial article upon the fate of Gen. William Walker, in Honduras, the Montgomery Mail makes the following disclosures of his plans, expectations and patrons, in his last enterprise, which has resulted so disastrously to himself and his party. These revelations are of a nature to suggest inquiry and comment, and will no doubt elicit much of both. The article is based upon a confidential conversation between Gen. Walker and the senior of tat paper and Col. Joel Rigg, during the last visit of Gen. Walker to Montgomery. The obligation of secrecy depending on conditions which no longer obtain, Mr. Hooper feels himself at liberty to make public the leading points of that conversation. Omitting the writer’s introductory remarks, the remainder of the article is as follows:

Gen. Walker visited this city about five or six weeks before he went down to Ruatan. He had been here a little while previously and left unfinished a negotiation about a small amount of funds. The last time he came, his only object was to meet on business Dr. William H. Rives of this city, who at that time happened to be absent in Florida. The General, therefore, only remained from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon.

During these few hours, Gen. Walker had very full, if not unreserved, conversations with Col. Joel Riggs and the senior editor of this paper, both in this office and that of the Southern Insurance Company, of which Col. R is the secretary. In those conversations (which in the main were of the same tenor as those held during a previous visit), he made one or two statements, in regard to which he imposed an obligation of secrecy only so far as it should be necessary to protect his enterprise. That at an end, there is no reason why we should not publish these statements, as showing in part at least, on what Gen. Walker relied upon.

To both Col. Riggs and ourselves, General Walker stated (in conversations held during both visits, but with most emphasis and particularly during the last) that he had assurances of assistance from the French government if he should be able to gain the control of Nicaragua. He alleged that there was a perfect understanding between that government and himself, that if he would establish the institution of slavery, by law, in Nicaragua the French government would see that the French commercial marine should bring to Nicaragua as many slaves from Africa, as could be profitably carried there. He expressed to us the utmost confidence in this arrangement: and to Col. Riggs’ question, “If the emperor of the French had himself signified his approval of the arrangement?”, he answered distinctly, “Yes, the emperor himself has been approached and I have guarantees” or words precisely tantamount. He did not of course indicate the channel through which the arrangement had been made, but that he placed absolute faith in it, was obvious to anyone who knew him. We believe that he added to us, that there were details of the arrangement which it was needless and would be improper to mention.

The General at the same time informed us that he had been for some weeks sending men down singly or in pairs to Ruatan, which, he said, was only 45 miles from the coast of Honduras: that his agent there was an old Alabama boatman of intelligence who kept public sentiment all right in Ruatan and himself advised; that he paid out all the funds he could raise, in Ruatan passages; was here to obtain $4000 which had been partially promised him, with which and one hundred or two hundred men and the arms of the Susan (all at Ruatan and in good order), he could go over to Honduras and work his way into Nicaragua, where he hoped to get control of the transit route, and receive accessions at both ends. He assured us he had so many friends in Nicaragua among the natives, that a small white force only would be necessary.

Gen. Walker counted largely on the friendliness of Mr. Douglas to his enterprise; said that with Douglas in 1856 at Cincinnati, the whole programme was arranged. He was a warm friend of Mr. D., and tried always to induce his friends to aid in that gentleman’s election. As well as we recollect, however, he said he had no, or a very slight acquaintance with Douglas, but intimated that negotiations with him were conducted by S___ and others.

No man was less in the habit of speaking in harsh or vindictive terms of others than Gen. Walker. But his light grey eyes always gleamed when he referred to the treatment he received from the administration. He was not, however, very communicative on that topic, though he repeatedly said he had been misled and deceived by it.

If Gen. Walker had been sustained as he should have been by the south, he might and probably would have accomplished a great deal for the spread of our institutions. He was loyal to them in his inmost heart – all his hopes centered in the one idea of converting Central America into a slave republic, whose boundless wealth should astonish the world. Much we fear “we ne’er shall look upon his like again!”

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THE CANE AND CORN CROPS – These two crops in the Parish of West Baton Rouge, will turn out better than in Pointe Coupee and other sugar-growing sections of the state. The Sugar Planter of Saturday says:

So far we cannot under existing circumstances complain. From our own observation and information, derived from others more competent than ourselves to judge, we may reach half a crop, or very little over. The drouth has used the cane terribly.

COTTON PICKING IN CARROLL PARISH – The True Issue (Lake Providence) of the 25th says:

The weather has been unusually cool and dry this past week. Cotton picking is progressing finely, though most of the planters complain of the shortness of the crop – which they say will be unusually short, unless the frost is very late in making its appearance.

A most acceptable shower visited Baton Rouge last Friday. The Gazette says “the earth absolutely smoked with glad delight, as it drank up the heavy drops. There was hail with the rain.”

VIGILANCE COMMITTEE – The citizens of Tallahatchie County organized a vigilance committee on the 17th ult. The object of this committee is to watch all strangers who roam around the county without any visible means of support, and to keep the negroes straight.

LEG BROKEN – A student of the university, Mr. Sykes of Columbus, Miss., had his leg broken on last Sunday evening while exercising at the gymnasium. It was broken just above the knee, and is a wound of the most painful kind. Oxford Mercury, 27th.

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INCENDIARISM – Within twenty-four hours three fires have been started, and the origin of all of them is attributed to incendiarism. We gave it as our opinion a week ago when several fires broke out within a short time that villainy beyond mere unconcerted Incendiarism must be in existence, and these later attempts at destruction of property and life strengthen our belief.

About half past twelve o’clock yesterday morning an old two-story frame hose on Apollo street, next to the Tivoll circle railroad depot, and belonging to the Carrollton railroad was fired. It is a dilapidated place, only occupied in the under story by a poor family. A large basket of straw and empty bottles, placed in a corner of a room on the ground floor, where the wall was opened to admit the flames into the lathes, had been set on fire, and but for the fact that the burning straw made so much smoke as to immediately attract the attention of persons, who broke in the door and extinguished the fire, the design of the Incendiary would have been accomplished, and some of the family overheard, who did not wake up until alarmed by the outsiders might have lost their lives. The destruction also of the railroad depot would very probably have also taken place.

At one o’clock the same morning fire was set to the outhouse of Mr. Ferguson’s residence on Magazine street, between Third and Fourth streets. The outhouse was wrapped in flames before the fire was discovered, and it was only by great exertion that further destruction was prevented.

The Merchant’s salt warehouse, in Gretna, containing about 2000 sacks of salt, was destroyed by fire at 2 o’clock on Saturday morning. The warehouse was valued at $1,000, and insured.

EIGHT O’CLOCK. The telegraph bells announcing the time for all good darkies to be getting home will commence to-night, to ring at 8 instead of 9 o’clock. Slave owners will avoid some inconvenience by remembering this. Firemen will also recollect that they needn’t be “alarmed.”

NOT TO-DAY. We are requested to say that the match between the Crescent City and Pelican Cricket Clubs is to take place on Wednesday, not to-day, as stated by mistake by a contemporary this morning.

GARIBALDI AND HIS RED SHIRT – Here an incident occurred which deserves to be mentioned, as showing the singular character of Garabaldi. Finding his shirt dirty and soiled from his personal struggles, after the Battle of Melazzo, he took it off, washed it in the brook hard by, and hung it up on the bushes ate his lunch of bread fruit and water, smoked his cigar barebacked, and wrapped in thought, sat, apparently contemplating the drying of his garment; thus, in the field of bivouac, sharing danger and hardship with the humblest of his followers. Directly his shirt was dry, he went on board the Tukori, formerly the Veloce, lying in the bay on the western side of the peninsula, and personally directed her fire on the fortress and retiring masses.

The same shirt, however, does not appear after all to be quite adequate to the necessities of the general, for at Reggio, owing to the destruction of the Torino, which had all his baggage on board, a spare shirt was borrowed for him from one of the citizens, according to a statement of a lady who “knew about it.”

Messrs. Oram & co., of Philadelphia, Pa, says a commercial exchange of that city, are constructing a banking house of iron for Columbus, Ga. It will be fifty by one hundred and forty feet, and four stories high. The front and one side will be entirely of iron, in the Corinthian style of architecture; also, three iron fronts, for stores to be erected in Galveston, Texas.

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