The New York Herald Newspaper, December 15, 1867, Page 6

, * Keopers to know that provisions are pleaty, although 6 NEW YORK HERALD. BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR. All business or news letters and telegraphic despatches must be addressed New Yore Herat. Letters and packages should be properly sealed. Rejected communications will not be re- turned. THE DAILY HERALD, published every day in the year. Four cents per copy. Annual subscription price $14. ADVERTISEMENTS, to ® Limited number, will be inserted in the Westy Heratp, European and the California . No. 349 US SBRVICES TO-DAY. RELI01 ANTHON MEMORIAL CHURCH. —Rev Masses. Joan Corton switu snd B, B, Leacock. Evening, enurnch OF THE REPORMATION.—Rayv, Buows. Mornmg and afternoon. Assorr CHURCH OF THE STRANGERS, Mall of the Univer. eity, Wastingtoa square.—Rey. Da. Dekms, Morning and evening CATHOLIC — APOSTOLIC Passcurnc on “Tas Comine or tas Loro,” CHURCH.—E vanceiast Bvenine. CHURCH, OF THE RESURRECTION, Rutgers Col- loge.—Da. E, 0. FLaca, Morning. CANAL STREET PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH .—Morn- fog, afternoon and evening. CHURCH OF THE PURITANS.—Rev. Mattusw Have Burra, Evening. DODWORTH HALL. Nertie C Marnarp. Et TUALIstIC SocuRTE. EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF THR MBDIATOR.=Rev. Jaucs BE. Homans, Moruing and afteruoon, MASONIC HALL. Morujng and event: NORTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCI.—Rer, Tuowas Brussr, on “Tus Kusronsinicitixs of Cury Lire,” Evening. —Tae Association oF SrinitvaLists, SEVENTEENTH STREET METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCL.—Ruy. Wa. P. Corsit. Morning and evening. ST. ANN’S FREE CHURCH.—Rev. Brenor Arxixson. Evening. ST. JAMES CHURCH.—Lecrene oy Rev, Farner Youra. Evening. STANTON STREET BAPTIST CHUR 1. G. Wea. @on, before the “Youre 's Mission Soviet’ Morning. THIRTY-FOURTH CHURG Rev. Dr. Rrevaex, MuMORIAL ox “Tue Late Mes. Rev. Cuxstomuge Hunt.” Evenio, UNIVERSITY, Washington square.—Bisuor Sxow ox “Jomua anp His Fetiows."” Afternoon, York, Sanday, Decembor THS NEWS. EUROPE. ‘The sews report by the Atlantic cabie is dated yester- day evening, December 14. The London press was unanimous in a call for vigorous and severe measures on the part of the gov- ernment against the Fenians, The police reported three persons killed and forty wounded by the Cierkenweil explosion, The Fenian Kelly, who was rescued in Man- ‘wheaster, is said to be in London, and to have directed the guopowder plot. The prisoner Colonel Burke was up for farther examination of his caso at the Bow Street police office. He voluntarily denied any know- Yedge of the explosion. The two men with the woman arrested at the time of the explosion were examined before the magistrates No actual fact was proven against them, and they wore remanded. The inquest on the bodies of the deceased was in Progress, The new constitution of Austria has been voted in the Legislature. The English captives in Abyssinia were in good bealtli, Four thousand Egyptian soldiers had joined the English and active war preparations were going on. sols were at 92%, for money, in London in the afternoon, Five-twenties wore at 717% in London and 76 11-16 in Frankfort, In the Liverpool cotton market middling uplands was a 6% a 7% penes, Breadstuffs firmer. Provisions Ww (aout marked charge, MISCELLANEOUS. Our apecial telegram from Cuba states that it had been tically reported from Madrid that the islands of wba and Porto Rico had been offered to the American fovernment by the Spanish authorities for $150,000,000 ip gold. dur special telegrams by the Cuba cable contain news Mexico, St. Thomas, Porto Rico, Hayti, the French jo3 and the Virgin Isles, The Mexican news isto the 4h inst, It is repeated that Romero will probably suc- coed Do Tejada in the Ministry, The Danish proclama- ‘on at St, Thomas concedes two years’ tine to the in. Haditants to change their nationalities, General Montes, Smprisoned by Salnave, President of Hayti, had been k:lled by the jailer. Montes’ brother was compelled to Jook on while the murder was committed. Tho town of “Bassetorre, 10 Guadaloupe, is reported to have been Durned down. Commodore Bissell has officially notified the Navy Department of the joss of the sieamer Monon, Bho was lifted by the waves over the warehouses in the town of Frederickstadt, St. Croix, during the late terri. bio oarthquake, and landed in the streets, é Io the Constitutional Convention yesterday, the re- port of the Committee on Salt Works, favoring the romoval of the prohibition agaixst the sale of salt, was received. A resolution providing for a recess on the 234 instant wotil the 2d proxime, aad a final adjourn NEW YORK HERALD, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 15, 1867.-TRIPLE SHBRT. Bethany College, West Virginia, was burned dows yesterday, The United States flagship Piscatags, @estined to re- eve tho flagship Hartford, of the Asiatic squadron, Proceeded down to the lower bay yesterday and anchored, A suit was commenced yesterday in the United States G:reuit Court, by the Aling of equity on behalf of Horace B. Tibbets, against Cyrus W. Field, Peter Cooper, Mosos Taylor and others, directors of the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company, to recover stock originally owned by plainti company. The case, 8o far as developed, found in the law reports of the Heaa:o this m: | and promises to be very interesting. The stock market was dull but firm§ yesterday. Gov- ernment securities were heavy, Gold closed at 154. Extreme quietude was the chief characteristic of the markets yesterday, the transactions in almost al! arti- cles being confined 10 the pressing wants of buyers. Cotton was depressed by the cable advices; prices were no lower, however. Coffee was dul! and nominal, Oo ‘Change flour was exceedingly quiot, but firm; was dull, but more frmiy 2c. a 3c, under a good demand and a acarcity. Oata were firm and in better demand. Pork was a trifle more active, but closed weak, Beof and tard were quict and heavy. Freights were dull and re quite nomi- mal. Naval stores were less active, but prices were Steady, Yetroloum was quiet at former quotations, Highly Important from Havana—The Spanish Ofer of Cuba and Porto Rico— The Pressure of Manifest De: The intelligence which we publish this morn- ing from Havana is of the highest significance and importance. Thus it runs:—Spain offers the magnificent island of Cuba and the pretty island of Porto Rico to the United States for the sum of one hundred and fifty millions of dollars, in gold, in three equal payments—one cash down, one next year and the third at the end of six years, The news has, naturally enough, created a great excitement in the “ever faithful island,” the extinguishment of slavery being ene of the consequences - in- volved in the annexation. It seems, however, to be regarded at Havana as certain that tho bargain will be completed forthwith, consider- ing the enormous value of the islands in pos- session of the United States. It is not a difficult matter, we think, to understand the why and the wherofore of such an offer from Spain at this crisis. Profitable as these islands are to her Most Catholic Majesty’s government, her hold upon them is precarious and uncertain. With any little breeze of war, involving the balance of power in the Gulf of Mexico, they may slip through her fingers. Moreover, the cession of St. Thomas to the United States has the appearance of a strategical movement, which, in the event of a rupture with Spaip, will enable us on a call at sunset, with a heavy squadron from St. Thomas on the one side and from Key West on the other, to seize both Porto Rico and Cuba by sunrise the next morning. Manifest destiny, or the laws of gravitation, point to the annexation of Cuba eventually to the United States. Peace or war, in the course of events the island must be ours. The American people are as firmly possesacd of this idea as are the Italians of the manifest destiny of Rome. Spain, looking thoughtfully into the subject, has probably concluded that now is her appointed time, and that there is danger in delay. Again, her extravagances, resulting from her American discoveries and colonies and the enormous amounts of gold, silver and other materials of wealth derived therefrom in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, had left her, like the Roman empire in its time, so enfeebled from her debaucheries that when in the sixteenth century her American colonies struck for in- dependence she lost them, from Mexico to Peru, and all their vast contributions to her treasury. Thus, nearly fifty years age ber American colonies were cut down to Cuba and Porto Rico, and from these during all this time she has largely depended for hor supplies of ready cash. The luxurious, extravagant and idle habits of Spain, government and people, we say, contracted from the abound- ing wealth poured into her coffers from her American possessions in the days of her power and glory, have reduced her from the splendors of Philip the Second and his invincible arma- da, to the pride, the gallantry and the rags of Don Cesar de Bazan. Indastry in Spain itself has relapsed into general idleness; the people are poor, the government is bankrupt, and has so far exhausted all means of raising the wind that the slightest increase of taxation develops a revolutionary conspiracy. In this extremity can we wonder that she offers to sell the goose that lays her golden eggs. Don Cesar must have his dinner, with his bottle of wine, though it may cost him the sword at his side. Well, if her Most Catholic Majesty has au- thorized this offer for the cession of her last remaining American colonics to the United States, for so much gold, what are we to do? The islands are worth the money; but where is the money to come from? With a hard mont om the 7th, was tabled. The Conveution inen ad- Journed to Monday evening, Statistics relative to the Brovet system show the total Bumber conferred since the commencement of the war @o be three thousand five hundred and twenty-seven, for various reasons. Among the recipients are included commissaries Ordnance officers, quartermasters, chap- Jains and surgeons, few of witom ever iooked into the Herato this morning will be found a series of articles on trade and the finances, the roal estate, provision and dry goods markets, and the manner in which revonue seizures are made in the Motropolitan district, Curious statistics and useful data roiative to trade and the finances will be f of inter. ext to our merchants, and it may be interesting to house- too sale ia not active, because wholesale dealers are Dolding back fora favorable change, and that there is | almost es corlainty of a reduction in rents by the next moving day, ‘The democrats in the California Legislature are still Dalloting ia caccus for a Senator. The republican mem- bors bave agreed upon Judge Brown. They endorse G for President, A store was lovied apon Avianta, Ga, yesterday, altho passed tho Convention suspen ‘Whon Goneral Pope was appealed to torfere, om the ground that tne ordi poaded such levies and did not forbid their being made. A reservoir in Douglass, Mass, broke on Friday night, and washed away one hundred yards of railway. A man was awoke by Gnding bis house afloat and eiarmed the neighborhood, thereby preventing an acci- deat to tho train which was due at five o'clock yester- day morning Charles D, Taller, the alleged bank defauiter in Hart- ford, was yesterday sentenced to five years’ imprison- close1 by the Sheriff ia an ordinance bad just winter setting in they are at Washington dis- missing scores of poor female clerks in order to save their pititul salaries to the Treasury, while millions upon millions are lost in whis- key frauds upon the revenue. We are to pay seven millions two hundred thousand dollars in gold for Alaska, that polar bear region, where it rains or snows three hundred days in the year, and where over a large portion of that immense country they have a wintry night of three months’ duration. We are to pay the same sum of money, or more, for St Thomas and two or three other neighboring little islands, which may be turned inside out by a volcanic eruption, or swept off clean any day by a tornado ; and we are burdened with twenty-five hundred millions of debt on account of our late Southern rebellion, and taxed to the utter most to make both ends meet. Where, then, are we to get these one bandred and fifty millions for Cuba and Porto Rico, if we can get those lovely islands at that figure ? We venture to say that a considerable por- tion may be derived by the Treasury from the undeveloped mines and forests, and the unap- propriated lands of the islands themselves, de- ducting our losses from the loss of the tariff on Havana cigars and other articles. We sup- pose, however, that our negro worshipping radicals in Congress will consider the emanci- pation of the slaves ef Cuba and Porto Rico and the complete extinction of the African slave trade cheap ata hundred and fifty mil- ment, In the Virginia Convention vesterday sumerous reso- futions of inquiry were adopted relative to educational matters, the franchise and the test oath. The question ‘of the intimidation of voters was referred to @ com- mittee. A fight between negro and white people cecurred !n Aiberteos, Ge, recently, in which « sheriff was killed. Terrible distress, amounting to starvation in some paees, pro voile in Louisiags, lions, and that, with an eye to trade, our mer: chants would raise the first fifty millions as a loan at a good interest, In any event, if the offer has been made as reported, we time to*lose in siriking « bargain England and France hear of this matter there will be some diplomatic hedging with Spain which may oat off our opportunity. The Fine Arte tn America. The low prices which have been brought at certain recent picture aales are due, we think, to other causes than an alleged lack of interest in art. However prejudicial to art these causes may be, at least temporarily, we hope that they will cease with the immediate effects of our recent civil war. This is too great a coun- try, and its people are endowed with too great ® recuperative power, to remain much longer under the influence of these causes; and as soon as they shall be removed by the energy of our citizens and by the “sober second thoughts” of their representatives in Congress, we may expect to see art share in the general revival of all the forces which constitute our national life. The war itself has opened a fresh and wide fleld for the American artist. Its kaleidoscopic aspects offer innumerable subjects for the pencil. At present, indeed, we must for the most part content ourselves with what may be termed the pictorial annals of the war. But if each of the many artists who accompanied either the federal or the Confederate armles were to reproduce with fidelity the scenes which he has himself witnessed in camp, in the bivouac, onthe march or in battle, we should soon accumulate abundant materials for the future historians of the war on vanvas. “Give us no more battle pictures,” once cried Charles Sum- ner, in the antediluvian days, when he was an apostle of peace. But hundreds of battles have since been fought on American soil, and it is not unfitting that due records of these stirring scenes should be made by the artist. The war, moreover, occasioned greater fa- miliarity with the boundless variety of Ameri- can landscape than had previously been pos- sessed. Tho eyes of our landscapists have been opened to the fact that richer themes for their skill exist than can bo found in their wonted haunts near Lake George, or in the White Mountains, or even along the shores of the lordly Hudson and in the picturesque valley of tho Connecticut. They have discovered new poinis of view for pictures throughout the South and the Southwest—from Harper’s Ferry, the valley of the Shenandoah, the Falls of James river, the twice historical Peninsula, and the Wilderness, to the rice lands of South Caro- lina, the swamps and “pine orchards” of North Carolina, the cotton and corn fields of Ala- bama and Mississippi, the mountains and val- leys of Virginia, Georgia and Tennessee, to the sugar plantations of Louisiana and its bayous, where one sees the beautiful live oak, the waving cypress, the yellow hickory, the fan-leaved palmetto, the broad-leaved mag- nolia and the slender cane, together with the sweet gum and common oak smothered in creepers and Spanish moss, to the “fair Ope- lousaa,” with Prairies and forests of fruit trees— Under the feet a garden of flowers, dnd the bluest of heavens r Bending above; and, still further, to prairics “stretching far into Texas, even to the wild country of the Comanches.” Eastern Tennessee, the Switzer- land of America, would alone supply a land- scapist with materials for a lifetime of study. The Rocky Mountains and the partially ex- plored regions of the Pacific slope open yet wider prospects for American art. American life, moreover, must no longer seem so prosaic to the eye of an artist agit uyod to seem. The features of the heroes produced by the war must be presorved by portraiture for future generations. From the palatial dwelling on Fifth avenue to the distant hut of the Western pioneer as interesting interiors can be found as Dutch skill ever minutely de- picted. Our public meetings and the gather- ings at the polls on election days, to say nothing of the lively scenes of the present sleighing carnival, might keep a dozon Hogarihs busy. “And nature has lavished beauty enough on American children and young girls to give immortal fame to any artist who succeeds in doing justice to it. In fine, the American artist cannot tack for subjects, and notwithstanding the temporary financial depression there is ample wealth in the United States, and we may hope there will be ample culture, to insure bim an abundant reward for greater efforts than he has hitherto made in his chosen field of labor. The painter, the sculptor aad the architect must each find exercise for the highest talent in supplying the growing demands of society in our great republic. The Late Strect Fracas—IIae Society No Rights ¢ The inquest upon the body of Thomas Sharpe, killed im the late fracas on Broadway, elucidated testimeny which entirely substan- tiated the history of the case already laid be- fore the public through the columas of the Heraxp, even to the minutest detail. The ver- dict might have been anticipated, because there were literally ‘a cloud cf witnesses ” to the transaction; but a new question arises as to the disposition of the parties concerned. Two of the parties have been digmissed—one upon hie own recognizance, and another with- out claim upon him at all to answer for his part of the responsibility. In an ordinary street fight, resulting in death, all the princi- pals concerned are generally held to satisfy the law ;. but there appears to be an exception in this case. Mr. Sharpe declines to make any charge against Mr. Leon, and Mr. Kelly declines to make any charge against Mr. Sharpe, although Leon was unquestionably engaged im an assault, and Kelly had a bullet lodged in his head by the pistol of Sharpe. These are facta admitted by the delinquents and proven by the sworn testimony of many witnesses; yet the District Attorney di- recta the magistrate to discharge both Leon and Sharpe. This may very well as a friendly arrange out be tween the combatants; but has society no rights in the matter? Is indiscriminate pistol shooting in a crowded thoroughfare to be permitted because the persons engaged in it do not choose to prefer charges against each other, but rather elect to make a friendly com- promise? We shoild think that the law and publio safety ought to be consulted in the business and that the representatives of the law ought to interpose. This shocking scene of violence and bloodshed, in which many lives were exposed, was witnessed by a num- ver of citizens. Surely some of them, acting in the public interest, might be found to in- stitute @ prosecution that may at least bring the question to @ solution, whether hot tem- pered individuals can trifle with human life in one of the most public highways of the metropolis to satisfy their private quarrels, and be dismissed without rebuke, because they are willing to compound the affair be twoen themsolvos. In other words, has society no rights in a case like this? Can it not pro- tect itaglf whether the delinquents are disposed to hush the matter up or not? Earthquakes aad Volcasces. We published on Tuesday special telegrams to the Hunary reporting the continuance of the earthquakes at Porto Rico, one hundred and four‘een shocks having been experienced there within eight days; and also a rumor, which, however, is contradicted, that an earth- quake took place at Caracas, in Veneauela, at daybreak on the 14th ult, Tho letter of our special correspondent at Panama, published by us on Tuesday, fully describes this erup- tion, which, as our correspondent remarks, was “undoubtedly connected with the series of similar phenomena witnessed all through the West Indies.” Nothing is more striking in the history of great natural convulsions than the constancy with which volcanoes and earth- quakes attend each other. This is the best proof that they are due to a similar origin— “the energy of elastic vapors struggling to find a vent from beneath the surface of the earth.” On the same night that Lima was destroyed by an earthquake four new volcanic vents were opened in the Andes, The earthquake at Lis- bon in 1755 was speedily followed by the most violent eruptions that ever afflicted the world.. Within one short month after tho de- struction of the city of Caracas the vol- cano of St. Vincent burst into activity, and at the momentit broke forth we are told that the earth was shaken to the extent of nearly twenty thousand square miles. It would seem~ that these examples of tho widely extended sympathy between earth- quakes and volcanoes are about to be paralleled in the West Indies, Contral America and South America. Elsewhere we have adverted to the simultaneous explosion of wars, revolu- tions, earthquakes and volcanoes, as’ indi- cating an inexplicable sympathy betweon matter and mind, and the subjection of both to influences no leas mighty than myatorions, The researches of modern science, especially those relating to electricity, may yet lead to the discovery of the grand law which regulates all these strange perturbations of naius. The fact that hurricanes, earthquakes and + slcanic eruptions have either accompanied or followed the recent meteoric shower is suggestive of outside astronomical influences at work upon our globe, as well as of inside fires. A private correspondent who has been deeply interested in our special telegrams from the Weat Indies, and’ who saysthat the Heravp editorials on our planetary convuisions “have thrown a flood of light upon the subject,” arges us to invite to it the special attention of all savans throughout the world. He calls upon us “to pull all the electric wires around the globe for the purposa of arousing the attention of all the observa- tories.” Ho thinks that our frequently pro- posed “storm bureau” might render essential service to the scientific inquirers whom ho wishes us to stimulate to redoubled vigiiance and study, and he proposes to “the astrono- mers, the meteorologists, the geologists, and all the other philosophical ‘ists,’” the follow- ing questions:—“What causes, at present, the presaure and feverish vibration in the atmos- phere around the globe, as exhibited in narricanes, typhoons, tornadoes and cyclones, in their various tempestuous classifications? And what causes the agitation within the centre of our globe as indicated by the general eruption of volcanoes and earthquates 7! Our correspondent alludes to our statement of the theory in which Professor Loomis and Mrs. Somerville concur. “They commit us all con- jointly,” he says, “to a gigantic boiler explo- sion of our comparatively small planet, when wo all, individually and collectively, are to be suddenly precipitated, like a wholesale meteoric shower through vast space, to be ignited and con- sumed through velocity in motion, like so many meteors disappearing like so much vapor.” So far as the explosive theory of Professor Loomis and Mrs. Somerville is concerned, it explodes itself in consequence of the fact that voleanic eruptions are provided for by the laws of gravitation. Volcanic eruptions are so many safety valves against distarbances of the equilibrium. Our correspondent is remiaded by our special telegrams concerning the continued disturbances at Porto Rico of the fact that at the southern extremity of Italy, in Cala- bria and in Sicily, withirt less than four years, from 1783 to 1786, thousands of earthquake shocks were experienced, compared with which the recent disturbances in the West Indies dwindle into comparative insignificance. Atany rate, he is evidently not frightened into beliov- ing that these are signs of a speedy end of the world. Hugh Miller, in his “Lectures on Geol- ogy,” somewhere expresses his belief that our planet was in the earlier ages greatly more plastic and yielding than in these later times, and that the molten abyss from which all the Plutonic rocks were derived—that abyss to whose existence the earthquakes of the historic period and the recent volcanoes so significantly testify—was enveloped by ® crust compara- tively thin. Like the thinice of the earlier winter frosts that yields under the too ad- venturous skater, it would not support great weights, &c. We might infer, however, from the recent displays of volcanic action towards the equator that the earth’s crust is still alarm- ingly and especially thin in that direction, if it were not a fact that equally startling volcanic displays occur at different points all the way “from Greenland’s icy mountains to India’s coral strand.” Iceland, for instance, forms a volcanic region by itself Although it may not boast of any volcano which, like Stromboli in the Mediterranean, has been uninterruptedly active from the dawn of authentic history, “constituting ® permanent fiery beacon to sailors on the adjoining seas,” yet, according to Fitch, there is clear evidence that from the beginning of the twelfth century there has never been an interval of more than forty and very rarely of twenty years without either an eruption ora great earthquake. Some erup- tions of Hecla have lasted six years without ceasing ; and the greatest eruption on record proceeded from Skaptar Jokul, in 1783, when the lava flowed in two nearly opposite streams, fifty miles'in one direction and forty in the other. This eruption did not cease entirely until the end of two years. Twenty villages and more than nine thousand lives were destroyed by it. On the 29th of August last, one of the most extraordinary volcanic erup- tions ever witnessed in Iceland, took place on the north side of the Skaptar Jokul. Perhaps Mr, Seward would not have purchased Wal- assta if, as woll ss the Wost [ndia islands, it could not boast of volcanoes which, although covered for two-thirds of their height down- ward with perpetual snow, have been seen in eruption. Our correspondent calls attention to a curious astronomic vision of Frederick Sehle- gel, the first hint for which Humboldt olaims that be gave to Schlegel in a conversation with him on the certainty that the Southern cross would reappear in Germany, where it had already been visible, rising ten degrees above the horizon. “The oross,” says Hum- boldt, in one of his letters to Varnbagen von Ense, “began to disappear in Northern Ger- many two thousand nine hundred years before our era.” On his death-bod Schlegel re- vealed to Ludwig Tieok his astronomic vision predicting that all the stars of the first magni- tude would very soon leave their places, and, moving towards each other, “would form formidable cross.” Now, Humboldt asserts “that he told Schlegel so” in a conversation with him at Vienna, And we naturally ask, “Is this all a myth?” Or, if not, then we must call upon astronomical calculation to settle an affair of such tremendous importance. Will the savans please answer this question:— “Ig there on the astronomical maps the slightest perceptible change in the constella- tion of the heavenly bodies?” And this other question :—“ Are the unusual and general atmospheric vibrations and violent symptoms terminating or not?” Our special telegrams attest that they are more active and more wide- spread than when they were first announced. Nicaragua alone has eighteen volcanoes of its own, and if they all break forth one after an- other it can do its full share either in the general explosion or in preventing it “by lotting off steam” and “ preserving the equilib- rium.” This, our corrdspondent believes, is the object of volcanic eruptions, “ which are,” he gays, “ao many safety valves against disturbances of the equilibrium.” With him we await with interest the report of M. Del- lisier (who predicted tho convulsions in the Virgin Islands) to the French Academy of Sciences. And we call upon the astronomers of the H rachel and Arago school, who are “constan:'y peeping, through improved and strengthened tnstruments,” to favor us with the res'ts of their observations. The United Saws wave as yet shown no indicacations of volcanoes within their borders. Never- theless we have had violent. earthquakes like that which, in 1812, convulsed, at New Madrid, the Valley of the Mississippi; and our late civil war was an explosion of forces that partake of the volcanic and deatruotive nature of the material forces that occasion eruptions and earthquakes. The Oratorie Season. Tho very highest form of music and the drama is oratorio. “If you doubt, go listen to the ‘Creation,’” says an inspired writer, “or any other sublime oratorio, and mark the po- tency of many impassioned scenes upon a people who as yet are but in the first chapter ofwhat may become to them a noble volume. Listen to the heavenly sounds, and ao- knowledge that it is in moments like these that the heart expands in its sympathies, that men grow gentler and better, determine upon goodness and build up hopeful resolves.” It fa a epecies of holy elevating and refin- ing, without the exaggerated passion, sensuous ideas and artificial life of the stage opera. In its construction and rendering all the powers of musical genius and resources of poetry, religion and undefiled drama are employed, The greatest composers, Handel, Hayda, Mozart, Mendelssohn, &c., contribute their noblest energies to give musical expression to the sublime poetry of the Scriptures, and chorus, orchestra, organ, piano, in fine, every means that music can employ, unite in the rendering of oratorio. For the solo parts none but artistes of the very bighest order of talent should be selected, and the rehearsals of an oratorio should bo far more exacting and thorough than those of a half dozen operas, England has been particularly fortunate in becoming the first home of oratorio, and since Handel pro- daced his “Messiah” there in 1741 this sublime work has made its influence felt in every part of that country. They have their cathedral testivals every year, and in London the season of oratorio is looked forward to with as much interest as the operatic or dramatic season. Oratorio has hitherto been neglected in this country, and last season Mr. Harrison, of Steinway Hall, made the first organized at- tempt to render it a permanent feature in the metropolis. Before that time we have had, to be sure, the “Messiah” given every Christmas by the Harmonic Society, but no further effort was made to establish in our midst the highest form of music and the drama. The success of last season, however, was encouraging. “The Messiah,” “Creation,” “Elijah,” “Judas Mac- cabeus,” “Samson,” “Forty-sixth Psalm,” and “The Seasons,” have been already heard under favorable, or, at least, promising circum- stances, and on one night of the “Messiah” thirty-five hundred people were crowded in and around the hall. The oratorio nights have al- ways attracted in this city a larger number of people than the opera or naked drama, which is an encouraging sign of the true spirit of the public. People will go to see ballet and hear broken down vocalists because they have nothing better furnished to them by our theatrical manager@; but let oratorios be once firmly established in the midst of us, and the reign of spectacles and trashy opera will be soon at an end. What can be more sublime than the Hallelujah chorus, or “The Heavens are telling,” or the exulting ‘hymn of the Israelites when the long drought ends ina deluge of rain at the prayers of Elijah’ Hundreds of voices and instruments, with the thunder tones of the organ, peal forth those sublime utterances of thanksgiving to the Most High, more sablime, more heart touching and more truly religious than all the sermons of preachers and enthusiasts. Let all, then, interested in music, let all who have a spark of religions feeling in their souls, let all who desire the refinement and advancement of the public mind, see that oratorio be not neglected and suffered to die through lack of patronage in this city. It is something more than mere amusement—it is ennobling, civilizing and harmonizing. The angriest feelings melt before its softening influence, and the veriest cynic is thawed into humanity at its voice. It is the echo of the millions of archangels that send celestial harmony through the vast halls of the Eternal, the echo of the sleepless lyre of the universe, and the highest expression of man’s soknowledgmont of « Suprome Being. Lot it not die, thea, in this oity. Wowas Suffrage &t Heme and Abroad. Women appear to be making rapid strides towards manhood suffrage, and something that very same time, both in this country and in Eng- land. At all events, the few pioneers in petti- coate are doing their best to that end, but they very decidedly object to the interference of their male champions in the crusade which they have undertaken in their own behalf For inatance, we find that at a meeting beld yesterday at the headquarters of the “American Equal Rights Association,” a resolution was adopted by the Executive Committee to the effect that they disclaim all responsibility for or endorsement of meetings like the one held at Cooper Institute by George Francis Train, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B, Anthony. This fulmination against the famous trio who have been stumping on the woman’s rights platform from Kansas to the Atlantic coast is signed with the ever- potent name of Lucy Stone, and of course demolishes the claims of Mr. George F. Train to be regarded as the properly authorized ad- vocate of equal rights for Amorioan citizens, and excommunicates poor Mrs. Stanton and 3S. B, Anthony. There has besn a co-operative, although furtive, woman's rights movement going on on the other side of the ocean also. In the recent election in. England Mrs. Lily Maxwell, citizen of Manchester, pre- sented herself as a voter, and the vote of the good woman was received by the officers, “Here 's richness!” Here is a magnificent point, & wonderful precedent for Cady Stanton and that squire of dames and Merry Andrew, George Francis Train, Here is an undoubted evidence that the notion of our being a progressive and go-ahead people is all gammon ; for slow Joha Bull is at least half a century in advance. Mrs. Maxwell’s vote was received by the officers because her name was on the register. Eng- land is the land of red tape, and the officers could not go bebind the registered list of voters. This is aland of some red tape, too. There- fore, all that the Cady Stantons have got todo is to.get their names on the registers. How did Mrs. Maxwell get her name on that sacred list? Thatis the mystery. Could not the regis- tering officers discriminate, or is this a precon- cérted arrangement, e game concocted in that radical centre to agitate the suffrage in a new light? Ifany one shall move the invalidity of the election, or on any other point introduce the case of Mra, Maxwell to the attention of the House of Commons, woman suffrage will oo doubt be ventilated extensivoly, and there may be those who will require the lawyers to show that the women of England are aot already legally voters. With all these conflicts of authority af home nd abroad it is very likely (hat the women suffrage question will fall between two stools ‘and get hurt. Our City Theatres. Tf, as Shakespeare believed, the end and object of the stage is to hold the mirror up te natare, the fraternity under whose control our city theatres flourish have done much and are doing more to pervert this instrument of moral culture from ite original and laudable purpose and to transform it into a vehicle for the grati- fication of a morbid pruriency. We have already expressed our opinion on the drama of the “Black Crook,” and have won- dered at the generality of s sentiment that could keep such a piece in undisputed posses- sion of Niblo’s atage for sixteen months; but | 99 wo baye no desire to harp forever on one string, we will leave the matter to the effect of time and returning reason. We cannot blame our theatrical managers for yielding to the force of argumentum ad crumenam, which they doubtless feel as strongly as the reat of our busy community ; but we do complain, and complain with reason, of those managers who, while they escape the contagion of that speo- tacular disease which is now raging in the theatrical world, fail to see that something more is needed to preserve the purity of the drama than merely resisting the temptations of ballet and blue fire. We have theatres in America that challenge comparison with any in the world, and at one (Wallack’s) a company that, with the exception of that of Drury Lane, in London, has no superior in any theatre where the English language is used ; and {it appears somewhat incomprehensible that the attractions of the “Black Crook” and “The Devil’s Auction” are rivalled only with rococo comedies and trashy, sensational dramas. We do not mean by this to disparage those standard works of art whose intrinsic merit has placed them in the foremost ranks of stage literature for nigh a century, and ele- vated them almost beyond the reach of criti- cism ; but as caviare is a delicacy of which even a Russian may sicken, so @ series of comedies treating of the customs, inclinations and foibles of the last century are apt, when unrelieved by talent of a later date, to disagree with the taste of an American audience in 1867. It is somewhat strange that our stage litera- ture should be almost exclusively the work of English writers, and that in America, American authors should be conspicuous only from their absence. We have an indifferent adaptation of Beecher’s “Norwood,” it is true, together with one or two pieces treating of New York life in its shady aspect, and we would point to even these as the commencement of a new era in the dramatic world, did we imagine that they would be followed by others representing American scenes and people of a different order; but we have every reason to believe that the principal attractions of the present winter will be found to be English pieces and English adaptations. Our managers seem in- capable of moving trom the groove in which’ they started, and appear so persistently to seek their inspirations from across the Atlantic that one gentleman has made it his business to take down, in shorthand, the various pieces, as they are performed in London, for the express benefit of New York managers. To this channel we are indebted for several pieces that have been brought out in New York ; and though some of our émpre- sarii would properly decline to profit by such & questionable proceeding, it is consistent neither with our pride nor our ability, that the need or the fact of such @ practice should exist English dramatists of the present day are « very worthy, energetic and hard working body of gontlemen—some of whom have carried to great perfection the art of picking the brains of their French we are quite ready to acknowledge our indebted- nese to them for thelr many works, but at the