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NEW YORK HERALD BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR, All business or news letter and telegraphic @espatches must be addressed New York Heacp. Volume XXXY.. No. 11 AMUSEMENTS THIS EVENING OLYMPIC THEATRE, Broadway.—Tue Writixa ON THE WALL. FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE, Twenty-fourth st.—THB Busywopy. NIBLO'S GARDEN, Brosdway.—GRanp RoMANTIO DAAMA OF Ruy Bias. WoOoD's ‘ner Thirtieth MUSEUM AND MENAGERIE, Broadway, cor- ‘st.—Matinee daily. Performance every evoning. BOWERY THEATRE. Rowery.—Tom AND JERRY— Trish OUTLAW—ROBERT Macaike. onenrs, THEATRE, Broadway and 13th street. URS. THE TAMMANY, Fourteonth street.—THE BURLESQUE or Bap Dickey. GRAND OPERA HOUSE, corner ot Eighth avenue and 98d ot. —LInGanp’s BUNLESQUE COMBINATION, BOOTH'S THEATRE, 3idet,, berwoen 6h and 6th avs.— Hamer. WAVERLEY THEATRE, No. 720 Broadway.—MUsIO, MinTH aNd MysTEGY. MR, F. B. CONWAY'S PARK THEATRE, Brooklyn. — Tue Lorrnry oy Lire. TONY PASTOR'S OPERA HOUSE, 201 Bowery.—Coxra VooaLism, NEGRO MINSTRELBY, &C. THEATRE COMIQUE, S14 Broadway.—Comio Voocar- isu, NEGRO Acts, ac. BRYANT'S OPERA HOUSE, Tammany Bullding, 14th .—BBYAN1'S MINSTRELS. SAN FRANOISCO MINSTRELS, 685 Broaiway.—Eruro- PIAN MINSTRELSY, Neono Acts, &0,—“Hasi.” NEW YORK CIRCUS, Fourteenth street.—EQuESTRIAN AND GYMNASTIO PERYORMANOKS, &C. HOOLEY'’S OPERA HOUSE, Brooklyn.—Hoover's MINBTRELS—ILL RAGIO AFRICANO, £0. APOLLO HALL, corner th street and Broadway.— Tux Cagpir¥ GiaNr. NEW YORK MUSEUM OF ANATOMY, 618 Broadway.— ScIRNOB AND Ant, 3 TRIPLE SHEET. New York, —— ies CONTENTS OF TO-DAY'S HERALD, Tuesdzy, Jannary 11, 1870. Pacs. I—Advertisements, 2—~Advortisements. 3—Washington: Congress After the floliday Recesa; A Busy Day in Both Houses; Debate in the Senate on the Admission of Virginia—The Hudson River Closed. @—Prison Labor: Necessity for Abolishing the Present Contract System—The King of Club- bers—Special Political Notes—Chase and the Preatdency—The New York Orthopedic Dis- pensary—Tbe New York Foundling Hospital— Tbe Marine Society—A Hint to the Working Classes—St. Domingo: English Hostility to the American Annexation Project—Cotton Moving. G—Proceedings in the Courts Yesterday—Adultera- tons of Confectionery—Taxpayers Rampant— The Climate of Alaska—The Bible in the Schools: A Suggestion—Proceedings of the Boards of Aldermen and Assistant Alder- men—Meeting of the Shipowners’ Assocla- tton—Brookiyn City News—Horrible Murder in North Carolina~Helping the Poor—A Won- erful Old Woman. + 6—Editorials: Leading Article on Cuba, Spain and the Adminisiralion—Amusement Announce- ments. ‘Y—Telographic News from all Parts of the World: Report of Coup d’Etat in Madrid; A Paris Editor Shot by Bonaparte Prinee— Speech of Secretary Boutwell on the Public Debt—Amusements—Ovituary— Tammany Young Men’s General Committee— The Newark Democratic Muddle—Fire at the St, Nicholas Hotel—The Telegraphers’ Strike—~ Business Notices, S—Mormonism: Progress of the Schism in the Mormon Church—The Domestic Tragedy Cycle—Virginia: Position of Parties on the Subject of the Admission of the State into the Union—The Great Southern Mail Route— Arrival of Corinna Lewis in Boston—The Rhode Island Manafacturers’ War—Literature: Criticisms of New Books. S—The Postal Telegraph System: More Opinions in Favor of the Measure—Financial and Com- mercial Reports—Real Estate Matters—Marine ‘Transfers—Lynch Law in Kansas—Suicide of & New Hampshire Lawyer—Marriages and Deaths—Advertisements. 10—Wentral and South America: Revolution in Guatemala—New York City News—Capture of @ Desperate Burglar—Elopement of a Method- ist Clergyman with a Young Sabbath Schoo) Teacher—Court of Appeals Calendar—Europe: Mr. Gladatone’s Church Patronage and Mutres; The Alabame® Claims Correspond- ence—Felonious Assault by a Blind Man— Bhipping News—Advertisements, 11—Advertisements, 12—Advertisements. Mormonism.—We give elsewhere this morn- ing another letter from Salt Lake City detailing the progress of the schism in the Mormon Church, APPORTIONMENT OF REPRESENTATION,—Mr. Paine introduced in the House yesterday a bill providing for a new apportionment—the whole Dumber of representatives to be three hun- dred, with provisos for the admission of addi- tional members. Jonn CnmnaMan.—A bill was introduced in the House yesterday to provide for legislating John Chinaman out of the country, notwith- standing the fifteenth amendment and the Burlingame treaty. It holds that he may be removed if his vices and customs are odious, Tae National Intelligencer, which was recently revived by Mr. Alexander Delmar, has died again from want of sympathy. Its friends were New York democrats, who have as much as they can do to keep alive their organs nearer home. Tae Berrien Noro AMERICAN Possssions AND THE ALABAMA CLAINs.—Senator Corbett offered a resolution in the United States Senate yesterday providing for the annexation of Bri- tish Columbia, and a movement is belleved to be on foot to annex the whole of the British North American possessions, General Grant seems inclined to take the advice the Heratp gave him some time ago and accept the New Dominion and the outlying provinces in liqui- dation of the Alabama claims, Tae Last Sprxz ar Sac Laxe.—The Utah Contral Railroad, which connects Mormondom ‘with the civilized world by rail, was completed yesterday, and Brigham Young, with a des- perate firmness worthy of the condemned man who adjusts the hangman’s noose round his own neck, drove in the last spike. The cele- bration of the event among the Mormons was apparently as general as if the railroad open- ing were not a deathblow to their peculiar in- stitution: Brigham Young, in his speech on the occasion, said that Utah pow wapted to be Bdpibisd (0 te Tpion, - ‘six months ago. Our news from Washington regarding Spain hour after hour. confirms and justifies the ground we took some days ago. In advance of all our contemporaries we pronounced the Cuban revolution a failure. In many quarters where the surprise was felt the course we took was condemned; but to-day the views of the Herp are universally accepted as just. It was our hope and belief at one time thatithe Cuban insurgents would prove true to them- selves, and that. the cause was so good that they could not fail to win. We lent them our powerful help; but facts convince us that in the whole history of revolutions the Cuban insurgents have proved the feeblest and least effective of all revolutionists., They have had their time, their chance, their opporta- nity; but in spite of all these, and with all the help they have received, they have bungled and failed. Our reports a few days ago proved this, The reports of Consul General Plumb, the burden of which we gave in the Haraxp of yesterday, amply justify us in the course we felt compelled to adopt. Mr. Plumb is an im- partial judge. He was a Cuban sympathizer, He was opposed to Spain. So much was this the case that Sefior Roberts, the Spanish Min- ister at Washington, felt it to be his duty to protest against the appointment of Mr, Plumb as consular agent of the United States in Cuba. But, strange to say, thia friend of Cuba, this enemy of Spain, has been compelled to adwit that he was deceived, and that really there is mo cause for United States interference, and for this simple reason, that rebellion in Cuba is a name, not a fact. A few wandering guerillas, without munitions of war, without food, without a home, are -not strong enough to justify the American people in say- ing that they can or ought now to be recog- nized as belligerents, i At the same time we must reiterate what we said some days ago, that for all this the Cubans are themselves to blame primarily and the American government secondarily. On the Cuban bungle wo will not dwell. On the bungling of our administration we cannot dwell at sufficient length. If action had been taken by our government when the affair was ripe, when Cubans were filled with enthu- siasm, and when Spain was on the point of giving up the struggle, we should have had no trouble inthe matter. It would all have been settled, and this settlement. would have been easy. It seems, however, that so far as the American government were concerned common sense and pluck perished with Secre- tary Rawlins, Poor dying Rawlins saw what should be done. He spoke what he felt. Early in September he was present at a Cabinet meeting. At this Cabinet meeting, mainly in consequence of his advice, it was agreed that a proclamation should be issued on the 3ist of September recognizing Cuba as @ belligerent Power. Between the Cabinet meeting and the 31st Rawlins was no more. His manly policy died with him. The pro- clamation was never made. Cuba was de- ceived. Spain was permitted to remain master of the situation. Roberts at Washing- ton and Sickles at Madrid were, in all likeli- hood the one as much as the other, put to their wits’ end, Roberts, however, has been amply satisfied; things have gone on very much to his satisfaction, but poor Sickles must have been for some months past finding it difficult to know what to do. No one, how- ever, can blame Sickles, He has done his best. His best has been fairly good, and if it has not come up to the high requirements of the situation the blame rests with the adminis- tration rather than with him. Sickles has had to contend with two difficulties—a government that was not a government and an administra- tion that did not know its mind. r Meanwhile we have only to reiterate what we have said before. We cannot recognize Cuba a8 a belligerent power. We cannot, be- cause there is no belligerency. But we have our duties, and we must not ignore them. The insurrection in Cuba has been crushed mainly through our influence. Cuba, however, will remain as dissatisfied as ever. She will never submit to Spain. A new class of ideas have got abroad among the people. Their opinions are changed. - They are sick of un- certainty. They would like to be independent, but above all things they long for a strong gov- ernment, The men who own large estates and the people who earn their daily bread are equally in agony. The island, the most beautiful and most fertile island in the world, is being ruined. Life is being sacrificed, fields are being wasted. We could, we still can, prevent both, but we do not. If suffering still exists in Cuba the fault is not that of the American people. Their sympathies have never changed. They are as much with the Cubans to-day as they were Witness the action taken by the Senate of the United States yesterday. To-day Senator Morton speaks on the general question. We have no doubt that he will express the sentiments of the great body of our people; but to-day, as yesterday, facts must be accepted. We are responsible for the continuance of bloodshed and for the waste of property; but our responsibility meang now—no more, no less—that we should buy the island. Let us force on the purchase. We cannot wait upon Spain. Let us make an offer and push it. If the present rulers of Spain cannot act for the Spanish people, that is Spain's misfor- tune. We cannot help it, If Spain will not take our money we have no choice but to do by Spain in Cuba as we did by France in Mex- fco—bid her go home and mind her own busi- ness, The American people have hitherto been patient; but Secretary Fish and the ad- ministration generally must not push them too far. In spite of our law-abiding tendencies we hate injustice. America for the Americans is more than ever the passion of our citizens. A Frenon Sorvrion oF THe IxraLuipmiry Derricuiry.—A French journal, Mémorial Diplomatique by name, asserts that a compro- mise has been arrived at regarding Papal iofallibility. The Council is to be allowed to proclaim it, and all the world is to be allowed to dissent. We put the matter more correctly when we say the Council will proclaim it and the world will dissent, This is but putting in another form what we have said a hundred times. If the Church will walk alone she may ; the world will not hinder her, but it will claim and exercise the same liberty for itself, The Church and the world not being agreed they cannot walk together. F Tex Laws. A report comes from Washington that the President contemplates recommending to Con- gress a change in the tariff and tax laws, with a view to relieve the poople of some of their present burdens. If this be so the President's views have undergone some change since he sent his message to Congress at the opening of the present session, While he admitted then that it was necessary to reduce taxation, which bore heavily upon the industrious classes, a8 soon as practicable, he thought it would not be wise to make any material change until the national debt conld be reorganized and funded. He seemed to think the debt could be funded or adjusted on better terms and with more facility if the income remained large, the Treasury full of money and the credit of the government kept as high as pos- sible. We suppose, therefore, that upon re- consideration the President concludes now the taxes may safely be reduced without inconve- nience to the funding of the debt at a lower rate of interest. The Committee of Ways and Means, it ap- pears, have under consideration a modification of existing laws which will inorease the free list of articles now taxed, but this, it is said, does not go as far as the President desires. He would make a more sweoping change and would supply the revenue thus proposed to be cut off by raising the tax on what is termed foreign business. That is, we suppose, to reduce the internal taxes and to increase certain duties on foreign articles, In other words, he is for taxing more heavily imported articles of luxury which the mass of the people can do without very well and which the rich can afford to pay for, and to take the tax off those things that enter into general con- sumption. This, undoubtedly, is a popular and statesmanlike view of the subject. Our sys- tem of taxation bears too heavily upon the poor and working classes, and is both compli- cated and costly in operation. Great Britain raises by far the largest part of its revenue from a few articles ofluxury. Why should we not do the same? This’ would simplify our revenue system very much and would save a vast sum in the collection. Fully half or two- thirds of the number of officials employed in the Revenue Department could be dispensed with. The tax on small incomes should cer- tainly be taken off. Perhaps it would be well to abolish this tax altogether ; for it is inquisl- torial,, corrupting to both the officers of the government and the morals of the people, and requires a most costly machinery—a little army of officials—to collect it, If the Presi- dent takes the view represented about chang- ing the tariff and tax laws it is evident he has no fear of the Treasury being depleted., The surprising growth of the country and the rapid increase of our wealth and resources will keep the Treasury in a good condition, under proper management, although the taxes may be reduced. Too much surplus money in the hands of the government only leads to extrava- gance and corruption. This is a most impor- tant subject to the mass of the people, and should the President turn his attention seriously to it he will do much to popularize his admin- istration, The Western Union Telegraph Strike. The great telegraph monopoly has received a severe blow in the strike of the operators. It is in vain for the monopoly in its own inte- res¢ to suppress the news in regard to the extent of the movement; for the grains that sift through its fingers are enough to show that the strike is not only almost as extensive as the wires of the company, but that it is bitter and persistent. Those operators who returned to work in several Southern cities have gone to the ranks of the strikers again on finding that the information on which they resumed work had been made up by the monopoly itself. From all parts of the country the Telegraphers’ League is receiving encouraging reports. The other great trade anions have given. them hearty support, both in sympathy and money. We publish elsewhere in our columns this morning a card from the telegraphers to the public, which sets forth their case fairly and squarely. The managers of the Western Union Com- pany have only themselves to blame. They have always been dictatorial and overbearing, The first cause of the strike is not merely the discharge of a few operators in San Francisco, The managers of the company claim so, but they know better. It isthe culmination of a long series of tyrannies and oppressions practised towards their employés, They have been grinding their faces too hard. Théy have striven to drive the Assogiated Press as they please, and they havg partly succeeded, They have coerced small country newspapers by threatening to deprive them, through the Associated Press, of their news. They have tried to coerce numbers of influential papets in the interior by this means, and at one time they even tried it on the Hrtarp. But they failed. They Kave bought out or crushed out numbers of rival lines, and are steadily alm- ing to get under their own control all the wires and all the newspapers in the country. But they have been too grasping and avari- cious in view of a little gain, and too blind and unobservant of future resiilis. They have gone the length of their tether, The strike of the operators is their deathblow, backed as it is by the trade unions, the independent press, the sympathy of the people and the power of Congress. For Congress is bound to take the matter in hand. The people, for whose benefit Congress legislates, cannot have their business affaires deranged, their credit impaired and their commercial transactions stopped at the whim of a dictatorial monopoly any longer. The government business itself is not safe, Our diplomatic machinery is liable to injury. The failure to transmit some important despatch through the a a or Cuba cable might involve usin a diplomatic muddle or a foreign war, As long asthe monopoly holds this unlimited power and is so tyrannical and boorish about using it the people and the government are liable to fatal mishaps at any thoment, The postal telegraph system in the hands of government would be safe from strikes of this kind, and not until the government takes the wires under its own control can we be wholly independent of the huge monopoly that now owns them or wholly secure from the repetition of the present muddle, Con- gress has the remedy in ites own hands, and it isto be hoped it will use it firmly. General Washburn’s bill covers the ground, end he NEW YORK HERALD, TUESDAY, JANUARY Uj. 1810+TRIPLE SHEBT. Onda, Spain and the Administration. Proposed Modification ef the Tarif and shows that he understands the manccuvres of the monopoly when he Proposes to hear'the testimony of the operators themselves. They can give him the information he wants, and they are not interested in giving him the wrong kind of information. By all means let the bill be pushed. It is a blow for the people SGAIDEE ROMAN ies The Olimate of Alaska—Very Remarkable and Interesting Facts. $ We are indebted to Professor Doremus for some very remarkable and interesting facts and statistics, communicated to him from Mr. J. A..Tonner, resident of Sitka, Alaska, on the climate and products of that locality. We will first give the facts thus received and then some explanation of their peculiarities for the information of the general reader. First, then, Sitka is the largest town in Alaska, a town of about sixty houses and eight hundred inhabitants, chiefly Russians, of the lower class, but divided from it only by a stockade is an Indian village of nine hun- dred souls more, The products of the regions round about are limited to fish, furs and tim- ber. Potatoes, turnips, radishes and onions can be raised, but they are small, They have there over thirty varieties of indigenous grasses; but hay cannot be cured—not sun enough. Coal is found within thirty miles of Sitka, but it is so bituminous that it has burned out the smoke stacks of steamers using it. Gold is found in several localities, but not in paying-quantities, The mountain tops behind Sitka are white all summer; but along the coast there, near the sea level, it seldom snows, even in winter, and the thermometer hardly ever falls below the freezing point. About the 23d of December at Sitka the night takes up the whole twenty-four hours, and about the 23d of June the evening daylight blends into that of themorning. The coldest day, from the records of a whole year at Sitka, did not reach lower than twenty-two degrees above zero; and the warmest point of the warmest day marked sixty-nine degrees above zero. There were two hundred and eighty-four cloudy and rainy days in the year and fifty fair days, and only five days of snow at that point of the sea- board in that high latitude. The rainfall of the year there was ninety-two inches, or about three times the average rainfall of New York, They had fourteen inches of rain in Sitka in February last, which is equal to about four- teen of our heaviest summer storms, Now, how are we to account for this remark- able climate of Sitka? We have heretofore touched upon it, but the facts submitted wil justify a fuller explanation. First, then, between the fifty-fifth and sixtieth parallels of north latitude there is a string of islands with @ narrow selvage of the sea coast, say fifty miles wide, between the sea and the coast range of mountains, which selvage may be called the panhandle of Alaska; and Mount St. Elias, seventeen thousand eight hundred feet high, at the northern junction of this pan- handle with the main territory, may be called the silvery frosted rivet binding the handle to the pan. Sitka, near the fifty-seventh degree of north latitude, is in the centre of this pan- handle. The pan itself, or about four hundred thousand square miles of territory, lying between the sixtieth and seventieth degrees of latitude, is absolutely worthless except to the hunter and the trapper. But how is it that at Sitka the cold seldom sinks the mercury lower than twenty-two degrees above zero, while in the same latitude in the northern extremity of Labrador the cold for weeks together is forty degrees below zero and snow covers the land all the year round? How is it that at Sitka, above the latitude of Moscow, they have hardly a colder day in winter than they have in New Orleans, and nearly three times the annual average rainfall of New York? The prevailing westerly winds in our Northern hemisphere, and the great equatorial ocean current of warm water which from Japan sweeps around and across the Northern Pacific Ocean and down by Alaska, British Columbia and Oregon, explain it all. The same causes, on a smaller acale, applied to the Gulf Stream make the pleasant climate of the British islands. On the con- trary the comparatively cold and dry climate of the Atlantic slope of North America is due to the prevailing westerly winds blowing over a frozen continent in winter and from great mountain ranges covered with snow even in summer. The horribly cold climate of New England, Newfoundland, Labrador and Green- land is, however, partly due to the cold Arctic current which, with its icebergs from Baffin’s Bay, flows down into the Atlantic between our sea coast and the Gulf Stream from the South, But of what practical utility is allthis? It is of the greatest practical utility in reference to the movements of emigration from one country to another. For example, in these facts and figures from Alaska, knowing the enduring causes thereof, we know that Mr. Seward, in his estimate of that vast region, is wrong and that General Thomas is right, and that Alaska, to the white man, excepting that little aforesaid selvage of sea islands and sea coast, will be utterly worthless and uninhabit- Two Goop Tunes 1n Onz,—Senator Stew- art yesterday introduced a new style of postal telegraph billin the Senate. He proposes to make the money saved by abolishing the frank- ing privilege a construction fund for erecting government telegraph lines, Thus two obnox- ious birds—the franking privilege and the tele- graph monopoly—can be killed with one stone. Tae UniversaL Russian Exposition at St. Perersbore.—The recent National Com- mercial Convention at Louisville provided for the nomination by President Grant of commis- sioners to the ‘‘Universal Russian Exposition” tobe held at St. Petersburg in May, 1870, and asked for samples and articles for exhibition. But the Department of State has received from Mr. Engene Schuyler, United States Consul at Rival, in Russia, a letter announcing that the May exposition is not to be a world’s fair like the grand Zupositions Universelica at Paris and London. No foreign articles are to be ad- mitted, and it will be an exhibition of Russian products and manufactures solely, Agriculture and manufactures have, however, been so. greatly developed in the vast Russian empire during the past few years, and the great annual fairs to which the Russians have long been accustomed have so well prepared them for 9 Universal National Exposition that a splendid and memorable display may well be anticipated at St, Petersburg in May his neighbor. One after another is drawn in Wall Street Speculation. Tho renewed excitement in Wall street Is a curious commentary upon the disposition of human nature to forget its ills. The speculative mania which has again taken possession of the dabblers in stocks, and gold exhibits the power which the stock and gold gambling cliques possess to draw outeiders into the giddy whirl with them, After the crash of September Inst the herds of ‘‘bulls” and “bears” fell to ruminating in silence and sor- row over their disastrous losses. For three months the Stock Exchange was tame anddull. But with the new year the cliques take the field. The pulseless gold market is quickened into activity and the quict Gold Room resounds with the yells of the brokers. Forgot are the wounds of the late disaster. The dearly bought experience teaches caution no longer. As higher and higher mounts the premium the ranks are recruited, Gold is the touchstone for all the markets. Its advanoe is the signal for a rise in stocks, bonds and all classes of securities.” Each man gathers confidence from and the tide of speoulation swells. Money is easy—it always is at this season in Wail street. The speculators look for an abundance of it until the spring activity sets in. Hence they embark courageously in the grand ‘‘bull” movement which is the generally confessed programme for the balance of the winter, The brokers are in eostasies. Their flagging spirits revive with the increasing volume of business. They have had hard times since September, Yesterday the street was all animation. The Gold Room was in a ferment of excitement over the govern- ment gold sales and over a remarkable dispute between a gold brokerage firm and the Clear- ing House with reference to o chéck for the trifiing sum of half » million of dollars. In the Stock Exchange and in the government. board a busy throng circulated throughout the hours of business. The sanguine “bulls” are existing in a rose-colored atmosphere, and will while the market rises. They reck not of the turning point and seem to forget the lessons of the past. If another crash be the penalty of their heedlessness they have only themselves to blame, Prison Labor. "We publish elsewhere an article on ‘Prison Labor,” which deals with the question of the utility and benefit of the present system of letting out the labor of convicts to contractors. From the evidence exhibited there can be little doubt that'a great mistake is made in allowing the fruits of penitentiary labor to go into the pockets of a few private ieaonohane when the State, or, in other words, the people who‘ pay the taxes, could, under a different’ management, have their burdens considerably lightened and the sum total of the amount ey are called upon annually to pay might be reduced by many hundreds of thousands of dollars. In the instance of Clinton Prison, where no contract system of labor prevails, it is seen that the State, which is its own employer, is gradually achieving a revenue which sustains the expenses of the institution and leaves an ever increasing margin of profit behind. No better argument than this is needed to prove that the contract system is an entire failure—that it has been tried to the fullest extent and found wanting. Sing Sing and Auburn are not self-sustaining by any means; but we find that particular branches of labor in the former which are managed directly by the State, as the lime- kilns and quarries, pay handsomely, while the work of the contractors, side by stde in the table of statistics, exhibits a painful deficiency of revenue. Again, it appears that the marble quarry, which under the contract system, with one hundred men at work, returned an average of one thousand dollars monthly earnings, now, under the altered management and with slight additional increase of labor, turns into the treasury the satisfactory sum of six thousand dollars. It is hardly necessary to quote any stronger argument in favor of the State employing and utilizing the labor of its own convicts, and we trust the Legislature will take notice of the matter in a practical and serious spirit. Why should the people be called upon to pay over one hundred thousand dollars of a deficiency to the prison of Sing Sing when there is such incontestable proof in the case just mentioned and in that of Clinton Prison, that the abolition of the con- tract system, which was seemingly designed to enrich a few private parties, has been accom- panied by such encouraging results as are mentioned in the article alluded to, Ofcourse it should be the aim of those who are author- ized to make the’ reforms called for that the State enter not into injurious competition with honest industry. Fears on this head are, per- haps, more exaggerated than real, and labor unions are apt to see a greater bugbear in the subject than is warranted by the facts. Re Legislature, in considering the matter from the standpoint of common sense, can reach no other conclusion than that penitentiaries where the product of the convicts’ labor goes in a brief time to enrich beyond precedent the fortunes of a few contractors can be made equally available in swelling. the revenues of the State and ridding the people of unneces- sary taxation. TaB CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND TOE Posran RAPH.—We observe that ie Chamber Of Commerce of this city is decidedly averse todiscusslo# of the postal telegraph, and can lay it on the table with wonderful alacrity whenever it by any chance comes up. As the propasition for the postal tele- graph is one of the pfogressive ideas of the age, it may occur to the people generally that it is laid aside because the Chamber is a body of old fogies. But this is not the reason, On the contrary the reason is one that demon~ strates that the old gentlemen are as keen as can be—when they see their interest in a measure, The reason why the Chamber of Commerce puts its face against the postal tele- graph is that many of its members are large etockholders in the Western Union Telegraph Company. Tae PARAGUAYAN Mission.—Young Lopez had an interview with President Grant yester- day, and was most cordially received. He stated to the President that a great injury had been done Paraguay by the withdrawal of Minister MoMabon at 60 critical a period, and he urged the accrediting of another minister as soon ag pospible, What the Oldost Inhabitant Gays, -' We called on the oldest inhabitant the other day for any facts he might have kept in mind of the condition of the river in former years by comparison with its condition now. The old gentleman has come out very handsomely with his record of forty-two winters, whose snows, we trust, sit lightly on his head. We find in his statistics that it is not by any means an unprecedented thing for the river to be open all the way to Albany at this season, but we also find some things that may be of greater profit to keep in mind than this isolated fact. “It is clear by the record that when the river is open in January we have not much to appre- hend of subsequent severity of the winter. Note this, extortionate coal dealera, All the winters in which the river is noted as open in this month are set down emphatically as ‘“‘mild winters,” with only one exception, In fact the rule is so general that we may almost put down an open river in January as the charac- teristic sign of a mild winter for this vicinity. There is only the exception of 1809-10, in which year the winter was “remarkably mild till January 19,” at which date the river closed and from which time the winter was. ‘‘severe.” For fourteen winters the river was open in January, and twice did not close at all till February. It was closed in December in twenty-three winters and in November in four winters. The rule of the river, then, as drawn from the observation of forty-two years, is that for seasons of ordinary or great severity it closes in December and remains closed, and in seasons of exceptionably cold weather it may close in November, while moderate seasons commonly see it open as late as January and sometimes as late as February; and its re- maining open as late as January is 4 sign from which we may safely infer that the season will ‘be mild throughout. ° yW , Ovr Sr. Dommao CorresponpENog.—The letter which we publish in another part of the HeERacp will be read with interest. It shows that there is a determined hostility on the part of the representatives of European monarchies to the project of the United States obtaining even the slightest foothold in the West Indies. The British Barkis in St. Domingo is willing that this rich and fruitful island should remain as it is, the prey of conflicting partisans and native military chiefs, rather than that it should become, under the protection of the American flag, a rich, prosperous and peaceful territory. Indeed, her British Majesty’s agent has: gone so far, according to our correspondent, as to nter into a conspiracy for the overthrow of ‘resident Baez, We should like to know if his action is endorsed by the home govern- ment. However, whether there is opposition or no, these islands must come into the posses- sion of the United States, notwithstanding the plotting and planning of foreign agents to the contrary. Prinok Pierre Bonaparte fired on and killed ‘one of the editors of M. Rochefort’s new journal in Paris yesterday. The newspaper men waited on the Prince to challenge him to a duel, but his Highness terminated the quarrel ina Bonaparte fashion. Paris remained deeply agitated by the event. Nor A Private Matrzr.—There was com~ mitted in this city on Sunday an act of un- common barbarity, in the mutilation of a father by the teeth of his son; but no one gets punished for it, and the instruction hence to the masses is that our laws afford complete immunity to such offences. The son was ar- rested, but was subsequently discharged be- cause the father refused to appear against him, Just here is the great error. No magistrate is justified in dismissing such a case. If the father did not appear it is the magistrate’s- duty to send for him and hold the offender till he gets him. The public peace and the moral sense of the community are involved in such cases, and a great evil is done every time such an offender goes unpunished. Virainra.—A sharp fight was made in the House yesterday for the admission of Virginia. It came within one vote of being successful, and the opponents of admission only saved themselves by superior filibustering. In the Senate the bill was taken up and discussed until the executive session. Heratp News Home From Evropgs.—An English financial writer went on to prove yesterday that by the difference in exchange United States five-twenty bonds at eighty-six are ‘‘really higher in price than British consola at ninety-two.” This matter is telegraphed to us through the Atlantic cable. The news is peculiarly at home in the columns of the Heratp, having been first published in our financial article and editorial page a fortnight since, or just at the moment this satisfactory point of monetary adjustment was attained. The words of the despatch are therefore quite familiar to us, and we are glad to say that the subject matter has not lost any of its force in consequence of its double flash through the Atlantic cable and that it stands the electric shocks excellently well. Granp OHANCE FOR THE Steet Commis- SIONER AND Mayor.—A parliamentary party in France demands that Baron Haussmann, late Prefect of the Seine, the great ‘‘street improver” of Paris, shall be indicted and arraigned for trial, The occasion of this pro- seontion will furnish @ grand ‘opportunity for the Street Commissioner of New York to learn what the Baron has accomplished, what he has left undone, and bow he came to ‘swing round the circle” and out of it in Paris. Mayor Hall should depute a dozen or two of the mem- bers of the Common Council and authorize them to proceed to the French capital and report the case for the benefit of our fellow citizens, It don’t matter if all the party should not know French. They will ‘‘make the thing out,” between French, Italian and Gaelic. peastabeihoreeien ear esas M5 Mississiprt Levass.—New York capitalists, it is stated, have arranged to build a levee along the Arkansas shore of the Mississippi river, and they have hit upon'a good plan for making the enterprise pay. They propose to make a railroad bed of the levee, and construct a good, substantial road along the line of some of the richest towns and plantations fa Arkan- sas, The plan might be carried out on tho lower Mississippi, in the sugar planting dis- tricts of Louisiana, where the population ‘and soil are both richer than in Arkansas, but the levees would have to be built further back from the water then heretofore, in order to quard against the encroachmegts of the river,