The New York Herald Newspaper, May 28, 1871, Page 8

beta mee He ew et rH ee eS eee ee ee eS eee aa A 5. B & mene 6 ee ee 8 ee ee ieee - eaunetateed AND ANN STREET. G ORDON BENNETT, PROPKIETOR, JAMES jo. 148 AAW EVENING, LINA EDWIN'S THSATKE. 720 Broadway.—ConzpY RANK. ARUSERENTS TO-2 BOWERY THEATRE, Bowery.-OLtvex TWisT—BRIAN OLixs. FIFTR AVENUE Tite ATRE, Twenty-fourth street. — Gowwnn Fuxror—Tur Be NICAL, COUNT! wayl—NEW VERSION OF Pree tte TRaT! ener 0th st. WOOD'S MUSEUM 0: Verforme ces every a ‘ie WALLACK’S TIZATAE, Broadway and 15th street DALE. INIBLO'S GARDEN, broadway.—Kit, TOE ARKANSAS VELLER, RAND OPERA HOUSE, corner ot Sth av. ana 23d st.— EH THERE HuNcusacns. ENTRAL ARDEN. > biven Nruwrs -Taropors Tomas! ®, Brooklyn. — Ast, between 6th 4 Broadway.—Couio Vooar HOUSE, 201 Bowery.—Va- Riniy ENvRETALN NEWCOME ¢ AR’ at.and broacway.—N¥ IN'S MINSTRELS, corner 28th RLSY, &C, IRVING PALL, Irvig ms Fraxomuriasie QUADRU PL E MOVING PANORAMA OF coNew ‘York, Sunday, “May 2s, i871. CONTENTS OF TO-DAYS HERALD, Pacr. Advertisements, Q—Adveruse:: S—Advertis 4—Advertisen B—The Hoiros of the Mime on j ire; or burned t Among te K ‘The West Piliston Suilocated Wastington— in Nort Carolioa= Rel-= Xews—Weuther Rel Politics : fhe Repndiican ew Depa:tare—The Great . B. ie Yeniow. Parade of the Pir Depascmenes arse Netes—A_ Dang 3 Diseuse for Horses Desperate Ati SI de cee Rec eipts— Pardon by Al for Liile— Killed _ by R souri— W—Fire on the Mou Ulsier and D: 4 A “The Commune’s {mmort irae No Heaven” — zm Paris— neous Tele- Thal of Fawards and *s IMorisooment avi $1,000 ic andthe Musical Re- Anudacloys at Yale eut Week nodes: A Blz Filtbuster 6eare ve Congress: Tatra kGoue Un—A hide ach of Tho: nas in-ane As¥iim-— bro Invelliugence—Adv use- £4—Vondcots m: A acy ata Ki esson in H tity for the territ J Contmint kindled in the sntinet onate capital. Other foreign fire companies were expected, and it is io be hoped that the uniied exertions of all will prove successful in Saving the yet usbarned quarters, Already one-fourth of J , and the insurzents cc neendiary work by meaus of petroleum bombs—the most destructive and diabolical invention of modera da, theatres and ad- Gitional =p: are reporied as having been It must bave been notice? that in none of the despa‘ches bas anything been said about the Cathedral of therefore left to infer , one of the chef Peuvres of till intact and n hich the desp: have in it is never that the wret ould have left the Cathe- gral undis(urt y eniertaia a hatred against ail religious houses, and espe- vially against Notre Da ne. The Troubles of the King | of Spain. muideus’ throne is built on qnick- afew days ago our despateles from Madrid gave an account of a stormy sitting of panish Congress, where Car- lists and rey caus denounced the new King @8 a usurper, the former proclaiming Don Carlos as the rightful King of Spain and the latter calling for the dethroneme: nt of An deus and the establishment of a republic based on universal suffrage. Between the two the weak, thouxh well-meaning and amiable King, bas a very hard life of it, prospects for @ peaceful rule are darke: day by day. Our despatclies to-day anaonnce that a C rising is imminent, and that the movement has gained formidable dimensions in Andalusia and Catalonia, two provinces well known for their Carlist sympathies. Don Carlos, the Pre- tender liimself, is lingering about the frontier of Spain and directing the whole movement. On the other hand, the advisers of the King fre scarcely equal to the situation. Sadly ‘will Amadeus miss the strong arm of Prim. He alone could have crushed the movement by his personal influence or the persuasive argument of iron foree, as he crushed the out- break of the rod republican and reactionary Movement soon afier the bloodless revolution and ee of the royal Jezebel, Under these circumstances we at a sudden aie of th followed by the arlist Kiang, or, What is still more probable, by the establish- ment of arepablicen form of government in Bvain. not be surprised seut monarchy, | going | lence of all the earth. NEW YORK HERALD, SUNDAY, MAY 28, 1871—QUADRUPLE SHEET, NEW. YORK HERALD jh rer terres Sete Mer mortality, No Heaven. We presume no intelligent man in this city has failed to read the interesting letter for- warded by our correspondent in Paris and published in the Hxratp of Friday last, It contains, as briefly and as pointedly as it could be put into Eaglish, the cold, cheerless creed of the French Communists, and which we have embodied in the heading of this article, namely—the denial of the existence of a Supreme Being, of the soul’s immortality and of a future rest in heaven. It was given to our correspondent in an off-hand conversation with General Bergeret, a Communist leader, and is, therefore, not the result of recent study and impulsive thought, but is the utterance of princ'ptes which have lonz been embedded in French hearts, and has formed a part of their everyday life and conversation. It is not a creed of yesterday, else we should have hope of uprooting it from the land in a day. It is not confined alone to the French people, but has spread itself into Germany and Eag- land, and, traversing the Atlantic, has reached our own shores and settled itself here. But we have faith that the intelligence and Chris- tian common sense of Americans will not per- mit it to spread among us. Some enthusiasts affect to say we are a very wicked and godless people; but we are still far from the level of French atheism and communistic infidelity. General Bergeret could not believe in God because such belief would be unrepublican; because ‘if there were a God He would be a tyrant.” Bergeret’s idea of God’s government evidently corresponds with that of Napoleon IlI.’s government of France ; and he would, therefore fight against it on earth or in heaven, But Bergeret and his associate Communists are not quite sure about the hereafier, and consequently the immoriality of man is transmitied to the children from gen- eration to generation; so that if there is to be ‘a retribution, as far as Bergeret and his clique are concerned, ‘‘the devil may take the bind- most.” With such a cold, atheistical creed, our amazement at the atrocities committed by the Communists of Paris is greatly lessened. How could they do otherwise than as they have done—rob churches, break into convents, imprison and murder in cold blood bishops and priests, men and women alike? Without a God in their creed and His restraining grace in their hearts, what cared they for the institutions of His Church and the ministers of His work? ‘Tyrants themselves at heart, their conception of the living and true God is no better than they. The worst and basest conception which the ancionts ever had of the Supreme Being infinitely transcends in good- ness, purity and love anything which our modern French Communists have presented. “It is contrary to justice, to reason and to right,” says M. Berzeret, ‘‘that one should govern the miny—that there shonld be a God.” We, who have been edacated from our infancy in the belief in God and the doctrines of the soul's immortality and a future state of rewards and punishments, and in the unity of the race and the father- hood of God, and kindred doctrines, can hardly conceive the state of mind in which this Communist leader finds himself and keeps himself, from day to day. Contrary to reason! Why the reason and the common sense of the world in its darkest ages have al- ways acknowledged the existence and the governing superintendence of God. Contrary to justice! We have seen in the rioting and bloodshed of Communism what justice without God means. Our own civilization, founded upon the fallest and firmest belief in the gov- ernment of God, had not the first or most re- mote thousht of adopting the extravagances in our late war which the “justice” of these French Communists bas made an everyday occurrence since their reign of terror began. Even the stoical Germans, who are supposed to have no God _ but nature, find even there a controlling spirit which would not allow them to act toward their enemies as French infidels have acted toward one another, Contrary to right! Which one of the leaders of this great Parisian riot has ever had a thought of right during their three months’ reign of terror? We bave not heard of one, and we do not believe there exists to-day, not only in Paris, but through- out the eutire French nation, a thorough- Communist who has learned even the alphabet of the principles of reason, justice or right, which should govern mankind, and espe- cially civilized nations, and, in a superlative degree, the country and the people par excel- “Universal harmony,” the mouths of such men, is universal bosh. “Man, animals, flowers, plants, trees, stars, planets, everythiny,” says the atheistic oracle, must blend in one harmonious whole. But the very next question put by onr correspondent shows how utterly impossible it is to secure a ‘harmonious whole” without a Creator. Bergeret could not answer the simple question, snggested by his own creed, whether this universal har- mony which be acknowledged was created or whetber it sprung into being itself. And there is just where every one of his class is “caught on the hip.” By faith the Christian understands that the worlds were framed by the word of God, but by reason we cannot tell anything about it. The fact is before us, and we must admit it; but we know not whence it cometh and whither it goeth. So that, in a contest between reason and faith, the higher power—the latter—must always como off vic- torious. And now what shall we do with it? Howshall we stifle or strangle this communistic infant whose squeaks and screams we occasionally hear in our city and land? The bantling is still weak and may be easily destroyed ; but if we wait afow years or decades longer, until it has grown to robust manhood, we may have to use harsher measures, and may even be compelled to fight against it to save our national and individeal lives. Communism caunot be destroy.d in France by beheading every leader and every member in Paris; nor can it be rooted out of England or America by fines and imprisonment. There is with us, thank God, a power greater and more potent for good than prison walls and courts of jus- tice, and that power is the free and inde- pendent press, It has been well said that a sanctified press is the hopo of the world. Give France a free and untrammelled press, and \ wa holieve that in one generation every vestige of this absurd and degrading system, or thing, would disappear; but at present none but the worst and most reckless class of men can be- come editors and publishers. It is the free press of this Continent and of England which has prevented the spread of the heresy among both peoples, and has preserved the purity of the family relations and the comparative integrity of the State and nation. Let the press frown upon all those ‘women’s rights” and men’s rights, free love communistic con- venticles and movements, and they will be shortlived indeed. Every such movement is a development of infidelity, and we see in the Paris example what full-fledged Communism means. And if we inquire into the private life and character of the leaders, both there and bere, we shall find them to be such as are scarcely worthy of our imitation. Said the Lord Jehovah to our mother Eve’ long ago, “Thy desire shall be toward thy husband and he shall rule over thee.” And all along the ages this has been the order of society, and it will coatinue to be until the end of time, women’s rights and suffragist gonventionists to the contrary notwithstand- ing. We rejoice in our position on this great question, We are unqualifiedly opposed to every such disturbing element of social life, and we shall continue to do all in our power to destroy this beastly, Ishmaelitish form of infi- delity, whose hand is against every man, and against which the hand of every good man and woman in the land should be uplifted until it is wholly cut off from our midst. Another Day of the Dismal Scenes in Paris. Another day has passed over and still the reign of death and destruction holds sway in Paris, The specialdespatches tothe Hzratp which we publish this morning reveal an- other chapter of dreadful occurrences. Fire and sword, and shot and shell, continue their deadly and destructive work. In this dread- ful struggle reports say that the forces of the government have lost twelve hundred men killed, with a proportionate number in wounded; on the other hand, the insurgents have suff-red terribly, More than fifty thousand dead bodies lie unburied in the cellars and houses of the city. These losses will enable the reader to form some idea of the desperate nature of the conflict between the contending forces. The loose women of Paris, those debased and de- bauched creatures, the very outcasts of society, have largely conduced to give strength and virulence to this unholy rising. Knowing no shame, dead to all feeling, without homes, without friends, no little ones to claim their attention, these miserable crea- tures have unsexed themselves to aid a revo- lution which had for its object the destraction of every tie which renders life peaceful, secure and happy. Few can picture to themselves the dreadful scenes now being enacted in the streets of Paris, where women are carrying about their persons the petroleum which serves to make many a stately struc- ture a blazing ruin, but must think that these misguided women are possessed of a demon to assist in such terrible deeds. Men and women thus give rein to their very worst instincts, and are ied by leaders all the worse because they are more intelligent. And it is to these men and women that Paris has been given a prey; to the fury of these wretches has the venerable Archbishop Darboy and the hostages confined with him been at mercy, and to these infuriated miscreants is the city itself indebted for all the calamities which have befallen it. Happily, however, this terrible reign is drawing to a close and the rebels are now driven to their last ditch at Belleville. Here they are making their final stand—a stand which cannot last long. Their days are numbered. Even should some of them escape, the despatch of Jules Favre to the French representatives abroad will surely not be disregarded by any government. In every country as well as in Spain and Belgium, which have already agreed to extradite those who participated in the destruction of Paris and who may seek or have already sought an asylum io these countries, they will find closed doors and cold greetings. The fires still rage in the capital, the roar of cannon still reverberates through the streets, but the work is nearly over and peace is not far distant now. When peace does come the capital of France, black in ruin as it is, will have reason to feel glad, at least that it is rid of a class of wretches who ever kept the city ina continual droad of scenes as bloody as those now taking place. Paris will be free of these, but the price at which her freedom bas been bought is dreadful to contemplate. The Dramatic Championship of the World— ‘ Another Contest. Now we shall have a true gage of oratory— a gennine test of the different qualities of mouthing—a decisive settlement of the correct art of delineation. Mr. Pennington, one of England’s tragic heroes, bets £2,000 that he can whip the socks and buskins off any other tragedian in her Majesty's kingdom in deline- ating Shakspeare. He proposes a fair stand- up fight—no chloroform dodges or forty min- ute waits, but a prompt toeing of the scratch and an honorable combat thence to the end. Pennington is 4 man who has braved dangers ere now. Ile went in at Balaklava among the Six Handred, and came out again. He is not afraid, thercfor, When he talks he means business. His money is ready to back his words—his Shakspearian words—and he wants no low comedy palavering from those who would mouth and rant without putting up the stakes. ‘‘Put up or shut up” is his text; and in this case, where talking is to decide the wager, it is eminently appropriate. There is agood deal of confidence felt in Pen- nington among the Londoners, we understand. Ic is hinted that bets are freely offered by his friends that he will knock Coburn—we mean Barry Sullivan—out of time in forty minutes, and that he will ‘‘chaw up” Billy Edwards—or, rather, Mr. Ryder—on the first round. (The mixed condition of the championships is very confusing, and is likely to lead us into mixed metaphors.] However, it is said that Pennington’s friends feel confident that he can demolish even Mr, Dillon in the long run, and that if his present condition is unimpaired he can strut and fret an hour satisfactorily with the great Mr. Phelps himself. He has been in training for some time. He has read over every new commentary upon the divine William that bas appeared; and although we should think that he would get the meaning of the great author somewhat unpleasantly mixed by such a course, it is understood by his sec- onds that he feels able now to fight under any rales of the ring that may be prescribed, or, rather, that he will be able to delineate Shaks- peare according to any new reading that his adversary may introduce. Better than all, however, he is learning the carpenter’s trade and is taking lessons at a riding school. So long as Shakspeare is illustrated by the elabo- rate framework that Messrs, Booth and Pal- mer have introduced to us at their respective theatres, and so long as Richard rides borse- back at the head of his procession, it has been considered absolutely necessary that the uni- versal champion of the stage should fully un- derstand the mysteries of flies and wings, and grooves and trapdoors, even if he is not com- petent to make the leaps and cut the capers of Harlequin, and that he should also ride a steady old cob gracefully and with some guar- antee of safety to his colaborers upon the stage and in the orchestra. In all these par- ticulars Mr. Pennington has been training for some time, and they say now that he pecls off as clear and hard as marble; or, rather, to speak in strictly stage parlance, that be is fully ‘‘up” in all the business of the stage and all the modern improvements upon Shakspeare. We wait with some impatience this friendly wager of battle. With Phelps and King and Dillon all sparring at the gallant Pennington at once the scen2 ought to call forth as tre- mendous a crowd as the Mace and Heenan combat at the Bowery last’ ‘year. ‘Or pe perhaps Mr. Pennington will consent to sail against only one yacht at a time—we mean that he will consent only to ‘‘delineate” against his rival tragedians one by one. However that may be, we should like to have a fair fight and no favor. If these can be guaranteed, possibly some of our American actors may be induced to take part. Booth, with his princely melan- choly, may modestly enter for the prize. For- rest, with his gigantic legs and his overpower- ing presence, may be induced to compete, and even modest, retiring McKean Buchanan, or Mr. E. Eddy or Mr. Neafie, those glories of our own Old Drury, with their good old time stage walk, their impressive rolling of the letter R, and their magnificent play of fea- ture—the science of expression in the rough which Delsarte perfected—all these might feel called to take part in this Shakspearian com- bat. Thus it would become an international contest, and partake in its effects of ihe inter- national glory and harmony that sprung out of the Heenan and Sayers match, and the Oxford and Harvard boat race, and the ocean yucht race of July last, and the great High Joint Commission, And in this respect we gladly welcome Mr. Pennington’s new idea and wish him all the success he can attain. France and the Temporal Power of the Pope. “It is asserted,” says the Count de Cham- bord, in a recent manifesto, which was pub- lished in yesterday’s Hrratp, ‘‘that the inde- pendency of the Papacy is dear to me and that Iam determined to obtain efficacious guaran- tees for it. Thatis true.” In this declara- tion, expressed boldly and by one who aspires to the throne of France, we perceive the part which the Papal question is destined to occupy after the restoration of France to peace, law and order. It is evident from the manner in which the declaration is made by the Count, who intimates his intention of reigning ‘‘at the head of the whole House of France,” that in the fasion of both branches of the Bourbon House the Papal question has been considered thonghtfully, and the resolve expressed is the result, But the Bourbon candidate is not the only faithful advocate of Pio Nono, M. Thiers, as the executive head of the French government of the present time—the republic of to-day— expressed his sympathy with the Holy Father in his distress, and even while Rome is held as a part of United Italy, appointed a representative to the Papal Court. And this ata moment, too, when the dire distress in which France was, during a time when it might with good reason have excluded other thoughts but those which more immediately concerned the nation from the mind of the veteran statesman. Yet the thoughts of the executive head of France were directed to Rome, and the disasters which threatened the Papacy were not lost sight of amid the gather- ing clouds which threatened France with destruction. M. Thiers expressed then, if we mistake not, the sentiment which the Count de Chambord has but within the last few days given to the world as his views of the relations between France and the temporal power of the Pope. If we go still further and look to the Na- poleons in their retreat at Chiselhurst, there too may it be ascertained that a strong feeling which recent disasters have helped to strength- en rather than to weaken exists for the future of the temporal powerin Rome. Truly, indeed, has the Roman tiara gone down with the im- perial sceptre; butis it not as possible that one should again resume its sway as that the other should occupy the place which it has ap- parently lost? To-day the restoration of the empire in France is not among the most re- mote of possibilities. May the same not also be said of Rome? In the sentiments thus ex- pressed by the parties which aspire, to the future government of France—the republic, the empire and the monarchy—we find the sentiments of the French people reflected, for certainly no power aiming at success would attempt to win it against the wishes of the people. It is, therefore, fair to infer that the future government of France, whatever it may be, whether republican, imperial or moaarchi- cal, will be largely in favor of the restoration of the temporal power of the Pope. We do not wrong the French people by even the thought of including in its population the slender and feeble voice of the socialistic ele- ment, whose aim ever has been to disturb peace, outrage law and blaspheme the holy name of God, The downfall of that destroying power is written in the ruin of the fair capital of France. And though we perceive on the part of the three elements—one of which will be chosen as the governing power of the French nation ere long—a disposition to suc- cor the Pope and restore him to his temporali- ties, yet we are at loss to ascertain how poor France can assist in euch a consummation, The desire to do so is evident; but will she, with an impoverished treasury and a dis- heartened people, possess the ability to do so? It shows, however, @ disposition to demand that the head of the Cathollo Oburch shall be ina position, apart from the control of kings and governments, to possess the means of carrying on communications at all times, in peace and during war, with his religious sub- jects, scattered over the whole faco of the civilized world. It isin this light that the temporal power of the Pope is regarded in France, and in this view the position assumed is not an erroneous one, Anti-Religions Manin—Imnago Breaking and Head Breaking in the Churches. It isa somewhat remarkable fact, and one painfully suggestive, that very many of the cases of aberration of intellect lately reported assumed the form of religious mania. They were not all of the revival order, however. The madness of several of the unfortunate persons was manifested rather in a desire to bring the religious machine to a full stop than to fire it up to the bursting point Mr. Handly, the wild Caristian who, in April last, put three bullets into the head of an Arkansas Baptist minister, killing him instantly, and turned the‘reverend gentleman’s congregation out of doors, was doubtless laboring under some form of religious hallucination. Choco- ville, where the crime was committed, having an unpleasantly suggestive name, Mr. Handly mounted his horse and departed for fresh fields and pastures new, leaving the preacher to the Coroner and the moral to the congrega- tion, Jobn Gibney, in the Church of St. Vinceht Ferrer, reééiilly showed how he was affected in a very decided fashion. Having been politely requested to remove his hat during service he responded by draw- ing a knife and an axe and using them on the heads of the worshippers. He wanted to get at the priests on the altar, and would have succeeded but for timely interference. But the performance of a New Jersey lunatic in the Roman Catholic Church of St. Peter's in Newark on Friday, while the latest exhibition of the sort, was, perhaps, the most curious of any yet recorded. Poor Runk was discovered perfectly naked, by workmen, on the altar of the church, busily engaged in throwing to the floor and smashing the carved statues of the saints. Wis aim was to occupy himself the foremost place on the altar. Without pansing to inquire the canss of | these strange vagaries of the wind diseased, we may well ask, what next? The religious mind is certainly feverish at the present time, and we are not surprised at witnessing its mani- festations. The jar and din of opposing creeds and the heat of clerical strife is as dangerous as it is unpleasant. An anxious inquirer, who would undertake to study every creed of the day, with the view of ascertaining the truth, would be as likely to get loony as religions. Probably the next phase of anti-religious mania wé shall have to call attention to will be still more varied and startling. Madmen are like the sane in this, that they are quick to follow examples. But, so long as they work independently of each other, there need be no apprehension of further harm to church- men or churches, Fortunately for us a Com- mune of lunatic iconoclasts is impossible. The Unemployed Classes of London. Meetings have been recently held in London for the purpose of taking into consideration the condition of the unemployed poor of the metropolis. This question is awakening quite a lively interest in the minds of many of the prominent men of the English capital. From statistics we see that although the whole num- ber of panpers relieved in London dnring the first week in April footed up the high ficare of one hundred and thirty-five thousand, yet it is twenty-four thousand below the total for the same period of last year. The figures here given enable us to form an idea of the suffering endured by the poor working people of London. Emigration is the cure spoken of as a remedy for this terrible evil of pauper- ism, While we acknowledge that the remedy suggested is a good one, we are also con- scious of the fact that in all larze centres such as London there is a vast number of people of the working classes who, to use the words of an Englishman writing on this sub- ject, “Had rather clam in London than live on good beef and mutton elsewhere.” This is plain talking, and its bluntness is equalled by its truth. We find tho same thing in New York. Men, and women, too, who could earn # good living and attain a respect- able competency by ‘‘zoing West” prefer re- maininzin the city, and are satisfied to live a miserable hand-to-mouth existence. While prominent men of London, possibly with Paris in their mind’s eye, have recently taken an active interest in endeavoring to benefit the unemployed poor of the working people of England, but particularly of London, by means of emigration, it is nevertheless true that in the northern counties trade is brisk and labor is in demand. Business is good in Sheffield, Middlesborough, Barnsley and on the Tyne. There is also a ‘“‘scarcity of workmen in the manufacturing towns of Lancashire.” We micht enumerate many other districts in England where work Is plenty for those who will work. Rezarding the unemployed poor of London we have only to say that if they are of that fastidious class who entertain a preference to starvation in the city to living in the country they will make poor emigrants, and prove as great a nuisance in the land they emigrate to as the country they are about to leave. The old saw has it that ‘‘The devil finds some mischief still for idle hands to do ;” and if we give credit to this saying for containing a reasonable amount of truth we think that his Satanic Majesty has been quite active in Paris of Inte. It is the idle workmen of the French capital who fight in the army of the Commune. No; so far as the United States is concerned, it neither wants nor desires any of that class who, to use a favorite phrase of Bismarck, prefer to “stew in their own gravy” of idleness and misery in the large towns rather than go out into the country and help to advance them- selves by laboring to develop the resources of the republic. If there are any of the industri- ous of the poor classes who want to come to the States let them come in welcome and realize for themselves that here, at least, “there is work for honest labor.” The DISASTER at tne Wxst Pirrsron Mive in Pennsylvania is a terribly suggestive comment on the blindness of humanity and the inscratability of the ways of Providence. It waa only last Monday that the miners, after & long and desperate strike, carried on not without suffering and bloodshed, resumed work upon the best terms they could get, and yesterday the mine broke out aflame with fifty of these desperate strikers peaceably at work once more ia its sombre recesses. Many of them were saved, but it is probable that at least fifteen or twenty of them have gone to their last account, The Broken Cables Off Newfoundland. Our latest despatches bring no tidings of success in the recent renewed attempts te recover the end of the broken English cable. So arduous and difficult was the effort to fish up the tiny wire from the bed of the ocean that it was postponed last winter until this spring, when, it was hoped, the season would be pro- Pitious. There is reason to believe that the recovery of the cable is very precarious, ang that, even if recovered and reunited, its safety will always be the subject of grave appre- hension. In this connection it is unpleasantly suzgestive to learn that the French cable be- tween St. Pierre, Miquelon, and Duxbury, Mass., has also failed. Fortunately, there are other cables working in the short distance be- tween St. Pierre and our coast, and communi- cation is consequently kept up; but the effect would have been very serious had the cable failed in waters beyond St. Pierre. When the grand ide. of stretching a trans- atlantic cable was first projected scientifie men bezan to inquire whether the agitation of the deep extended to the bed on which the delicate fabric reposed, and also whether marine animals existed at such depths as to threaten the insulation of the wire. Having demonstrated the impossibility of the angriest billow making itself felt more than a few hun- dred fathoms below the surface, and, as they fancied, having proved that the bed of oceaa is a vast necropolis, swarming with the sunken remains of dexd animalcule, they triumphed in their conclusions, But they were hasty. More than a year ago the English geological exped tion, under Carpenter and’ Thomson, exploded this last fallacy, finding animal life at greater depths than those of the, Atlantic cable; and, indeed, the Swedish Arctic e: peat ion, of 1869 found the same —— mat & depth of twenty-six hundred fathoms in the icy waters between Nova Zembla and Spitzbergen, It is not, however, from animal depredation that our deep-sea cables are likely to suffer the most, Our savans have overlooked the mighty and ceaseless disturbance of the ocean bed by the agency of the submarine polar current, whose existence has been recently and most brilliantly established by the exploring expedi- tion in the Porcupine. The power of sub- mariae currents to strain a cable, or pile debris upon it, was strikingly illustrated in the Straits of Gibraltar in the seventeenth century, when a Dutch brig, eacountering a hostile French corsair—the Phonix—near Ceuta (inside the Straits), was sunk by a single broadside, and three days afterwards was washed upon the African shore near Tan. gier (outside the Straits), more than twelve miles from the place where she had been sunk, There is every reason’ to doubt that the broken ends of the cable are now resting near the spot where they parted, unless it be that they are buried beneath masses of earth washed over them by the incessantly moviag submarine current. In the deep channel between the Faroe and She'land Islands Dr. Carpenter, who com- manded the Porcupine, found at a depth of eight hundred fathoms of warm surface water from the tropics an under stratum, or Arctic stream, two thousand feet in depth, with a demperature below thirty degrees, and bring- ing with it the characteristic animals of Ice- land, Greenland and Spitzbergen. This fact, affording a solution of the long vexed problem of oceanic circulation, not only has its value in science, but is destined to work a great revolution in the art of laying ocean cables, and must become the study of our telegraphic engineers, The floor of the Atlantic Ocean, as deter- mined by dcep soundings, consists of dd@& scending steps. Very broad and some- what level terraces extend for a cer- tain distance from its shores, succeeded by steep cliffs, dropping some nine thousand feet, For a distance of two hundred and thirty” miles from the coast of Ireland the slope is only six feet ina mile (one in a thousand); in the next twenty miles there is a fall of nine thousand fect (one in twelve); then comes the famous ‘Telegraphic Plateau” for twelve bun- dred miles, But oa the American slope the ocean hed is very rugged and marked by abrupt falls and sharp ridges off Newfound- land. No doubt tuere are deep furrows and long gashes here from the action of submarine polar currents, which, coming down from the north, underrun the Gulf Stream water off the Grand Banks and ploagh their silent but majestic way through the ex'reme western basin of the Atlantic. The axial rotation of the earth causes this submarine flow to hug the American coast, Now it is evident, and the cable hunters now at work have discovered it, that the wire, chafing and rubbing on these sharp ridges in the deep bottom, has been severed. What is to be done, even after they recover the cable (as doubtless they will), to avoid a constant recurrence of disaster ? One thing is certain, as an eminent hydro- grapher has remarked, “the tooth of running water is very sharp.” As long as the circula- tion of the sea continues the Submarine Polar Stream, the counterpart of the Gulf Stream, a thousand times as large as the Mississippi at its mouth, will continue to cut oat channela and sharply defined valloys and chasms off the Grand Banks, Fortunately, however, for ocean telegraphy, the polar current is somewhat checked off Newfoundland, and south of that island the bed of the sea is admirably adapted for tele- graphic purposes, Soath of the great bank of Newfoundland, and between the thirtieth and fortieth parallels, there is a basin-shaped depression, at great depth, nearly one thou- sand miles in leagth, Ia laying the French cable advantage has been wisely taken of this natural adaptation of the bottom, The true route for all future cables to be laid, it would seem, is fron Valentia Bay to the Azores, and thence directly to New York, It has beea urged by the most eminent Haglish meteorologists that the Azores should bo an intermediate telugrapvic station, beeause they could thence derive barometric intelligence