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'1'1-WEEKLY EDIT.i(N. 'WIrNNSBUI&U., S. C. T UESb A r. APRL 221879. VL.NO3 THE SZEGEDIN FLOOD. 7 -0 A GRAFPRIC AND THRILLING rTOnr OPA BUtRt.bD CITY. How the Dykes That Should Have Saved Served to Destroy the People. VIENNA, March 18.-Nothing less thau the destruction of a city of 75,000 inhabitants is the subject, which urges me to address 'your readers. Szegedini the ,a ital thoroughbi'BaZd i n ! ~ plains of tli Ti " se,. e.a e' Hungarians first chose. o sett e after emigrating from their Asian home, the plain being the ideal country to a people which passed more than half its life-time on horseback. Since Hungary has had an autonomous government great efforts have been made to regulate the course of the river Theiss, but we fear that great technical faults have been committed in this work. Faults of the Aame kind wero com,' mitted everywhere in Europe qntil quite lately, ,deimany alone,eseQms to have found the right means'- of treating rives. Bsdes the eme bankmentp, in di &nts are.throwq in the riier's wi d1bgtl sides, y which it is foicee to deepen its own bed. Although the river embank ments were in good order, the Theiss, by bringing with it stones and sand, had raised its bed so that the floods became more dangerous every successive year. Sno w melted very early and very sudden ly in the mountains this year, and on that account MANY AvALANCHEs FELL, as for instance in Bleiberg, near Villach, where balf a village was buried and thirty-eight porHons re, mained dead on the spot. In the Carpathian Mountains a great deal of snow fell this winter, which melt e1 and discharged.eormous JP tities of water into the valleys. ?f late the inhabitants of these die - tricts had become a little careless, relying too much upon the embank mnuntu of the railwayn, whicb, dtir-. ing the last ten years, have been carried across the pinin in ey?i'y direction. Now railway -embank, ments may be useful sometimes, ut when the water gets int4 thecolm try they close in entirely.:, they are dongerous, because thet ;'etain the water, which finds no oitlet. this was the case near Szege,in, which lies in the very centre of railway embankments. The wate's of the Theiss,- Maros and Koros had dur. ing a fortuight inundated the plain, which was an enormous sea of water, extending over one hundred square kilometres. Besides this, heavy rainfalls continued, and yet the danger was not immediate. The inhabitants were busy raising their dikes and looked hopefully into the future, when all of a sudden a terrible storm of the northet arose which made the water rise in waves high enough to overpass the dikes. Of course against the elements in such an uproar nothing effectual could be done, although the sol diers and pioneers were sent to aid the inhabitants of Szogedin. Only a few towvns on, the Theiss plain succeeded in preventing the waves from flooding thei by workinig all day and night at their dikes. There are besides New Szegedin, Szentes, Czongrad and Vasarbmily. The first city flooded was Orashaka, where four hundred houses feJJ. In the night between the 116h snd 12ith of THE FL,OODS DORsT IN upon Szegedin, so that within. a few hours the roofs of most of the houses and the tops of .the lamp posts were all- that could be sepn. Tlhe great misfortune there, as' everywhere in the Hungarian plain, is that few houses are built of real bricks, the greater p art being built of bricks made of .lime, afid 'water and dried in the sun. like Mexican adobos, which, of course, dissolve in water. Therefore, the oply houss which still'skntf~ njipragedj ads built of reiAl bricks, and those are scarcely a twentieth part of the town, in fact, little more than two htmdred. Everything else disap.. p eared in the ofood. , zegejn num bered 75,006 'inhabita'nts, according to the last census, and 9,600 bail d. dwefling hi.1 Th, e wor of destruction was as sudden as tWk.. I rible. All was over ini a few~ hours; therefore, it is 'dib'on'dd' that great loss ,of life . wqs, 4peurred.. Tihe number of the deadlis put at 19, 00,. One hundred r4%Diks 1 usy from morning to night bury g the dead in the neighbdring vil o of Szoregh. At first the nqm... br of boats was quite insuffiint save the. iuhabtants, many of whom the danger boll tolled out of eir sleep. When boats enough mwe the soldiers had hard work to w thi'Qugh all the lumber tossing flout on the waters, and to induce the frightened peoplo to allow themselves to be saved, as the 'cater part of them refused to get their house tops into the boats thout their poor property, whioh 4uld not be saved under such cir mstances. ,"Better die tlll of us n live without our beds and our 4 Tee pots i". was what they all ad. A very happy circumstance wqs that the embankment of. the ?uthern Railway remained intact, sbthat help .could' continuallf 'be got at Temesvar and the rescued eghld b6.sent away in that direc thon. Tu the first hours this could not be thought of. The desperate pebple clung to the dikes, climbed uS9 trees,. filled the few stone houses to overflowying. MANT wERR FIROZEN TO DEATH in the first nights, the wind blowing fneicilessly their scanty, wet cloth in Twe4y were found frozen to df h and twenty-three went mad fr terror and have been sent to th madhouse in Pesth. The bravo 'inen who risk d t ier lives a thousand times to brihg help* were witnesses of the most heartrending scenes. Sowhetimes. as- they apprpaghed - a house,top or a tree to which Orown ing,people 8hi, these could' hold on no longer, and dropping into the water wore drowned before the boats could reach them. An old man in the centre of a mound of piled up rubbish was heard calling desperate ly f r help, but it was impossible to ap oacli him, and he perished. A white haired grandmother was seen diving for something. She found it at last -her drowned grandchild, which she held-up towards Heaven, laughing hoarsely, a mad woman's lapgh' An expedition Irom Pestb, beaded by a member of \Parliamont, aitivel three days afor t e cuttietrophe, and he tells us taiat even then he was a witness of the most dreadful scenes. A small rafter was by them, when ',one man espied a small baby on it, tied to a divan. The expedition was quick enh h'in br:ngit g the poor li tl. one i safety, but its nave not been p L. fie found and are most likely d ined. Then a woman sign%ed to from a roof. When they, an .p ched they thought she had faint.. he seemed lifeless, so that they ha o boar her into the boat. She was not tere ten minutes when a feeble aill betrayed the awful fact that she had given birth to a child-a boy it turned out to be. All those peoplo were taken to the station a yard high in water, and some were sent' away to neighboring towns and villages. THOUSANDS FQUND SHELTER in railway cars which' came from all parts, but thgea$gart real ined in the opeb Air, whierd' the cold. : and wet has made many of them sill, especially, of' coured, the wonehajid chuldren. At first, among the other evils that tormented the poor, stricken inhabitants of Szergodin, was hunger, for of course with so many lives to .save, victuals could not be thought of. -But very soon whole itains full of bread, cheese, meat and wine came fronm Temesvar and 1Pesth, and brought relief. The railway companies send everything gratis, and now lihrge quantities of clothes are 'daily being carried to the Southern'etatidnt. Subscriptions were opened the very next day and have had fne i'ssults. Thus the .Pethe' .Lloyd,a German Hunga rian paper, received 88,000 forins and the Neue Pric Presse, of Vien tnt, 15,000 forins, although it is the organ least friendly to .Hungary. Berlin has,sent 15,000 marks and all the' instituxtiomis in .the country, societies, unions and the like, have s'ent large sums. The Emperor, in his own and the~ Empress'- name, gave 60,000 forins and, went to Szegedin in person -to" 'assure the inpghb tants that every 4hing within haIm apower would bb d6ne for them. Th 59eror' *ad nioved to tears by the inisery. Around, and. he told the people the' Empreoss would return front her hunthng tO gin [reband sooner than she had intend. ed, on aconnt of the syl diQ4.. Ma4 hl , Wlcddnba' money in offce. On the contrary, #'hIle Pi-bsiddnt,. he ex(ended *100,.. 300 annually -of his private fortune, md his ino 'estates agre all mf esolut lrseT gf fro ' oaiIl exeone~ur. A Reiarkable Rocord. While many of the Itembors of the Bonaparte family attained lon gevity, not one of them approached the late Mine. P atterson 'onaparto in this regard except the other of the world -renowned sclier. She was a Corsican, eautiful d patri cian ; was married to Ct o Bona parte-her maiden name yas Maria Lotizia R1omalino-at tho ge of 17, and became the mother o 13 'chil dren, although her husband died 18 years after their union. Five of her offspring died in infancy, but the others became distinguished through their all-conquering, crown-grasp ing brother. No woman of modern times has had so kingly ahd princely an issue. They were, in" the order of their birth, Joseph, Kijg of Spain; Napoleon, Emperor of tihe French Lucein, Prince of Canio ; Maria Ann (afterward named Elise), Prin cms of Lucca and Piombino ; Louis, h ng of Holland ; Carlotta (Marie Pauline subsequently), Princess Borghese ; Anunciata (Carolina), Queen of Naples ; Jerome, King of Westphalia, and husband of Botsey Patterson. She was widowed at 35; lived for some time after at Ajaccio, and, when Corsica fell under British rule, went with her children to Marseilles, whore she lived mainly on the pension allowed Corsican refugees. After her son had become First Consul she removed to Paris, and, on his ascending the throne, received the title of Mine. Mere. ihe was surrounded by luxury and pomp, for which' she had no fond, ness, and her constant solicitude about her imperial son, and her be lief that his glory could not last, renderel her the reverse of happy. The divorce of Josephine, the terri, blo retreat from Russia, the exile to Elba, the final overthrow at Water. loo, and the banishment to St. Helena (she was 65 then) were heavy blows, but she was prepared for them--they were the fobodings of her maternal heart,. 'While the sun of the Emperor's fortunes was blazing in the zenith, she slivered under the shadow of her fear, and her fear was prophetic. She wit. nessed the downfall of every one of her children. When Waterloo had sealed Napoleon's doom, she went to Rome ; resided there with hor .step brother, Cardinal Fesch, in winter, and spent tuo summer at Albino. S..e bore her adversity with a digni ty and resignation, and died in the eighty-seventh year of her age, leaving considerable property, the result of careful economy. The had seen more extraordinary changes, more making of history than even her daugn ter-in -law, Mme. Patter son-Bonaparte. TOMATOES FIRST EATEN IN AMERICA. -"Seaweed," a Newport correspon. dent of'the Boston 'riscript, sks for further information concerning the first eating of tomatoes in Amer. ica. The correspon dent says :It is a Newport tradition that tomatoes were firat eaten in this country in 'about 1823, in a house standing on the corner of Corne anId Mill streets: Abouit that tinme there the caine here an eccentric Itadian painter, Michelei Felicie (orne. He boug;ht a staible on' the street now called for him, fashioned it into a dwelling hous3, and there lived and died. Previous to his coming, and long after, toma. toes, then called "love apples," were thought to be poisonous. A gentle-. man told me to-day that in 1819 he brought themn fromi South Carolina and planted them in his yard, wvhere they were looked upon as curiosities, and prized for their beauty. A charmed old lady also told me to'-day that in 1824 she was sitting with a sick person when some one brought the invalid as a tempting delicacy some tomatoes. "WVould yon poison her 1" was the exclamation of the astonished attendants ; and yet Corne in his section of the town had been serving them for a year previous. As late as 1889 they were regardled as poisonous throughout Connecti" cut. Corne liv~ed between the time of his comiidg into 'America and his settling in Newport in Salem and in Boston, and, though Newporters eling~ to' the traditlin that tomatoes wore- first eaten here,the may have introdueed thdni -As'a vegetables in either or both of those cities. Hec prided hims4lf on having Bet the fashio, lf eating- th~em here "There," he said, "is that potato ; he: 'odws in thM dark ot' in the damp eel a, , with his pale lank roots ;Jie 'he f&f-'fvor; ahe liv'es ituder ground. But the to ate - 1 gfows- rin be' stib'shine; h' h a fite' roa '.~or' anpqegts ' dehi beil w olgm uu linh Tus CELiEBRATION oF LEET.---It is curious .to note the gradual modi fications effeoted in the celebration of these two universal festival Lent and Easter-the soason of sorrow and the birthday of glad, ness and immortal hcpe. The as signment of a d'ftnito term of forty days to the spring or Lenten 11A.. son rook place long subsequent to the rise of Christianity. The early Church did not attach much ine portance to the praotico of fasting, and in the times of Turtullian and Iromeus the fast before Easter was of forty hours, not forty days. It was extended to thirty-six days by the Council of Nica, and to forty days not earlier than Gregory the Great, in the eighth century. The Greek Church still has another fast of equal duration-. naueily, the forty days before Christmas. It is thus evident that while Lent depeudo chronologically upon Iaster its modern significance as a season of fasting has no connection with the Saxon and Teutonic Lenten Tide, and only an arbitrary connection with the great festival of the resur rection. The two cominemorotious belong to dif orent oycler of re ligious sentiment and practice, yet there is an appropriateness in their conjunction which will secure its perpetuity.-N. Y herald. HoRATIo SEYMouH ON PO4TIrANs. -I always liked politics, 'and, what is more, I like politicians. They are a much-abused clase, It is the fashion to sneor at them, but I t iink they a 'e a better menas a rule than merchants and bankers and other representatives of what is call ed respectability. They make more sacrifices and do more unselfish wcrk for others than business men ever think of doing, They eultivate a certain chivalric sense of honor. Even some wh-o are naturally cor, rupt will refuse the most tempting bribes when the integrity of their party is involved. I have seen enough of political life to satisfy me that its influenco is elevating and not dorading. I would much ratb er be tried by a jury of my political opponents who were acknowledged politicians, than by a jury of respec table business men who said that they took no particular intorest in politics, but ususally voted the Re. publican ticket, From them I should expect gross injustice and prcjadice ten times as intense as my avowed political opponents would display. The man who servos a cause, if it is not a positively bad cause, is n-ioblod by the service. He learns to look at men, as well as doctrines, from a higher standpoint than mere personal selfishness, AFTER MANY YEARS -.-A Massachn setts paper contains the following statement of a very singular coinci dence : "The father and mother of Mr. Stanton, the superintendent of the Selma, Rome and Dalton Rail road, killed in the late bridge acci dent, the one from Ohio and the other from Philadeldhia, hastened to him by the quickest route andj Iwith the least possible delay. One arrived before lhe breathed his last and the other after, but in time to see him laid away in his last resting place. The parents met thus for the first time in thirty years. Long years ago they separated and were divorcedi, and young Stanton to his mother's maiden surname. Bothi his parents were remarried, and to, make the strange occurrence still more singular, they wveros both accompanied on the sad pilgrimage by their respective mates. And thus happened probably the strang est meeting that ever occurred at a deathbed scene.". According to Professor Lawrence Smith, the following are the requi sites of go)od petroleums First. the color shou)d be white,i or a Jight yellow, iih blue reflection-A-lear yellow indicating imperfeot purifica tion, or adulteration with -inferior oil; second, the odot given off should be faint~ nd not d isagreea ble, and the specific gravity at sixty degrees Fah. ought not to be below~ 0.795. nor above 0.84; ond -third, when mixed with an qai olume of sulphurie ao e of 1.53, the colortbdh ~darker, but, d ~ dtrryg likhy er. A petroleumstb'at satiades thee@ condlitons in full, 'and poseseses the pafe Aashing pointL, is pire People uake 9o' i~ fous gether ever theso Athe'~ ob Wy'tkalk abqe ~ S akt womam ] rl did bwile she r s.OU'I CARO)XNA N. WO. The fruit is not lcille.r Chester is hot for fertilizers. Newberry needs a fire engine. Stoe are being taken t.o organize a street railway company in Oolum. bia. Not a single death has oeourred among the Northern people winter ing in Aiken. The uuriber of polls aeaeased for Lexington county for 187T- T wag 1,93. Ur. Augnat Nicholson, (fliater'q oldest inhabitaut, died last Satrday ,aged 84. Two of Chester's farQera sold their cotton crop of two years-eacl ofethon had about eighty hales$, lust week at 10}. Northern girls in Aiken, says the Reoiew, are, sonme of them, the best and most graceful riders that we have ever seen. "Quelquefoia," writing from Orangeburg, says : Abqnt 8 A'olock on Wednesday afternoou a violent rain and' Wvind s torim set in from the northwest, attended with lightning and thunder. I4eaka were abundant and old fences went down- During the night the wind shifted to the southegst, and a deluge of rain has been comi down since. The far mers ha use put their lapds:iq planting naition, and it ia feared that a great deal of work will have to be done over. The wash to the fie ds is unnusual, It is generally admittel th it the early fruit is all destroyed by the late frosts, There are few indications of the late storm along the South Carolina Rilroad from Summerville to the Oiy. At L dson's eight or more w,iegraph poles were struck by lightning, commencing at the station succes.;ive:y towards the city. $pnS of the posts are shatterec,to' splints era, while others are split spirally towards . the ground, At Sun morville there was no incident, save perhaps thata parq .of pleasure seekers who had 3ndis." creotly ventured too far from the town during the day got a goud wetting, A postal card addresse4 to a man at L3loomington, 1y., was received at that offio the other day, upon the back of which was printed an advert ti'nent calling attention to a rare opporttnity for a young man of ''energy, enterprise and integrity!" It was sent back with this endorse ment of the postmnster : "Try Bloomington, Ind, Neither s'de t.f this card will fit any man here-" THE SpROEON's KNIFE.--A very delicate and dangerous operetion was performed at the Cater House on last Saturday on a young lady from Lowndesville by Dr, F. I. Parker, of Charleston, for onlarge. ment of the eye, The patient was put tnder chloroform and the eye ball removed from the socket, the whole operation nut occupying more than five minutes. It was a triumph of sargical skill and Was sw:itnessed by all the physicians.L: this village who prongougead it an exceedingly expert atia successful performauce. . omebody wrote to the editor of a 'country paper to ask' how he would "break an otA"i The editor answered as follows:i '"ft orily one ox, a good way would be' to hoist him, by'means of a long chain attaehed -to his tajil 'tothe top of a p2ole-forty feat afrom the ground. Then hoist him, by a rope tied to his hors, to ,another pole, Then descend on his back' a five ton pilendriver, and, if that doju't break him, let him start a eoututry newspaper and trust people for sub-, scriptions. One of the two ways will do it, sure,. A GENTLE lTflT,-wn onw style Of linmte, with its su dden I3banges Of temPeratpire-.rain, wind and s~una shine, ofteti intqrningled in a -i, gle dap-..it is no wonder .t1hab, our . ehildren,' frien# 'ad relatives, pro so freqluently takers from up by negleoted 'colds 'Taf the 'deaths ' o. gulting diiWetly 't*od, thisc e4 *h ottle of ~ji e n'4M*ia uyrp oept about your hompf:lsnQ 4toaus 'will pre'&f4 "*4~ sIk .less, aslarge doctor's bhlt u.. bae eah,byt the u.6 Tor ~to fonir doseb.' Foroifii 06hsWt~ 9 Hamb6rrhbiges, Peb soro gh,' Ovoup, or '.a'sk eof t $:r, 'or ti, *1 N14C0B # 0i0pgondeflgO1tlibi