and violently struck his host for attempting | length, consideration for their youthful years to mitigate his fury. "One of the boyars and the weakness of their unripe judgment was abusing the freedom of speech rather too saved five hundred Strelitz from capital panmuch in the czar's presence, in Bebraschen- ishment, but their noses and ears were cut sko; but he has been castigated bodily, and off, and they were transported to the remotest the smart of the stripes has duly impressed frontier provinces with that indelible stigma upon him how much it behooves him to be for the crime they had meditated. Fiera, of reverent speech with his sovereign." The bedchamber-woman to Sophia, and the conamusements were as uncivilized as the pleas- fidant of all her secrets, was dragged to be ures, both partaking in the highest degree interrogated by the czar under the torture; of the Asiatic contempt for opinion. "A but when she was stripped naked, and groansham patriarch and a complete set of scenic ing under the lashes of the knout, it was perclergy, dedicated to Bacchus, with solemn ceived that she was advanced in pregnancy; festivities, the palace which was built at the and on being pressed by the czar she imputed czar's expense, and which it has pleased him it to her libidinous commerce with a certain now to have called Lefort's. A procession chorister, by which admission, and by conthither set out from Colonel Lima's house. fessing about several things concerning which He that bore the assumed honors of the pat- she was questioned, she freed herself from riarch was conspicuous in the vestments further lashing." But she was beheaded, proper to a bishop. Bacchus was decked nevertheless. The czar himself would thunwith a mitre, and went stark naked, to be- der at his boyars for trembling," for that no token lasciviousness to the lookers on. Cu-fatter victim could be immolated to God than pid and Venus were the insignia on his crozier, lest there should be any mistake about what flock he was pastor of." a wicked man." Men were even tied alive upon the wheel, only their feet being broken, there to die of hunger; and one man was hanged close by the window of the czar's sister's room with a petition tied in his fingers, in mockery of the petitions his sister had received. These atrocities were, in all cases, due to the personal order of the czar, who, on one occasion, after racking a rebel till the bystanders "heard the horrible crackling of his members torn from their natural sockets," ordered him to be roasted for a quarter of an hour. With that strange strength which seems to be given to men in such hours, the poor wretch still refused to betray his accomplices, when "the czar, tired at last of this exceedingly wicked stubbornness of the traitor, furiously raised the stick which he happened to have in his hand, and thrust it violently into his jaws-clenched in obstinate silence-to break them open, and make him give tongue and speak. And these words, too, that fell from the raging man: Confess, beast, confess!' loudly proclaimed how great was his wrath." These, however, are trifles compared with the punishments inflicted on the strelitz. These licentious troops, who had been pampered by Sophia into quasi independence, were incessantly plotting rebellion, and might, had they been united, have upset the throne. They had, however, neither leader nor organization, revolted by regiments or groups of regiments, instead of en masse, and were put down with merciless severity. Hundreds were slowly roasted to urge them to confess, and many more broken on the wheel, the czar being always present, and often himself the executioner. Some officials whose curiosity led them to the dungeons, found the czar and the chief boyars engaged in torturing the prisoners in ways not specified, but which may be guessed from the following description: "After being most atrociously flogged with the knout, fire was applied to roast them; when roasted, they were scourged afresh, and after this second flogging, fire was applied again. The Muscovite rack alter- "It was the vice of the age!" Trash. nated with these." These tortures, it is This crowned executioner was the contemspecially affirmed, took place in the czar's porary of William the Third, of the man presence, as he was afraid to trust the ex- who was resolved to deny his enemy the amination to the boyars. The "czar had a privilege of being a martyr." "It was the strelitz broken on the wheel chiefly for hav- way of his people!" Peter professed to be ing dared to say that General Lefort was the in advance of his people, and the Archimandcause of the czar's travelling abroad." "At rite of Moscow, horrified by his cruelties, in interceded for the victims and was roughly | simply a brute, a whitewashed Asiatic, capable repulsed. "It was necessary for the coun- like all Asiatics when opposed, of the most try." Death was, but not torture; for the horrible cruelty, and wholly insensible even strelitz simply defied him, and the Secretary when present to the spectacle of human sufof Legation records repeatedly his impression fering. We doubt if it did not titulate him that these horrible punishments had no effect with a pleasurable excitement, as it is said to whatever. He was mad! A madman, then, have done Nero, and did do many a Roman re-organized Russia, doubled his empire, patrician. There is no proof in all this, that made an army, built a fleet, and so impressed the czar was not the statesman he is reputed himself upon Europe that he received the to be; but that he was also a brute is now title previously confined to Alexander of indubitable, and let him in future be so deMacedon and the Emperor Karl. The czar was scribed. A VERY OLD MAN.-An Iowa paper thus brags of "western productions:" "The West can beat the East in raising vegetables. We have seen radishes in this State twenty-eight inches in circumference. The West can also eclipse the East in rattlesnakes. But in rearing grandfathers and grandmothers prairie land must yield the palm to down east. We saw on our streets, on the 22d instant, a man who was ninety-four years old that day. He was born in the land of steady habits (Woodbury, Litchfield county, Conn.,) on the 21st of May, 1769. He has children sixty-four years old, grandchildren forty-four, and great grandchildren nineteen. He is sprightly, and can walk fifteen or twenty miles a day. He voted for Washington the second time he was elected ; was in the war of 1812, and fought at Queenstown, on the Niagara river; saw Buffalo burned in December 1813, and removed to Huron county, Ohio, in 1816. Latterly he has lived in Grant county, Wisconsin. His mental faculties are in good condition, and it is refreshing to talk with a patriot of the olden times. He is an uncompromising Union man, and thinks no better of copperheads than Washington did of tories eightyfive years ago." LATIN ELEGY BY PRAED: GREEK: ENGLISH. "Qua gelido recubas, frustra formosa, sepulchro Servant perpetua tristia saxa nota. Si quid id est, memini! nec sculptas arte co lumnas, Nec tumuli curat carmina, vera fides. Sit tibi pro busto pietas; hoc munere vivis, Et quam non servant marmora, servat amor. Hæc lyra te solita est vivam celebrare meamque, Nec mea, nec viva es, te tamen usque cano; Quæ te non revocat vespera nulla redit. Sponte sua poterit Thyrza' referre chelys." W. D. -Notes and Queries. THE UNIVERSITY OF GOTTINGEN. LONG since, if the history be true, Old mildewed folios rotting in, Was it the gentle Mr. Bou verie, the House who's plotting in? Or wise Grant Duff, who'd make a Jew Professor? or that prater stupendous, James White, who loved the University of Gottingen? Isis and Cam shall soon see U nitarian Fellows trotting in; Vain are these dreams of roseate hue, -Press. From The Examiner. God's Glory in the Heavens. By William a tale of wonder will he have to tell when, after his perilous adventures, he returns to the bosom of his family!" It is with such fancy-talk that Dr. Leitch weakens what would otherwise be a strong The Lunar World, its Scenery, Motions, etc.; book made up of chapters originally pubconsidered with a View to Design. By Jo-lished in Good Words, but here nearly doubsiah Crampton, A.M., Rector of Killesher, led in size by the addition of new måtter. Author of Descriptive Astronomy," "Recent Discoveries," etc. A. and C. Black. 1 "we His volume consists of fanciful descriptions of the chief objects of interest in the heavens, THE question of a plurality of habitable interspersed with minute speculations thereon, worlds, freely discussed and pretty nearly and of sober interesting information given in exhausted, some seven or eight years ago, well-chosen, intelligible words, aided by a has been revived among one class of students, number of capital illustrations, and having and with special reference to one of the heav- for supplement thirty pages full of very useenly bodies, by the publication of Professor ful tables, showing at a glance all the laws Hansen's hypothesis respecting lunar gravi- found to regulate the movements of the tation. Anxious to explain the moon's occa- heavenly bodies and all the more important sional deviation, by a second or two, from its results respecting the volume, mass, density, prescribed path, Professor Hansen entered diameter, distance, and the like of both planupon a series of minute observations and cal-ets and fixed stars. There is so much pleasculations, resulting, as it seems, in a proof ant and instructive matter in the book that that the density of the moon is unequal, her we regret the more that its author should real centre being about thirty-seven miles have indulged in so many "journeys through distant from her centre of gravity; in other space," and should have been so free in the words, that one of her sides is heavier than adoption of new hypotheses, and old wives' the other, and that in her revolutions round tales, none of which can be proved, some of the earth the lighter side always faces it. If which have been already disproved. Writthis be true, as is urged by some speculators, ing in 1860, he speaks of the danger likely then the side next the earth is, as it were, to result from our earth's passing through a the top of a vast mountain, a hundred and comet's tail, as, among other things, thirty-four miles high, from which all air know that the most deadly miasmata are so and water would perforce fall down to the subtle that it is impossible to detect them by lower and heavier regions; and, consequently, any chemical test, and a very homœopathic while the near hemisphere is a lifeless des- dose of a comet, in addition to the elements ert, without atmosphere and unfit to sus- of our atmosphere, might produce the most tain existence, the hidden side may have a fatal effects." Reprinting his essay in 1863, human population, rejoicing in all the com- he has not taken the trouble to correct his forts which must result from having a double own and other people's error by a report of allowance of air and water. "The imagina- the actual consequences of such a collision, tion," says Principal Leitch, who unreserv- experienced in 1861. Some of his speculaedly adopts this theory, "is set free to pic- tions again are so extravagant that we are ture broad oceans, bearing on their bosom the half tempted to quote against him a story commerce of this new world, rivers fertilizing told by the Rev. Josiah Crampton of an ecthe valleys through which they flow, a luxu- centric friend who insisted that the moon was riant vegetation, and buildings of colossal none other than the "Heavenly Jerusalem,” size. destined, according to the literal reading of the Book of Revelation, to come down upon the earth at the last day. "On my modestly hinting that the appearance of the moon at present did not seem to resemble the city described in the Apocalypse, he exclaimed loudly and energetically, No, my dear friend; that is the very point-that is the very reason why I have come to the conclu We can conceive the intrepid lunar inhabitants venturing, as far as they can breathe, within the barren hemisphere; just like adventurous travellers on our globe, scaling lofty mountains, to obtain an extended view of the landscape. . . . What an astonishing spectacle must burst upon the view of the lunar tourist as soon as he fairly gets within the new hemisphere! What 6 square miles of arable land, have been put under water. But vast as this sounds to the ear, it is but a small area on the grand map of that territory. tions, and fully adopted the government system, agreeing to pay the negroes wages. Up to the middle of April the commissioners acting under General Thomas had given out eleven plantations to true and responsible men. I ought to have been here weeks ago," says the general in a letter dated Milliken's Bend, April 17th," and then I could have made the experiment fully successful; but, even now, with energy on the part of lessees and superintendents, much more may be done." The military part of General Thomas's mission is, however, only one half, and in the long run will prove the lesser half of it. The other is to inaugurate "a system of culture for all blacks who do not enter the military service; to transfer the burden of their support from the government to themselves, and to demonstrate that the freed negro can be paid fair wages and yield a handsome profit We can hardly over-estimate the importo his employer." The rate of wages is now tant consequences that are destined to flow fixed at one half the usual average, in con- from the institution, by the Government, of sideration of the lateness of the season before this negro labor system. It is the most practhe plan was begun, and of the risks and un- tical method of carrying out the proclamation, certainties inseparable from so great a change and already promises to untie the Gordian in the circumstances of the negroes. Some knot that keeps the border States half in the time must elapse before they can be brought power of the rebellion. Let it he established into thorough discipline, and feel that degree by the working of the plantations in Arkanof confidence in the new state of things with- sas and Louisiana that the negroes will do out which they could not be content. The better on wages as freed men than they have plan is to let out plantations to persons who ever done as slaves, and there will be no need have capital to stock them, and who will en- of the sword of Alexander. gage to pay the negroes wages. Mules and utensils brought in by the foraging parties will be sold to them at a low price. It is expected that many persons who have contemplated moving to the far West to get beyond the desolations of the war will fall in and occupy these nearer lands. Between the mouth of White river in Arkansas and the advanced lines of our army south there are now near two hundred abandoned plantations that may be occupied at once. The tillage is already broken, the ground cleared, and in many cases buildings left good enough for pressing convenience. The general has found several gentlemen from St. Louis and Memphis to assist and co-operate in his plans. Among others, Judge Dent, of California, brother-inlaw of General Grant, has taken a plantation and entered upon it with one hundred mules early in April. Old planters who had been or still are slaveholders are entering into the Government's plans. They are well aware that the proclamation has disposed of slavery under the law, and their only course is to employ negroes as free men on wages. An interesting case mentioned by General Thomas is that of Mr. Montague, a native of Virginia, but long a prosperous planter in Louisiana. He occupied a large farm on Bayou Tenzas, with two hundred negroes, not one of whom had left him, though our lines were not far distant. When the rebellion broke out he assembled his family, and all joined in a pledge of loyalty to the Union. He had suffered much annoyance from the rebels and many indignities, but was too old and respectable to be maltreated personally. He has taken one of the abandoned planta From The Economist, 2 May. DANGERS AND DIFFICULTIES IN THE FAR EAST.-JAPAN. Ir the good sense and good feeling of the British people do not interfere in time, there is very great danger that we shall find ourselves involved ere long in a war with the distant empire of Japan-a war from which we can reap no possible glory, and obtain no adequate compensation either immediate or ulterior, a war, too, in which we shall be certain to incur vast expense and to commit great wrong, and against which common prudence and common justice should combine to warn us. Surely we have had cautions enough in our relations with Eastern nations; and if any more were needed, the position into which we are fast drifting in reference to China, and the ultimate consequences of which it is more easy to foresee than to avert, should suffice. Let us lay briefly before our readers the actual state of affairs as they stand between this country and Japan, and ask for an impartial decision and for timely action. The Japanese are not only a peculiar people, but a people whose peculiarities are the very opposite of ours. They are singularly clever, ingenious and persevering, courageous, fierce, and indifferent to life. Their system of government, moreover, is so singular and complicated that it is even now doubtful whether we truly understand its mechanism or its functions. One of the chief peculiarities of these people, and one of the most rooted From The N. Y. Evening Post, 29 May. THE MISSION OF THE ADJUTANT GEN ERAL. sponded, in every instance seconding and sustaining the efforts of the adjutant general, and the closing ceremony-which was to "give three cheers for the president and the policy "-was joined in with universal and enthusiastic shouts. Not a discordant voice was heard in the vast crowds that were brought together on these occasions. GENERAL THOMAS left Washington on the 26th of March invested with full and extraordinary powers to "regulate the whole negro business; that is, to prescribe the use of all the physical force of the negro population in The adjutant general gave special orders putting down the insurrection, and at the that all negroes coming within the lines of same time to organize the unmilitary part of the army should be "kindly treated, clothed, it for the prosecution of productive labor in fed, and the able-bodied armed." He found the field.” Mr Lincoln could not have chosen some of the men already at work, but the a better man to carry out his policy. General women and children were generally" huddled Thomas was born in the State of Delaware, together in ill-ventilated camps, in little shanand passed the early years of his life sur- ties and excavations on the hill sides, clothed rounded by the associations of slavery. For in dirty rags, and without adequate medical a long time before the breaking out of the attendance in sickness." The mortality among rebellion he was, in fact, more the head of them was frightful. At Helena, Arkansas, the army than General Scott himself, who twenty-five hundred had died, and hundreds was debarred by age and infirmity from active in other places. No systematic treatment of service. All military details were managed them had been adopted. Though serving by him. He possessed the esteem and confi- well as teamsters and laborers, they received dence of army officers. To have chosen a nothing in return but food; and instead of stranger to them, or a new man with whom kindness, it was the "damned nigger," and they had never maintained any correspond- he was "kicked and cuffed in every direc ence, or a civilian, would have endangered tion." "No wonder," says General Thomas, the success of the scheme. An anti-slavery "that so many returned to their masters, man would have made it liable to suspicion saying they preferred slavery to such treatand severe strictures. General Thomas was ment." But his coming changed all this. not in any degree embarrassed by opinions on It became known that he was "authorized to slavery. He was simply a soldier, a discip- give appointments to proper persons for orlinarian, brought up to obey orders, both in ganizing regiments, and to dismiss from the the spirit and in the letter. "You know," he service any officer who maltreated the negro, wrote lately to a friend in this city, that I or interfered with the policy adopted by have not the disease nigger on the brain.' the Administration with regard to him." It is the settled policy of the government," His success was far beyond his expectations. he continued, to use this physical force" Officers of rank who, it was thought, would in every possible way to aid in crushing the cursed rebellion, and to provide for the comfort and wellbeing of the large masses of men, women, and children coming within our lines. He was fully aware of the prejudices of the people of the free States against negro emigration northward, and as it was impossible to remove the blacks out of the United States, there was nothing left to do but to help them "find their home in the land of their birth." Such is the comprehensive mission of the adjutant general, to carry out which he is invested by the Government with "full and extraordinary powers.' 6 The first thing to be done was to communicate directly and personally with the officers and men of the army. To render the policy effective," he said, "it is necessary that every officer and soldier should hear it from my own lips, and not from irresponsible persons. He began immediately to address the troops by divisions, in masses of from four to seven thousand; and, after stating the case fully, he invited the men to call on any one for a speech. The commanding officers re stand aloof, or not lend their influence, gave their hearty co-operation. The fact is, they only wanted to know officially what the Government wished, and they were ready to do their part." Arrangements were immediately made to raise twenty regiments of new troops. We have lately heard that ten of these were or ganized, and rapid progress is making with the remainder. These troops are to be placed west of the Mississippi river, where they are to keep down the guerillas and to protect the laboring negroes on the abandoned plantations. 66 They can operate back to the Red River and into Texas. I shall draw largely,' says the general, "of negroes, mules, cattle, etc., from that extensive belt of alluvial land opposite, in Mississippi, stretching from below Memphis to Vicksburg two and a-half degrees, and reached out from the river midway a degree.' An immense district of this region has been flooded by the rebels to arrest the progress of our armies, and by the Union army to destroy their supplies. More than a million of acres, or about sixteen hundred |