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4,947 wagons and abidances, and 53,396 horses, mules and oxen have been furnished.

WHAT THE SOLDIERS WOULD Cost. - It was proposed in the last Congress to raise, for the expedition to Utah, three regiments, consisting in all of 2,000 men, and some 500 other persons. What was the estimated expense for a single year? Here are the items-quarter-master's supplies, $2,427,000; subsistence, $344,000; pay, $1,077,000; arms and accoutrements, exclusive of horse equipments, $166,780, making a total of $4,289,547 for one year. A pretty dear whistle.

SOME FACTS ABOUT WAR.

The tax paid by the actual producers and quiet inhabitants of the world for the support of idlers and ruffians, titled and tinselled, who are kept by potentates for the game of war, is crushing.

It is horrid to observe how armies have multiplied since the Roman Empire. Rome kept Gaul with with six legions; but now that Gaul (France) keeps itself with more than half a million of troops. Rome ruled Britain with a garrison of thirty thousand men. Now Britain maintains an army of over six hundred thousand, and a fleet of ten thousand guns, with about ten sailors to a gun. Rome kept what is now Austria, with eight legions and that country now keeps itself, with over half a million of soldiers.

Reliable statistics make the number of fighting men, in the smallest division of the earth, to be

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Besides the above, there are several armies kept in Europe by smaller powers; and Turkey has nearly 400,000 troops in all. Ten men to each cannon afloat, will make 369,550; giving a total of over four millions of able bodied men set apart and maintained as public cut-throats and licensed pirates! And all these professed Christians!! and their chief employment is to kill professed Christians, and burn and lay waste Christian territories!!

Were cach of these men of blood to go to work, and earn fifty cents a day, it would add to the world's wealth two millions of dol'ars a day, and reduce the taxes almost to nothing. Nineteen twentieths of the revenues of the United States, are and have been, all peaceful as the country is, spent for war!

Soldiers become enormously wicked, and do the world more damage in this way than they do by their slaughters. For this and other reasons, the mortality among them is greater in the camp and barracks than in active service, and their ranks must be constantly recruited.

With a thousand such facts before us how few help the Society which seeks PEACE ON EARTH. Col. Herald. H. M.

OUR NATIONAL

FINANCES

FOR THE YEAR.

The receipts into the Treasury from all sources during the fiscal year ending 30th June 1858, including the Treasury notes authorized by the act of Dec. 23, 1857, were $70,263,869 59, which amount, with the balance of $17,710,114 27 remaining in the Treasury at the commencement of the year to $87,983,984 86.

The public expenditures during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1858, amounted to $81,685,667 76, of which $684,537 99 were applied to the payment of the public debt, and the redemption of Treasury notes, with interest thereon; leaving in the Treasury on July 1, 1858, being the commencement of the present fiscal year, $6,398,316 10.

The receipts into the Treasury during the first quarter of the present fiscal year, commencing the 1st of July, 1858, including one-half of the loan of $20,000,000, with the premium upon it authorized by the act of June 14, 1858, were $25,230,879 46; and the estimated receipts for the remaining three quarters to June 30, 1859, from ordinary sources, are $38,500,000, making, with the balance before stated, an aggregate of $70,129,195 56.

The expenditures during the first quarter of the present fiscal year, were $21,708,198 54, of which $1,910,142 37 were applied to the payment of the public debt, and the redemption of Treasury notes and the interest thereon. The estimated expenditures during the remaining three quarters, to 30th June, 1859, are $52,357,698 48; making an aggregate of $74,665,896 99, being an excess of expenditure beyond the estimated receipts into the Treasury from ordinary sources, during the fiscal year to the 30th June, 1859, of $8, 936,701 43. Extraordinary means are placed by the law within the command of the Secretary of the Treasury by the reissue of Treasury notes redeemed, and by negotiating the balance of the loan authorized by the act of 14th June, 1858, to the extent of $11,000,000.

ESTIMATES FOR THE NEXT YEAR.-The estimated receipts during the next fiscal year, ending June 30, 1860, are $82,000,000, which, with the estimated balance of $7,063,298 67, make an aggregate, for the service of the next fiscal year, of $69,063,298,57. The estimated expenditure during the year ending June 30, 1860, are $73,139,147 46, which leaves a deficit of estimated means, compared with the estimated expenditures for that year, commencing on the first of July, 1859, of $4,075,848 89.

In addition to this sum, the Postmaster-General will require from the Treasury, for the service of the Post Office Department, $3,838,728, as explained in the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, which will increase the estimated deficit on the 30th June, 1860, $7,914,576 89.

The public debt on the 1st of July, 1858, was $25,155,977 66. During the first quarter of the present year, the sum of $10,000,000 has been negotiated of the loan authorized by the act of 14th of June, 1858, making the present outstanding public debt, exclusive of Treasury notes, $35,155,977 66. There was on the first of July, 1858, of Treasury notes issued by authority of the act of December 2, 1857 unredeemed, the sum of $19,764,800, making the amount of actual indebtedness, at that date, $54,910,777 65. To this will be added $10,000,000 during the present fiscal year, this being the remaining half of the loan of $20,000,000, not yet negotiated. — President's Message.

SLAVE-CATCHING WARS IN AFRICA.

"There is" says Rev. T. J. Brown, a returned missionary from Africa, "one objection to the importation of such apprentices, which seems to me insuperable. The Africans generally have a deep aversion to emigration from their native country. Slaves are the only apprentices to be obtained in Africa, and destructive wars are the only means by which the African chiefs can obtain slaves to supply the demand for emigrants. The opening of the French traffic in apprentices immediately reproduced the slavecatching wars, which had almost ceased in every part of Western Africa. If the Southern States should adopt the French policy, this evil would of course be augmented.

Having resided and travelled in different countries of Western Africa for six years, I can testify, what no one can deny, that the battles and sieges which supply Europeans with slaves, or apprentices, destroy from two to four persons for every laborer who reaches the plantations in America. In one journey of sixty miles, I counted the sites of no less than eighteen towns and villages which had been laid in ruins to supply slaves for the markets of Brazil and Cuba. I found similar desolations in every country which I visited on the waters of the St. Paul's River, a hundred miles interior from Monrovia, on the slave coast generally, and on the waters of the Niger. On the third of March, 1851, I witnessed a battle between the slave-catching army of Dahomey, and the Egba people, in which the former were defeated, and left 1209 of their number dead on the field. The carnage was probably as great on the following day, in a running fight of fifteen miles, and a subsequent close conflict of two hours.

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The commerce of Western Africa is now worth more than thirty millions per annum. If the civilized nations of Europe and America would refuse to depopulate that extensive and fertile country, and would endeavor to promote peace and civilization among the people, the varied productions of Africa would eventually become a grand item in the commerce of the world. That the people are willing to labor, when they have a profitable market, is well known to every one who has been acquainted with the country since the partial suppression of the slave trade. In several districts, large quantities of land have been brought into cultivation, and several whole tribes have made decided advances toward civilization. But the unfortunate policy of France has again aroused the demon of war; and some tribes, who were foremost in the work of improvement, have turned their attention from agriculture to kidnapping."

SACKING OF ISTALIF.

In the Affghan war, 1842, we have a specimen of the way in which nations, reputedly Christian, treat their enemies : —

"On 25th September, General M'Caskill marched out with a brigade of about 4000 men, with battering guns, and a strong force of artillery, in the

direction of Charekar, in Kohistan, to a fort about fifty miles off. He reached the town of Istalif on the 29th, and immediately attacked it. The official accounts of the destruction of the fort restrict themselves to a narrative of the military operations, which appear as meritorious and brilliant as they were successful. (?) Istalif ordinarily contains a popula tion of about 15,000; thousands of people who had fled from Cabul on our advance, had here found shelter; and the troops defeated at Tezeen and Ghuznee, having apparently retired in this direction, there were said to have been 14,000 fighting men within the garrison at the time of our at tack. Upwards of 500 women, the only prisoners made by us, were captured; they were treated with respect, and afterwards set at liberty.

So soon as a sufficiency of provisions for the service of the troops was taken from the inhabitants, the town was directed to be set on fire, and the fortifications to be blown up. For two days Major Sanders, of the engineers, was engaged in directing the work of destruction, and for this space the place was given over to fire and sword. Not a living soul was spared, whether armed or unarmed; the men were hunted down like wild beasts; not a prisoner was taken; mercy was never dreamt of! All the bitterness of hatred was shown by the soldiery, both European and native. Whenever the body of an Affghan was found, the Hindoo Sepoy set fire to his clothes, that the curse of a 'burnt father' might attach to his children. It is said, indeed, that the wounded, when found alive, were in this manner roasted to death!

An immense quantity of plunder was secured, consisting chiefly of women's clothes, gold-laced shirts, embroidered trowsers and shawls, of ornaments, apparel, horse clothing, house utensils, and arms.

In conse

quence of its bulkiness comparatively little of this could be brought away: the rest was piled in heaps and destroyed by fire. We are imperfectly acquainted with the further progress of this brigade, though they continued another week absent from the camp. Charekar was said to have been destroyed before we reached it, so that the devotion of the people saved our army from one ignominious act.". ·Naval and Military Gaz., Jan., 1843.

MISCELLANEOUS.

EAST INDIA RAILWAYS. The total amount of the estimated outlay of capital required for the six lines of railway in the three Presidencies of India is, $170,000,000, and the total amount of capital already issued with the "Company's" sanction is $140,000,000.

AMERICAN RAILWAYS. The total number of railways complete in the United States is 271, and the number of miles in operations 21,528, constructed at a cost of $616,766,333. One hundred and seventy-four are in course of construction. The number of miles in operation on the surface of the globe is 40,344, of which 17,020 are in the Eastern and 23,324 in the Western hemisphere. The number of miles in the United States exceeds those of the rest of the world by the amount of 2,712 miles. The longest railway in the world is the Illinois Central, which, with its branches is 731 miles in length, and was constructed at a cost of $15,000,000. The State of Massachusetts has more miles of railway, in proportion to its extent of territory, than any other state or country on the globe. It has one mile of railway to each seven square miles of its geographical surface; and Essex county, with a geographical surface of 400 square miles, has 159 miles of railway facility, which is a ratio of one mile of railway to each three square miles of its geographical surface.

POWER OF STEAM. - President Hitchcock says there are in Great Britain, at the present day, fifteen thousand steam-engines driven by means of coal, with a power equal to that of two millions of men; and thus is put into operation machinery equalling the unaided power of 300,000,000 or 400,000,000 of men. The influence thence emanating reaches the remotest portions of the globe, and tends mightily to the civilization and happiness of the race.

THE INDIANS OF THE UNITED STATES. - The report of the U. States Indian bureau gives the whole number of Indians within our limits at 350,000, Over 393 treaties have been ratified with the Indians since the adoption of the Constitution, by which we have acquired 481,163,188 acres of land. The Commissioner thinks we have made mistakes in removing the Indians from place to place, in assigning them too much land, and in granting them too large annuities.

INCOME FROM OPIUM. - The East India Company has been wont to impose an anual tax of $5,000,000 on the production of opium in India. The whole commercial value has been $32,000,000 a year, the profits of which has been more than 200 per cent. In the last fifty years, China is supposed to have paid the Company $400,000,000 for opium!

SCRAPS FROM BUSINESS CORRESPONDENCE.

We often find our letters on business not a little instructive and encouraging. One, just received from Ohio, brings, along with other assurances of interest, two dollars from a venerable friend eighty-four years old; and another from a man of age and character in the heart of Massachusetts, with his annual five dollars, and his earnest "hope that the friends of peace will never cease their efforts for so desirable an end." To-day a thoughtful friend in Connecticut requests us to forward our periodical regularly to his son in college; and a few days since we were much gratified to receive from a teacher in Vermont her dollar for our cause, saying she "has opportunities, being a teacher, to impress the children intrusted to her care with the evils of war, and shall endeavor to improve the opportunities she has."

Besides such incidental proofs of cordial, habitual interest, we get now and then a clue to facts more suggestive, if not more encouraging. One friend up in Vermont says he has delayed his donation "that he might have a full opportunity to confer with his Pastor, and see if we could not raise a collection. I don't know as we can. He had forgotten even that our Association had passed a resolution to have the Peace cause presented to the churches.

But he is a good man, and will eventually come right.

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