thing that tends to popular relaxation and amusement. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. We need not fear to fall into the folly of despotisms, which give bread and games to pacify the mob, for in the old Roman sense there is no mob in this country. The French proverb assures us that he who sleeps dines. But it is an infinitely sounder proverb that he who plays best works best. If we had more holidays we should be a more cheerful, more efficient, more satisfied, and less paralytic people.
"SOUTHERN" LITERATURE.
A late article in the Richmond Enquirer upon literary journals is both significant and amusing. It says that it trusts "the last has been heard of Southern Literary Messengers, Southern Monthlies, Southern Reviews, and Southern Punches." It then adds, "not that we have ceased to be Southern in every thought and impulse of our being, or despair of a literature which shall be contradistinguished in its more elevated and original tone from the literature of the North;" but "for the sake of political harmony, and for the security of all investments, whether of capital or mental labor, it is much to be hoped that the grand fact of consolidation will be accepted in its fullest significance, and that Southern authors will at once abandon all hope of erecting petty literary centres in each State. New York is the great centre of every undertaking, and there the South must establish its magazines and reviews." But, again, says the Enquirer, "We think a first-class literary weekly, fashioned on English models, would pay almost any where in the South, and nowhere better than in Richmond."
The Enquirer falls into the very old folly which it expressly repudiates. It says that there never was a sectional feeling strong enough to sustain the "Southern" reviews, miscellanies, and magazines. Then, certainly, there is not now. It was the appeal to that sectional feeling upon which such periodicals depended. A "Southerner" was expected to buy a novel, or a book of essays, or a magazine, or a paper, not because it was better or cheaper than another, but because it was written by "a Southerner" — or defended Slavery; or sneered at the Union; or glorified State sovereignty; or was printed in Richmond or Charleston. Nothing could be more pitiful or childish. It is possible for people in a frenzy to refuse to touch any thing whatever that comes from a particular part of the world; but it by no means follows that they will therefore use what they make themselves to replace it. It was conceivable that the people in the insurrectionary States should be inflamed even before the war so as to refuse to buy magazines, books, and papers from the other parts of the country. But it is inconceivable that a cultivated man or woman at the South should read the Literary Messenger, for instance, because they would not buy a "Northern" magazine. It does not follow because a man abstains from roast beef that he will eat fried eels.
If the most popular writers in the country, the finest scholars, the shrewdest observers, the soundest thinkers, can be paid more liberally for their contributions in Richmond than elsewhere, and if the expenses of publication are less and the facilities of distribution and business experience and genius are greater there than elsewhere, then a magazine or a paper can be established there which will succeed; but not otherwise. Hatred of the North, hostility to the Union, glorification of the Resolutions of '98, contempt for "Yankees" and "niggers," and protestations of devotion to "the South" are not the capital which causes literary enterprises to succeed.
We have nothing but the kindest feeling for the Enquirer, which it will unquestionably spurn, but is it not nearly time, in view, let us say, of actual circumstances, that this ridiculous "poppycock" about "the South" should cease? Whatever generous, noble, patriotic word or deed comes out of the South or the West or the East will be heartily hailed by the American people; not because it is Western or Southern or Eastern, but because it is American, and for the glory of the common country. When the Enquirer speaks of the "murderous designs upon the white population of the South," of the literary journals "of the widest circulation and most commanding influence," it is silly and absurd, as well as untruthful. And when it adds that "the mob has lapped blood too long in Harper's Journal of Civilization to be content with any thing else," it merely, and doubtless intentionally, insults the great body of loyal American citizens who have just suppressed a malignant and desperate rebellion, and with whom this journal is in full sympathy.
In its prospectus for resuming publication the Richmond Enquirer says: "For our course in the past we have no excuses to make, and for the future no promises to give." "The part that the Enquirer will take in politics will depend in the future on circumstances." "We must keep green the graves of our noble dead," etc., etc. All this is matter of taste, and also of feeling. But the spirit from which all this springs, which inspires praise of a paper in New York that seeks "to bring the Government back to the Resolutions of '98," and which denounces the entire liberal press of the country as "leading on the mob to fresh fields of gore," is exactly the spirit from which the rebellion sprang, the spirit which justly alarms every thoughtful patriot, the spirit which checks conciliation, and which indefinitely delays the possibility of reorganization.
THE NEW YORK POST-OFFICE.
Among the city reforms which we should gladly see in New York is a new Post-office: a Post-office which should be in some degree commensurate with the importance of the city, and having a few of the most obvious and necessary conveniences of such an institution. The present Post-office in New York is unquestionably the most disgraceful public building in the country. Frantic efforts have been made to stretch a small, old-fashioned church into the necessary size. Every thing is consequently cramped to the extremest inconvenience to every body. The accommodations are utterly inadequate and contemptible both for the clerks and for the public. A covered, crowded, sloppy shed, full of fetid air, is the inclosure in which people must stand to deposit letters, or to buy small lots of stamps. It would be a sanitary improvement to take it away, and allow people to breathe the fresh air at least while they are kept waiting.
Yet no building in the present site can be more spacious than the old church, and unless there is a thoroughly efficient and satisfactory system of city delivery, which renders a central office of comparatively small importance, there must be a change of site before there can be adequate postal accommodation.
With the low rates of postage the Post-office is strictly a popular institution. Every body is interested in it, and it is not one class alone — even if it be that which writes and receives most letters — which should altogether control its position. The building should be in some airy, accessible situation, not far from the great centres of trade, but not lost in a corner. It should be so spacious that every department should be amply accommodated, and should have such facilities for the buying of stamps, and mailing of letters, and the other details of service, as to relieve the intolerable pressure and long waiting of the present arrangement. No clique of interested persons and no false economy should longer delay the erection of a proper Post-office in New York.
HANGING.
There is a great deal of surprise and complaint that such offenders as Wirz and Champ Ferguson are hung, while the great chiefs of the rebellion, who used such men as tools, are pardoned or not pursued. "The question," says one journal, "really becomes a serious one — are all the traitors par excellence to be pardoned, while those cheap scoundrels are sternly executed?"
But it should be remembered that every person who has been executed has suffered for a crime which is not political. If Dr. Lieber, in his investigation of the rebel archives, had found any proof of Davis's direct complicity with the tortures of Andersonville, for instance, Davis would have been tried by a military commission, and if convicted, would have been promptly executed. Of his moral guilt, of course, there is no question. That Jefferson Davis knew, as Howell Cobb knew, that Union prisoners were starved and frozen at Andersonville and Belle Isle, there can be no doubt. But the law will not hang a man for moral guilt. There must be evidence of actual complicity. Fernando Wood is as morally guilty of the rebellion and its atrocities as Robert Toombs, but the journal from which we quote would scarcely urge hanging him upon that score.
A GEM OF PUREST RAY SERENE.
Fernando Wood lately said, with exquisite humor and with a single eye to the public good:
"Gentlemen, had I served the corrupt interests of the Democratic party as faithfully as I have served the people of New York, irrespective of party, I should stand to-day as the nominee of the Democratic party. [Applause.] Had I subjected myself to the corrupt interests of Tammany Hall I would have been their candidate to-day, I have heard; and it is only because I would not relinquish my manhood and become the subtle instrument of any party, regardless of my own integrity, that I have been discarded."
When the loyal Robert Toombs, to whom the manly Wood regretted that he was not allowed to send arms to shoot United States citizens, reads that, in his foreign retirement, he will probably smile.
Mr. CHILDS AND THE "LEDGER."
It is pleasant to chronicle deserved prosperity, and we are very glad to learn that the remarkable success of the Public Ledger newspaper, in Philadelphia, under the direction of George W. Childs, the eminent publisher, is such that he is about erecting the largest newspaper establishment in the world. The Ledger has now the largest edition and circulation of any daily paper but one in the United States, and its great value as an advertising medium is traditional. Its news is copious and fresh, and its comments upon public affairs keen, prompt, and brief, and always unexceptionable in moral tone. It is a curious fact that, with the increase of size in the paper, a single daily sheet of the Ledger is now equal to a whole week's issue when it began, thirty years ago; and the buyer pays only a cent and two-thirds for what cost a cent at that time. The peculiar ability and energy of Mr. Childs are fitly rewarded; and with his Ledger, his Home Weekly, a family paper, and his American Literary Gazette, essential to all publishers and buyers of books, he appeals to every class in the country and satisfies them all.
Mrs. GASKELL.
The death of Mrs. Gaskell will be a grief to many friendly hearts in this country, for there was no woman in England of whose sympathy the truest Americans were surer than of hers. Her house was sought by travelers from this country, not alone in honor of the author, but in respect for the woman; for she watched our career with an intelligent interest which few of her countrymen shared, and with a tranquil faith from which many of us might have learned. Indeed the woman and the author were, in her case, peculiarly one. The wife of a dissenting clergyman in a manufacturing town, her mind and heart were early engaged with the problem of the life of the laborer. No books in English literature are fuller than hers of a sincere sympathy with the trials of the poor, or show a finer insight into the spiritual laws which relieve them. Her acute sympathy, however, was never morbid, and there is a sweet and healthful serenity even in her profoundest pathos.
Mrs Gaskell's "Cranford" is one of the most delightful and humorous domestic idyls. It has a ripeness and felicity which make it almost the most pleasing illustration of her power. "Sylvia's Lovers," which, in the midst of the war, she dedicated to two American friends: and "Mothers and Daughters," which was scarcely finished at her death, and will be now immediately issued, showed that she still easily held her place at the head of the living female novelists.
Mrs. Gaskell was the friend and biographer of Miss Brontë; and we believe there can be little doubt that, although profoundly different, they will be considered the two most eminent names for scope of sympathy, force of imagination and characterization, and subtlety of delineation, among all the admirable and noted English women who have written novels.
DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE.
CONGRESS.
The Thirty-ninth Congress began its session December 4, at noon. There were present at the time of assembling forty members in the Senate and one hundred and seventy-five in the House of Representatives, being all but nine of those on the roll of the former body, and all but eighteen of those on that of the latter. The roll lists include the names of no members from the States which took part in the rebellion. Mr. Schuyler Colfax was elected Speaker of the House on the first ballot, and Mr. McPherson was retained as clerk.
The Senate was called to order by Vice-President Foster. The credentials of Messrs. Luke P. Poland, of Vermont, and John P. Stockton, of New Jersey, being presented and accepted, these new Senators were sworn in.
Bills were then introduced by Mr. Sumner, and ordered to be printed, to enforce the Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery; to allow negroes to vote in the District of Columbia; to require juries to be partly composed of persons of African descent in sections where a large portion of the population is composed of negroes, and in cases in which negroes are parties to the suits, and prescribing to be taken by persons in the lately rebellious States an oath to maintain their republican form of government, to support the national Union and Government, to discountenance all efforts to repudiate the national debt, and to oppose any distinction of personal rights on account of color.
Mr. Sumner also introduced joint resolutions declaratory of the adoption of the anti-slavery amendment to the Constitution, proposing an amendment to base representation in Congress on the number of voters instead of on population, and suggestive of the duty of Congress in respect to loyal citizens of the Southern States.
In the House of Representatives the members were called to order at twelve o'clock by Mr. McPherson, Clerk of the last Congress, who proceeded to read the roll. When the State of Tennessee was reached Mr. Maynard, elected a Representative from that State, expressed a desire to make a remark; but as his name was not on the list the Clerk declined to recognize him. On the conclusion of the reading an animated debate took place in regard to the exclusion of the Southern members, Mr. Brooks, of New York, denouncing it, and Messrs. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, and Washburne and Wentworth, of Illinois, speaking in vindication of it. The matter was settled against the admission of members from the late rebel States.
The President and Senate were then informed that the House was organized. Mr. Stevens then introduced a joint resolution, which, after a suspension of the rules, was adopted by a vote of one hundred and thirty-three to thirty-six, to the effect that a joint committee of nine members of the House and six of the Senate be appointed to inquire and report whether any of the lately insurrectionary States are now entitled to be represented in Congress, and that until said report shall have been made no member from any of said States shall be admitted into either House.
RECONSTRUCTION.
President Johnson, on November 30, issued a proclamation restoring the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus over all the States except those which had been in rebellion.
The two Houses of the Alabama Legislature met in joint Convention, November 28, and elected Mr. George S. Houston and Governor Lewis E. Parsons for United States Senators. Governor Parsons is a native of Central New York. He removed to Alabama in 1836. Mr. Houston, a native of Tennessee, once represented the Fifth Congressional District of Alabama in Congress. He has taken no part in the rebellion.
Governor Parsons, in his message to the Alabama Legislature, considers the process of reconstruction as progressing favorably. He earnestly recommends the ratification of the Constitutional Amendment. A telegram was received on the 4th by Secretary Seward from Governor Parsons announcing that the Alabama Legislature had, by an overwhelming vote, ratified the Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery. Alabama is the twenty-seventh State which has ratified the Amendment. But one more State is required in order to consummate the work.
Governor Humphreys sent, on the 20th ultimo, a special message to the Mississippi Legislature on the subject of the negroes. Three hundred thousand slaves have been emancipated in the State of Mississippi. The Governor expressed himself strongly in favor of allowing the negroes to testify in court. He lays the vagrancy and pauperism in the State to the Freedman's Bureau. The Legislature has passed a law excluding negroes from the judicial courts in all cases where white men are concerned.
The North Carolina Legislature met at Raleigh, November 28. Hon. S. F. Phillips was elected Speaker of the House. On the 1st instant the President received from Governor Holden a telegram announcing the ratification of the Constitutional Amendment by the North Carolina Legislature.
The members of the Virginia Legislature assembled in Richmond on the 4th, organized, and received the Message of Governor Pierpoint. The Governor believes that very little legislation in regard to the freedmen is required, but thinks that they should be allowed to testify in courts, and be tried and punished in the same manner as white men.
The Legislature of Louisiana on the 2d instant adopted by acclamation a resolution declaring slavery forever abolished.
There having been considerable apprehension in Texas of trouble from the freedmen, Provisional Governor Hamilton, of Texas, has authorized the organization of special police forces in the several counties to assist in the preservation of order.
NEWS ITEMS.
The Treasury Department statement for the month of November has been issued, and shows that the entire national debt is now a little over twenty-seven hundred millions of dollars. It was reduced during the past month over twenty-six millions of dollars. A reduction of nearly seven millions and a half was made during the month in the amount of legal-tender notes in circulation.
Charles Comby, alias Mercier, the supposed third person implicated in the murder of Mr. Otero, in Brooklyn, was caught on the 2d, after an exciting chase, at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, by detectives Wonderly and Latinville, of the Metropolitan police of the Forty-fourth precinct.
The funeral of the gallant seaman, Quarter-master William Conway, who so nobly refused to haul down the flag of his country when ordered to do so by the traitorous officer at the Pensacola Navy-yard, in 1861, took place on the afternoon of Dec. 3, at the Brooklyn Navy-yard.
Libby Prison and Castle Thunder, so well known in the history of the war, will soon be transformed into storehouses again.
It appears from the census reports that the population of the various Indian tribes in the United States and the Territories is 307,842. In the service of the Government during the late war there were 5400.
A terrible disaster occurred on the morning of December 1 on the New Jersey Central Railroad, about two miles west of White House, in Hunterdon County. An express train going east collided with a coal train bound in the same direction. The latter had been detained by endeavoring to stop a freight car which had broken loose on the opposite track. The baggage car dashed through the first passenger car, along the tops of the seats, guillotining the passengers, of whom seven were killed and seventeen wounded.
General Grant, on his journey southward, arrived in Raleigh, North Carollna, on November 28, and remained there till November 30, when he took his departure for Charleston. During his stay in Raleigh he had an interview with Governor Holden, received the members of the Legislature at his hotel, and, by invitation extended in a vote of both Houses, visited the State Capitol and was formally received in speeches of welcome from the two presiding officers.
By order of the Commanding-General of the Department of the Missouri, it is directed that the military post established on Powder River, Dacotah Territory, by Brigadier-General P. E. Conner, shall be designated and known as Fort Reno, in honor of General Jesse L. Reno, who fell at the battle of South Mountain.
We have later news of the Collins overland telegraph expedition. It appears that about fifty men have been scattered in detached parties along the American and Asiatic coasts, who will spend the winter in surveying routes. Next summer, it is hoped, this work will be so far completed that several thousand natives can be employed in planting poles.
A party of two hundred Cheyenne and Apache Indians on the 26th ult. attacked one of the stages on the California overland route, near a place called Downes's Spring, killed seven persons, burned all the buildings in that vicinity, with the stocks of goods they contained, and committed other outrages.
Congress Block, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was destroyed by fire on the morning of the 30th ult. The loss was about sixty thousand dollars.
FOREIGN NEWS.
GREAT BRITAIN.
Colonel Bruce, on November 13, signed a treaty of peace with Bootan.
The most important event connected with Fenianism since the first development of the movement is the capture of Stephens, "Head Centre" of the Fenian conspiracy in Ireland. Not only are "the more prominent leaders all in the hands of Government," but "piles, literally piles" of documents, revealing all the secrets of the organization, were found in Stephens's residence. These comprise not only communications from America, but from every part of Ireland, and Fenianism is now an open volume, at least to the administrators of the law. Stephens defied the British Government, and protested against its existence in Ireland. "I defy," he says, "and despise any punishment it may inflict upon me."
ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES.
The second batch of correspondence between Mr. Adams and Earl Russell, though it does not settle the matter at issue, more clearly defines the situation. Mr. Adams, in his letter of the 17th October last, informs Earl Russell that he is desired, in view of the reasons given by his lordship why such a mode of adjustment as arbitration would not be acceptable to her Majesty's Government, to state "that whatever may have heretofore been, or might now be thought by the President, of umpirage between the two Powers, no proposition of that kind for the settlement of existing differences will henceforward be insisted upon, or submitted, on the part of my Government."
Shortly after Earl Russell wrote a dispatch, urging that in the first dispatch of the present series Earl Russell urges that in no case could her Majesty's Government refer to the decision of a commission the question of their liability for the acts of British subjects committed beyond their jurisdiction. In a subsequent dispatch, dated November 3, Earl Russell tries to strengthen his former argument. He dismisses, or rather repels, the charge that his Government was negligent in their application of the neutrality law. He claims that invariably the United States had made a similar disavowal of its responsibility on the ground of its supposed negligence in the administration of its own laws. In regard to the charge made by Mr. Adams that if the British Foreign Enlistment Act had been as comprehensive in its provisions as the Act of Congress the mischief complained of might have been prevented, Earl Russell replies that the difference between the two Acts is not of such a character as to justify the charge.
Subsequently to the above dispatch Mr. Adams writes inquiring as to what claims the British would be willing to submit to a Commission. Earl Russell asked time for consideration.
SPAIN AND CHILI.
The affair between Spain and Chili is growing more serious than ever. The first shots have been exchanged between the belligerents. A boat's party from one of the Spanish ships attempted to land in Valparaiso Bay, when, being warned not to do so, they fired on the Chileans, by whom the fire was returned. The Spaniards were driven back in confusion, with several killed and wounded, to their fleet. The Spanish Admiral has limited his blockade to six ports, but those six are the only ones in use for foreign commerce.
PERU.
In Peru the revolution has been terminated by the complete success of the revolutionary party, the flight from the country of President Pezet, and the assumption of the Presidential office by Vice-President Canseco, the leader of the revolutionists.
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"Harper's Weekly. A Journal of Civilization / Volume IX, Issue 468." In the digital collection Harper's Weekly. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/0061498.0009.468. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 1, 2025.
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