STEVENS, THADDEUS, an American statesman and reformer, born at Peacham, Caledonia County, Vt., April 4, 1793; died in Washington, D. C., at midnight of Tuesday, August 11, 1868. His parents were poor. He was a sickly child, and lame; but his strong intellect was early detected by his mother, who toiled with all her strength to secure for him the benefit of an education. The boy was ambitious, and turned his few opportunities for improvement to such good account that he speedily succeeded in qualifying himself to enter Dartmouth College, whence he graduated with honor in 1814. Immediately after leaving Dartmouth, he removed to York, Pa., where he taught a school for a livelihood and read law carefully and steadily through the intervals of the day and night. Admitted, after many discouragements, to the bar, he soon attained a good practice and rose to eminence in his profession, which for many years he followed without participating in politics. The election of John Quincy Adams to the presidency, and the bitter contests which followed the triumph of the Democrats in the election of General Jackson in 1828, and his decided action, aroused the political fervor of Mr. Stevens, and he threw himself into the contest with all the zeal and ardor of his nature. He took sides with the Adams party, and when that merged in the Whig party he became an active Whig. In 1833 he was elected to the Legislature by the Whigs of Adams County, and was returned by the same party during the years 1834-35-'37-'41. In 1836 he was a member of the Pennsylvania State Constitutional Convention, and took an active part in all the important debates in the framing of that instrument; but, being then, as always since, hostile to slavery, he refused to sign the document because it restricted suffrage on account of color. After the adoption of the constitution, Mr. Stevens was again in the Legislature. This was a period of intense political excitement. For a time two Legislatures were in session, Mr. Stevens being the leading spirit in one, and an equally ardent Democrat in the other. They finally coalesced without violence, and united in the choice of a Speaker, and in other acts of legislation. In 1838 Mr. Stevens was appointed a Canal Commissioner, and managed, so far as he had the power, the system of internal improvements of Pennsylvania with skill and ability. In 1842 Mr. Stevens removed to Lancaster, which, subsequently was his home. He immediately took a front rank at the bar, and was engaged in many important cases. The interval from 1842 to 1848 was devoted to his profession, but, in the latter year, he was elected to the Thirty-second Congress from the Lancaster district, and ardently opposed the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the Fugitive Slave Law, and the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. In 1859 Mr. Stevens was again returned, and continued in Congress by successive reelections, and at the time of his death was serving his seventh term. In all, these Congresses he was a recognized leader. During three sessions he was chairman of the important committee of Ways and Means, and held the position of chairman of the Committee on Reconstruction of the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congresses. He also served on other committees, his last important position being chairman of the Board of Managers, on the part of the House, in the impeachment of President Johnson before the Senate. Mr. Stevens was also a member of the Baltimore Convention, in 1864, and voted with the Pennsylvania delegation for Mr. Johnson for Vice-President. Thoroughly radical in his views, hating slavery with all the intensity of his nature, believing it just, right, and expedient, not only to emancipate, but to arm the negro and make him a soldier, and, after the war, to make him a citizen and give him the ballot, he led off in all measures for effecting these ends. The Emancipation Proclamation was urged upon the President by him on all grounds of right, justice, and expediency; the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was initiated and pressed by him. He advocated and carried, during the war, acts of confiscation, and proposed the most rigid and stern measures against the Southern people to the last day of his life. STOCKTON, Rev. THOMAS HEWLINGS, D. D., a Methodist clergyman, author, and poet, born at Mount Holly, N. J., June 4, 1808; died in Philadelphia, October 9, 1868. At the age of eighteen, though in frail health, he essayed to become a printer, but, finding himself disqualified for this work, he studied medicine. But, having become the subject of a religious change, his attention was directed to the ministry, and, just before he was twenty-one years of age, he preached his first sermon. He took charge of a circuit the same year on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and his eloquence, fervor, and remarkable command of language drew great congregations wherever he preached. In 1830 he was elected editor of the Methodist Protestant, but declined the appointment. In 1833 he was stationed at Georgetown, D. C., and in December of that year elected chaplain of Congress. In 1835 and 1837 he was again elected to the same position, and meantime published two small volumes of poems, and compiled a church hymn-book. In 1838 he removed to Philadelphia. From 1847 to 1850 he resided in Cincinnati, and while there was unanimously elected president of the Miami University, but declined the position. In 1850 he removed to Baltimore, where he remained six years, pastor for most of the time of two churches, one Methodist Protestant, the other Associate Reformed Presbyterian, and engaged also in literary labors. In 1856 he returned to Philadelphia, which was thenceforward his home, though he was in 1862 and 1863 again chaplain of Congress. He was for the twelve years 1856-1868 almost constantly pastor of the Church of the New Testament, and performed also much literary labor. His principal published works were: "The Christian World," "The Book and Journal," and "The Bible Times" (periodicals devoted to the diffusion of primitive and scriptural Christianity); "The Pastor's Tribute" (poems), 1848; "Floating Flowers from a Hidden Book" (poems), 1844; "Something New " (poems), 1844; "The Bible Alliance," 1850; "Sermons for the People," 1854; "Stand up for Jesus," and "The Blessing," small illustrated volumes, 1858; "Poems with Autobiographic and other Notes," 1862; "The Peerless Magnificence of the Word of God," and a work on "The Mediation of Christ," published since his death. SUEZ CANAL, THE. Among the many works of extraordinary magnitude, expense, and general usefulness, which have been recently executed in different countries, the nearly-completed excavation and opening of the Suez Canal, in Egypt, is the most important. It connects the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, placing the East and the West in easy communication with each other by the shortest route. The low, swampy, and in some parts sandy, strip of land which now separates the two seas, makes one conjecture and almost believe that their waters once mingled over this depression, and the Nile flowed through them across into Lake Timsah. Hence, dividing its waters into two branches, the one flowed northward to the Mediterranean, the other southward through the Bitter Lakes to the Red Sea near Suez, from which the whole isthmus has derived its name. ascribes it to this king, and adds the circumstance that, frightened by the response of an oracle foretelling the invasion of barbarians through the canal, if completed, he desisted from the enterprise, yet not till 120,000 Egyp tians had perished in the work. It was finished and opened, however, in the succeeding reign. That historian, who lived in the fifth century B. C., bears witness to the existence of the canal of the Pharaohs at the time when he visited Egypt, relating that it was wide enough to admit of two triremes sailing abreast, that it was much frequented by trading-craft, and that the navigation on it from sea to sea lasted four days. The nations, under whose subjec tion Egypt successively passed afterward, did not fail to give their attention to this canal as a matter of great public importance. On the Arab invasion in the seventh century of our era, however, it was no longer existing, as ap pears from the fact that Omar's vicegerent in Egypt proposed to open a channel from Suez to the Gulf of Pelusium, and supply it with water by restoring the canal of the Pharaohs, Omar at first disapproved the project, lest its execution should be a means for Christian incursions, but finally consented to it, in order to furnish Arabia with provisions. The canal remained in a navigable condition from 649 to 767, when the Caliph El Mussour Abool Hadar filled it up, for the purpose of starving the peo ple of Mecca and Medina. The vestiges of the old canal are still discernible, showing its width to have been from 100 to 200 feet. Men of power in the world have subsequently directed their attenThe ancient Egyptians appreciated the im- tion to its reopening, and even taken some portance of a water communication from sea to preliminary measures toward its realization, sea, and eventually opened it, though they con- regarding it as vastly important to the developfined their views to an intercourse with Arabia. ment of European commerce in the Eastern But, enterprising though they were, and having seas. Napoleon Bonaparte, when he went, or inexhaustible means of manual labor at com- was sent, to Egypt in 1798, discovered the mand, as their works attest, they shrank from traces of the ancient canal near Suez, and, ap the difficulty of cutting a canal across the preciating its use, appointed a commission, in isthmus in a direct line, on account of the va- which M. Le Pire was prominent, for the pur rious obstacles presented by the condition of pose of inquiring into the subject of excavating the place, and sought to effect their passage in one across the isthmus, a body of engineers an easier manner by a roundabout way. They being employed to survey the line. Although followed the course of the Nile, sailing on its the then disturbed state of the country re waters so long as it was navigable, and from dered the work both difficult and slow, the ethe point where it ceased to be so, they cut an gineers being unable to proceed without an es artificial channel supplied with water from cort, and obliged to return with the escort when that river, and debouching into the Red Sea at this was called back for active military service, a point near the present site of Suez. Their which frequently happened, yet the survey was line was, as it were, divided into four sections, finally got through. Before seeing the report having an aggregate length of 92 miles: presented by the commission, however, Napo namely, 13 miles from Suez to the Bitter leon had returned to France, and, his attention Lakes, 27 through these lakes, 40 from the being engrossed by other matters, the project Bitter Lakes to El Ouady (of Tomat), and 12 of the canal could hardly be advanced toward from El Ouady to Bubastis, then one of the realization, though he never abandoned it. principal branches of the Nile. The origin of this canal of antiquity is as the Red Sea was 30 feet higher than that of M. Le Pire's report stated that the level of signed by some to Rameses II., or to Se- the Mediterranean; but the eminent French sostris, about 1300 years before the Christian engineer M. Bourdaloue, having in 1846 to era, by others to Psammetichus's son Necho, curately surveyed the grounds from Suez to who reigned six centuries later. Herodotus Tineh, and again from Tineh to Suez, ascer tained the difference of the levels to be quite insignificant, so that the current of the canal, when in actual operation, could present no serious obstacle to its navigation either way. But, prior to this double survey of M. Bourdaloue, M. Ferdinand de Lesseps had recognized the excavation of a navigable canal between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea as practicable, and conceived the idea of actually executing it. Besides his own ability and energy of character, he was powerfully helped in this by the happy concurrence of extrinsic circumstances, chiefly the favor of the Egyptian Government. His father, being attached to the French consulate in Alexandria, had become personally acquainted and rather intimate with Mehemet Ali, then pacha, and M. Lesseps's influence was probably no mean cause of Ali's being recognized as Viceroy of Egypt by the Sultan, who is said to have consulted the former on the subject. This circumstance could not but strengthen the relations of intimacy between Mehemet Ali and M. Lesseps, whose son Ferdinand became the friend of Said, the son and heir-apparent to the viceroy. Having long and carefully studied his plan, taken soundings in both seas, tested the currents and levels, bored the ground at different points along the intended line, and thus thoroughly ascertained that no insurmountable obstacles were presented by Nature to the opening of a canal from sea to sea, he communicated his project to Saïd, who understood its feasibility, as well as its importance and beneficial results, and, professing himself a firm supporter of the enterprise, authorized M. Lesseps to organize his company. The latter travelled for that end to Europe, where his project found favor, and even in England several capitalists were ready to take a part in it. The English Government, however, on political and other grounds, not only discountenanced, but positively opposed the enterprise in all its stages, both in England and at Constantinople, through its ambassador, in order that the Sultan, in exercising his rights of sovereignty over Egypt, should refuse to sanction the acts of the viceroy in the matter. Its opposition, however, has proved unavailing so far as the ultimate result aimed at is concerned. M. de Lesseps organized his company in 1854, and obtained his first concession (or, rather, a contract was entered into by the Egyptian Government on one side, and M. de Lesseps, for himself and his company, on the other), when two engineers of the viceroy commenced and in the autumn of 1855 completed a new survey, recognizing the practicability of the project. This new survey was submitted to an international commission which was nominated by the leading powers of Europe and met at Paris, deciding that five of its members should visit Egypt and examine all the parts of the project in detail. They went, and by the end of 1855 presented their report, confirming the feasibility of the enterprise. A second concession was obtained this year by M. de Lesseps from the viceroy, though the Sultan had declined to sanction the first one previously submitted to him. As the terms, on which the two parties stand at present toward each other in regard to their respective rights and duties concerning the Suez Canal, are about the same as were reciprocally stipulated in the first two concessions just referred to, we here subjoin their principal clauses, which are as follows: 1. M. F. de Lesseps to form a company called "La Compagnie Universelle du Canal de Suez," and of which he is to be appointed the director, for the purthe formation of a port at each end of the said canal. pose of making a canal across the Isthmus of Suez, and 2. The managing director always to be appointed by the Egyptian Government, and chosen, if possible, from among the largest shareholders. the opening of the canal to navigation. 3. The concession to last ninety-nine years from 4. The works to be all at the company's expense, and to whom all requisite lands for construction and maintenance, not belonging to private individuals, deem it advisable to erect fortifications, the company shall be conceded. If the Egyptian Government shall not be liable for the expense of construction. 5. The government shall receive 15 per cent. annually of the earnings of the company, without reference to interest or dividend derived from any shares The remainder of the net profits to be thus dividedthey may hold, or hereafter take, in the company. 75 per cent. for the general shareholders, and 10 per cent. for the original founders of the company. 6. The tariff for ships passing through the canal (and agreed on mutually by the Egyptian Governships of all nations. ment and the company) to be always the same for 7. Should the company deem it advisable to join the Nile and the Maritime Canal by a navigable channel, the land now uncultivated may be irrigated and cultivated at their expense and charge. The company to have these lands free of any charge for Canal. During the remaining eighty-nine years they ten years, dating from the opening of the Maritime will pay one-tenth of the usual land-tax; after which the whole usual tax on irrigated land in Egypt. 8. A plan to be made of all lands ceded to the company. 9. The company to be allowed to quarry stone on government lands free of charge. Also to be permitted to import any material, machinery, and supplies for the workmen, free of custom-duty.. tian Government will be substituted in lieu of the 10. At the expiration of the concession the Egypcompany, and will enter into full possession of all the property and rights appertaining to the canal between the two seas. A due valuation to be made for material, etc., etc. To these, which form the basis of all the arrangements subsequently agreed upon by the parties, a most important clause was added in a later concession, dated January, 1856, providing that, of the workmen employed on the canal," in all cases, four-fifths at least should be Egyptians." This contingent of workmen to be employed by the company, and furnished of course by the Government, amounted to no less a number than 20,000 Egyptian fellahs (agricultural laborers), their wages being fixed at one-third of the European rates for similar work; which third, however, was again onethird more than what the fellahs were paid in their own country. They were also to be pro vided with habitations, food, and medical assistance, and while in hospital receive half their pay when at work. This clause, which, while it imposed an obligation, conferred also a benefit on the company for quick dispatch in the work, and even economy, was objected to by the Sultan, and in 1859 the fellahs were withdrawn. This involved the company in no small embarrassment, as well as loss of time and money for procuring an adequate number of workmen from other countries. The Sultan refused also to confirm the clause enabling the company to sell or let any portion of their property in Egypt. The withdrawal of the fellah labor and other wrongs heaped on the company, who were at one time even ordered to leave the country, resulted in an almost total cessation of the works for two years. But they manfully stood their ground, and, after a hard struggle, finally conquered all opposition. They have even a sufficient number of native laborers, who flock to the company for work on their own motion, induced by good wages and punctual payment. As to the losses suffered by the company on the two above-mentioned points, and others, their complaints had at last the effect that the viceroy remitted their settlement to the arbitration of the French Emperor, who in July, 1864, decided as follows: 1. That the concessions of November, 1854, and January, 1856, had the form of a contract, and were binding on both parties. 2. That, as, by the withdrawal of the fellah labor, the cost of the works would be increased, the viceroy should pay an indemnity of £1,200,000 sterling on that account. 3. That the company should cede to the viceroy all their fresh-water canals, reserving only the right of passage through them; that the viceroy should pay £400,000 representing the cost of the construction of the canals, and £240,000 as compensation for the tolls which the company thereby relinquished. 4. That the company should retain only such lands along the line of the Maritime Canal as might be necessary for the care and maintenance of the said canal. 5. That the company should cede to the viceroy their title to all lands capable of cultivation by means of irrigation from the fresh-water canals, and for which the viceroy should pay £1,200,000. The total sum awarded as indemnity to the company thus amounted to £3,360,000. But, in the face of such obstacles and discouragements as would appear capable of stopping the course of any enterprise, M. de Lesseps and his engineers have persistently fought their way and progressed in the mighty work, and finally brought it, as it is at present, to the point of its completion. To enter into details concerning the variety, magnitude, and difficulty of the works on and for the canal, and the several kinds and power of the machinery used, would occupy too much space. We lay before the reader the two cuts exhibiting the surface representation of the canal, and its longitudinal section showing the progress of the work up to October 15, 1868, confining ourselves to the bare mention of some few of its principal features. The whole course of the canal, from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, is one hundred miles, though the distance in a direct line would be about 70 miles. For more than 60 miles it runs through the intervening lakes Menzaleh, Ballah, Timsah, and the Bitter Lakes, embankments having been formed on each side of it during its course through the two firstnamed lakes. Its width has been fixed at 328 feet in those portions where the land-level is low. The width at the base is 246 feet, and the depth of water 26 feet. These dimensions, representing those of the canal itself, convey but little idea of the amount of excavation that had to be carried out in many places where it traverses elevated plateaus, which entailed cuttings of great depth, as the longitudinal section shows. On the northern extremity of the canal, where it debouches on the Mediterranean, s port has been constructed, named Port Said, consisting of two breakwaters, or moles, 2,726 and 1,962 yards long respectively, embracing a triangular area of about 550 acres, a safe harbor and easy to make. They are 26 yards at the base, 6 yards at the summit, and 12 yards in height, and formed of huge blocks of concrete, measuring 12 cubic yards, and weighing 22 tons each, prepared and made on the spot, by machines, from the harbor-dredgings and one-third hydraulic lime. The moles are visible at about 12 miles' distance. A writer says: "When we observe the scale on which Port Saïd now exists, no other portion of the vast engineering works along the line of the canal appears more strongly to exemplify the talent and indomitable zeal that have succeeded in so effectual a manner in surmounting those natural obstacles which here presented themselves." Besides being a port, properly so called, Port Said is now also a town regularly laid out in squares and streets, containing already 10,000 inhabitants, churches, mosques, hospitals and all the adjuncts of a thriving ses port town, the Sisters of Charity being also there to minister peace to patients in the hos pitals, and educate the children of this large French colony. On the north of Lake Timsah, about the middle of the whole course of the canal, "stands Ismailia (named after Ismail Pacha), a flourish ing French town, full of life and activity, a real oasis in the desert. It contains a population of five thousand inhabitants, and is divided into French, Greek, and Arab quarters." It is, as it were, the headquarters of the administration of the company. At its southern extremity the canal runs into the Red Sea, where, after entering the sea, its embouchure gradually widens to about S yards, and the depth in this portion is to be 27 feet. Here stands Suez, which, to use the same writer's words, "no more than four or five pany) has brought about a marvellous change. The population has now increased to 25,000, and there is a degree of life and activity about the place clearly indicating the energy that is being displayed on all sides. The principal operations of the company consist: firstly, in constructing a mole 850 yards in length at the mouth of the canal, to serve as a protection against southerly gales, and against the action of the tide at high water; secondly, in dredging to the requisite depth the channel leading from the canal to the road of Suez; and thirdly, the reclamation of land. The mole which projects from the Asiatic shore is nearly completed. It has been constructed with a kind of calcareous rock, quarried on the western shore of the bay." MEDITERRANEAN SEA ISMAILIA TIMSAH LAKE I DAM ADMARÍTIME 65 GREAT THEBEL ATTAKA! Though not yet open to general and through navigation, the canal in its finished portion is, and has been for some time, already in operation, passengers and merchandise having been carried through it to a considerable and steadily increasing extent. To give an idea on what a scale the company is formed, what sort of enterprise it has engaged in, and its means, we subjoin the final sums of its debit and credit accounts, taken from an abstract of the general account laid before the shareholders April 30, 1868": Total expenditures to April 30, 1868, £11,532,171. Total receipts to April, 30, 1868, £13,853,866. The Viceroy of Egypt is personally interested in the undertaking to such an extent, that he holds 177,642 shares of the original capital, which represent a payment on his part of £3,552,840. |