The Sumter Banner

CORRESPONDENCE SUMTER BANNER.

September Days—Our Weather—City Items—Angel Gabriel—Pulpit and the Politics—Miscellaneous.

PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 30th, 1854.

Messrs. Editors: Intervening between the sultry summer season and the cold October days, the month of September has ever been a favorite with the denizens of our fair city. The "country folks" too, hail its advent with joy; for it comes rich in golden grain and abounding in luscious fruit. And though we in common with "the many" have complained of summer heat and burning suns, yet on this the last day of Autumn we look back to those days with a feeling of regret. Henceforth, naught but ice, sleet and snow will greet our eyes for many days. Thus Time's plastic hand changes all things.

The health of Philadelphia is very good at present. Some few cases of Cholera occurred this week, but among such a large and "medley" population such diseases will always prevail to a greater or less extent. Fortunately, the pestilence which smote Charleston and desolated Savannah scarcely touched our city. It was reserved for those cities of the sunny South to be visited by that epidemic which hurried off so many of their best citizens. With no ordinary degree of pleasure we state that Philadelphia did her duty in extending aid and relief to Georgia's Emporium of Commerce and trade. Charleston made no appeal to our generosity and charity; or a helping hand would have immediately been extended.

A few days ago, it became necessary to open a water pipe connected with the bath of a fashionable hotel in this city, to find out what obstructed the free passage of water. On opening it, a large fine eel and two small fishes were discovered, the whole party doing as well as could be expected under such circumstances. Some of your subscribers may doubt the correctness of this statement; but it is said by knowing ones to be true.

You may have seen in several of your Northern Exchanges that a law suit was pending between the Catholic Bishop and Trustees of Trinity Church of Philadelphia. Last week the case came on and the Bishop was successful. On Thursday, an election for Trustees was held and the Anti-Bishop crowd—as the "Ledger" terms them—were defeated by a majority of all votes.

The "Know Nothings," in whose defense we wrote the first article published in any Southern Journal and which originally appeared in the Sumter Banner—have spread like wild-fire all over this and the adjoining States. We have good reasons for knowing that several Lodges are in existence in South Carolina. So long as that Order is based on, and dependent upon the principles it was originally founded, it will flourish and prosper, despite the prophecies of its opponents.

The far-famed Angel Gabriel alias Orr whose violent denunciations of Roman Catholicism have provoked so many, and caused several riots, was arrested and taken before Mayor Conrad on a charge of disturbing the public peace. Mayor Conrad committed him to prison in default of trial, promising however to liberate him if he would leave the City. Orr has now hundreds of friends and apologists and thousands will rise up in his place to assert the right of speech in America—the right to expose and denounce the principles of Roman Catholicism! No doubt but that his Highness Bishop Hughes was greatly pleased at hearing that a poor, weak-minded, but zealous opponent had been thus silenced. We are no apologist for street-preaching further than this; public exposition of any doctrine or public denunciation of any false or erroneous belief is no crime. If those differing from Orr had ceased to attend his harangues, no difficulty would have ever occurred.

By the way, we see in several Northern papers that the Episcopal Church, by far the most moderate and Catholic in its political opinions of all the different denominations—that is at the North—has recently received large accessions to its membership, from one cause alone. Hundreds who became sick and tired of hearing political tirades from the pulpit "went over" to a church, within whose portals politics are never mentioned.

Our city papers are discussing the propriety of uniting with the Gothamites in erecting a monument to the memory of the late A. J. Downing. Every farmer, planter and architect in the Union should join willingly and cheerfully in this enduring tribute of respect to one of the most useful men, our country ever produced.

Governor Bigler in a long and well written letter has "come down" on the "Know Nothings" and Whig party in general.

Yours Ever,

QUAKER CITY.