Indiana Palladium 1825-11-18, Vol 01 No 46

              PRINTED AND PUBLISHED
BY '
M. GREGG & D, V. CULLEY,
ON EVERY FRIDAY
GENERAL ST. CLAIR.
General St. Clair was born in Edinburgh,
and came to this country in the fleet com-manded
by admiral Boscarven, in 1755. At
an early period of his life, he took up the
profesion of arms, and served as lieutenant
in the British army, under general Wolf, at
tteaking of hQuebec. He serveduring
the whole of the French war of 1756, in the
course of which he was honoured with the
friendship of generals Wolf, Murray, and
Mencton, under whose directions he learned
the art of war. After retiring from the Brit-ish
army, he settled in Ligonier valley, on
theh side of the Ligonier Old Fort, of which ehad ben the first comandant. In 173,
Richard Penn, lieutenant governor of the
province,apointed him prothonotary, and
register, and recorder, for Westmoreland
county, which ofices, with others he held in
1775, when he received a colonel's commis-sion
in the continental service. Although
this appointment was without solicitation on
his part, he assumed the duties of his new
station with promptitude, and alacrity; and
ehc re ruited six full companies, and march-ttbdehem
tho the vicyiniety of Quebec,
first of the next Ma y. in the campaign of
s7w1er7ved6 in ,Ci ahnatdea, hin company
ncdoelor ntheel Wordaeyrnse o,f ugenerals
Thompson and Sullivan ; and his knowledge
of the country, gained in previous war,
as well as his military experience, was of es-sential
advantage to the army. In the fall
of the same year, he joined general Wash-ington,
in Jersey, and first suggested that
memorable russe de guerre, which terminated
in the capture to the Hessians at Princeton,
tratoheen shvdinki ivnwge shepfdiirictsh
asrummy amnde trh eo cfountry. In the
h1,e co7ma7nded7 Ticonderoga, which
fort, being untenable in consequence of the
usanmdear lhlni sf ocormcme-and, was ab
odocfoc anuseniodmne, dew ari hltoeiacddh
otthabloiqhuym tio bem thertoewn up.on
eiTse mgilitaray tribtuhneal, thodwever inv
his conduct , pronounced, that although he
l-ost a post, he saved a state ; and all the well
co informed have unequivocally approved his nduct. He was in the ballle of Brandy-wine
as a volunteer, not having, at that time
any command.
When the army marched southward, he
was left in Pennsylvania, to organize, and
forward qutenhce ofe whi cht, hre aorriiveod at pYorkstown of that state, in conse-only
a short lime before the surrender of the
British army. From thence he went to the
south with a reinforcement to general Greene.
After the peace, he was a member of Con-goref
sths.a at mboddyp r; easnidd einnt
1788, he was appointed governor of the then.
North Western territory. In 1791, he was again oppointed a major general in the ar-my
of the United States.
In all the various stations and situations
of his life, afte r he became known to gener-al
Washington , he enjoyed the especial con-fidence
and friendship of that distinguished
patriot.
General St. Clair, in his domestic rela-tions,
felt the kinder sympathies of our na-ture
in their fullest force. In social life he
was much valued as a froemd/ His conver-sation
was instructing and interesting, enli-ened
by wit, and embellished by science .
p As a soldier and statesman, he possessed a iercing accuracy of mind ; and fearless of
censure from the short sighted and presump-tuous,
he looked to the results. rather than
to the immediate consequence, of his actions.
The resources of his mind were best devel-oped
in difficult and adverse circumstances
,a innd s oamltheo iunsgtha nfocertsune
hseemed determined to thwart his purposes is coolness, his courage, and his constancy
were above her reach.
Providence seems to have designed, that
the Amerrican revolution should disclos e ev-ery
species of greatness; and the subject of
this notice, after toiling with unsubdued res-olution
against disaster, and smiling upon
adversity, fulfilled his destiny by descending
to the tomb, a great man in ruins. The af-flicting
spectacle of his last days, smites the
heart with sorrow. The friend of Wash-ington,
the companion of his glory ; he who
by his counsel, turned the tide of battle, in
mtost hglomy peeriod of the revolution; he
who, in the winter of 1777, on the banks of
the Delaware, looking on the broken army
of libert y, beheld, at his word, the light of
enthusiasm gleam over the brow of misfor-tune
; he who, in 1783, before the entrench-ments
of York, standing by the side of the
fathers of his country, and participating his
feelings, saw the liberty of that country seal-ed
by the surrender of its foes, closed his life
in neglected solitude. On the summit of the
Chesnut Ridge, which overlooks the valley
of Ligonier, in which the commencement of
the revolution found him in prosperity ; on
this lonesome spot, exposed to winter wInds
as cold and desolating as the tardy gratitude
HoUR f his country, died major general ART
ST. CLAIR. The traveller, as he passed the
place, was reminded of the celebrated Ro-man
exile's reply : "Tell the citizens of
Rome, that you saw Caius Marius sitting a-mong
the ruins of Carthage." He is almost
in the rear of thegitnanla ongt gbaondi
mortality's last sojourn; but his great captain
has gone before to provide him quarters in
the sky.
GYMNASTICS The people of this land of roast beef and
plum-pudding, have not the slightest idea
that. in common with other nations, they la-bor
under the sore reproach of doing noth-ing,
absolutely nothing, for their bodies.
But the fact is in a Prospectus of Gymnastic
Exercises now before us, and, after a mo-merit's
reflection, we cannot gainsay it. We
certainly use our bodies ill, we give them
foul names, call them clay, &ca.nd the;n,
as vile earthenware vessels, we apply them
chiefly to kitchen uses, and do little more
with them than pot meats in them ; or else
we live in our bodies as men live in tene-leases,
and ments, which they have on short
never think of improving the premises, or of
adding to their means of accommodating us,
r'iIft lesshsall not live here long," is the th
reply to every suggestion of wisdom; and
then, when the tabernacle yields to time,
daisnadg rbeeecao- mes uncomfortable and
ble to inhabit, we thrust any vile doctor's
stuff into the breach es, just as though we
were botching an Irish cabin, and, like tin-kers,
generally make two holes in mending
one. Even in their best days men used their
bodies in this rackrent way, merely because
their time was short. We read that when
Methuselah waxed in centuries, as he was
lying on the ground bivouacking, as was his
custom, in the afternoon, an angel appeared
to him, and told him that if he would get
up and build him a house to sleep in, he
should live five hundred years longer. But
what washis antediluvian reply to so eligi-.
ble a proposal ? Why, in substance. that it
was not worth while to t ake a house for so
short a term! This is a type of the ways of
men. Tell a lazy citizen, with a face like
a poppy, to strengthen his body by exercise,
that he may live long in the land, and he re-plies,
"man is but a flower of the field," and
therefore he is content to emulate the seden-tary
habits of the sleepy weed he essential-
Iy resembles, andbgoes on nodding and bob-bing
his life away with a flaming counten-ance
and a drowsy head ; it is not worth his
ownhgi laes forsooth to make himself as str
a jackass for so short a span. Exercise of a
certain nature is indeed c onsidered good ;
that is to say, a walk before dinner, or just
so much, in short, as will prepare our earth-enware
vessel to hold an immense quantity
o f meat and drink, but as for taking systema-tic
exercise, for the purpose of developing
or improving the powers of the body, it is a
thing never thought of.
os- Mr. Carl Voelker, the writer of the Pr
pectus now before us, commences with the
following observations:
"For many centuries, education has been
exclusively directed to the developement of
the mental faculties, while the bodilypow-ers
have been entirely neglected. But all
who acted on such a principle did not suffi-ciently
take into account the intimacy of con-n.
ye x i o nF beotwrewn mhindo and bod
does not know from his own experience, that
the mind uniforml y participates in the con-dition
of the body ? that it is cheerful when
the body is strong and healthy, depressed
when it is conscious of bodily weakness.''
This is certainty true; for though we ne-glect
the training or education of our bodies,
as fond mothers neglect the training or edu-cation
of their pet children, yet we take
greatl y to heart any ill that may befal them
--W e are wanting in the discharge of our
duties to our bodies, but we do not in any-wise
lack affection for them, and the mind
s- ympathises in their distress, though it sel
dom forms any reasonable plan to avert the
evil. Professor Jahn, it appears, was among
tofhe first of the moderns who took the case
bodies under consideration, and having de-visted
a number of exercises and aranged
them systematically, he established a Gym-nasium
at Berlin, in the year 1810, which
was soon resorted to by several thousands of
pupils of various ages. "The ardent, real,
and infatigable exertion of this man," says
M. Carl Voelker, "his concise, powerful,
and persuasive appeals to his pupils, had
such an efect, that al vied with each other
in the endeavors to render their bodies
strong and active." M. Carl Voelker was
one of Profesor Jahn's pupils, and in 1813,
feeling himself sufficiently prepared for the
duties of a teacher, he establithed gymnastic
exercises at the academ y of Eisenach, and
at the university of Tubingen. In these es-tablisliments
under the system of Jahn-
" Weakly and sick persons (as those affect -
ed by consumption, resulting from asthma,)
recovered their health; and these exercises
were perhaps the onl y effective medicine to
tsi-he i r complaints. The judgment of phy
cians from all places w htheroese exercises
were introduced, concurred in their favora-ble
effect upon health; and parents & teach-ers
gave testimones, that b y them their sons
and pupils., and al young men participating
in theseibtesehcxoemseei mn, orrheckad-ing„
active, and graceful in deportment.''
The Prusian government and the Holy
Alliance, however, who admire no exercises
but the manual and platoon, discovering
something amiss in this practice of making
their pe opIe stron g, put down the establish-ments
we are told, and M. Carl Voelker
has been compelled to remove himself and
his system to this country, where we hope he
willmeet with al l due encouragement.
It appears from the printed sketch of the
exercise, that after a few lessons, a man of
any perserverance will step three English
miles in twenty or twenty-five minutes. The
kangaroos in New South Wales will, howe-ver,
always have the advantage of us we
fear in this particular, for, according to tra-vellers,
they make only three hops to the
mile.
"2. Running for a Iength oftdime, an
with celerity : if the p upil follows the given
rules in this exercise, and is not deterred by
a l ittle fatigue in the first six lessons, he will
soon arrive at making three English miles in
twenty or twenty-fivemhhIinaauvtedse.
pupils who could run for tw o hours inces-santly,
and without being muchout of
breath."
M. Carl Voelker soon puts any one in the
way of jumping his own height, and persons
who have a saltatory genius may hope to
l eap ten or eleven feet high.
"3 . Leaping in distance and height, with
and without stick : every pupil will soon con-vince
himself, to what degre the strength of
the arms, elasticity of the muscles of the
feet, and good carriage of the body are in-creased
by leaping, particularly with the
stick. Almost every one learns in a short
time to leaptfeene otr ehleigvehn. It is
equ ally easy to learn to leap horizontally
over a space three times the length of the
body—even four times that length has been
attained.'
We are particularly delighted with the
prospect of climbing upmasts oropes twen-ty-
four feet high at no distant day, and
should hope that in six months few people
will be so lazy as to think of using a stair-case.
u"4. Climbping mas ts, ropes and ladders.
Every pupil wil soon learn to climb up a
mast or rope of twenty-four feet high; and
after a six months exercise even thirty-six
feet. Climbing up a ladder is less easy ;
but with some perseverance a height from
twenty-four to thirty feet is attained. The
use of this exercise is very great in st ren gth-ening
the arms.
"5.The exercises on the pole and paral-lel
bars serve in particular to expand the
chest, to strengthen the muscles of the breast
and small of the back, and to make the lat-ter
flexible. In a short time every pupil
will be enabled to perform exercises which
he could not have thought himself capable
of; supposing only, that he does not deviate
from the prescribed course and given rules.
"6. Vaulting, which is considered one of
the principal exercises for the increase of
strength, activity, good carriage of the body
and augmentation of courage, which em-ploys
and improves the powers of almost all
parts of the body, and has hitherto always
been taught as an art by Itself, is brought to
some perfection in three months; and if af-ter
this time the number of pupils will be
sufficient to cover the expense, vaulting
over living horses shall be introduced, and
this exercise combined with riding."
Whenever an attempt is made to abate
the nuisance of the present game system,
the country gentlemen threaten to fall sick,
averring that field sports are necessary to
the preservation of their precious health,
and that if they have them not they will pine
away the victums of indigestion, loss of appe-tite,
heart-burn, flatulence, and thethous-and
ills set forth in advertisements of quack
medicines; but, by the aid of M. Carl Voel-ker,
we may hope to keep these worthies in
a sound state of body, without detriment to
the social system; and, further, it appears
that their minds, which have certainly de-rived
no sort of advantage from their hunt-ing
and shooting, will be benefited by the
proposed exercise. Great will be the plea-sure
to us to see our squires diverting them-selves
in this healthy and innocent manner,
taking a run of half a dozen miles, jumping
user a park wall, climbing up trees, likea
squirreI, and t hrowing themselves down a-gain
like cats, without any sort of personal
inconvenience, and then, perhaps, winding
up the morning's sport, by v aulting over
their horses, instead of killing them follow-ing
the hound,.
But while we are amusing ourselves with
the ideas which M. Carl Voelker's sche me
suggests,. we hope it will not be imagined
for one moment that we are inclined to ridi-cule
his poiect. On the coutrary, we think
ben unwise-that gymnastics h ave hitherto
ly neglected, and we shall be very glad to
see a fair trial made of the efficacy of these
exercises. It sounds whimisical to hearthat
any of us heavyl-eh meaey lbee dre np-eop
dered as agile as a good harlequin, but it
were very poor philosophy to pronounce a
thing impracticable, because itsems
strange. It is sufficiently clear that we do
not make the most of the capacities of our
bodies,(except in the one sense of contain-ing
the utomofs t pfoosiobled qu anitnity
them;) and although M. Voelker's distip-line
mainuynos ttt ooe nj uaobmulepr
dtyrarwinege roem twtind,ows from the s
it may materially develope the inert powers,
andooaunr scdiodrpeodrreaabl lcy to
strength. At all events, the thing is weII
worth the experiment; we cannot be a more
clumsy or a more ungainly people than we
are, and it is quite as well to try w hether
we are not improveable: if in the attempt
no we acquire the use of our limbs only,
great harm will be done.—London Mag.
A Paris paper gives the folowing account
of an incident which lately took place at
the Jardin des Plantes.
A man had introduced himself into the in-terior
of the menagerie. The keeper per-ceiving
him, ran toward s him, to make him
go out ; but at the same time the lion Atlas
whose cage was not well closed, raised the
grate adroitly, and left his cage. The keep-er
cried immediately to the imprudent man,
"place yourself against the wal, andkep
still, or you are lost" It is well know n that
it is necessary to show firmness and courage
before the king of animals. The man obey-ed,
the keeper followed h is example. The
lion walked forward and approached first
the keeper, but he recollected the friend
who brought him food, caressed him in an
affectionate manner, and passed on to the
stranger. Arrived before him, the eyes of
the animal sparkled, he raisedt his enormous
paws, and placed them on the man's sh oul-ders.
For some moments the lion remained
in that position ; he scrupulously examined
the man, who already thought himself his vic-tim,
smelt of him from head to foot, and after-wards
returned mechanically to his cage.
The grate was immediately shut. But the
stranger has not yet recovered from his
fright—his life is despaired of.
The following toast was lately given at a
public meeting: The Fair—while they cul-tivate
their external graces, may they not
forget that the spirit of the age is in favor
of internal improvement.
Indiana Paladium.
EQUALITY OF RIGHTS IS NATURE'S PLAN—AND FOLLOWING NATURE IS THE MARCH OF MAN.— Barlow
Volume 1.] LAWRENCEBURGH, INDIANA ; FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1825 [Number 46.