with a loss of $3,000,000; and in 1769 the city was almost totally
destroyed.
In 1763 a fire in Smyrna destroyed 2,600 houses, with a loss of
$1,000,000; in 1772 a fire in the same city carried off 3,000
dwellings, and 3,000 to 4,000 shops, entailing a loss of $20,000,000;
and in 1796 there were 4,000 shops, mosques, magazines, etc., burned.
In 1776, six days after the British seized the city, a fire swept off
all the west side of New York city, from Broadway to the river.
In 1771 a fire in Constantinople burned 2,500 houses; another in
1778 burned 2,000 houses; in 1782 there were 600 houses burned in
February, 7,000 in June, and on Aug. 12, during a conflagration that
lasted three days, 10,000 houses, 50 mosques, and 100 corn-mills,
with a loss of 100 lives. Two years later a fire, on March 13,
destroyed two-thirds of Pera, the loveliest suburb of Constantinople,
and on Aug. 5 a fire in the main city, lasting twenty-six hours,
burned 10,000 houses. In this same fire-scourged city, in 1791,
between March and July, there were 32,000 houses burned, and about as
many more in 1795; and in 1799 Pera was again swept with fire, with a
loss of 13,000 houses, including many buildings of great magnificence.
In 1784 a fire and explosion in the dock-yards, Brest, caused a loss
of $5,000,000.
But the greatest destruction of life and property by conflagrations,
of which the world has anything like accurate records, must be
looked for within the current century. Of these the following is a
partial list of instances in which the loss of property amounted to
$3,000,000 and upward:
Property
Dates. Cities. destroyed.
1802 Liverpool $5,000,000
1803 Bombay 3,000,000
1805 St. Thomas 30,000,000
1808 Spanish Town 7,500.000
1812 Moscow, burned five days;
30,800 houses destroyed 50,000,000
1816 Constantinople, 12,000
dwellings, 3,000 shops .....
1820 Savannah 4,000,000
1822 Canton nearly destroyed .....
1828 Havana, 350 houses .....
1835 New York (“Great Fire”) 15,000,000
1837 St. Johns. N. B. 5,000,000
1838 Charleston, 1,158 buildings 3,000,000
1841 Smyrna, 12,000 houses .....
1842 Hamburg, 4,219 buildings,
100 lives lost 35,000,000
1845 New York, 35 persons killed 7,500,000
1845 Pittsburg, 1,100 buildings 10,000,000
1845 Quebec, May 28, 1,650
dwellings 3,750,000
1845 Quebec, June 28, 1,300
dwellings .....
1846 St Johns, Newfoundland 5,000,000
1848 Constantinople, 2,500 buildings 15,000,000
1848 Albany, N. Y., 600 houses 3,000,000
1849 St. Louis 3,000,000
1851 St. Louis, 2,500 buildings 11,000,000
1851 St. Louis, 500 buildings 3,000,000
1851 San Francisco, May 4 and 5,
many lives lost 10,000,000
1851 San Francisco, June 3,000,000
1852 Montreal, 1,200 buildings 5,000,000
1861 Mendoza destroyed by
earthquake and fire,
10,000 lives lost ....
1862 St. Petersburg 5,000,000
1862 Troy, N. Y., nearly destroyed
1862 Valparaiso, almost destroyed
1864 Novgorod, immense destruction
of property .....
1865 Constantinople, 2,800 buildings
burned .....
1866 Yokohama, nearly destroyed
1865 Carlstadt, Sweden, all consumed
but Bishop’s residence,
hospital, and jail;
10 lives lost .....
1866 Portland, Me., half the city 11,000,000
1866 Quebec, 2,500 dwellings and
17 churches ......
1870 Constantinople, Pera suburb 26,000,000
1871 Chicago, 250 lives lost, 17,430
buildings burned, on
2,124 acres 192,000,000
1871 Paris, fired by the Commune 160,000,000
1872 Boston 75,000,000
1873 Yeddo, 10,000 houses ......
1877 Pittsburg, caused by riot 3,260,000
1877 St. Johns, N. B., 1,650 dwellings,
18 lives lost 12,500,000
From the above it appears that the five greatest fires on record,
reckoned by destruction of property, are:
Chicago fire, of Oct. 8 and 9, 1871 $192,000,000
Paris fires, of May, 1871 160,000,000
Moscow fire, of Sept. 14-19, 1812 150,000,000
Boston fire, Nov. 9-10, 1872 75,000,000
London fire, Sept. 2-6, 1666 53,652,500
Hamburg fire, May 5-7, 1842 35,000,000
Taking into account, with the fires of Paris and Chicago, the great
Wisconsin and Michigan forest fires of 1871, in which it is estimated
that 1,000 human beings perished and property to the amount of
over $3,000,000 was consumed, it is plain that in the annals of
conflagrations that year stands forth in gloomy preeminence.
LOSS OF THE LADY ELGIN.
CRETE, Ill.
When was the Lady Elgin lost, on Lake Michigan and how many persons
were lost, and saved?
JOHN MILLER.
_Answer._—The steamer Lady Elgin was cut to the water’s edge by a
sailing vessel named the Augusta, heavily loaded with lumber, which
struck her amidships, during the night, Sept. 8, 1860. She sunk
almost immediately. Carrying an excursion party from Chicago to
Milwaukee at the time, she had about 400 passengers on board. The
disaster occurred about twenty-two miles north of Chicago, nearly
off Glencoe. Many of the passengers and crew got on rafts and
portions of the wreck, and drifted toward the land. Some of these
came ashore between Glencoe and Evanston; but the most of them,
after getting within hail of the beach, despite the best efforts of
citizens and students of Evanston and Winnetka to assist them, were
swallowed up in the breakers and carried out into the lake by the
terrible undertow. Men with ropes around their chests plunged into
the breakers, seized exhausted, drowning men and women, and were
dragged in by main strength of men at the lines. Conspicuous among
these noble men was Mr. Edward W. Spencer, of Rock Island, Ill.,
then a student at Garrett Biblical Institute, who saved fourteen or
fifteen passengers, persisting until he was utterly exhausted; an
example of heroism which was suitably commemorated afterwards by the
presentation of a memorial watch and chain, given him by citizens
of Chicago and Evanston. Of the total list of passengers only about
one-fourth were rescued; 297 perished.
AUSTRALIA.
COLMAR, Ill.
What are the area and principal natural features of Australia, and
the nationalities and chief occupations of its population?
CHARLES L. BRICKWELL.
_Answer._—Australia, often spoken of as an island, is about ten
times the size of Borneo, the largest island of the world properly
so called, and is nearly half the size of South America. To be more
specific, it measures about 2,500 miles from east to west, and 1,950
from north to south, containing an estimated area of 3,000,000
miles. This is about the same as the entire extent of the United
States, exclusive of Alaska. Along the east and west coasts the
country is broken, rising at no great distance from the sea into
a succession of mountain ranges; but the vast interior is almost
as level as a gently undulating ocean-bed, which it evidently was
at no very distant period—geologically speaking. It seems to be
for the most part a great sandstone basin, rising toward the coast
in nearly every direction. The mountain range in the southeast,
known as the Australian Alps, rises to a height of 7,000 feet; the
granite and syenitic mountains on the west coast range from 800 to
3,000 feet in elevation, and those along the coast of Queensland,
and along the greater part of the north coast, from 1,000 to 4,000
feet. There are immense quantities of coal in Eastern Australia,
rich gold mines, some silver, and an abundance of iron, copper, and
tin. The broken and much of the mountainous regions are well wooded,
but the interior is comparatively naked, and much of it wears a
parched look, like the dry, treeless plains of Eastern Wyoming and
Colorado, which are available for flocks and herds the most of the
year, but not cultivable with profit without artificial irrigation.
There are millions of acres of fine agricultural and grazing lands
without entering this interior basis to any great distance; and the
governments of the several provinces are offering liberal inducements
to settlers. Few of the rivers of this vast country are navigable
to any great distance, although several of them may be made so for
a large part of the year by slight improvements of the channels.
Conspicuous among the latter are Murray River, 1,100 miles long;
the Roper and the Victoria. The regions beyond the seaboard are not
likely to develop rapidly until means of transportation are extended.
The railroad mileage of Australia is only a little over 4,042 miles,
or about the same as that of Minnesota, which is thirty-six times
smaller in area and began to be settled much later. The telegraph
lines measure over 30,000 miles. The climate of the Southern half
of Australia is quite similar to that of Southern Brazil or Cuba,
and that of the greater part of the rest of the continent is a good
counterpart of that of Southern Europe. The total population of the
five provinces of Australia, by the census of 1881, is as follows:
New South Wales 751,468
Queensland 213,525
South Australia 279,865
Victoria 862,346
Western Australia 29,708
—————————
Total 2,136,912
The above does not include aborigines, estimated to number 80,000.
The increase by immigration is not rapid. The population is mostly
of British origin, but it embraces also nearly 10,000 Polynesians
and 25,000 Chinese. The chief occupations are agriculture, grazing,
mining, building, and commerce. Manufactures do not flourish, the
colonies being dependent almost entirely upon the United Kingdom for
manufactured goods. The chief exports are wool, hides, preserved
meats, copper, lead, coal, and gold. The total quantity of gold mined
in Victoria alone, from the discovery in 1851 to the end of 1880,
amounted to 49,500,000 oz., valued at $990,000,000. The government
of the several provinces is similar to that of the provinces of the
present Dominion of Canada before their union.
ALDERNEYS AND JERSEYS.
SCOTT, Ind.
What is the difference between Alderney cattle and Jerseys, if any?
Where did the breeds originate? Your answer will settle a dispute.
A SUBSCRIBER.
_Answer._—Alderney, Jersey, and Guernsey are small islands in the
British Channel, just off the coast of Normandy, France; from which
the first, an isle of about four square miles in area, is separated
by only a very narrow strait. Jersey, about sixteen miles off the
coast, is a much larger and more fertile island, being about eleven
times the size of Alderney. While the cattle of the three islands
are all believed to have come from one common Norman stock, and pass
under the common name of the Alderney breed, the Jersey cattle have
been greatly improved by careful in-breeding, and are better milkers
as to quantity, though not as to quality, than the native cattle of
Alderney. Few cattle are exported from the latter island, while a
considerable number of Jersey cattle are exported to England and this
country, where nearly all the representatives of what is known as
the Alderney breed are Jerseys. It would not be correct to speak of
Alderneys and Jerseys as distinct breeds.
LOTTERY MATTER UNMAILABLE.
SHELL ROCK, Iowa.
Is it unlawful to send letters to lottery companies and lottery
agents through the mails?
A SUBSCRIBER.
_Answer._—Postal regulation 674 declares “No letter or circular
concerning lotteries, so-called gift concerts, or similar
enterprises, offering prizes,” etc., “shall be carried in the mail.
Any person who shall knowingly deposit or send anything to be
conveyed by mail in violation of this section shall be punishable
by a fine of not more than $500 nor less than $100, with costs of
prosecution.” Section 674 instructs postmasters and employes of the
railway mail service to withdraw letters and third class matter
addressed to lottery companies or agents from the mails and refer
them to the proper officers for prosecution of the person mailing the
same.
THE HIGH SEAS.
UNION GROVE, Wis.
1. What is meant by the “high seas” in article 1, section 8, of
the Constitution of the United States? 2. Are the Great Lakes
regarded as high seas? 3. If a crime were committed on any of the
Great Lakes, where would the criminal be tried—in what court? 4.
What persons are meant in the first clause of the ninth section of
article 1 of the Constitution?
ROBERT ROBERTS.
_Answer._—1. By the “high seas” is meant the open sea: that is the
waters outside of the civil jurisdiction of any country, which the
law of nations limits to one marine league, or three geographical
miles from shore. 2. The Great Lakes are regarded, beyond the limits
above designated, as high seas. 3. In the event of crimes committed
on the high seas, parties charged therewith are subject to the
jurisdiction of the Federal or United States courts in the district
which the vessel first enters after the commission of the crime, or
in the district where the offender is found. The courts of States
bordering on the great lakes have jurisdiction concurrent with that
of the United States courts where it can be shown that the crime
was committed within their limits, which extend to the central line
of the lakes bounding them. 4. In the clause of the Constitution
which reads: “The migration or importation of such persons as any
of the States now existing shall think proper to admit shall not
be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year 1808,” etc. The
word “persons” was understood to mean African slaves. This form
was adopted to avoid the use of the word slave in the Constitution,
the very thought of which was repugnant to Washington, Adams,
Jefferson, and other fathers of that instrument, whether from North
or South. The slave trade, in conformity with the above clause of the
Constitution, was promptly abolished in 1808.
UNIMPROVED LANDS—IMMIGRATION.
GANGES, Mich.
What proportion of the areas of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois,
Iowa, and Nebraska is still unimproved Also, please state the
number of immigrants arriving in this country in 1882.
H. H. H.
_Answer._—1. The census of 1880 gives the following statistics of
improved lands embraced in farms in the several States above named,
opposite which we place the total area of each State in acres:
No. of Improved Total
States. farms. acres. acres.
Ohio 247,189 18,081,091 26,278,400
Michigan 154,008 8,296,862 37,705,600
Indiana 194,013 13,933,738 23,264,000
Illinois 255,741 26,115,154 36,256,000
Iowa 185,351 19,866,541 35,856,000
Nebraska 63,387 5,504,702 49,187,200
From this it appears that nearly one-third of Ohio, more than
three-fourths of Michigan, about two-fifths of Indiana, a little
more than one-fourth of Illinois, about three-sevenths of Iowa, and
almost nine-tenths of Nebraska remained unimproved as farm property
at the time of the last census. In settled States, the number of
acres included in cities, towns, and villages, in roads, lakes, and
navigable streams, will reduce the proportion of “unimproved acres”
by about 2 per cent of the total area. The statistician of Indiana
computes that there were in 1879, 249,686 acres, or 1⅛ per cent
of the total State area, embraced in roads outside of cities and
incorporated towns. 2. The total immigration into the United States
in 1882 numbered 788,992.
LAW AGAINST CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.
ROSCOE, Ill.
Please publish in Our Curiosity Shop in condensed form the law
of this State to punish cruelty to animals. A person in this
neighborhood, remonstrated with for cruelly beating his horse with
a pitchfork, retorts that “a man has a right to pound his own
horse.” Let us know the law for such cases.
A SUBSCRIBER.
_Answer._—Chapter 38, section 50, of the Revised Statutes of Illinois
says: “Whoever shall be guilty of cruelty to any animal in any of the
ways mentioned in this section shall be fined not less than $3 nor
more than $200, viz.: By overloading, overdriving, cruelly beating,
tormenting, mutilating, or cruelly killing any animal; by cruelly
working any old, maimed, infirm, sick, or disabled animal; by failing
to provide any animal in his charge or custody with proper food,
drink, and shelter; by abandoning any old, maimed, infirm, sick, or
disabled animal; or by causing or knowingly allowing the same to be
done.”
EMANCIPATION IN JAMAICA.
SHULLSBURG, Wis.
In what year and by whom were the slaves of Jamaica emancipated?
Also state the circumstances under which they gained their freedom.
RICHARD IVEY, M. D.
_Answer._—In 1807 the British Government abolished the slave trade
in all British vessels and in British waters. The agitation against
slavery was kept up in Parliament from that time, growing more and
more irresistible every year, and spreading out into the farthest
provinces, until in 1832 the negroes of Jamaica revolted, under
the belief that emancipation had actually been decreed and that
their masters were holding them in slavery against law as well as
against natural right. The atrocities to be expected in a servile
insurrection ensued; hundreds of lives and millions of property were
destroyed. When the terrible tidings reached England it added new
fuel to the emancipation agitation, already at white heat, and in
1833 the famous English emancipation act was passed. The government
apportioned £6,161,927 among the owners of the slave population, of
309,338 persons; and after four years apprenticeship all of these
former slaves became absolutely free.
BARNBURNERS AND HUNKERS.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.
How and when did the political nicknames “Hunker” and “Barnburner”
originate in the State of New York?
J. H. P.
_Answer._—The Democratic party within New York State became badly
divided soon after the inauguration of Mr. Polk, in 1845, owing to
the slights put on Governor Silas Wright, of that State, to whose
immense popularity Polk really owed his election. Wright could not
carry all his friends over to Polk, as is shown by the fact that he
was elected Governor by 10,030 majority, while Polk carried the State
by 5,106. This, however, decided the electoral count in his favor.
Polk was really a weak man, and showed it in nothing more than in his
jealousy of Wright and annoyance at the general ascription, of his
election by the organs of both parties, to Wright’s influence. He
tendered Wright the choice of places in his Cabinet under constraint
of the general wish of the party, and knowing that this statesman
felt bound to retain the high office to which the people of New York
had exalted him. Wright declined, but asked that Azariah C. Flagg,
of New York, be made Secretary of the Treasury, and he understood
the President to promise this; yet afterward the latter declined to
make the appointment, and gave the portfolio of Secretary of State to
ex-Governor Wm. L. Marcy, of New York, who was by no means friendly
to Wright. The Collectorship of New York, it was understood, would be
given as Governor Wright and ex-President Van Buren should request,
but here again the President disappointed them. All this reminds us
forcibly of the divisions in the Republican ranks in the same State,
due to the Garfield-Conkling feud. The trouble rankled, and the
Democratic party became divided into two pronounced factions before
the election of delegates to the next gubernatorial convention. There
were the administration Democrats, calling themselves Conservatives,
and the “sore-heads” of those days, stigmatized as Radicals, because,
among other things, they were affected with anti-slavery, or
“free-soil” sentiments; whereas the administration party was strongly
pro-slavery. In the Democratic State Convention, held at Syracuse
early in 1847, the latter faction, by political manipulation, secured
the organization of that body, and decided nearly all the contested
seats in their own favor and made the State ticket and the State
Committee to suit themselves; in other words, “carried off the hunk,”
and fairly won the nickname of “Hunkers.” The other faction, led on
by Governor Wright’s friends, Mr. Van Buren, Colonel Samuel Young,
Michael Hoffman, and others, refused to support the ticket, and as a
consequence the Whigs carried the State by over 30,000 majority in
the gubernatorial election. One of the Hunker orators likened the
Wright and Van Buren faction to the Dutch farmer who burned his barn
to rid himself of the rats, and thenceforward the name Barnburners
was fastened on them, and the two nicknames, Hunker and Barnburner,
were bandied back and forth until after the latter joined with the
Liberty party, in 1852, to support Mr. Van Buren as the Free Soil
candidate for the Presidency. There is no difference of opinion as
to the origin of the term Barnburner as above given, but Webster’s
dictionary defines hunkerism as hostility to progress: “Bartlett’s
Americanisms” defines “Hunkers” as a name given to a faction of the
Democratic party because of devotion to old principles, from the
Dutch “honk, place, post, home;” while others insist that the term
grew out of the triumph of the administration faction at the Syracuse
convention referred to above, which led them to imagine that they
were “all hunk,” as the New York boys exclaim in certain games when
they have reached their goal or “home” without being intercepted by
the contestants on the other side of the game. Hunk, in this sense,
is evidently a corruption of the Dutch “honk” or “home,” handed
down by the Dutch children. As the Hankers did “carry off the hunk
at Syracuse, did imagine themselves all hunk,” and were “hostile to
progress,” either or all of the above explanations may be accepted
without doing violence to history, whatever the consequences to
philology.
COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE.
CLINTON, Mich.
What is meant when it is said “the House went into committee of the
whole?” Please explain the whole subject.
SUBSCRIBER.
_Answer._—Messages from the President and other matters of great
importance are usually referred to a committee of the whole House,
where general principles are digested in the form of resolutions,
which are debated and amended until they get into a shape that
meets the approbation of a majority. These resolutions, after being
reported and confirmed by the House, are then referred to one or more
select committees, where they are reduced into the form of bills or
joint resolutions. It is found that the sense of the House is better
learned in committee, because in all committees everyone speaks
as often as he pleases. No gag law can be applied in committee by
moving the previous question. The form for going from the House into
the committee of the whole is for the Speaker, on motion, to put
the question that the House do now resolve itself into a committee
of the whole to take into consideration such a matter, naming it;
to which the deliberations of the committee must be confined. If
determined in the affirmative, he leaves the chair and takes a seat
elsewhere, as any other member, and the person appointed chairman
seats himself at the clerk’s table. The Speaker usually appoints
a chairman, but the committee has full power to set him aside and
select its own chairman. In case of the committee’s getting into
violent disorder the Speaker, who is clothed with authority to call
in the Sergeant-at-arms, if necessary, to enforce order, may take
his chair, and at the tap of his gavel every member is required to
take his proper seat, such action having the effect to dissolve the
committee. Cases of this kind are rare. Usually when the committee is
ready to rise the chairman rises, the Speaker immediately resuming
the chair; if the business is unfinished, the chairman of the
committee reports progress and asks permission for the committee to
sit again, which the House may or may not consent to. If the business
is finished the chairman tenders his report.
SAMUEL ADAMS, THE GREAT ORGANIZER.
CARBONDALE, Ill.
Give a short biographical sketch of Samuel Adams, of revolutionary
times.
CHARLES L. H.