1850
Slavery question acute in Congress, and the year marked by passage of Clay's compromise measures, including Fugitive Slave bill. Bulwer-Clayton treaty for the joint control by Great Britain and the United States of a canal across Panama. California admitted to the Union as a free State after stirring debates in Congress. Increased Chinese immigration to California because of the failure of crops in China and the beginning of the Taiping rebellion. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" published. Jenny Lind made her first American appearance. Call is issued by South Carolina to other Southern States to consider question of State rights.
About fifty thousand persons died of cholera in England; epidemic checked late in the year. Submarine telegraph between England and France completed, but had to be relaid. The Koh-i-noor, magnificent diamond once owned by Dhuleep Singh, last native ruler of the Punjab, presented to Queen Victoria. Fifth Kafir War in South Africa begun.
Schleswig and Holstein, without aid from Prussia, made another futile attempt to throw off Danish rule. Louis Napoleon began systematic operations to make himself Emperor of France; the liberty of the French press was interfered with, and general suffrage was replaced by severely limited suffrage. Frederick William IV of Prussia granted constitutional reforms; Austria began preparations for war against Prussia, because of the latter's attempts to make the King of Prussia Emperor of Germany.
Taou-Kwang, the Chinese Emperor who ineffectually fought against the opium traffic; William Wordsworth, English poet; Sir Robert Peel, English statesman; John C. Calhoun, American statesman; and former Vice-President of the United States; Honoré de Balzac, French novelist; Gay-Lussac, French chemist; and Jane Porter, English novelist, died.
RULERS—United States, Zachary Taylor, President, died July 9, succeeded by Millard Fillmore; Great Britain, Queen Victoria; France, Louis Napoleon, President; Austria, Francis Joseph; Prussia, Frederick William IV; Spain, Isabella II; Pius IX, Pope.
CARMEN BELLICOSUM.
Guy Humphreys McMaster (1829-1887) is little known as an author, because his life was spent mainly among law books and in the atmosphere of the courts. After being graduated from Hamilton College, and while a law student, he composed the "Carmen Bellicosum." It has become a sort of classic, with its rumble and grumble which suggest the roll of drums and the mutter of distant cannon. It was contributed by McMaster to the Knickerbocker Magazine when he was only twenty years of age (1849), and it is this alone by which he will be remembered. Later in life he became a county judge and surrogate, and lost his youthful inspiration.
By GUY HUMPHREYS McMASTER.
In their ragged regimentals,
Stood the old Continentals,
Yielding not,
While the grenadiers were lunging,
And like hail fell the plunging
Cannon-shot!
When the files
Of the isles,
From the smoky night encampment, bore the banner of the rampant
Unicorn;
And grummer, grummer, grummer, rolled the roll of the drummer
Through the morn!
Then with eyes to the front all,
And with guns horizontal,
Stood our sires;
While the balls whistled deadly,
And in streams flashing redly
Blazed the fires:
As the roar
On the shore
Swept the strong battle-breakers o'er the green-sodded acres
Of the plain;
And louder, louder, louder, cracked the black gunpowder,
Cracking amain!
Now like smiths at their forges
Worked the red St. George's
Cannoneers,
And the villainous saltpetre
Rang a fierce discordant metre
Round their ears
As the swift
Storm-drift,
With hot sweeping anger, came the horseguards' clangor
On our flanks,
Then higher, higher, higher, burned the old-fashioned fire
Through the ranks!
Then the bare-headed colonel
Galloped through the white infernal
Powder-cloud;
And his broad sword was swinging,
And his brazen throat was ringing
Trumpet-loud;
Then the blue
Bullets flew.
And the trooper-jackets redden at the touch of the leaden
Rifle-breath;
And rounder, rounder, rounder, roared the iron six-pounder,
Hurling death!
WHEN THE PATRIOTS WAVERED.
Dr. John Witherspoon's Stirring Words, Which Brought the Continental Congress
to the Point of Decision on the Eventful Fourth of July, 1776.
On the morning of the Fourth of July, 1776, the members of the Continental Congress, in session at Philadelphia, were deliberating on the proposed Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston, composing the committee appointed for the purpose, had reported several days before the document that is now familiar to every American schoolboy, but action had been delayed, and on this eventful morning, when the Congress began its final consideration, the vital character of the Declaration was recognized with the growing hesitancy of an awed responsibility.
The patriots now saw that they were at the edge of an action by which all chance of retreat would be cut off; that they were preparing to expose themselves, their families, and their estates to harsh reprisals if their revolution failed. At this crisis of painful silence a patriot arose—a man not very old in years, but showing signs of approaching age in his frosted locks. In vehement tones he said:
There is a tide in the affairs of men, a nick of time. We perceive it now before us. That noble instrument upon your table, which insures immortality to its author, should be subscribed this very morning, by every pen in the house. He who will not respond to its accents, and strain every nerve to carry into effect its provisions, is unworthy the name of a freeman. Although these gray hairs must soon descend into the sepulcher, I would infinitely rather they would descend thither by the hand of the public executioner, than desert at this crisis the sacred cause of my country.
The speaker ceased. Confidence and determination returned to that assembly, and forthwith the Declaration of Independence was adopted. It was signed that day by John Hancock, President of the Congress. On August 2d, the engrossed copy was signed by the fifty-three members then present, and subsequently three others affixed their names.
The man whose words brought the Continental Congress to action was John Witherspoon, of New Jersey, the President of Princeton College. He was born in Gifford, Haddingtonshire, Scotland, February 5, 1722, and died near Princeton, N.J., September 15, 1794. A graduate of Edinburgh University, he became a prominent Calvinistic pastor, essayist, and educator. He declined the presidency of Princeton in 1766, but accepted a second invitation, and was inaugurated in 1768.
Dr. Witherspoon was a most devoted patriot. Throughout the War of Independence his energies were given freely to the service of the Colonies.
The Story of Baseball.
By GEORGE V. TUOHEY.[A]
How the National Game of the United States Was Evolved From English "Rounders," Which, in Turn, Had Its Genesis in Games Played in Ancient Greece and Rome—United States Senator Arthur Pue Gorman Was President of the National Association in 1866—M.H. Bulkeley, Since Governor of Connecticut, Was National League's First Chief.
An original article written for The Scrap Book.
Whether baseball, our great national game, is a development of "rounders" or of "town ball" will ever be a question. Its genesis, however, is to be found in a pastime that dates beyond the Christian era, for the Greeks practised playing with a ball as tending to give grace and elasticity to the figure, and they erected a statue to Aristonicus for his proficiency in it.
"Rounders," from which modern baseball is generally believed to have derived its origin, was a very simple game—so simple, in fact, that girls could play it. It was played with a ball and bats and was practised in this country as early as 1825. An English work on outdoor sports describes "rounders" as follows: