Valley Spirit

The Easton Argus, in noticing the mob that destroyed the Sentinel office, at that place, remarks as follows:

It is gratifying to know that all well disposed citizens condemn the riot that disgraced our town in the beginning of last week. After reason has resumed her away over the pubic mind, our people begin to see how dangerous it is to invoke the spirit of mob law in redress of real or fancied grievances. Nothing can excuse such proceedings as we witnessed here.--They are disgraceful alike to these engaged in them, those who countenance them and the community in which they are tolerated. This is a land of laws, to which the publishers of public journals are amenable, the same as all other individuals. If they commit any wrong they can be reached in a legal way. There is a remedy provided by law, for the punishment of every offense in the catalogue of crime and no man is justifiable in taking the law into his own hands or encouraging others to do so. The man who either directly or indirectly sustains mob law, is an enemy to the cause of the Union and a foe to public order. We are carrying on a war to crush the violators of law in the South. If we follow their bad example and set all laws at defiance, at our own doors, in what respect are we better than they? We are now engaged in a war to establish the authority of the violated laws, and it is therefore an inconsistency as well as a shameful precedent, for citizens of the loyal States to adopt the violent practises [sic] of the rebels, which in the one case can be no more justifiable than in the other and which all loyal citizens condemn. In alluding to the late mobs in New England the Boston Post well says:

"These repeated riots are sowing the seeds of anarchy destined to destroy all the rights which raise an intelligent man above the savage--a Christian community above a barbarous one, and a civilized state above a congregation of freebooters. No matter what is the provocation, the violations of law in trampling upon the rights of person and property are alarming indications of the sway of unbridled passion, and the substitution of everything dreadful in the madness of revenge for that justice which the observance of law and order only can secure. People of N. England, beware! You are placing your feet upon dangerous ground."

BY REV. WM. M. CORNELL

Take one of your city young ladies,--give her the highest moral and intellectual culture,--let her excel in every study now taught in our schools; add to this, loveliness of disposition, amiability of temper, gracefulness of motion,--make her all that we admire in a young woman, so far as mind and heart are connected, and then let her be so far diseased that she can perform no active duty, and what does her intellectual and moral improvement avail towards earning an independent and honorable livelihood? Just nothing. She cannot do house-work, for she has not bodily strength. She cannot write, for her hand trembles.--She cannot read aloud, for it fatigues her, and makes her hoarse. She cannot teach,--that in which above all others females excel,--for it makes her head ache, and sends her home to bed. What is she good for? take one of these well educated young ladies, such as we often see around us: she is fit for nothing but to be the crooked-spined, debilitated, nervous, fidgety thing that she is. Why? The first, and most important step in her education has been neglected.

The fact that young ladies, educated as too many of them have been, are utterly unqualified to gain a livelihood, for want of proper physical culture, is one which meets us at every step. Parents are inexcusable for ever becoming parents until they have made themselves acquainted with the laws of health--the laws of our Creator which are fixed and unchangeable.

If in the education of females, they were properly instructed in the laws of their system, and judiciously trained to observe these laws, what a noble result would follow? How many children who now die at an early age, would live to grow up! How many nervous invalids would be cheerful and happy! How much suffering would be avoided! How much money saved! How much life better enjoyed!

But these are not all of the benefits that would spring from such a physical education as might and ought to be given to our youth. The greatest benefit, the richest boon from such a training would be found in the increasing stamina, the more vigorous constitutions of the present generation; and let this proper system of physical training be continued for a few generations, and the more than fabled "golden age" of the world would return, and we should have a race of men and women such as God intended should bless the world.

The most deplorable effect of neglected female physical condition, is seen when such girls enter the family relation; when they become mothers. They are wholly unable to sustain the duties and responsibilities that devolve upon them.

There is no doubt but that by an improved education, and more enlarged views of the laws of health, and obedience to them, the average duration of human life might be increased to seventy years; as it has, during the last two centuries, increased from an average duration of eighteen, to forty-five years. If life is worth anything, is not this worth thinking of? Will it not more than repay all the labors of the physician, the teacher, the parent, the journalist? The mortality from disease has diminished more than twenty per cent. within the last half century. Is not this worth naming? The man who says that we have labored in vain in hygienic measures to benefit our race, is a miserable economist, and void of common sense, or common honesty.

There seems to be a systematic effort on the part of some unscrupulous persons to circulate slanders in regard to the good people of Orrstown. To believe their stories Orrstown is a perfect hot-bed of treason, and the inhabitants, in and around it, a set of 'rebels,' 'traitors' 'secessionists' and everything else that it vile! To accuse one's neighbors of disloyalty to their country, and of being such vile characters, would, once upon a time, have been looked upon as very unChristian-like conduct, to say nothing of punishing the slanderers as the law provides, but in this LINCOLN era the largest liberty may be taken with men's characters, persons and property, and there is no redress, nor dare you raise a finger or utter a word against it. We know the people of Orrstown to be as loyal as any in the State, and will give more substantial aid to the Government, in all Constitutional means that it may adopt to restore the Union, than those who are denouncing them as traitors. There are no people in the land more patriotic than the inhabitants of Orrstown, and their political enemies cannot intimidate them or drive them from their loyalty by slandering them. What is the mighty offence that Orrstown has committed that it must be thus ostracized? A few copies of the N.Y. Day Book are taken there! What a heinous offence!! Was it a thousand copies of the New York Tribune, the paper that has made all the mischief in the country, it would all be right. Orrstown would then be considered a very loyal place. It might get up a John Brown rebellion on its own hook without damaging its character in the least, in the estimation of a single Republican paper in the country.

It is high time that these would-be Unionists cease their slanders about their neighbors. Do they wish to make the South believe that the North is full of secessionists? They won't go to war themselves and they think they must be doing something to keep up a show that they are very efficient in the cause of the Union. They think there is less risk in calling Democrats "traitors," than fighting the real traitors of the South, and they accordingly pitch in, behind our backs, on all convenient occasions. The result is that the Democratic party are getting about tired of it. There is no better way in the world to divide and distract the North than these constant efforts to slander the Democracy and place it in a wrong position. If any are really guilty, or even suspected, of treason and secession sympathies let the charge be made in the proper form and let them at once be arrested. How much more honorable this would be than to encourage mobs by cowardly inuendoes [sic] made behind one's back. So far as the Democracy of Orrstown, and every other part of the county, are concerned they will not yield to any one in the country in their devotion to the Union, the Constitution and the enforcement of the Laws. But when it comes to bearing patiently the abominations of our State Administration, they are incapable; when they see distractions and dissensions in and out of the Cabinet, paralyzing the bravery of our soldiers and squandering the means of the people, they will "talk out." When our brave and enthusiastic army is forced against an overwhelming foe to almost certain defeat by men who, as Douglas said, hope to accomplish Disunion by means of war, they protest. If Democrats were to say half the hard things that are said by members of the Cabinet, we would feel disposed to look suspiciously upon them ourselves; but there certainly can be no treason or secession sympathy in denouncing misdeeds and incompetency on the one hand, or defending the reputation and ability of men like Gen. Scott, whose whole life and every act and deed has proven them incapable of treachery on the other.

The Democratic party will stand by the Government in the pending contest with the rebels of the South, and will not be driven from their position by all the abuse that can be heaped upon them. The Republicans had much better turn their attention to the real Secessionists than to be constantly charging the Democrats with treason and thereby breeding dissensions and paralyzing the Union sentiment among the people of the North.

Mr. EDITOR:--I am a plain man and not much used to writing, but still I can give my brother Democrats a bit of advice that will be of use to them if they will pay attention to it. And my advice to them is to stay away from "the office of McLellan & McClure." I mean of course so far as politics or political movements are concerned. McLellan & McClure's office is a good enough place to go to on law business, but it is the worst place in Chambersburg to go to for politics. I need not go into an argument to prove this, as all my fellow Democrats in the county know that that office has for years been the very place where every plan has been laid to overthrow the Democratic party of old Franklin. Any Democrat who will go there for political advice now, will be an out-and-out Black Republican in twelve months, if the Black Republican party can catch green or rotten Democrats enough to keep it alive that long.

This new "Union" affair is just another Know Nothing trick. The Know Nothing leaders pretended that there was need of a new party, and they bamboozled a good many Democrats into joining them. And what kind of a party did it turn out to be? It disgraced everybody that belonged to it. It broke up the good old Whig party and would have broken up the Democratic party too if the great body of Democrats had not held off from it. But that plan to destroy the Democratic party did not succeed, and now our old opponents are trying at other. They want to get up a patriotic Union party! Well, let any Democrat join them who thinks he can't be a Democrat and a lover of the Union at the same time. But I think the tricky politicians who meet at McLellan & McClure's office will find out that the Democrats of this county are too patriotic and too good Union men to give up the old Constitution and Union Jackson Democracy and join the Union-breaking Black Republicans.

ANTRIM.

We notice considerable repairing and improving of the Roman Catholic Church edifice, in this place. The building is now surmounted by a handsome cupola, and a new roof of slate has the place of the old shingle roof. This week it is intended to commence the removal of the old pews and erect new ones, leaving a middle and side aisles. The exterior is to be repainted and made more attractive. A new bell of splendid tone will be suspended in the Cupola (it will be raised to its position, this afternoon, (Tuesday) at 2 clock. These alterations and additions have been made under the direction of Rev. Father McKee, pastor of the church and a Committee consisting of Messrs. Martin Cole, Alexander Martin, Simon P. Harbaugh and Joseph Deckelmayer and will cost about $1000.

On Tuesday evening last a white girl named Caroline Toms, from Adams county we believe, but who has resided in this place for a few months, gave birth to a child and deposited the body in the vault of a Privy at the residence where she was hired. Information of the occurrence was laid before the District Attorney who ordered the body to be taken up and an inquest held over it. The medical examination determined that the child though fully matured had never breathed. A warrant was issued for the arrest of the girl on the charge of fornication and bastardy and concealing the birth of a child.