BY JAS, CLARK,
CHOICE POETRY
The Head, the Heart, the Hand.
The Head—it is a lightning loam,
Where thoughts fly too and fro—
Some, dark with memory's , gather'd gloom,'
Some, bright with Hope's young glow.
The Heart—it is a well of life,
With gushing fountains given
To bless our barren world of strife,
With all it hath of Heaven.
The Hand—it is a st,tange machine,
Worked by the wondrous will;
All that the busy world bath been,
Its power hath fashioned still.
Earth well may boast her proudest sight,
The Sage's silvered Head—
Whose calm, cold lips are breathing light,
O'er mysteries dark and dread.
Yet, 'tis a sweeter sight to see
The tear the heart swells up—
When to its fount of sympathy,
Love brings the golden cup.
But, 'tis a dearer thing to FEEL
The Iland's soft loving touch,
When sickness or when sorrows steal
The light of lifo too much.
So pass we on life's pilgrimage—
The Head shall light our gloom—
The Heart, keep green our path to age—
The Hand shall guide us [Loma!
MISCELLANEOUS
Abuse of Health and Wealth.
BY HON. HuRACE MANN
The young man walks in the midst of
temptation to appetite, the improper in
dulgence of which is in danger of pro
ving his ruin. Health, longevity and
virtue, depend on his resisting these
temptations. The Providence of God
is no more responsible, because a man
by improper indulgence becomes sub
ject to disease, than for the picking of
his pockets. For a young man to injure
his health, is to waste his patrimony and
destroy his capacity for virtuous deeds.
Should a man love God, he will have
ten times the strength for the exercise
of it, with a sound body. Not only the
amount but the quality of a man's labor
depends on his health. Not only lying
lips, but a dyspeptic stomach is an abom
ination to the Lord. The productions
of the poet, the man of science, or the
orator, must be affected by his health.—
The man who neglects to control his
appetites, is to himself what a state of
barbarism is to society—the brutish part
predominates. He is to himself what
Nicholas is to Hungary.
Men by pains, and the purveyor, and
market man brings home disease. Our
ancestors used to bury the suicide where
four roads met ; yet every gentleman
and lady who lay the foundation of dis
ease with turtle soup and lobster salad,
as really commit suicide as if they used
the rope or the pistol ; and were the old
law revived, how many who are new
honored with a resting place at Mount
Auburn, would he found on the cross
roads Is it not amazing that man, in
vited to a repast worthy of the gods,
should stop to feed on cabbage; or when
called to partake of the Circean cup,
should stop to guzzle with the swine.
If young men imagine that the grati
fication of appetite is the great source
of enjoyment, they will find this in the
highest degree with industry and tem
perance. The epicure, who seeks it in
a dinner which costs five dollars, will
find less enjoyment of appetite than the
laborer who dittos on a shilling. If the
devotee of appetite desires its high grat
ification, he most not send for beef
tongues, but climb a mountain or swing
an axe. Without health there is no del
icacy that can provoke an appetite.—
W hoover destroys his health turns the
most delicate viands into ipecac and
aloes. The man that is physically wick
ed does not live out half his days, and
he is not half alive while he does live.
However gracious God may be to the
heart, he never pardons the stomach.
Let a young man pursue a course of
temperance, sobriety, and industry, and
lie may retain his vigor till three score
years and ten, with his cup of enjoyment
full, and depart painlessly ; as the can
dle burns out in its socket, so will he
-expire.
But look at the opposite. When a
man suffers his appetite to control him,
he turns his dwelling into a lazar house,
whether he lives in a hovel, clothed with
rags, or in the splendid mansion and
gorgeous clothing of the upper ten.
I ask the young man then, who is just
forming his habits of life, or just begin
ning to indulge those habitual trains of
thought out of which habits grow, to
look around him, and mark the examples
whose fortune he would covet, or whose
fate he would abhor. Even as we walk
the streets we meet with exhibitions of
ly
fl(4 - iir#o l lrt
each extreme. Here behold a patriarch,
whose stock of vigor three-score years
and ten seem hardly to have impaired.
His erect form, his firm step, his elas
tic limbs and undimmed senses, are so
'many certificates of good conduct ; or,
'rather, so many jewels and orders of no
bility with which nature has honored
him for his fidelity to her laws. His
fair complexion shows that his blood has
never been corrupted ; his pure breath
that he has never yielded his digestive
apparatus for a vintner's cess-pool ; his
exact language and keen apprehension,
that his brain has never been drugged
or stupefied by the poisons of distiller
or tobacconist. Enjoying his appetites
to the highest, he has preserved the pow
er of enjoying them. Despite the mor
al of the school-boy's story, he has eat
en his cake and still kept it. As he
drains the cup of life, there are no lees
at the bottom. His organs will reach
the goal of existence together. Pain
lessly as a candle burns down, in the
socket, so will he expire and a little im
agination would convert him into an
other Enoch, translated from earth to a
better world without the sting of death.
But look at an opposite extreme, where
an opposite history is recorded. What
wreck so shocking to behold as the
wreck of a dissolute man ; the vigor of
life exhausted, and yet the first steps in
as honorable career not yet taken ; in
himself u lazar house of disease ; dead
but by a heathenish custom of society
not buried! Rogues have had the initial
letter of their title burnt into the palms
of their hands; even for murder, Cain
was only branded on the forehead ; but
over the whole person of the debauchee
or the it ebriste the signatures of infamy
are written. How nature brands him
with stigma and opprobrium ! How
she hangs labels over him, to testify
her disgust at his existence, and to ad
monish others to beware of his example !
How she loosens all his joints, sends
tremors along his muscles, and bends
forward his frame, as if to bring him
upon all fours with kindred brutes, or to
degrade him to the reptile's crawling!
How she disfigures his countenance, as
if intent upon obliterating all traces of
her own image, so that she may swear
site never made him ! How she pours
rheum over his eyes, sends foul spirits
to inhabit his breath, and shrieks, as
with a trumpet, from every pore of his
body, "BEHOLD A BEAST !" Such a man
may be seen in the streets of our cities
every day ; if rich enough, he may be
found in the saloons and at the tables of
the 'supreme ton;' but surely, to every
man of purity and honor ; to every man
whose wisdom as well as whose heart is
unblemished, the wretch who comes
cropped and bleeding from the pillory,
and redolent with its appropriate per
fumes, would be a guest or a companion
far less offensive and disgusting.
Now let the young man rejoicing in
his manly proportions and in his coin
liiiess, look on this, picture and on this,
and then say after the likeness of which
model he intends his own erect stature
and sublime countenance shall be con
figured.
- Society is infinitely too tolerant of the
roue; the wretch whose life-long pleas
ure it has been to debase himself and to
debauch others ; whose heart has been
spotted with infamy so much that it is
no longer spotted, but hell•black all over;
and who, at least, deserves to be treated
as travellers say the wild horses of the
prairies treat a vicious fellow ; the no
blest of the herd forming a compact cir
cle around him, heads outward, and
kicking him to death."
Itala.---Itemarkable Fact.
There is one remarkable fact connect
ed with the fall of rain, which has never
yet received satisfactory explanation.—
Over any given spot more rain falls at
the surface of the earth than above it.—
Heberden made seine experiments to
ascertain this fact, in the following man
ner :-1-le fixed a rain gouge on the
square part of the roof of Westminster
Abbey, away from the western towers,
which might obstruct the clouds, anoth
er on the roof of a neighboring house,
and a third on the ground in the garden
of the same. The number of inches of
rain caught on the Abbey roof was 12,
on the house-top 18, and in the garden
22. The illustrious French Astronomer
Arago, has for many years noticed the
fall of rain, at different heights, at the
Observatory at Paris, and his results,
with which hundreds of others agree,
are like those of Heberden. it is well
known that the quantity of rain which
falls at the foot of a mountain is consid
erably larger than that deposited on its
summit. Many explanations have been
offered of this curious fact, but none to
which the scientific have given sanction.
A Mr. BANK lately married a Miss
GOLD. We doubt if the Legislature
will be able to put down that BANK, or
prevent it from issuing SMALL BILLS.
HUNTINGDON, PA., TUESDAY, AUGUST 13, 1860.
General Taylor.
The following eloquent passage oc
curs in the address delivered by David
Paul Brown, Esq., of Philadelphia, be
fore the President, Professors, Trustees
and Literary Societies of Dartmouth
College, on the 4th ult.
4‘ As another eminent example, not
unworthy to be classed with illustrious
instances already referred to, stands the
venerated—alas, that within less than a
little month, we should be compelled to
say—the lamented Chief Magistrate of
this great and glorious Republic. The
patriot who lived only for his country;
the soldier of forty years ; the hero of
three wars, that never turned his back
upon the foe, never retreated, and never
lost a battle. A man, whose whole ca
reer was one continued evidence of al
most matchless gentleness and firmness,
simplicity and sagacity, humility and
grandeur; whose life was a national
blessing—whose death a national cala
mity ! Bear witness the ensigns of sad
ness and sorrow, by which the temples
and the starry flags of liberty are at this
moment shrouded, from the Atlantic to
the Pacific, from Maine to Mexico. It
is not my business here to eulogise the
departed ; but I may at least be permit
ted to say, that, take him for all in all,
he was one of the most extraordinary
men of the time in which he lived—one
of those noblemen, by Nature, whom
the convulsions of the world sometimes
throw out from the body of the people to
amaze mankind, and to teach artificial
or hereditary aristocracy how small a
thing it is. Peace and glory to his mem
ory. He has now fought his last battle;
he now sleeps his last sleep. He lived
for his country ; he died for his country;
and the grateful hearts of his country
men shall ever be consecrated cenotaphs
to his virtues. His best history shall
be the Deathless Gratitude of his coun
trymen—his best monument a Nation's
Tears. May each one of us, in receiving
the awful summons of Death, be :eady
like him to exclaim—.l. AM PREPARED-
I HAVE ENDEAVORED TO DO MY DUTY."
WESTERN SCENES
JOHN TAYLOR;
The Timon of the Backwoods Bar and Pulpit.
BY CITARL. SI/MMERFIELD.
I can never forget my first vision of
John Taylor. It was in the Court-house
at Lewisburg, Conway county, Arkan
sas, in the summer of 1838. The occa-'
slots itself possessed terrible interest.—
A vast concourse of spectators had as
sembled to witness the trial of a young
and beautiful girl, on an indictment for
murder. The Judge waited at the mo
ment for the Sheriff to bring in the pri
soner, and the eyes of the impatient
multitude all centred on the door, when
suddenly a stranger entered, whose ap
pearance rivited universal attention.—
Here is his portrait ; a figure tail, lean,
sinewy, and straight as an arrow; a
face sallow, billions, and twitching in
cessantly, with nervous irritability ; a
brow, broad and massive, seemed filled
with rinkles, but not with age—for he
was scarcely forty ; eyes reddish
like the wrathful eagle, as bright
and piercing ; and finally, a mouth with
lips of cast iron, thin, curled, cold and
sneering, the intense expression of
which looked the living embodiment of
an unbreathed curse. He was habited
in a suit of new buckskin, ornamented
after the fashion of Indian costume, with
hues of every color of the rainbow.
Elbowing - his way slowly through the
crowd, and apparently unconscious that
he was regarded as a phenomenon, need
ing explanation, this singular being ad
vanced, and, with the haughty air of a
king ascending the throne, seated him
self' within the bar, thronged as it was
with the disciples of Coke and Black
stone, several of whom, it was known,
esteemed themselves as far superior to
those old and famous masters.
The contrast between the outlandish
garb and disdainful countenance of the
stranger, excited especially, the risibili.
ty of the lawyers ; and the junior mem.
bers began a suppressed titter, which
grew louder and louder, and soon swept
around the circle. They doubtless sup
posed the intruder to be some wild hun
ter of the mountains, who had never be
fore seen the interior of a hall of justice.
instantly the cause and object of the
laughter perceived it, turned his head
gradually, so as to give each laugher a
look—his lips curled with a killing
smile of infinite scorn—his yellow eyes
shot arrows of lightning—his tongue,
protruding through his teeth, literally
writhed like a serpent, and ejaculated
its asp-like poison in a single word :
“Savages !" No pen can describe the
defiant force which he threw into that
term, no pencil can paint the infernal
furor of his utterance, although it hardly
exceeded a whisper. But he accented
every letter as it were a separate emis
sion of fire that scorched his quivering
lips, laying horrible emphasis on the S,
both at the beginning and end of the
word—" Savages !" It was the growl
of the red tiger in the hiss of a rattle
snake.
The general gaze, however, was di
verted by the advent of the fair prisoner,
who then came in surrounded by her
guard. The apparition was enough to
drive a saint mad ; for here was a style
of beauty to bewilder the tamest imagi
nation, and melt the coldest heart, leav
ing in both imagination and• heart a
gleaming picture, enameled in fire, and
fixed in a frame of gold from the stars.
It was a spell of enchantment, to be felt
as well as seen. You might feel it in
the flushes of her countenance, clear as
as a sunbeam, brilliant as the iris ; in
the contour of her features, symmetri
cal as if cut by the chisel of the artist;
in her hair of rich auburn ringlets, flow
ing without a braid, softer than silk,
finer than gossamer ; in the eye, blue as
the heaven of southern summer, large,
liquid, beauty; in her motions, grace
ful, swimming, like the gentle wafture
of a bird's wing in the sunny air ; in
figure, slight, ethereal—a sylph's or a
seraph's; and more than all, in the ever
lasting smile of the rosy lips, so arched,.
so serene, so like the star-light, and yet
possessing the power of magnetism to
thrill the beholder's heart.
As the unfortunate girl, so tastefully
dressed, incomparable as to personal
charms, calm andsmiling, took her place
before the bar of her Judge, a murmur
of admiration arose from the multitude,
which the prompt interposition of the
court, by a stern order of "silence,"
could scarcely repress from swelling in
to a deafening cheer.
The Judge turned to the prisoner.—
"Emma Miner, the court has been in
formed that your counsel, Col. Linton,
is sick; have you employed any otherl"
She answered, in a voice as sweet as
the warbling of the nightingale, and as
clear as the song of the skylark,
"My enemies have bribed II the law
yers—even my own—to be sick; but God
will defend the innocent."
At this response, so touching in its
simple pathos, a portion of the audience
buzzed applause, and the rest wept.
On the instant, however, the stranger
whose appearance had previously exci
ted such merriment, started to his feet,
approached the prisoner, and whispered
something in her ear. She bounded six
inches from the floor, uttered a piercing
shriek, and then stood trembling, as if
in the presence of a ghost from eternity,
while the singular being who hail caused
her unaccountable emotion, addressed
the court in his sharp, ringing voice, so
norous as the sound of bell metal.
'May it please your honor, I will as
sume the task of defending this lady !'
'What !' exclaimed the astonished
Judge, 'are you a licensed attorney''
'That question is irrelevant and im
material,' replied the stranger, with a
venemous sneer, 'as the recent statute
entitles any person to act as council at
the request of a party.'
'But does the prisoner request it V
inquired the judge.
'Let her speak for herself,' said the
stranger.
. .
1 do,' was her answer, ns a long drawn
sigh escaped, that seemed to rend her
very heart-strings.
The case immediately progressed—
and as it had a tinge of romantic mys
tery, we will epitomize the substance of
the evidence.
About twelve months before, the de
fendant had arrived in the village, and
opened an establishment of millinery.—
_Residing in a row connected with her
shop, and all alone, she prepared the ar
ticles connected with her highly res
pected and honorable trade, with unwea.
ried labor and consummate taste. Her
habits were secluded, modest, and reti
ring; and hence she might have hoped
to avoid notoriety, but for the perilous
gift ef that extraordinary beauty which
too often, and to the poor and friendless
always, proves a curse. She was soon
sought after by all those glittering fire
flies of fashion. But the beautiful stran
ger rejected them all with unuttering
scorn and loathing. Among these re
jected admirers, was one of a character
from which the fair milliner had every
thing to fear. Hiram Shure was at once
opulent, influential and dissipated. He
was himself licentious, brave, and fero
ciously revengeful—the most famous
duelist of the whole south-west. It
was generaily known that he had made
advances to win the favor of the lovely
Emma, and shared the fate of all other
wooers—a disdainful repulse.
At nine o'clock, on Christmas night,
1837, the people of Lewisburgh were
' startled by a loud scream of terror, while
following, with scarcely an interval,
came successive reports of tire-arms,
40nrixttti,.
one, two, three, with a dozen deafening
roars. They flew to the shop of the
milliner, whence the sounds proceeded ;
pushed back the unfastened door, and a
scene of horror was presented. There
she stood in the centre of the room with
a revolver ir. each hand, every barrel
discharged, her features pale, her eyes
flashing wildly, but lips parted with a
'fearful smile. And there at her feet,
weltering in his warm blood, his bosom
literally riddled with bullets, lay the
all-dreaded duellist, Hiram Shore, gas
ping in the last agony. He articulated
but a single sentence.
' Tell my mother that 1 am dead and
gone to hell!' and instantly expired.
'ln the name of God, who did this V
exclaimed the appalled spectators.
1 did it !' said the beautiful milliner
---'1 did it to save my honor.'
As may be readily imagined, the deed
caused an intense sensation. Public
opinion, however, was divided. Tte
poorer classes, crediting the girl's ver
sion of the facts, lauded her heroism in
terms of measureless..eulogy. But the
friends of the deceased, and of his
wealthy family, gave a different and
darker coloring to the affair, and denoun
ced the lovely homicide as a vile crimi
nal. Unfortunately fur her the officers
of the law, especially the judge and
sheriff, were devoted comrades of the
slain, and displayed their feelings in
revolting partiality. The judge com
mitted her with out the privilege of bail,
and the sheriff chained her in the felon's
dungeon !
Such is the brief abstract of the cir
cumstances developed in the examina
tion of the witnesses. The testimony
closed and the pleadin! -, began.
First of all, three a dvocates s spoke in
succession, for the prosecution ; but nei
ther their names nor their arguments
are worth preserving. Orators of the
blood and thunder genius, they about
equally partitioned their howling elo
pence between the prisoner and the
robed counsel, as if in doubt which of
the twain was then on trial. As for the
stranger, he seemed to pay not the
slightest attention to his opponents, but
remained motionless, with his forehead
bowed on his hands, like one buried in
deep thought or slumber.
When the proper time came, however,
he suddenly sprang to his feet, crossed
the bar, and took his stand almost touch
ing the Jury. He then commenced in
a whisper, but it was a whisper so wild,
so clear, so unutterably ringing and dis
tinct, as to fill the ball from floor to gal
leries. At the outset, he dealt in pure
logic, separating and combining the pro
ven facts, till the whole mass of confu
sed evidence looked transparent as a
globe of glass, through which the inno
cence of his client shone, brilliant as a
sunbeam ; and the jurors nodded to each
other of thorough conviction; that a
thrilling whisper, and fixed concentra
tion, and language simple as a child's,
had convinced all.
Ile then changed his posture, so as to
sweep the bar with his glance; and be
gan to tear and rend his legal adversa
ries. His sallow face glowed as a heat
ed furnace, his eyes resembled living
coals, and his voice became the clangor
of a trumpet. I have never, before or
siuce, listened to such murderous denun
ciations. It was like Jove's eagle char
ging a flock of crows. It was like Jove!
himself hurling red hot thunderbolts
among the quaking rank of conspiracy
of inferior gods ! And yet in the high
est tempest of his fury he seemed calm;
he employed no gesture save one—the
flash of a long fore-finger direct in the
eyes of his foes. He painted their ve
nality and unmanly meanness, in coa
lescing for money, to hunt down a poor
and friendless NI , °man, till a shout of sti
fled rage arose from the multitude, and
even some of the jury cried, 'shame!'
He changed the theme once more.—
' His voice grew mournful as a funeral
song, and his eyes filled with tears, as
he traced a vivid picture of man's cru
elties and woman's wrongs, with pecu
liar illustrations in the case of his client,
till one half of the audience wept like
children. But it was in the peroration
1 that he reached the zenith, at once, of
terror and sublimity. His features were
lived as those of a corpse, his very hair
appeared to stand on end; his nerves
shook as with a palsy; he tossed his
hands wildly towards heaven, each fin
ger stretched apart and quivering like
the flame of a candle, as he closed with
the last words of the deceased Hiram
Shore : "Tell my mother that I am dead
and gone to hell !" His emphasis on
the word hell embodied the acme and
ideal of all horror : it was a wail of im
measurable despair. No language Gan
depict the effect on us who heard it.—
Men groaned, females screamed, and one
poor mother fainted, and was borne out
in convulsions.
The jury returned a verdict of "Not
Gui:ty," without leaving the box, and
VOL, XV, NO, 82,
three cheers, like successive roars of an
earthquake, shook the old court house
from the dome to the corner stone, tes
' tifylng the joy of the people. After the
adjournment, which occurred near sun
down, the triumphant advocate arose
and gave out an appointment: "1 will
preach in this house to-night, at eight
o'clock." lie then glided off through
the crowd, speaking to no one, though
many attemptefl to draw him into con
versation.
At 8 o'clock the court house tens again
thronged, and the stranger, according to
promise, delivered his sermon. It evin
ced the same attributes as his previous
eloquence at the bar, the same compact
logic, the same burning vehemence, and
increased bitterness of denunciation.
HUMOFSOUS
Preparing for a Daguerreotype.
A brace of i ilovyers."anxious - to se
cure each other's shadow ere the sub
stance faded, stepped into a Daguerreo
type establishment recently, to sit for
their "picters." The lady gave prece
dence to her swain, who, she said, "had
got to be tuk first, and raal patrol." He
brushed up his tow head of hair, gave a
twist or two to his neckerchief, asked
his gal if his skein collar stood about
X, and planted himself in the operator's
chair; he soon assumed the physiog
comical characters =tics of a poor mor
tal in a dentist's hands about to part
with one of his eye teeth. "Now, dew
look party !" begged the lady, casting
at him one of her most languishing glan
ces. The picture was taken, and when
produced, it reminded the girl, as site
expressed it, "jist how Josh looked when
he got over the measles !" and as this
was not an era in her suitor's history,
particularly worthy of her commemora
tion, she insisted that "he should stand
it again." He obeyed, and she attended
him to the chair, "Josh," said she, "jist
look like smilin," and then kinder don't."
The poor fellow tried to follow the infi
nite injunction. "La," she cried, "you
look all puckered up." One direction
followed another, but with as little suc
cess. At last growing impatient and
becoming desperate she resolved to try
an expedient, which site considered in
fallible, and exclaimed, "1 don't keer if
there is folksaround." She enjoined the
operator to stand at his camera ; sho
then sat in her feller's lap, and placing
her arms about his neck managed to cast
a shower of flaxen ringlets as a screen
between the operator and her proceed
ings, which however, were betrayed by
a succession of amorous sounds which
revealed her expedient. N% hen this
"billing and cooing" had lasted a few
minutes, the cunning girl jumped from
Josh's lap, and clapping her hands, cried
to the astonished artist; "Now you've
got him ! put hint threw !"
Eccentric.
Rev. Joel Winch, an eccentric Meth.
odist preacher, now dead, once observed
that some of his hearers were very late
in coining to church. He had also
learned that a lady who lived at a dis
tance from the church, had, in the course
of the preceding week, sold her cow and
churn. On Sabbath morning he per
ceived this woman early at church,
wearing a new dress and a new bonnet.
After he had commenced the services,
some persons entered who lived quite
near the church. Therefore, to give
them all pretty "close fits," he stepped
short, and addressing those entering,
said—" Are you not ashamed to be so
late to church, living as near as you do,
when here is a woman who walked two
miles, with a cow on her hack, and a
churn on her head, and got here before
services commenced."
re A cross grained antiquated maid
en vixen went to a physician for advice.
'Madam,' said the doctor, 'it seems to
me that it would do you good to have a
little sun and air.'
'Oh, you abominable critter! a son
and heir ! Oh, dear! will somebody
fan me! I shall go off! The outrage
ous brute! a son and heir!
The old lady vamosed, and has -not
since been seen.
POLITENESS IN PARADIsE.—Our poetic
hi,torians go back to first principles for
their fncts, as will be seen by the follow
ing epigram:
When first the manly heart of Adam felt
Thelower of beauty, it began to melt,
And gazing on bin rib be faltered "madam,
I am your most obedient servant—Adam."
rj- William Penn and Thomas Story
oncu sheltered themselves from a show
er of rain in a tobacco house, the owner
of which said to them, "You enter here
without leave, do you know who I am
lam a Justice of the peace." To which
Story replied, "My friend here makes
such things as thee—he is Governor of
Penns) , anis."