Remarkable Events of 1871.
In the Boston Journal of Jan. 27, 1872 (Supplement) Eld. D. T. Taylor gives a chronological list of Calamities and Disasters on sea and land, and remarkable occurrences that transpired in the year 1871. From this, we make the following extracts, which, brief as they are, are sufficient to show that we are living in eventful times. The past year has, under a wise Providence, . . been attended with more than usual chastisements, in the loss of life and property by storm and fire, . . . distresses occasioned by the elements.—President Grant’s Message. Victor Hugo should have waited to see 1871, before he called 1870 “the terrible year.” For earthquakes, pestilence, fire, famine, tornadoes, and an extraordinary number of disasters and calamities have made this year a terrible one the wide world over.—New York Evening Post. We may be justified in assuming that the year 1871 will be known in future calendars as the Black Year.—Chicago Tribune. The year 1870 went out with a great flood at Rome, such as had not been witnessed in three previous centuries. From one-half to two-thirds of the Eternal City went under the waters of the Tiber; 20,000 dwellings were surrounded, 100,000 people suffered hunger and inundation of property; thirty men, women, and children, lost their lives; and the damage reached the enormous sum of $12,000,000. The calamity overshadowed the city on New Year’s Day. The water was over the city forty-eight hours, and rose to a height over sixty feet. In France, the occupants of fifty-six cars, wounded soldiers, were either frozen severely or so as to cause death. In the United States, a water famine prevailed. The Merrimac, in New England, had not run so low since 1807. Many States suffered by winter’s drought; a new cattle disease had just appeared in the State of New York. Portugal was suffering greatly by depression in trade, with innumerable disasters to shipping. In India the trade in cashmere shawls was nearly destroyed by the European war, and pauperism and want prevailed thereby. JANUARY. The number of vessels lost this month was 86, valued at $3,198,000. All lost to the U. S. All the month Buenos Ayres had a drought, and a terrible scourge began in the city. Gales, wrecks and destructive floods occurred in Australia and New Zealand. Vesuvius broke into violent eruption. In the United States there were 40 persons killed, and nearly as many injured by hanging, shooting, burning, suffocation, and explosion. In Austria, five men fell into the furnace of a glowing forge and were consumed to cinders! FEBRUARY. In Philadelphia, there occurred this month 21 deaths by violence. Other than these, 9 were burnt to death; by powder, steam, and fire damp, 10 lives were lost, 5 were drowned, 5 were suffocated, 10 negroes were hung by 500 white men, numbers froze, 55 were injured in various ways severely, 40 railway cars and some engines were wrecked. In Victoria, Cape of Good Hope, by a sudden and extraordinary water-spout, a village was torn from its place, and 110 men, women, and children were drowned in the torrent of waters. Thirty houses were swept away. It occurred on the 17th. MARCH. Magnificent aurora; a great cloud of blood red in the northeast sky; the sight “one to be remembered a lifetime.” During the month a sun spot of 2,300,000 square miles area was visible. It was the most disastrous quarter for vessels of the United States known since 1867, since Jan. 1 there being 125 vessels wrecked, involving a total loss of $6,800,000. MAY. The flood stood over thousands of acres of Louisiana this month: 50 persons in the United States were scalded, burnt, drowned, killed by explosions, &c., or went over Niagara Falls, losing life in some calamitous manner. Of fires, Reading, Pa., had a $100,000 fire; Cincinnati, O., $200,000; Honesdale, Pa., $250,000; Bridgeport, Conn., $100,000; Folsom, Cal., $125,000; and Mobile, Ala., a $300,000 conflagration. A boiler explosion on a steamer on Magdalena river, in South America, caused the death of 14 persons. By the sudden movement of an iceberg, near Newfoundland, 23 persons were instantly overwhelmed and perished in the sea. To this list, we must add the horrors of the second siege of Paris, involving the death of 22,000 (others say 40,000) and the wounded of 25,000 of the Paris Commune, the total casualties to the Versailles army, which M. Thiers says amounted to 75,143, and the death by yellow fever of about 26,000 persons since the year came in at the city of Buenos Ayres, S. A., with perhaps millions devoured by famine and plague in Persia. An earthquake completes the list. The city of Rhio, on the island of Bintang, the largest of the group of Rhio Islands, was visited by a convulsion that devastated the place and caused a loss of 400 lives. The city has a population of 36,000, and is 50 miles from Singapore, India. It occurred between May 20 and 25. JUNE. After the chronological list for each day in the months of floods, fires, tornadoes and loss of life, the record for the month closes thus: We add to this list of the month, 17 drowned, 27 injured and 5 killed on railways in this country; 4 burnt to death, and 4 others drowned in Scotland; 24 cars thrown into a river in Ontario, Canada; 100 persons nearly poisoned to death at a wedding in Iowa; and the strange case of Rev. E. A. Sampson (a colored minister) at Pine Bluff, Ark., who was struck by lightning and killed while preaching, and whose coffin in which he was being conveyed to the grave was also shattered by the electric fire in a sudden bolt from the sky. JULY. Famine, plague, cholera, small-pox, typhus, inundations, war, insurrection, etc., reported for Persia, and one-third of her five million souls destroyed. A condition of things that has “no rival in horror since the plague of A. D. 1299.” AUGUST. During the single month over 200 lives were lost by accident in the United States. Over 120 were injured by railway cars besides those already named. Fire at East Boston on the 2d burnt $135,000; in New York and Chicago on the 18th, 100,000; Amboy, Ill., the 25th, $140,000; Jackson, Mich., the 28th, $100,000. In Drury Lane, London, a very destructive fire on the 30th, and a petroleum fire at Trieste on the 31st caused heavy damage. In Russia, the Nihilists destroyed by fire in two weeks property valued at $14,000,000. South China was parched and dried up, and drouth visited the whole valley of the Mississippi and Missouri, while in Texas cattle died for want of water. OCTOBER. Severe and damaging earthquakes in all the West India Islands. Davenport, Iowa, had this month a $100,000 fire. We also record the failure of crops, with want and destitution reported for Italy, the continuance of the horrors of famine in Persia, and the deaths during the past summer by yellow fever in all the Argentine Republic of not less than 60,000 persons. And we estimate the fire list of October to be not less than five hundred millions of dollars. What a month! NOVEMBER. Millions of dollars damage by early and sudden freezing of all the rivers, lakes, and canals in the North; 600 boats with 5,000,000 bushels of grain, potatoes and apples froze in in the New York canals. Heavy losses in Canada. Terrific gales all over the land, and men everywhere are frozen to death. Off Cape Cod, the Atwood and her crew of 6 men were all lost. Said the Boston Journal, “The list of disasters by fire and flood the present season is quite unprecedented. Shall we have an earthquake or tidal wave to crown the catalogue of misfortunes in the eventful year of 1871?” DECEMBER. In Maine, this year there were 113 deaths by accidents, 77 persons were drowned, 52 committed suicide, and 8 were murdered. In New York city, there were 851 accidents of all kinds, 179 deaths by drowning, 108 suicides, 42 homicides, and 8 other violent deaths. Total casualties, 1314, including 126 infants found dead. “A dismal record,” says the World. Aside from the Western fires, the accidents in the United States resulted in the killing of 800 persons and the inflicting of injuries on 500 others. These include only those killed and wounded in groups and not singly. In Madras, India, during the first eleven months of the year, 233 human beings were devoured by wild animals. In Persia, three great cities of from 120,000 to 180,000 souls have each lost 80,000 people by famine and disease, and as the year dies, this entire nation of 5,000,000 people are dying of the most awful epidemics and calamities. Of the wars of 1871, the same writer gives a complete chronological list in the Supplement to the Journal of Jan. 13, 1872. The introductory paragraphs read as follows: 1871 came in with the great Franco-Prussian war in mighty operation. War was declared July 15, 1870, and lasted 210 days. From the first practical engagement to the end of the strife there were but 180 days. In these 180 days there were fought 156 engagements, 17 great battles and three naval conflicts. Nearly every day saw an engagement; every sixth day a fortress was conquered by Prussia, and every ninth day she fought and gained a battle. At the close of the war (January 28), Germany had in her possession 26 fortresses, 6700 cannon, and 120 eagles or standards. She had likewise in her possession and trampled down by her victorious armies full two-fifths of the territory of France, and her proud capital city of over two millions of souls. Added to this, is the loss to France of 7400 square miles, the area of Alsace and Lorraine, and 2,000,000 of population. In six short months it was all done, and in the history of this world there is nothing like this. After the list, occupying two and two-thirds columns of fine print in the Journal, the article concludes as follows:— It is seen that endless wars and preparations for war are the national programmes for the future, and although the year ends more peacefully than it began, our record of fighting and turbulence in the human family during a single twelve-month, shows that the era of peace is yet to come, and confirms all too sadly the terrible figures of Burritt, “2600 millions of dollars a year from Mars, against perhaps 26 millions for Messiah.”