The New York Herald Newspaper, December 28, 1868, Page 4

4 NEW YORK HERALD BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. nnn JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR All business or news letter and telegraphic despatches must be addressed New York Herarp. Volume XXXIM1...... seeeeNoe 363 ea AMUSEMENTS THIS EVENING. NIBLO'S GARDEN, Broadway.—AFT2R DaRk; oR, LON- DON BY NIGHT. BOWERY THEATRE, Bowery.Jack SHBPPARD— Maio FLUTR, FRENCH THEATRE, Fourteenth street and Sixth ave- nue.—GENEVIEVE DE BRABANT—BARBE BLEUE. PIKE'S OPERA HOUSE, corner of Eighth avenue and ‘We street.—CHANSON DE FORTUNIO—LES BAVARDE. OLYMPIC THEATRE, Broadway.—Huuerr Doerr. with New FEATURES, BROADWAY THEATRE, Broadway.—TH® EMERALD RING. NEW YORK THEATRE, Broadway.—TH® BURLESQUE ov BARGE BLEUR=BELLE HELENE. MRS. F. B. CONWAY'S PARK THEATRE, Brooklyn.— ALADDIN. WALLACK’S THEATRE, Broadway and 18th street.— MONEY. WOOD'S MUSEUM AND THEATRE, Thirtieth street and Broadway.—Afiernoon and evening Performance. y FAGUE CLUB THEATRE, corner Madison ey aid uh SOR MV aNDEAHOFE'S Ruabawce’ KELLY & LEON’S MINSTRELS, 720 Broadway.—ETmo- VIAN MINSTRELBY, BURLESQUE.—GIN-NEVIBVE DE GRAW SAN FRANCISCO MINSTRELS, 585 Broadway.—ETH10- YIAN ENTERTAINMENTS, SINGING, DANGING, &c. BRYANTS’ OPERA HOUSE, Tammany Building, Mth street.—ETUIOPIAN MINSTRELBY, &0, TONY PASTOR'S OPERA HOUSE, 901 Bowery.—Comio Voca.ism, NEGRO MINSTRELSY, &c. HIBERNIAN MINSTRELS, Apollo Hall, corner of Broad- way and 4 st,—O'F LABERTY'S DHBAME. NEW YORK CIRCUS, Fourteenth street.—EqQursTRian AND GYMNASTIC ENTERTAINMENT. Matinee as 2}4. CENTRAL PARK GARDEN.—Taro. Tuomas’ GRAND PROMENADE CONCERT. Matinee at 8 HOOLEY’S OPERA HOUSE, Brooklyn.—Hoousr's MINGTRELS—“SanTa Claus,” Greve, £0. HOOLEY’S (E. D.) OPERA HOUSE, Williamsburg.— Hoo.ey's MinsTRELe—“Santa CLaus,” Girts, £0. BROOKLYN ATHENAU! ton sts.—SIGNoR Buitz, Mal NEW YORK MUSEUM OF ANATOMY, 618 Broadway.— SCIFNOR AND ART. corner of Atlantic and Clini ee at 2. New York, Monday, December 28, 1868. THE NBWSs. . Europe. The cable telegrams are dated December 27. The Sublime Porte declines to yield the independ- ence or make a sale of Crete or transfer that island to Egypt. Some of the governments are undecided in their views regarding the treatment of the East- ern question, The Greeks count on little direct aid from Russia. ‘The Spanish semi-official journals say that Spain will not even consider the subject of the sale of Cuba to the United States, Mr. Longfellow, the American poet, has declined a public dinner at Rome, Paraguay. By Atlantic cable we learn that President Sar- miento, of the Argentine republic, has secured the good offices of Minister McMahon towards media- ion for peace with Paraguay, and the Emperor of Brazil had in consequenc. threatened to withdraw his eavoy from the Argentine republic. Cuba. Havana despatches dated December 22 state that it was reported that 800 filtbusters had landed on the south s.de of the island, Ten thousand insur- gents are surrounding Santiago de Cuba, and tho laboring population, on account of the destitution, were joining them. The force inside is only about 1,800, Manzanillo was also closely besieged and cholera prevailed among the indigent classes inside. Government accounts of the battle of Moron state that only one Spaniard was killed and eight wounded, but the revolutionary accounts state that the Spanish loss was heayy. The Spaniards say that several jars of strychnine were found in the bag- gage captured from the insurgents. The revolu- tonists have destroyed the Lucretia Point lighthouse and navigation in the Bahama channel is endan- gered in consequence. A communication from the general of the insur- gents and the members of the Revolutionary Junta has been presented to Secretary Seward, praying for recognition as belligerents, Misccllancous, President Johnson, it is understood, intends re- tiring all army officers over sixty-two years of age, among whom aré Adjutant Generai Lorenzo Thomas, Paymaster General Brice and Brigadier General Philip St, George Cooke. ‘The office of General of the Army will probably be abolished by the present Congress, General Sherman being left in command as Meutenant general. The latest Cabinet slate credits George B. McClel- Jan with the War Office. Our Washington despatches state that General Grant has expressed his intention of rooting out the whiskey, raiiroad and insular rings if he has to fill every civil office with @ military or naval officer. ‘The report of the Court of Claims shows that favor- able judgment has beer rendered in fifty-four cotton cases, the rewards aggregating $600,000, Claims for acceptances of sundry bills of exchange or drafts by John B. Vloyd, when Secretary of War, were thrown out. Governor Hoffman has arrived at Albany with his tamily and taken possession of the Executive man- sion. Despatches from the Plains state that General Sheridan is expected to return to Fort Harker in about twenty or thirty days, when he will suspend operations until March. Canterbury Hall, in Washington, was “pulled” by the police on Saturday night, and the actors and act- Tesses Were directed not to resume business there, General McKee, republican member elect of Con- gress from Mississippi, was assaulted by one or two desperate characters on the steamer Lee, near Natchez, Miss., on Saturday night. He was only slightly wounded, and im turn wounded one of his adversaries quite severely. St. Louis reports #1x fights and affrays in celebra- tion of Christmas, in which twelve persons were seriously stabbed or shot. ‘The chief quartermaster at St. Louis complains that the Missouri river boats are not safe enough for government transportation, and suggests that some other avenues of transportation must be found by which to supply the military posts, The City. At St, Patrick's Cathedral, yesterday, Archbishop McCloskey preached @ sermon appropriate to the festival of St. John. Rev. Dr. Bellows, at the Church of All Souls, addressed the congregation on the text “Give an account of your stewardship,” in which he severely denounced the prevailing extravagance. Dr. Chapin preached at the Universalist church, Fifth avenue, on the delusion of worldly pleasures. Henry Ward Beecher preached his closing sermon of the year at Plymouth church. ‘The National line steamship The Queen, Captain Grogan, will leave pler 47 North river to-day (Mon- day) for Liverpool, calling at Queenstown to land passengers, Ac, ‘ Prominent Arrivals in the City. Tieutenant Governor H. N. Collier, of Miinois; Lewis Welles, of the United States Army, and John S, Hall, of Albany, are at the Metropolitan Hotel. Congressman L. W. Ross, of Iilinois; W. C. Kerr, of Indiana; B. F. Hopkins, of Wisconsin; W. Law- rance, of Ohio, and W. Tyncheon, of Washington, are at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, ‘Judge Cobb, of Wisconsin, and Dr. R. Lawson, of Toronto, Canada, are at the St. Julien Hotel. George F. Proctor, of Cincinnati; G. W. Durant, i NEW YORK HERALD, MONDAY, DECEMBER 28, 1868, of Milwaukee; D. W. Benedict, of Buttle, and W. F. Grimths, of Philadelphia, are at the Hoffman House. Captain J. Saunders and Captain W. Edmond, of the United States Army, and Dr. BE. W. Gross, of Philadelplua, are at the St. Charles Hotel. ¢ The Alabama Claims—A Proper Subject for General Grant’s Administration, — A vast amount of unfinished business in the way of reforms will be turned over from the administration of Mr. Johnson to that of General Grant. The schedule will include the whiskey rings and the whiskey frauds, all the other frauds upon and leakages of the Trea- sury, and lavish expenditures, the restoration of law, order, confidence and prosperous industry down South, a general reconstruc- tion of our financial affairs, debt, bonds, cur- rency, banks, internal taxes and tariff laws and a general overhauling and rebuilding of our policy with foreign nations, including the settlement of the Alabama claims. The Alabama claims, we say, must go over to President Grant; for it is morally certain now that they will not be settled under Presi- dent Johnson. The latest ideas ventilated in England on this subject are that Secretary Seward is an obstruction; that all the ques- tions involved will be amicably adjusted under the incoming administration; that Reverdy Johnson will be retained in his present posi- tion, and that the bases of the protocol already agreed upon between him and Lord Stanley must remain fixed, and will sooner or later command the consent of both countries. This we consider a very absurd summing up, except in reference to the turning over of the whole subject to President Grant. On the other hand, it is given out from Washington that the ultimatum of the Senate will embrace the following points :—First, that England must admit her pecuniary liability for the depredations on the high seas of those Anglo-rebel cruisers, the Alabama, Shenan- doah, Florida and Sumter, and agree to pay. the bill of damages; second, a commission of four members, two from each side, who shall select a fifth as umpire; third, a detailed investigation of all these aforesaid depreda- tions; fourth, an investigation of other claims arising in each country against the other back to the year 1853, This is the protocol hinted atin the President's Message at the opening ofthe present session of Congress; but as it is a protocol which may consume ten years in the consideration of its damages on the one side and ®ff-sets on the other, itis not the protocol for General Grant. The endless complications, quibbles and pettifogging pretences thus suggested on the part of England must be rejected if our government would have the honest reparation demanded by the American people in conse- quence of England’s dishonest neutrality during our late civil war. This question should be settled by itself, ‘unmixed with baser matter.” It should be settled as General Jackson settled those claims against France with Louis Philippe arising from certain French spoliations on American com- merce prior to 1800—indemnjty or reprisals, We cannot doubt thet, as the leader of the Union armies in the field, General Grant has a very clear perception of the ‘“ma- terial and financial aid” given to Jeff Davis through England’s peculiar neutrality. It was this encouraging neutrality which sent out, not only the Anglo-rebel cruisers such as the Alabama, the Shenandoah, the Florida and the Sumter, but hundreds of English blockade runners, which made the West India port of Nassau a Confederate naval and blockade run- ning, coaling station and rendezvous, and which supplied the Anglo-rebel cotton loan of fifteen millions of money. The captures and destruction of English blockade runners by our blockading vessels and detective cruisers amounted in value to a sum exceeding thirty millions of money, but perhaps four times this amount in supplies to the rebellion were run in. These, to be sure, were private ventures upon their own risk; but they were mainly due to England’s encouraging neutrality and the predominant English sympathy with the cause of Jeff Davis. . Much was said from time to time during the war of the breaking of the backbone of the rebellion; but it was not really broken till the capture of Wilmington, which cut off its supplies from England. But we are dealing with the Alabama claims. Our losses from the vessels destroyed by the Alabama and her piratical confederates during the war were hardly less in the aggregate than fifty millions of dollars; but the effect in the suspension of our commercial ventures on the high seas was equal to hundreds of millions, The payment of the bill for the American ships actually burned, scuttled and plundered by those Anglo-rebel cruisers does not, there- fore, cover the reparation demanded. The main question, that perfidious neutrality proclamation of Lord John Russell, still re- mains untouched. This is the part of Hamlet which cannot be omitted from the play. By that offensive proclamation the government of the United States and the insurgent Southern conspiracy assuming the style and title of the Confederate States were placed upon an equal footing in the matter of belligerent rights, and the act was justified upon the convenient quibble of President Lincoln's blockade. This blockade was a serious technical blunder on the part of Mr. Seward, but it does not ex- onerate England. We apprehend that General Grant, a plain, honest, practical soldier, will not admit this quibble of the blockade as a settlement of this unprecedented concession of belligerent rights. And herein lies the particular reason why we think this whole subject of the Alabama claims, without any further quibbling or tinkering, should go from the hands of Mr. Seward and be passed over to the incoming administration, The money claims ‘technically in dispute are, compara- tively, a bagatelle, England's example of belli- gerent rights is the main question of which we hear nothing in the Message of Andrew Johnson nor in the protocol of Reverdy John- son, As for Mr. Seward, he need not hope to cover up one blunder by making another, for the great principle involved must be met and settled. Wno Compromise tae Waiskry Fravps?— How did it happen that Van Wyck never told in his report who it was that compromised the first whiskey seizure for seventy-five thousand dollars, and who compromised the second one for forty-two thousand dollars, and iato what honorable Congressman’s hands the money went? This would have been an interesting item, The Whiskey Fraude—Binckley on Van Wyck—A Scorcher. The attention of the public cannot fail to be arrested by the scorching reply of Mr. Binckley to the report presented to Congress by Mr. Van Wyck in relation to the revenue frauds. According to Mr. Binckley the exclu- sive authorship of that report is claimed by Mr. Van Wyck, upgp whom the sole personal, if not official, responsibility of it must rest, although it is headed in such a way as to seem to emanate from the Committee on Retrench- ment, Binckley does not hesitate to pronounce Van Wyck’s ‘“‘report” a slander. He calls it ‘‘a bucket of whitewash,” and unceremoniously hastens to kick it over. After enumerating a long list of charges against himself he declares that each of them is a misrepresentation, add- ing :—‘‘By that word I here mean a represen- tation, deliberately made, opposite to the truth by a’person who knew it was untruo when he made it,” and, moreover, ‘‘there is a shorter name for the same thing.” He heartily accords to his assailant “that uncommon dis- gust,” which, he says, Mr. Van Wyck must have intended to raise in him. He calls Van Wyck a ‘despicable politicaster” and ‘an imposter.” He asserts that after the arrival of the Congressional Committee in New York “it soon came to be like one of the extreme affectations of statectaft to pretend to distin- guish Mr. Van Wyck from the miscellaneous malefactors who now owe him such gratitude.” He says :—‘“‘I can conceive no calamity which could drive me to ‘accept the inward humilia- tion of an issue of veracity with this hireling of confederated thieves, or with any person whatever who would corroborate his testimony or profess a belief in his honesty.” Mr. Binckley pours on the head of Congressman Van Wyck a torrent of similarly strong invective. But his language cannot be condemned as too strong if he can prove and substantiate his positive statements that Van Wyck, although all the time pretending ‘‘with boisterous but nauseous hypocrisy” to be in hearty and zeal- ous co-operation with him, was actually in complicity with the directors of obscure in- fluences at work to counteract all his plans, with the interested parties by whom his agents and adherents were threatened, corrupted and seduced. Mr. Binckley, after alluding to the dreaded danger of a disinterested and unspar- ing exposure, directly prefers this grave charge against Mr. Van Wyck:—‘“The guilty, there- fore, brought him to New York that he might employ the authority of the national legisla- ture for their protection against the laws of the country and the indignation of its plun- dered people, and he did so employ it, and with success—success for the present.” Now, the public care very little about any personal quarrel between Van Wyck and Binckley. They must fight that out between themselves. But the people, who only know that gigantic revenue frauds have been com- mitted, by which the whiskey thieves have plundered the government at the yearly rate of one hundred million dollars, are at length anxious to learn the truth, and the whole truth, of the matter. They cannot under- stand, whatever may have been the blunders of Mr. Binckley, why Mr. Van Wyck, who, they presume, was sent to this city not merely to investigate these frauds himself, but to use all available facilities for investigating them, should have made technical: objections to the proffered aid of any citizen, even if that citizen could claim no official authority what- ever. Mr. Binckley affirms that although he offered to bring before Mr. Van Wyck himself certain witnesses and documents -implicating numerous high officials in New York and Washington, if he would place the sergeant- at-arms under his direction for a single hour, Mr. Van Wyck not only defeated this plan to bring into his own hands disclosures of the highest public value, but by violence consum- mated his own plan for the frustration of Mr. Binckley’s mission to New York and the pro- tection of revenue corruption. It is manifest that Mr. Binckley has failed, that the committee of Congress has failed, that the courts have failed, that Mr. Johnson has failed to reach the lowest depths in the investigation of these vast revenue frauds. The whole dirty mass of revenue corruption must be turned over to be dealt with by the next administration, The people will have to wait until the 4th of next March, when it will become one of General Grant's Herculean labors to cleanse this Augean stable. ‘The Eastern Question and the Proposed Conference. From cable despatches which we print this morning it will be seen that the Sublimé"Porte has not yet given its consent to the proposed conference. It appears that none of the sug- gestions which have been made as to the final disposal of the island of Candia meet the approbation of the Sultan’s government. They are not willing to sell it or to proclaim it in- dependent; and many will agree with them in regarding its transfer to Egypt as'simply absurd. Egypt held it from 1830, when it was given it by the allics as indemnity for the losses sustained at Navarino until 1840, when it wna restored to the Porte; but those ten years were in some respects the most wretched in the history of the island. The resistance of the Porte seems to have created s@me division of sentiment among the great Powers. England, it seems, adheres to her ancient policy. France and Austria are less decided: Prussia and Russia are supposed to be of one mind, and, of course, in sympathy with Greece. Garibaldi, looking forward to a struggle between the republicans and the monarchists in Spain and to a fresh and more determined movement on Rome, and, of course, to a general European row, bids the Cretans to be of good cheer and to bide their time. In spite, however, of the rashness of the Grocks, the obstinacy of the Turks and the predictions of Garibaldi, there is good reason for believing that the influences in favor of peace will prevail. CompounpIne Friony.—Attorney General Evarts has declared that every compromise made in the case of a seizure under the inter- nal revenue laws was a fraud, and the parties implicated were guilty of compounding a felony. Itis stated that compromises have been made with no less than seventeen whiskey firms and more than @ hundred houses of tailors, cloakmakers, bootmakers and others. But Van Wyck could not find out the parties in- volvedgor ifhe did he has not chosen to tell ua. ‘Tho Press and the Telegraph. Tho press and the telegraph are natural allies and indispensable one to the other. Without the press the great benefit of the telegraph would be lost to the masses; with- out the telegraph the usefulness and interest of the press in the present day would be materially diminished. Each occupies an in- dependent position of its own, entirely dis- tinct from the other. The legitimate province of the press is to collect, comment upon and publish to the world the news of the hour; the legitimate business of the telegraph is to transmit the news from point to point over the wires with lightning speed. Neither can step out of its own sphere and interfere with the functions of the other without damage to both and Getriment to the interests of the people. It would be absurd for the press to attempt to regulate the manner in which the telegraph should conduct its business of trans- mission, and it would be a great public evil if the telegraph should ever be permitted to control the intelligence sent over the tele- graphic wires or in any manner to interfere with the independent position of the press. We have never yet known an instance in which the newspapers of this or any other country: have overstepped their legitimate boundary to interfere improperly with the telegraph com- panies, while experience shows that the tele- graph companies are prone to assert and not unfrequently endeavor to exercise an undue authority and power over the public journals. This has been especially the case in our own country, where the telegraph business has, unfortunately, become a monster monopoly in the hands of a few individuals responsible to no authority, and where the press has been, consequently, in a great measure dependent upon a single line for the transmission of news. The Heratp has endeavored to warn the newspaper press of the United States against this threatened danger. We have no quarrel with any telegraph company or its managers or directors; but we have encouraged the cénstruction of competing lines in the past, as we now advocate the absorp- tion of the telegraph by the government, because we believe that the public interests demand low rates, greater facilities and a uniform tariff, for the press as well as for individuals who use the wires, and we can see at present no better method of securing these needed reforms. ‘ In England the telegraph business was free from many of the abuses which prevail in the United States. Competing lines reached every part of the country, and the laws not only encouraged the construction of opposition lines, but positively prohibited the federation of those running on parallel routes. The press rates were unusually low, the average cost of four thousand words daily being but about one thousand dollars a year, while a special wire, used exclusively by a newspaper for eight hours every night, cost only about three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars a year, or less than one-fifth of the cost of the HERALp’s specials from a single point. Yet the press of Great Britain urged the assump- tion of the telegraph by the government, and in the evidence given by the proprietors of the leading journals of the country before the select committee of Parliament we ascertain their main incentive to have been the attempted encroachments of these private corporations upon the province and the independence of the press. One witness testified that the system forced upon the press by the telegraph, by which the latter collected as well as trans- mitted news reports, was open to serious objection and had worked detrimentally to the interests of the newspapers and their readers, for the reason that intelligence of real value was frequently kept back, while news that was immaterial and uninteresting was furnished for publication. Another objected to the system because it had ‘‘placed in the hands of telegraph companies a power which they had used in a despotic and arbitrary manner.” In illustration he cited the instance of the result of an important sporting event, upon which large amounts of money depended, and which was delayed in the telegraph office long after he knew of his own knowledge that the information was in the hands of the operator. The following extrdct from the testimony of this witness, Francis D. Finlay, the proprietor of the Northern Whig, is particularly perti- nent to our telegraphic experience at home :— Witness—The third objection to the existing sys- tem is that the action of the een company is despotic and arbitrary, Inasmuci as by the combina- tion the companies have acquired an absolute mo- nopoly of the news supplied, whereas a broker who is not satisfied with the Magnetic Telegraph Com- johny send his mess, to the country and to non by the Electric Telegraph Company. The newspaper proprietors can make no selection, [ have my contract with the Magnetic es Company. Iam not and have not been satisfied with that company, but I cannot be supplied by any other telegraph company. In consequence of the combination there is no competition in the trans- mission of news. Question—Can you give any instance of the exer- cise of that despotic action on the part of the com- ? PAVitness—I can. On the 8th of June I wrote an articie in the Northern Whig, in which I supported the bill at present before the committee. I spoke of the advantages of it to the public and to the press and I made a very severe complaint of the manner in which the press had been dealt with, Asie | up by saying that we (speaking in the name of the paper) did not attempt to conceal our personal de- sire that we should be relieved from the pressure which we had submitted to for so long. On the 13th of June Mr. Boys, the superintendent of the intelli- gence department, wrote to mea letter. bree gn you that letter? itness—I have a copy of it, extion—Will you read it? itness—Intelligence Department, ‘Telegraph Sta- tion, Telegraph street, London, E. C., 13th June, 1868. Dear Sir—I wilt submit to the next meeting of the dsrectors the article in your journal of the 8th in- stant. I have never received from you any complaint of errors, &c., and if you had made them every case would have been carefully investigated. The printed attack ts, therefore, most unjustifiable, Your asser- tion that the charges are exorbitant ts at direct vari- ance with the statement you made to me when last in London. The time Cyan to have arrived when the directors should seriously consider whether the contract with your journal should be continued, and 1 have no doubt they will come to a decision which may afford you an opportunity of making your own news arrangements on leas exorbitant terms, I am, dear sir, faithfully yours, Charles V. Boys. ‘Questlon—Had you any means of making other arrangements than those th the company whoss representative wrote that letter ? ‘Witness—The only alternative epen to me would have been to engage @ special wire to Belfast, for which I should have had to pay £1,000 a year, and to organize @ news collection of my own, which might have cost anything up to £5,000 @ year; so that if the tel company had carried out this threat they might have ruined b.? provided 1 could not atford to pay £6,000 additional for my expenses. ‘That ia the alternative (hat was presonted to me. Question—So that the company had the power if they wished it of saying you should not receive tele- graphic news unless you took a certain line in your pay on particular questions? nen om to controlling my action in the management of my newspaper. Question--ts that a Condition of things which could be tolerated by the editor of a news re Witneas—It is a condition of things which Cehowld not tolerate at any rate, and I should think it would be intolerable to any man of independence. This being the experience of the press ina country where competition and statutory regu- lations as to tariffs were comparatively effec- tive protections to the.public interests, how much greater must be the evils complained of when a private monopoly holds such a mighty engine as the telegraph in its grasp and is frresponsible and unrestricted in the use it may make of its power? We have already seen the bad effect of our present system in the recent attempt of the telegraph monopoly to coerce the press into its support against the proposed government reform by means of the threat of a discontinuance of its existing news contracts and the increase of its rates. We have seen also that a great many public jour- nals have sometimes feared to advocate their own rights and independence, lest they should awaken the wrath of the telegraph monopolists. But the more independent and influential newspapers all over the United States are now advocating the adoption of the government: postal telegraph system as a needed and de- sirable reform, and Congressman Washburne may be assured that in vigorously pushing his bill forward as soon as Congress reassembles he will receive the sympathy and approval of the press ofthe whole country. The news reports for the daily journals are the feature of telegraphing of the most value and interest to the masses of the people. The British Par- liament, recognizing this fact, has in its Pos- tal Telegraph act precluded the government from entering into contracts more advan- tageous to one newspaper than to another; and this ought to be a provision of law in any case, no matter in what hands the telegraph business may be. Tse News rrom Cupa.—Our special tele- gram from Havana brings us the rumor of a landing of filibusters in the bay of Cochinos, on the south side of the island. This bay lies inside of the Isle of Pines, and its shore is a deep marsh, which extends for miles inland. If the filibusters have landed there they have made the worst selection that could have been made, and are, for all practical purposes, further from the seat of war in Cuba than they would be if they had remained at home, wherever that place maybe. From Santiago and Manzanillo we learn that the Spanish gar- risons and inhabitants remaining in those places are reduced to great straits for the want of food, the communications with the interior being cut off by the insurgents. An- other despatch from Havana brings us an account of a battle at Moron, in which the in- surgents are officially reported as having been routed. The Spanish loss is stated to havo been one killed and eight wounded; but the revolutionists assert that their opponents suf- fered heavily. The Spaniards claim to have captured a considerable quantity of strychnine among the insurgents’ baggage, as also a large number of horses. The loss of the rebels is not stated. The lighthouse at Lucretia Point has been destroyed by the revolutionists and navigation of the Bahama Channel endangered in consequence. A Sap Case—The suicide at Chicago of Mrs. Dickens, widow of a brother of Charles Dickens. The story was that she sent her children to the house of her brother-in-law, Mr. Lawrence, on Christmas Eve, to take part in getting up a Christmas tree; that they re- mained over night, and on their return home in the morning discovered their mother on the floor dead; th&t she died from a dose of mor- phine, and that she had suffered much lately from poverty, being dependent almost entirely upon her friends for the necessaries of life. Here some very unpleasant questions are sug- gested in reference to Mr. Charles Dickens. On his late tour through this country of profit and pleasure was he not aware of the distress of this poor widow and her children? And, if aware of it, why did he neglect to relieve her from his reading receipts of two hundred thou- sand dollars? Considering the abounding benevolence of Mr. Dickens as a writer of Christmas carols and other sentimental stories, is not the death of this poor widow on Christ~ mas Eve a theme for the most touching Christ- mas carol ever produced? Sterne, of the “Sentimental Journey,” was sentimental only on paper. Does Mr. Charles Dickens belong to the same school ? Gas EXpLosion at THE OLYMPIO THEATRE. — We published yesterday the full particulars of this explosion, which took place about six o'clock on Saturday evening, resulting only in slight injury toa single individual, and in certain precautions on the part of the gas company against further explosions and on the part of the management and of the police against the horrible dangers of a panic in case such explosions should be repeated during the evening’s performance. But why should the doors of the theatre have been opened at ‘all while the flames were still raging in the vaults below it and the adjacent building? It would appear that at any moment during the evening on which the lives of thousands were thus left in jeopardy, without hint or warning of their imminent peril, a catastrophe might have occurred that would have plunged many a family into mourning and distress. Ought not this case to be fully investigated, in order to satisfy the public that it is not another instance of the proverbial and culpable indifference to human life with which foreigners too justly reproach Americans? Tax Booker or Wntrrwasi.—Binckley calls Van Wyck’'s report on the revenue frauds a bucket of whitewash. It might be well if, in stirring up the bucket, we could find the reason why Mr. Van Wyck did not examine such witnesses as Captain G. B. Davis and make him produce his papers, which, it is said, the President and Secretary McCulloch desired should be done, or Mr. Ed. Jordan, who has in his possession the secret service division reports. Either of these gentlemen could no doubt have given much important information about the revenue frauds and whiskey rings ; but perhaps their testimony would have spoiled the spotless purity of Mr. Van Wyck’s whitewash. Harry San Franots0o.—The last quota- tions of flour in San Francisco are reported at $4 75 and $5 75 in gold, or say $6 40 and $7 75 in greenbacks. In New York for simi- lar brands we pay from twelve to fourteen dollars in the national currency. Happy San Francisco! where gold is the circulating medium, where labor is in demand and where flour and all the essentials of life are cheap as dirt! What is an occasional earthquake as a drawback to the Quoen City of the Pacific against such advantages as these ? Revenue Fraude—New Orleans Ahead of Now York. There is evidently some necessity for recon- struction in the revenue service in Louisiana, if it be true that with forty distilleries In ope- ration the tax collected on whiskey is not suff- cient to pay the storekeepers. We can readily believe that the department is very corrupt in that quarter; but we had scarcely supposed it could be worse: than in our own city. How- ever,'anything may be true of the whiskey thieves, especially in a disorganized country— more especially in Louisiana. Let us console ourselves with the reflection that there isa good time coming. Already General Grant has sent two of his staff officers down into Louisiana and contiguous places to look into the practical working of the government machinery there, and it is, therefore, probable that he will go into the Presidency with some Positive knowledge as to what ought to be done; and no one can doubt that he will do it, The real difficulty the administration has to contend with in regard to whiskey corruption is the astonishingly positive declarations that are made both ways on any given point. There is a general notion in the human mind that when both sides of a story are told shrewd people can give some guess as to which side ia telling the truth; but this notion never applies in the whiskey business; and we doubt if the President is not now the moat absolutely bewildered man in the world in re- gard to who are the honest men and who are the whiskey stealers in any district. General Grant starts well in going at the facts in his own way, and will not be compelled to choose for his information be- tween the stories of the two sides, Sumner and Butler on Specie Payments. It is said that Senator Sumner is preparing @ speech in favor of immediate resumption of specie payments, and that General Butler is preparing one to show that speedy resump- tion is impossible. Thus we see Massachusetis is divided on the question. In this contest Butler will win; for he is practical and brings a large amount of common sense to bear upon the subject, while Sumner is a mere theorist and compounder of high flown sentences. We: suppose there will be a vast amount of speech- making the present session in both houses of Congress on this question and the finances generally, and the more because few under- stand these matters. It affords a fine oppor- tunity for getting off Congressional platitudes with which to astonish the ignorant, But we have no idea that anything practical will be accomplished. There is too great a diversity of opinions and too little time to work up and pass any useful law between this time and the 4th of March. And in the present state of the public mind and ignorance of Congress it is better, perhaps, that it should beso, Con- gress should let the currency and the quegtion of specie payments alone, and spend the re- maining time of this short session in reducing expenditures and taxes, in providing for the efficient collection of the revenue, and in clear- ing away the Tenure of Office law and other obnoxious laws for the incoming administra- tion. We recommend Sumner and Butler to reserve their fire for a more opportune occa- sion. Tae SrEAKERsHiP.—It is understood that there will be no repeal of the law which pro- vides that the new Congress shall meet on the day of the expiration of the old Congress—that is, the 4th of March. Accordingly, as on that day Speaker Colfax becomes Vice President of the United States and President of the Sen- ate, the question who is to be next Speaker of the House is beginning to be agitated. There will be plenty of candidates. Already, it appears, Mr. Dawes (a competent man) is named in behalf of Massachusetts, General Banks being reported as having declined in his favor. Otherwise General Banks, having been tried and approved as a very efficient Speaker, would doubtless hold the inside track as a candidate for another term, Ere Ratroap Spgcutations.—The Erie Railroad Company are as much given to buy- ing up things in general as Mr. Seward is to going into real estate. The last purchase by the Erie folks is the Bristol line of steamers, which have been withdrawn from that port and-will probably be run to Fall River when the Sound navigation opens. They have already beon buying all the little side railroads in the State, opera houses, coal mines and other floating material. How they expect to manage all these enterprises when they make such a precious muddle of their own road it is hard to conceive. THE SNOW STORM. Yesterday New Yorkers were favored with another snow storm as a sort ot variation to the clear, dry and generally beautiful weather which has marked the fall and winter season of 1868. This has been a somewhat remarkable year in this respect, the tem- perature having been unusually even for this lati- tude, and the variations, when they have occurred, have been at considerable intervals. The lovers of sleighing are the only people who have had much cause for complaint, as their favorite pastime has been somewhat limited tn its indulgence for the best of all reasons—to wit, lack of opportunity. Snow is @ rather necessary adjunct to a good day's enjoy- ment on runners, under buffalo robes, behind a fast Span and beside the prettiest pair of checks on Bloomingdale road, and however cheerliy a skater may curve and pirouette on Brussels carpets on hia parlor skates, no inventive genius has as yet been exercised towards the perfection of a drawing room sleigh, ity snow commenced failing yesterday morning about ten o’clcck aad fell without intervission until near midnight. The storm was comparatively light, unaccompanied by wind, and the flakes were some- what fleecy anc moist, indicating a probable speedy thaw. Church-goers were but litcie embarrassed, as the weather was, in fact, pleasant, arid the only class who actually objected to the snow were the skaters. The steel-shod fraternity, however, or at least the male portion of it, Who tiave no qualms of conscience about the question of Sabbath breaking, had got to business before the snow commenced fall and skated away right merrily watt! dark, ploughing the rich white fleece into myriads of furrows and ridges as they swept over the surface of the ponds on their bur- nished trons, clearing the ice for themselves, Urchins, muMed to the cars; servant maids with beefy, muscuiar arms, and quiet oid men who have retired from active life and while away time by “doing chores around the house,’ were inspired by tie poet's touching Tings, “Hoe the snow, the beautiful snow,” aud pitched into it with a wil, armed with dust-pans, mattocks, brooms and fire-shovels, “Stoops,” sido- walks and areas presented ihe appearance of a sec- tion of the Pacific Railway at this season of the year, on whic® excavations are going on. The city rail ways were somewuat Kae. ge by the snow, but the application of snow-plongns and the doubling of teams soon «urnrownted the diMfcuities, A few sleighs were brought mmto requisition, and seemed to potnt instinctively in the ion of Ventral Park and the Boulevard, % ward evening the woathor moderated considerably aud the immaculate cover- ing of the streets begau 0 assume a dim, sloppy color and consistency. AS Dight advanced there was every indi tiat there would be no snow for this morning’s sun to thaw, and that whatever anow didn't got down last aight wouldn't get down at alt in, that attractive form, but would have to mako ita aéont as rain, Which i8 voted to be “disagrecalo, * very.” ’