International Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science - Volume 1, No. 9, August 26, 1850. Various
of loftiest skies,
Who shows her face to mortal race,
In Friendship's holy guise.
Upon the brink of dark despair,
With smiling face she stands;
And to the victim shrinking there,
Outspreads her eager hands:
In accents low that sweetly flow
To his awakening ear,
She woos him back—his deathward track.
Toward Hope's effulgent sphere.
Sweet Friendship! let me daily give
Thanks to my God for thee!
Without thy smiles t'were death to live,
And joy to cease to be:
Oh, bitterest drop in woe's full cup—
To have no friend in need!
To struggle on, with grief alone—
Were agony indeed!
THE BALANCE OF LIFE
All daring sympathy—clear-sighted love—
Is, from its source, a ray of endless bliss;
Self has no place in the pure world above,
Its shadows vanish in the strife of this.
The toil—the tumult—the sharp struggle o'er,—
The casket breaks;—men say, "A martyr dies!"
The death—the martyrdom—has past before:
The soul, transfigured, finds its native skies.
The good—the ill—we vainly strive to weigh
With Reason's scales, hung in the mists of Time:
Yet child-like Faith the balance doth survey,
Held high in ether, by a hand sublime.
Science
The SPANISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES have announced the following subject for competition: "An experimental investigation and explanation of the theory of nitrification, the causes which most influence the production of this phenomenon, and the means most conducive in Spain to natural nitrification." The prize, to be awarded in May 1851, is to be a gold medal and 6000 copper reals—about seventy pounds sterling; and a second similar medal will be given to the second best paper. The papers, written in Spanish or Latin, are to be sent in before the 1st May, with, as usual, the author's name under seal.
IMPROVEMENTS IN THE TELEGRAPH.—The Presse gives some account of experiments made at the house of M. de Girardin, in Paris, with a new telegraphic dictionary, the invention of M. Gonon. Dispatches in French, English, Portuguese, Russian, and Latin, including proper names of men and places, and also figures, were transmitted and translated, says this account, with a rapidity and fidelity alike marvelous, by an officer who knew nothing of any one of the languages used except his own. Dots, commas, accents, and breaks were all in their places. This dictionary of M. Gonon is applicable alike to electric and aerial telegraphy, to transmissions by night and by day, to maritime and to military telegraphing. The same paper speaks of the great interest excited in the European capitals by the approaching experiment of submarine telegraphic communication between England and France. The wires, it says, on the English side are deposited and ready for laying down. It is probable that in a very few days the experiment will be complete.
Authors and Books
NEW ORLEANS AS SEEN BY A GERMAN PRINCE is very naturally not quite the same city as in the opinion of her own pleasure-loving citizens, nor can the republic whose South-western metropolis is condemned with the rigidity of a merciless judge and the jaundice of an unfriendly traveler, hope to get clear of censure from the same super-royal pen. It seems that his serenest highness Major-General Duke Paul William, of Wirtemburg, is traveling in America, and that the Ausland, a weekly paper, of Stuttgart, is from time to time favored with the results of his experience on the way. From some recent portions of his correspondence The International translates the subjoined morceau, which, however, despite its great exaggeration, is not altogether devoid of truth: "It is not necessary here to mention how much New Orleans has altered, increased, and deteriorated, for it is an established thing that cities which grow to such gigantic proportions gain nothing in respect to the morals of their inhabitants. Here drunkenness and gambling, two vices of which the Americans were ignorant in the time of the founders of their great federation, have taken very deep root. The decrease of the inflexible spirit of religion, and the increase of vice and luxury, gnaw the powerful tree, and are fearful enemies, which cannot be resisted by a structure that might resist with scorn all foreign foes, and would have played a mighty part in the world's history had the spirit of Washington and Franklin remained with it. The annexation of Texas, the war with Mexico, and now the gold of California, have transformed the United States. A people which makes conquests, loses inward power in proportion to the aggrandizement of its volume, and the increase of its external enemies."
AN ARABIAN NEWSPAPER, with the title Mobacher. has lately been commenced in Algiers, at the expense of the French Government. It is edited in the cabinet of the Governor-General, issued weekly, and lithographed, as less expensive than printing, which in Arabic types would be quite costly. It contains political news from Europe and Africa, the latest advices from Constantinople, all those laws and decrees of the Government which in any way concern the Arabs, and descriptions of such new discoveries and inventions as can be made intelligible to the readers for whom it is designed. A thousand copies are printed weekly and sent to the chiefs and headmen of all the tribes that are under French rule or influence. At first it was not read much, but now the vanity of the Arabs has been excited by it as a mark of special attention from the Governor-General, so that they take it as an honor, and a degree of curiosity has been excited to obtain news from other parts of the world.
Within a short time, also, an additional importance has been given to the paper by the publication in it of the amount of the tribute which each tribe is required to pay to France. Formerly this was known only to the chiefs who would accordingly exact from their people whatever amount they deemed best, under the pretense that it was for the government, while the greater part was retained by themselves. These tribes have profited greatly by the French conquest; it is estimated that of the eighty millions of francs which the army in Algeria costs yearly, from twenty to twenty-five millions remain in the hands of the Arabs. The Arab sells his corn, dates, horses, sheep, the baskets he weaves, &c., to the European population, but never buys anything from them in turn, except it be arms and powder. The rest of his money he carries home and buries where no one knows but himself, so that, if he dies suddenly, it is lost. Only the chiefs of the tribe know how to extort anything of these hidden sums. According to the most moderate estimates the tribes must have from two to three hundred millions of French money. The gains which the chiefs draw from this wealth is considerable; some of them have from a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand francs income. They are beginning to build large houses, and cultivate gardens around them, a disposition which the government favors, because it is easier to keep tribes in order that are settled and have dwellings to lose which they cannot take with them. The publication of the tribute in the Mobacher, is, under these circumstances, of great value for the Arabs, because it enables them, as it were, to supervise their chiefs, and to refuse to pay exorbitant taxes laid under pretense