The Battle Of Lake Erie

The New'York Pust in its comments on the anniversary of that memorable battle by which the American naval supremaey on the lake was established, says : " The battle of Lake Erie was fought on the lOth of September, 1813, sixty-two years ago to-day. During the summer of 1813, Perry, who was then practically in command of the American naval forces on Lake Erie, although he was only twenty-seven years of age, had equipped a squadron at Erie, which consisted of nine ships. The British squadron numbered six ships, under the command of Commodore Robert Huriot Barclay, a brave officer who had served under Nelson at Trafalgar. The battle occurred near Put-in Bay, and the British neet began the attack. Perry, according to the chronicles, arranged his fleet so that the heaviest of his vessels lay directly opposite the heaviest in the British line. Sülecting the fiag-ship Detroit as his antagonist, he touk the leud in the Lawrence, a brig with twenty guns. The Detroit had nineteen guus. The guns of the Americaus were generally of greater calibre tban those of the British squadron, although they were nine fewer in number. The Americans were nally viotorious. Twenty-Beven Aunercans and forty one British sailors were killed, including a nuuuber of brave of floers. Detroit, which had been oaptured by the British was treed, and the wholo territory of Michigan was released froin the occupation of the British army, aud froui the horrors of Indian warfare. The bodies of the American oflicers killed in the battle were buried on Put-in Bay Island, where a monument was afterward erected to their memory. Perry's flag-ship, the Lawrence, and the Niágara, which was commanded during the engagement by Master Commandant J. D. Elliot, are sunk near Erie. History says that the Americans bestowed the greatest attentiou upon the wouuded prisouers, and a lasting friendship grew up between Barclay and Perry. The British commodore once declared at a public dinner in Canada, that ' Perry's humanity to his prisoners would alone have iinmortalized him ; ' and gave as a toast : ' Commodore Perry, the gallant and generous enemy. ' " Prof. Swing, in the Chicago Advance, thus comments upon the collapse of the Bank of California and the death of Ralston : " Death came by fate or by choice, and upon its dark background the public may now see the folly of the life. In the case of Jay Cooke and other ïllustrious human iailures, the hideousness of the frauds was bidden behind the fair words and philosophic smiles of the offendors ; but in the case of Ralston, death carne and poured upon the reckluss career a glooiny light. The broken bank is clearly seen in the broken heart. Death ohecks the coating of whitewtish which would have been spread over the Bank of California had Ralston lived on and chatted and amilod. The death of poor Ralston is a burning red light that now falls upon niauy other ruins near and far. We can all see the Northern Pacific railway and uiany other piles of debris in that red glaro from the Pacific coast. How long the public will continue to march up to marble counters and hand its earnings over to reckless adventurers, Heaven only knows. One of the consolations to be found in such suspending banks lies in the thought that the dear people seera to need severe lessons in this business of banking. When any of us, farmers and teachers and preachers, will go each week and deposit our earnings with a man who keeps forty fast horses and pours out money, as they said of Ralston, like water, we ought all to see the day soon when we shull step to our bank and find it as badly closüd as is the old garden of Eden." At a fair held in Ciucinnati the other day a cook stove, oiferod as a prlze to " the best and most expoditious cook " was awarded to Miss Ada Luek, who in thirty minutes " Oooked, and cooked well, potatoes, ohickeng, porter house steak, tomatoes aud corn, and made coffee, tea, pie and biscuit, and set tho tablo in the neatest style." A six-year old mare was on Saturday driven from Forest, Canada, to Strathroy and back, a distance of fiftysix miles, in five and a half hours, on a wager of f150.