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DAVIS AND STEVENS, PRESIDENT AND
VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY.
[PHOTOGRAPHED BY BRADY.]
PRESIDENT DAVIS AND VICE-
PRESIDENT STEPHENS.
THE accompanying portraits of
Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens will introduce to our readers the
newly-elected President and Vice-President of the new
Southern Confederacy.
organized at
Montgomery, Alabama, on 4th February.
JEFFERSON Davis
the new President, was born in
Kentucky about 1806, and is consequently about 54 years old. Having migrated to
the Territory of Mississippi, with his father, when a boy, he owed to President
Monroe the favor of being admitted at West Point, from which institution he
graduated in 1828. He was lucky enough to be employed on active service at once,
under Colonel (afterward President) Z. Taylor, and served throughout the Black
Hawk War. His capture of the chief Black Hawk, and the friendship which sprang
up between him and his prisoner, are among the most romantic episodes of the
history of the war. In 1835, having married a daughter of General Taylor, he
settled down on a cotton plantation in Mississippi, and acquired some wealth. In
1845 he was elected to Congress from that State ; but at the outbreak of the
Mexican War he resigned his seat in Congress, volunteered, raised a regiment in
Mississippi, of which he was Colonel, and accompanied General Taylor in his
campaign, distinguishing himself signally at
Buena Vista. In 1848 he was chosen
to the United States Senate. In 1851 he resigned his seat in the Senate to run
for Governor of Mississippi, as the representative of the disunionist party, but
was handsomely defeated by Mr. Foote, the Union candidate. In 1853 he entered
the Cabinet of Mr. Pierce as Secretary of War, and held the office till the
election of Mr. Buchanan. He then accepted the seat in the Senate which he
filled till the
State of Mississippi passed an ordinance of se-cession.
He was recently chosen by the Montgomery Convention First President of the
Southern Confederacy. Personally, Mr. Davis is a very gentlemanly man, with a
soldierly bearing, and rather stern manners: as a speaker, he is fluent, clear.
forcible, and sometimes eloquent.
of Georgia, the Vice-President of
the new Southern Confederacy, was born in Georgia on 11th February, 1812, and is
consequently forty-nine years of age. In his youth he was poor, and owed his
education to the kindness of friends. In 1834 he took his position at the
Georgia bar, and instantly gave proof of the talents which have since led him to
be considered the " strongest man in the South." In 1843 he
was elected to Congress as a
Whig; but at the dissolution of the Whig party he acted with the democracy of
the South, and soon became their leader in Congress. He remained in Congress
till the election of 1858, when he refused to be a candidate any longer, and
withdrew—as he supposed—from public life. Mr. Stephens is a remarkable example
of what energy may do for a
man. He has all his life been a martyr to disease, and has never weighed over
ninety-six pounds. His voice is shrill, and at first quite unpleasant to the ear
; but his eloquence is so sure and practical, and his judgment so reliable,
that, wherever he is, he is sure to be a leader. He was a warm opponent of the
secession movement in Georgia.
THE BLACK SPOT.
THERE was much mirth in Hong
Kong. The ball at the club-rooms in Victoria Town eclipsed those which the
governor and the chief justice, and the 117th in their white-washed mess-room,
and the admiral on hoard his gayly lighted flag-ship, had given during the past
fortnight.
Beyond comparison—the belle of
the ball-room—was the beautiful Mrs. G—, a fair young wife, almost a bride, who
had just come out from England with her husband, Captain G—. the junior captain
of the Rifles. All the ensigns and middies, and half the lieutenants, naval and
military, to say nothing of the par-boiled young gentlemen in mercantile houses,
were fairly raving about the angelic stranger. The foolish boys devoured her
with their eyes, and wrote sonnets to her eyebrows, for aught I know, and she
never moved along the little parade at band-time without an overwhelming escort,
but no one ever said that Geordie was not worthy of the good luck he had found,
and the great prize he had drawn in the lottery matrimonial—he, the " Lest
fellow" in the service. On this night Mrs. G was in the highest spirits, and
waltzed, and flirted, well to all appearance, and was the very centre of
attraction—the target of all eyes. Geordie, who knew her too well to be easily
made jealous, was in very good spirits, too; so
were most people. Mrs. G— went
through dance after dance, as the band played on with admirable taste and
spirit, and still partners buzzed about her, and her little ivory
memorandum-book was as filled with writing as a bank ledger.
When she entered the tea-room on
one occasion, early in the evening, the old comprador Ching-Lung, who presided
over the waiters, and was steward of the club, started as he looked keenly at
the beautiful " Fankwi" lady. She passed by him, repressing, good-naturedly, a
smile at his outlandish dress and figure. He stared after her with seeming
rudeness or curiosity, and then gave a grunt, and wheeled off to his avocations.
Several officers noticed this, but Ching was a character, and no one asked what
he meant, or if he meant any thing. It was an hour or more before Mrs. G— left
the ball-room again. This time she entered the supper-room, leaning on her
partner's arm. While the latter procured her some refreshment, the old Chinaman
hovered near, looked sharply at the fair " barbarian," and then drew back with a
muttered remark in his native tongue. Mrs. G—never noticed him. Two minutes
after, Ching-Lung was seen in close confabulation with the doctor of the Rifles,
a sensible, experienced sturgeon, who had been three years in Hong Kong, who had
served on the medical staff in the old war, and who was regarded as the chief
profession-al authority on the island. Dr. Rogers was a man who knew China well.
He seemed much disturbed as Ching took him by the lappet of his coat, and
whispered some communication. The two men's eyes ranged across the ball-room, in
the door-way of which they stood a little apart, and fixed on Mrs. G—. The eyes
of several loungers followed theirs by a common pul-e. What
did they see? Surely no
terrible sight, but a
young, happy, high-bred
Englishwoman, radiant with beauty, health, and gayety, crowned with flowers, and
sweeping through the ball-room like its queen. What was there in all this to
make old Ching use up his expressive Chinese mouth, and Dr. Rogers lift his
eyebrows, and bite his lips, with a brow that knit with a spasm of involuntary
anxiety? Smoothing his ruffled brow, the doctor stepped from his place, passed
Mrs. G—, and looked full and steadily on her face. She looked surprised, and a
little annoyed, but presently turned away smiling. She thought the doctor, no
doubt, an odd, rude old gentleman. Very much compressed were the doctor's lips,
and very often did the frown of care return to the doctor's brow, as he threaded
his way through the crowd, most of whom had some slight or merry remark to
bestow on so popular a character, until he reached the place where Captain G—
was talking to the Colonel's wife and two other ladies seated on an ottoman. The
doctor drew Geordie aside; they were old friends ; and begged as a particular
favor that he would take his wife home, away from the ball, but without alarming
her.
" Alarming her !" said Geordie,
quite in the dark as to the other's meaning. "Why, what a Blue Beard you would
make me turn out, doctor ! She's engaged twelve deep,
I'11 be hound, and it wants an
hour of supper-time, and I can't get her away. Besides, she's not tired. Why
should she go, you know ?"
To this Dr. Rogers merely
answered that he begged as a favor that Captain G— would take Mrs. G— hone. It
must be done, and would le for the hest. And being hard pressed for his r,
a-son, the doctor said Mrs. G— was about to he ill. It was his duty to ask her
husband to take her away from the crowded room.
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