Answer.—1. Calhoun aspired to the Presidency at the end of President Jackson’s first term. This led to a personal alienation and final violent rupture between the two. Calhoun was elected Vice President along with Jackson in 1828, but he resigned the office in 1831 for the above reason, and in order to accept the United States Senatorship vacated by Mr. Hayne when the latter was elected Governor of South Carolina. 2. Martin Van Buren, of New York, succeeded Mr. Calhoun. 3. The growth of the Free Soil and Abolition parties in the North killed the old Whig party.
GREAT FIRES OF HISTORY.
Fredonia, N. Y.
How did the loss of lives and property in the great fire in Chicago compare with the losses in what are distinguished as the great fires of London and Moscow? Give a list also of the other principal fires recorded in history, and oblige
A Constant Reader.
Answer.—The loss of life and property in the willful destruction by fire and sword of the principal cities of ancient history—Nineveh, Babylon, Persepolis, Carthage, Palmyra, and many others—is largely a matter of conjecture. The following is a memorandum of the chief conflagrations of the current era:
In 64, A. D., during the reign of Nero, a terrible fire raged in Rome for eight days, destroying ten of the fourteen wards. The loss of life and destruction of property is not known.
In 70, A. D., Jerusalem was taken by the Romans and a large part of it given to the torch, entailing an enormous destruction of life and property.
In 1106 Venice, then a city of immense opulence, was almost wholly consumed by a fire, originating in accident or incendiarism.