text: St Ik gk rtk tttt u fttt It ■ IT w 2J*? w ffi b "--’ SBjgFjp yyiwaiaFree- ■'"’’ jffft’A rj i -fiEpV\ u \\jK □.yf >3luijf!(nL , ds|(i.uuui)Oijo»J|oGuiinj&3olfl6^®bß^l^..x’-i i wORI '^ S:^ss<^ g^gC, sS^s^3-'?Z>^zzr '*’• qrr. .. -ft'ify?^ g >ti ji j«/*~ "• ~ - VOLUME 4. NO. 45. WRITTEN EXPRESSLY FOR THIS PAPER. NEIL NEWLAND I (Dr, the Sriiie of (Oen Jhairic. A TRUE TALE OF MISSOURI. CHAPTER 11. TUB COMBAT OF THE RIVALS. Young Newland caught the first fierce blow of the other in his open palm, and then dealt him a direct stroke, rapid and sure, in the pit of the stomach, taking his breath, like a shock of electricity, and stretching his ponderous figure by its whole length on the ground. But the youth paused not at this partial success; he felt without reflection that the present mortal dilemma must involve perfect victory or death. He made a spring with the infuriate agility of a panther, and dashing his delicate boot-heel in the face of his foe, tore open a frightful gash that yawned broad and deep as a second mouth! But Jack Bell was not the man to yield tamely under any reverse, or to yield at all, save with the loss of life. He struggled to his feet and drew his knife, while his brow actually turned black with ungovernable passion. Newland took three steps backwards, and then bounding up from the earth almost to the height of his enemy’s head, aimed a kick with the sharp, square toe of his boot, which, striking the tip of the other’s chin, sent him reeling again to the dust, and as he fell the knife flew out of his hand to the distance of a dozen paces. With a shriek of joy, Era ran and picked it up, not with the shadow of a belligerent purpose, but solely to prevent the wretch from seizing it again. This time, however, Bell hardly touched the sward till he sprung to his feet, and with a wild cry of brutal wrath, snatched a pistol from his belt; but Newland did not allow him leisure to cock or present it; he clutched his right arm with a grasp of iron, and fastened a hand of steel on his throat. But it soon became evident that the youth had committed a capital error in grappling with his gigantic rival. He had achieved his previous advantages by amazing swiftness and marvelous activity, while now the slower momentum of massy bones and horse-like sinews began to prevail in the fatal strife. Bell dropped his weapon, useless in so close a encounter, and environed the slight form with his great-volumed arms; the dire embrace was as the hug of a brown bear. Neil writhed like a rattlesnake, yet could not break the stifling clasp which was gradually pressing him to death. Poor Eva gazed on the hideous vision, uttering scream after scream. She beheld the face of her lover become dreadfully pale, and then purple; the white foam was on his lip, the chill sweat-beads gathered on his forehead: his glaring bloodshot eyes seemed starting from their sockets. Bell noted these signs with a peal of mocking mirth. The girl glanced at the glittering knife which she still continued to hold in her hand —she glanced and shuddered at her own thought; but the irresistible force of love urged her on to execute the sudden impulse. She advanced with the weapon firmly grasped in her slender fingers and cried: “Jack, let him go, or I will drive this blade up to the hilt in your heart!” And with the menace she touched the villain’s side with the point of steel keen as a lancet. Instantly, with all his strength, Bell hurled his foe into the fathomless depth of the "Boiling Spring"; but the strong upward rush of the current would not let him sink, but threw him out to the verge of the opposite bank. The icy bath revived him, and before his enemy had time to pass round the fountain, he was once more on his feet, and ready to renew the murderous combat. Bell now drew and cocked his second pistol; but in his mad haste to make sure of vengeance, he thrust his finger on the guard instead of the trigger, and e'er the mistake was discovered, another quick, incredible blow dashed him headlong to the earth; and without giving him a moment to recover, Newland, turning the tables, tossed him into the "Boiling Spring," and the pistol slipping from his fingers sunk away to the unknown bottom. He struggled to the bank, but the youth kicked him back into the whirling vortex; and repeated the act nearly a dozen times, till the wretch appeared powerless as a child, and could only cling to the golden willows that drooped dipping their green leaves in the fountain. Then the gentle Eva, like an angel of mercy, interposed: “Dear Neil, do not drown him; let the villain off with his life!” “Assassin, I will spare you this time,” exclaimed Neil, addressing his adversary; “but dare to cross my path again and even the devil, your master, shall not save you!” With considerable effort Jack Bell ascended the bank, and hurried to depart. Some happy thought seemed to occur to his recollection: for a savage smile illuminated his blood-stained features. Newland following the gleam of his eye caught a sight of the gun, deposited, as the reader may remember, previously to the commencement of the affray. The smile of the ruffian was premature. The youth anticipated him. Both ran for the weapon, but Newland arrived first, and raising it aimed its death-laden muzzle at the bosom of his rival. One instant more, and the homicide had gone to join his victims in the dim land of shades, when the pitying voice of Eva again entreated: “Dearest Neil, oh! do not slay him: let him live to repent!” The youth dropped the end of the deadly iron tube, and suffered the fiend to pass on. When the latter had measured some fifty paces, and was half concealed among the thick-growing trees, he turned round and shouted in sneering tones: "Mr. Schoolmaster, you are a fool to have your foe in your power, and permit him to escape!" When applied to the frontier, never was a truer axiom enunciated in all the tones of philosophy. Mercy is a beautiful thing in the regions of law, in the latitudes of civilized ethics. But revenge is a primary principle, taught by theory, and cultivated in all practice, ever known in the meridian of the backwoods. This singular fact is the legitimate result of locality and circumstances. The restraints upon frequenting passion are, from necessity, extremely feeble in all countries sparsely inhabited, as the opportunities for safe assassination must always be ample amid the sheltering coverts of great, frowning forests and illimitable prairies, abounding in game, where the solitary refugee may find a secure asylum for years, nay for the longest lifetime. In such lands, the oldest, best and most peaceful citizens adopt one unalterable maxim—never to spare the individual, who once manifests a disposition to tamper with the sacredness of human life; and many mistaken instances of pity and pardon, awfully repaid, have only tended to confirm this severe cede—natures lex talionis of the harsh, lynching West! "Thank God, you are saved," cried Eva, throwing herself into her lover’s arms as soon as the protracted rencounter had terminated. "And now your father will hear it all from that wretch!" Will hear it, too, colored by the venomous gall of his malice,” answered Neil, pursuing a different and gloomier train of thought. The girl started as if a serpent had hissed some hellish warning in her ear: the words awoke a suggestion still darker, and she rejoined in accents of new terror: “Yes; and Jack Bell will hasten home to procure the aid of his associates in crime! They will come on swift race-steeds, and bristling with horrid weapons; O, fly—fly! before the wicked brothers shall drink your blood like water!” “Then you fly with me, my dearest,” said Newland in a whisper—a thrilling whisper, sad and deep as the sigh of a breaking heart! “I would, with unutterable delight,” she responded, and then added, in tremulous tones of sorrow, “but it might cause my poor mother to go mad!” “I love you all the better for such a memory of filial tenderness,” remarked the youth, pressing the beloved form closer to his bosom, and thinking of his own widowed parent, far away. He then reflected profoundly for a few seconds, and declared confidently: “Let us do what is right in view of the crisis, and let the consequences take care of themselves. Let us kneel to your father and mother, and holding up our plighted hands, confess our love, and pray their blessing; they will not—if human, they cannot refuse their approval.” “Ah, me! you do not know the obstinate pride of my stern father,” began Eva, but immediately checked herself, and changed to the conclusion: “what you propose, however, is the wisest and most correct course for As to follow; and if evil happens to you, I will perish also! And the two, with painful forebodings, started for the largest of the Seven Islands, the one situated due east from the Emerald Heart. Eva glanced on high, and then looking into her lover’s eyes, read with a pale smile the reflex image of her own sweetly mournful thought: “What bliss I could we now die together, and wing our way at once to yonder isles of light, which no tempest shakes, and no cloud overshadows, forever more!” In truth, such reflections were not inappropriate to their situation at the moment. For even then might be seen upon them to keep of probable danger, as Neil carried the enormous gun—trophy of his triumph over his rival, while the pistol was concealed beneath his clothing. At length they approached the farm of Col. Ellis, and at the suggestion of Eva, the youth hid his rifle in a small clump of wild rose bushes, that flung their intoxicating perfume across the well-worn path. They then entered the large gate, fifty yards from the house, and here their hearts began to beat tremulously with fears and doubts, that reason and resolution were alike impotent to quell. But they had taken their determination, and they would do it or die: for the menacing perils around them had called into action and strung to the tension of electrified nerves, every fiber within their frames, every energy of their inmost spirits. They faltered a few seconds at the door, and held their breath as they proceeded, with hands interlinked, and cheeks pale as death with ineffable emotion. The family were just about to be seated at the supper-table, and all started with surprise at the singular appearance of Neil and Eva; but the latter, without pausing to note the wonder excited by their coming, dropped down side by side on their knees, at the feet of the frowning father, and the youth told their mutual washes in terms at the same time humble and manly: “We have come frankly, and without disguise, to perform a sacred duty—to confess that we love, and implore your pardon and approval.” On the haughty brow of Col. Ellis, the black frown faded, and the stern, constricted look of his curling lips was replaced by a more disagreeable smile. But at the instant he observed the fresh wound on the cheek of his daughter, and asked in accents of hurrying anxiety: “Eva, what in heaven’s name did that?” Neil answered, as the throat of the girl was choked into silence by heaving and heart-rending sobs: “The hand of the brave, Jack Bell did it.” “Ha!” exclaimed Col. Ellis in a husky voice as the truth flashed on his quick intelligence: “ha! he struck at you and hit her! eh.” The tone was so coolly insulting, that Newland sprang to his feet, raised up Eva, and in words of mild courteous dignity concisely rehearsed the facts of the combat with which our readers are already acquainted. The proud man listened to the end of the narrative with the same cold, sneering countenance, and then remarked with a sort of low mocking laugh—for him the sign of stifling anger: “Mr. Beggar, I am happy to acknowledge your claims to the title of a hero: and yet I must deny your right to the possession of my daughter.” “Call me not a beggar,” the youth retorted involuntarily with sparkling eyes as all the boiling blood in his bosom seemed to rush in a torrent to his face. “Oh! do not be offended! remember he is my father,” interposed Eva, fearing almost alike for them both. “Beggar, begone,” shouted Col. Ellis; “or I will kick you out of the house, like a mise rable cur, as you are!” And he made a motion as if he would spurn him away with his foot. But then, at the moment, from the prairie towards the west a dreadful din of tumult resounded through the deep night-silence. The thundering hoofs of a score of horses, speeding at a swift gallop, shook the very earth; yet their echoes were nearly drowned, by the hollow cries of rage and hideous curses that rolled from the blasphemous tongues of the mad riders. “Fly, Newland before it is too late,” shrieked Eva, wildly seizing her lover’s hand to urge him off. “The beggar shall not fly now,” said the stern father, advancing to grasp the youth by his collar, while the daughter The unable any longer to endure her agony, fell swooning like one dead! CHAPTER III. THE ARREST OF THE INNOCENT LOVE IN DESPAIR. Col. Ellis, the virtual chief of Eden and its Seven Islands, was not really a man of extraordinary size, yet at first sight he seemed so from his haughty carriage and the towering loftiness of his look, revealing the ambition of a proud soul disdainful of paltry limits—a soul that ill could brook even the idea of an equal. His corporeal proportions too, though not large, were exceedingly compact; and while the play of his clear joints showed the swiftness of automatic mechanism and the elasticity of India-rubber, his swelling sinews lay along their firm limbs in gnarled volumes, hard as ridges of metal, giving assurance of amazing strength. His coal-black hair, eyes of the same tint, wild and piercing, and dark sallow complexion, proclaimed a temperament bilious to excess. His long, thin, very acquiline nose, and the enormous breadth and vast solidity of his jaw, terminating in a sort of cast-iron chin, witnessed at once the indomitable energy of his will, with the intensity and unscrupulous truculence of his passions; in short, his profile, without being positively ugly, wore an expression intermediate between that of a bird and that of a beast of prey. His brow was broad but not elevated, and unusually prominent near the eye-sockets—the token of great external perception. But what rendered this physiognomy most remarkable was the singular wideness from ear to ear, that peculiarity which confers the war-like aspect on the heads of the bull-dog, or the rattle-snake, and of the Bengal tiger. For the rest, Col. Ellis was a genuine specimen of southern chivalry; he was fiery, impetuous, and morbidly sensitive on the point of honor, but unfortunately he carried all these properties to the verge of extravagance. His hand had been raised so often in the duels of death, that his heart had become hardened, and habituated to the flavish. Of revenge; reckless of his own life, he regarded not the lives of others. Accustomed to crush down all opposition in the path of his pleasure, he had learned to believe his volition the sole law of the universe, resistance to which was inexpicable treason. He was the Napoleon of the Osage. His wife was a woman of totally opposite character; frail in form, child-like disposition, mild, meek, merciful and pious, while their children were esteemed by all who knew them as models of amiability and goodness. As the father of his heart’s idol advanced to seize young Newland, the latter retreated a step, exclaiming in accents of suppressed ire: “Beware! touch me not. I would not harm you for the world—but still touch me not!” With a laugh of scorn, Col. Ellis grasped his collar as with the force of an iron vice, while Neil struggled vainly to break loose. Then the tableau grew terrible. Eva lay on the floor, pallid as a corpse, insensible as a clod; the affrighted mother bent over her, anxiously chafing her temples with hot camphor, or bathing her face in cold water, —little Emma stood by with the babe in her arms, weeping, praying, screaming like one distracted: “Oh! God, have mercy! sister is dead—my sweet sister is dead!” and five other children set up their choral cry of triple voices. In the meantime, without, the tumult increased as it came nearer; and the loud tones of the villain, Jack Bell, might be heard shrilling like a trumpet as he led the blood-thirsty band; they flew through the gate, men and horses, they rushed to the yard, and the jingling of spurs and the clatter of boot-heels instantly afterwards resounded at the door. Neil Newland saw that there was not a second to be lost, if he would escape with his life. “Let me go,” he cried fiercely in the ear of Col. Ellis, who still held him in his powerful clutch: “let me go, or I shall be forced to strike you!” “Strike and be damned,” retorted Ellis, “your stroke is not lightning.” But immediate experience proved that the slight arm of the youth wielded a shock very like to lightning. Driven to the last extremity, he planted a quick, straight-forward blow directly between the eyes of the old gladiator, which felled him suddenly as if he had been shot with a musket ball. Neil then turned to fly, but it appeared to be too late; already the Bells were in the doorway. He ran to an open window, intending to leap out; there he was met by the dark muzzle of a rifle; he drew back only to discover half-a-dozen guns leveled at his breast from the main entrance. In a trice more, he would have been blown into atoms, when the incredible courage and forethought of a child intervened to bring him a brief respite: little Emma bounded to the table and dashed down the lamp, leaving the room in comparative darkness, so as to deprive the murderers of accurate aim, while Eva, reviving from her swoon, threw her form as a shield before her lover. Again the youth ran to the window; but there the rifle still was poised. Swift as thought he snatched the pistol from its place. NEW YORK, SUNDAY MORNING, OCTOBER 7, 1849 . In his bosom, and fired at the assassin without; a strange cry, and a heavy fall, announced the effect, and Neil sprang out into free space. He now fondly deemed himself safe, and put forth all his wondrous speed to reach the shelter of the neighboring grove; it lay a hundred and fifty yards to the east, beyond a meadow even as a floor, at the farthest border of which was situated the long row of negroes' tuts. Never did the wild buck, pursued by men and dogs, display more astonishing agility; he literally seemed to skim the earth as with wings, while furious cries and imprecations howled like a storm behind him, and every instant guns exploded, hitting their leaden hail in the air about his head. Nevertheless, but for an unexpected contingency, he would have made good his escape. A number of slaves, aroused by the hell of harsh voices, hurried from their cabins, and Jack Bell called to them: “Head him — catch him; he is a horse thief!” The Africans acted on the delusive hint, and being joined by several half-naked Osage Indians, who had encamped near their quarters, the whole yelling pack joined in the chase, and cut Newland off from the timber. Any ordinary spirit would then have given up in despair, but not so did the heroic Neil; wheeling a rapid circle over the meadow, he resolved to get the rifle which he had concealed in the cluster of rose-bushes. The thing seemed an impossibility, surrounded as he was by foes, and especially as many were now following on horses. But in so limited a space, it is often difficult for the swiftest steed to overtake an active footman, because the latter can wind and shoot short curves and angles, while the horse requires more room to turn; and so by doubling and dodging, the youth managed to gain the garden to the left of the house. Farther advance appeared to be; totally precluded; the strong palings stood higher than his head, and were pointed at the summit by sharp iron spikes; they had formerly been pickets to a fort, in the recent period of Indian massacres. But yet the brave Newland did not hesitate grasping with both hands, as he ran, the top of the palings, he sprang a prodigious leap in the air, and cleared the opposing obstacle, it was just in time, for the pursuing band was only a few rods behind; and every one paused in utter amazement at the feat. The Bells blasphemed; the negroes, with eyes augmented to the dimension of tea-cups, looked abashed, muttering, “Him be de debit!” but the imperturbable (Lages, merely ejaculated the grunting “nigh!”—their sole interjectional sign for all sorts of emotion. “Run to the gate of the garden,” shouted Jack Bell; but before the mandate could be obeyed, Newland had issued forth from the other side, reached the bower of roses, and with sparkling countenance grasped the bidden gun, and still away he flew over the prairie. Nevertheless, the mathematical chances, according to every principle of calculation, were yet as a hundred to one against him; for, on foot, on horseback, whites, Africans, and yellow Osages, held on the chase. In a short time two riders were observed to gain on him, with fearful rapidity; one was the giant Bill Bell, and the other was Col. Ellis. The youth heard their approach, comprehended the danger, and wheeling round suddenly, discharged his rifle; a saddle was emptied—the eldest of the wicked brothers tumbled from his steed, a corpse; but scarcely three seconds more elapsed, when a shock like the crashing of an avalanche hurled Neil to the earth. The cruel father of Eva had urged his flying horse against him. Fortunately the impulse happened to be oblique, and hence it stunned the victim without killing him. Col. Ellis dismounted, and seized the young man, as pale, half-insistent, and bleeding, he staggered with an effort to his feet. Immediately, the Bells and their bloodhounds came up, and maddened to phrenzy by the doom of their dead comrade, they unsheathed their knives to take summary vengeance on their foe. Then was it a divine gleam of mercy, a sudden ray of justice, or a recollection of honor, that caused Col. Ellis, always before so cruel, to interpose? or was it the thrilling wail of a well-beloved voice — the voice of his favorite daughter, crying aloud in hopeless anguish from her room, with echoes ringing far out over the moonlit prairie, that warned him to pause? Was it pity, or was it prudence which inspired him with that transient caprice of moderation? But whatever might be his secret motives, at least he opposed the assassination of his prisoner. “It will never do,” he avowed firmly, “it would be cowardly and dishonorable, without any show of trial, to slay a defenseless man.” “Who talks of honor here?” exclaimed Jack Bell, frowning like a fiend, and shaking on high his huge knife-blade; “who dares talk of honor? Has not the wretch murdered Captain Wilson and my poor brother?” A savage and ominous yell from the bystanders attested their approbation of the sentiment, while that long and mournful wail from his own roof-tree, answered as if imploring the father to persist in his charitable purpose. “By heaven, he shall not die without a fair trial,” said Ellis, in tones still more determined; and then to settle the issue, he declared: “I will instantly challenge the first person, that offers to harm a hair of his head!” The menace produced its due impression, since not even the bravest of that desperate company, for his weight in gold, would have ventured the perils of a hostile meeting with the arch duellist of the west—the dead shot, who could split his bullet, at the word, on the edge of a razor, at fifteen paces. “You will not object to his trial by the Osage Lynchers?” Jack Bell interrogated. “Certainly not,” replied Col. Ellis, whose sole object, it might be supposed, was to gain time, in order to soothe his daughter, and prepare her mind for the unalterable event which his measures only tended to defer, for a few days more or less. Neil Newland was now tied with strong cords, drawn by the united strength of four men into hard knots, that cut through the skin deep into the quivering flesh, thus causing excruciating torture, aggravated too by the raillery and brutal jests of the Bells. He was then borne away to the schoolhouse at the Emerald Heart grove, and runners on fleet horses were dispatched to ride all night, and summon the court and company of Osage Lynchers. The living beams of the moon were soft and silvery, but brilliant as the light of day; sweetened by the fresh odors of Eden distilled, as it were, by the rich rain of pear-dew, the air seemed an ocean of delicious perfumery. But the young prisoner experienced no pleasure in the scene. His soul sickened with the breezy balm of the atmosphere; to his eyes the starry splendors streaming from pole to pole appeared tinted with streaks of gore; he felt, as all the heirs of immeasurable sorrow have felt in similar cases, that the beauties of nature, which brighten the face of joy, bring tears of burning bitterness to the doomed cheek of woe! Such is the mysterious magic of the human mind; all the lights and shadows of the universe are but emanations, evolved from the centre, as projected from the surface of our many-sided being. Gladness and gloom; all colors, qualities, shapes, substances; the great, the little, the lovely, the repulsive, the sublime, in nature and art; matter, form, spirit; angel, fiend, deity; the sweetest airs from heaven, and the most suffocating blasts from hell, are All relative to the momentary states of our internal feelings! Dare my call them, in one sense—or is it the only one—dreams of the soul? As the poor youth was thrust bound and bleeding, into his own school house, a killing sigh—the first and last—escaped him, as in a paroxysm of distracted tears, he knelt and kissed a wreath of withered flowers, which his beloved Eva had worn the previous day in her raven hair! Let us leave him now till morning, and return to the heart-broken Eva. During the chase after her lover, she had been tossed from wave to wave, of shuddering convulsions, over the torturing sea of doubt and despair. At length, her father came back. He loved her truly in his stern fashion, and was exceeding shocked by the change in her appearance. He approached, not doubting that he would be able to divert the gloomy train of her thoughts. He spoke in one of her lucid intervals; “Dear Eva, why will you grieve so for a mere stranger, when you have a happy home, and loving father and mother?” She cast herself on the hard floor at his feet, and faltered a single question in a faint voice that trembled as the whispers of one dying: “Does he live?” “Yes,” answered the parent, raising her in his arms. She smiled dimly, and asked another: “Has he escaped?” “No,” replied Col. Ellis: “he has murdered Captain Wilson and Bill Bell; they have arrested him, and tomorrow he will be tried for the crime.” “Where,” at Warsaw?” she gasped. “No; at the Emerald Heart.” “By the Osage Lynchers!” she screamed outright, anticipating the appalling result. And then once more the dark eclipse came over her bewildered understanding, and she burst into peals of insane laughter; these, intermitting, were replaced by tempestuous showers of tears; she sang sad hymns with countenance devout as a veiled nun; she thrilled warm love-songs, as her eyes glittered with the pure fire of stars; in horrid alternation, one minute, she prayed like a saint, and the next, uttered oaths too dreadful for any human record. O how thin and frail a film of partition separates the two worlds—the world of radiant reason and the world of midnight madness! But throw the will from its pivot, where it hangs poised, as it might be said, on a single hair —let imagination loose from all voluntary control, to be wafted away to immeasurable heights and depths in the strange, sweeping sea-tide of consciousness—and we have a case of unmitigated insanity, it is almost enough to make a rational mind forget its balance, to remember that all mankind are thoroughly deranged, during a large fraction of every twenty-four hours. We are always madmen in our dreams—those wild, impersonal fits of the fine delirium of sleep. Every deep revery is a sort of back stroke of lunacy. The loftiest genius is generally the wildest raver. (To be continued) Sho Struggle of Liberty. 1849 is proving an infelicitous successor to Tyranny is resuming its sceptre. From all quarters of Europe accounts are confirmatory of that fact. A few months back, the assault of the German princes on German liberty, simulta. neous with the glorious successes of the Hungarians, afforded an opportunity to wheel back this tide of reaction. But everything, as we then noticed, rested on the conduct of the Frankfort Assembly. We did not anticipate very much zeal or decision from that body, for we remembered their apathy when the Prussian King resumed the Constitution, yielded to his German subjects; and their worse than apathy, when Robert Blum, one of their number, was executed on a groundless charge by the Austrian Emperor. We did not anticipate much zeal or decision from this National Assembly, though it was almost the only visible monument of the German revolution of the preceding year. Unfortunately, our apprehensions were verified. With the great resources at their command to defend their own assailed rights, and the progress of liberty—with the unanimous support of the people, and the proffered help of a vast portion of the German armies, the Frankfort Assembly was unequal, or unfaithful to its trust—to the opportunity afforded—was noisy, timid, and undecided—did simply nothing. The troops, hopeless of the national cause with the exception of the Baden forces, remained faithful to their royal paymasters. Dresden and a score of other cities, which rose in the good cause, were put down without an effort being made to sustain them. At this worthy Parliament, instead of branding the assailing princes as perjured rebels to the German Constitution, permitted its own gallant defenders to be called and crushed as such. The war at last is over. The isolated resistance of Baden and Rhenish Bavaria has sunk overpowered. The fortress of Rastadt has surrendered, and the National Assembly, hunted from place to place, has at last ignominiously expired, without one solitary redeeming act of capacity or resolution—acursed be its memory! The next time, assuredly, Germany will require something more for her blood, than a humbug house of representatives. Italy is likewise prostrated—overrun by the hirelings of the Austrians, and of the would-be French Emperor. Venice, closely beleaguered, was the last of her heroic cities to resist. She, alas, has fallen. Hungary, cut off from external hope—surrounded by the combined forces of Austria and Russia, fell more by the unparalleled treachery of Gorgey than by force of hostile arms. So stand matters abroad, and how are things at home? Our martyrs in chains and the convict-ship—our people starved and stupified—at last decorously quiescent—at last fit for a Queen's visit. Such is the condition of Europe. The sun of liberty is just now obscured; and are we to conclude, because tyranny is everywhere, for a time, regaining its grasp, that 1848 has gone for nothing—that the blood and lessons of last year have been thrown away? Not so, waverer! —doubter of God’s providence! —driveller at human infirmity—not so. The world is steadily advancing, notwithstanding those defeats and delays. Ours is a rough path. We should have prepared for as much when we commenced the war. The journey. We, the brotherhood of Universal right and human freedom, have many an obstacle to grapple with on our way—the gold, the disciplined intrigue, the marshaled armaments of despots—much disunion, treachery, and cowardice in our own ranks. Ours is no path of roses truly, but a long and thorny road. Let each carpet philanthropist and dilettante patriot turn aside, and no longer weary his dainty feet on such a highway. Dublin Irishman. Cingalese Physicians. The Cingalese practice and knowledge of the healing and chirurgical arts, according to European ideas, are very imperfect, and as they consider handling a corpse to be the height of pollution, this prejudice alone has been sufficient to render it impossible for them, either to acquire, or possess, a correct knowledge of anatomy, or the structure of the human frame. When a native practitioner is called in, a bargain is struck between him and the patient, or his friends. So soon as the stipulated remuneration is agreed upon, if the practitioner has any doubt of the probity of his employers, he requires that the fee, whether it consist of money, jewelry, clothes, or grain, shall be placed in the hands of a third person. The usual stipulation is, no cure, no pay, but where a practitioner is called in to a doubtful case, or where the patient is moribund, he invariably receives his fee in advance. To be well skilled in astrology, is a most requisite branch of a good physician’s education, as he must be able by such knowledge to pronounce without hesitation whether the disease owes its origin to deranged humors, or is a just punishment, inflicted for crimes committed in a former stage of existence—in the latter case the unfortunate patient is left to the mercy of the gods—in the former the practitioner endeavors to bring the malady to its height, “or ripen it," after which he uses remedies for its cure. Their medical works treat of five hundred and seventy diseases, to which the human frame is subject, the greater number of which they represent to arise from derangement, or humors of the flesh, blood, skin, fat, bones; marrow, phlegm, bile, or wind. The physician’s knowledge should therefore enable him to determine from what exciting cause, and derangement of what particular function the disease has sprung. Occasionally he will take, possibly for effect, some hours to determine the name of the patient’s complaint, and when this very knotty point has been decided, he administers the remedy, for every practitioner prepares and administers his own medicines. It is their custom to prescribe and compound a great number of ingredients for the most trivial cases, which renders it somewhat difficult to decide which particular drug ameliorates or subdues the disease. Their Materia Medica consists of numberless simples, and a few metallic preparations, such as arsenic in the form of white oxide, and mercury, which is invariably mixed with oleaginous matter; gold, silver, and copper, are administered in the form of powders. The native chemical practice consists of distillation, preparing decocctions, infusions, extracts, oils and powders. Many of their practitioners are excellent oculists, and are thoroughly conversant with numerous medicinal drugs (unknown to Europeans) which produce a speedy effect in relieving ophthalmia. In Ceylon ophthalmia is alike prevalent amongst human beings and animals, but there is one form of this distressing complaint which is solely confined to quadrupeds. A minute-worm is either engendered or received into the watery humors of the eye, which causes the eyeball to enlarge; as soon as the swelling subsides, the coloring matter of the pupil assumes a bluish tint, and total loss of vision speedily ensues. The vegetable remedies used by the natives appear to cause the animal acute pain, but when they are judiciously applied, by a skilled practitioner, invariably restore the vision, and effect a complete cure. The surgeons are extremely dexterous in opening boils, from which both Europeans and natives suffer alike severely in Ceylon, and they understand cauterizing and phlebotomy. We have been informed that when a native surgeon amputates a limb, the operation is performed with a knife, which has been to a dull redness. As we never beheld the operation of reducing a dislocation, we are indebted for the following narrative to one who did, and upon whose veracity we can place reliance: “During our journey one of the coolies fell down, and dislocated his ankle joint. On reaching the next village the surgeon was sent for, who, after a careful examination of the injured limb, ordered the patient to be assisted to a plantation of cocoa-nut trees, and some coir, or rope, to be brought to him. He then placed the patient against a tree, to which he securely fastened him by the shoulders, whilst the foot of the injured limb was tightly attached by a noose rope to another tree. Through the noose, the surgeon passed a short, but strong stick, which he repeatedly twisted, until the rope was completely tightened, and the limb stretched out to its full extent; he then suddenly withdrew the stick, and allowed the cord to untwist itself. The patient, who had bellowed and squealed like a mad wild-hog during the operation, was then released, and upon examination the joint was found to be reinstated, and after a few days’ rest, the patient regained the perfect use of his foot.”— Ceylon and the Cinigalese. Old Saids. 