VOLUME 6. THE PEOPLE'S JOURNAL. PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY MORNING BY HASKELL k AVERY. Terms : One copy per annum, in advance, $1.0) Village sultscribersperannurminadvance, 1.25 . R•TRi OF ADVEI27ISING.—One square, Or t welve lines or less, is ill be inserted three times for one dollar; for ev( ry subsequent insertion, twenty-five cents will be charged Rule, and figure work will invariably be charged double these rates. rp"These terms will be strictly ndhercd to. For the 'People's Journal. STHAINDED SHELLS. A little boy roamed ,on the shore of the for off Paciffic, where it rolls its sun. bright waves toward the long line of .. Coast that bounds the Western limits of the New World. Not far from him was the site of an ancient ruin, at which men cavilled and wondered—over which they built great thories, and spent a whirldwind of breath to no purpose, for they buil , them without any of the toil some and profound research— they talked without that studious investigation which is so necessary to the finding out of any of these time-hidden mysteries connected with the ruined cities of the 0;d and New Worlds. Still-near to that little one, stood a half-built, yet already half-ruined ety of the.last two hundred years. A min gled multitude of All the notions of the earth" crowded that 'changing city, and their busy hum filled the still air. But it was faint and far off sound to that child on the Ocean's shore—so faint and far ofl it was lost in the hoarse rush of the ever murmuring waves. It was not Leon's native land. He first opened his great wondering eyes beneath the pale blue of our wintry sky, and the wind among our mountan pines had sung his cradle song ; but a few months to ,young child are longer than many years to an old man, and so the moun tain home and the cradle song were half forgotten dreams of very long ago to Leon ; and now the tropic sky and southern tongue were as his own. The sun drew near his setting and the thousand leagues of waves were like fire, and their rays shot through the air like bundles of shining arrows. The golden brightness of his northern curls flashed back the tropic sunlight, and rlanced'io 'the cool sea breeze. The world of land " lay green behind"—the world of waters spread before, and within lay that strange unexplored wort lof a little child's ideas. There were dull pebbles and shining ones upon the sands beneath his feet, but brighter than these shone thf stranded shells strrtvd ever them. One large b"riuht, winding one caught the eye of the litt!e wanderer, and he bruAtd away the sand with his little tiny hand, and mounted his trophy on his shoulder with the air of a workman ; shouldering some hush. load. The opening of its wind ing chamber turned toward his ear and the hollow echoing sound, so much like the pine song of his native land, struck a familiar chord in his soul—familiar, yet so near forgotten that he knew no 'cause for its tones seeming so home like, and so dear. He was to young to think much but he felt, as children often feel, that he was in the presence of some thing as well known as his mother's voice, yet, so incomprehensible that its wonderous strangeness seemed oppres sively vast to his struggling mind. HHome I Home ? Dark old pines— Solemn woods sleeping on the , eternal hills—Deep shaded rivers flocked with fallen laurel flowers,and windinithrough narrow, valleys—Noices of a .far-01l land—Love lit, eyes peeping over the cradle edge—Flowers as unlike these. as feeling is unlike passion—Soft winds that have not brought a thousand legends. from the4ecrets of old Ocean's floor, but are full of bird-songs and leaf-wordi— Does Leon remember the pine-tree cra dle song of his own land ?" The sea shell sung no words but its monotonous voice called up the feeling belonging to those memories, without the remembrances themselves. Leon did not know what it was thus strangely moved him, and half wondering, half afraid, he dropped the shell, and when the song was no longer in his car he looked up in a sort of bewildered trance forgetting where he was without know- THI,..:.PEOPLE'S: - JOtt'i!:H . NAL. ing why; he wept—and the gleaming arrow of the sunlight' transfixed his tears, so that though they filled his Eyes they did not fall. How strangely looked that flood of shimmering light to that half spellbound boy ! Its familiar face had departed, and it seemed strange and new. The " rush and recoil" of the unquiet waters made a sound as of some giant, wrestling with his monster foe, who were familiar heroes of oft heard tales, but whom• he met now for the first time. So many new sensations filled him with awe,' and he looked up again in wonder and surprise, when suddenly the whole outward world looked like itself again ! With a long sigh of re lief as though some burden had been removed from his spirit, he ran on again, laughing in his joy of heart, as though no wonderful and beautiful revelation of one of the soul's mostanysterious secrets had not been made4l ) lth. A few months passed and Leon was back in his native woods again, and his vision by the sea side, and the winding shell with its song of home were alike forgotten, or buried with old things far down in his heart as though they were not there. Leon grew up to manhood—the golden curls oh his head grew rich and dark,. and the wondering, bewildered look of childhood had changed to the fixed and glowing light of a man's thoughts and aspirations. Ile was again far from his native home; in a great city—jostling and crowded in the- busiest mart of busy life—eager, emulotis, ambitious, life's purposes/were to him as they arc to others—his only thought: and like others he mistook too often a worthless passion for a worthy purpose. But hours of relaxation come some times to the busiest man, and one. came to the young man amid his wrestling with the world, in his endeavor to rise abrkve its common tide., He sat alone one evening in the house of a friend— the events of the day—the hopes for to - morrow—dreams—fancies—.lights and shadows of the past—all floated dimly and indistinctly through his teeming yet Hie brain, in one of those delicious rev. erica which are to the toiling and weary the Indian summer of the heart. His eyes were flied vacantly on the mantle ornaments before him, though he was unconscious of beholding them ; but as ellen times much of our lives are `in• fluenced by things never recognized by our outward senses or our mentelligence, so Leon, though unaware of it, was led by those minute shells to dream of those' long gone by days when he walked by the sea side with that mother whose voice yet haunted his enr with unforgot ten music. The particulall 'shell on whicibis eyes were fastened was one of those singular " freaks of nature"' which seem to anticipate every contri vance of man, In this instance the mu sicians scroll seemed to be transformed to the varnished exterior of that little shell. ' Tivas all over written with those "mistic dots and lines" which forrri the written language of the "dis coursers of sweet sounds." Leon .. had music in his soul" that night. They say that the sea shells sing ever their song of the sea, though they are borne across mountain and glen—across desert and teeming land—no matter where - it might come to lie, the echoes of the voice of its ocean home would ever more sigh forth through the hollow windings of the tinted shell. So, sighed that hollow music scroll, attuning its memory-song to the written characters that marked the instrument. Faint— uncertain—law—like the spent voice of an reolian harp, quivered that sea-song .on Leon's ear, affecting it like same sights do the vision of clairvoyants, car rying it away into some unknown or for gotten region and revealing to if mys terious wonders, the mind cannot, or at least does not comprehend, but ,which the soul ever seeking for a higher and more spiritual life, seizes and feels and has faith in, even while listening to the skeptical caviling of the inte4lect which calls always for "proof—proof." Leon was one of those who from habit rather than nature, was prone to be dissatisfied 'vith every thing which could not render DEVOTED TO THE PRINCIPLES OF DEMOCRACY, AND THgDISSPMTNATION OF MO4tALITY. LITE'RATURE;AND NEWS el •••••• • 11 • 95 • '•L; MARCH 17,1854. a square-and-compass, a bread-and-bat ter reason for itself. But here he had prOof of something, he did not know what—addressed to a part of his own being of whose very existence he was alMost unaware. He was one of that very common class of superior t minds who confound sensation, feeling, and passion together, and regard all mere emotion without some substantial out ward cause; as unworthy of attention. He could understand grief at the death of a friend, after it had happened—that was visible—substantial—But that dark ness of the overshadowed - -apirit which lies under the shade of the coming grief, he could not believe, for, queried his matter-of fact common sense, "Where is the proof that there is such a thing ?" But though a man of the world, living for the outward life—the outward pur pose, the physical, social, and intellectual good, as all should partly do, and omit ting*, as none should, the supplying of the wants of his more spiritual being, he still had that within him, born long ago on the Ocean's shore, which has lain like a dormant chrysalis in hie soul ever since, which was now " bursting , through cerement and shroud" like a full grPwn bu:terfly, whose growth in its narrow cell had gone on unnoticed till its " time was fulfilled." Leon did not know, neither could the wisest philosopher have explained to him; why it was that sea writ music-scroll called up the memory of the dark pine woods, (long since laid in the dust,) which stood like guardians huge and tall around his cradle-home. He could not, tell why sweet, lair faces, Wreathed around with long, shining curls, seemed to float before him in a sort of warm, silvery', blue mist. He had seen those faces only in .treasured pid tures of " the -loved, the lost of other years ;" and his struggling memory failed to reach back to the remote tithe when ,they sung lullabies to the house hold darling. But now evoktd. from" their dusky hiding place in the soul, they come to teach him, even by their beautiful, etherial presence, a new oF cessity of his nature, the need of a higher life. . And- there were other well-re membered ones, whose faces, despoiled Of the limo-pkreed wrinkles of Intel' years, who seemed from their far off home; to come in life's young beauty as they came years ago * , and _smile their deep, heart-gushing tenderness on him, their much-beloved. All that was good, and pure, and sweet. in his past life, seemed to rise up, released from all the material grossness which had enveloped and almost hidden it hitherto, and as a real, glorified presence, stand before him, and-le - Ict - Teiv in his heart that henceforth tht i s o would be to hint as a pillar of cloud aril fire in his life-long pilgrimage through the world's , unknown wilder ness, up—always upward toward per fectian—that " promised land" of the true spirit's affections ' That Stranded-Shull taught Leon that night a lesson of life eternal.' E. C. w. Missionaries. I I "At a missionary meeting held in the Mount Vernon Church, Sunday evening, the handsome sum of $1055 was sub -scribed in aid of the American Board of Foreign Missioris."—Boslon Paper. The thought suggests itself, whether it, would not *have been as well for said meeting to have appropriated "the hand some sum of $1055" to assist in defray. ing the expenses of missionaries to civ ilize the people of ttfe "South"? for, in our humble opinion, a people who sell their own children (and those 'who should be their wives) in bondage, stand as much in need of civilazation as the Hindoos. Charity should begin St home ; and after we have civilized and christianized the heathens and barbar ians of our own country, it will be time enough (or us to Jook elsewhere for ob jects of charity.—.Norristoton Olive Branch. Theta's our sentiments. Not a - bad impromptu was got off by one McVicker, at the /heater in Chicago, recently. In the play of the Masquerade Her, one of the actors handed to Mac a five dollar bill, as payment for a ticket - to the ball. He took the bill, examined it for a moment, and then, handing it back to him, exclaimed, with that tone and manner impossible to imitate, " That's aNebraska Bill! It won't pass here." A shout of laughter and applause, tvhich shook the theater, attested the hit he had made on the anti-Douglas feeling of the house. SIP OF THE PUBLIC WORKS. We have received a copy of the report • made to the egislature on this subject, and have read it with much interest. We trust the facts embodied in this report will be scattered broadcast through the State. The following extract fully sustains the charge of corruption which ' has been made against the Canal Board, a nd calls loudly for reform.—[En Joud. The public debt is estimated by the Governor at $10,272,2:35 01 The an nual interest upon this sum, at five per cent., is, in round numbers, two millions of dollars. The multifarious .monetary transactions of the several departments of the government, complicate the State finance's, and render it difficult or impos- . tible for the tax payer to understand them ; but the -4 whole problem, stripped of verbiage, for the Legislature and the people to solve, is, How shall this debt and interest be met and paid, with least burthen to.the tax-payers? It is a debt resting upon the people, for the payment of which their houses, lands,'and tene ments, and even their honor and good faith, are virtually mortgaged. This interest and debt provided .for, all the other obligations of the Commonwealth would be met Without tax upon real estate, and a surphis be left in the Trea sury. 110 W Tll SYSTEM AFFECTS PUBLIC MORALI The system of public works exercises an influence more powerful upon: the morals, and in. some respects, upon the interests of the people, than the govern= meat itself. The officials and agents of the system, whoe name is legion, ex tend to all parts of the Commonwealth, —a vast engine of political power, un known to the Constitution, moved by a common impulse, and operating upon the public mind at any time - they arc so disposed, in State Conventions, and at the ballot box, in solid column and with almost irresistible. sway. But it is not as a dangerous political machine that it is viewed in its worst aspects, nor as an exhausting drain upon the public purse; its malign influences upon the morals of the community are even .More to be dreaded than all other evils, and power fully co-operate in making it a festering ' disease 'Upon the public. At every stage, complaints have been made of the extravagance, fraud, and peculation in the conduct of the works ; arid the most honorable agents have been stigmatized • with odium by an indignant public, smarting under heavybur t th,n 9 h th o c3 tno - c h ‘n abuses hate . .gene and Attempts to, reforM, however loudly pro fessed and honestly made, hare 'been unavailing to eradicate evils inherent in the system. Economy, ever regarded as a cardinal virtue, in public as well as private agents, has ioo frequently been treated as a secondary. consideration. Public servants, whose virtues have commended them to general esteem, have not been regarded as the most fining instruments to discharge the peculiar duties exiwted of them. That practices at war with all the es tablished principles of political economy, have resulted in debt ; tixation, exirava gance, mortification,-and disappointment, is a . misfortune, but cannot be a matter of astonishment to the people of Ifennsyl .vania. Thotqandi have expected and predicted ,such a result from a system which has set at .defiance all the laws which govern• business men. Had the object of the" anomalous .system been to destroy, and not to build up the revenues and morals of the State, it could not have been more ingeniously, devised ; and therefore it is an extraordinary and unaccountable fact,"that with a people so. proverbial for practical intelligence-it was ever sanctioned and has not long since been abandoned, ifAiNTAGEHENT OF THE WORKS. Whether it is wise for a State to hold on to the works, and persevere-in a sys• tem which has broken so many pledges and so totally failed of just, expectation, is a matter for the sober and• candid judgment of those who have to bear the burthens. Like the unsuccessful gam bler, the State has been lured on in the hope of redeeming josses. We haie not profited by experience, but from year to year have rushed blindly into new ex penditures. Every failure has been followed by the most fallacious calcula tions to induce further expenditure, and disappointed hopes by. increased confi dence.• In the Governor's message it is stated that in 1852 the work to• avoid the Allegheny inclined • planes was esti mated to cost .4 the meagre gUm of $591,350." It • declares that $950,000 have be, n expended since that time, and that over six hundred thousand is still •required. • The engineer of the . North Branch canal in 1851, estimates the amount necessary to complete the work, at 8773,957 87.1 The same message states that one million of dollars have been spent, and the Canal Board yet iequire $171,0b8 to complete it. These instances are)tdduced aa;apeci- . 7 , mens of the actual cost of construction compared With estimates. 'lt is believed they tire not more unfavorable than the usual average in which the Common wealth has been concerned. They furn ith an additional and lamentable proof that government is and always has been imposed upon, even by honest agents, who, by flattering calculations, are ever anxious to secure the' construction of works, which, by zeal or interest, they are apt to over estimate, both in their value to the public and the return they will make on the investment. If we turn from the construction of the works to their management, we shall find that the Commonwealth has been even more 'unfortunate. It is not our purpose to point - out numerous instances, or to' heap up evidences of fraud. The canal board - in 1853, estimate the working of ;the Allegheny Portage road at $142,292 35, making due allowance for old debti. &c. In their report to the presint session of the Legislature, the actual expenses are set forth as follows : Appropriations for 1353; $415,085 04 Debts still dik 215,727 55 Total expe6ses and old debts. $63O,? N t 59 In; 1854 the superintendent of the Allegheny Portage road road that the cost of wood upon that, road was $18,• 025 22, and he estimates tliig amount required for, 1852 at $21,835. In his report for the latter year he states the cost at $30,097 93; and estimates the amount required for 1853 at .$30,590. In his "report tor 1853 he states the total expenditures for wood for that year (al though the estimates were only 830,500) were $70,314 17. - . We. have; no data by which we can knotv - whether the full amount of debts are exhibited in the foregoing. They serve to show, however, that the esti mates of cost are uniformly as much too low as the ;estimates of income are too high: That the people should not under stand the operation of ,the public works, and the causes of the heavy outlays. may not be: very surprising when the Canal Board, the agents who have them in trost. acknowledge their own inability to expound !the'in. • Every • allegation of fraud and profii gaeyalieged against the present system of manngernent is more .than admitted 'by the last; report of the Canal Board. Of the expense of managing the Alle gheny Portage road, in 1853, they say , tt " amounted to the enormous sum of $192.252." In 1842, they say it ~ a mounted:to $102,1p. To this must be added, however, $a1,332, which had not been reported by the former Super intendent, but has since been discovered!" Again they say : " could the Board assume that the, amount expended in 1852 was all legitimate, there would be little chifficulty," &c. " Although the Board have not been able to detect any fraud,yet from the very careless manner i in which business -has been' hitherto / transacted there, it is. readily perceived how easy it ;might be to practice exten sive. _frauds,'and at the same time the officer be innocent of any corrupt motive. Take the article of wood for example, and it cannot be doubted but that the State has been imposed upon to a large amount:" .; In consequence of these fraudsl"- says the Board, " they have adopted a plan 'which, in the item of wood,.will save the State twenty thou sand dollars ! . a year," .adding that "a regard for truth and candor constrains the Board to'.express - the opinion that at least forty thousand dollars have been paid out. for :wood, within the last two years, for which not one 'dollar's advan tage has accrued to the Commonwealth." Such is the confession, in the report of the Canal Board. Could language more emphatically ,condemn a system, which, afar twenty years' expirience, admits of such abuse?; In ;what company- or bank, or what railroad, except that of the State, could it be possible for forty thousand dollars to be expended not only without the knowledge of the accounting officers, but v withont a dollar's advantage I" Iti is a matter of congratulation, that a reform, whereby twenty thousand dollars are saved in " the single item of woo)," has be discovered even after twenty years' experience ! Upon.a short road of thirty six miles, every dollar expended should be rigidly accounted for without diffi culty, and the whole system should be simple, accurate, and energetic • but for , the want of 'such a system, thousands have been squandered, forty thousand in a single item—and the Canal .Board, alluding to • 'such small items, frankly confess that it is readily perceived how easy it might be to practice extensive Er .uds!" Who can tell the full extent -of imposition on this and other lines. when it is admitted it is•,so easily prac tised The e ffi cient management of the .Portage road, was especially referred to by the Governor in his message, Jan. 5, .1853, and ci the Superintendent he took occasion to say, "certainly a more honest and devdted public servant could not be found than the gentleman who euperin tended the operation of this work for the NUMBER 44, past year." If under such an " honed and devoted" man these things occurred. what might be. feared if they were in hands of men less. scrupulous, such as have sometimes crept into office The Nebraska Bill lu the louse. Correspondence of The N. Y. Tribune. WASIIINGTaN, March 1, 1854. -There is a way when all other meth ods- fail in whiCh the consummation of the Nebraska iniquity cad be prevented, and this method of defeat _must be ze sorted to if it becoines necessary to arrest the passage of the bill.. The Adminis tration will put the bill on its direct passage through the House when it ar rives from the Senate. At least such is the existing programme. This will be met by an effort to lay it on the table, or, if that cannot be carried, to put it in to the Committee of the Whole, which is the court of chancery of • legislation, a sort of Dismal Swamp, where bills any way weak in their powers of locomotion get stuck fast in the mud and morass. If the measure can be carried in:o the Committee, very well; if not it will be come • the solemn duty of its opponents to league together, and by means of Cabs of the blouse and motions to ad joarii arrest all further proceediii - gs upon the bill until the majority give way. The minority are. competent to do this, and it is understood they are contempla ting such a ;procedure. This course is extta•legislattve, and only t't be resorted to on extreme occasions. 13ut that the present is due that authorizes and de mands it no map can deny. It may ex cite hostility and lead to iinpassioaed scenes in Congress, but this cannot be avoided. If it should bring on a crisis or a collision, that cannot be helped. Better so than that that crisis should come hereafter, when all may be kit to the free States. There is now an im• mense stake in issue. Vast interests reaching, through innumerable geneta- Lions are suspended in the balance. To . act now will be to light a beacon for pos terity in their hour of trial and of strug gle. To omit to do it will be to ignobly surrender the' vantage ground of free dom, to be recovered only through long years of effort. To resist now is to save the citadel. To put off - the evil day may prove to be but to court the cltaius of the captive. It remains for the northern opponents of the bill to determine whether this one conclusive thing shall be done when the extremity shall be forced upon them. The justification for the act is ample: The measure is hurried up in the ab sence of any public judgment upon it. Its consideration 'entered into thp elec tion of no ono of the whole two hundred and thirty-four members of Congress. It is one of vital consequence, affecting the interests of millions of the present t•eneration and million" of future genera. To pass it in view of the appar ently unanimous opposition to it in the free States would be an (mune,. It is a violation of plighted faith, a repiudiation of a solemn compact, an intasion of northern rights, a corrquest of free terri tory. Its opponents have a cleat right, under these circumstances, to insist on an appeal to the people. If they shall Send down a majority to Washington in favor of the bill, let it pass without fac tions oppolitton. But until the people have had an opportunity to vote, let its passage be resisted to the.uttermost and without regard to consequences. This is,a subject which appeals direct ly to the whole northern mind, to the press and to the people. Members of Congress are but men. In , a great emergency they need the countenance, the support,and the sympathy of other . men. If the crisis is to come on the Islrbraska bill in the manner we have foreshadowed, let all be ready to accord that countenance, support and sympa thy, by word and deed. if the North has pluck and , backbone, now is the time to show.it. • lEME!IMIE! The Sequel to the plot. WASHINGTWi, March 0, 1851. Developments- may soon be expected which will establish beyond doubt the fact, that the assertion of the principle involved in the Nebraska bill is but the preliminary seep toward the execution of one of the boldest and most stupendous conspiracies ever heard of. It - propose/ no less an achievement than the forcible seizure of Mexico, Central America. tied Cubi, during the approaching struggle in Europe, and their conversion into slave States., Here we have Ike key to the solution of that most inscrutible po litical enigma of the times, viz: the me ti vrs of those who have been most instru mental iri,springing ibis portentous ques tion upon the country. It is said that some of the first men of the Rebuplio will be implicated and nearly all the southern leaders.—Tribune. Good.—At one of the missionary eta! lions, tho question , 4 What is original sin ?" being put to an aged Indian chief, he promptly replied laziness I"
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers