GENERAL SHERMAN. In the death of General Sherman, which occurred on the fourteenth of February, the nation mourns the loss of the last of the great figures of the Civil War. A brave soldier, an honest man, one whose personal attributes endeared him to every heart, he won his way to fame and glory and lived and died the army's idol. Though possessed of a heart as simple as a child's yet he had the brain to master the science of war, and the military tact and courage to practically carry out his great purposes. Not only did he conquer men and armies, but the general grief at his passing away shows that he also took captive the hearts of his countrymen. The record of William Tecumseh Sherman's life reveals an activity and energy superior to that of most men of his time. He was born in Lancaster, Ohio, February 8, 1820, his father being a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. He graduated at West Point in 1840, and in the following year entered the army He rendered invaluable service in Florida, Mexico, California, St. Louis, and New Orleans. He was gradually promoted to a captaincy and held a staff position in 1853, when he resigned, and engaged in banking in San Francisco for about four years; practiced law two years in Kansas, and in 1859 was appointed Superintendent of the Louisiana Military Academy. He resigned this position at the outbreak of the war, and offered his life to the Union. It is unnecessary to relate his career during this great struggle, but it and his history forms a large part of the history of the war. In 1869, Sherman became the General of the armies of the United States, which position he held until he was retired, by reason of his age. The famous march to the sea has been immortalized in song and story and will ever carry with it the glamour of romance which its accomplishment threw around it. General Sherman's modest character was shown in his reference to this great march as follows: "The thing was nothing more or less than a change of base, an operation perfectly familiar to every military man, but the poet got hold of it, gave it the captivating label, "The March to the Sea' and the unmilitary public made a romance out of it." The one to whom these remarks were made, however, echoes the universal sentiment when he says: "The glory of the great campaign was Sherman's and his army's; the joy of celebrating it was the poet's; the admiring memory of it is the people's." It is with gratification that the people are now able to view the fine collection of minerals and specimens of natural history in the Deseret Museum. For many years this superb collection, which was begun by Hon. John W. Young more than twenty years ago, has been kept in a miserable place where it was imposible to exhibit even one half of its treasures. Now, the room secured in the Templeton hotel building is quite inadequate, but under the supervision of Dr. J. E. Talmage the specimens are being so classified that the display is very satisfactory, and the commencement is fairly made toward bringing the museum out. The Scientific and Literary Society-the present owners-have in contemplation the erection of a magnificent building on the old Council House corner, and when that is done, it will be found, if the present nucleus is carefully preserved and a judicious system of exchanges is kept up, that we will have a splendid museum to occupy it. It is one of the functions of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations to collect specimens and maintain cabinets of curiosities in connection with their libraries. If this were carefully attended to, the exchanges that could be made by them with the Deseret Museum would naturally augment the value of each local cabinet and add greatly to the interest of the museum. THE WORLD over. Prof. J. L. Barfoot, the late curator of the museum, was an enthusiastic advocate of these local collections, and proffered to make exchanges and assist the young men in charge of them, in properly classifying the specimens obtained. No doubt his present successor will take the same interest, and we sincerely hope that every encouragement will be given by the officers of the Associations to the scientific young men in the community who take pleasure in buildiug up these miniature museums, and in contributing to the enlargement and interest of the central institution in Salt Lake City. 瞻 195 "Domestic Science" by Dr. J. E. Talmage is an illustrated handbook treating in a scientific way of the common things that the daily worker comes in contact with, and makes known to him the whys and wherefores of the physical phenomena about him in such a way as to answer the daily recurring question of his experience and add wonderfully thereby to his enjoyment of life. The book is the consistent successor to the First Book of Nature of the M. I. A. Reading Course, and should be owned and read by every reader who has perused the former. THE WORLD OVER. The army of the United States consists of 2,167 commissioned officers, and a little over 20,000 private soldiers, exclusive of those performing civilian duties. THE United States Senate is composed present. No person can be a Senator of two Senators from each State. They who has not reached the age of thirty are chosen by the Legislatures for a term years and been nine years a citizen of the of six years. There are forty-four States United States. The salary of a Senator in the Union, and the whole num- is five thousand dollars a year. The ber of Senators is eighty-eight. At President of the Senate, who is also Vicethe organization of the body in 1789, President of the United States, receives a its members were divided by lot into salary of eight thousand dollars. The three classes. The seats of Senators of Senate meets annually on the first Monthe first, second, and third classes were day in December. Its daily sessions vacated at the end of the second, fourth, begin at twelve o'clock. and sixth years respectively, so that onethird might be chosen every second year. This classification has been preserved, and thus of the present membership the seats of twenty-nine will be vacated in 189, thirty in 1893, and twenty-nine in 1895; the terms ending at noon on March 4th. If vacancies occur during the adjournment of the Legislature of a State, the Governor appoints for the interval. The manner of electing Senators is as follows: Each house is required to vote viva voce, on the second Tuesday after the organization of the Legislature. On the next day the two houses are to meet jointly. Should it then appear that the same person has received a majority in each house, this fact is stated, and he is elected. Otherwise the joint meeting must take at least one viva voce vote each day, while the Legislature remains in session, until some person receives a majority of all the votes, a quorum of each house being The chief religions of the world may be classified as follows: Christianity, 450,o00,000; Confucianism, 390,000,000; Hindooism, 190,000,000; Mohammedanism, 18,000,000; Fetichism, 150,000,000; Buddhism, 100,000,000; Spirit Worship, 50,000,000; Shintoism, 22,000,000; Jew, 8,000,000; Parsees, 1,000,000. Total, 1,449,000,000. There are 1,200 different religious sects among the Christians. London has 40,000 streets, and their collective length would reach over 32,000 miles. The combined armies and navies of France, Germany, and Russia number 10,453, 164 men, and cost $525,761,200 annually. satirical verses upon a certain poetess, who, in revenge, watched for him in the street and stabbed him with a poinard; the There are now 7,000 millionaires in the United States, where, in 1860, there were only two. The railroad capital of the world is wound was not dangerous, and the only estimated at $29,000,000,000. The biggest workshop in the world is said to be that of Herr Krupp, the famous gun-maker of Essen; in 1833 it employed nine workmen; in 1848, 74; in July, 1888, 20,960 men were employed, and the families of the workmen numbered 73,960 souls; of these 24,193 reside in dwellings provided by the firm. The caustic Alphonse Karr, who died recently, on one occasion published a few revenge the satirist took was to suspend the back." The following quaint epitaph is found on a tombstone in a cemetery in England. "Owen Moore was owin' more Than Owen Moore could pay: REMINISCENCES OF WILLIAM C. STAINES. I HEARD the first sermon on Mormonism preached by Geo. J. Adams, in September 1841. I was convinced that it was true, and was baptized in November following. I left England on the sailing ship Swanton, with a company of Saints in charge of Brother Lorenzo Snow. At this date there were no steamships crossing the ocean, prepared, as they are now, to carry emigrant passengers, with every facility for cooking and serving meals. At the time I crossed, our cooking was all done upon deck, upon two large iron grates, with iron bars in front to hang our pots and saucepans upon, each having a hook attached for that purpose. [Several pages of Elder Staines' manuscript have been lost, and we are prevented from giving to our readers an interesting account of his voyage across the sea. Upon the lost pages he also wrote his impressions regarding American slavery; how, from his earliest recollection, he had heard exaggerated accounts of its cruelties, causing him to make sacrifices in helping to enlarge the fund being raised for emancipation. He thus continues, giving his personal observations of slavery, which we print in his own language.-ED.] I also had been informed that all slaves worked in chains upon rice and sugar plantations. I felt so bad about it that I quit eating or using sugar when I was nine years old, for which my mother gave me twenty cents every week, which I put in a fund that was being raised in England to emancipate the slaves. Here, to my surprise, I found them driving fine mule teams, being trusted with cart loads of valuable merchandise, taking the same to all parts of the city and country, apparently equal to the white man (except in their being slaves and owned by some one). I found the same class of men working as porters in the stores. While getting some groceries in a large store, a gentleman came in for some bottled wine, and a negro was sent to the wareroom for it. That same day our company left on the large steamboat - Amaranth and to my surprise I found four negroes and three white men employed as firemen. I soon learned that the colored men were slaves. I asked my informant where their master was, and he said he resided about fifty miles from New Orleans. I watched for an opportunity to speak with these colored men and the next morning, while they were at breakfast, I ventured to do so. Seeing some fishing tackle lying on deck near them, I commenced by asking what kind of fish they caught. Catfish, I was told. I had never heard of such a fish, and at first thought he was fooling REMINISCENCES OF WILLIAM C. STAINES. me, but he soon enlightened me on this point by telling me what kind of a fish this catfish was, as well as many other kinds that were in the river. While conversing about fish and fishing I was looking at the food they were eating, as regards its quantity and quality, compared with that the white men were eating on the other side of the boat from them, and found it to consist of good wheat and corn bread, beef steak, ham and eggs, potatoes with plenty of coffee and sugar, and from what I could see as good as that being eaten by the white men. I must confess this surprized me, and I regretted, for the first time, that I had quit eating sugar to save the money to free the negro from slavery, he having all the sugar he needed, and a better breakfast than any farm laborer in England could afford to eat. They informed me that they all belonged to one master who lived about fifty miles from New Orleans and he allowed them to work out, and gave them two-thirds of all they earned, which was twenty dollars, leaving eight dollars for themselves. They said they had a good master and did not want to leave him. This eight dollars per month with board was better wages than a man working on a farm in England could get at this time. I soon learned that what I had been told about slaves must have been exaggerated, or if true had probably occurred to a few disobedient ones on the plantations where the sugar cane and cotton were raised; and those I became acquainted with were the other extreme, Or at least better off than many of their fellows. I nevertheless was pleased to find a brighter side of the picture I had formed in my own mind from what I had been told about slavery when a boy. 197 crowded for room on the boat, we had a very delightful trip. We found fruits, vegetables and eatables of all kinds in plenty and cheap: chickens, ten cents; eggs, ten cents per dozen; ham, ten cents per pound; sugar, nineteen pounds for one dollar; coffee, eleven pounds for one dollar. The weather was fine, with a full moon, and we enjoyed ourselves in the daytime viewing the beautiful scenery as we passed along; and in the evening we would sing the songs of Zion, which was pleasing to us and interesting to the Gentile passengers-a number of whom were in the cabin, while we were on the upper and lower decks of the boat. At about 3 p. m. on the twelfth of April, we came in sight of the long looked-for city of Nauvoo, the home of the Prophet and the Saints, and soon to be ours. We traveled several miles in sight of the city before we reached the place for landing; and we could see very plainly the people running in our direction to meet us and give us a hearty welcome. I shall not attempt to describe our feelings to my readers for I should fail in such an attempt. Some cried with joy, others laughed and shouted while many prayed, thanking the Lord for his preserving care over us, and allowing us the privilege of reaching Zion in safety. At the time of landing several hundred had arrived at the pier, anxiously awaiting to shake their friends by the hands. Parents met their children, and friends met again their friends after years of absence. I, being alone, envied, for a moment, those who had relatives, but the thought soon passed away; for I, too, was a Latter-day Saint, and knew that as long as I remained one I would have all the friends I would need, and that the Lord would provide them for all who put their trust in Him. In two hours all had landed, and those having friends had left with them, while others rented rooms or houses where they were made comfortable. That same evening Brother Parley P. Pratt's company arrived. This company left England in the fall before us, and was compelled to remain in St. Louis on account of the Mississippi being frozen, on their arrival. We were all requested to meet on the Temple Block the next morning at ten o'clock, when the Prophet, Joseph Smith, would address us. I got an early breakfast and left my lodgings for a walk through the city, and this was one of the happiest moments of my life. It was a beautiful spring morning. The grass was green, the trees were just in leaf, the cow herds were being driven from the city to the pastures, their bells tinkling as they trotted along, which was music to my ears, for everything to me looked and felt its best; even the dogs that passed me, when spoken to, seemed to give an extra wag of the tail to welcome me to this city. I had only been a member of the Church a little over two years, but I had confidence in my leaders and my religion, for all I had been told by them had proven to be true. I had been informed by the first Elder I ever heard (Geo. J. Adams) that if I obeyed the Gospel and was faithful, I should have testimonies of the truth of what he preached. I obeyed, and soon had the testimony that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God, and that the Gospel revealed by him was of God. These things caused me to leave my native land and gather to the city I was then in. I knew I was right in doing so, and for this I felt happy. At ten o'clock the two companies of fresh arrivals, with a number of citizens, assembled in the Temple, the walls of which were about twenty feet high. I well recollect the blessing of the Prophet. After stating that he had been anticipating the pleasure of seeing us for a long time, and was thankful the Lord had answered his prayers in bringing us so far in safety, he said: "Blessed are they who have seen me and obeyed the Gospel; but more blessed are you who believed and obeyed without seeing me, and I bless you all in the name of Israel's God, and say you shall be blessed in your labors, and enjoy in due time all the blessings of the faithful; not only in the salvation of yourselves, but also your dead." These few words may be read now with but little feeling, but it was with very different feelings we received them; for we all knew that the one who spoke was a Prophet of God, and had power to bless, being clothed upon with the Holy Priesthood. Knowing this, and hearing the above spoken by such a man, we felt it, and knew we were blessed by the Lord as well as by His prophet. He gave us a great deal of good advice concerning our future in settling and making ourselves comfortable in our new homes. I soon became acquainted with a num ber of the Saints who had been in the Church for many years, some of whom had been driven from their homes several times, and were still wearing a black ribbon or a piece of crape as a badge of mourning for some dear one they had lost when being driven by mobs, or by traveling the wilderness in midwinter, when too poorly fed and clothed. While listening to these fearful tales, tears would freely flow down the cheeks of both speaker and hearer; for even at this date, which was over six years after these troubles had occurred, one or more in many families were suffering from the effects of leaving their homes in winter, to bed and board on the prairies. I could not help but admire these people for their integrity, and the faith they had in the cause they had espoused; for, not withstanding the troubles and losses they had passed through, they continued strong in their faith, and were confident that the Lord would sustain His people and build up the kingdom upon the earth.' looked at them and thought: "What a lesson is here for me to learn! Have I so lived and learned the Gospel that I would pass through as much sorrow, suffer the losses, and be, after it all, so humble and faithful as they?" To me this was an imporant question and one I could not answer, only by being convinced or assured that if I could not, I would never be a good Saint. I left them with these reflections, and turned into a small grove near the Temple, where I knelt down and prayed to the Lord that he would so strengthen my faith that I might be prepared for all things that might await me: "Come life |