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.