This is followed by news and advertisements of new books, published from the printing office of the paper. In the third number there is in the news department an article on the marvellous news from Europe, in which the editors speak of the scientific progress of the Europeans, and the astonishing discoveries which daily occur among them. In this connection they mention a singular experiment tried by a geologist of Stockholm. This savant having found a frog living after having been six or seven years in the ground, without air or food, concluded that men might live in that way for hundreds of years. Accordingly he solicited and obtained from the government, permission to try it for twenty-five years on a woman aged twenty. This piece of information is given with satisfaction, and the editors refer to the fact that some years since a faquir appeared at the court of Runjeet Singh, asking to be buried for several days, which was done. When the time arrived he was disinterred, as much alive as ever. The editors add, that although many Englishmen saw this, they had not believed it, but that this intelligence from Stockholm ought to convince them. The same number contains some remarks on the Ambassador of Nepaul, who was then in Europe. The following is our translation of this article:
"Jung Bahâdur, has thought best to visit Paris, the capital of France, before returning to India. The first Indian who visited Paris was Râm Mohan Roy, who was succeeded by Dwarkánath Thakur and others. But these were not true Hindoos, of the good school, for they were of the sect of Râm Mohan [who established a sort of philosophic religion under the name of Brahma-Sabhâ, or the "Reunion of Deists">[. General Jung Bahâdur, Kunwar, Rânâji, and his brothers are then in reality, the first orthodox Hindoos who have honored Europe with their presence. We do not know how these personages can have followed the prescriptions of the schastars in their passage across the ocean, but we learn by the news from Europe, that they have not taken a single meal with the English, and have neither eaten nor drank with them, though this does not render it certain that they have been free from fault in other respects. It is said beside, that in order to repair every thing, when the Ambassador returns to Nepaul, the King will cast water upon him and thus will purify his pabitra [Brahaminic insignia]. Should this arrangement take place and be adopted in other parts of Hindostan, we can believe that many Hindoos of every class will go to feast their eyes with the marvels of Europe."
Original Poetry.
MUSIC.
By Alfred B. Street.
Music, how strange her power! her varied strains
Thrill with a magic spell the human heart.
She wakens memory—brightens hope—the pains,
The joys of being at her bidding start.
Now to her trumpet-call the spirit leaps;
Now to her brooding, tender tones it weeps.
Sweet music! is she portion of that breath
With which the worlds were born—on which they wheel?
One of lost Eden's tones, eluding death,
To make man what is best within him feel!
Keep open his else sealed up depths of heart,
And wake to active life the better part
Of his mixed nature, being thus the tie
That links us to our God, and draws us toward the sky!
Authors and Books.
In a late number of the Archives for Scientific Information Concerning Russia, a Russian publication, are some interesting facts upon the colonization of Siberia, and its present population. It seems that that country began to be settled in the reign of the Czar Alexis Michaelowich, who issued a law requiring murderers, after suffering corporeal punishment and three years' imprisonment, to be sent to the frontier cities, among which the towns of Siberia were then included. Indeed, under the Empress Elizabeth Petrowna (1741—1761), the whole of Southern Siberia was called the Ukraine. The beginning of regular transportation to Siberia was made by the Czar Theodore Alexeiwich, who ordered in 1679 that malefactors should be sent with their families to settle in Siberia. About this time many serfs escaped to Siberia from service in Europe, and stringent measures were adopted to reclaim the fugitives, and prevent such an offence from being repeated and continued. In 1760 a ukase was issued permitting landlords and communes to send to Siberia, and have entered as recruits, all persons guilty of offences of any kind or degree. In 1822 another ukase allowed the crown serfs of the provinces of Great Russia to emigrate to Siberia, where they became free, a privilege which they still enjoy. The main part of the present inhabitants of the country is composed of the descendants of these colonists and exiles, of the banished Strelitzes, and of the captured Swedes and Poles. The varied habits, customs, creeds, ideas, costumes, and dialects of these motley races have by long contact with each other become reduced to something like unity. The former extreme rudeness of the people has also of late years undergone a great improvement from the influence of new-comers. Still, however, Siberia is socially any thing but a tolerable country, even in comparison with Russia, and vices which in enlightened lands would be thought monstrous, are not occasions of any astonishment or special remark to the mass of the inhabitants.