| Title: | American Letter to the Editor of the Armagh Guardian. |
|---|---|
| ID | 1011 |
| Collection | Irish Emigration Database |
| File | Erin-Go-Bragh/4 |
| Year | 1857 |
| Sender | Erin Go Bragh |
| Sender Gender | prob. male |
| Sender Occupation | unknown |
| Sender Religion | unknown |
| Origin | Jackson, Mississippi, USA |
| Destination | Armagh, N.Ireland |
| Recipient | the Editor of the Armagh Guardian |
| Recipient Gender | male |
| Relationship | the author is a subscriber to the Armagh Guardian |
| Source | The Armagh Guardian, 6 March 1857. |
| Archive | The Central Library, Belfast. |
| Doc. No. | 9409046 |
| Date | 02/02/1857 |
| Partial Date | |
| Doc. Type | EMG |
| Log | Document added by LT, 01:09:1994. |
| Word Count | 1462 |
| Genre | |
| Note | |
| Transcript | AMERICAN LETTER --------------- TO THE EDITOR OF THE ARMAGH GUARDIAN City of Jackson, Mississippi, Feb. [February] 2nd, 1857. DEAR SIR, - With pleasure I take my quill this morning to write something for the Guardian. For a week or two I have been collecting items that, I thought, would interest your readers, and have now so many of them on hand that I hardly know how to make a selection. At random, however, I will commence with - THE WINTER IN THE NORTH AND WEST. This winter has been intensely cold in the north and west of the United States. Apart from the privations and sufferings of the poor, who are unable to purchase a sufficiency of fuel, there have been many instances of persons perishing from the severity of the weather. In the State of Iowa, at a place near Monticello, three women and a child were frozen to death. They had gone, it seems, in a two-horse sleigh to visit a neighbouring family, and as they werer returning home unfortunately got off the road. in crossing a hollow the horses became detached from the sleigh and ran off, leaving the poor creatures in snow some six or seven feet deep. Their immediate neighbours, seeing that they did not return, assembled together and resolved to make search. After a considerable time the unfortunate women were found in a willow thicket all dead. A melancholy case occurred at Milwaukie, in the State of Wisconsin. A woman was allowed to freeze to death. It appeared that her husband was absent, at work on the railroad, and she had no one to provide for her. - When her wood failed she applied to the city constable to let her have some until the return of her husband. That worthy functionary, however, refused, and told her to go to the poorhouse. She did not take his advice, and was found in a short time dead, with her poor little children wailing and shivering around her lifeless corpse. The city of Milwaukie is a little north of the parallel of 43 deg. [degrees], and if the cold is so intense at that latitude, what must it be in the northern part of Canada East, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland! DEATH OF PRESTON S. BROOKS. A telegraphic despatch on the 28th ult. announced the death, at Washington city, of Preston S. Brooks, M. C., of South Carolina. This is the Brooks who, last summer, gained so much notoriety by chastising Mr. Summer, of Massachusetts. You will recollect that Mr. Summer had, in a speech in the lower house of Congress, abused Southern planters, and had even used some unpleasant personalities towards Senator Butler, who is uncle to Mr. Brooks. Mr. Brooks, feeling that the South was slandered, and his aged uncle insulted, thought it his duty, in the absence of Senator Butler, to call Mr. Summer to account. This he did by belabouring him soundly with a gutta percha cane. - Mr. Brooks died of died of disease of the throat. His loss will be sincerely regretted by the people of South Carolina. He was the pet of his constituents - not undeservedly either - for he was young man of fine appearance, pleasant address, and superior abilities. Congress occupied the 29th ult. in delivering eulogies on the deceased. The corpse was brought into the presence of the members of both Houses of Congress, where also were assembled the President of the United States and the president-elect, the Judges of the Supreme Court, and the members of the diplomatic corps. After the delivery of several eloquent eulogies, the funeral discourse was preached by the Chaplain of the House of Representatives, and the body was then conveyed to, and interned in, the Congressional cemetery. MR. BUCHANAN'S INAUGURAL. - THE EAGLE FEATHER. An interesting circumstance occurred during the last presidential campaign. As Senator Brown, of the State of Mississippi, was proclaiming, in an eloquent speech on the hustings, the certain election of Mr. Buchanan, a feather dropped at his feet from the wing of an eagle that was at that moment flying over. Mr. Brown preserved the quill and forwarded it to Wheatland, with a request that the president-elect should use it in writing his inaugural address. Mr. Buchanan has promised compliance. His address, I have no doubt, will be the first of the kind, written with the quill of an eagle, and that quill the voluntary gift of the national bird. HOPE FOR THE INDIANS. It has long been thought that the red men of the forest could hardly be bought within the pale of civilization. Wild, as the woods through which they roam, the majority of them have hitherto resisted all attempts on the part of white men, to induce them to form themselves into political organization. Recent occurrences, however, show that there is yet hope for them. Twenty-five families residing at Hazelwood, in the territory of Minnesota, have constituted themselves a miniature republic. They have adopted a written constitution, have elected a magistracy and judiciary, enacted laws, and are now conforming to the morality and customs of civilized life. Already they have wheat,Indian corn, and several other agricultural productions in market. These families are of the Dakotah tribe. It is to be hoped that many other tribes will follow the example of the Dakotahs; that the race will not, as was expected, become extinct; that, at least, a remmant will perpetuate the distinctive characteristics of the Aborigines of the western continent. It is very cheering to see that some of them are desirous of civilization. Their rapid decadence has long been watched with deep regret. Humanity shuddered to see them so quickly passing away. They are a brave and intrinsically noble race. And if they have often been cruel to the whites, surely it may be said in extenuation, that the whites have been as cruel to them. THE HERMITAGE. The residence of the late General Jackson - the hero of New Orleans, is named "The Hermitage". The residence itself and a p[art of the lands are about to be transferred to the general government. The legislature of Tennessee, at its last session, passed an act, authorizing the governor of that state, to purchase five hundred acres of the lands, and to make a tender of the same to the United States' government, provided a branch of the Military Academy should be established at "The Hermitage". The government made the purchase in pursuance of the act, giving forty-eight thousand dollars for the house and land. The tender has been made to President Pierce, who has made it the subject of a special message to Congress. NEATNESS IN NEBRASKA. That your readers may have some idea of the discriptive powers of Western Editors, I shall, to the exclusion of other matter, send you the following - taken from "The Nebraska News":- "We always did like neat people. We always did cherish a kind of tender feeling for all neat women. But we were never fully struck by one until last week and the way of it was this. We were 'out west' a few miles, and got belated; we looked for a place to stay all night, found a cabin, asked if we could stay all night and a tall woman with a freckled face, red hair, buffalo skin moccasins, buckskin dress, and a freesoiled baby, said she 'reckon we dismount'. We got off our horses, hitched them to a cotton wood corn crib, and went in. We asked for supper. We got some bacon, molasses, boiled pumkin' and corn dodger. We eat [ate?] heartily. "After the meal was past the woman said to her eldest girl:- 'Now, Doddy Jane, you have just got to keep that old slut, and them ere pups from sleepin' in this ere meal box any longer. In makin' this 'ere strangers coin bread, I was pestered nearly to death pickin' the small hairs and dead fleas out of it, that came out of them peasky dogs. And if they sleep in it a week longer it won't be fit to eat.' "We were in love with that woman on account of her neatness. And that evening we lay down upon the sough-hewed floor and had pleasant dreams. Ghostly fleas were hopping about all over us, and spectral sluts, with goblin pups, danced before us in boxes of unearthly meal, during the live long night, and our great-grand-father sat straddle of us six hours, and with the ramrod of a 6-pounder cannon, stuffed cords of that neatly prepared corn doger, down our unwilling throat, and whistled all the time for the dogs, while the freesoil baby and its tidy mother sat by and wept for the departing hoe-cake. We like neatness, we do." I shall write again in the course of a few weeks. - Meantime I am - Yours truly, ERIN GO BRAGH. |
