IDE, JACOB. 



ILLINOIS. 



371 



nearly the entire population belong to the same 

 nationality. A realization of these hopes would 

 create a state of fully 3,600,000 inhabitants, 

 under the absolute control of the Croato-Servian 

 nationality, and which would not fail to be a 

 center of gravitation for the remainder of that 

 nationality which partly live in the principality 

 of Servia and partly in south Hungary. At all 

 events, there exists an irrepressible conflict be- 

 tween the tendencies of the Magyar and the 

 Oroato-Servian nationalities, the further prog- 

 ress and final solution of which will have a 

 marked influence upon the reconstruction of 

 Eastern Europe. 



The southern part of Austria, in November, 

 severely suffered from an earthquake which 

 was felt as far south as Pola and Serayevo. 

 At Agram more than 200 private houses were 

 irreparably damaged, while two churches were 

 in so dangerous a state that they had to be 

 pulled down. Part of the cathedral required 

 to be reconstructed. The palace and country- 

 seat of the Cardinal- Arc-hbishop of Agram, the 

 military school, and the Government cigar-man- 

 ufactory were half destroyed by the earth- 

 quake-shocks, and terrible damage was done to 

 the farm-buildings in the neighborhood within a 

 radius of about fourteen miles. There were no 

 less than nine shocks felt between midnight 

 on Monday, November 8th, and five o'clock on 

 Tuesday morning. On Thursday, November 

 llth, a fresh shock of so violent a character 

 occurred that the hall in which the Diet was 

 assembled was severely shaken. Nearly half 

 the population of the city fled in panic. About 



five miles from Agram a number of fountains 

 of hot water burst from the earth, but their 

 duration was only temporary. According to 

 an official statement made by the Burgomas- 

 ter of Agram, two persons were killed and 

 twenty-three injured. Four hundred persons 

 were without shelter, and many of them lacked 

 the necessaries of life. 



On May 23d the statue of Count Stephen 

 Szechenyi was unveiled at Pesth, amid the en- 

 thusiastic participation of all classes. Among 

 those present were Archduke Joseph and other 

 members of the royal family, the two sons of 

 Szechenyi, and a most brilliant assembly of mag- 

 nates and high functionaries of state. Count 

 Stephen Szechenyi, who was born in 1792, and 

 died April 8, 1860, is generally regarded as one 

 of the greatest statesmen of Hungary. He was 

 indefatigable and eminently successful in his 

 labors for the material and intellectual progress 

 of his country. He was opposed to the separa- 

 tion of Hungary from Austria, but aimed at a 

 regeneration of the country chiefly through the 

 aristocracy and in connection with Austria. 

 When the Cabinet of Bach, of which he was a 

 bitter opponent, ordered his house to be searched 

 for documents which were to prove him the 

 author of a book directed against the Ministry, 

 he was thrown into such a state of excite- 

 ment that he committed suicide. Count Emeric 

 Szechenyi, who was appointed in 1878 Austrian 

 ambassador at Berlin, and still represented that 

 empire in December, 1880. is a nephew of 

 Count Stephen. He is regarded as an intimate 

 friend of Prince Bismarck. 



IDE, JACOB, was born at Attleboro, Mas- 

 sachusetts, March 29, 1785, and died in West 

 Meclway, January 7, 1880, aged ninety-four 



S?ars and nine months. He settled in West 

 edway as a Congregational minister in 1814, 

 and retired from his pastorate in March, 1879. 

 His early life was spent in hard labor upon the 

 farm of his father, who opposed his obtaining 

 a public education ; after one year of prepara- 

 tion amid the interruptions of labor and teach- 

 ing, he was admitted to Brown University, and 

 graduated in 1809, at the age of twenty-four. 

 At Andover he graduated as a theological stu- 

 dent, and continued in the ministry for over 

 sixty years. He was an antislavery man of 

 decided convictions, but never violent or exces- 

 sive in the expression of his opinions ; on the 

 contrary, preserved a calm demeanor and judi- 

 cial balance which commanded respect and in- 

 spired confidence. In his sympathy with his 

 unfortunate son-in-law, Torrey, he deprecated 

 the rash measures urged by the latter for cur- 

 ing the evil of slavery. Even when age had 

 enfeebled his bodily powers, the clearness of 

 his thought and judgment survived. 



ILLINOIS. The history of the public debt 

 of Illinois commenced with the establishment 

 of the State Bank in 1821, whose issue depre- 

 ciated to 33 cents on the dollar. The first 

 funded loan was created in 1831 to retire these 

 notes.^ To complete the Lake Michigan and 

 Illinois River Canal, for which the State had 

 received a grant of lands from the Government 

 in 1827, and to carry out an extensive scheme 

 of other public works, the second State Bank 

 was created in 1835, and money was borrowed 

 on the State's bonds, until in "1839 and 1840, 

 when the State's credit was broken down and 

 this rash policy was suddenly arrested, the 

 debt, funded and unfunded, amounted to about 

 $12,000,000. From that time the struggling 

 State directed its efforts to honestly extricating 

 itself from its financial embarrassments. The 

 canal was surrendered to the trustees of the 

 bondholders, and the unfinished railroads were 

 offered for sale. In 1848 a plan of adjustment 

 was incorporated in a new Constitution. Ar- 

 rears of interest were funded. In the year 1853 

 the debt was at its maximum, and amounted to 

 about $17,000,000. In 1857, for the first time, 



