The New York Herald Newspaper, April 23, 1871, Page 8

‘ rm) ‘ ) QUADRUPLE SHEET. YORK HERAL JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR, All business or news letter and telegraphic Gespatches must be addressed New York Haran. Letters and packages should be properly sealed. Rejected communications will not be re- THE DAILY HERALD, puotishec every day tn the fear. Your cents per copy. Aunuai subscription Price $12, THE WEEKLY HERALD, every Saturday, at FIVE ‘OmNTS percopy. Annual subscription price:— Ang larger number addressed to names of sub- Berihers $1 50 each. An extra copy will be sent to Bvery club of ten, Twenty copies to one address, one year, $25, and any larger number at same price. An exten copy will be sent to clubs of twenty. ese ates ake Me WreKLY HERALD the cheapest pud- Veotume “X XVI... AMUSEMENTS TO-MORROW EVENING. OS THEATRE, ing Nervous M away and \Sth street.— GARDEN, Broadway.—Tur SPECTACLE OF exp Deata@ oF Riowano UL. DWIN'S THEATRE. 720 Broadway.—ComEpY RA HOUSE, corner of 8th av. ana 3d st.— GRAND ba Preicao.e. BOWERY THEATRE, Bowery.—ScuNIDrR—NEW SONGS AND Daxces, Aaya AVENUB THEATRE, Twenty-fourth street.— me ORI OLOEE TH PADEMENT, & rr WOON'S MUSEUM Broad ances every afternoon and NEW YORK STADT THEATRE, No. 45 Bowery.— Grav an Orena—Lonenenin. MRS FP. & CONWAY'S PARK THEATRE, Brooklyn.— Cou. tes BawNn—SKETCHEB IN LNDIA. EW OPRRA HO BRYANTS Wd st., between 6th fed ib ava. —NuGRO MINGTEELSY, £0. TON® PASTOR'S OPERA HOUSE, 201 Bowery.—Va- Reel LwitRRralnMENT. THEATRE COMIQUE, 514 Broadwar.—-Comtc Vooau Meme, Neowo Acis, 20. Matinee at 2. NEWOOMS & ARLINGTON’S MINSTRELS, corner 23th ‘M. anwd Hroadway.—NEGRO MINSTRELSY, &0. ‘DR. KAMINS ANATONICAL NUSEUM, 765 Brondway.— BatEnoe ase ant. New York, Sunday, April 23, 1871. ONTENTS OF TO-DAY'S HERALD. Pace. Retort f—Advertisements, 2—Advertiaements, F—Adverusoments, 4--Siverusementa, ci a Keds’ Rebellion: Herald Special Reports trom Paris; Immeuse Preparations to Defend Se City; Murderous Fighting on Friday; tful Losses of the Insurgenta—-Austria: The Question ot a free Church im a Free State— ee aes becision ofthe Sapreme Court Legal Tender Cases; Secretary Fish. Retire from the Cibimet—News trom Cute ‘Tae Coal Troubles—Fires—The State Capital— Weatuer Report. Deciarstion: Hie Asserts the Right meg the Decrees of the Ecumenical € ‘The Doctor Excommunicated by the Bishop of Munich—New Germauy: The Catho- be Sentiment of the German Empire—News ¥ from Brazil—Solace for the Sick—Jersey City Fimauces—Attempted Burglaries—Abduction } or What?—Missing Man—A Man Murdered at ; His Own Request—Hempstead Plains. bien ea Intelligence—Teacher Galiagher’s mI Kidnapping a Convict—The Ambu- iauce Corps—Two Centuries Old—New York ‘City }tems—Sandmen and Landsmen—Piety in & Police Court—Flood in the Mississippi—Dela. ware Pesches—Criucisms of New Books. ( S—Edlivoriais: Leading Article, “Cnurcn and State ta Furope—The Late War and Its Conse- —Amusement Announcements, | B-Baitoriais (continued from eighth page—Per- i sonal Intelligence—A New Comet—Pertis— of the Sen—President Grant in Indiana—Music aed toe Orama—Musical Review—Fine Aris-— Business Notices. juek Transit: The Finaacial Aspect of the Problem The Viaduct and the Tunnel; Will They Pay *—Horse Notes—Yachting—The Prize Ring 1 Ball Notes—Binding Bohemtans— Atte, Safe Robbery—Finale of the Fourth Ward bing Case—Suicide of a Cousin of Genera! flooker in St. Louls—Proceedings in _ the Courts—The New York Central Railroad and Commercial Reports—The Dry jarket—Marriages ana Deaths—Adver- tiaemeats. ad: The St. Domingo Commission trom ‘an Oviaide Stand, t—The Missing Peusion Agent—Sstarday Night at the Oriental Club House--Dakota Legislative Troubles—ship- Intelitgence—Advertisements. i { Te AnyvaL Excursion or Bricnam Youse.—-Brigham Young, Prophet, High : and President of the “Latter Day fisos,” nn left Great Salt Lake City on his npual tow of inspection and instruction Fonong the settlements of the Saints in South- nUtel. He is generally accompanied by © extensive caravan, lives on the fat of the ' in his “avels, and returns to his harem forty-nine wives laden with spoils. Of all ‘ye Feigo-ng sovereigns of the Earth Brigham , has the most devoted subjects and $the most out of them. ° »Wasmasxeron Poxrricians appear inclined } ‘late from the beaten paths so long-pur- by public servitors. Mr. Merrick, the ed candidate for delegate in Congress ‘the Distciet, and his successful competi- , Geveral Chipman, have exchanged cour- itt since ‘he election, Mr. Merrick, in ‘ of hie party, pledging the democracy to » | herd io their power to advance the yiewts of the District of Columbia. This that the chivalric spirit is not wholly even smong politicians, and gives some }of returning honesty and respecta- that numerous but questionably ‘clase Who congregate at the national lew Comet.—A new comet was discov- the night of the 15th instaut by Swift, of Marathon, N. Y., and reported Hongh, of the Dudley Observa- y, who obtained a fair view of visitor on Friday night. But 1 “fw Albany have become 80 common of @ bat Mr, Swift's discovery is apt te attract *?"yttention. The glimmer of the Marathon 5% completely obscured by the effulgence + Dyakirk phenomenon, whose orbit is Hh an wric as that of any nebulous oo wolar system, but whose final “by no wieans such a matter of jae ole Ve War and Its Consequences. A variety of circumstances, such as the Dillinger manifesto, the Dillinger excommu- nication and the movements now going ov in the Austrian Reichsrath—which last point in a very especial manner to the fature relations of Church and State—renders it pertinent to look at the Church and State question in Europe, and to that question particularly as it has been affected by the recent war. Toward the close of last summer the Enro- pean States system seemed solid; and, al- though there were many doubters, there were also many thiaking persons willing to believe that the equilibrium, whether looked at from an ecclesiastical or political standpoint, could not soon or easily be disturbed. The Ecu- menical Council was sitting in Rome; the syllabus and the dogma of infallibility were themes of universal discussion; the French troops were in Rowe, powerfully pro- tecting from all danger the Holy Father, his College of Cardinals and the numerous ecclesiastics who from all lands were tuking part in the proceedings of what then seemed to be the most important of all the Councils of the Church; the Church and State question had received a serious blow in Great Britain by the disestab- lishment of the Irish Church; Von Beust, in Austria, was exercising a potent in- fluence in favor of religious and political liberty ; Italy was almost contented to wait for Rome; Spain was struggling toward a higher form of life; but all over the feeling prevailed that the permanent peace of Europe centred in Napoleon, and that so long as France looked to him with confidence and he did not rashly rush into a foreign war things must all over go quietly on—the cause of progress, of course, advancing, but not violently. “ Suddenly the general situation 1s changed. Europe is surprised. Diplomacy is caught napping where it was supposed to be awake, and awake where it was supposed to be nap- ping. The throne of Isabella, which had been begging all around in vain—England refusing, Portugal refusing, Austria refusing, Italy re- fusing—is to be occupied by a Prince of the House of Hobenzollern. The knowledge of this fact fell like a thunderbolt on Europe, and even across three thousand miles of ocean we felt the shock. France took fright. Napo- leon knew not well how to act. He had been suffering since 1866 from the attacks of the the ‘‘reds,” from the atiacks of the legitimists, and most heavily of all from the attacks of M. Thiers, who represented the moderate cause, which was identified with the House of Orleans. Most of our readers remember the interval between the autumn of 1866 and the autumn of 1870. During that period the empire often trembled in the balance; the Emperor and the friends of the empire were often put to their wit’s end; abuse came from all quarters, to the effect that the prestige of the House of Bonaparte was gone, that Napo- YORK HERALD, SUNDAY, | cweren ek nite a evens —ee Late | of States. In Great Britain the anti-State leon was growing old, that his friends were using him to his own hurt and to the injury of France, that Bismarck was fooling him, that, sooner or later, France must suffer from the inane policy which allowed Prussia to crush Austria at Sadowa without securing as an equivalent the long-coveted Rhine bounda- ries; and although the French empire still bulked betore the world as a great Power, it was felt by many that rashness might bring ruin, The Hobenzollern affair in Spain pro- voked the rashness, the rashness was com- mitted, and the ruin followed. It was not necessary for Napoleon to pro- claim war against Prussia for an offence so trifling. It was the less necessary when Prus- sia, yielding to pressure, withdrew the name of the Prince Leopold. But war was pro- claimed, and how wondrous have been the consequences! The French armies were with- drawn from Rome; the Ecumenical Council, after having in a mysterious way accom plished its purpose, was dispersed; the bishops sought their flocks and made conciliatory addresses, some of them speaking consistently and some of them speaking inconsistently ; the Pope and his advisers in Rome have been fighting with fate; the Catholicism of Italy meanwhile revealing itself by the occupation of the Holy City and the destruc- tion of the temporal power, and the Catholicism of Spain finding expression in the election to the throne of Charles V. of the son of Victor Emmanuel, the one monarch of the times who has been contriving to get on comfortably under the major excom- munication. It is not our business to-day to consider the political disasters or the politi- cal blessings of the war. Our attention is confined to the war in its religious aspect, Church system gathers strength every day. Scotland is fighting for what Ireland has won. Wales is almost more imperious than Scot- land; and the Nonconformists proclaim war to the death against the Church as by law established. The English anti-State Church sentiment will gather strength from the scholarship of free and united Germany. To us in this Western World, which has so long been the home of liberty, the consolation is that we are free from all the troubles of the Old World. We never have had—we never can have—the State Church system. Our forefathers saw the evil of the past and most wisely provided against it. Religiously, quite as much as politically, the United States have been the asylum of liberty; and in this particular the asylum of liberty they must ever remain. Our example has been helping the Old World back to first principles. In helping the Old World back we have been helping ourselves. It is the mission of the New York Heratp to make an end of all distinctions of creeds and to revive the simple forms of primitive Christianity. We think we see the not distant day when the Church of Jesus Christ, in all its branches, will be more near the sweet simplicities of the Sermon on the Mount. We hail the approach of the happy day, and we shall not be sorry if the late unhappy and disastrous war hastens its advent. The Campaign Against the Paris mune—Active Hostilities Continued. Our special despatches from Paris and Ver- sailles are to the evening of the 2Ist inst. Hostilities continue with unabated vigor, the government forces pushing the Communists to the wall. Within the city the condition of affairs is becoming more and more deplorable. The Avenue des Ternes has been rendered uninhabitable by reason of the storm of shells poured into it from Mont Valérien and Cour- bevoie. The Porte Maillot has been utterly demolished by the bombardment. A double attack by the troops of the government is ex- pected, and every preparation is being made to repel it, The rebels have suffered fearful losses during the last few days. All the avenues near where the fighting took place are filled with wagons bringing wounded men from the field of battle. Barricades are now constructed in many new localities, and the streets are being torn up in every direction in order to procure material to make additional fortifications. Everything is being done to place the city in perfect state of defence, and at the time of sending the despatch there was nothing occurring that in the slightest degree indicated surrender. It is stated that the Germans are preparing to evacuate the forts on the north and east of Paris in favor of the Versaillists, by reason of the first instalment of the war indemnity having been paid. At Versailles allis activity, and the movements against the insurgents are being carried out with great energy and promptness, There is no truth in the report that Fort Mont Valcrien has been injured by the rebel batteries. Notwithstanding all their reverses the forces of the Commune still show a determined front. All the intelligence we have thus far received indicates determined resi-ta.ace on the part of the rebols. Deluded fools! They see how utterly without hope their cause is, and yet they persist in their madness, with the apparent resolution of involving the entire city of Paris in ruin and desolation. We can- not yet believe that the magnificent city is doomed, but those who new have it in their possession act as if they meant mischief and were determined to render Paris of but little value to the captors if compelled to acknow- ledge defeat. The contest that is now approaching wili be desperate indeed. The assault of the city, which means the hand-to- hand street fighting, the carrying of barricades, the blowing up und destruction of buildings, the wholesale massacre, the vain cry for quarter, the murder .of innocent people, and other horrors that attend the storming of a fortified position, may all be going on at this moment; and if they are we shall have to re- cord scenes of savage warfare such as the world has seldom seen, The attack will pro- bably be made at several points simul- taneously, and wiil be supported by the fire of the forts within range of the city. In other words, the Parisians will be surrounded with a sea of fire, and be subjected to a tempest of shot and shell, besides the musketry—the feu denfer of the columns of infantry who will press them down and keep them there, even if their city has to go down with them. The government will not be trifled with; that is very evident. It will have Com- and especially to its bearings on Church and | Paris upon its own terms, or else it will leave State. It is safe, we think, to say that the war has told on religion and in favor of reli- gious liberty. The French empire was the main pillar of the temporal power. With the fall of the empire most certainly came the fall | of the temporal power; and it is not unrea- | sonable, we think, to say that whatever be the future of the Papacy, whether its head- quarters are to be in Rome, in Malta, in Sar- dinia, in Fulda or in New York, and however under its new condition it is to prosper, the | temporal power, in its ancient sense, can never be restored. It is gone, and the pre- sumption is that the donation of Constantine and the gifts of Pepin and Cbharlemagne—the original models of all State grants in Christian times, and the original sins of Christian gov- ernments, as well as the fruitful source of | religious strife, not to say persecution—have gone the way of all things humun. The fall of the temporal power is the doom of the State Church eystem in all fands. It is the | result of long and patient teaching, of much | suffering and long endurance. | The triumph of Germany is the triumph of liberty of thought; and the fermentation | which is now going on in Bavaria in connec- tion with Dr. Dillinger, as well as the vote | which has jast been given after a protracted fight in the Austrian, Reichsrath, proves that Germany is feeling the new influences and does not mean to go back. The national party in Russia is fighting for liberty in all mat- ters religious; aod as Russia for the first time in ber long history finds it necessary to conciliate her vast and varied population so as to retain her strength, the anti-State Church sentiment must grow stronger and stronger, The change which is already apparent in Rus- sia is due to the war Which has robbed her of her immense power in the European system nothing of Paris worth having. Tags War ww Cuna.—By special telegram to the Herarp from Havana we learn of the contioued successes of the Spanish columns in driving the rebel guerilla bands within the limits desired, where they can be satisfactorily handled and compelled to surrender or be shot. Several engagements have taken place, in which a number of prominent rebels have been killed. A rebel camp has been surprised, and twenty of the rebels were killed in the attack, while five prisoners who were taken were immediately shot. The Spanish columns, which are now moving with great alacrity, cannot be encumbered with prisoners. Those taken are disposed of as above, and in view of this sommary manner of dealing with them, | would it not be well for those Cabans in the United States who don’t want to fight to write | to their friends, if possible, and tell them to seek a safer clime than that of Cuba, 'Twonld be a merciful act, Tue Coat Trovsies in Pennsylvania seem ina fair way of amicable adjustment, The Schuylkill operators yesterday proposed 2 new scale of wages, and withdrew all objections to the Miners’ Benevolent Association. This is a great concession, and, even if not entirely ac- ceptable to the miners, will be received by them as an evidence of returning reason on the part of the operators, and lead to a satisfactory uo- derstanding on the subject of wages. At Scranton everything is quiet and the military have been withdrawn, the attempt to incite the laborers to violence having signally failed. It ia believed that all disputed points between operators aod workmen will be settled within a few days and that the mines will be re- opened on the first of Mays ot APRIL Pie ye Or. Dellivger’s Manifesto Against Infalli- Dility—Catholic Church Unity and the Legic of Christina Dissent. The Ecumenical Council which was lately assembled in Rome adopted the dogma of Papa! infallibility. The question was exam- ined in the hierarchical committees, discussed at great length in all its varieties of theologi- cal, apostolic and diocesan episcopal aspect, propounded to the consecrated representa- tives of the universal body, seriatim, in chapters, passed on the record as a truth, and thus made part and parcel of the continuous history of the articles of the faith—which, it is asserted, comes down from Peter—by unanimous acclaim. This record is unalterable. From the Far-off Indus to the North Pole, from the banks of the Shannon to the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria, from the Ga nges to the St. Lawrence, on the Catholic altars in Pekin, and on the altar of the cathedral of New York, the doctrine of infal- libility has been announced to the congrega- tions as an article of belief. It has been ac- cepted by the millions as an eternal fact ; reaf- firmed by the Church under the promptings of divine inspiration. As it was with Moses and the prophets, the Catholics of the Roman com- munion believe, even if they do not see. Their Church teaches them to avoid the exam- ple of the Doubting Thomas, They do not, as the Church says, desire to thrust their fingers into the wound which was made in the sacred side of the Great High Priest and Saviour on Calvary. Claiming perfection as a canonical whole, the Roman Catholic Church demands unity of belief among its members, Her priests teach that if the Church permit a marring of the faith by discussion of creed it will not be the symmetrical representation of that human perfection by heavenly incarna- tion which it claims to present. Persons who are not completely within this Catholic fold must, consequently, be ex cathe- dra in religion to a greater or less extent in the eyes of the Roman Pontiff, his Cardinals and those of the millions of people who are instructed and disciplined by them. It was thus, as we interpret it, with the Albigenses, the Waldenses and other dissenting sects and dissenting individual men; thus in the days of Luther, Huss, Wickliffe, Knox, Wes- ley and the famous lay ‘‘Sainte” of Scotland, John Balfour, of Burley, who protested not only against Rome, but against the Protestant mitres which came from London in the most deadly and fatal manner, even to the extent of the murder of a bishop of the law established Church of England. There has been doubt, dissent, division and denial with respect to the heavenly commission which is claimed by the Ro- man Catholic Church almost from the beginning. The Greek communion instructs that St. Paul was the favored one of the Saviour. Among the theological records which are preserved in Moscow, is a paper which is exhibited as being part and parcel of the Scripture history of the first days of Chris- tianity. In this it is said to be written by Paul to Peter that he ‘denied to his teeth” the assumption by him of a church headship by divine appointment. Many of the Eastern hierarchs and commu- nions preach that the Church was made uni- versally free at its very first institution. Patriarchs of vast erudition refuse ecclesiasti- cal allegiance to the Pope. Some of these patriarchs refused to attend the Council in Rome. They have since declined to obey its decrees, They deny the dogma of Papal infal- libility, but believe that Christianity is infalli- ble in its universality and the saving graces of faith and charity. Some of the most learned of these Eastern prelates promulgated their opinions to the world through the columns of the Heracp before the assemblage of the Ecu- menical Council and since its adjournment, as has been shown by special correspondence from Constantinople and other ancient cities which has been already published in our pages. England, Austria, France, North Germany, Italy, even Spain, have produced clerical and collegiate protestors siace the moment of the enunciation of the Infallibility dogma. The decision of the Ecumenical Council has brought doubt to the mind of the literati of Oxford, been a source of division of opinion in the cabinet of Vienna, furnished a topic for angry discussion in the North German Parlia- ment, served to complicate the relations be- tween the King of Italy, the Italian people and the Pope, caused clamor louder than that of civil war in Spain, and tended, to a very great extent, to divide the youthful idea in the classes of the European colleges. The dissenters from the Roman Catholic Church point to it as a firebrand in the society of the world; the Christian multitudes who turn their eyes to the Papal centre—which they term eternal—in Rome, accept it as a con- solation. Under the tolerant flag of the American republic men are at liberty to act as they deem best in the circumstances. They are free to walk across the stage of life under any par- ticular religious guidance which they may choose, to descend to the Valley of Death in the hope of immortality with all their fullibili- ties about them if they so please. The declaration of the dogma of Papal in- fallibility has thas presented two distinct standards of faith to the world. There are different standard bearers. Rome displays one. Its designation is known. The dissen- tera from the dogma—the Protestants of the present day—show another. They have in- scribed on it Freedom of Thought, Liberty of Conscience, Material Progress and a Univer- sal and Free Church. The impulse of public education has moved many eminent men to grasp the new Christian guidon and to hold it aloft in different countries. These latter men exhor: and preach a world-wide Chris- tian rally under one grand universal banner. They show the words, Christianity infallible ; but Papal infallibility sectional and non- progressive. Tn the front rank of this new religious movement stands Dr. Dillinger, Dan of the Chapter of Vienna and Professor of Theology in Munich. He occupies, as we take it, a position almost similar to that first held by Luther against the Pope. He is partly within the Catholic Church and partly out of the pale of the fold. He is an undisciplined believer. A humorous writer tells of an Irishman who was assured that the soul of his deceased father was almost relieved from the pains of purgatory, but stood on the threshold way of exit with a heavy door closed on it. 93, ISTL-QUADRUPLE SHEET. like to a man wishing to rush from @ fight in & public house, but who had got jammed against the door case, ‘‘If tiat's the way my father’s in,” said the irreverent heir, “‘let him fight himself out ; and he'll do it, too, if his right hand’s free and he gets hoult of a spade handle or a blackthorn stick.” This young gen- tleman dispensed with the post-mortem Masses. Dr. Dillinger seems to be engaged in ‘fighting his way out.” The Roman Catholic world can- not perceive where he wishes to go. He isa very able—a learned man. Can he found a new church? Perhaps so. Eastward toward Calvary there exists a considerable amount of difficulty among *the congregations in mat- ters both of faith and discipline. The priestly members disagree. The peoples doubt. The new missionary declaration will be perhaps acceptable as a means of effecting a charitable reunion, Dollinger is endorsed by the professors of the theological faculty of Munich. He has been excommunicated by the Pope. The HERAcp does not pronounce a decision. We love progress—we honor right and reverence truth. We have had the theological definitions of the Canon Dillinger against the dogma of Infellibility, as he has addressed them to the Archbishop of Munich and Kesing, with the reply of that prelate to Dillinger and the re- mainder of the papers, specially translated for the Hzraup. The translations appear in our issue to-day. The American public can judge for itself as to the merits of the question as it is thus briefed between the Catholie Church and the German theologians and Eastern and European peoples. It looks to us as if there were too much wordy logic, too much theolo- gical word-splitting in the present effusions. The words of the Sermon on the Mount shine gloriously in their simplicity above the whole. The nearer that the Roman Catholic, or the Universal Church, either one of them, keeps to the principle embodied in this grand dis- course, the more firmly will Christianity be secured against the sectional dissenting efforts of single-handed professors, no matter how eminent they may be individually. The Glorious Reception of the Honerable Mike Norton. The quiet, non-political citizens resident in the Eighth, Ninth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth wards were roused from their early beds on Friday night by a terrible sound, part of revelry and more of battle; cannon were blazing, torches were flaring anda confused noise as of a Parisian mob in the ancient days of terror came from the streets. The quiet citizens asked themselves, in fear and trembling, what it could be; whether it was a renewal of the riots of 1863, or whether the adjourned democratic Legislature and the ad- journed radical Congress had met in deadly partisan conflict at our doors. Some thought that the Russian Prince had come; others that the High Commission had concluded a treaty of peace between Ireland and Canada ; others that Mace and Coburn were departing to the scene of their coming combat, and yet others supposed that the Cus- tom House gentry were receiving the President. The quiet citizens, how- ever, were in error. It was none of these. It was Yhe reception of the Hon. Mike Norton, the Thunderbolt, by his constitu- ency. The honorable Mike has a numerous and a variegated constituency. He numbers the highest and the lowest of the city classes among them. There are wealthy and con- servative merchants and bosses, and straight- laced Christians and liberal-minded sports among them ; and, alas that it should be so! there are the gutter snipes of rascality, the bunglers in the science of fraud, the gentry who substitute the jimmy and the crowbar for the more elegant device of forgery and earn an honest penny by filching pocketbooks, instead of making their thousands by altering checks, among them. There are also among them gentlemen of the prize ring, those bun- glers of etiquette, who substitute the fists for the weapons of a higher toned duello; and with such a medley of a constituency de- termined to do honor to their chosen repre- sentative, it is no matter of wonder that their manner of operating a *‘reception” should have startled the quiet, non-political citizens of the wards through which they took their winding way. Three barges full of them emptied upon our streets in a body at any time of day or night, even when uninfluenced by the high- priced whiskey which tempted them on board, would frighten, not only our quiet citizens, but even our guardians of the poace. The fact that a vigilance committee was improvised on the trip illustrates very forcibly some of the features of the Eighth ward constituency. It seems that many of them combined busi- ness with pleasure on the trip, and “went through” some of their best political friends daring the excursion, even going so far as to threaten the bars, those time-honored places of rendezvous of political New York, with “gut. ting.” It is sad to think that the example of our late Legislature should have borne such early fruit; but in justice to the honorable Mike’s constituency we must hold him and bis asso- ciates in the Senate and in the lower House responsible for the doings of the Eighth warders on the ‘Sleepy Hollow. The latter were merely humble imitators of a great original. The little jobs by which pocket- books surreptitiously changed locations, and eatables disappeared from stewards’ larders and speculators’ stalls without correspondent income, were mere miniatures of the big jobs of the session. The knockdowas of the ex- cursion were elaborate improvements upon the knockdown between Irving and Weed ; the disorders and confusion of the excursion were modelled directly after some of the scenes in the Assembly, and the vigilance committee on the Sleepy Hollow was cut after the pattern of the secret caucus of republicans at Albany. Altogether, we cannot say but that the reflex of the State Legislature on the Sleepy Hollow was an improvement upon the original, and we wish that there had been no greater mis- chief done by the gathering at Albany than there was by the gathering on the Sleepy Hollow. Hoosao TuNNeL, Massachusetts, which has heretofore been #o fruitful in accidents, was yesterday afternoon the scene of a most fright- fal tragedy. During a thunder storm a ball of electricity struck the ground near the entrance, and, following the iron rail into the tunnel, exploded several charges of nitro-glycerine, blowing four workmen into hundreds of pieces and fearfully iuiuring *774 ctikerty Theatrion! Art in Now York. While poor Paris is fast going down, New York is rapidly taking its place as the great centre of fushion andart. The Central Park is already @ much more remarkable and ex- tensive pleasure ground than ever the Bois de Boulogne was in the zenith of its glory. The Fifth avenue, with its prospective extension in a parallel line with Broadway and leading directly from the Battery to the Central Park, assumes more and more the aspect of the Champs Elys¢es, while Madison square, clus- tering around the Fifth Avenue Hotel, gives already to that part of the city something of the appearance of the Place Vendéme. The grace of attire of the gentlemen and ladies who haunt these fashionable regions is also pre-eminently Parisian, and our theatres are beginning to shape themselves after those of the ex-gay French capital. It is true the Albazzar and Mile. Theresa are still wanting, but they are coming, and the places of recrea- tion in the vicinity of the Central Park are fast becoming des cafés chantants. Hippodromes or circuses abound here, and the minstrels afford intellectual luxuries of which even Paris could not boast in her Augustan-Napoleonic era. Wallack’s delightfully blends tho artistio charms of the “‘Vari¢t¢s” and ‘‘Vandeville” theatres of Paris, andits accomplished manager equals in varicty and grace the best of Pari- sian actors, Daly's Fifth Avenue theatre is a New York version of the Palais Royal, with its sprightly, spicy, telling hits. Booth’s represents, to some extent, the ThéAtre Fran- gais, and though he may not be a Talma, in scenic splendor his theatre surpasses its French contemporary. Niblo’s, too, is fast eclipsing in its scenic beauties and sensational tableaux the Porte St. Martin, and Fisk is Schneiderizing his Grand Opera House with Erie velocity. Indeed, what would become of the Grande Duchesse, now that Gerolstein and all the other German principalities are merged in the Hohengbllera and that the Parisians are no longer in the mood of laughing at Frita and at Schwartz, if Fisk had not taken these refugees under his protection and pro- vided in New York an asylum for Offenbach, whose lyrics cannot thrill any longer in Paris alongside of the Commune’s thunderbolts against Versailles ? New York is, therefore, in more than one sense, the heir-at-law of Paris, and Mayor Hall, a dramatist himself, is our Haussmann. We have our Folies Marigny, too, in Miss Lina Edwin’s performances, and our Gait¢, alas! suddenly faded, in Laura Keene's. We have, also, German theatres, which could never flourish in Paris, and the mere mention of which would, in the present period, start a hundred barricades. Ristori, who played to empty benches in Paris, created here, by her performance of Marie Antoinette and Marie Stuart, the most tragical sensation among our Fifth avenue dowagers who sympathize with the Bourbons and the Stuarts and who are fond of everything that savors of aristocracy. But more remains to be done to complete the Parisian glories otf New York. We need an Italian grand opera, and this is the moment for the shareholders to take Mrs. Nickleby’s advice and ‘‘speculate” and to avail tiem- selves of the unparalleled opportunity which the collapse of Paris gives for the operatic splendors of New York. An intellectual and energetic manager would grasp in any other part of the world such an opportunity as this, and we are glad to see the stone is being rolled from this long silent sepulchre of song. In all our theatres there is a movement and ambition which predict a brilliant era for the drama and light comedy. The two only light comedians of the highest range of excellence left—Lester Wallack and Charles Mathews— are with us; and Shakspeare, who in London has been banished to the Edgeware road and Victoria theatre, is, at Mr. Booth’s theatre, voluptuously honored here. The wealth of our people holds out i:resist- ible temptations to the most eminent artists to prefer the New to the Old World. With the masses of our working classes rapidly rising to prosperity—if our feudal railway and land and money-grabbing barons will not consign them again to pauperdom—Shakspeare is destined to experience a new birth in this country, he being new to the fresh, rising generation here, while the blaxé classes of England have well nigh exhausted his mine of dramatic treasures. The great danger to dramatic art in the United States is that the masses of the people, novices in its enjoyment, are not yet critical as the French people were in their tastes, and are apt to applaud the most vulgar feats of performance, where more discriminating adepts of dramatic art would frown them down. Here, therefore, the theatre, if it does not sink to the level of untutored audiences, must rise to become their teachers in taste and culture, and if highly cultivated people keep aloof from the theatre because it lacks an artistic excellence the less fastidious taste of the multitude holds out as it were a premium to mediocrity. Here, then, lies the rub. If our theatres give us the best contemporary art can afford they will soon dis- seminate a higher taste among the people. If, on the other hand, they take advantage of the uneducated judgment of our theatre-goers and give us trash, they will Marylebone our style and vulgarize American art. But there are indications of a different and nobler animus. Wallack’s is in honest reality better than any ofthe London theatres, and Booth’s, splendid in edifice, would be equally admirable if he were to follow Wallack's example—rid his sky of every “‘star,” and provide for all the parts as far as possible the same excellence he exhibits in his own per- formance. There is no reason why New York thektres should not present to the world all that was graceful and bright in those of Paris, together with all that was elevating and intellectual in those of London. The sooner the managers reach this ideal the better will it be for art and for the grandeur of New York, and people from all portions of the United States will then be induced to come here to rub off their pro- vincial corners in the contact with metropoli- tan art, Tue Sovruren States are likely to derive little benefit from the act—passed in part for their benefit—increasing the national bank currency fifty-four millions, Thus far only about fifteen millions of this additional cur- rency have been paid out, and there are on file applications for about ten millions more