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Valley Spirit: July 20, 1870 Go To Page : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

Dawn of the Financial Millennium
(Column 01)

Summary: Explains the details of a new funding bill recently passed by Congress. Claims it will never work because nothing in the bill forces current holders of bonds to exchange for the new ones. Ends by calling the Radicals a total failure as a party.

Full Text of Article:

The great Radical statesmen in Congress who have for the last two or three years been tinkering at a bill to fund the debt of the United States at a reduced rate of interest, have succeeded in passing a funding bill at last. They got it through on the 13th, a couple of days before the adjournment of Congress. We can imagine the broad grin that overspread the faces of the leading financiers of the country as they read the bill. It must have been impossible for the greatest among them to repress a smile as he surveyed this Congressional bantling.

The bill provides for the issue of two hundred million dollars of bonds, bearing five per cent interest and redeemable in coin at the pleasure of the government after ten years; for three hundred million bearing four and a half per cent interest and redeemable in coin after fifteen years; and for one thousand million bearing four per cent interest and redeemable in coin after thirty years.--These bonds are to be sold at not less than par, for coin, and the proceeds of such sale are to be applied to the redemption of outstanding five-twenty bonds at their par value, or they may be exchanged for such five-twenty bonds at par for par.

This bill is not worth the paper it was written on. The youngest Banker's Clerk in the country could have drawn a better.--No capitalist will buy the new bonds and no holder of five-twenties will exchange for them. Congress might have made it obligatory upon the National Banks to take the new bonds and substitute them for those now deposited in the Treasury Department as security for their circulation, but there is no such requirement in the bill. There is nothing to induce or compel the taking of the new bonds, and they will not be taken. The Radical wiseacres who rule our destinies in Congress seem to be incapable of achieving financial successes, except in the matter of selling cadetships. They can make money for themselves, but they can devise no practicable plan to make or save money for the people. Things worked differently in Congress in the good old times when that body was composed of Whigs and Democrats. The Radical party is a stupendous failure. The honest men who have clung to it in hopes that it would do something for the good of the country ought now to abandon it, seeing as they must that all its measures are either impotent or mischievous.

Accessions to the Democracy
(Column 01)

Summary: The paper celebrates rumors that Gov. Fenton, United States Senator from New York, plans a defection to the Democratic Party. "It is a time when honest white men of all parties should join to take the government of their country out of the hands of malignant and incompetent Radicals and ignorant negroes."

Proceeding of the Democratic County Committee
(Column 01)

Summary: Announces plans to hold elections for delegates to the Democratic County Convention and the number of delegates allotted to each township, based on the votes for Packer in the last election.

Full Text of Article:

Pursuant to notice, the Democratic County Committee met at the office of John R. Orr. Esq., in the Borough of Chambersburg, on the 18th day of July, 1870. On motion, the following resolutions were unanimously adopted, vis:

Resolved, That in accordance with the wishes of the last Democratic County Convention, the representation of the several districts in the County Convention shall be governed by the vote cast for Asa Packer, the Democratic candidate for Governor at the last October election, as follows: Each Election District shall have two (2) Delegates and one (1) additional Delegate for each hundred (100) and each fraction above fifty (50) Democratic votes cast at said election. Provided, That no District shall have less than three (3) Delegates, which will give the following result:

Packer. Delegates. Antrim, 485 7 Chambersb'g, N.W., 253 5 Chambersb'g, S.W., 271 5 Concord, 99 3 Dry Run, 103 3 Fayetteville, 210 4 Greenvillage, 114 3 Guilford, 210 4 Hamilton, 156 4 Letterkenny, 223 4 Lurgan, 153 4 Loudon, 119 3 Metal, 96 3 Montgomery, 172 4 Orrstown, 140 3 Peters, 69 3 Quincy, 299 5 Southampton, 73 3 Sulphur Spring, 46 3 St. Thomas, 221 4 Washington 297 5 Warren 58 3 Welsh Run, 139 3 Total 4006 88

Resolved, That the Democratic voters of the several election districts hold their election for Delegates to the County Convention at the usual times and places, on Saturday, July 30, 1870, and that the Convention assemble in the Court House, in Chambersburg, on the following Thursday, August 4, at 11 o'clock A.M., to nominate a ticket.
J.N. SHILLITO, Secretary and H.M. WHITE, Chairman.

Committee Meeting
(Column 01)

Summary: The Democratic County Committee met in the office of John R. Orr on Saturday. 18 members attended. The committee apportioned districts based on the recommendations of last year's convention. This year's County Convention will meet on August 4th.
(Names in announcement: John R. Orr)

Balloon Ascension
(Column 01)

Summary: John A. Light, "champion balloonist," will take off from Chambersburg on Saturday. "His last ascension here was one of the most beautiful spectacles imaginable. Of course all the town and half the country will turn out to see him. Harvest will be over, and the men who are gathering it, as well as the 'women folks' who are sweating over their increased labors inside the house, will need a day's recreation."
(Names in announcement: John A. Light)

Unpaid Taxes
(Column 02)

Summary: Persons who have not yet paid taxes can do so before August 10th. After that, there will be a 5% penalty added.

Wilson Female College
(Column 02)

Summary: Workers are making rapid progress on the North wing of Wilson Female College. The foundation has been laid, and the brickwork begun. It now seems certain it will be ready to open in the fall. "It looks like 'a big thing' to put up this building in the short time set apart for its construction, but those who have the work on hand have 'got their blood up,' and it is an old and well established proverb that 'blood will tell.'"

Sudden Death
(Column 02)

Summary: A German named Steinke was found in the street in a state of exhaustion. He was carried to Boyd's Hotel where he passed away. He is a stranger in Chambersburg and had just come form harvest work in Cumberland County. "His appearance was not that of a dissipated man, and it is supposed that he died from exhaustion occasioned by his labors in the harvest field and by the intense heat of the weather."
(Names in announcement: Steinke)

[No Title]
(Column 02)

Summary: W. W. Beardsline, Travelling Agent of the Singer Manufacturing Company, advertises his presence in Chambersburg. He has appointed J. L. Dechert company agent for Chambersburg.
(Names in announcement: J. L. Dechert)

Roxbury Bridge
(Column 02)

Summary: Announces the building of a new bridge at Roxbury and the bids placed by different companies for the stone and iron work.

Full Text of Article:

Proposals were received at the office of the County Commissioners, in this borough, on Saturday last, for building a new Bridge over the Conodoguinet at Roxbury. The Bridge is to be 110 feet long, of iron, with stone abutments--the stone work to be finished by the 15th of September and the iron work by the 1st of October. There was a wide range in the bids for the stone work, as will be seen by the following:

S. Filckinger bid, per perch, $5.40 W. Forbes bid, per perch, 4.79 Henry Kurts bid, per perch, 4.50 Grousy and Quincy bid, per perch, 4.49 1/2 F.M. Shoemaker, bid, per perch, 3.19 Henry Shearer " " " 2.65 John Agle bid, per perch, 2.57 1/2

There was likewise considerable difference in the bidding for the iron work. The following were the bids received:

T.B. Wood and Co., per foot, $19.50 Gilbert and Co., per foot, 19.40 King and Son, Cleveland, Ohio, per ft., 16.00

The contract for the stone work was awarded to John Agle--that for the iron work to Gilbert & Co. The contractor for the stone work is to remove the old Bridge. The bid of King & Son for the iron work, if accepted, would have saved the county $374. We have not heard the reason for its rejection.

Camp Meeting
(Column 03)

Summary: The United Brethren will hold a camp meeting in Wilson's woods, two miles south of Orrstown, on August 18th.

Street Preaching
(Column 03)

Summary: Reports on Rev. Schaff's recent preaching in town on his unorthodox doctrines concerning hell, the afterlife, and souls. Editor doesn't think Schaff will gain many converts to his views.
(Names in announcement: Rev. J. G. Schaff)

Full Text of Article:

Rev. J.G. Schaff, whose peculiar doctrines have excited some interest in this community, preached according to previous announcement in the Diamond, nearly in front of the Spirit office, on Sunday evening about five o'clock. At the appointed hour the Reverend gentleman mounted a chair and opened the exercises by singing a hymn. A small crowd soon collected under the shadow of the buildings on the north-west side of the Diamond and disposed themselves as comfortably as the limited accommodations would permit.--The first comers were rewarded with seats on the curbstones, whilst the more tardy drank their share of the discourse standing. Several of the occupants of front seats on the curbstones composedly smoked segars, and perhaps inwardly congratulated themselves that if the doctrines of the speaker were correct "Old Nick" would get no chance to "make them smoke" in the world to come. The weather was rather favorable to the enforcement of the speaker's views. With the mercury at 100, and the perspiration streaming out of every pore, most men would be willing to be convinced, if they could, that they would never be subjected to a great degree of heat.

Mr. Schaff is a very good speaker, with a full, clear voice and an earnest manner; but with all that we think he might preach a lifetime without converting any great number of people to his way of thinking.

We are not quite sure that we understand his doctrine exactly. The popular impression is that he "does not believe in hell,"--does not believe that the wicked will be resurrected after death and cast into everlasting fire. But on Sunday evening he said, "That the wicked will be cast into everlasting fire I do not doubt, but (he inquired) what will be the effect of that fire?" He answered this inquiry by saying that fire makes a speedy end of all that it acts upon. We understood him to say that "when the son of man shall come in his glory, the living wicked will be cast into fire which will consume them," that is to say, they will be utterly burnt up, soul and body, and there will be nothing more of them. What will become of the wicked dead? Will they escape the fire altogether? If the speaker said anything on this point, we failed to catch it. If only the "living wicked" are to be cast into fire at the last day, the wicked who die before that time possess an advantage we never before heard accorded to them.

He took ground against the immortality of the soul and said it was not a doctrine of the Bible and had only been made an article of faith by a Catholic Council held under Pope Leo about three hundred years ago. The Bible, he said, "affirms, that the soul that sinneth shall die: and such a phrase as immortal soul, or deathless spirit, though often found in hymns, prayers and sermons, never once occurs in the Bible." In conclusion he said the gospel is simply an offer of life to a dying world. Those who accept it are given life evermore in God's Kingdom--in other words, their souls are made immortal by their acceptance--whilst those who reject it go down to irretrievable death, and their souls perish with their bodies.

We have stated the Reverend gentleman's views as we understood him to express them. Of course we leave our readers to think of them what they please.

Grove Meetings
(Column 03)

Summary: J. Philip Bishop and J. G. Schaff will hold meetings "for worship and for preaching Jesus and the Resurrection" in the grove of Samuel Snively near Greencastle on August 7th. The public is invited.
(Names in announcement: J. Philip Bishop, J. G. Schaff, Samuel Snively)

Died
(Column 04)

Summary: Mrs. Elizabeth Wraverling died at Fannettsburg on July 1st. She was 82 years old.
(Names in announcement: Elizabeth Wraverling)

Died
(Column 04)

Summary: Mrs. Eliza Bell McGinley, died in Waynesboro on July 6th. She was 65 years old.
(Names in announcement: Eliza Bell McGinley)