Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1873 — The Death Roll of the Past Year. [ARTICLE]

The Death Roll of the Past Year.

Tub year now fleeting to its close has been reifiarkable over most of its Immediate predecessors for tne number of persons who have died in it who were of unusual prominence before the world. A review of the death roll of 1872 would be interesting at this time. It would certainly recall many mournful thoughts inspired during the year, by the sudden “taking off of this or that conspicuous public character, and which in the hurry and whirl of oiir busy lives were necessarily transitory. The great names which naturally occur to us the moment we begin to think of death’s doingsfor the past twelve months are those of Greeley, Seward and Morse. These were our own country men, and it is worthy of notice that the Old World hae po losses of equal value and distinction. It is a curious coincidence that the founders of three leading metropolitan; journals should die within five months of each other—Greeley, of the Tribune; Bennett, of the Herald; and Spalding, of the World. A celebrated French journalist, Adolph Gueroult, editor of the Paris Nationale, and a wellknown American editor, Edward A. Pollard, formerly of the Richmond Examiner, also passed away. Among the distinguished soldiers who died were MajorGenerals Meade and Halleck, of the regular army, both of them very conspicuous commanders in the late war. Lieu-tenant-Generals Ewell and Patten Anderson, of the Confederate army; Marshal Forey, of the French army, the man Who beat the Austrians at Montebello f Field-Marshal Sir George Pollock, G. C. 8., Constable of the Tower, a veteran of the Indian wars, and General Penne.father, another British soldier of renown. Among the American statesmen were Seward, ex Postmaster General Randall, ex-Mlnister to Russia Ingersoll; Humphrey Marshall, the rotund and jovial Kentucky Congressman; ex Senators Wall,’ of New Jersey; Grimes, of Iowa; Walker, of Wisconsin; Bragg, of North Carolina; Van Winkle, of West Virginia; and Senator Garrett Davis, of Kentucky, over whom eulogies were pronounced last week in the Senate. On the roll of foreign statesmen were Juarez, the President of Mexico; Earl Mayo, Governor General ®f India, who was assassinated by a native religious fanatic in that eountry; Joseph Mazzini, the famous Italian, agitator, who was planning another revolution when death quieted his restless brain; the Duke of Persigny, the Third Napoleon’s favorite and right hand man; Sir Henry Bulwer, formerly British Minister at Washington, and recently created Baron Dalling, and broth <r to the novelist; Lord Lonsdale, late Postmaster General, and the Duke of Bedford. Royalty suffered in the loss of King Charles XV., of Sweden, a wise and illustrious monarch; the Archduke Albrecht, of Austria, known in history as “The Victor of Custozza;” the Duke of Guise, one of the younger members of the Orleans family, and Don Angel Ilurbidq, the son of the first Emperor of Mexico. Among the noted writers of books were Charles Lever, author of “Charles O’Malley" and a score of other Irish novels which have given delight to millions of readers in both hemispheres; D’Aubigne, the famous author of the “History of the Reformation;” Theophile Gautier,thepopular-P&risia.n-fcuillelon-ist; Professor Hadley, of Yale, the Greek and Oriental scholar; Sir John Bowring, who wrote on reform; “Fanny Fern” Parton; Norman McLeod, the theological author, and Fullom and Horace Mayhew, the English novelists.

in the department of science and phiosophy the deaths have been of the illustrious Professor Morse, inventor of the magnetic telegraph; Feuerbach, the German philosopher; Babinet, the French scientist, and Dr. Francis Lieber, of our own country. 1 Divinity has parted with the Roman Catholic prelates, Cardinal Amat, Archbishop Spalding, of Baltimore, and Bishop McGill, of Richmond; the Episcopal, Dr. Francis Vinton, rector of Trinity Church, in this city, and the eccentric Methodist, old Peter Cartwright. Among the actors who have died are Forrest, the ‘'Nestor” of the American stage; Hackett, the greatest of Falstaffs; Alias O’Neill, the greatest tragic actress in England fifty years ago, who died Lady Wrixon Beecher;, Eliza Lagan, McKean Buchanan, and William H. (Sedley) Smith. Two eminent German tragedians, Bogumil Dawison and Emil Devfient, died in Dresden during the year. The former visited this country in 1860. Among the artists were Westmacott,the English sculptor; Kensett, Sully, Ames and T. Buchanan Read, who was also celebrated as a poet. The dead lawyers were David Paul Brown, of Philadelphia; General Howard, author of “Howard's United States Supreme Court Reports,” and James R. Whiting, Robert James Dillon and John H. McUunn, of this city. -The composers of music were Lowell Mason and Henry G. Choriey; tire millionaires and speculators, James Fisk, Jr., Samuel N. Pike, Erastus Corning, John A. Griswold and Joseph H. Scranton, the founder of Scranton, Pa. Last, and not least among the useful members of society were two great hotel proprietors—Paran Stevens and Simeon Leland. — New York Newt. —The Lutheran congregation at Bonn-onthe-Rhine, by unanimous resolution, admitted the Old Catholics to the use of the Protestant church, situated in the University building, and hitherto employed, besides the Lutherans, by the English residents. —A society of, Atheists, recently formed at Venice, in sending to Victor Emanual a congratulatory address on the escape of his son and daughter from assassination, so far forgot their principles as to “thank Divine Providence for the miraculous escape,’’ etc. —Forrest’s library (iontained the best collection of' dramatic works in the United States, and the best fat the world except the British Museum. >