Democrat And Sentinel

As it will be impossible for us to receive the official returns of the election before next Friday evening, we have determined to go to press on our regular day of publication. We will most probably, however, before we go to press, be able to announce the result in this county and in the State. We will of course next week publish the official returns of the election in this County. While writing this, the battle is being actively waged in every election district in the State, & it will be hardly expected that amid the "shouting of the Captains and the waving of Plumes" we should remain entirely unaffected by the excitement that surrounds us. We have our favorite candidates, in whose success we feel deeply interested. But whatever the result may be, we are ready like a good citizen, to bow to the will of the majority fairly expressed.

The curtain is about to drop on the four first scenes of the drama. The last scene remains to be played. It is the most important of all, and will excite the interest of many who have thus far been indifferent spectators. The bold efforts of a disunion party, controlled by the men who counsel open resistance to the execution of the fugitive slave law and eulogize John Brown as a martyr in the cause of humanity, to get possession of our National Government, is well calculated to excite the alarm of all National men and Patriots. And nothing but united action on the part of the friends of the Union in the Northern States, will prevent them from being successful. The National men of our State will have it in their power to prevent the election of Lincoln & Hamlin, but in order to accomplish this, they must effect a thorough union at once. It will not do to neglect the work a single day after the present week.

The contest for local offices has been carried on in this County, during the campaign, with a degree of bitterness for which we can remember no parallel. Now that it is over, we hope that harmony and good feeling will reign in our midst once more. But we do not look for this at once, for,

"Long, long after the storm is past,

Rolls the turbid and turbulent billows."

Throughout, we fearlessly pursued the pathway to which duty pointed us, and we are ready to do so again. We are prepared to defend our course whenever it shall be assailed, but we hope the course of the "rule or ruin men" of our county, with whom we have been battling, will not be such hereafter as to render it necessary for us to allude to bygones.

It seems that a one sided account of the "public discussion" between Daniel McLaughlin, Esq., and the Editor of this paper, which came off on Monday evening of last week in the Court House, is to appear in the columns of the Mountaineer this week. We made no allusion to the discussion last week, supposing of course, that it would not be made the subject of newspaper controversy. It was quite natural for the Editor of the Mountaineer to assert that Mr. McLaughlin had the best of the discussion. But we think, we can say without egotism, that he was the only person present who thought so. We will await the appearance of that "communication" before making any comments.

The Stable of Mr. William Mills, in the West end of our Borough, was destroyed by fire on last Thursday night. The buildings in the neighborhood fortunately escaped uninjured. Supposed to have been the work of an incendiary.