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F NEW YORK HERALD BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR, All business or news letter and telegraphic despatches must be addressed New York Herawp. Volume XXXVI AMUSEMENTS THIS EVENING. FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE, Twenty-fourty street.— Banaroca. GLOBE THEATRE, 728 Broatway.—VaRiETyY ENTER- TAINMENT, £0.—APTER THE Wan. NEW YORK STADT THEATRE, Onur, 45 Bowery.—Dir BOOTH'S THEATRE, 23: si., vetween Gib ang 6th ave,— RIOMELire. WooD's Must ances every a! corner 30th st,—Perform- FOURTEENTH STREET THEATRE (Theatre Francais)— Rrouriirv. GARDEN, Broadway.—Tux SPROTACLE oF OOK. WALLACK'S THEATRE, Broadway ana 18th street.— Mannix Lire, LINA EDWIN'S THEATRE, — 720 Broadway.—Hunrep Down; OR, THE Two Liv ¥ Many Leica, GRAND OPERA HOUSE, corner of Sth av. ana 23d at.— La Preicno.e OLYMPIC THEATRE, Broadway. —Tur Ricariimev oF TAR Pruron. BOWERY THEATRE, Bowery.—Pomr; on, Wax DOWN SouTH-JaQues 81 MRS. F. B. CONWAY BARATOGA. PARK TUSATRE, Brooklyn. — TONY PASTOR'S OPERA HOUSE, 21 Bowery.—Va- Ririy ENTERTAINMENT. THEATRE COMIQUE, 514 Broadway.—Co : ims, NFER Avis, ok ay.—Comio VocaL- BAN FRANCISCO MI 1AUL, 585 Broa way.— NrG@uo Min! .8¥, Fane RSQUES, On BRYANT'S at, between 6th and 7th avs. ENTRIOITIBS, &0. HOOLEY'S OPERA HOUSE, Brooklyn.—HooLer's anp KRLLY & Luox'y MINSTRELS. " Nee APOLLO HALL, corner 2Sch street and Broad — De. Coury’s Dionama OF IRELann. ata NEW YORK CIRCUS, THE RING, AcKONATS, NEW YORK MUSEUM OF ANATOMY, 618 Broadway.— BOLENOF AND ART. DR. KAUN’S ANATOMICAL MUSEUM, 745 Broadway.— SCIENCE AND ALT. New York, Friday, February 24, 1871. CONTENTS OF TO-DAY’S HERALD, Pac. t—Advertisements. 2—Advertisementa. 3—News from Washington—Proceedings im Con- Gress—Music and the Dr New Y ie slou—) Hoboken, from the Domini- can Republic; the Work of the Commission; Une Evideuce Taken Before It; Reasons Why the Inhabitants Favor Annexation—Paris Pro- Visioned: Scenes in tne Capital on the Arrival Ol the Food Trains—Opinions of the French Press on the Situation—Pacts, Incidents and Personalia trom Our Contiuental European Files—siorm tn Engiand. 5—The Coai Conspiracy 's of a Fuel Pamine in this City and Vicinity; Meeting of Coal Opera- tors at Philadeipiua—The Death of Audiior Watson: ‘the Coroner’s _ Investigation—The New Steamship Assyria—Gas Famine in Jer- Bey. G—Fajtoriais : Leading Article, “The French Re- public aud M. Thiers""—Amusement Announce- ments. 7—Editorials (continued from Sixth Page)—Per- sonal Inteliizence—The Peace Question—The French Government—Genverai Reports trom Paris—News from Jamaica—fhe Joint High Commission—Miscellaueous Teiegraph—Polti- cal and Genera! Notes—Views of the Past— busivess Nouces. S—The Courts—. aud Man Arraigned—Broadway Widenmg—Grand Jury Presentinents—Cruel- tes at Sea—A Minister “Ku Kiaxed’’—Massa- chusetis Temperance Conventioa—Brooklyn benevolence. ®—Educational Affairs—Department of Docks— The Methodist Book VConcern—The Queens County Bugbear—Obituary—Financial and Commercial Reports—Marriages and Deaths. 10—Emigration Afairs—The Camden Election Raots—rhe Hoboken Mechanics’ Association— Custom House Investigation—A United States Revenue Oficer Murdered—Deuth of Jom S. Monroe, ex-Mayor of New Or- leans—Miscellaneous Telegraph—Meteorologi- cal Report—Suipping Lnteiligeuce—Aavertse- ments. 11—Custom House Frauds: The Great Sugar Case— Advertisements, 42—Advertisements. Our Apvices From Sr. Domingo, pub- lished this morning, show that the Commis- sioners are diligently prosecuting the work which they were sent to the island to perform. Their investigations have been thus far close and the information they have received valuable and interesting. The letters of our special correspondent with the expedition are full and copious, and fur- nish the readers with the latest intelligence of the movements and proceedings of the Com- mission, Tne Cororep Caver Smrrn is hovering on the verge of dismissal. The Secretary of War bas not yet published the proceedings of the court martial in his case, and itis be- lieved that he is donbtful as yet whether to give the boy another chance or to diemiss him from the Academy. The unforiuuate fel- low has liad such a hard road to travel be- tween his own peccadilloes and the ‘thazing” of his fellow students that ii is possible dis- missal would greatly relieve him personally, and there is no doubt it would greatly relieve the officials of the Academy and the public generally. Tne Casz or THE Bicamist GwyNng.—As staied in these columns a few days ago Jude Barnard granted, on motion of the convict Gwynne's counsel, a writ of error preparatory to argument for a new trial. The granting of a writ of error is imperative on any judge of the Supreme Court before whem proper application therefor is made, and a refusal would leave the judge open to impeachment. No stay of proceedings, however, was granted in the case, and the doctor still remains under the ban of the law according to the sentence pronounced upon him by Recorder Hackett in the Court of General Sessions. A Voice rrom Tae Coat Reciox.—The Pottsville (Pa.) Miners’ Journal of the 234 el that dealers are putting up the re coal ia Philadelphia, ‘This Is all wrong, is no necessity for it. There ts plenty to supply all the demands unui the What is all wrong in Philadelphia in regard to the coal business should be all wrong in New York. The managers in the present atrocious movement to run up prices will dis- cover a day of retribution soouer or later, The clamor of the people will finally compel Congress to repeul the duty on coal. Ivis stated that if the duty on coal were repealed a fleet of two thousand vessels, loaded with coal, weuld leave Neva Scotia for New York within sig weeks. Let them come i NEW YORK HERALD, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1871.—'TRIPLE SHEET, ‘The French Republic and M. Thiers. “France is always young at heart” said M. Thiers in his famous speech before the French Chamber of Deputies on the Italian question, and such is the expression that his faith- ful biographer might justly apply to the venerable statesman himself. He has been accused by his envious rivals and bitter opponents of instability in his opinions, but, upon close examination, this charge is found to be very slightly sustained by fact. The | world at large is apt, amid the whirl and = ! bustle of affairs, to form hasty, and, therefore, very often most erroneous, judgments of pub- lic men, and one of the glaring defects even of some of the journalists of our day, who should be cautious as well as accurately in- | formed, is that they manifest a proneness to leap at conciusions—in other words, using a rude but vigorous phrase of ihe Westera frontier, ‘io balloo before they are out of the | woods,” Thus minds that live but the moment and for the moment fre- | quently fail to detect a continuous plan or meaning in the lives of men and the policy of nations. Applying their own microscopic surement to superior powers, they inces- | santly mistake the proportions of the events and personages that they undertake to guage. M. Thiers, one of the most comprehensive, ve! and erndite intellects of our epoch— the journalist, the historian, the orator and the statesman combined, with eminent qualifica- tions and endowments in every walk of meatal achicvement—has been a continual puzzle to the political and literary critics, genuine and seif-constituted alike, of Europe, for the last Gilty years, He has been classified as a Logiti- mist, a Bonapartist, an Orleanist and a repub- lican at different times—in fact as Everything by turns And hothing long. At last, in his seventy-fifth year, in the full ripeness of age and honors, we find him called aimost unanimously to the executive chair of tbe French republic at a more pressing and terrible crisis in the fate of France, as independent nation, than she has known C) the days of tie English aud Burguadian con- quests. In a moment the senile prattle of the Bourbonists and the sufficiency of the Orleanists—gentlemen every one of them, perbaps, but gentlemen of an age gone by—die away, and, from one end of France to the other, rings out a welcome to “the right man in the right place” so glad and so hearty that the great Powers whose representatives are nearest to the French cen- tre of political action hasten to recognize the republic inaugurated under such auspices of ability, moderation and patriotism. Even the trembling hypochondriacs who have ‘‘red” npon the brain, and sniff the com- ing of M. Romieu’s ‘Spectre Rouge” in every corner, are appeased. The revolutionary “raw-head and bloody bones” with which they have been haunted for some weeks past disap- pears, and the odor of brimstone perceptibly fades from the atmosphere. Blood and thun- der proclamations have ceased, and France awakes from her nightmare and sits there, clothed again and in her right mind, at the council board of the nations. The clder Dupont de l’Eure, who had a sting occasionally in the end of his sentences, once said, “The republic will be possible in France only on that day when there shall be no more republicans;” and Alphonse Karr, the satirist, liked the remark so well that he copied it into his popular collection of sharp things entitled “The Wasps.” But M. de I'Eure aimed his shaft at the noisy, brawl- ing, tyrannical hordes of men who, in more modern countries than France, abuse the most sacred names and emblems for the pur- poses of faction, and whose entire success woull be but to substitute the grinding despotism of coarse and ignorant multitudes, led and controlled by vicious demagogues, for that concentration of power in the hands o crowned rulers which courtesy and culture sometimes mitigate. The republicans, whose watchword is ‘Order, with Liberty,” are everywhere, and to-day, as we fervently believe, they are the majority not only in France but throughout Europe, since, with- out a paradox, members of all other parties may in this sense be republicans. It was in 1849 that Thiers himself openly exclaimed, “The republic is the government that divides us least;” and if it was a symbol of strength at that time how much more so now, when unity, decision and earnestly combined effort have become the sole conditions of life to France! Moreover, we live in an epoch practical above all that have preceded it. Jeremy Bentham, writing just about the same time when the First Napoleon uttered his oft-repeated prediction that in fifty years Europe would be republican or Cossack, nearly paraphrased the sentence by prophesying that in fifty years the ruling word in Europe would be “‘utility.” And to this the great world has already come. Steam and electricity laugh at the pomps and vani- ties of the past. They are democrats—em- phatic, outspoken and irrepressible. They are, at once, the champions and the servants of ‘‘utility,” and they work for the people. Therefore, when the great Krupp ordnance— those iron-mouthed trumpets of doom from the foundries of Prussia—belch out upon the world a bran-new Emperor at Versailles to rule united Germany, while the plebiscitary ex-Emperor of the French crouches and growls a prisoner at Wilhelmshihe, how can we repress ‘‘a laugh that rings out to the poles” in the presence of a travesty so ridiculous upon the spirit of the time? Each particular hair on Bismarck’s head—and there are said to be but three—must quiver with suppressed mirth at the spectacle; and every thinker can understand the secret feeling that prompts so sensible a man and so good an officer as the Crown Prince to find much to do elsewhere rather than remain to approve the pageant of an offensive march by the German hosts through captured Paris with their new and venerable Emperor at their head. The great and glorious cause of German unity awakened sympathy in every enlight- ened country, and the victories with which the in sons of Fatherland responded to aggression and invasion were hailed with a joyous sense that the God of Battles was on the side of justice. But, in this hour, when that cause is caricatured, and the imperial nonsense of a mildewed past, rapacious exactions, territo- schoolboy self- | | how it is to be. friendly and to weaker States and overwhelm- ing provocation and humiliation imflicted on a gallant but defeated antagonist, are put forward as the fruit of German triumph, it is to France—France the republic—and to the wise statesman now at her head that the world will look for the better signs and tokens of the im- mediate future, The fancy politics of dogmas, factions and dynasties arouse no echo in the hearts of the French people. The legiti- mists are in the clouds; the Bonapartists bear all the obloquy of French discomfiture ; the Orleanists, if we are to believe the reports given by reliable correspondents of M. Thiers’ own words at Bordeaux, have been tampering with the invader, and he ‘‘repudiates and is ashamed” of them; the Rouges— those terrible French radicals who have frightened all the old women of our generation—are now contained and held in their place. Rochefort roars but gently, and Gambetta is on a diet of grucl and water, Tae roal repnblic--long predicted, long invoked—arises in pure and majestic propor- tions out of this great travail and chastiso- ment of France, Her blood and tears have not been all in vain, Sense, progress, human- ity and religion are alike reconciled to her coming. All the signs are propitions. The hearts of nations yeara for peace and brother- hood, and, with these, for liberty. The Ger- man race exulis in its prowess and its won- derful success, and the pageant of the empire may amuse them for awhile in this, their gala day; but the people, the ‘armed nations,” have discovered their strength and feel their needs. The seblime spectacle of France, all scarred and torn as she has been, arising before them—greatest in her hour of deepest pain, morally strongest although physically most stricken—will profoundly move the popu- lar heart beyond her boundaries. Glowing in the very front and down into the vitals of Europe the new republic will cast broad and "| healing rays far beyond the Alps and the Rbine; and practical, freedom-loving Ger- many, as the nearest neighbor and the stur- diest antagonist of France, may readily enouzh become her earliest ally and most steadfast friend in that republican accord which alone, in our day, promises peace and rest to toiling, struggling, long oppressed and long azonized humanity, Disracli and Gindstone on the Position of England. The Ailantic cable has made the steamboat slow. The Queen's speech was printed and discussed editorially in these columns on the same morning that it was printed and dis- cussed in the columns of the London Times, The Queen’s speeeh and the debate which followed, the details of which are just to hand by mail, are, therefore, an old story. In our columns yesterday we printed the speeches delivered on the occasion of the opening of the British Parliament by Mr. Disraeli, the leader of her Majesty's opposition, and Mr. Glad- stone, her Majesty's Prime Minister. We have always been more or less in favor of Mr. Disraeli. He isa man of genius—no schoel- man, yet a skilful, daring, inventive poli- tician. As the recoznized leader or mouth- piece of the tory gentry of England he has done not only bis party and his coun- try, but humanity, good service. But Mr. Disraeli cannot always be strong or even always happy. Even he must occasionally nod. On the occasion to which we have referred we must do justice to the leader of her Majesty's opposition and say that his ancient rival, Mr. Gladstone, had all the glory of putting him in a corner. Mr. Dis- raeli’s complaint was feeble. Mr. Gladstone’s answer was full, satisfactory, crushing, At the same time, and while fully admitting Mr. Gladstone’s victory, it is not to be denied that the debate on the occasion of the opening of the British Parliament revealed the fact that John Bull is fully alive to the novelty of his position and that he feels somewhat pained to know that he is no longer what he once was, His proud pre-eminence is questioned, and he finds it hard to decide how to think, how to speak, how to act in the premises. In the Queen’s speech, in Mr. Disraeli’s speech, in Mr, Gladstone’s speech, this fecling is conspicuously revealed. The Franco-German war has practically driven Great Britain out of the arena of European politics. So long as the nations were small her gold could divide the Continent and secure for her an easy triumph, For the first time in many years a European coalition against her is a possibility; and for the first time in her history she has been compelled to admit the fact that a European coalition would be dangerous, not only to her liberties and to her trade, but to her existence. ‘ In addition to all this Great Britain feels that she is uvhappily in bad relations with ber transatlantic cousins. Of all the European Powers she has the most potent reasons for courting the friendship and for dreading the enmity of the American people. er interests and our interests she sees and confesses are identical. They are one and the same, They do not conflict—they harmonize. In the eyent of a war with any of the European Powers:she now sees that our sword would be flung into the scale against her. This is Eng- land’s latest conviction. Hence the Joint High Commission. We rejoice in the convic- tion and we are not sorry for the appoint- ment of the Commission. England can make us friends if she knows how and is willing. She can also, if she chooses, widen the breach which already exists. It is for her to decide The two great natural allies are Great Britain and America. Hand in hand they can go on spreading the blessings of civilization over the waste places of the Earth and making ‘the future their common debtor. Separated from us Great Britain must suffer, civilization must be retarded ; but our,fature can scarcely be affected. This Joint High Commission gives promise, bids us be of good cheer. Let us hope that the fruit will be rich, abundant and satisfactory. If Great Britain will only be magnanimous enough to repair a wrong all will be well. Blood is thicker than water, Geverat W. H. H. Davis, of Bucks county, and editor of the Doylestown Democrat, is named as a candidate for the democratic nomination for State Auditor of Pennsylvania. He made a good soldier and would not make a rial aggrandizement. ovesbearing insolence to | bad rum The Coal Combination—The Facts in the Case. The excitement about the price of coal is naturally very great in the city. The ques- tion as to whether we shall have a coal famine in midwinter in this vast metropolis is a very serious one. At no previous time within our memory did coal command such an exorbitant price as it has reached now. Once, wo believe, it touched the alarming maximum of seventeen dollars a ton, and held that price for a few days only. On two or three sea- sons later the price went up to fourteen’ dol- lars, and stood firm for a considerable time at that figure. Of course it was then regarded as an extortion to which people had, of neces- sity, to submit, To-day, without any apparent honest cause, the price of coal has gone up to nearly twenty dollars a ton. We pre- sume thatevery one understands where this infamous extortion comes from, It is the creation of a wicked combination between the railroads and the wholesale coal dealers, which should be crushed at once by Congres- sional legislation, We suggested the remedies in our columns yesterday, and we reiterate them now. The immediate removal of the duty on foreign coal, as a present remedy, and, for a permanent cure of this grievous evil, the enactment of such laws by Congress as will place the management of the rail- roads under the control of ‘he gov- ernment, We perceive that our sug- gestion with regard to the abolition of duties on coal imported from the British provinces received immediate attention in Congress yesterday by the introduction of a resolution to that effect. We hope it will not be disregarded. The speediest way to crush these Pennsylvania monopolies is to indulge in a little free trade practice on this question of foreign coal. They will get so frightened lest the free trade notion may spread that they may be coerced into relinquishing their pre- sent despotic courses, The troable in the coal regions is very sim- ple. When the war broke out the coal mine owners had not been prosperous. The busi- ness of coal mining had been constantly over- done, With the war came a general advance in prices, an enormous iacreasg in the con- sumption of coal, both for shipping, iron smelting and general manufacturing purposes, and naturally a corresponding advance in the piice of coal. The mine owners thought their harvest time had come, and rapidly put up prices, but resisted all advancein the wages of the men until compelled by repeated strikes. Although each sirike was made an excuse for a fresh increase in the price, and thus in reality benefited the mine owners, they yet cannot pardon the men for having, as they say, dictated terms to them. They claim that the men should be satisfied with such wages as they, the employers, think fair, and they have for years past been trying to break the spirit of the men, and have sworn to break up the association by the aid of which the men have been enabled to work in unison. In 1869, when many of the mine owners had so much coal on hand, and the price had gone so low that many of the smaller operators and some of the railroad companies were trembling on the verge of bankruptcy, they were glad enough to get the Miners’ Association to conseut to a peaceable sus- pension, in order to relieve the market of the excessive stocks. But when they had suc- ceeded in putting up the price and had palmed off their accumulated surplus on the public at high figures they wanted the men to go to work at the old rates of wages, which the men naturally refused. They said :—‘‘You asked us to stand idle, in order to enable you to get more money out of yous stocks and save you from bankruptey. We think we are entitled to participate in the profits, which you derived partly at our expense.” Out of this grew what is called the ‘‘basis system,” by which the wages of the men are regulated in accord- ance with the selling price of coal at the prin- cipal points of shipment near the mines. Almost all the mine owners ac- cepted the basis system. But for the overgrown railroad companies, who are the largest coal mine owners, and who are ac- customed to dictate despotically alike to their empleyés, whom they pay, and to the public, the idea that the men should participate in their profits, is utterly unbearable, When at the close of 1870 it was evident that the mine owners had again produced more coal than the market was able to take, they again got the Miners’ Association to consent to a peaceable suspension, by means of which they were enabled to again advance the price on the public—work off their stock at high figures, and make the public believe that the sole cause of the advance was the unfairness of the working miners. This idea ap- pears to exist to-day. At a meeting of the coal operators, carrying companies and iron manufacturers held in Phil- adelphia yesterday, a series of resolutions were adopted, which were directed almost entirely to the terms by which the working miners could be controlled." It is evident enough, we think, that the advance in the price of coal does not originate in the coal mining districts, but comes exclusively from an infamous combination between the Penn- sylvauia railroad companies and the coal operators. There is, doubtless, plenty of coal in the mining regions. An advertisement in a Harrisburg paper of Tuesday, tor instance, announces in the ordinary way that coal is continued to be sold at a certain establishment for four dollars a ton, carefully screened at that. From a statement mude by the Towanda Coal Company it appears that the actual cost of coal per ton, delivered amywhere on the line of the Erie Railroad, is only one dollar and seventy-eight cents. These facts prove almost positively that we are indebted to the Pennsyl- vania railroad monopolies for the present coal fraud. They prove also the necessity of Con- gress taking immediate steps to put the rail- roads throughout the country under the man- agement of the government. Nothing else can save us from such intolerable evils as this villanous extortion of increasing three-fold the rate of transportation, and thus advancing the price of coal to four times its actual value. The citizens should rise up in public meeting and demand of Congress to take inatant action in this matter. Tue Suerirr of WasHineton had cards of invivation out for a very recherché entertain- ment to-day in the execution of the murderer Grady; but the clemency of the President {n- terfered and postponed the party for three weeks. We do not know how the Sheriff relished this instance of federal interference, but no doubt Grady, who was, after all, the principal attraction of the occasion, was fully satisfied, The Joint High Commission—Everything ‘Lovely, but Nothing Certain. Earl de Grey and Ripon, Professor Mon- tague Bernard and Lord Charles Tenterden, secretary of the Joint High Commission on the part of England, with a number of attachés, arrived by the steamship Cuba at this port on the 22d February, which Earl de Grey thought “‘a most auspicious day for our arrival,” and the distinguished party left yes- terday for Washington. From the opinions of these eminent gentlemen as given in yester- day’s Huratp we might say, if we could be excused in a graphic Northwestern expres- sion, that “everything is lovely and the goose hangs high.” Earl de Grey and Ripon says, “I have the best hopes for an early and satisfactory settlement of all questions pending between this country and England. I have. every reason to believe that both sides will display moderation, and our object is to pro- mote harmony between the two countries. We are on an errand of peace. Further- more,” says his Lordship, ‘‘we have ample discretionary powers to treat upon and settle all the questions that may bo brought into discussion.” All of her Majesty’s Commis- sioners entertain the same hopeful views of the subject. Thus, then, stands the case. Commissioners come as doves of peace, each and all bearing the olive branch as the emblem of their mission, They have full faith in our Commissioners, and with full powers to settle all the vexing questions between the two countries they believe all these questions will be settled, and that John Bull and Brother Jonathan will be joined hereafter in the happy accord of John Anderson, my Jo, Jolin, and his gude wife, or in the romantic attach- ment of a young bride and groom on their honeymoon excursion to Niagara Falls. We are glad to learn, too, that General Schenck, although a fighting man of the old Nor’western’ school of ‘‘fifty-four forty or fight,” has become tired of war's alarms, and is devoted to the charms of peace. There was a time when the General, ina Fourth of July oration, delighted to flop the American eagle in the face of the British lion; but age brings wis- dom and experience teaches the blessings of peace. General Schenck, therefore, is all right, and so are all our Commissioners, They, like England's peacemakers, are all for peace and the prosperity and progress of the English - speaking race, and so we may confidently rely upon the complete success of this Joint High Commission. Still, though everything is hopeful, nothing is certain. The olaims on both sides are to be brought in and adjusted, and here the shoe bezins to pinch. We have the Alabama claims, certain claims’ in the Northeastern fisheries and certain claims touching the navigation of the St. Lawrence to put in, and we did not suppose, until the other day, that the counter claims of England amounted to anything. But the ferocious Canadians have spoiled that happy conceit. They, too, have their claims— the Fenian raid claims—and upon these there is a margin upon which they can bring ina bill of damages for two millions, or ten, twenty or forty millions of dollars, as the case may require, to offset our Alabama claims. Next the rampant Nova Scotians, we fear, wiil bring in their bill of costs for watching, ar- resting in or driving off from their forbidden waters our Yankee fishermen. Then it is possible that those enterprising English blockade runners of our late Southern re- bellion may trump up some claims for unlaw- ful seizures of their ships. Lastly, we ex- pect to see ‘‘ Monsieur Tonson come again,” with those famous Anglo-rebel cotton loan bonds, or for damages for certain seizures of English cotton in Georgia and elsewhere, bought of the Confederate States, and burnt or confiscated by the United States armies, It is against these offsets, and such as these, that we would warn her Britannic Majesty's members of this Joint High Commission and our own members too. Tet them remember the English roast beef and plum puddiag Alabama claims treaty negotiuted by Reverdy Johnson, accepted by Andy Johnson, and knocked in the head by the Senate. Sumner's spzech on that occasion is a good text to go by. He is fishy on St. Domingo, but he was sound on these Alabama claims. On that busi- ness @ heavy balance is due to the United States, against all offsets, and without it there will be no peace. Congress Yesterday—General Appropriation Bills. Both houses yesterday developed a remark- able degree of industry in the right direction. The House of Representatives actually dis- posed of two appropriation bills—the one for fortifications and works of defence, and the other for the improvement of rivers and har- bors—without any collision between members or any operation of ‘‘mud machines.” On the contrary, members of both parties and from all quarters of the country combined together and stood by each other in support of those two bills, which contained appropria- tions in which all were more er less concerned. In fact it might be said, without putting too fine a point on it, that these bills were log- rolled through the House. Together they call for about six millions of dollars. The Senate devoted its session, day and night, to the Indian Appropriation bill, with some incidental matters in the morning hour. It is understood that the Senate will act to-day on and most probably concur in the House amendments to the Southern Pacific Railroad bill. Tuk Hupson River Raturoap DisasteR,.— The Grand Jury of the Court of Oyer and Terminer yesterday made a presentment touching the late Hudson River Railroad dis- aster at New Hamburg. They strongly urge upon the State Legislature the passage of a law compelling all trains to come to a full stop before passing a bridge of more than one hundred and fifty feet span, Such an onact- ment was passed in Connecticut after the Norwalk disaster, and it is believed that o similar enactment is equally required in this Stater England's | The Texas Pacific Raliread. or, a8 it is called ‘An act to incorporate the Texas Pacific Railroad Company and sid in the construction of the road and for other purposes,” was received in the United States Sonate from the House, Motions were made to concur and non-concur in amendments which had been made to it; but action was postponed until the bill be printed. This bill originated in the Senate and passed the House of Representatives on Tuesday last by a vote of 134 against 70, The House, however had pre- viously agreed to amendments offered by Mr. Allison and Mr, Wheeler. Mr, Allison’s amendment excluded from consolidation such railroads as may hereafter be chartered. Mr. Wheeler's amendment provided for a single trunk froma point on the eastern boundary of the State of Texas at or near Marshall to the ship channel in the bay of San Diego, California, along the route known as the thirty-second parallel of north lat{tude. The Senate bill had provided for six different | lines, It had also provided for a gauge of five feet, but Mr. Wheeler’s amendment ppo- poses a uniform gauge, Before the Senate shall finally act upon the confirmation of the bill as amended by the House a thorough reconsideration of the facts in the case should be made, A chief ostensi- ble purpose of the bill is the construction of railroad from Shreveport through Texas by way of Marshall. The energetic gentlemen who have been lobbying the bill through Con- gress ignore the faci stated in the Hraxp of the 7th inst., that the State of Texas has already chartered and subsidized a rail- road from Marshall to El Paso, on the Rio Grande, and that it is actually in course of construction. We are informed that the road along the very line indicated in the bill was finished from Shreveport to Mar- shall last summer; that since then it has been finished, and the cars are running from Shreveport, in Louisiana, to Longview, some twenty-four miles west of Marshall, in Texas, When the pending hill passed the Senate, near midnight on the 27th of last June, and went to the House of Representatives, it met with an earnest protest from the officers of the State company now engaged iy building this road. Those officers stated that their road has the “oldest charter in the State of Texas to run from its eastern boundary to El Paso, on the line of the thirty-second parallel, and that no other road can be built on any other route to | El Paso on account of the obstacles encoun- tered by the Llano Estacado, They had been advised that the aforesaid charter gave their road ‘‘the prior and vested rigbt in that line, which cannot 6e divested, repealed, run over, injured or infringed upon by a subsequent charter for another road.” They further in- sisted that the Southern Pacific Railroad of Texas ‘‘is the only one that bas the legal and undoubted right to run to El Paso, on the line of the thirty-second parallel, and the only one with the State aid aforesaid, and therefore the only company that possibly can have the ability to build one to El Paso.” Satisfied with their charter from the State of Texas, they only asked the House of Representatives to grant them a charter through the terri- tories and California for what they call ‘‘a live road and route with a charter which is not solicited for speculative purposes merely, which can and will be built speedily and which, by its extensive Southern connections, is the only true Southern road from the Atlan- tic to the Pacific ocean.” The real purpose of very many Congres- sional bills is concealed beneath the innocent phrase—“‘And for other purposes.” From the above protest it would seem that for the purpose of building a railroad the charter is not needed. This, however, may not prevent the lobby from wanting it ‘for other pur- poses.” Asa basis for bonds and stock ope- rations it might be worked to the very great profit of somebody. Among the corporators in the pending bill are the names of Messrs. H. D, Cooke and H. McCullough. All know that Mr. Cooke is the Washington head of the firm of J. Cooke & Co., and it is well understood that our late Secretary of the Treasury heads the London house of the same firm. If the bill is pushed through and gets the President’s signature about eighty million dollars of bonds can be issued under its ample provisions, As @ matter of course this would make a nice little addition to the stock in trade of the “Great American Banking House in London.” Even should that enterprising firm fail to obtain a monopoly of the sale of the new government securities and to have its own way generally, might it not still be able, by virtue of its two railroad charters, to manufacture a few hun- dred million dollars independent of the gov- ernment issues. The United States government does not own anacre of land in the State of Texas, and therefore cannot grant an acre to the proposed national company. The existing State com- pany, as we have seen, has the exclusive right to build a road through Texas from Mar- shall to El Paso. It owns the lands, alter- nate sections, along the line, and is actually engaged in building the road. The would-be managers of the proposed national company are working like beavers to get a charter for.a road along the same line. Is it possible that they think of building a second road where there is yet scarcely business for one? Or do they want the charter to use as a basis for stock and bond operations? Let us look- the bill through and see. The bill is very long—twenty-nine sections, It will be surprising if a cat cannot be found insomuch meal. In section four Congrese authorizes the company to issue first mortgage bonds to an amount not exceeding forty. thou- sand dollars per mile, having not less than twenty years to run, which bonds shall be a first lien on the road, property and equipments. The principal and interest are not guaranteed. That little matter can be put through by joint resolution at any time hereafter: Meanwhile agreat help. “This,” said one of the ring advocates, ‘makes the bonds more desirable in the estimation of foreign capitalists, who have great respect for Uncle Sam’s sign manual.” Under this section about forty mil- lion dollars of bonds, bearing a sort of quasi endorsement by the United States, could be at once put upon the market, pany is enabled by itto come into the market 88 a borrower to compete with the national Yesterday the Texas Paciflo Railroad bill, “the authority of Congress” to issue bonds ia In short, the com. -