AUGUST 1, 1863.]

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

483

(Previous Page) is idle. To cringe to a riot is to betray the cause of good order. Therefore, if you can not command it, say nothing. No mob was ever blarneyed down. Except for the true and tried soldiers, and the batteries in position in the city, the well-meant blandishments of the prelate would have been as a few drops of sweet oil to arrest Niagara.

BARBARISM AND CIVILIZATION.

BY the light of the burning Orphan Asylum we read the following illustration of the hopeless inferiority and degradation of the African race.

Mungo Park, in the year 1795, traveled in Africa to find the source of the Niger, if possible, and to explore the hidden interior of the continent. One morning he had reached almost the furthest point of his journey. He was entirely alone, for his faithful servant had been stolen for a slave by a Moorish prince. Solitary and sad he was directed to a village—and he continues: "I found, to my great mortification, that no person would admit me into his house. I was regarded with astonishment and fear, and was obliged to sit all day without victuals in the shade of a tree, and the night threatened to be very uncomfortable, for the wind rose, and there was great appearance of a heavy rain; and the wild beasts are so very numerous that I should have been under the necessity of climbing up the tree and resting among the branches. About sunset, however, as I was preparing to pass the night in this manner, and had turned my horse loose that he might graze at liberty, a woman returning from the labors of the field stopped to observe me, and perceiving that I was weary and dejected, inquired into my situation, which I briefly explained to her; whereupon, with looks of great compassion, she took up my saddle and bridle, and told me to follow her. Having conducted me into her hut she lighted up a lamp, spread a mat on the floor, and told me I might remain there for the night. Finding that I was very hungry, she said she would procure me something to eat. She accordingly went out, and returned in a short time with a very fine fish, which, having caused to be half broiled upon some embers, she gave me for supper. The rites of hospitality being thus performed toward a stranger in distress, my worthy benefactress (pointing to the mat, and telling me I might sleep there without apprehension) called to the female part of her family, who had stood gazing on me all the while in fixed astonishment, to resume their task of spinning cotton, in which they continued to employ themselves great part of the night. They lightened their labor by songs, one of which was composed extempore, for I was myself the subject of it. It was sung by one of the young women, the rest joining in a sort of chorus. The air was sweet and plaintive, and the words, literally translated, were these: 'The winds roared and the rains fell.—The poor white man, faint and weary, came and sat under our tree.—He has no mother to bring him milk; no wife to grind his corn. Chorus: Let us pity the white man: no mother has he,' etc., etc. Trifling as this recital may appear to the reader, to a person in my situation the circumstance was affecting in the highest degree. I was oppressed by such unexpected kindness, and sleep fled from my eyes."

This was the hospitality of black barbarians in the interior of Africa to a civilized stranger of another color on the 21st of July, 1795. On the 13th of July, 1863, white civilization in the great city of America repaid the debt.

"OUR OWN."

MR. CHARLES MACKAY is an English verse-writer, and the author of the rub-a-dub song called "A good time coming." Some half dozen or more years ago he came to this country to deliver lectures upon English poetry. His manager was "Colonel" Hiram Fuller, not unknown in the city of New York and elsewhere. Mr. Mackay's introductions were to literary circles in this country, by which he was kindly received. But the public were obstinately deaf to the charming of his lectures. They were described by those who heard them

as the most appallingly dull performances of which the oldest auditor had any experience. The

"Colonel" carried him through the land, but every where the verdict was the same, and his lecturing tour was a melancholy failure. But through all the disappointment and chagrin it is possible to imagine the baffled author grimly humming:

"There's a good time

coming, Charles,

A good time coming."

And it has come. He is taking exquisite revenge for all his wrongs. Mr. Mackay arrived again last year, and proceeded to settle his account with this country by writing weekly letters to the London Times. He gloats over our misfortunes. His pen reels and trips along the paper as he describes our war and our overthrow. He evidently regards this

civil war as but a proper retribution for a nation which would not stand his lectures. He glories over every defeat and disaster of the national cause, and one could imagine the gentle bard in the full delight of conscious vengeance, scribbling his columns of Copperhead news for the London Times, and humming as his pen flew and flashed along the page, and he foresaw with British eyes our commercial ruin:

"There's a good time coming, John,

A good time coming."

His latest letter, dated June 26, on the eve of Lee's defeat and retreat, of the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, with the opening of the Mississippi, and the capture of immense forces, and arms, and stores, and the dispersion of the rebellion in the Southwest, and of the total disappearance of Bragg before the triumphant advance of Rosecrans, contains such rollicking passages as these, "The belief that * * the South will indubitably achieve its independence, and that it is better for all parties that it should do so without further bloodshed, spread rapidly from the lower grades of the working classes upward until it has pervaded the whole mass of society except the contractors, the preachers, and the newspaper editors * * In fact, the Federal Government seems to be tumbling into perdition."

Mr. Charles Mackay's fiction is much livelier than his lectures and more imaginative than his verses; and the quality and quantity of his performances of this kind in the London Times only show what deep and direful vengeance he has sworn against us. For it includes two nations. He elaborates these columns of sneering misrepresentation and abuse of this country and its condition, and John Bull gravely reads it and believes it. What a scolding we should have saved ourselves if we had only gone to Mr. Mackay's lectures!

SONG OF THE BORDER.

A FRIEND in Maryland, whose "heart is with the Union," sends the Lounger the following song:

AIR—Bonnie Dundee.

To the heart of the nation the booming guns spoke,

While the true flag went down in the fire and the smoke;

And the grim walls of Sumter yet echoed the fray

When the loyalists rushed where the Stars led the way.

Chorus.—Then fight for the Stripes, boys, and fight for the Stars!

Confounded be treason! torn down be the Bars!

Let foul traitors tremble, and rebels grow pale,

As the Banner of Union floats out on the gale!

Though the land of the cypress its Vandals sends forth,

They are met in the path by the hosts of the North:

Toward the troopers that spring from the cotton-banked stream,

With the fires of just vengeance our bayonets gleam.

Chorus.—Then fight, etc.

They may flaunt in the breeze their famed rattlesnake flag;

They may sneer at the Banner, and call it a rag;

But by all we hold sacred, above or below,

We solemnly swear that their flag shall lie low!

Chorus.—Then fight, etc.

They may boast of their chivalry, boast of their blood;

We stand by our fathers' faith, bow but to God:

Let them come in their pride; they shall grievously feel

The firmness and keenness of loyalists' steel.

Chorus.—Then free let the Stripes wave, bright shine the Stars!

Confounded be treason! despised be the Bars!

The false hearts of rebels shall falter and quail,

As the Banner of Union floats out on the gale.

HUMORS OF THE DAY.

"DID you not observe the scraper at the door, Sir?" exclaimed an offended spinster, "staid, tidy, and discreet," to a gentleman who had entered the house without scraping his boots. "Yes'm," said he; "and I intend using it when I go out!"

THE SOUTHERN REBELS' EMBASSADORS TO PARIS AND LONDON.

SLIDELL SENT TO PARIS.

"Is cotton king?" The Emperor's mind to feel, They shrewdly send to Paris a sly de'il; And, as a slight disguise may do as well, Their missionary has the name Slidell. As slight a change gives us his Master's name—Jeff Davis and old Davy much the same!

MASON SENT TO LONDON.

To England, where their nobles poorly pay

The toil that makes their wealth from day to day,

They send a Mason, who can build each hall

By endless toil of men not paid at all!

As teaching Britons morals does he come,

Virginia his native State and home,

So call'd from England's honor'd Virgin Queen

By error, all the future unforeseen?

Alas, 'tis by that name the truth's o'erthrown,

For there a colored virgin ne'er was known;

Each planter makes his children slaves, 'tis true,

A horrid color'd crop that meets the view!

He lashes them to toil, or bids to sell—

A picture of "Free State" design'd in hell!

A GREEN OLD AGE.—A statistician, writing in a weekly paper, says: "In grinding grain and making flour, one man can do one hundred and fifty times more work than he could perform a century ago." We should rather have supposed that "one man" who could have performed any kind of work a century ago, when he must have been comparatively young and strong, could hardly get through so much more now that he figures in the character of a centenarian.

A young lady, whose name was Mayden, having married a man named Mudd, gave rise to the following:

"Lot's wife, 'tis said, in days of old,

For one rebellious fault,

Was turned, as we are plainly told,

Into a lump of salt.

The same propensity of change

Still keeps in woman's blood,

For here we see a case as strong—

A Mayden turned to Mudd!"

Two tourists observing a pretty girl in a milliner's shop, one of them proposed to go in and buy a watch ribbon in order to get a nearer view of her. "Hoot, mon," said his northern friend, "there's nae occasion to waste siller. Let us gang in and speer if she can gie us twa sixpences for a shilling."

It is asserted that a certain eminent medical man lately offered to a publisher a "Treatise on the Hand," which the worthy bibliopole declined with a shake of the head, saying, "My dear Sir, we have too many treatises on our hands already."

When the press-gang was patrolling London they laid hold of a well-dressed man, who pleaded that, being a gentleman, he was not liable to be pressed. "Why," said a sailor, "you're the very man we want, for we've pressed a number of blackguards, and want a gentleman to teach them manners."

A Dutchman, summoned to identify a stolen hog, being asked if the hog had any ear-marks, replied, "Te only ear-mark dat I saw vas his tail vas cut off."

EPITAPH.

Here lies old Father Gripe, who never cried "Jam satis;" 'Twould wake him did he know you read his tombstone gratis.

When you see a dwarf you may take it for granted that his parents never made much of him.

An Irishman, by way of illustrating the horrors of solitary confinement, stated that out of one hundred persons sentenced to endure this punishment for life only fifteen survived it.

Man may be said to be going to destruction apace when he abandons any sober walk of life for the de-canter.

Said a thief to a wit, "There's no knowing one's friends

Until they've been tried and found steady."

Said the wit to the thief, "All yours, I presume,

Have been tried and found guilty already."

The individual who "stood upon his own responsibility" is to be indicted for infanticide.

"Harry, I can not think," says Dick,

"What makes my ankles grow so thick."

"You do not recollect," says Harry,

"How great a calf they have to carry."

A man who had been fined several weeks in succession for getting drunk coolly proposed to the judge that he should take him by the year at a reduced rate.

New PROVERB.—A thorn in the bush is worth two in the hand.

LABOR LOST.—An organ-grinder playing at the door of a deaf and dumb asylum.

A female teacher of a school that stood on the banks of a quiet stream wished to communicate to her pupils an idea of faith. While she was trying to explain to her pupils the meaning of the word a small covered boat glided in sight along the stream. Seizing upon the incident for an illustration she exclaimed—

"If I were to tell you that there was a leg of mutton in that boat you would believe me, would you not, without even seeing it yourselves?"

"Yes, ma'am," replied the scholars.

"Well, that is faith," said the schoolmistress.

The next day, in order to test their recollection of the lesson, she enquired—

What is faith?"

"A leg of mutton in a boat," was the answer, shouted from all parts of the school-room.

DO YOU GIVE IT UP?

Why do young ladies in love like the circus?

Because they have an itching for the ring.

What letter in the alphabet is necessary to make a shoe?

The last.

DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE. 

THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC.

A CAVALRY reconnoissance went out to Front Royal on 20th. Our whole force is now across the river. The rear-guard of General Lee's army left Martinsburg at two o'clock on the morning of 18th, a few cavalrymen picketing the other side of the Potomac. The river is falling rapidly. General Lee is retreating his main force by Strasburg and Staunton, not by Culpepper as was supposed. General Meade is said to be in hot pursuit.

GENERAL ROSECRANS AT WORK.

Rosecrans is doing finely with his army, driving the rebels before him. Dispatches from Memphis, dated on the 17th, say that General Hurlbut's scouts had just arrived at Corinth, from Decatur and Jacksonville. They report that Bragg was retreating precipitately into Georgia, followed by Rosecrans's forces. General Rosecrans's advance was reported to be at Rome, Georgia.

THE FALL OF PORT HUDSON.

The particulars of the fall of Port Hudson have reached us by way of New Orleans. It appears that General Gardner, on the 8th inst., sent out a flag of truce asking for terms of capitulation. General Banks replied that

ner twenty-four hours to consider the matter. At seven o'clock A.M. on the 9th the terms were complied with, and our troops took possession. The moment the surrender was completed the rebels sent a request for six thousand rations, as they had eaten their last mule—which was found to be literally true. The trophies are five thousand prisoners, fifty pieces of artillery, and small-arms in proportion. The loyal citizens of New Orleans had a torch-light procession and general jubilation on the night of the 11th.

ANOTHER ATTACK ON CHARLESTON.

General Gilmore informs the War Department that up to the 12th instant he had captured the whole of Morris Island, with the exception of about a mile of the north end, on which were Fort Wagner and the Cummings Point battery, mounting fourteen or fifteen heavy guns. On the morning of the 11th an attempt was made to carry Fort Wagner by assault, but it failed. Our losses had been about 150 killed, wounded and missing. The enemy's loss would not fall short of 200. We had captured eleven pieces of heavy ordnance and a large quantity of camp equipage. After the failure of the attack on Fort Wagner, which was caused by the hesitation of the supports of the storming party after the parapet was gained, General Gilmore commenced engineering approaches, and it was expected that it would soon be captured. All the fortifications on James Island, as far as Secessionville, were also in our possession. During the operations a rebel steamer attempted to land reinforcements on Morris Island, but she was driven off and destroyed by our gun-boats, the troops on board barely escaping. The attack was renewed on 17th.

MORGAN'S RAID.

The rebel General Morgan is faring badly with his raid into Ohio. On 18th his forces were overtaken near Pomeroy by Generals Hobson and Judah, who had formed a junction. Morgan, finding himself in close quarters, and learning that the ford at Buffington Island was well guarded, broke up his band into small squads in order to escape. One squad, with six pieces of artillery, made for the crossing at Buffington. Our gun-boats drove them back, with the loss of one hundred and fifty killed and drowned. Our cavalry charged and captured the battery, killing a number of the rebels. Colonels Wolford and Shackleford succeeded in capturing one lot of five hundred and seventy-five, and another of two hundred and seventy-five, besides numerous squads. On 20th General Shackleford and Colonel Wolford chased the enemy for fifty miles, and at three o'clock sent a flag of truce demanding a surrender. After a consultation of forty minutes Colonel Coleman, on behalf of the rebels, surrendered. Morgan, with a small squad, contrived to escape; but our troops are in pursuit, and hope to catch him.

GENERAL SHERMAN'S ADVANCE.

Rebel accounts of the late expedition of General Sherman's corps against Jackson, Mississippi, show that the fighting was terrific, that the city was partially destroyed by the shelling from our batteries, and that the loss on both sides was very severe. General Osterhaus, one of our finest cavalry generals, is reported to have been killed by a cannon-shot on the 12th inst., and that his body was met by one of General Pemberton's staff on its way to Vicksburg. The news of this conflict is contained in dispatches from Jackson to the papers of Mobile, Montgomery, Augusta, and to the Richmond Enquirer. They comprise information from the scene of action from July 10th to the 16th. On the latter date it is stated, in the dispatch to Richmond, that "the enemy made a heavy demonstration on our right and centre this afternoon; but Walker's and Loring's divisions repulsed them handsomely. The artillery fire was incessant, and our batteries replied gun for gun. The enemy sought shelter in the woods. Heavy reinforcements for Grant continue to arrive, who are pressed on our right for the purpose of crossing Pearl River above and flanking us. The enemy are planting siege-guns on their redoubts. It is supposed that to-morrow the remainder of Jackson will be burned."

On the previous evening our troops were shelling the city tremendously.

CAPTURE OF YAZOO CITY.

Yazoo City, which was held by about eight hundred rebels, was captured by the Union troops under General Herron on the 13th. Two hundred and fifty prisoners were captured. The gun-boat DeKalb, which accompanied the expedition, was blown up by torpedoes and sunk in shallow water, but no lives were lost. The rebels burned three transports lying above the city, and some eight or ten large steamers up the Yazoo.

A CAVALRY FIGHT.

An obstinate fight took place on 17th, between Shepherdstown and Martinsburg, between the cavalry of General Gregg and the whole force of General Stuart, upward of ten thousand strong, who are protecting the rear of Lee's forces. The conflict lasted several hours, with heavy loss on both sides, our troops holding their ground heroically. It is said that General Gregg was for six hours cut off from communication with the main army, but that he finally relieved himself, and, in a gallant charge, capturing a number of prisoners, three stands of colors, and four pieces of artillery.

A REBEL CONSCRIPTION.

Jeff Davis has issued a call for every man between the ages of eighteen and forty-five at once to repair to the conscript camps.

NORTH CAROLINA WAVERING.

The tone of the newspapers, as well as the testimony from various quarters, all indicate that North Carolina is about tired of rebellion, and would gladly proffer her allegiance to the old flag.

REBEL GROANS.

The Richmond papers are terribly doleful over the recent disasters. The Enquirer says: "The fall of Vicksburg, the retreat of Bragg, the repulse of Lee, and the advance on Charleston, are all serious disasters—the most serious that have attended our arms since the beginning of the war."

REBEL VIEW OF OUR RIOTS.

The news of the New York disturbances had reached Richmond, and the papers are exultant over it. They hail them as the beginning of a great Northern revolution, styling it a "good work" and "an excellent outbreak."

FOREIGN NEWS.
ENGLAND.

THE AMERICAN QUESTION.

THE American question is being widely discussed, both by the papers and in Parliament. Lord Palmerston requested Mr. Roebuck to drop discussion on the question of the recognition of the South, as it was not desirable to resume it, or to bind the Government to pledge themselves as to future action. Roebuck postponed his answer till the 13th, but thought a better answer than his would be heard before that day.

ANOTHER ANGLO-REBEL PIRATE.

The rebel steamer Gibraltar, late the Sumter, has sailed from Liverpool for Nassau, N. P. She had been well repaired and strengthened, and took out the "monster guns" which caused her late temporary detention by the English authorities. It was thought that she would resume her operations as a rebel privateer.

POLAND.

PROGRESS OF DIPLOMACY.

The notes of the three allied powers on the subject of Poland have been laid before the Emperor of Russia, and are reported to be of a conciliatory character. The preparations for war continue in France and Russia. The expectation of immediate or speedy hostilities diminished daily. In connection with Poland Lord Palmerston replied in Parliament to Mr. Warner that England had made no prospective arrangements to fight for Poland, but that she would wait as occasion required.

" AN ye'l not subschribe to help a poor conscript. Thin I'll jilt throbble ye for your watch an whatever little vallybles ye rev al