THE RIVAL YANKEE EDITORS.

Colonist, Issue 68, 15 June 1858, Page 4

THE RIVAL YANKEE EDITORS.

Whenever any traveller visited the United States, and on his return published a work disapproving of their institutions, I favored the public with a true account of his life, generally beginning by stating that his father was hung for forgery. In this way I grew in the esteem of my fellow citizens, as well as in .wealth, and was soon in a position to despise the lies and calumnies of Levi, the rival editor. He said what he pleased of me, but I took no notice of his impotent malice. At length, one morning my eyes fell upon a passage in his paper, which banished the color from my cheeks. It was as follows :— •♦ Extraordinary disclosure ! By a singular coincidence we have been put in possession of a fact in the early life of the caitiff editor W——s.^ It appears that the miscreant is a bigamist! The whole particulars connected with himself and his first wife are known to us alone, but will appear in our next. When the circumstances become noised abroad, the villian may expect a visit from the officers of justice. Bdro Antecedentiurn Scektos dessiruit pceaopceh Blaudio!" The rascal had, by some means or other, got possession of the fact of my previous marriage ? Jane was, perhaps, at that moment in America. The thought was distraction. The laws of the country are severe against bigamy; I should be condemned to a lengthened term of imprisonment, or spend half my fortune in bribing the governor and judge to let me out again. There was but one course to pursue, and one or the other of us must fall. Wrath and despair nerved me to the task, I ran down the street aa hard as I could, and pulled Ihe other editor's nose. He kicked me. The affair was arranged to take place that same afternoon, in a wood near the town. After partaking of an early dinner, though it must be confessed 1 did not eat much, I strolled down the street with my rifle over my shoulder, and my second, Colonel Tickler, beside me. We met Reveral people on the way, and amongst others the mayor, all of whom stopped politely and asked us where we were about to " settle our difficulty," for the news* of the approaching fight was by this time known to every man, woman, and child in the town. The Colonel replied that he had selected the Bowie Wood, at a distance of half a mile. 'That's right Judge.!' said they to me. «I must tell you that I had been elected a judge only « short time before, by aw overwhelming majority over Levi. 'That's right, Judge, shoot him down, shoot him down !' Alas! I thought that he might have had advice of the same kind given "to him, and would be equally ready to follow it. Our seconds selected two trees which faced each other, at the distance of forty paces, without any intervening obstacle. Behind one they placed .Levi, and behind the other they'placed me, such being the mode of duelling in that part of the country. They then left us to ourselves in the middle of the wood, there being no particular law of honor in this kind of single combat, which, from its very. constitution, requires nothing more than that you should kill one another as you can. This is not so easily done, however; for, both being safely ensconsed behind trees, with rifles in their hands, neither is willing to be the first to move, and bo expose himself as a clear mark of his opponent There is a hesitation, too, about being the first to shoot, which is only natural, seeing that, if you miss your friendly antagonist, you are yourself left without a ; defence. In this, way Levi and I continued for a whole hour to peep round the sides of the; trees at one another, each withdrawing his head as soon as he perceived the other doing the same. At the end of that time, a tremendous

shower of rain came down, deluging me to the skin, and. in spite. of all I could, do, Wetting the powder in my gun. o * Levi!' j I bawled out at the top of my voice, 'is your powder \vet?' 'No,' he replied. «Mine's not,' I returned ; 'it's beautifully dry!' But this subterfuge would not do. I saw Levi advance calmly from his hid-ing-place, with his rifle ready to level to his shoulder, and wearing a diabolical air of triumph. There was yet one hope. • Stop!' I exclaimed; 'lay down tha^ infernal instrument, and let us have a parley for a moment.' 'Agreed,' he replied. 'Levi,' said I, ' your a good fellow, after all. Supi pose, instead oi your shooting me, we go into partnership together?' 'With all my heart,' he returned. .' Here, give me your word of honor that, if I don't shoot you, j 3^ou will take me into partnership.' ' I give you my oath.' ♦ All right, then. Let us move homewards again.' ' The fact was,' said I, ' that as you may perceive, my gun was wet and would'nt go off. 'No more would mine,' he returned. I confess I felt rather like a fool at this. However it was something to have won him over to my interest, as the affair of my first marriage might now be hushed up. ' Tell me, my friend,' said-. I, when we were seated amicably together in my office, partaking of some rum-smasher, ' tell me how did you come to know that I had another wife living, eh?' 'Oh, you have, have j^ou ?' he exclaimed, in the greatest surprise. # It was perfectly new to him. He had unintentionally told the truth. Fool that I was ! I. had forgotten that he was an editor, and had judged, of him onty as a common man. A meeting of the shareholders of the Atlantic Telegraph Company was held on .the 23rd of.February, Mr. Samuel Gurney, M.P., in the. chair, when the report was adopted unanimously, and a resolution passed to raise £75,000 additional capital. Of the £350,000 subscribed only £200 re-' mains in arrear. The failure of the late attempt in laying the telegraph was attributed to the want of time necessary for properly testing the apparatus. Experiments are being carried on with a view to perfect the paying-out machinery, and to make it as nearly as .possible' self-acting. Mr. Cyrus Field staysin England to take charge of the next expedition, which will be in the Niagara and Agamemnon, as before. It is proposed to increase the length of the cable from 2500 miles to 2900, and to meet this expense a sum of £35,000 will be provided out of the additional capital to be raised; Subscriptions have already been received for £24,400. The directors have: determined for the present to postpone the contemplated conversions of< the shares. It has been agreed with the original holders to purchase all the privileges they enjoy under theexisting contract, many of which would prove prejudicial to the satisfactory working of the company,, with 3750 paidr up shares of £20 each, an undertaking being given that none shall be sold until the cable is laid. j i vo ...>K? :.■•■• On the night of the 23rd of Feb., a foreigner accosted three French girls in the Hay market, and, after a short conversation, accompanied one of them, Madame Louise Thaubin, to her lodgings, in Arundel-court.. The foreigner left the house, in the morning about 1 o'clock. As in the course of the day Madame Louise did. not make her appearance, the keeper of the house and the lodgers began to have suspicions; and about 7 o'clock in the evening they resolved to search the room. They were horrified at finding Madame Louise dead, and quite [ black in the face from strangulation. There were finger-marks on the throat, and indications of a violent struggle. Medical aid was immediately procured; but the, doctor pronounced that the woman had been dead for some Hours. There was a quantity of blood on the pillows. On examining the room, it was discovered that; nearly all the wearing apparel of the dead woman was missing; also some pawnbrokers' duplicates and money. The black velvet cloak the deceased wore when she met the foreigner was also gone. As the earrings were torn from the ears of the deceased it seemed that robbery was the motive of the barbarous murder. The police, in a few days, got on the track of the suspected assassin.- They found him on board of a ship bound for Monte Video, which had dropped down the Thames and was just about to set sail from Gravesend. He had amongst his luggage the trinkets and other articles which had belonged to the murdered girl. He is an Italian, aged. 21 years, a tinsmith, born at Domo d'Ossola, and his name is Giovanni Lani. He has since been fully committed for trial. A coroner's inquest has been held on the body of the deceased, ,and the jury have returned against Lani a verdict of " wilful murder." Her Majesty's Emigration Commissioners during the past year despatched 70 ships to the Australian colonies. . There is living at the present time in the township of Offerton, near Stockport, a married woman who, within 22 years, has presented her husband with 26 children, all single births. . Christianity Should Commence at Home. — It is after family worship that a Glasgow lady retires to write Sapphic letters, or have a quiet cup of cocoa, made strong, with a companion in private. It is a Free Kirk deacon,who,with£loo,oooofdebts (chiefly,J of course, to the Western Bank) and very shadowy assets, besides a town and country house for what we may call his own proper use, supplies a manse and needful sustentation for a "friend" of the pleasanter sex. The gentleman who overdraws his account at the Western Bank for £67,000, announces himself a proprietor of a " religious " newspaper, which denounces as worthless in this world and lost in the next, the man that would, neither take or give leave to go upon the rail or upon the; river on the first day of the week, and which will jdoubtl ess denounce ,us as "infidel" for maintaining as we do, and shall do, that all this is the profane mockery and

not the sacred reality of religion. Or take the Glasgow meeting for sending money, missionaries, and advice to India. We do not find, indeed, any person of the name of Monteith, M'Haffie, or M'Donald, conspicuous in the proceedings, though possibly enough they were applauding loudly, and may subscribe largely; but (which seems the beginning of the fulfilment of the, prophecy in the Times city article, that we may soon "find such persons figuring again at religious meetings in all the pride of having .'been selected to propoce the most prominent and impressive resolutions") 'we do observe among the leaders on the platform the name of at least one director of the Western Bank when that institution was at its worst. But for at once a more general and a more conclusive piece of evidence, take (excluding the clergyman) the general character or composition of |he meeting, commencing with the chairman; it is the same chairman, with the same followers, who held meetings to vindicate or screen the Western Bank, and who have never yet uttered one word in the way of retraction or condemnation, much less taken one step, in the way of amendment and restitution^ It is; in vain to say that quarters must.be respected, or that Indian missions are godd things, though atonement for wrongs or assaugments of sufferings nearer home is a good thing too. Pay first what is first due. The Glasgow magistrates and ex-directors of the Western Bank may plead that, with their spiritual ears, they hear a voice calling unto them "from India's coral strand;" but we, with actual ears of flesh, hear a bitter wail sent up from broken hearts and desolated homes among nearer neighbors. The work to be done yonder is the business of all alike, and is likely to last for ages to come, as it has, with no visible.progress, lasted for ages past; but the work to be done, or at least the confession to be made, here, is peculiarly the! business of Glasgow, and is both urgent: and comparatively easy. But, chiefly, what we do not now, and hope never to understand, is how true religion can be either served or honored by the profession of men who have -on their hands atonable offences unatohed for.! ; Frankly, we do not believe in the eflScacy, or even the decency, of speeches about missions in India by men who directly or indirectly, by act, by direction, or by apology,:have.^ participated in the devouring of widows' houses at home. Andwe cannot help thinking that in consequence of the recent disclosures and calamities, it would have become our sister city, instead of exalting herself before the country, and uplifting - her voice <on behalf of the distant heathen, to have appeared with " her hand on her mouth, and her mouth in the dust-—' "Cnclean, unclean ! God be merciful to me a sinner.'"—; Sc&'sman. • . . , Mpoleon III.— On September 26, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte,: at present Emperor of the French, took his'seat in the Assembly. :He came in quietly at a side door, at first unp©rceived. " When admitted,'' says Lord Normanby, he m;ade a short speech, repelling calumnies,; professing love of country, and desire to work out those democratic institutions which the people had a right to expect. He wished, he said, to contribute to Vaffermissemcnt de la JtepubUqiie" How well his Imperial and Republican Majesty has since fulfilled this wish we need not proclaim. As, however, we were ourselves present at the delivery of this speech—if such it can be called—we may state that a more mediocre performance was never exhibited in any popular assembly. Thepersonal appearance of the speaker was mean and insignificant, his voice thick, his delivery drawling and marked with a foreign accent, his bearing jjpld and apparently calm. But the haggard look and the distrustful manner showed that all was hot at ease within. ! The few words uttered excited on all sides the remark—" One so mentally and physically unimportant can never be formidable to the liberties of the country." Within; a few months after this date, however, this man, apparently so little dangerous, or formidable in any way, was^elected President, having for a competitor the man who saved society in the days of June. "History (says Lord Normanby) affords no parallel to this spectacle of all the eminent men of all former political parties uniting in support of a man whom no one of them would have personally selected. They in fact follow whilst they assume to direct, a popular impulse which they could not resist. Many circumstances conspired to the success of the present Emperor—as first President of the Republic. In the first the prestige of his name; secondly, his adventurous career; thirdly, Ms expatriation; fourthly, the sort of persecution he had undergone from the, Republic; fifthly, the support.of various parr, j ties to whom he /had "made those advances and given those guarantees refused Cayaignac; and sixthly, the support of all the ! peasantry, all the clergy, and great part of the army of France. ,To obtain his end j Louis s Napoleon broke with the Mountainmade advances to. the Moderate Party— put himself into communication with Odillon Barrot-—^proposed to Thiers to name him as his Minister, and to Mole to make him Minister or Vice-President. One making all ■ these professions and promises, and boasting of a name which reflected military glory, when backed by the peasants and priests, possessed fearful odds against a General whose only merits were his honesty, his directness, and his .personal services. Louis Napoleon was elected by an immense majority, but he disappointed the politicians who had hoped to make him an instrument in their own hands, and completely mystified the Moles, Thiers, Bugeauds,Broglies, and Pasquiers. For a time indeed Odillon Barrot was his minister, but neither Mole nor Thiers, nor any of the others, ever served him; and none of the Moderates who had been in office under the Monarchy wished to contribute to found the Empire. In spite; of them, however, the Empire was made. How long it may endure is another question, for the French are very fickle, and have an ugly habit, indeed we may say a

perfect knack, of speedily overturning tho . idols they have set up. - '! "I thought you was born on the Ist of April," said a benedict to his lovely wife, . who had mentioned the 21 st as her birthday. ; " Most people would think so from the ! choice I made of a husband," she replied.