|OUR Saturday dispatches announce that an infernal machine had just been
received at the office of Chief Justice Field, and later on, Justice
Field, who was in Wyoming Saturday, said to a reporter that the machine
was one that was sent to him in 1866, and that last week he sent it down
to a gun factory to have the powder taken out, as he wished to stuff it
and preserve it among the archives.
With the aid of the telegraph and the facilities of the Associated
Press, it does seem as though we were living in an age of almost
miraculous possibilities. Here is an instance where an infernal machine
is sent to a prominent man, and in less than sixteen years the news is
flashed to the four quarters of the globe like lightning. How long will
it be before the whole bloody history of the war of the rebellion will
be sent to every hamlet in the land? How long before the safe arrival of
the ark, and the losses occasioned by the deluge, will be given to us in
dollars and cents?
People don't fully realize the advantages we possess in this glorious
nineteenth century. They take all these things as a matter of course,
and forget how the palpitating brain palps for them, and how the
quivering nerve quivs on and on through the silent night in order that
humanity may keep informed in relation to ancient history.