Matthew L. Davis died on the 15th June, at the age of 84. He had been for two or three years enfeebled, and for the last year confined to his room, but he retained his mental faculties and his physical powers until after his eightieth year, owing, in great measure, to the temperance of his habits, his fondness for exercise, and his elastic, hopeful temperament. Mr. Davis was preëminently a politician through life, and aided to organize and give triumph to "the Republican party," so called, more than half a century ago, when the Federal or Washingtonian party was prostrated not more by its own follies than by the ability and tact of its leading adversaries. Half the good management and efficient activity that served to elect Jefferson would have sufficed to defeat him. And nowhere was the battle of Democracy fought with greater address or against more formidable odds than in this State and City, under the consummate generalship of Aaron Burr, of whom Davis was the untiring lieutenant and confidential friend.
Though so long and so deeply immersed in Politics, possessing decided talents and a thorough knowledge of public affairs, Mr. Davis never held any prominent office. He did not seem to be an ambitious man. He was once wealthy, and became poor, but he never seemed elated by prosperity nor humbled by adversity. He was not a fortunate politician, and he seemed to love the smoke of the battle more than the plunder of the field. He was quite often on the unlucky side—for Crawford in '24—for Adams in '28—for Clay in '32,—and so on. His side was taken from impulse and personal liking, not from selfish calculation. He had known almost every man who figures in the history of our country since the Revolutionary era, and, while his faculties remained, his conversation was remarkably instructive and entertaining. In early life Mr. Davis was engaged in trade, and was moderately successful, but he gave up business to devote himself more entirely to politics, He reëntered commercial life before the last war with England, and his house (Davis & Strong) was fortunate in South American speculations, of the profits of which he himself received some $50,000, which, however, was soon lost. For half a century he was an industrious writer. He produced several very clever pamphlets upon men and affairs, and was for many years known as "The Spy in Washington" for the Courier and Enquirer, and "The Genevese Traveler" for the London Times. Burr bequeathed to him all his papers, and from these and his memoranda and recollections he prepared and published, in 1838, "Memoirs of Aaron Burr, with Miscellaneous Selections from his Correspondence," in 2 vols. 8vo., and "The Private Journal of Aaron Burr during his Residence of Four Years in Europe, with Selections from his Correspondence," 2 vols. 8vo.
Rev. Joseph Samuel C. F. Frey, a well-known Baptist clergyman, died at Pontiac, Michigan, in the 79th year of his age, on the 5th of June. He was born of Jewish parents, in Germany, and was for several years reader in a Synagogue. When about twenty-five years old, he became a Christian, and soon after a student of divinity at Berlin. He was subsequently engaged nearly all the time in efforts to convert the Jews. It was at his suggestion that the London Missionary Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, was founded, in 1808. In 1816 he came to the United States, and was for a time pastor of a Presbyterian Church in this city, but changing his views upon the subject of baptism, he joined the Baptist Church, and was settled over congregations at Newark and at Sing Sing, until, through his means, the Society for Meliorating the Condition of the Jews was founded, and he became its missionary. He wrote several books, which display considerable learning and an amiable and honorable temper. The most popular of his productions is one entitled "Joseph and Benjamin," designed to illustrate the points of difference between the Jews and Christians.
SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANIES.
Mr. Paine's Hydro-Electric Light.—All the past eras that are marked by especial characteristics and glories must yield before our own, the Age of Discovery, which bequeaths to the new generations so many applications of steam and electricity, so many inventions in all the arts, and such vast enterprises undertaken and accomplished for the good of mankind. These, as the Tribune eloquently says, are the immortal monuments of our times, and dwarf earlier performances into a very inferior position. What are the pyramids to a line of steamships? What is there in Homer or Plato worthy to be mentioned on the day when Professor Morse sets up his telegraph, and mightier than Jupiter, the cloud-compeller, with the lightnings of Heaven flashes intelligence from Halifax to New Orleans, as rapidly as the behests of the mind reach the fingers? How petty and narrow seem the ambition and desires of Alexander or Napoleon when the bold and prophetic genius of Whitney, dealing with continents and nations as with parishes and neighborhoods, stretches his iron road around half the globe and shows you, moving forward and backward over its rails, the flux and reflux of a world's commerce and intercourse, a sublime tide of benefits and universal relations! What poet, what artist, what philosopher, what statesman, has equalled in grandeur these conceptions of science, or the splendid results which have followed their practical realization? Not one. And the reason of this is plain. These things are filled with the spirit of future centuries, while our Art, Literature, Statesmanship, Philosophy, are either mere dead relics of the past, or the poor makeshifts of a present, not yet equal to the business Providence has given it to perform.
It is claimed for Mr. Paine that he has found out the means of producing the greatest revolution which physical science can well be supposed to make in the business and comfort of society. As far as we apprehend his claim, it is that he has established as a new principle of science that electricity possesses the qualities of weight, compressibility and gravitation; that he has proved water to be in reality a simple elemental substance, which he can decompose or transform into either hydrogen or oxygen gas according to its electrical condition, and according as positive or negative electricity is applied to it; and that he has invented the means whereby from water he can produce at will either of these gases without any other than mechanical agency and with no expense save that of the machine, which will cost at the outset $400 or $500, and last for an indefinite period. If this is true, it is unquestionably the greatest discovery of modern times, and will produce a change in affairs of all sorts so profound and extensive as to surpass and bewilder the mind which seeks to imagine it. When with a pail of water you can without expense light and heat your house; when coal mines are useless, and steamships draw their fuel from the waves they traverse; then the comforts and luxuries of life, and the means of traveling will be diminished in price so as to come within the ability of every man; a great deal of the most toilsome and disagreeable work now performed will become unnecessary; and a vast step will be made toward a more just and equal distribution of social advantages. Mr. Paine is now engaged at the Astor House in preparations to light that immense hotel with his hydro-electric gas, and the result of his experiment is looked for with profound interest. We confess little faith in his success.
The story of an American inventor named Remington—who a year or two since addressed to the late Mr. Senator Lewis, of Alabama, a history of his adventures, which was published in the Merchant's Magazine—must be well-remembered, for its intrinsic interest, and on account of the denials and refutations of portions of it by certain persons in London to whom allusion was made in Mr. Remington's letter. The invention, the Remington Bridge, seems now to be exciting no little attention both in England and in this country. The principle which gives to it its great strength, is the peculiar construction of its longitudinal supporters, investing them with all the tenacity that wood has when it is sought to be drawn apart. Thus it is capable of sustaining as great weight as would be required to pull asunder the fibres of the longitudinal supporters. No wooden bridge can be built of so great a span. Mr. Remington believes that he can build a span at least 1320 feet in length, while the span of the old wooden bridge at Fairmount, near Philadelphia, which was one of the largest in the world, was but little over 300 feet. The annals of mechanical art afford few instances where a great invention has been developed and prosecuted under apparently more adverse circumstances.