Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1868 — The Victims of the Paraguay Outrage. [ARTICLE]

The Victims of the Paraguay Outrage.

A correspondent of the Albany Journal communicates to that paper the following account of Mr. Bliss, one of the Americans lately subjected to such indignities in Paraguay: The recent indignity perpetrated by Marshal Lopez in the seizure and probable torture of Messrs. Bliss and Mastermau, on a charge of being concerned in a conspiracy against the life of the Dictator, is donbly odious to those who, like myself, have known Mr. Bliss most intimately in former years. The following sketch may interest the public and awaken a deeper sympathy for the unfortunate subjects of this uarbaritv: . j ( Porter C. Bliss is a son of Rev. Asher Bliss, who was for twenty years a Missionary of the American Board at the lower Cataraugus Station, in Western New York. In 1853, Mr. Bliss was released, at his own request, from this service, and removed to Corydon, Pa., where he still resides. In 1851, Porter, then about fifteen years of age, became a student nt the Fredenin Academy, where ho remained with but little interruption, about four years. His pecuniary resources, as may be supposed, were very scanty, aud knowledge and an aptnestafor its acquisition which insured success at every step of his progress, could have reconciled him to a mode of life in other respects so self-denying. Howeses pecially remarkable for literary and linguistic tastes, and fondness for historical and antiquarian researches. He was also, both by nature and by parental training, modebt and diffident, yet thoroughly holiest and upright in hie character. His mental aud moral endowments appeared less conspicuous to strangers, on account of a -somewhat ungainly physique, and in most respects he would be more properly classed with the Abraham Lincolns than with the Lord Chesterfields gif society. In 1858 Mr. Bliss entered Hamilton College, and the subsequent year went to Yale. His scanty resources led him to accept employment in the service of the Massachusetts Historical Society for the purpose of making researches relative to the relics of the Indian tribes of New England. While thus employed, he discovered and made transcripts of voluminous manuscripts in Novo Beotia, with which ho astonished the savans of Harvard University and Boston—a score of whom, including the President and five ox-Presi-dente of Harvard, gave him the most flattering commendations, and recommended him to President Lincoln as a most suitable person to be appointed to an Indian agency nt th-) west. The matter of an appointment being delayed, ho accepted the invitation of General James Watson Webb, the newly appointed Minister to Brazil, to accompany him in the capacity of Private Secretary. '

-It is interesting to know the rate at which the great tidal wave of August lost crossed the Pa title. The difference in •time between New Zealand and Arica, Peru, is about eight hourr, so that what was five o’clock in the afternoon of the 13th at Arica would be about one o'clock of the morning of the 14th in New Zealand. From one a. in. of the Hth (the New Zealand mean time when the earthquake occurred on the Central American coast) tosua. m. of the 15th (whan it was first observed on the coast of New Zealand) Is twenty-nine bourn, which, reckoning roundly,'is the time the sea wave took to travel the distance of six thousand one hundred sad twenty nqiloa from shorn to shore. The mean rate of ite progress w<mM thus be about two hundred and tea mites per hour. “T didn’t like our ndnfotor's sermon Isgt Bunday,” said a deaeon, who had stent till sermon time, to a brother deaten. t “DMn’k