The Year 1875

The Year A.D. 1875

Bainbridge Republican Jan. 8, 1876

 

The year Eighteen Seventy-Five, was one of your middling years; an off year as the politicians phrase it.  A year of respectable achievements, but not a remarkable year.  At home there has been peace and a fair degree of prosperity.  The labor of the husbandman has been abundantly rewarded; all departments of trade and industry have thrived just as well as could be expected, while pestilence, famine, plague and the grasshopper have not shown themselves.  The year 1875, has been marked by numerous celebrations of the centennial anniversary of the opening of the  revolutionary war.  At Lexington and Bunker Hill and Concord and Ticonderoga and Salem, the dawn of the days that tried men's souls was revivified and reviewed by the most eloquent of our orators. 

 

Early in the year there was a little insurrection in New Orleans, which for a time proved quite a successful rival to the Beecher Tilton trial.  The trial, which, beginning in January lasted till June, will of course pass into history as the most celebrated of its particular school of cases.  The victory of the Rifle Team at Dollymount brought considerable delight to the nation; and the victory of Cornell at Saratoga did the same thing for new York.  The break-up of the Whiskey Ring and the exposure of the canal frauds must not be left out of the record.  "Boss" Tweed will remember 1875 as the date at which he began to breathe again the air of freedom out of his own dear native land.  The Roman Church in America will not soon forget that in the year just closing the first American Cardinal was consecrated.

 

Death has reaped a rich harvest in the year just closed.  In our own village [Bainbridge, Chenango Co., NY] a number of our prominent citizens have passed away, notably--Joseph Kirby, Col. Hiram Schrom, Dr. Joseph W. Freiot, William Partridge, Gideon Botsford and Marvin Bennett.  The death of American Statesmen and public men have been very numerous.  The list included Vice President Wilson, ex-president Johnson, ex-Senator Wm. A Buckingham and Senator Ferry of Connecticut, ex-Senator Jessie D. Bright of Indiana and many others.  Literature mourns the loss of such men as J. Rosse Browne, the interesting traveler, Hans Christian Anderson the great magician, and Arthur Helps the beloved author of "Friends in Council."

 

The casualties of the year in the United States, were many and not a few were most disastrous.  A square mile of Oshkosh was burned over with a loss of $2,000000. Oscola's big fire, in which 250 houses were laid in ashes, was a loss of at least $2,000000.  The most deplorable fire of the year was that which burned the French Catholic church at Holyoke, Mass., which cost 75 persons their lives.  the great casualty of the year was the earthquake which occurred in May in New Granada.  Six cities were overwhelmed and 19,000 lives lost.  the great flood that laid waste a section of France, drowned over 200 persons, and damaged property to the extent of over $20,000000.  The loss of the Schiller with 311 passengers, of the Vicksburg with 83 passengers, of the Pacific with 200 passengers, of the City of Waco with 70 passengers--were some of the horrors of the year on the sea.

 

With a glance at some of the books of the year we will conclude this hasty review.  In poetry, we have Tennyson's "Queen Mary," and Longfellow's "Morituri Salutamus," in fiction Trollope's "The Way We Live Now," and James' "Roderick Hudson."  History has been enriched by Gen. Sherman's "Memoirs," and the Comte de Paris' "History of the American War."  In the field of religious literature the most important contribution is Gladstone's Pamphlet on Vaticanism. We will only add to this slight and imperfect account of the books of the year the fact that the new edition of the American Encyclopedia has during 1875, nearly advanced to completion.

 

So much for 1875, which with all its gains and losses, has gone to "join the years before the flood.  Farewell!" 1875.