THE INQUISITION. A correspondent of the New York Journal of Commerce, writing from Italy, gives the following thrilling description of a few of the horrors of the Inquisition : Triumvirate with the duty of erecting a lofty column to commemorate the overthrow of one of the earth. But the scenes of this world change. the greatest evils that ever darkened the face of On the 1st of July, 1849, the Roman Republic, after a brief existence of five months, capitulated to the French, and in May, 1850, Pius IX., after an exile of one year and six months, returned to his capital, proscribed the Triumvirate, and re-established the Inquisition in all its former power." MATRIMONIAL ADVERTISING. Advertising for wives, although it may be a very convenient method for procuring such an essential, is still attended with much danger, from the total ignorance that the parties have usually of each other's previous life, and the opportunities it affords for a spurious and plausible person to impose upon the credulity which the respondent to such an advertisement must necessarily possess. The following is an instance as given in one of our exchanges: "In Turin I met the American Consul of Rome, who had passed through the entire revolution in the Eternal City, and who was present when the doors and dungeons of the Inquisition were opened by the decree of the Triumvirs, its prisoners released, and the building converted into an asylum for the poor. It was interesting to hear from the lips of an intelligent eye-witness the most ample confirmation of the published statements relative to the condition and appearance of this iniquitous establishment. The Holy Inquisition of Rome is situated near the Porta Cavalligeri, and under the very shadow of the sublime dome of Saint Peter's Cathedral, and capable in case of emergency of accommodating three thousand prisoners. The Consul was particularly struck with the imposing dimensions of the Chamber of Archives,' filled with voluminous documents, records and papers. An affair, somewhat novel and exciting, took Here were piled all the proceedings and deci- place in the village of Cutchogue, a short time sions of the holy office from the very birth of the since. It appears that Joseph Baker, of that Inquisition, including the correspondence with its place, and late of Greenport, went to New York collateral branches in both hemispheres. Upon a few weeks ago for the purpose of obtaining a the third floor, over a certain door, was an in- wife. His first move was to publish a notice in .scription to this effect-Speak to the first Inqui- a New York paper, stating that a young widowsitor.' Over another-Nobody enters this cham-er, about twenty-five years of age, having one ber, except on pain of excommunication.' They child, and a farm at a short distance in the counmight as well have placed over that door the well remembered inscription of Dante over the gates of Tartarus-Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.' That chamber was the solemn Hall of Judgment, or Doom-room, where the fates of thousands have been sealed in death. Over a door directly opposite, another inscription read, 'Speak to the second Inquisitor.' Upon opening the door of that department, a trap door was exposed, from which the condemned, after they had left the Hall of Judgment, stepped from time into eternity. The well or pit beneath had been built in the ordinary cylindrical form, and was at least 80 feet deep, and so ingeniously provided with projecting knives and cutlasses that the bodies of the victims must have been dreadfully mangled in the descent. At the bottom of this abyss quantities of hair and beds of mouldering bones remained. Not only at the bottom of the pit, but also in several of the lower chambers of the building, were found human bones. In some places they appear to have been mortered into the walls. The usual instruments of torture in such establishments were likewise manifest. The consul presented me with a bone which he brought with him as a memorial of his visit. The Pope fled from Rome on the 24th of November, 1848. The Roman Republic was proclaimed on the 11th of February, 1849, and immediately after its installation the Assembly solemnly declared the abolishment of the Holy Inquisition, and by a special decree charged the try, wished to enter a second time into the matrimonial state with some respectable lady of about his own age. This notice attracted the attention of a young girl, in the city, aged some eighteen or nineteen years, by the name of Else Craig, who soon responded to Joseph's notice. This was followed by an interview between the par ties. According to the account which the girl gave at Cutchogue, Mr. Baker represented himself to her to be a gentleman of character and respectability, in the community where he lived; that he had a valuable farm down on Long Island, with a good house, pleasantly situated, and all the necessary improvements and appurtenances; that he kept cows and other stock, together with a horse, carriage, &c. After a negotiation of a number of days, a matrimonial engagement was entered into, which was finally consummated in due form, by a clergyman of the city. After the marriage ceremony was solemnized, the parties, accompanied by the mother of the bride, immediately left the city, and took the accommodation train to visit the splendid establishment of Mr. Joseph Baker, at Cutchogue, on L. I., with high hopes and pleasing anticipations, no doubt. On arriving at Mr. Baker's handsome country residence, behold it was not there. Nothing but a little shanty, situated in a lonesome, out of the way place, with every indication of poverty, instead of a neat, comfortable dwelling, presented itself to the astonished strangers. The poor girl and her mother, after taking a fair view of the premises, and discovering the imposition, and the manner in which the daughter had been duped, overwhelmed with disappointment, mortification and disgust, at once decided to return to the city. They found a friendly shelter at the house of Mr. Halleck, at no great distance, and after making proper inquiries respecting the character, habits, and circumstances of the said Joseph Baker, as they were understood in that community, they declared that the marriage had been brought about by false pretences, misrepresentation and hypocrisy. A lawyer and a justice were soon called in, to untie the knot which had so recently, and so imprudently and foolishly on the part of the girl, been formed by the parties. Writings were duly executed, by which the young lady relinguished all claim and right of dower to any property which the said Joseph Baker might have, with a consent on his part, that the marriage contract, to all intents and purposes, might be dissolved. The mother and daughter took the cars and returned to the city. -Greensport Republican, March 29. [Another account says that, after all, the gentleman was or is possessed of the "good house, farm, cows," &c., but that he stopped at the "shanty," merely to try the metal of the ladies, when the old one stormed so terribly, and the young one exhibited such unmis takable signs of what he might expect from her, that he did not require much urging to consent to a disso lution of the marriage contract. It is also further stated, that the ladies have since been unavailingly regretting the hasty exhi ition of their temper.] VIOLATION OF THE SABBATH. Among the various statements connected with the loss of the steamer Griffith some months since, is one that a gentleman and his sister, residents of Maumee, who had just returned from the South, were invited to take passage from Buffalo on the Griffith, the captain offering, as an inducement, to remit the fare. They declined, however, on account of their unwilling. ness to travel on the Sabbath—that being the day selected by the captain for starting. The sad result is well known. This is not the only instance in which worthy people have been saved by a wise determination not to forsake principle. A lady, resident of Rochester, was upon the point of accepting an invitation to accompany a friend who took passage on the Griffith; but found herself unable to overcome long cherished scruples against violating the Sabbath, and declined the kind offer. She was thus saved to her children and friends, while the lady who extended the invitation was lost with the great multitude who went to sea in that ship. It is better under all circumstances to obey the Divine injunction to "Keep the Sabbath day holy.' Many and fearful are the proofs of Heaven's vengeance upon the heads of those who wilfully disregard it. Personal interest and positive duty unite in inculcating a spirit of deference to and compliance with this as with other of His gracious commandments. Let us be true to our obligations as subjects of God's moral government.-Erie Gazette. WONDERS OF GLASS-MAKING. The mode of casting plate glass presents a remarkable illustration of the skilful adaptation of means to ends. When the glass is melted in the crucible, a portion of it is transferred to a smaller crucible, called a cuvette, which contains the exact quantity requisite for the size of the plate about to be formed. The cuvette is then raised by means of a crane, and lifted over a casting table. These tables have smooth metallic surfaces which are carefully ground and polished, and wiped perfectly clean, and heated before they are used. Formerly they were made of copper, but the British Plate Glass Company have found that iron slabs answer the purpose better. The table used by them is fifteen feet long, nine feet wide, and six inches thick, and weighs fourteen tons. For the convenience of moving it to the annealing ovens, it is placed upon castors. The cuvette being swung over the casting table, is gradually turned over, and a flood of molten glass is poured out upon the surface, and prevented from running off by ribs of metal. As soon as it is entirely discharged, a large hollow copper cylinder is rolled over the fluid, spreading it into a sheet of equal breadth and thickness. When the glass is sufficiently cool to bear removal, it is slipped into the annealing oven, where it is placed in a horizontal position, great care having been taken to exclude the external air, it being indispensable to the beauty of these plates that the process of cooling should be regular and gradual. 66 No less than twenty workmen are engaged in these operations, and during the whole time the apartment is kept perfectly still, lest a motion of any kind should set the air in motion, the slightest disturbance of the surface of the plate being The spectacle calculated to impair its value. of such a vast body of melted glass," observes Mr. Parks, "poured at once from an immense crucible, on a metallic table of great magnitude, is truly grand; and the variety of colors which the plate exhibits immediately after the roller has passed over it, renders this an operation more splendid and interesting than can be described.” DISTRESSING OCCURRENCE. A man in Roxbury, Mass., got into a quarrel with another, and it was agreed that the parties should settle their difficulties by a fight on the subsequent day. The wife of one of the parties, hearing of the arrangements, went to the apothecary's shop and told the circumstances of the case, and inquired the quantity of laudanum necessary to put her husband into a sleep from which he would not awake until after the time fixed for the fight to come off. She was told the quantity, but to make the thing sure, her kindness prompted her to add to the dose mentioned, and she administered so much that it proved fatal. She told the whole story-her objectsher regrets-and the coroner and other authorities have wisely determined that she was not sub'ject to criminal proceedings-Dayton Journal. VAN COURT'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. AARON BURR. To speak of the dead as they deserve, is to bring the whole world about your ears. It is the greatest of hardships-for neither the living nor the dead will bear the truth. Pigmies become giants, harnessed in " golden panoply complete," and carrying spears like weaver's beams, in the exaggerating atmosphere of that Other-World. Vices change to Virtues, and Folly to warm-hearted Wickedness, under the transforming power of the grave. The Departed, who were nobodies while they lived, loom like ships at sea after death; until the great over-poepled Past is thronged with dwarfed and stunted apparitions, toiling and stretching and crowding and jostling one another for a niche where they may rest themselves-mere standing room for a few days at most, is all they ask-who, but for their biographers and their booksellers, and the hope they have to be remembered yet a little while after death, or at least paid for their labor, would have been forgotten forever before the turf had flowered once upon their graves. To overpraise the dead is reckoned a virtue by men who always underrate the living. We flatter the dead that we may be flattered after death. We are lavish in this world, that we may reap golden harvest in the next. Truth is mighty, nevertheless; and there may be found here and there one, a "faithful few" at most, not unwilling to hear the truth even of the departed, a sermon preached, even among the tombs. Aaron Burr was one of the most remarkable men of his day. Alive or dead, there is no speaking of him without a shudder. Beyond the every-day acceptation of the word, he was a great man; for wiser and better men were afraid of him, and he made himself felt, and heard himself acknowledged withersoever he bent his way. If he but lifted his finger in earnest, or breathed aloud, in the day of his strength, all the political and so cial and moral elements about him were disturbed. He carried a truncheon, like a thunderbolt, whose authority, from first to last, during a period of thirty years, it was death to question. While yet a youth, his VOL. 1.-6-J'E '51-F elder brethren did obeisance to him,-and as he waxed older, they prostrated themselves in his path, and he trampled upon them and spurned them. And yet-notwithstanding all this, and not withstanding the profound impression he appears to have made upon all who associated with him, or made war upon him, during the busiest part of a long and eventful life; in the camp and in the cabinet, in the senate chamber, in the forum and at the fireside; whether he appeared among them as a soldier, as a politician, as a man of the world, or as a lawyer,-by turns the betrayer and the betrayed-and whether doubted or trusted, denounced or worshipped-now glorying in his own ruthless treachery, and now standing at bay against the treachery of others,what has he left behind him to tell that he ever lived?-Nothing-absolutely nothing! A name like a shadow-vast, unwieldy and portentious-but after all, a shadow, and nothing but a shadow! With no monument, no record, no history! leaving neither brother nor sister, neither wife nor child !—no drop of his blood running in the veins of a single human creature, unless by stealth-what is there to make people remember him? Like the unhappy Lear, he lived to "confess that he was old," to acknowledge with a trembling voice and a quenched eye, that "age was unnecessary,” that he was four-score and upwards, and mightily abused," and to look about him, as he drew near the ante-chamber of Death, for some one to take charge of the kingly wreck and "youch-safe him food and raiment." And this was the end of Aaron Burr. His He died in his eighty-first year. whole life was a drama-and though he was blasted in the fourth act, as with fire from Heaven, and lay upon the cold earth, naked and houseless and hopeless, yet in obedience to the great laws of the drama, the awful catastrophe was reserved for the fifth act. From first to last, having no faith in man, no hope for himself beyond that which lurks in the bosom of a cool and crafty gambler, who depends upon overreaching all who may hap 247 |