The New York Herald Newspaper, October 22, 1870, Page 6

NEW YORK HERALD BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR. AMUSEMENTS THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING, YMPIC THEATRE, Broadway.—Tuk PANTOMIME OF par Witte WINKIE. Matinee at 2. RY THEATRE, Bowery.-Tunovgu sy Dar- prow tue FLYING DUTCHMAN. FIFTH AVENUS THEATRE, Twenty-fourth st.—MAN anp Wire. Matinee ut 134. i BOOTH’S THEATRE, 28d st.. between th and 6th avs,— Bir VAN WINKLE. Matinee at L's. FOURTEENTH STREET THEATRE (Theatre Francais)— Many Sruart. WALLACK’S THEATRE, Broadway ana 18th atreet— Two Roses. LINA EDWIN’S THEATRE, 720 Broadway.—CinpER- $uLa—LA SOMNAMBULA. Matinee at 2, NIBLO’S GARDEN, Broadway.—Carrain CHARLOTTE— ANDY BLAKE. Matinee at % NEW YORK STADT THEATRE, 45 Bowery.—Gnanp QuRMAN OrexA—MaRTuA, GRAND OPERA HOUSE, corner of Eighth avenue and Ped st —La GRANDE DUCHESSE, Matinee at 2, ACADEMY OF MUSIC, Fourteemth st—SHAKsPRARE's @EDY OF MACBETH. WOOD'S MUSEUM Broadway, corner 30th st.—Perform- Bnces every afternoon and evening. { ve ha BO GLOBE THEATRE, 738 Broadway.—VaRizty ENTER Sparnment—Loucueria Boruia, M.D, Mailnee at 2). MRS, F. B. CONWAY'S PARK THEATRE, Brooklyn.— Boun 10 Goop Luck—MiscmiEVvous ANNIE, do. f TONY PASTOR'S OPERA SOUSE, 201 Bowery.—Va- Qeiery ENTERTAINMENT. Matinee at 234. ) pct THEATRE COMIQUE, 614 Broadway.—Comio VooaL- su, NEGKO Acts, a0. ‘Matinee at 2}. SAN FRANCISCO MINSTREL HALL. 685 Broaiway.— prreno MINSTRELSY, FaRogs, BURLESQUES, £0. k KELLY & LEON’S MINSTRELS, No. 806 Broadway.— tux ONLY LEON—SWRETEST OF WILLIAMS, 0. HOOLEY'S OPERA HOUSE, Brooklyn.—Nkuro MIN- YRELSY, BURLESQUES, £0. | BROOKLYN OPERA HOUSE——Wreioca, Hogurs & ‘AITE’s MINSTRELS—TuE Brep HuNTEES, &c. i HALL OF THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIA- BIoN.—Geonce VaANDENHOY's READINGS. + NEW YORK CIRCUS, Fourteenth strest.—ScENES IN Bux Kine, acnowars, do. Matinee at 234. AMERICAN INSTITUTE EXHIBITION.—Evrine NK, Third avenue and Sixty-third street. NEW YORK MUSEUM OF ANATOMY, 618 Broadway.— BCIENOE AND ART. DR. KAHN’S ANATOMICAL MUSEUM, 745 Broadway.— BowrNGe AND Arr. TRIP New York, Saturday, October 22, 1870. = nn corereeniees CONTENTS OF TO-DAY’S HERALD. Pace. 1—Advertisements, 2—Advertisements. 3-Paris: Herald Report of the Situation In Tours; ‘The Cabinet Ready to Leave at a Moment’s Notice; Vigilance and Alarm of the Ministers; Insubordination of the National Guards of Amiens; Severe Fire from tne Paris Forts Wed- nesday Night; Failure of Bazaine’s Negotia- tons to Surrender; General Bourbaki en route Jor Lille; The French Army of the Loire in Good Condition—Lost at Sea: Wreck of the Steamer Cambria off the irish Coast; The Bark William Rathbone Lost Off the Coast of Florida; The New Orleans Steamer Mariposa Missing: The Cambria’s Passenger List; Ter- rible Loss of Life; Other Disasters at Sea— The Earthquake in Canada—Great Fire in Winsted, Conn.—The Late Colonel Dana, U. 8. A.—The Free Trade Treaty Between France and England. &—Europe: Rome as It Was Seen on the Eve of the Plebiscitum; The Defences of Great Britain; Democratic Progress in Denmark—Brazil: Legisiative Affairs; The Emperor's Siaves— Janada—Naval Intelligence—A Woman's ‘atal Leap, S—The Courts—Fire in Mott Street—An Unknown Man Killed—Funding the National Debt—Ex- plorations in Yarkand—Work of the Chris- uan’s Ald Society—Superintendent Kelso's Régime—Prospect Park Fair Grounds—Races at Binghamton—Cock Fight—Enghsh Sporting Gossip—National Unitarian Couvention—The Fighting Targeteer. 6—Editworials: Leading Article, The Course of Em- pire, the Future Greatness of New York— Amusement Announcements. Y—-Editorials (continued from Sixth page)—Tele- deg News trom all Parts of the World: ritish Opinions of United States Minister Morton; Mazzini Not Yet Free; France Solicits a Spanish Alliance; Death of Balfe, the Com- poser—Political Intelligence—Personal Inteili- pg ile pire beige Notices. 8—The New Election Law: A New Element of Bubbie, Bubble, Toil and Trouble—The Canal Reports—Tom Hughes’ Farewell—The Atrican Coast—Newark’s Wayward Alderman—The Trish Republicans—The German Vessels Cap- tured by the French off Rio Janeiro—The Jumel Estate : Mr. Nelson Chase Again Chased by Fresn Claimants of the Property—The Ger- man Sanitary Fair—New York City News— West Point: Court Martial on the Colored Cadet—News from Mexico—Marine Transfers. B—Financial ana Commercial Reporis—A Mil- lmer’s Bill—New Jersey News—Marriages and Deaths. 40—News from Washington—The Irrepressible Fe- male: Anniversary of the First Blast for Wo- man Suffrage—St. Domingo—The Liberal Club—Shipping News—Advertisements, 11—Advertisements. 123—Advertisements. Mazzini, journeying toward Rome, the capital, of his country, has been ordered by the Italian government to remain at Leghorn. This is only a quasi sort of freedom, Leghorn is not a bad place, however. The great democratic agitator can obtain a splendid new hat there, He certainly could net expect to obtain a hat in Rome. f ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT BakEz.—We publish elsewhere in the HeRatp extracts from letters from Port au Prince announcing the assassination of President Baez, of St. Domingo. These letters say that Baez has been killed in some shape or other, or has committed suicide. In the event of none of these desperate evils happening to the unfor- tunate President, it is asserted he has fled the country. That the story is as possible as sensational will be generally admitted, but there is too much of the blood and murder element in its manufacture to savor of truth. Baez may have died by any of the forms described; he may have fied the country, but we think that the letters alluded to will be found to have been written in the interest of the Cabral faction and with the idea of operating against Baez and the annexation of St. Domingo to the United States. Taz Wreoks at Sza.—The telegraph re- ports that the Anchor line steamship Cambria has been wrecked on tie Irish coast and all on board took refuge in the ship’s boats. One sailor has been found and the rest may turn up at any moment. The steamship Mariposa, plying between New Orleans and New York, has been at sea since the 5th inst., when she left New Orleans, and no doubt remains, from débris picked up along the route, that she, too, Is a wreck and her crew are either lost or are still hanging their hopes on the frail tenure of the ship’s boats. Other wrecks are reported in widely separate latitudes, and on the Florida coast one steamship captain reports having passed eleven wrecks in one day. The shore of that paradise of wreckers is strewn for fifty miles with a general assortment of merchandise and the débris pertaining to wrecks. The mighty Storm King has reaped a Blob harvest. NEW YORK HERALD, SATURDAY, OUTUBER 22, 1870.—TRIPLE SHHKHY. The Course of Empire—The Future Great- ness of New York. ‘The centennial jubilee of American inde- pendence has not been celebrated yet. In the short time that remains to complete the first hundred years of our. national existence we will make still greater strides in the path of progress than any which have marked our history in the past. We have but to glance at our achievements hitherto and our immense resources to be convinced of this. Already the high position attained by the United States as an important Power com- mends it to the admiration of mankind. On this Western Continent we have laid, firm as the Rock of Ages, the foundation of a system of civilization whose beneficial influence is rapidly extending over all the world. Ameri- can institutions have done more for the ame- lioration of humanity than those of all other countries of Christendom combined. The op- pressed among all peoples turn their eyes toward the setting. sun and see in free America the liberty for which they long, the prosperity for which they toil and the peace for which they pray. Firm as the Rock of Ages the founda- tion of this system is, we say, because it rests on the eternal principle that the good of all the people—the elevation and happiness of hu- manity—is the noblest sphere for activity, human or divine. It was the glorious mission of the Messiah and is the design of the great Creator who made man in His own image. From thirteen sparsely settled, dependent colonies we have grown with remarkable rapidity to be a united nation of thirty- seven sovereign States and vast ter- ritorial acquisitions, having a total popu- lation of forty millions. Flourishing towns and important cities have sprung up in all the States in consequence of our internal development and our commerce on the seas. In less time than it has taken people in the Old World to erect a church edifice we have built up a powerful and progressive nation. We have passed through a protracted civil war.which made the inexhaustible resources and the martial spirit of America known and acknowledged everywhere. The alacrity and ease with which the men who composed the splendid armies of the North and South returned to the peaceful pursuits of life when the war was ended dazzled Europe even more than the valor which both sides displayed throughout the war, And now, when that unhappy civil strife has ceased and its cause has been removed forever, when the unfriendly feelings which it fostered are fast dying out and national harmony is being re-established on a sounder basis than it has ever stood, when our national debt is being rapidly paid off and increased prosperity is perceived throughout the country, the peoples of the older civilizations look upon us with greater amazement than before. And so the tide of immigration is still setting toward our shores, for even the poor and the ignorant appreciate the glorious future that lies before the great republic. 3 Since the completion of the railroad across the Continent especially tourists’ have been flocking hither every year to see the wonders of the Western World. However high his anticipations may be, no foreigner returns dis- appointed to his native land. Indeed, it is invariably the case that the reality exceeds his greatest expectations, He finds a country of vast territorial limits, equally immense moun- tains, lakes and rivers, scenery which for amazing grandeur or quiet beauty is elsewhere unequalled, agricultural, pastoral and mineral resources the extent of which even we our- selves scarcely yet appreciate, and a cosmo- politan population actively engaged in promot- ing the material development of the country and the general welfare of all the people. Everything he sees is on a grander scale than he had ever contemplated, and he is conscious of:the existence here of elements which must make the United States foremost among nations. In this connection we remark that no one can witness the growing greatness of New York without feeling forcibly impressed with the idea that this Empire City is destined to be- come the great cosmopolitan capital of the world. New York has attractions which only Paris equalled. The rapid increase of wealth among our industrious and sagacious citizens is seen by every casual observer in the vast number of permanent improvements. Broad- way for miles is lined with magnificent marble buildings erected specially for business pur- poses. But Broadway is only one of the thor- oughfares that indicate our commercial great- ness. Other avenues and cross streets contain rows of splendid wholesale and retail establish- ments. Narrow streets are being widened to make room for the enormous traffic. New and substantial marble and iron struc- tures are being erected in all quarters to meet the demands of increasing business. A host of hotels, large and luxurious, contribute much to the beauty of the city and the comfort of its visitors. Additional hotels are being built to accommodate the constantly increasing influx of strangers. At every point the eye is attracted by magnificent public insti- tutions. The architectural taste displayed in our public and private buildings shows a great advance in that branch of art among us, while it adds immensely to the splendid appearance of the metropolis. It is marvellous to leok upon the great number of princely private mansions that have arisen within the last few years and those in ceurse ef construction in all the upper districts. Squares of cestly pri- vate dwellings are springing up in all direc- tions, and the city proper is rapidly absorbing all the suburbs. The region of the Central Park, which a few years ago was a scene of squalid ‘‘squatter sovereignty,” will soon be the great fashionable centre of the city. The avenue extensions aad the boulevards which are being laid out and graded, when built upon, as they soon will be, will make the upper por- tion of New York more beautiful than any section of any other city in the werld, The vast number of splendid churches, crowded every Sunday with the respective classes of believers who worship God according te the dictates of their consclence unmolested by the mandates of any proscriptive potentate or priesthood, is an admirable illustration of that liberality of sentiment which is one of the crowning glories of our American institutions. All these are only a few of the outward in- dications of the growing greatness of New York and the excelsior spirit of Americans. Literature and ert in all thelr branches are fully eppreciated by us. Our public school system affords facilities for the humblest child to procure an excellent education. Foreign talent is quickly recognized and native talent is equally well rewarded. Music and the drama here find satisfactory encouragement. The taste of our citizens in this respect has improved with their general culture, and suc- cess is dependent upon merit. Now that all Europe is unsettled by the war, other fine foreign artists should follow the example of Nilsson, Seebach and Janauscheck, and we promise all of them success in propor- tion to their talents, The amenities and graces of social life are cultivated in New York as much as in any city of Continental Eurepe. Hitherto Paris has been the great centre of fashion for the world, but now New York already rivals Paris. While the Grand Hotel is turned into a hospital, the theatres are closed and the Grand Opera House is transformed into a provision depot, all the hotels in New York are filled with guosts and the places of amusement are crowded every night. The splendid display of beauty and fashion on the closing day of the fall meeting of the American Jockey Club at Jerome Park this season surpassed anything of the kind to be seen in Europe. We should not be sur- prised if hereafter the annual meeting of the Jockey Club will be to New York what the Derby day now is to London. Foreigners will find how much that species of sport has been elevated by us. And hereafter, instead ot patronizing Paris, all the world will look to New York for the latest fashions. This Empire City will become the centre of all that is most advanced in litera- ture, art and science. The most vivid imagi- nation can scarcely picture the progress that New York must make in a single genera- tion. The work of transformation 1s fast progressing, and we can compare it only to the embellishment of Paris under the reign of the third Napoleon. Bridges will bind together this and our sister city Brooklyn, and the advancement that each is making will be shared by both in common, An extensive system of substantial docks will afford convenient accommodation for our ship- ping. Increased facilities for travel will fur- nish rapid transit between the marts of busi- ness and the homes of thousands situate far away from the commercial heart of the me- tropolis. The great number and variety of improvements on a colossal scale already in course of completion or in contemplation point to New York, in view of its central situation, as the future great cosmopolitan capital of Christendom. The Military Situation in France. With the exception of a few unimportant movements in the provinces the situation in France remains unchanged. Bazaine’s shrewd proposition to surrender a portion of his garri- son at Metz with the idea of subsisting the rest so much longer has been rejected by General von Moltke, who looks to a full and unconditional surrender before long. Mont Didier on the north and Magny on the west have been occupied, and the rear lines at Orleans have been strengthened by the with- drawal of the Prussian troops trom Beaugency and Meuny. General Bourbaki is on his way to take command of the Army of the North at Lille, and Rouen and Amiens are preparing for de- fence with that inactive enthusiasm that alone seems to have saved France from utter paralysis. About Paris a steady fire from the fortifications is continually kept up, though it is now stated that the Prussians, resting safely behind their works, are not disturbed by it. Such an incessant fire must have the effect ere long to empty the French arsenals of their bombs and other missiles. The Napoleonic legacy of irresolution and incertitude clings like a shirt of Nessas to the authorities of the republic. Napoleon himself was more of a general than the world gives him credit for since Sedan. His Italian campaign displayed qualities that his uncle might have admired, especially in those matters wherein he was so lamentably lacking in his latest war. The admirable disposition and rapid transportation of his troops were of immense avail at the turn- ing point at the battle of Magenta, when his heavy reinforcements came on the ground in a train of cars, and were advanced in line of battle directly from the railroad. Of late years, however, he became careless, and left the important items of commissa- riat and mobilization to his subordinates, and the result was climaxed at Sedan. The legacy of a worthless commissariat and lack of concentration has fallen with heavy hands on the young republic. The National Guard in the interlor are disorderly, the organization of Gardes Mobile is progressing with fatal tardiness, the generals of the republic act mostly on their own ‘‘hook,” and a sad lack of system prevails throughout. Time, however, will remedy all this, if France or Prussia, either, for that matter, can only afford time. The presence of Prussians in their country and encircling in hostile lines their own favored capital will serve finally to weld Frenchmen into one idea and one sentiment. It will make France all French; Alsace, Lorraine, Nice, Savoy, will all feel the more tender love for their common country wiile it continues over- run by German hordes, It will cement the people together and thus make them strong, as the Southern rebellion in our own land, in bringing about the upheaval of old party differ- ences, showed us also our strengh and welded us the more firmly together. With the Germans away from home it is another matter. These troops are not the hardened soldiery that the fact of their being drilled almost from in- fancy upmight possibly lead us to infer. They are mainly the landwehr—the home guards of Germany—answering to our national guards. The greater part of them, although trained as soldiers, have never seen actual service antil the present war ; have never endured the hard- ships of sieges and marches and battles and camp fever, and that peculiarly German mal- ady, home sickness, They have not learned to endure the deprivations of war in their little provincial encampments any more than Fisk’s Ninth regiment has become equal toa Virginia campaign by their camp instruction at Long Branch. These men, therefore, during the dreary, rainy winter that is about to set in, will be troubled, like raw recruits, with camp fevers and colds and that dismal home sick- ness with which many stout men, not near so domestic in their temperaments as the Ger- ‘mans, died in the far-away camps down South, Gideon Welles on the Warpath. When Uncle Gideon left the Navy Depart- ment it was supposed by many persons that he would retire to Hartford and quietly sleep away the remainder of his life. During the lass four years of his official term he had been gradually falling into a dozy state, and the ships and dockyards of the navy were somewhat in the condition of Rip Van Winkle’s gon after the twenty years’ sleep of that individual among the Catskills. The old Sinbad of the navy had made his peace with all the world, and, in expectation of shortly leaving this terrestrial abode for that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns, had executed his will and loft the Navy Department and all its musty folios to his next ofkin. It was hoped by his successors that the ex-Secretary would rest satisfied with having written eight interesting romances inthe shape of annual reports during his term of office. He had employed Chap- lain Boynton to prepare a history of his doings during the war of the rebellion, in which the old Secretary received no more credit than was actually due him, as he had conducted the affairs of the navy in a manner to elicit the warmest praise from all lovers of their country. Fora time, indeed, Uncle Gideon fulfilled the anticipations of his friends and, snoozed away an entire winter, merely waking from time to time to superintend the building of a splendid resi- dence that he was erecting in Hartford out ef the earnings of his eight years of administra- tion. While thus hibernating the old gentleman's mind was not at rest, although his body was relaxed in slumber, and it cannot be forgotten how he awoke one morning and, calling for pen and ink, gave the present Secretary of the Navy a severe scolding for attempting to interfere with his prerogative by writing a report on naval matters which people could understand, The effort was a mighty one, for the venerable sailor was waxing in years, and after finishing his tirade against the present department he slipped off into such a sound slumber that his friends feared they should never hear his voice again, But they were mistaken. Calm and equable as the old sailor was in outward appearance he had been con- tinualy riled during his eight years’ tenure of office by the more youthful and active premier, Mr. Seward, who, on more than one occasion, “tok the wind out of his sails,” and, not satis- fied with steering the ship of state through the shoals of diplomacy, undertook to man- age the ships of the navy on the briny ocean. Thus the sprightly Seward would (as is well known) often take the “‘weather wheel” from Uncle Gideon and send the latter to the “lee spoke,” while he would madly steer through red tape and antiquated forms to the destruction of all that law and order which the venerable Welles tried so hard to preserve. These little eccentricities of Seward, combined with some naval disappointments, have soured the temper of Welles to such a degree that he has at length woke up and poured a thundering broadside into the ex-Secretary of State in particular, and into whomever else he may reach, It is strongly suspected that his shot will reach a portion of the navy which has in- terfered with plans long cherished. When the. rebellion ended ‘‘Uncle Gideon Welles” (as President Lincoln affectionately called him) had collected together all the curious old vessels which he had purchased from time to time and stored them away at the navy yards for future emergencies. He had printed their names in true Indian ‘in all the navy registers, which names were to serve the purpose of Chinese forts and frighten our enemies with their high-soundingoese. Every timber of those big canoes, which were built long after there was any use for them, and every double bow of the famed “‘double-enders” were as precious in the sight of Mr. Welles as the bones of his grandmother, and he could not sleep quietly while such desecration was going on as selling his pet vessels for firewood or altering them into coal barges. He therefore determined to become historian and snatch from Seward’s brow the laurels he had falsely obtained. It was galling to Uncle Gideon to see Sewarc cavorting away off in Alaska among the Russian bears and receiving ovations from the four quarters of the globe, while he was left at ‘home in Hartford to hi- bernate and suck his paws. What had Seward done but predict that the rebellion would end in sixty days, while he, Gideon, predicted nothing, but did fit out the Sumter expedition, which would have been a success if it had not been a failure? There seems to be a link wanting some- where in the chain of Mr. Welles’ history, and it is shrewdly suspected that the gentleman has only stated his side of the affair. It seems to the uninitiated that there must have been some reason for Mr. Seward’s fitting out the Fort Pickens expedition without the knowledge of Uncle Gideon. Indeed, the former never hesitated to say that the “ancient mariner” was very shaky in his timbers, his planking was decayed and he wanted a good deal of caulking—in fact, that he was ‘‘quite leaky” and could not keep a state secret. He fondly held on to men in the Navy Department who were known to be strong secessionists, and who would flash over the wires to their rebel friends every item of interest that trans- pired. We all know how Barron, Magruder, Ingraham, Buchanan and others were trusted, even after the Pickens expedition had sailed. Barron, who comes in for some scathing shot from Mr. Welles, was the trusted one whom Uncle Gideon sent South with secret despatches, and with whom he hobnobbed at the wedding of Captain Buchanan’s daughter when that secessionist invited the whole Cabi- net down to witness the ceremony, in which his thirteen daughters and nieces, acting as bridesmaids, represented the thirteen original States. There the amiable Secretary Welles led the bride to supper, while Seward was dreaming of his forthcoming triumph at Pickens, and there Buchanan, Barron and others of that stripe were introduced by Mr. Welles to Mr. Lincoln as the faithful defenders of the Union, the men to be entrusted with the honor of the flag. They embraced all around, as men always do when on the point of turning faithless. Specious as Uncle Gideon's romances are they do not satisfy us that Mr. Seward did not pursue the right course in speeding the Powhgaten gnd Qaptain Meigs to the aasis- tance of Fort Pickens, where the gallant Slem- mer, with a handful of indifferent and un- trusted soldiers, was holding the most impor- tant position in the country, and when the “relief” that Mr. Welles claims to have been sent into the fort was kept about five miles off tied up with so much red tape that the commander of the squadron dared not land without special orders from the President. We remember the satisfaction of the public when it was announced that the gallant Slem- mer had been reinforced by Captain Meigs and General Harvey Brown, and that the Pow- hatan was lying alongside the fort protecting itand the stores with her guns, while Mr. Welles’ squadron, five miles off, never moved tack nor sheet until forced from very shame to take part in the landing. We remember also that Mr. Welles’ squadron was the rendezvous of rebels, where the traitor Renshaw came on board with an empty bread bag and left with it full, while the indignant old sailors stood by the gangway as he passed over and groaned for the wretch who deserted his flag and afterwards came to the squadron for food. Mr. Seward thought he could not trust the fate of Pickens in that quarter, and we incline to the belief that the wily old diplomat, who fitted out navies and armies of his own, was the right man in the right place. He saved Fort Pickens. Mr. Welles lost Sumter, and, what was worse, lost his temper. What matters it how many vessels he had or how many he sent when he confesses that his fleet arrived off Charleston bar (which none of them could cross, owing to too much depth of keel) only in time to witness the bombardment? And yet he says that the expedition failed for want of the flagship. We are sorry to have to criticise Uncle Gideon’s romances, but we must guard the truth of history. It is too early yet to write the history of the rebellion. People sometimes use history as a cloak to ventilate thelr animosities, and there seems to be too much of that style in the late attempt of Uncle Gideon to throw light on a vexed question which is quite as clear as mud. Let us wait and see what the venerable and sprightly Seward says on the subject. He has written many volumes on matters relating to the war, and will, no doubt, enlighten us in the present instance. He will certainly notice Uncle Gideon’s attack on him, and we shall, no doubt, have a lively passage at arms between these two gentlemen of the old school. Too Much Personality. We have deprecated before the manner in which the present canvass is conducted by the party organs and speakers. To read the one and listen to the other one would suppose that every man nominated for office by either party was an atrocious rascal. Language can hardly supply epithets or vituperation sufficiently strong for the occasion. Why should this be so? Cannot the political campaign be conducted with some regard to the decencies of society as men know them and observe them in private life? Itis painful, for example, to seea re- spsctable paper like the Times charging the Comptroller with a heavy defalcation in his management of the city finances just at this moment, in the passion of an election. Of course there is nothing in the charge except what the heat of partisanship may excite in the stormy hours of a political contest. If there be anything more than this in it the Compiroller, who is trusted by the people, and so far is without reproach, can certainly show how the affairs of his department stand, and thus satisfy the public that there isa false- hood somewhere. The abuse of candidates is so promiscuous that one hardly knows who is the rascal and who is the man clothed with all the public virtues. It reminds us of Diekens’ description of our politicians and journalists as his vision through the glass of caricature found them twenty years ago. An ordinary reader of the political papers to-day would get terribly mixed up as to who are the scoundrels among all the nominees for office—whether it is General Woodford, or Oakey Hall, or Tweed, or Governor Hoffman, or Ledwith, or Bren- nan, or any other man. If Mrs. Partington were here she would be in her element of inex- tricable confusion, and would certainly give us some brilliant scintillations of her incompa- rable genius for blundering. But all this is most indecorous and unbe- coming. If it has any effect at all upon the election—save to disgust decent people and keep them from voting—it will be to render the worst abused man the most popular, and herein lies the weakness as well as the offen- siveness of this mode of managing a political campaign. Harp Upon tue RepussicaAN CANDIDATE FoR GOVERNOR.—Mr. Stewart L. Woodford is paying the usual penalty of venturing to be a candidate for a political office. This republi- can nominee for the chief executive office of the State had the misfortune of having been once Assistant United States District Attorney in this city; and it is now charged against him that in that capacity he was untrue to his official duties, and did, for the sake of personal gain, connive at the escape of a vessel engaged in the slave trade. The charge was publicly made by Mayor Hall, immediately after Mr. Woodford’s nomination for Governor, and has been one of the staple arguments against him in the political campaign. The Z’ribune has been recently criticising the action of Mayor Hall in that matter, and the Mayor replies, in a card to Mr. Greeley, which we publish this morning, together with an extract from a com- munication of ex-Marshal Murray intimating that an extraordinary pressure was brought to bear upon him by leading republicans to sup- press his disclosure cf the facts in the case. We publish these documents as contributions to the political history of the day. Unitep Srares ComMissionzR OsboRN has decided that the officers appointed spe- cially to enforce the new law of Congress, under which the elections are to be held, have no authority. to arrest offenders. If this deci- sion is to hold good, we do not see that the law can be enferced at all, especially. here in New York, where the only terror the law possesses for the roughs consists in its being able, by prompt arrests, to prevent their vot- ing at all. If they are not to be arrested, or if the process of arrest is lengthened out to the traditional indefiniteness ef the course of the law, they will all be enabled to cast their -Rumeroua individual votes and snap their fingers at the Iaw the next day. The decision of Commissioner Osborn prunes the law of its only effective point, It leaves it as null and void as the most enthusiastic ally of the rowdy democracy could wish. ‘The Late Earthquake—A Plain und Couscling Explanation, The Inte earthquake, as we make it out from reports received at this office, extended from the latitude of Cincinnati, coveriug, aa Pat would say, on the underside, the breadth of territory from that city northward to Detroit and northward to an unknown distance beyond Detroit, and thence the subterranean fiery wave rolled along at a speed, say ofa thousand miles an hour, northeasterly towards the Atlantic Ocean, embracing Queheo and the whole State of Maine in its course, Over all this region, and, indeed, over all the Con. tinent east of the Rocky Mountains, the earth's crust is comparatively thick, excepting that section of the Mississippi valley proper between Cairo and Memphis, Hence, with this exception, the whole Continent east of the Rocky Mountains may be pronounced safe against disasters from earthquakes, Had there been any very thin place in the earth’s crust over this passing wave of internal lava there would have been at that point an ugly fracture and a lively voloanio eruption, Real estate investment, therefore, over all the region indi- cated, may be considered perfectly secure against depreciation from earthquakes, A comet or aerolite is different customer, and may strike anywhere. < The exceptional section of the Mississippi valley proper, of which we have spoken, between Cairo and Memphis, was visited in 1811 by a succession of earthquakes running through several weeks, and some of the results in the lakes created along the river bottom near New Madrid remain to this day. It is seldom that a destructive earthquake occura at any great distance from a volcano. That awful visitation at Lisbon in 1755 was a re- markable exception to this rule; but then the whole Mediterranean is only a volcanic basin. This earthquake of 1811 in the Mississippi valley, we think, may be traced to that vol- vanic centre known as the Hot Springs of Arkansas, which are only a volcano in a differ- ent form from that of Vesuvius and the other dry volcanoes. In Mount Hecla andin the Geysers of Iceland they have the dry and the wet volcano and plenty of earthquakes, as iu all other volanic regions. 4 From the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean we have a region which, in a geological sense, has only recently cooled down. Fre- mont describes it as ‘‘a region of fracture and violence and fire.” What were volcanic cratere may be found now as mountain lakes in many places in the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. The State of Nevada and all that inland Great Basin was but the other day, geologically speaking, the bottom of the sea. It was, at a comparatively recent date, lifted up bythe pressure of the volcanic elements under the earth’s crast from four to five thou- sand feet above the sea level. When we get to the Pacific coast of California we come to a region where the earth’s crust is thin and the hot springs and slumbering volcanic craters of that section will account for the frequent earth- quakes at San Francisco. This earthquake of ours of Thursday last was one of that exceptional class which we cannot trace to any volcanic source. How, then, are we to account for it? We know that in velcanic regions, just before an earth- quake, there is a supernatural baziness and sultriness in the skies, often accompanied with rain, These phenomena indicate some elec- trical elements of attraction between the atmosphere above and the fiery liquid under the earth’s crust. We had these phenomeng in the atmosphere the other day, and we sup: pose their attraction was so great upon the sensitive lava under the earth as to cause the trembling of the solid ground over all the region affected, without the assistance of a wave of lava from the basin of any volcano, This is wonderful, when we consider that the shell of the earth under our new city Post Office is, perhaps, not less than thirty miles in thickness, Such are the incomprehensible and stupendous forces of attraction, gravita- tion, electricity, gases, sulphur, &c., and fire, nitro-glycerine and steam combined; for all these expansive and explosive elements entes into the composition of an earthquake, We see, too, in the distribution of the earth’s volcanoes, that where they do not exist ad escape pipes of earthquakes they are really not wanted, and that where a volcano is most active it is most useful in letting off the gases, steam and lava which otherwise would throw whole continents into chaos. We congratu- late the people of the Atlantic slope, however, that they have no volcano, because the absence of this safety valve may be accepted as proof that we are in no real danger from earthquakes. As for the people of San Fran- cisco, we would still recommend to them, aa the safest dwellings, frame houses of one story, with a good strong ground floor, Senator Morton. The Pall Mall Gazette betrays no less igno- rance than malevolence in its reference to the appointment of Senator Morton as Minister to the Court of St. James. It says that ‘‘a thor- oughly incompetent person is selected to repre- sent the United States in England, and is instructed first to bully and next to threaten war. This incompetent person hesitates, probably preferring a domestic skirmish with the democrats to a war with England.” Now, the Pali Mall Gazette should have learned enough about our’ prominent public men te know that few of them have a better and more honorable record than Senator Morton. Born in 1828, educated at Miami University, regu- larly trained for the bar (to which he wags admitted in 1847), elected Circuit Judge of the Fifth Judicial Court of Indiana in 1852, nomi- nated for Governor of that State in 1856, and, although then defeated, elected Lieutenant Governor in 1860, and becoming Governor in 1861 on the transfer of Governor Lane to the Senate; elected Governor for a second term in 1864, visiting Europe in 1865 on acceunt of ill health, but in spite of it returning in 1866 and resuming his executive duties, Senator’ Morton delivered in June of that year a politi-' eal speech which created great enthusiasm and of which more than a million copies in pam~ phlet form were circulated through the country, In 1867 he was elected for the term ending in 1873 ta the United States Senate. whera