BOTTLED INFORMATION. Commander Fishbourne, well known in our coast surveys, combatted some of the views of Sir John Ross, and insisted on the great maritime value of the bottle-paper system, under due caution against hasty generalization. He at the same time suggested that it might be a good plan to employ white bottles, the glass being rendered opaquely white by oxide of arsenic. He thinks that the bottle might be rendered visible enough to be seen from the deck of a ship, and that, when picked up the contents might be opened and registered, additional information introduced, and the bottle re-launched. This might be a very valuable adjunct to the system. bottle system become, that Commander Becher was enabled to give a new and much enlarged bottle chart in November, eighteen hundred and fifty-two. This chart contains a register of sixtytwo bottles, in addition to those given in the former chart. In the one chart as in the other, the voyages taken by the bottles frequently give actual information of the nature of a particular current in a particular sea, or indicate where a certain vessel was at a certain time. If even a small amount only of information can be conveyed on either of these two points, it would amply repay the trouble of launching a whole fleet of bottles. Some of the papers in the bottles contain short but affecting narratives; the ship is stranded or water-logged; the crew can hardly reckon on another hour of life with Two canisters, thrown into the sea by Sir any probability; and their captain pens a few James Clark Ross, while on board the Erebus, words, in the hope that friends at home may perin his voyage to the Antarctic seas in eighteen chance learn thereby the probable fate of the hundred and forty-three, were picked up, some hapless ship. Many instances have occurred months afterwards, one on the coast of Ireland, within the last few years, in which a bottle has and the other out at sea off Leghorn. A been the only messenger of correct information; third made more than half a circumnavigation a vessel has been so long unheard of, that a disof the globe in a high southern latitude, before astrous fate seems to have been certain; but this it found its resting place on the shores of Aus- fate is not known until a floating bottle brings tralia. Judging from the narratives of our sea- news of the crew, down to nearly the last hour captains, the Pacific would be a capital theatre of their existence. Sometime, the papers confor the bottle experiment. It presents such a tain a few doggerel lines, or a bit of sentiment, vast expanse of water, and the interspersed is- or a touch of poetry-not much to be commended, lands are mostly so small, that a bottle-voyage of for its own merits; but, even here, if the date five or six thousand miles might easily be made. and position be given, the bottle which contains The bottle-papers have given us more informa- the poetry is by no means an unprofitable bottle. tion concerning the progress of the many recent Arctic expeditions than would be supposed by persons who have only glanced cursorily at the matter. Captain Bird threw overboard a cask containing papers, when on board the Investiga- Captain D'Auberville, in the bark Chieftain, tor in eighteen hundred and forty-eight. It was of Boston, put into Gibraltar on the twentypicked up by the Prince of Wales, Hull whaler, seventh of August, eighteen hundred and fiftyand afforded to the Admiralty evidence of the one. He went, with two of his passengers, across position of the Enterprise and Investigator on a the Straits to Mount Abylus, on the African particular day. From the same ship, but when coast; as they were on the point of returning, under the command of Captain M'Clure (who one of the crew picked up what appeared to be a has since made himself famous by the discovery piece of rock, but which the captain thought to of the north-west passage), a bottle was thrown be a kind of pumice-stone. On examination, it out while she was voyaging down the Atlantic was found to be a cedar keg completely encrusted towards the Behring's Strait route, in February with barnacles and other marine shells. The eighteen hundred and fifty. The bottle floated keg was opened, and within was found a cocoathree thousand six hundred miles, in two hun-nut, enveloped in a kind of gum or resinous dred and six days, and was picked up on the coast of Honduras. By a very singular coincidence, Captain Collinson, who commanded the Enterprise, the companion ship to the Investigator, threw out a bottle which found a resting place near the other bottle, but under very different circumstances. M'Clure launched his bottle near Cape Verde Islands; Collinson launched his, six hundred miles farther south, and nine days afterwards; yet both bottles found their way to the Hunduras coast, as if a fellow feeling actuated them as well as the captains. So successful, or at least interesting, has this One of the most extraordinary bottle voyages, or cask voyages, yet recorded, occupied public attention a year or two ago. The story runs thus: substance. Within the cocoa-nut shell was a piece of parchment covered with very old writing, which none of those present could read. An American merchant in Gibralter then read it, and found that it was a brief account, drawn up by Christopher Columbus, in fourteen hundred and ninety-three, of his American discoveries up to that time. It was addressed to Ferdinand and Isabella. It stated that according to the writer's judgment, the ships could not survive another day; that they were between the western isles and Spain; that two similar narratives were written and thrown into the sea, in case the car these little packages have been sealed into the bottles, and launched at regular intervals throughout the duration of the voyage; might not some of the bottles-say one in ten, or even one in a hundred-have ultimately reached the hands of those who would have willingly transmitted the information through some consul or each bottle voyage have given some pleasure private individuals, and some useful information to navigators, who want to know all that can be known about currents, and tides, and winds? coming from Sir John Franklin, this bottle was sent to the authorities. It contained nothing, nor could any one say for what purpose it had been employed. Some time afterwards, howev er, it was discovered that the bottle was one of those which the Norwegian fishermen employ instead of corks to float their nets. As the Norwegian fishermen do not go to the Siberian coast, how did the bottle come there? If it floated round the coast, past the North Cape and the White Sea and Nova Zembla, it would surely indicate a current flowing in that direction; and this current might possibly have something to do with the north-eastern route to the Arctic regions, advocated by Mr. Petermann. All these may be only possibilities, not probabilities.— Household Words. aval should go to the bottom; in the hope that secretaries for those who could not; might not some mariner might pick up one or other of them. There is nothing outrageously improbable in this story; for it is within the bounds of a reasonable possibility that Columbus may have written such a parchment, may have inserted it in a cedar keg, which may have become so encrusted with marine shells as to be shielded from destruction, which may have floated upon a little-agent to England; and might not the history of used coast, and which may have been wedged in between two rocks so tightly, as to have remained untouched and unmoved, and probably unseen, for three hundred and fifty-eight years. All this may be so, and yet it would not be prudent to There has lately arisen a bottle-question of give full credence to the story without some corsome interest. A bottle has been picked up on roboration. There has been something like cor- the northern coast of Siberia. The Russian roboration, however, of a curious kind. Captain government having given orders that a good lookD'Auberville's narrative was given in the Louis-out should be kept for any stray information ville Varieties, whence it was copied into the Times. Shortly after its appearance in the great leading journal, Mr. Morier Evans writes to the editor of the Times, stating that he has in his possession an old volume of voyages, containing an account of Columbus's voyage in February of the year above named, in a very dreadful sea near the Azores. There occurs in the narrative this passage: "The admiral finding himself near death, to the end that some knowledge might come to their Catholic Majesties of what he had done in their service, he wrote as much as he could of what he had discovered on a skin of parchment; and having wrapped it up in a piece of cerecloth, he put it into a wooden cask and cast it into the sea, all the men imagining it had been some piece of devotion." Mr. Evans thinks that this passage is some support to Captain D'Auberville's story. The subject is curious enough to deserve further scrutiny; and especial- Rum and Tobacco are the great articles of ly would it be right and proper that the barnacle-commerce between America and Africa. Freecovered keg and its precious bit of parchment town and all Sierra Leone are very much cursed should be preserved in some public establishment by America. An untold amount of Tobacco is -even some museum in Spain, which the rest brought here and sold very high. But the arof the world knows nothing about. dent spirits! Oh, the seas of it that are importReverting to the bottle-voyages, we will sug-ed from my own native land! I blush, and hang gest that it might be a good plan for emigrants to make use of this peculiar kind of ocean-postage. It could do no harm to any living being, and it might render service or afford satisfaction to many. Eighty-eight thousand persons went from the United Kingdom to Australia in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-two. We think it not a very improbable supposition that there were at least eighty-eight thousand bottles in the many hundred ships which conveyed these persons: bottles which had had something to do with wine, or brandy, or pale ale, or stout, or pickles. What became of these bottles? Were they broken, or sold to be used again? If broken, might they not, instead, have been taken, one by each of the emigrants; might not these emigrants have employed some among their weary vacant hours on ship-board in concocting little budgets of information-those who could write acting as THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC IN AFRICA. my head for shame; my soul is agonized when I think of it. The other day I counted 50 barrels together, just landed, from the same State that sent me here to preach the gospel. Since then I counted 75 barrels in another lot, lying together. In unblushing characters they proclaimed themselves "OLD RICHFIELD WHISKEY, from C. & J. Smith, No. 54 Syracuse st., Cincinnati, Ohio. Well may the Missionary weep and groan, when he knows that the same country which sends him to heal the wounds and dry up the streams of death here in Africa, pours upon the country a flood of desolation, blasting and mildew-when he sees the same vessel that wafts him across the mighty deep to preach "Temperance, righteousness, and a judgment to come, bearing in her hold floods of destruction and death. What could we do, were it not for the promises of God! "When the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him." "A flood!" Truly. More than one man has told us "I have sold whiskey enough in Africa to float this vessel." Grog-shops are very abundant, and all classes drink either wine, ale, gin, brandy or whiskey. A few of the colored brethren are teetotalers, having stood firm since Brother Raymond preached the doctrine here.-Thompson in Africa. RUM AND PAUPERISM. pauper fires, and a thousand other ways. All this, aside from the crimes induced and perpetrated under the influence of rum; from the misery it spreads through the community; from the families broken up and forever separated by it, and the ten thousand nameless ills flowing from it. Is it unconstitutional to rid ourselves of these? Public Ledger. THE TELEGRAPH IN AMERICA. The length of the telegraph line in the United States exceeded 15,000 miles in 1852, and has since considerably increased. The most distant points connected by electric telegraph in North America, are Quebec and New Orleans, which are 3,000 miles apart. When the contemplated lines, connecting California with the Atlantic, The annual report of the statistics of ism made to the Legislature of the State of New York, by the Secretary of State, places the total expense incurred last year for the support of and Newfoundland with the main continent, are paupers at the enormous figure of one million nine thousand seven hundred and forty-seven completed, San Francisco will be in communidollars. The number of paupers relieved or cation with St. John's, Newfoundland, which is distant from Galway but five days' passage. It supported during the year was one hundred and thirty thousand and thirty-seven, of which numis therefore estimated that intelligence may be ber fifteen thousand six hundred and seventeen conveyed from the Pacific to Europe, and vice are reported to have been made paupers by in-versa, in about six days. The cost of erecting temperance, and fifty-eight thousand three hun- telegraphs, does not average more than £35 per dred and sixty-four are reported indigent and mile throughout the United States. The charge destitute, of which, by all previous statistics, Washington, a distance of 250 miles, is 50 cents for transmission of messages from New York to four-fifths were caused by intemperance. The above statistics do not embrace the poor of the (2s. 1d.) for ten words, and 5 cents (24d,) for city of New York. If the proceeds of the seven every additional word. The charge to the press thousand grog-shops of the city of New York is 1 cent per word under 200 miles, 2 cents bebe added to this number, it will be seen that tween 200 and 500; and the New York papers, much more than one half of the one million bearing the expense jointly, publish every day nine thousand seven hundred and forty-seven fill two columns of a London newspaper. Comas much matter received by telegraph as would dollars contributed by the taxpayers of the State mercial men use the electric telegraph in their support of paupers is directly traceable to intemperance. And yet Governor Seymour by all classes of society as an ordinary method of transactions to a very great extent, and it is used vetoed a law tending to dry off this prolific source of expense and evil. He was professedly transmitting intelligence. Telegraph wires in very anxious to guard against any infringement towns are almost universally carried along the of the constitution; but what were constitutions tops of houses, or on poles erected in the streets, made for except to protect the lives and prop- So little difficulty is met with on the part of proinstead of being conveyed in pipes underground. erty, and prosperity and happiness of the peo-prietors of houses, that telegraphic lines are in ple? The liquor traffic infringes all these; squanders property, destroys happiness, and takes some cases erected by private persons for their away the lives of thousands. It is the bane of As an instance, may be own particular use. society, the greatest curse of the age, and yet New York, who has an office in one part of the mentioned the case of a large manufacturer in these wise politicians think it is unconstitutional to put a stop to it. The sacred rights of city while his works lie in a contrary direction. scrupulously cared for by these In order to keep up a direct communication belearned expounders of the constitution. But is tween both, he has erected a telegraphic wire at not domestic peace, the protection of our youth, the houses intervening between his office and his his own expense, and carried it over the tops of the life and health of the people, as sacred?What is property to a family loaded with a works, having obtained without any trouble the drunken husband, or father, or son? permission of the various owners.- Whitworth's Report on the American Industrial Exhibition. for the property are I have no rumsellers in their mighty ado about the sacred patience with these apologists for rights of property. Let them look at the prop at the HOW TO CONQUER AN ENEMY. erty wrecked and destroyed by the rum traffic- The burghers of Soleure, the capital of one of burdensome taxes which the people are the Swiss cantons, were once besieged in their forced to pay as the fruit of it-at the millions city by Duke Leopold, of Austria, with a powerful squandered in drunken revels, in shipwrecks, army, which threatened their entire extirpation. tion, had, with perhaps one exception, adopted a course of gradualism, it was naturally to be expect ed that provision should be made for the reclama. tion of fugitives from labor. A provision of that kind was included in the Pennsylvania law of 1780, the first which was enacted for the extinction of slavery; and was then probably considered es A sudden and violent inundation of the river Aar swept away the duke's works, machines, and bridges, on which a number of his men were posted, and in an instant hundreds were seen struggling with the torrent. The burghers, looking on from their walls, were touched with compassion, and, forgetting their enmity, took to their boats, and, at imminent hazard of their own lives hastened to the relief of their perish-sential to the general harmony of the Union. It ing antagonists; they saved the greatest number of them, fed them, cheered them, and sent them back to the camp. The duke was touched, and requested to be admitted into the town on friend- | ly terms, with only thirty followers. On being honorably received, he granted a banner to the burghers, as a token of perfect reconciliation, and declared that their generosity had completely vanquished his resentment. FRIENDS' REVIEW. PHILADELPHIA, SIXTH MONTH 17, 1854. is, however, remarkable that the 4th article, which provides for the delivery of eloping debtors, for they are referred to as persons owing service or labor, not as property, is expressly applied to those escaping from a state, not from a territory or place. The inference, therefore, is that the framers of this article expected it to apply only to the States. But a new doctrine has been proclaimed since that day. Slavery has been pronounced the corner stone of our political fabric. The effort is made without disguise, to render the slavery of the colored race perpetual, and as extensive as possible throughout our national domain. The Kansas and Nebraska bill, notwithstanding its profession of ERRATUM.—In page 619, first column, the 36th line noninterference, is unmistakably designed to open is placed before instead of after the 35th. to the intrusion of slavery, all the extensive region included within those territories. The enactment of that bill may be regarded as the repeal of all the previous compromises between freedom and slavery. If the act of 1820, for the admission of Missouri; with the concomitant provision that slavery should be forever excluded from all the rest of Louisiana,north of 36° 30' of N. latitude, is to be considered as nothing more than a common enactment, repealable at the option of the Executive, and a majority of the two Houses of Congress, then certainly the other acts which were regarded as compromises between the free and slave States are equally repealable. The admission of future States with slaveholding constitutions cannot be insisted upon by virtue of existing compromises. The slaveholding interest can claim nothing more than what their votes in the electoral college and in the two Houses of Congress can secure to them. How then do the numbers stand, in case the free and slave States should respectively support the interests of freedom and slavery? According to the arrangement under the census of 1850, the free States have 177, and the slave States 118 votes in the electoral college. In the Senate, the free States have 32, and the slave States 30 members; and in the House of Representatives, the former have 145 and the latter 88. In the 22nd and 26th numbers of the present volume, reference was made to the German settlements which have been formed in Western Texas; and to their probable influence on the future character of that country in relation to slavery. Our readers will find in next week's number, some further information on the same subject. Occasion has frequently arisen in the course of this journal to notice the change, the lamentable change that has grown up, since the adoption of the federal constitution, particularly in the States of the South, in the avowed opinions relative to negro slavery The leading statesmen who were instrumental in the adoption of the existing constitution, united in the sentiment that slavery was incapable of defence on moral and political principles; and among the reproaches cast on the British government, that of fostering the slave trade, and refusing its assent to colonial laws enacted for its suppression, was not overlooked. The question to be decided, was not then whether this relict of barbarism should be perpetuated or not, but at what time, and in what manner its extinction should be effected. The adjustment of this question was left to the States where it was already planted. Pennsylvania and the Eastern States had enacted laws for its final extinction; and their example was followed, not From this statement, it is manifest that if the long afterwards, by New York and New Jersey. people of the free States would unite in exercising No provision was made in the constitution for the their constitutional power in favor of freedom, they establishment or extension of the system in the still have the means of redeeming our statute book territories of the United States. As the then exist- from the pollution of slavery. There can be no ing States had nearly all sanctioned the system, reasonable doubt that the sentiments of an overand those that had provided for its eventual aboli.whelming majority of the citizens of the free States, MARRIED. On the 24th of last month at Friends' Indiana Meeting House at Centre, Grant county, CLARKSON PEARCE to LACE ANN MCCORMICK, both of Back Creek Monthly Meeting. DIED. At the residence of his son Elias Carey, in Grant county, Indiana, on the 6th of 3rd month last, of a lingering illness, which he bore with christian resignation, JOHN CAREY, a member of Back Creek Monthly Meeting, in the 71st year of his age. Report of the Board of Managers of the FREE Since our last Report the subject of Slavery has continued to be an engrossing topic, and events of importance have transpired. On the one hand, the Slave Trade has been extirpated from Brazil, and Spain has just taken measures, which if faithfully carried out, must lead to the same result with Cuba. Venezuela, also, has lately provided for the abolition of Slavery within her territory. still hold the doctrine proclaimed to the world ir. the year 1776, in relation to the unalienable rights of men, whatever their nativity or complexion. But it may be fairly questioned whether the opinions, deliberately formed, of even a lean majority in the south, are enlisted in support of slavery. Though the measures recently adopted by the dominant party, are evidently calculated to weaken the attachment to the federal union, of a majority of our citizens; and if pursued in the spirit hitherto displayed, may probably lead to disastrous consequences, the means of redress are plainly still within our power. Among these means we may fairly reckon the filling of the new territories with emigrants from the free states, and from Europe, opposed to the extension of slavery. The numbers who are now seeking an asylum, on this side of the Atlantic, from the convulsions of the Eastern world, have probably never been equalled at any former time; and we are informed that a company was incorporated in Massachusetts, at the last session of their legislature with a capital of $5,000,000, for assisting emigrants to settle in On the other hand, alas! our own land of the west. Now would it not be worthy of an ex- boasted freedom and enlightenment, still takes tended effort in the other free states, to constitute steps backwards, and rivets eloser and more hopeunions for a similar purpose? The lands in Tex-lessly the fetters of the Slave. The demon of as, as well as in Kansas and Nebraska, are open to emigrants, and the more rapidly they can be filled up with hearty and industrious freemen, the more likely we shall be to escape the controversy inseparable from any attempt to add more slave states to the union; and to escape the still greater evil of having more slave states incorporated with the free. Land not yet brought under cultivation, might doubtless be purchased by such companies and sold or leased, to emigrants with very small capitals, upon such terms as to enable them in a little time to become independent proprietors.Among such setlers slavery would not readily gain admittance. The declaration has been repeatedly made, that this journal is not intended to mingle, in any degree, in questions of a mere party or political character. It is, however, designed to advocate the adoption and promotion of measures connected with the general good, and particularly with those of a moral and religious character. Gladly then would the editor encourage his fellow-citizens to use such peaceable and constitutional means as are afforded to fill the legislative and executive departments of the government, with men of correct principles, and of unquestionable integrity. The existence and maintenance of negro slavery constitute the great evil of our age and nation, and appear more likely than any other cause to produce a rupture of the Union. An united effort to avoid such a disastrous result is worthy of our consideration. Permanent peace cannot be secured while two antagonistic principles are striving for the mastery. Slavery was never more rampant in this country, and never were the exertions of the Slaveholders at the South, and their menials at the North, more strenuous, that its palsying hand may be laid on the virgin soil of the West, to increase their profits, and to strengthen their power. Seeing that these things are so, does it not behove each one of us to press still closer to himself the query, "Does the voice of my brother's wrongs cry unto Heaven against me, and has the stain of this iniquity passed in the least upon my. garments?" Would that all the professed friends of the Slave could hold forth clean hands, while they unite in the aspiration of the poet : : "God speed the moment on When a season of repentance came to the children of Jacob after they had sold Joseph into slavery, they were constrained to acknowledge, we are verily guilty concerning our brother." Though we may not have been instrumental in sending our brethren into this worse than Egyptian bondage, yet are we not accessory to keeping them there, so long as we freely partake of the fruits of their toil, to procure which is the object of all the iniquity? The testimony of the Society of Friends on the subject of Slavery, has been, (if we may use the expression,) progressive. In its early days, the advice of that "faithful elder," George Fox, touched mainly on their proper and humane treatment. Very soon, however, it was seen in |