The New York Herald Newspaper, January 25, 1872, Page 6

NEW YORK HERALD BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. JAMES GORDON BENNETT. PROPRIETOR, f Volume XXXVIN.....0..0.cesssssseesereee NOs 25 AMUSEMENTS THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING. ROOTH'S THEATRE, Twenty-third st., corner Sixth av. — GRAND OPERA HOUS 5 Evrorzan MiPrOTunaTRioas CouDane Mane en . FIFTA AVENUE THEATRE, Twenty-fourth street. ~ Tum New Deana oF Drvonos: ig WOOD'S MUSEUM, Broadway, corner —I ‘ances and evening.—ON o—_.* erie seaipaons THEATRE, Broadway and 13th street. — NIBLO'S GARDEN, Broad: a RDEN, Broadway, between Prince and BOWERY THEATRE, Bowery—' — + OR, « Live's Davorion ae ce ee ST. JAMES' THEAT! ith street Bid orld "RE, Twenty-eigh! and Broad- OLYMPIC THEAT! Broadway.—T1 ‘TOMIME OF Humey Dupree Meu aisre lines AIMEER'S OPERA BOUFF! —! ‘Snare, 'B, No, 7% Broadway.—Lrs MRS. F. B, ComEvins any PARK THEATRE, opposite Ci Brooklyn.— BIuuianne—Romzo dayvie JENKING. NY THEATRE COMIQUE, 514 Broadway.—Comio VooaL- 16M8, NEGRO ACTS, £0.—WuiTE CROOK, UNION SQUARE THEATRE, Fourteenth at. and Broad- way.—NEQRO ACTS—BURBLESQUE, BALLET, 40. TONY PASTOR'S OPERA HOUSE. No. 201 — Neo@Ro ECORNtRICITIEG, BURLESQUES, to. id BRYANT'S NEW OPERA HOUSE, 284 at., ween and7thave—BRranr’s MINSTRELS. ee mig SAN FRANCISCO MI) Tas FRANOI800 MINI NEW YORK CIRC’ Fourteenti wun RING, AcROBATe to. ae aoe are HALL, Fourteenth strest.-Granp Con- CONWAY'S BROOKLYN THEATRE.— FaRoxs. RL Halla 585 Broadway.— DR, KAHN’S ANATOMICAL MUSEUM, 745 Br —_— ‘BommoR ax Ant. orm sa ae NEW YORK MUSEUM OF ANATOMY, — By MY, 618 Broadway. TRIPLE SHEET. Sow York, Thursday, January 25, 1872. OONTENTS OF TO-DAY’S HERALD. Pace, ie 0 Sdaerteenene ‘the Ladies; the Givi Appropriations: What the Cubans Don’t Know About a Policy on Spanish Slavery; the American Shipbuilding Anterest—Obituary—Music and the Drama— Mark Twain’s Lecture—the Ball Season—The Great Pigeon Match—The Doom of Botts— City Intelligence—Grand Army of the Kepub- se onter Report—Army and Navy Intelli- gen @—Acquitted: Ellen G. Wharton Not Guilty of the Murder of General Ketchum; the Greatest Poison Trial on Record; Justice ‘Triumphant in = of Prejudice and Persecution; Watting for the Verdict; Interview with the Sorrowful Mother and Lovely Daughter In Their Cell; the Van Ness Indictment; Ball Accepted; Résumé ‘Of the Great Trial, uisted: Ellen G. Wharton Not Guilty of the paper m3 General ae oon irom Fourth Page)—Proceedings in Congress: The Tobacco Tax—Art Matters—The Custo1 House Committee: Tne Leet ‘Cousins’? Face to weal Which Ig the Liar?—State Legisia- tures—Ninth Reunion of the Ninth Class of Old Grammar School No. 14—Probable Murder in Greenpoint—Fight Hetween a Mutinous Crew at Sea—An International Penitentiary G—Editoriais: Article. “Our Savings a Banks, National Banks and Insurance Com- es" —Amusement Announcements. itorials (Continued from Sixth Page)— France: Parliamentary Proposition for whe Confiscation of Napoleon’s'Personal Property— Resignation of the Spanish Ministry—News from England, Germany, Austria, Rome, cheated Turkey and Australia—The Search for Livingstone—The HERALD and Dr. Lr ne—The Grand Duke: His Imperiat Highness and Suite Back to St. Louts; Reception the Missouri Legistature - red ouglass, the Colored Orator, Kefused Admission to the Planters’ Hotel in St. Louls—The Japanese Embassy—Miscelianeous Telegrams—Personal Folded fo tne Faith: ‘An Episcopal Ch ‘ol jn the + An Episcopal Clergyman’s Recantation; the Rev. Joshua D. Bradiey in St. Stephen's Church; Solemn and Impressive Ceremony—The Shaky eine t s—An- other Murder in Brooklyn: Man’s lead Splut Open ina City Railroad Car; the Affair ir tu Mystery—The Murder of James Fisk, Jr.—Monument to Fisk—Meeting of the Board of Health—Connecticut: Republican State Convention: No New Departure in Poli- tics—-Police Pecullarities—A Lady Burned to Death—Burgiaries in Westchester County— North Carolina’s Curse—Murderous Assault With @ Dipper—Annual Festivities in Hobo- ken—The Porcine Animal in Hoboken. @—A Maniac with a Revolver: Blooay Affair in Louisville, Ky.: A Young Man Shoots His Sister, Her Two Children and Himself—Death to Bruin: Ulster County invaded by Bears; Par hiay F Parties on the Shandaken Moun- tains—Dickinson College—Water Celebration in Warwick, vrange County—Financial and Commercial Reports—Domesiic Markets—Mar- riages aud Deaths. 10—The State Capitai: Log-rolling Commenced in the Legislature; Important Bilis Introduced and Passed; Senator Perry Taking Care of pea O’Brien’s Little Corner on Erie; Boss Tweed’s Seat Filled for an instant; a Savings Bank Law Proposed; Passage of the Grand Jury Act; ae it in New York City—Shipping Intelligence—Advertisements. 1t—The Courts: Interesting Proceedings in the New York and Brooklyn Courts; tne Estate of Madame Jumel: Seine Nets in the Harbor; the New York Printing Company: Embezzlement of Letters in the Post Office; How an Ot ‘Transaction Ended; the Yorkville Police Jus- Uceship; Decisions; Proceedings in the Court of General Sessions—Puolic Instruction— Youthful Burglars—Brookiyn Affairs—Adver- tisements, I Tae Sgarog For Livinestoxe.—The Lord Mayor of London will preside at a public meeting, to be held in the English metropolis next Tuesday, for the purpose of furthering the cause of a national aid movement in sup- port of the British search expedition for Liv- ingstone. This isas it should be. Indeed, we may say as it should have been. American and English, private or national, search com- panies, no matter which, so as the fate of the African explorer is determined and science benefited universally. On such bases have the Heratp search expeditions been organized and sent forth. Exorrmine SoENE IN THE FRENoH AssEM- BLY.—A Heratp special telegram from Paris reports the occurrence of an extraordinary scene of excitement in the French Legislative Assembly yesterday. A representative named Naquet proposed a resolution declaring the family property of Napoleon confiscated to the State. The motion was received with shouts of derision. Twenty hands were held up in favor of it, notwithstanding. M. Naquet appears to be a remarkable personage— remarkable for his personal appearance as for his politics. He is described as a dwarf and ahunchback. His soul appears to soar beyond the confines of its mortal casement, however, and it may be that Napoleon will regard him as being ‘‘bigger than he looks,” France and England have been moved by bunchbacks in the olden time. Let Wett Enoven Atonz.—The Board of ‘Trade of the State capital are resolved to have Albany made a port of entry. They had bet- ter leave wel enough alone, A three-dollar- a-day Legislature for five months of the year Ought to satisfy them. A Custom House might be a little too much, even for Alba- NEW YORK HERALD, THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 1872.—TRIPLE SHEET. @er Savings Banks, National Backs and Ineurance Compaaies. The condition of some of the savings banks of this city and the excitement over them lead naturally to inquiries about the character, status and operations of such establishments generally. If the savings banks, or some of them, are found to be in an unsound condition in time of peace and general prosperity, what might be expected if a financial revulsion should come? No one deposits his money in them with an idea that he is depending upon contingencies, but expects it will be safe under all and any circumstances; and it ought to be so. The depositor has not, however, any control over it after it passes into a bank, and he has to rely upon the character of the bank managers and the laws regu- lating such institutions, These banks, therefore, should beso hedged about by the safeguards of law that loss to the depositors would be impossible. The savings of the peo- ple—of the working classes—placed in these banks are too sacred a trust to be contingent upon accidents, or, at least, upon the ordinary accidents of commercial business, We can conceive of no greater crime, morally con- sidered, than that of robbing the working classes of their hard-earned money through misappropriating it or through the dishonesty or mismanagement of bank officers. We would not create any unnecessary alarm about the stability of the savings banks, and are willing to believe the greater part of them, in this city at least, are perfectly sound. General alarm and a run upon the banks might be disastrous to the depositors as well as the banks, even where there may be ample resources to meet all demands. But the possibility of such a atate of things under excitement or a financial revulsion from any other cause, and the facts which have lately ‘been brought to light with regard to the bad or doubtful condition of several of the banks, call for a thorough investigation of these institu- tions, The vast number of savings banks and the great increase of them of late might sur- prise those who do not understand the facility with which they are established. No capital is required—that is, scarcely any more than an insignificant sum to fit up offices and to advertise. The people supply the capital. From the start the servant girls, mechanics, laborers and others of the industrious classes pour in their little earnings, which soon swell up to a large amount. Generally there are some men of capital associated with these banks, or who lend their names as directors, to give character to them and to inspire confi- dence; frequently, however, those who work them up and take the management are without means. It is easy enough to commence and carry on such a business with the money furnished by the depositors, Too often men who stand high in the community as capitalists lend their names as directors or endorsers of these banks when established, without any real or substantial interest in them. This is wrong, and a deception practised upon confiding peo- ple. All whose names are thus put forward to induce people to become depositors ought to be both men of ascertained wealth and respon- sible to the full extent of their means for the deposits, The nature of savings banks in- vestments should be defined by law, so that they might be always safe, and a sufficient margin allowed for accidents to prevent loss under any circumstances, and any infringe- ment of this law should be made criminal. A large class of insurance companies, par- ticularly the life insurance companies, are much on the same basis and in a similar con- dition to the savings banks. They, too, have sprung up lately like mushrooms in a night. They are to be seen everywhere in the principal business part of this city. In some parts almost every building is occupied by insurance offices. They own some of the most superb structures in the city. They require no capital to start with, except what little is needed to fit up offices. The insurers supply the money from the be- ginning and all slong. Yet, without capital to begin with, and with the most costly and ex- travagant system of paid agencies, and most lavish expenditure in buildings and salaries for pumerous employés, these institutions multiply and flourish like tropical vegetation. For twenty years or so the life insurance companies will be receiving a continual stream of money from insurers, and little, comperatively, will be paid out; for the mass of those insured will live over that period. But, as somebody has to pay for all the cost, including twenty, thirty or more per cent to agents for drumming up customers, there can be no question as to who supply the money. Is this a healthy state of things? Unless the life insurance business be capable of expansion ad infinitum on the enormous scale of its progress within a few years there must come a day when the payments will exceed the receipts, Such unlimited expansion seems impossible. Will the companies have realized and husbanded capital enough to meet future demands? This is the question. Then, should a great finan- cial crisis come, would they be in a situation to bridge over that? These are questions which the legislative bodies of the country ought to consider, so as to avert evils which are threatened by the extraordinary increase of companies built upon no other capital than that of the people subscribing to them. It should be remembered, too, that when we return to specie payments—and that must come at no distant day—there will be necessa- rily a shrinkage in values. The savings banks and insurance companies have most of their funds out, we presume, on bond and mortgage, Have they margin enough for any change of value that may come? Too often, it is to be feared, they invest in that which is not as safe as bond and mortgage—in stocks and bonds of a more fluctuating and doubtful charac- ter; but there is a great speculative and fictitious value given to real estate at times in this city and in other parts of the country, Can they stand such a contraction of values asa return to specie payments or any great financial crisis would bring? Have they,been sufficiently mindful of the interests of those who have placed money in their hands? The sam of money held in trust by the savings banks and insurance companies !s stupendous, A crisis or general collapse with them would produce the most widespread misery. There may be no immediate danger, and we have areat confidence ia the growth. resource~ wonderful future of the country; but nothing should be left to accidents where the savings, contributions and hopes of the mass of the people are at stake, Our national banks are similar in drawing vast profits from the industry of the country, though they are a different kind of institutions in some respects from those we have named. The government was profusely liberal in giving them the profits of a national circulation, amounting to twenty millions or so & year, without any equivalent in re- turn. In fact, it has given them a capital of three hundred and fifty mil- lions without any consideration, for the bonds they deposit as security for their circulation draw interest the same as those of any pri- vate individual, This security, however, backed by the endorsement of the govern- ment, makes their circulating notes safe, But this does not secure their depositors or others doing business with them, as has been seen in the disastrous failure of several. They, like the savings banks or insurance companies, may enter into speculation or stand upon an insecure foundation. Both the national and State legislative bodies seem to make laws more for the purpose of favoring a few capi- talists and speculators than to promote and protect the interests of the mass of the people, Banks and insurance companies of one kind or another are almost as numerous as dry goods stores. Are they all needed? Are they all safe? These questions will be answered before long in the progress of events, In the meantime our legislators could not do better than to thoroughly overhaul all these financial institutions. Lessons from the Wharton Trial—Prose- cution, Not Persecation, Wanted. During the long reaches of this great poi- son trial we have from time to time com- mented on the progress of the case. The cir- cumstances as noted at the time of the death of General Ketchum, the suspicions attach- ing to Mrs. Wharton, the post-mor- tem analysis and the trial at last have absorbed a large share of public attention. But that which at once lifted this trial above the range of ordinary capital cases was the great combination of circumstantial evidence which seemed to bind the weight of guilt round the neck of the prisoner, It was sworn that General Ketchum died under suspicious circumstances; that the prisoner was near him at the time of his death; that she had purchased tartar emetic ; that the symptoms he exhibited before death were those of antimonial poisoning, and that antimony or tartar emetic had been discovered in his stomach after death. The crush- ing rebuttal brought forward by the defence on the last two propositions was something which not only convinced the jury of her innocence, but startled the public in the fact which it laid bare that even in a trial of life and death a State prosecuting officer could bring forward as convincing evi- dence the exploded fallacies of an old-time system of chemical analysis and medi- cal diagnosis. The mass of testimony brought forward on this matter by the defence we need not follow. It was in every respect a flat contradiction of the so-called facts and theories of the prosecution, It is possible that the counsel on either side did not com- prehend rightly the value of the medical evidence advanced on one side or the other; but the jury showed their sound common sense in setting aside the evidence for the prosecution, because its ex- perts had failed to produce that which they averred to have found—namely, antimony. Without this they rightly concluded the prose- cution had proved nothing, and the question as to whether General Ketchum died of cerebro-spinal meningitis or any other disease they left to the recording angel. In the verdict of acquittal, therefore, we sin- cerely rejoice, and congratulate the unfortunate lady on her narrow escape from an affrighting doom. A matter of deep regret it must always remain that from the manner in which the counsel for the people blundered the case, her innocence cannot be as triumph- antly established—morally as well as legally. The first lesson from the Wharton trial, then, is that medical experts, with their technicali- ties and positive statements, are only reliable in proportion as they near the very head of their profession, and that all those in the lower grades are simply charlatans, who speak absolutely of things with which none but the very heads of their profession are conversant. A point in this tedious trial which has forced itself on numberless observers is the over zeal, to say the least, of the law officers of the people. An opportunity was given them to unravel the knot of circumstances which enshrouded the case and see that justice was done to that poor lone woman as well as to the howling mob of Baltimore which clamored for her blood. We find instead @ pertinacity, not to say malignity, in the conduct of these officers holding on to and supporting points in their indictment which had been definitively controverted. The indecency and injustice of this proceed- ing would be difficult to qualify in proper terms of condemnation, There has grown up in the breasts of lawyers an idea, founded on a bad tradition, that the prosecuting officer for the people is bound to adopt all the false assumptions of fact and inference which signalize the trickery of petty lawyers ata police court. It is made a matter of pro- fessional pride that a case should be won by the officer as a lawyer, while the sublime interests of the jastice which he is paid to protect are lost sight of. The pomposity of presence, the flourish of rhetoric and the faculty of distorting facts to gain a verdict for the people, are things finfortunately too well known in our courts, and if ever a needed re- buke was given it was that conveyed in the verdict of ‘‘not guilty” which liberated Mrs, Wharton, é It seems, too, a pushing of this over-zeal to & contemptible extreme. that this injured woman should be forced to stand another (rial, the points of which are dependent on those 80 apply refuted in the late case, A nolle prosequi would be a gracefal though tardy recognition of the rebuke they have received at the hands of their fellow citizens; but let lawyers everywhere remember that when they are called on to conduct a trial for the sove- reign people it is a fair, honest, truth-search- ing prosecution which is called for, not a vain-glorious, egotistic, stubborn and malig- nant persecution to justify professional pride or ambition, or to sustain a theory speciously false. Justice for the prisoner as well as for the people should be their motto. Congress Yesterday—The Senate Impatient te Adjourn—The Chicage Bill-The Edu- cational Bill—Another Investigating Com- mittee. Senator Morton’s concurrent resolution for an adjournment of Congress on the 29th of May was taken up yesterday in the Senate, and discussed until the close of the morning hour. Mr, Sumner wanted the adjournment deferred until after the passage of his Negro Palace Oar bill, and Mr. Schurs wanted it deferred until after a revision of the tariff and internal revenue laws and the reform of the civil service, It was opposed also by the two Ohio Senators, and supported by Morrill, of Vermont; Chandler, of Michigan, and others. The vote on taking up the resolution—34 to 17—indicates a two-thirds majority in the Sen- ate in favor of it, Its adoption, of course, will be a notice to the country that all the great measures of legislation for the revival of com- merce, relief from burdensome taxation, uni- versal amnesty, é&c., will be allowed to sink into the great Hades of Congressional abortive echemes, The bill for the relief of the Chicago house- builders was then taken up. There was, of course, no opposition to the bill itself, but its passage was impeded by propositions to ex- tend the benefit of its provisions to the several towns and villages of Michigan and Wisconsin that were consumed in the forest conflagra- tions out there last summer. All amend- ments, however, were finally rejected, and the bill passed. The Educational bill came up in the House during the morning hour, and was advocated by Mr. Perce, of Mississippi, the chairman of the committee which reported the bill, on the ground, among others, that it was approved and sanctioned by the leaders of the labor movement. He put forward on their behalf the claim that, as the working classes of the country constituted four-fifths of the people, they were in reality the governing power, and had the right to dictate what disposition should be made of the public lands, of which they were the legitimate owners. This is vir- tually the same position taken by Mr. Hoar, of Massachusetts, a member of the same committee, when he was pressing the bill which passed the House before the recess for the appointment of com- missioners to inquire into the relations between labor and capital. We question the wisdom of giving too much prominence to that idea. There is also some inconsistency in the leaders of the labor movement, to whom Mr. Perce points as clamoring for this provision for the education of their children, when they, at the same time, by the rules of their trade societies, endeavor to exclude apprentices from learning trades, which is the best and most useful form of education, The bill was assailed on the democratic side of the House onthe ground of its unconstitutionality, and on the expiration of the morning hour it went over till to-day. The House Committee on Commerce, on a resolution reported by its chairman, Mr. Shellabarger, has been charged with the duty of looking into the question of exorbitant railroad rates, quarantine exactions and harbor regulations, that impede or injure domestic and foreign commerce, and also into the question of reviving American tonnage. The committee and sub-committees of it have power to send for persons and papers, and to hold their sessions at any place they may deem convenient. We may expect, therefore, soon to have another Congressional committee in full blast in this city, dividing the honors with that now ventilating our Custom House affairs. Mr. Butler, of Massachusetts, made a demon- stration in the House by presenting, with an extraordinary flourish, a petition for a declara- tory law establishing woman suffrage. The House then took up the General Civil Appro- priation bill, and was engaged on it to the hour of adjournment. The Aadit and Apporti t Board. A vigorous lobby effort is being made at Al- bany to prevent the passage by the Senate of the Audit and Apportionment bill, which passed the Assembly yesterday. The game of the lobbyists is to embarrass the question by striking from the proposed Board the name of the President of the Board of Aldermen, John Cochrane. To this end the Senators outside New York are confidentially assured by men whose interference alone should excite their suspicion that John Cochrane is not a republican at heart; that he is not a faithful reformer, and the like. If the Senators have any regard for their own repu- tation they will avoid these lobby jackals, or treat them as all intermeddling knaves deserve to be treated. It may be questionable whether any of the special legis- lation initiated and urged by the Comptroller was advisable, beyond the simple raising of money to meet the city bonds and interest and pay the city’s honest debts. But if a Board of Audit and Apportionment is to be created at all—for a long or short period of service—it is eminently proper that the Presi- dent of the Board of Aldermen, the repre- sentative of the legislative power of the city, should be a member thereof. AyoTHER Heavy SNow Stor is reported in the far West, blockading again the Pacific Railway trains on both sides of the Rocky Mountains. Very well; they must take it as it comes. But this winter’s experience on the Central Pacific route will be apt to hurry up the Northern Pacific road, along which, from the depression in the Rocky Mountaius in that quarter, and in consequence of the warm winds from the Pacific, there is a comparatively light snow fall ; and it will be apt to hurry up the Southern Pacific road, which turns the flank of the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, and along which there is never any obstruction from snow. And the fact is, we want all three of these Pacific roads; and when they are all in operation the way and the through traffic will give work enough for all, and they will assist, rather than injure, each other in building up all the country be- tween the lines, Tue Frenon Caniner remains a unit on the subject matter of the public policy under Thiers. So says our cable report from Paris. 'Vhis is good for France. Better, since the Ministry is likely to remain united. The War on the Erie Rallread Hing=A Comprehensive Measure of Reform. Senator O’Brien yesterday introduced in the State Senate a well-considered and carefully drawn bill, to secure to the stockholders of the Erie Railroad a restoration of the rights of which they have been deprived by corrupt legislation, and to the people a long-desired reformation in the management of one of the most important lines of travel in the United States. The bill repeals the notorious Classification act, as does the one pre- viously introduced by Senator O’Brien on the first day of the session; but it provides also for an election of new directors, and throws around the transfer of stock such safeguards as will in future—should the bill become a law—prevent a repetition of those illegs! acts by which an unscrupulous combination has heretofore contrived to cheat the bona fide stockholders out of their right to participate in the elections, There is not an arbitrary or unjust provision in the proposed law. It simply gives to the stockholders those privi- leges which are guaranteed to them by the common law of the State, and of which they have been stripped by special legislation, and prevents any further outrages, such as refusals to register the transfer of stock, tampering with the books, or the seizure of shares, by which means the ring directors bave hitherto managed to retain their power in the corporation. No sound argument can be advanced against Senator O'Brien's bill, and if defeated it will be by the use of the appliances already used so successfully by the Erie Ring upon former State Legislatures. To give to the bona fide stockholders of a corporation the choice of those who are to manage its busi- ness affairs, subject. to such restrictions as the law imposes, is simply an act of common justice. To deliver over the control of a corporation to a combination of speculators, against the wishes and interests of the stock- holders and the people, is wholly unjostifiable upon any conceivable plea. The lobbyists in the Gould interest, now so busy at Albany, use the argument that the Erie road is in better condition at the present time than it bas been for several years past, and that the people all along the route are in favor of the retention of its present manage- ment. If these assertions were true they would afford no justification of the corrupt legislation of the past two years and no good reason why a reform legislator should vote against its reversal. If afew unauthorized men should seize upon,the Park Bank, and by the aid of a debauched Legislature and a con- venient judiciary should succeed in preventing the shareholders from disturbing them in pos- session it would be no justification of their lawless act to plead that the business of the bank was prosperous under their management. But it is notorious that the operations of the ring directors have not been in the interests either of the stockholders or of the public, and that the only popularity they can boast along the line of the road is such as their local influence and the control they wield through their employés over the election of public officers, from Senators and members of Assembly down to town constables, enable them to secure. e Before the recent State election the pro- fessed champions of reform were loud and unanimous in their denunciation of the no- torious operations of the Erie Ring. Fisk, Gould and their associates were held up be- fore the eyes of the electors as the twin brothers of Tammany in all rascalities and corruptions, The republicans and the independent reformers wera told that through the aid of Tammany leaders, Tammany lobbyists and Tammany judges, the Erie directors had been enabled to debauch Legislatures, to degrade the judiciary and to rob the stockholders and the public. The success of the republican State ticket and of a reform Legislature was then urged, not asa party triumph, but as the certain means of striking down the Fisk and Gould direction as well as the Tammany officials. The Senate and Assembly now in session at Albany were elected as much as opponents of the Erie Ring corruption as of the Tammany Ring corruption. Itis only since they have breathed the tainted atmosphere of the State capital and brought their palms in contact with the ever-ready hands of the jackals of the lobby that some of our representatives have dis- covered virtues in Gould and popular advan- tages in the present management of the Erie road, They know now, as they knew before election, that the common stock of the cor- poration has been raised by the ring direc- tors from twenty-four millions in 1868 to seventy-eight millions in 1871, and that in the same period the funded debt has been in- creased four millions of dollars. They know now, as they knew then, that no dividends whatever have been paid either on common or preferred stock; that while the net earn- ings of the road for the year 1870-71 were over seventeen million dollars the net surplus has been only a _iittle over one hundred thousand dollars, the remainder of the enormous earnings having been swallowed up by the ‘management ;” that the members of the ring have all in the meantime amassed sudden and princely wealth. Yet they have become converted by the arguments of one of the most efficient and unscrupulous lobbies that ever disgraced a State capital, and have learned to look upon the notorious Erie Ring as an upright, honest and beneficial institution. Senator O'Brien’s bill will defy criticism, Tt contains, as we have said, no arbitrary or unusual provision, and simply gives to the stockholders of the Erie Railroad the same privileges and provides for them the same safeguards that are enjoyed by the stockhold- ers of other corporations in the State. The Classification act was a piece of special and extraordinary legislation. It allowed the seventeen directors of Erie to classify them- selves and prolong their terms to from one to five years, so that no more than three or four should go out of office in any one year. This rendered it impossible for the stockholders, under any circumstances, to change the com- plexion of the Board under three full years, and impracticable for them to do it even then, Mr. O'Brien's bill repeals that arbitrary law, and provides for a new election of directors in July next, In order to insure an honest elec- tiom at which all the dona Ade took. cept on execution after final judgment; bids the issuing of injunctions to stop the voting on any legally held stock, and requires that five weeks before the date of election the company’s books shall be placed in the safe keeping of some trust company, to be named by the Ohief Justice and the Attorney General, and be open to the inspection of the stockholders, No vote can be cast against so fair a measure unless on the plain issue that the Erie Ring directors should be sustained in the special legislation they secured in conjunction with the Tammany Ring from a debauched Legislature, and maintained in the power they won by lawless violence and corruption, and hold in defiance of the wishes of the stockholders and the people. Let us see whether a reform Legislature four-fifths republican can afford to make such a record for itself on the eve of a Presidential election. Let us know whether the representatives of a professed “‘reform party” are willing to sell themselves to the lobby like cattle, at so much per head; for by no other than corrupt means can Senator O'Brien's bill be beaten at Albany. Gevernor Ite ou the Manifest Destiny of. Japan. The picture drawn of the rapid mental and material progress of the Japanese nation by Governor Ito, in his speech at the banquet in San Francisco tendered to the Embassy of which he is a member, gives promise that this strangely gifted people will soon place them- selves at the head of Eastern civilization, In his speech the Governor reviewed the progress which had been made and alluded with evi- dent pride to the great political changes which had been accomplished by his countrymea without the shedding of one drop of blood. This he put forward prominently as an un- questionable proof of the advance in know!l- edge and civilization, which, he claimed, had taken place within the laat few years in his native land. Upon the great triumph of right by moral agencies over institutions and privi- leges which had existed for thousands of years he based his statement that, great as has been the change wrought by the introduction of the telegraph and railway in the material condition of Japan, the influence exerted by modern ideas has been even more powerful and far- reaching. Unlike other Eastern nations, the Japanese have acknowledged the superiority of Weat- ern civilization, and set themselves vigorously to work to master the problems of our social and political systems. . Nor have they been restrained by prejudice from adoptiog what- ever appeared to them worthy of imitation in our industrial and governmental systems. In his manner of appreciating the value of closer relations and more intimate knowledge be- tween our people and his own Governor Ito displays a breadth of view and an intimate acquaintance with the causes that influence the prosperity of societies such as are not often found among even the enlightened men of the most advanced nations. Governor Ito’s speech is a clear and states- manlike expression of ideas which would de honor to any of our legislators, and is especially noticeable for the absence of that Oriental exaggeration which would have been pardon- able in an ambassador of an Eastern poten- tate. But instead we have utterances of a practical wisdom and evidence of an acquaint- ance and comprehension of the lessons of history, unfortunately very rare, even among our legislators. In dealing with questions of State the Gov- ernor develops his ideas with force and evi- dent grasp of mind. When he quits the regions of speculation and comes down to the not less interesting question of com- merce we find in him a shrewdness and a disposition to trade worthy of a Down East Yankee. Instead of imitating our speech makers and devoting the peroration of his address to an oratorical flight of fancy the sensible Governor, with a keen eye to busi- ness, announces that his countrymen are ready to trade, offering their co-operation in devel- oping the commerce of the Pacific. With such shrewd and enlightened statesmen direct- ing her policy the future of Japan {s secure, and American citizens may confidently extend the band of friendship and brotherhood to those worthy Yankees of the Eastern Hemisphere. ANOTHER Cabinet Crisis IN Spain.—The members of the Sagasta-Malcampo Ministry have resigned their portfolios tothe King. We expected as much after reading yesterday the despatch from Madrid announcing the defeat of the Ministerial candidate, Sefior Herreros, for the Presidency of the National Legislature. The Sagasta-Malcampo Cabinet has been short- lived indeed, but it surprises no person who has watched with any degree of interest the political events in Spain since Amadeus be- came King. The loss of Prim to the country, and especially to the young Savoyard, isa sore one, and though the youthful monarch is doing all in his power to harmonize the conflicting elements in the Spanish nation and bring order out of the political chaos that disturbs it, hia progress has been slow. The present Cabinet difficulty adds to his perplexities, Tok New APporTIONMENT BILL IN THE Sgnarz.—As a matter of propriety and jus- tice we think the Senate should leave the sub- ject of the new apportionment of members of the House of Representatives to the House itself, It is the body most directly interested in the matter, and the tinkering of the House bill, as proposed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, is hardly in the line of strict legislative etiquette. The House bill, which concedes to the old States about their former representation, is the best, and the Senate should adopt it without unnecessary delay. InepRtaTe ReForm IN ENGLAND.—Mr. Dal- rymple, a member of the British Parliament, intends to submit the result of his observation of the inebriate asylums system in the United States to the House of Commons. He will propose also that the House shall invite ‘‘lead- ing Americans” to go over and testify on the subject of the methods and progress of ine- briate reform in America, This intention ia excellent. Parliament will learn all that these “leading Americans” may kgow about whiss