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the majority of the Bulgarian nation. Russian commissioner fostered the aspirations of the Liberals for a Great Bulgaria, and probably hoped himself to be chosen Prince of the PanBulgarian nation. His draft was modified in a radical sense by the Constituent Assembly at Tirnova. The Constitution, while embodying extreme principles of popular sovereignty based upon universal suffrage, was, in respect to its provisions for the practical conduct of the Government, in many respects imperfect, as every paper constitution instituting a new political system must be of necessity. The Prince possessed no sympathy for popular institutions, and attributed all the friction and the abuses of the Government to the democratic features of the Constitution. The Conservative minority, from whom he had first chosen his ministers, were composed of the semi-aristocracy of the Tchorbadjees, who had acquired wealth under the Turkish régime, and had come to a modus vivendi with the Mohammedan authorities. The Young Bulgaria party, led by men who in the Universities of Vienna and Moscow had imbibed the ideas of Western liberalism and of Russian radicalism, and who were inspired with an enthusiastic national ambition, presented the only doctrines which appealed to the intelligence and patriotism of the people. Their agitation had led to the Turkish war and the independence of Bulgaria, and the leadership of the people and direction of the destinies of the young state naturally devolved upon them. The Prince's repugnance to their advanced ideas of liberty, and his contempt for their nationalistic patriotism, were so fixed that he regarded the direction of affairs by the doctrinaires of the Liberal party as a political impossibility.

The difficulty of working the Constitution lay not so much in the disorganization at home," which Alexander declared to be the effect of popular government in Bulgaria, as in the fact which he embodied in his twin charge, that the Bulgarian Parliament had brought the country into "discredit abroad." This resulted from the reckless thoroughness with which the Liberals were inclined to carry out the principle of Bulgaria for the Bulgarians, in entire disregard of the wishes of the powerful neighboring empires, on whose good-will their country's existence as an independent nation must in a great measure depend. The overweening jealousy of outsiders, expressed in the motto "Bulgaria farà da se " of the Liberals, and exemplified in the acts which were denounced as obstructive by the Austrian Government, and those which were construed as ingratitude by the Russians, was the outcropping of the ancient masterful spirit of the Bulgarians, and had asserted itself under Turkish rule in the repudiation of the dictation of the Phanar, their frequent uprisings against the Porte, and their acquisition of the right of entire local self-government.

The administration of the finances by the

Liberal Government had been most successful. Through a redistribution of taxes, they had nearly doubled the revenue, without increasing the burden on the people. The general rates were not greater than under the former Government, and were one third lower than under the Turkish rule. The people, on the contrary, were enabled, owing partly to the new highways and similar public works to which some of the additional revenues were applied, but chiefly to an abundant harvest, to pay the taxes more easily than ever before. When the Conservatives handed the administration over to the Liberals, they had reduced the surplus of 12,000,000 francs received from Prince Dondoukoff - Korsakoff to 7,000,000, during their one year's management of public affairs. The budget which they delivered to their successors provided another deficit for the coming year, the revenue being placed at 16,000,000 francs, and the expenditures at 19,000,000 francs. The revised budget of the new administration balanced revenues and expenditures at 27,000,000 francs, and their estimate for the following year fixed them both at 30,000,000 francs. When dismissed from office by the ukase of the self-constituted autocrat, they left a surplus of 17,000,000 francs cash in the Treasury. The excess of revenue was expended in public works, roads, barracks, hospitals, and public-office buildings, and in establishing a system of higher education and erecting buildings for the elementary schools, which are maintained by the communities. For the latter, of which there are 1,088, affording instruction to 56,354 children, a system of state inspection was inaugurated. Nine secondary schools have been established in the principal towns, including two for girls, besides a classical college at Sofia and a priests' seminary at Liscovatz. There is known to have been more or less corruption in the management of the public funds, but they were employed in the main for judicious and useful purposes. Although the people complained of the Government, from a chronic habit of resenting taxation, they were as lightly taxed as ever before, and never had experienced so much prosperity and general well-being. A reform in the treatment of the Mussulman population by the Liberal Government was instituted before their dismissal from power. Persecutions were checked; efforts were made to persuade Christians, who had seized the property of refugee Mohammedans, to return it to the owners, and, in communities having a preponderant Mussulman population, Turkish mayors (Kmets) were appointed. The change in policy was sufficient to stop the emigration, thus keeping in the country a useful agricultural population, as well as strengthening the hands of the Liberals by retaining an element hostile to Russia.

Prince Alexander, after he had suspended the Constitution by proclaiming it unsuited to the requirements of the country, summoned a

Great National Assembly to revise its provisions. The dismissal of the Assembly, and the irregular method by which the Prince sought to have it abrogated by a kind of plébiscite, were both infractions of the express provisions of the Constitution, which prescribes that the power to alter and amend shall be exercised only by the Extraordinary National Assembly, convoked in accordance with the action of the Assembly. Prince Alexander's justification of his coup d'état was that the Constitution had brought discredit upon Bulgaria abroad and bred domestic disorder. The Assembly, it was charged, was filled in great part with illiterate members, who were incapable of judicious legislation, who wasted their time in fruitless party strife, and imposed incompetent and corrupt Cabinet advisers upon the Prince, and were also engrossed in intrigues to maintain their positions, and had instituted a foreign policy which endangered the existence of Bulgaria. The Liberal party, who maintained that the traditions and character of the Bulgarian people demanded a democratic form of government, proposed to remedy the admitted evils by reducing the number of members in the Assembly, and lowering the age of eligibility from thirty to twenty-five, in order to admit young men who had been educated abroad and were returning in considerable numbers. The strife in the Assembly had been in great measure due to the course which the Prince had pursued, at first, of choosing his ministers from the minority. As soon as he allowed the formation of a Liberal Cabinet, the Assembly applied itself to legislation, and in the period of eight months matured twenty-seven bills, the most important of which were measures to improve national education and to raise the moral qualifications of the clergy, increase their stipends, and free them from the domination of the hierarchy.

The democratic character of the Constitution which, in accordance with the conclusions of the conference of plenipotentiaries at Berlin, the Bulgarian people had framed for themselves, rejecting the extremely liberal Constitution drafted by the Russian commissioner, had from the first excited repugnance and apprehension in the Russian Government. It mistrusted the influence in Russia of the large measure of popular liberty enjoyed by the Slavs across the Danube. The purpose of the Liberal majority to remove the Russian officers who had command of the army, which they had brought to a high standard of discipline and efficiency, was the occasion for a trial of strength between the popular party and the Russian entourage of the Prince, re-enforced by court and diplomatic influences of the Czar's Government. The Austrian Government had shown antipathy to Bulgarian liberties from the beginning, and was incensed at the Liberal party on account of its hostility to the Austrian claim to exclusive powers over the Danubian

navigation, a hostility which was shared by the Roumanians.

The Liberal party during its administration of the government had offended three influential classes by reforms affecting them which were in the popular interest. The Russian element was incensed by the over-jealous attitude of the Liberals, whose project of dismissing Russian officers from the military and civil establishments, and of reducing all foreigners in Bulgarian service to an equal footing with natives, precipitated the coup d'état which it aimed to avert. The ecclesiastical reforms which subordinated the church to the state, and restricted the authority of the bishops over the parochial clergy, aroused resentment in ecclesiastical circles. The local magistracy also was alienated by a measure of administrative reform which curtailed the powers of the chorabji class, or village magnates. The young German prince and Prussian Guard lieutenant, who had been selected as the constitutional ruler of the new principality, regarded with impatience and contempt the extreme democratic provisions of the organic instrument which he had sworn to observe, and for the first year of his reign refused to take his advisers from the majority. In his plan for destroying the national Constitution, he was certain of the active co-operation of the Russians, of the well-wishes of Austria, and of the neutrality of Germany. The support of the civil, military, and clerical oligarchies, which the Liberal party had effectually estranged, was of indispensable assistance. In the country districts a considerable degree of popular animosity against the administration was already in existence, which was skillfully worked by the electioneering agents of the Prince and his Russian allies, in the extraordinary election which was to decide the fate of the national Constitution. Military tribunals were constituted by the Prince's edict to try any officials who should exert their influence on behalf of Liberal candidates. By these courts-martial any Liberal could be arrested, and even condemned to death. Two of the Liberal leaders, Zankoff and Slaveikoff, were arrested before the election, and, when released after a short confinement, were forbidden to go to Sofia or Tirnova. A Russian officer was placed in every election district as a commissioner, and a large number of others were detailed as subcommissioners of elections. The diplomatic agent of the Russian Government, Hitrovo, was the active lieutenant and principal adviser of the Prince. Peasants were brought into the cities to vote, and carefully guarded from the allurements of the Liberals by the military. Bands of peasantry were encouraged to attack and maltreat any Liberal who was too outspoken. In the towns the election was conducted with scarcely the pretense of legality. Voters were kept from approaching the urns by the soldiery. In some cases crowds of electors collected about the polling-places, and

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clamoring for their right to vote, were dispersed by a charge of bayonets. By corruption, violence, and intimidation, and frauds of every kind, a majority was obtained in most of the towns. One or two of the Liberal strongholds were declared disfranchised on account of disorders. Such means did not fail to furnish a subservient popular convention, more illiterate, however, than the Assembly complained of. The Great National Assembly, thus composed, assembled at Sistova, and accomplished the usurpation of Alexander by their vote annulling the Constitution, on the 13th of July.

BURCHI, JOHN C., born in Jefferson County, Georgia, October 21, 1826; died in Washington, D. C., July 28, 1881, of organic disease of the heart. His parents were Georgians, and with them he resided in Fayetteville until 1862. Having received a preparatory education in his own State, Mr. Burch entered the freshman class of Yale College in 1843, and graduated in 1847. He then returned to Georgia and studied law in the office of Governor Charles J. McDonald, of Marietta, one of the most eminent jurists of the State. In 1849 Mr. Burch was admitted to the bar, and opened an office at Spring Place, Murray County, where he remained three years, and then removed to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Here he established a successful practice, and in 1855 was elected to the General Assembly as the member for Hamilton County. The House of Representatives, in which he served, was equally divided in politics, and, though one of the youngest members, Mr. Burch took a foremost place as debater and parliamentarian, and was one of the recognized leaders of his party. The session was a long and important one, in which Knownothingism figured as a new phase in politics. In the debates and discussions growing out of that issue Mr. Burch achieved State-wide reputation, and in 1857 was elected Senator from the district composed of Hamilton, Bradley, Rhea, Bledsoe, Sequatchie, and Marion Counties. Though barely of senatorial age, he was chosen Speaker of the body. In 1859 the Nashville "Union and American," the organ of the Democratic party of Tennessee, lost its leading editors-Messrs. Poindexter and Eastman-and, acting under the counsel of the party leaders, Mr. Burch assumed the editorship of the paper, which duty he performed during the presidential campaign of 1860, and the critical agitation which culminated in civil war. After the fall of Fort Sumter he enlisted as a private in Company C, Rock City Guards, but was soon after chosen lieutenant of another company. Before going into the field, he was appointed aide-de-camp to Major-General Gideon J. Pillow, then in command of the Provisional Army of Tennessee, which was organized to support the army of the Southern Confederacy. He was soon promoted to the office of lieutenant-colonel, and when Tennessee became a member of the Confederacy he was made assistant adjutant-general, and continued in that

capacity during the war, serving on the staffs of Generals Pillow, Forrest, and Withers. At the expiration of the war he returned to Nashville, and resumed the practice of law until September, 1869, when he purchased a controlling interest in the "Union and American,” and again became its editor-in-chief. In 1873 he was appointed by Governor J. C. Brown Comptroller of the State of Tennessee. This service was rendered with great ability and rigid integrity, and upon retiring from it he returned to journalism, in which he continued until 1879. On the accession of the Democratic party to the power of the majority of the United States Senate, Colonel Burch was elected secretary of that body over a number of formidable competitors, each of whom was an ex-member of the United States Senate or House of Representatives, and this position he held at the time of his death.

BURNSIDE, AMBROSE EVERETT, born at Liberty, Indiana, May 23, 1824; died at Bristol, Rhode Island, September 13, 1881. In 1843 he was appointed from Rhode Island to the United States Military Academy, where he graduated in 1847, and was made brevet second-lieutenant of the Second Artillery. During the war with Mexico, 1847-48, he served at the city of Mexico, and received his full commission as secondlieutenant. In 1848-49 he was stationed at Fort Adams, Newport, Rhode Island. Engaged on frontier duty at Las Vegas, New Mexico, in 1849-'50, he took part in a skirmish there with Iacarillo Apache Indians, August 23, 1849, receiving a wound. From April, 1851, to March, 1852, he was with the Mexican Boundary Commission, acting quartermaster. On December 12, 1851, he was commissioned as first-lieutenant, and on returning from New Mexico he was again stationed at Fort Adams, Newport. Having invented a breech-loading rifle, he resigned from the army October 2, 1853, to engage in manufactures, and pursued that business in Bristol, Rhode Island, from 1853 to 1858. In the year 1856 he was appointed one of the Board of Visitors to the United States Military Academy. During his residence in Rhode Island he was active in the militia, and from 1855 to 1857 he held the rank of major-general. Finding the business of manufacturing arms unsuccessful, General Burnside became cashier of the land department of the Illinois Central Railway Company in 1858, and removed to Illinois. In 1860-'61 he was treasurer of the same corporation. When the civil war broke out, he at once tendered his services to the Union, and was appointed colonel of the First Regiment of Rhode Island Volunteers, which marched to Washington four days after the President's call for troops was issued. At the first battle of Bull Run he commanded a brigade, and was soon after made brigadier-general. In command of an expedition to North Carolina in January, 1862, he captured Roanoke Island, Newbern, and Beaufort. At the close of the campaign on the Peninsula he was re

called and ordered to Fredericksburg. There he remained until General Pope was defeated at the second battle of Bull Run. In March, 1862, General Burnside was commissioned major-general of volunteers, and during the Confederate invasion of Maryland he was under General McClellan's command. At the battle of Antietam he commanded the left wing. On November 10, 1862, he took command of the Army of the Potomac, superseding General McClellan, which position he retained until January 26, 1863. In 1862 the State of Rhode Island presented to him a sword of honor in testimony of his services at Roanoke Island. While in command of the Army of the Potomac he moved from the Rapidan to Fredericksburg on the Rappahannock, with a view to crossing the river at that point and moving thence upon Richmond. General Lee, however, took possession of the heights on the opposite bank before Burnside was ready to cross, and when, on the 12th of September, the Union forces crossed and endeavored to break the Confederate lines, they were repulsed after repeated attacks. For this movement he was severely criticised by several officers of high rank, whose removal he requested, tendering his resignation of the command if his request was not complied with. His resignation was accepted, and General Hooker succeeded him. In the following March he was in command of the Department of Ohio, and soon after assuming this position he arrested C. L. Vallandigham on account of his defiant utterances. pursuit and capture of Morgan's raiders also occurred while he had charge of this department, soon after which General Burnside undertook to drive the Confederates from East Tennessee; in this he was successful, and for it received the thanks of Congress. Late in September, 1863, the Ninth Corps, which had been detached from Burnside's command, was restored to it. In the mean time General Lee had sent General Longstreet to Tennessee with a strong force from Virginia. Burnside fell back to Knoxville, where he was besieged until the beginning of December, when the siege was abandoned on the approach of General Sherman with a detachment of General Grant's army. Burnside was then relieved from his command in the West, and in January, 1864, was restored to that of the Ninth Corps, with which he followed Grant over the RapidanGrant crossing May 4th and Burnside May 5th. The battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, and North Anna succeeded-the corps being now attached to the Army of the Potomac, under the immediate command of General Meade, Burnside waiving his seniority in rank. His corps was prominent in subsequent operations down to the siege of Petersburg. During the early part of this siege, Burnside's lines were close to those of the enemy, and opposite them was a strong redoubt forming an important part of the Confederate defense. Beneath this work General Burnside caused a

The

mine to be run, and blew it up on the 30th of June; but the general assault, which had been planned to follow, was not made, and the affair was a failure. Burnside then proffered his resignation, which was not accepted, but he was granted leave of absence, and not being recalled to active service he resigned April 15, 1865. As an officer he was much loved by his subordinates. After his retirement General Burnside was engaged in business in Rhode Island, having been a director in the Illinois Central Railroad Company, the Narragansett Steamship Company, and President of the Cincinnati and Martinsville Railroad Company, of the Rhode Island Locomotive Works, and of the Indianapolis and Vincennes Railroad Company. In 1866 he was elected Governor of Rhode Island, and was afterward honored with two re-elections. In 1869, before the expiration of the third term, when he was asked for the use of his name again, he publicly announced that he would not be a candidate for re-election. The following year he visited Europe, and was admitted within the German and French lines in and around Paris, acting as a medium of communication between the hostile nations, in the interests of conciliation. On his return home he was again summoned to public duties, being elected to the United States Senate as successor to ex-Governor William Sprague. When a similar election was required he was again chosen, and had entered upon his second term at the time of his death.

He

General Burnside resided periodically in Providence and Bristol, the latter being his summer home, and it was here that he entertained General Grant in the summer of 1875. died without family, his wife having closed her life in March, 1876. In the hearts of his friends and associates General Burnside's memory is preserved with the kindliest respect; the people of his State admired and trusted him, and the veteran soldiers delighted to honor the veteran leader on many a hard-fought field.

BURNSIDE, JOHN, born in Ireland; died June 29, 1881, at Greenbrier, White Sulphur Springs, Virginia. Mr. Burnside was at the time of his death one of the few millionaires in the South, and the largest sugar-planter in the United States. His reticence concerning his age leaves that point to conjecture, but it is supposed by his most intimate friends that he must have been at least seventy-eight when he died. Like many other men of large fortune in America, Mr. Burnside commenced life in extreme poverty, and from filling the humble position of clerk to Mr. Andrew Beirne, a merchant in Fincastle, Botetourt County, Virginia, he gradually acquired such importance with his employer as to be made by him the partner of his son in a wholesale dry-goods house at New Orleans. During a great financial panic, Mr. Burnside and his partner had the nerve to extend credit when other merchants refused all risks. In this way the firm of Beirne & Burn

side spread their business to the farthest points of the South, and laid the foundation for their remarkable future prosperity. Subsequently Mr. Burnside associated himself with another firm under the title of Burnside & Co. About 1852 he began to make investments in sugarplantations, first among which were those known as Houmas and Orange Grove, for which he paid $1,000,000. At the time of his death he owned ten of the most highly cultivated and best improved plantations in Louisiana, the value of his possessions being estimated at between $4,000,000 and $5,000,000. At the time of the war he owned 2,200 slaves, but, notwithstanding his heavy loss by their emancipation, he continued to accumulate wealth in the dry-goods business, from which he virtually retired in 1857. He was never married, and it is thought he had no relatives in this country. Among the distinguished guests whom he entertained were the Grand Duke Alexis, Dom Pedro, and General Hancock. Although not

noted for his public spirit, he was given to personal charities that he carefully concealed from the world, and in his own way he contributed largely to the prosperity of his immediate community. He was one of the first to try planting with free labor on an extensive scale, and his eminent success in the venture induced others to follow his example with similar results. Mr. Burnside kept constantly in his employment between two and three thousand persons, who were promptly and liberally paid. His money was spent chiefly in Louisiana, and his annual expenditure in New Orleans amounted to $300,000 in the purchase of plantation supplies. At the time of his last sickness he was arranging to have built on his plantation in Ascension a sugar-house to cost $100,000. According to the sugar report for the season of 1879-'80, the plantations now included in his estates produced 5,373 hogsheads of sugar and 9,074 barrels of molasses, valued at about $600,000.

C

mated as follows:

Landed property.
Improvements..

Total....

$4,000,000 2,000,000

$6,000,000

CALIFORNIA. The twenty-fourth session cultural property could with safety be estiof the Legislature of California commenced on January 3d. In the Senate, Lieutenant-Governor Mansfield took the chair, and William M. Johnston, of Sacramento, was chosen President pro tem. In the House, William Henry Parks, of Yuba, was chosen Speaker. The session was continued sixty days, as provided in the Constitution of the State, and adjourned on March 4th. More than eight hundred bills were introduced, but only fifty-one received the signature of the Governor. It was anticipated that the new Constitution would shorten and simplify legislation. It contains a provision against special legislation, and on this ground the length of the session was limited to sixty days. These anticipations were disappointed.

Among the measures considered was the repeal of the debris act of the previous session. This was defeated. The nature of the injury for which a remedy was sought in the passage of the débris bill was briefly stated in the "Annual Cyclopædia" of 1880. It arises from the effects of hydraulic mining, and has, thus far, most seriously occurred on the American, Bear, and Yuba Rivers. It consists in a practical burial of large areas under the mining detritus or "slickens" and sand. The property so buried is, in fact, so completely deprived of ag. ricultural value that in the opinion of competent judges it can under the most favorable circumstances be fit for nothing but raising swamp timber for from fifteen to thirty years. As to the extent of the damage done in this way, the State Engineer, in his latest report, declared that he believed the destruction which might be classed as direct in the loss of agri

The indirect damage to property is most apparent along the main streams-the Feather River, and the upper and lower Sacramento River. For the most part, the difference between direct and indirect damage to property is more in the degree of harm inflicted than in its character. This, however, is not invariably the case. The settlers along the lower Sacramento have, for example, expended millions of dollars during the past fifteen years in attempting to reclaim swamp and overflowed lands. The failure which has followed these courageous and spirited efforts must be ascribed to the constant operation of those natural forces which the processes of hydraulic mining put in motion, and which from year to year have been counteracting and nullifying the most determined attempts at reclamation. The State sold the swamp-lands on the condition that they should be reclaimed, and should remove obstacles which render the fulfillment of the conditions thus imposed by it impracticable.

The indirect injuries which may be traced without any doubt or difficulty to hydraulic mining are, however, very extensive. In all these cases the future can be predicted from the past. On the one hand are lands already covered with the flood of sand and débris. On the other hand are lands threatened with this flood. And the flood is continually advancing. The low lands of the whole Sacramento Valley

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