Staunton Vindicator

The annual session of this Institution was closed with the usual exercises on yesterday.

The large chapel of the Institution was crowded to overflowing with the elite of the town and surrounding country. And the exercises and examination, frequently interspersed with music, passed off with pleasure to the audience and great credit to the youthful students, both male and female.--After the examinations had closed, the audience was entertained by an address of remarkable grace and eloquence from the Rev. George B. Taylor, the orator of the occasion. When Mr. Taylor had concluded, the large auditory was held enraptured for full three-quarters of an hour by a speech from the Hon. Henry A. Wise. It is useless for us or any one else to attempt to convey the slightest impression of the orations of Mr. Wise. Replete with the highest flights of original and soul-stirring eloquence, blazing throughout with the fire of genuine and natural oratory, his every impromptu address incomparably surpass the studied and elaborate essays of the lecturers of the day.

"And although it has become the current cant of the day to cry 'raw head and bloody bones' at the idea of disunion, and to proclaim slavery a dead issue...we all know that the 'almighty nigger' is the idea more vigorously alive amongst us than any other--in fact is the question of the day."

The weather for the last few days has been very variable and disagreeable. Some of the farmers of this county have already commenced cutting their early wheat, and from all we can learn, that part of the crop has received no serious injury from the frost or rust.

We are requested to state that the Rev. Jas. A. McCauley, of Fredericksburg, will deliver a baccalaureate address before the graduating class of the Wesleyan Female Institute, at the Baptist Church, Staunton, on Sunday next, at 11 o'clock; and that the Rev. B. F. Brooke, of Baltimore, will deliver a literary address before the School, at the same place, on Wednesday night, the 29th inst. The public are invited to attend.

The crop of oats, so far as we have had an opportunity of observing, in this section, will scarcely be an average one; it is too short in the straw, although it seems to stand well enough upon the ground. The prospect upon the bottom lands is more promising.--Tenth Legion.

Day before yesterday two sons of Mr. Van were amusing themselves in front of their father's residence on Plum street, by jumping from a dray. Strange to say, both received similar injuries at almost the same time, which resulted in their death yesterday morning. Either from the overstraining or falling, in jumping from the dray, they ruptured their omentums or cauls. Robert Albert, aged fourteen years, and Theodore Lewis, aged sixteen years.--What makes this more singular is, that Mr. Van has lost all his sons by accident--the two above named being the last of eleven boys.