The New York Herald Newspaper, January 28, 1872, Page 6

NEW YORK HERALD BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR All business or news letter and telegraphic despatches must be addressed New York Herarp. Letters and packages should be properly eealed. $ Rejected communications will not be re- turned, THE DAILY HERALD, published every aay in the tear, Four cents per copy. Annual subscription orice $12. ADVERTISEMENTS, to a limited number, will be in- Serted in the WEEKLY HERALD and the European Edition. JOB PRINTING af every description, also Stereo: typing and Engraving, neatly and promptly exe- culed at the lowest rater, Volume XXXVIL.. 1.66.20. ceeseserseeecsesNOe BS AMUSEMENTS TO-MORROW EVENING, WOOD'S MUSLUM, Broadway, corner s&h ot, —Perfc ances afternoon and evening, OW Hany. una aiccad WALLACK’S THEATRE, Broadway ani 13th strest. — Joun Garru. NIBLO'S GARDEN, Broadway, between Prince and Houston streets.—BLack CRroox. BOWERY THEATRE, Bowery—TuroveH by Day- Licnt--A Huspany at Sian. ST. JAMES' THEATRE, Twenty-eighth street and Broad- way.—MONALDIL, OLYMPIC THEATRE, Broadway.—Tu® BALLET PaN- TOMIME C¥ Humpty Dumpty. AIMEE’S OPER. FI y rl aentone ‘A BOUFFE, No. 7% Broadway.—Les ROOTH'S THEATRE, Twenty-third st,, corner Sixth av. — JULIUS C&BAR, STADT THEATRE, Nos, 45 and 47 Bowery.—OrzRa oF Ivanuog. FIFTR AVENUE THEATRE, Twenty-fourth street. — Tux New Draa or Divonor. GRAND OPERA HOUSE. corner of Sth av. and 23a at— EUROPEAN HIPPOTURATRICAL COMPANY. Matinee at 2, MRS. F. B. CONWAY'S BROOKLYN THEATRE.— MAN any WirR, PARK THEATRE, 0; ite City Ball, WILL HatLer, ity sf THEATRE COMIQUE, 514 Broadway.-.Cou1o VooaL- 16M6, NEGRO AC78, &0.—NEW YORK IN 1671. Brooklyn.— UNION SQUARE THEATRE, Fourteenth st. aud Broad- way.—NEGRO AOTS—BURLESQUE, BALLET, £0. TONY PASTOR'S OPERA HOUSE, No. 201 Bowery.— NEGRO ECOENTRICITING, BURLESQUE, £0. BRYANT’S NEW OPERA HOUSER, 234 at, det 6th and 7th ava.--BRYaNT'S MINSTRELS sei SAN FRANCISCO MINSTREL HAL! Broadway.— TUR SAN FRANCISCO MINSTRELS, i ine Evans ane HALL, Fourteenth street.Granp Con. NEW YORK CIRCUS, Fourteenta srea.—Sorxz3 iN THE RING, ACROBATS, XO, LEAVITT ART ROOMS, No. 817 Broadway.—Exutct- ‘TION OF PAINTINGS. NEW YORK MUSEUM OF ANATOMY, tk es ane 613 Broadway.— New York, Sunday, January 2° Con OF TO-DAY’S HERALD. facr, 1— Advertisements, 2—Advertisements, 3—One More ‘Tragedy: A Father Murders His Son and Attempts to Kall Himself in Grand Street; A Deed of Blood at the Portals of St, Mary’s Church; The Cause of the Crime; A Fatner’s Frenwy at the Loss of His Children’s Love; The Murderer and the murdered; The Scene at the Police Station; Interview with the Father; Statements of the Mother and Other Spectators—Love and Murer: The Williamsburg Tragedy and the Statement of the Friends of the Prisoner; Iliclt Love the Cause oi the Crime; rhe Inguest—Who Killed Panormo: The Question Not Yet Settled by te Police; Five Persons Arresied on Sus- picion—The Marder Spirit Rife in Brookiyn— Music and the Drama—State Legisiatures, 4—Pigeon Shooting: «he Graud Handicap of the Jerome Park Gun Club; Eighteen Members Shoot for the Prizes; Charles ?. Palmer the Winner of the Cup and Francis H. Palmer the Second Prize—Weather Reports—National Prison Associanon—The Smalipox—the Ku Kiux Klan: The First Batch for Albany Prison; How the Convicts Lock—The Ball sea- son—Testing the Vote—Feionious Assauli— Destructive Fire in Tennessee—The Outrages ea Carolina—Another Kerosene Ex- S—Religious Intelligence: Programme for the Present Sabbath; HEAALD Religious Corre- spondence; Religious Notes, Personal and General; Thirty-iourth Street Synagogue— College ol the City of New York—Brooklyn Reform—A Strange Burglary: Four Kufflans Bind and Gag a Watchinan Under Pretence ot Arresting Him—A Novei Pigeon Case—The Latest Jersey Myste! Suicide of an Invalid— ‘The Artist Fuud Sale—Tne National Game on ce. @—Editorials: Leading Article, “The Troubles of Church and State, and the Delusive Peace of Europe”’—Amusement Announcements, —Eaitorials (continued from Sixth Page)—France: Project of @ Republican Revoluuunary Rising in the South; Monarchical Restoration To ue Combateu by the Men in Arms—D'aumale and McMahon Distrusced—Interestlug trom England = and _—_Italy—General Sherman's Tour—The Steamer Hornet: Excitement Over Wer Arrival at Baltimore; History of Her Cruise and Detention by Spanish War Vessels; Kuthusiastic Reception in Havana of Newly Arrived Spanish ‘troops; The HERALD’S Airican Expedition appreciatea—The Grand Duke Alexis—Miscellaneous Te:egrams—Per- sonal Intelligence—ice Boat Rave on the Hud- son—Business Notices, S—Among the spicits: The Workings of the Spirit World Exposed in a Police Court; A Medium Becomes Disgusted and ‘elis What He Knows—he Courts: Interesting Proceedings in the New York and Brookl: m Courte—ihe Sickly savings Banks—The Fourth Avenue Railroad Question—A Man Killed at the Brooklyn Bridge~-rhe Coopers’ Strike—For- eign Personal Gossip—Marriages and Deaths, @-Financial and Commercial—How Dowling Fixed Them—Advertisements, 10—Washington : The Postai Telegraph Scheme in the House ; Mr. Beck's Sweeping Denuncia- tion—The Bollinger Movement: Spread of the Catholic Reform Agitauon in Europe—Snip- ping Inteliigence—Advertisemenys. 41—Advertisements. 19—Adverusements, Tue ITALIAN GoveRnMENT will svon pro- pose a new loan of three hundred millions of lire. A committee of the Parliament has agreed to report in favor of the project. Rome is, as it ever has been, a wonderful place for swallowing up money. Tax Firra Wueet or THe Quarantine Coaou, it appears, by the news from Albany, isto be overhauled. Mr. Alberger offered resolutions in the Assembly, which were adopted, calling upon the Quarantine Com- missioners to give an account of how the two hundred thousand dollars appropriated last year for erecting buildings on West Bank have been expended, and how large liabilities in addition have been incurred. Useless as the Quarantine Commission is it has shown itself to be very efficient in spending an enormous sum of money, with little to show for the expenditure, The Commission has notbing to do with preserving the health of the city, « for that rests entirely with the Health Officer, 80 far as preventing the introduction of dis- ease through vessels coming to this port goes, and, in fact, the Commisston as at present constituted is rather an obstruction than aid fo Quarantise efficiency. We may expect some interesting developments from the inves- tization ordered by the Assembly, The Troubles of Church and State and the Delusive Peace of Europe. There is no war at present, bat there is no peace in Europe. Between the conservative and the revolutionary elements of the Conti- nent, in Church and State, the ‘‘irrepressible conflict” continues, and France and Spain are particularly in that critical condition from which the only escape appears to be through @ revolution or a civil war. In the recent resignation and restoration of President Thiers, as de facto the Dictator, we have had 8 most convincing betrayal from the National Assembly of the critical condition of France. Here we have anold politician who has out- lived his party associations, and who is with- out a party in the National Assembly, and without a party among the people, and who is universally regarded by all parties only as the executive head of the State pro tem., and yet to this heroic but solitary old man, when he proposes to resign his thankless position, men of all parties appeal, and they beseech him still to retain his place, because just now it is to France either Thiers or chaos. Surely when law and order among thirty-six millions of people hang upon a thread so slender as this we have reason to fear that at any moment the thread may be snapped, and that the signal may be given again in Paris for the barricades, But wherein lies even the present safety of France under President Thiers? It lies in the fact that he represents a sort of compromise or armistice between the discordant factions of the Assembly. He is, apparently, an Orleanist on the question of a restoration, an imperialist in reference to the Papal temporalities and the censorship of the press, and a republican only upon what Caleb Cushing would define as ‘“‘glittering generalities and shadowy abstractions.” He has tried to harmonize the elder and the younger Bourbons, and bas failed; he has labored evidently with a will to suppress imperialism while practically adopt- ing the governing policy of Napoleon; but the imperial party in Paris and throughout France continues to grow upon his bands. Against the Bonapartes, however, M. Thiers has an overwhelming majority in the Assembly ; but as this majority can do nothing with the Bourbons, and is opposed to the con- firmation of the republic and dreads an appeal to the people, the only alternative is adhesion to M, Thiers and the policy of drifting with the stream of events. Meantime it must be remembered that President Thiers has declared his allegiance to and faith in the republic; but as his plan of a republic appears to embrace the restoration of the Pope to his temporal kingdom it is not the plan of the republicans of France. Under ‘the armistice suggested, then, between M. Thiers and his factions Assembly the present government of France is in a deadlock. It can move neither backward nor forward, The Assembly is the Long Parliament over again, and some Cromwell destined to turn it out of doors may be the next entrance upon the stage. On:the other hand, while Thiers holds the army under good control, and while the Assembly admits its dependence upon the Executive, there is some prospect that this present French government may quietly drift with the tide a year or two longer. But those heavy German indemnities must be paid, or the German armies willcome back again; and to meet those merciless indemnities addi- tional taxes to the heavy burden already imposed upon an impoverished people must be raised; and here again we come face to face with the dangers of a popular revolt. It was the poverty of the masses of the French people, with their heavy taxations, that brought about that terrible convulsion which expelled the Bourbons; but the poverty, the sufferings and the taxes of France in 1789 were hardly worse than they are in 1872, But the most intolerable of all things to Frenchmen is just that state of suspense under which, with this provisional government, they are now chafing, and against another tax levy they may respond with the ‘‘ Marseillaise.” Such is the present condition of France; and meanwhile the Church party in the country districts, the quiet Catholic peasantry, are watching and waiting the opportunity for the restoration of the empire, and the recti- fication of the wrongs of the Holy Father. Nor is the present situation in Spain in anything better than that of France. King Amadeus is evidently in great danger. His dissolution of the Cortes, with acall fora new election in the spring, is a desperate expedi- ent. It docs not appear that there ® any officer of the army who can fill the place of Prim; and it does appear that the fighting factions throughout the Peninsula are each and all bent upon mischief. Spanish pride, Spanish faith and Spanish bigotry can raise, upon a short notice, a powerful revolutionary army against the stranger King and the son of the heretical Victor Emmanuel, Nor does there seem to be any hope for established law and order in Spain, under any king or any government; for the Spanish race, in the old land, as in its American settlements, has apparently fallen beyond the capacity of self- government, Its decline and its decay may be dated from the luxury and the debaucheries resulting from the fabulous wealth poured into Spain from her virgin American colonies. It is the old lesson and the old story of Rome, enriched, demoralized and enfeebled from the wealth of the world. France, from the splendors, riches and debaucheries of the empire, has betrayed some of the worst symp- toms of the same fatal disease; and ‘poor France” may next be a companion picture for Spain, though we hope for ber redemp- tion. Another revolutionary convulsion in Spain may spread the contagion to France, and vice versa. The combustibles abound in both countries, and only a spark and a breeze are needed to set them off. And suppose the conflagration is lighted, can Belgium or Germany or Italy or Austria, be counted on as secure against the spreading fire? Are the revolutionary elements in any of these countries fewer in numbers or more deficient in organization or intelligence than they were in 1848-9? No. On the contrary, these elements are now more numerous and better organized than ever before; and England ‘Itself, which was hardly disturbed by the Continental upheaval of '48-9, is now alarmed by the popular outcry against Church and State. The Duke of Newcastle declares that the conservatives distrust Mr. Gladstone, because he ia helieved ta favor the abolition of the House of Lords and dallies with the dangerous principles. of Sir Charles Dilke and other disturbers of the estab- lished order of things. From this it seems that Mr. Gladstone occupies a posi- tion as thankless as that of M. Thiers; and perhaps, like Thiers, too, we may yet find him witbout a party in his Parliament, bring- ing it to terms by a resignation. He may fight off the evil day by adroit hedging, but all the time the discussion of the rights and wrongs and the cause of the people against Church and State will go on, still widening and gathering strength, till master of the field, like our slavery agitation. The glory and the strength of King Victor Emmanuel lie in that great work—the unity of Italy—achieved under his prosperous reign. But behind him lies the shadow of the’ repub- lic; and shrewd observers predict that King Victor will be the last Italian king, at least for sometime; that a republican rising and a sanguinary civil war between ‘‘reds” and royalists will follow; that the shock will con- vulse the Continent; that Germany, Russia, England and France will intervene; that the legitimate order of things will then be restored in Italy, and that then the Holy Father will get his own again. We apprehend that the current of events will more likely run in the opposite direction, and that, under the exist- ing state of things on the Continent, the restoration of the French empire is the game of peace for France and the States imme- diately around her. We are also inclined to the opinion that if Prince Bismarck desired only his French indemnity and peace and a peaceful neighbor in France, he would contrive the restoration of the Bonapartes; but that, in bis present policy of warnings and in- dulgences to M. Thiers, he is preparing for the appropriation ofa few more French depart- ments, or for the reduction of France, through her internal disorders to the helpless condi- tion of Spain. Th any event, the existing peace of Europe is but a truce, which another French revolu- tion may bring to an end, and France, though prostrated in the dust, is more inclined in her desperation still to fight than to endure in- definitely her present misfortunes, doubts, anxieties, humiliations and suspense, Our Religious Press Tabie. Gathered together upon our religious press table we find the Roman Catholic Freeman's Journal hugging the Jewish Times; the Congregationalist Independent overlapping the strict Presbyterian Observer; the holy Evangelist embracing the Liberal Christian; the Christian Unwon interlocked with tho Golden Age; the Episcopal Methodist ex- changing loving glances with the Christian Intelligencer ; the New Jerusalem Messenger hobnobbing with the Hebrew Leader ; the Church Journal in close connection with the Jewish Messenger; the uniied Christian Times, of Chicago, the consolidated Witness of Indiana, the Christian Herald of Michi- gan—‘‘H Pluribus Unum"—in close prox- imity with the Protestant Churchman ; the Boston Pilot—Catholic organ of New. Eng- land—lying cosily with the National Baptist of Philadelphia; the stanch old Methodist hard by the New York Temperance Oracle, and so on, from one style of theological and morally and religiously inclined journals to another, And what do we find after a careful exami- nation of the leading articles in these papers? Briefly these points:—That the National Baptist, in pursuing some “Old Paths” bas discovered that “‘antiquity Is not in itself a certain evidence of truth”—thus essentially damaging the theory that graybeards, albeit in the pulpit, are divine. That the Ohris- tian Union, in an article written by Henry Ward Beecher, discourses upon the serious matters of “The Neglect of Worship,” and upon ‘‘The Spoils System,” gathering in the latter article the spoilsmen who infest the Custom House and those who were wont to fill official positions in the municipal govern- ment of the city of New York. That the Methodist gives a list of prizes for new sub- scribers, touches on ‘‘Humor and Charity,” gives the ‘Franklin Statue” a twist, quoting Horace Greeley in that connection, when he characterized Franklin as a ‘journeyman printer who didn’t drink.” That the Protestant Churchman wishes to ‘‘cul- tivate a spirit of charity in judging our brethren.” That the Chicago Stand- ard gives the Rev. Mr. Hepworth a rap, attributing his departure to “‘the radical utter- ances of certain foremost Unitarians,” and in the same column referring to the “ice-cream adjunct” to Sunday School revivals, That the Hebrew Leader gives a feeling obituary to the memory of the late Rey. Gabriel Pape, in Philadelphia. That the Jewish Messenger appeals to the human race for relief for the perishing Jews and Christians in Persia, That the Church Journal advocates a uni- form hymnal for the Church. That the Zid- eral Christian—Dr. Bellows—is satisfied of the Redeemer’s death, and says :—‘‘It is not without solemn study, clear conviction and plain warrant of Scripture that Unitarians refuse to accord supreme worship to Christ or to confound Him with His Maker and His God—His Father and our Father, His God and our God.” That the Christian Intelli- gencer has an intelligent idea on the subject of ‘tAn American Theology,” which is a very good thing in its way; but is it not time that American theologians had some views of their own? That the Golden Age, after discussing Charles Sumner and female suffrage, hangs itself by a “Rope of Sand” in an article in which it wishes ‘to point a moral and adorn a tale.” That the strict Observer passed three days in the United States Senate, gives the gratifying result of its investiga that ‘‘there is less intemperance among mem- bers of Congress than was ever known before, and that a higher and purer standard of morals obtains.” That the Heangelist furnishes a noteworthy experiment on the problem of prison reform. That the Hreeman's Journal explains ‘What Methodists Think of the Incarnate Word.” That the Jewish Times discourses upon the proposed Christian amend- ment to the Constitution of the United States. That the Independent endeavors to define “Where We Stand.” And so on to the end of the list of oar religious exchanges, Tue Imports of the past week were nearly ten million dollara. Gold advanced yester- dav to 109. NEW YORK HERALD, SUNDAY, JANUARY 28, 1872.-TRIPLE SHERT. Congress Yesterday—The Postal Telegraph System. The Senate was not in session yesterday, and the House only met for general debate. Contrary to the usual custom, however, the debate started off on a ‘real practical issue, and was opened by two of the prominent mem- bers of the House. Mr. Beck, of Kentucky, the most active and influential membor on the democratic side, led off with an assault upon the postal telegraph scheme. He had been a member of the select committee to which the subject had been referred in the last Con- gress, and was, therefore, thoroughly familiar with it; but yet there was nothing in his argument which has not been stated fre- quently before, and with equal force and effect. The objections to the plan known as the “Washburn plan,” from the bill intro- duced last Congress by Mr. (now Governor) Washburn, of Wisconsin, and which looks to the absorption and operation of all telegraph lines by the government, were shown to be that the purchase of the existing lines would cost at least sixty millions of dollars; that at a low tariff of rates the expenses would run far beyond the receipts, leaving a large an- nual deficit; that it would increase the present army of government employés by at least fifty thousand, and that there would be no security against government officials tamper- ing with the despatches, and consequently that the necessary confidence of the public would be destroyed. As to the bill now before the Senate, and which is based upon the ‘‘Hub- bard plan”—namely, that the exclusive mo- nopoly of tele .raphing shall be given to a com- pany which will contract to do the work at low fixed rates, while the government guaran- tees ten per cent on the capital, with authority to take possession of the lines at any time—Mr. Beck showed that to be a simple game of “heads I win, tails you lose.” He was fol- lowed by Mr. Dawes, of Massachusetts, Chair- man of the Committee of Ways and Means, who, while proclaiming his antagonism to the whole postal telegraph scheme, recognized, in the “Hubbard plan” at least, the dawn of a remedy against an overshadowing monopoly. But Mr. Beck thought that the worst and most dangerous of all monopolies would be the government of the United States. There was nothing else of any interest in the House pro- ceedings yesterday. All that came after it was merely the reading of essays, prepared by or for members on various topics, to be em- balmed in the columns of the Congressional Globe and appendix. Recent Homicides—Che Murder Mania. The community is at present in the midst of @ series of shocking murders which seem at undefined intervals to sweep over the face of our civilization, darkening it with a tinge of blood. Homicide appears for a while to be epidemic, and men talk gallows philosophy with a tinge of ferocity in.sentiment which indicates all the more how the blood-spilling mania seizes mankind in some form or other, whether under the form of murder or killing for murder. Two days ago a wretch named Botts expiated the shooting of ‘‘Pet” Halsted, in Newark—moving cause, jealousy. In Cali- fornia a woman, Mrs. Fair, is under sentence for killing a man who was about to return to a longeneglected, much-injured wife; jeal- ousy was the cause here, too. Stokes killed Fisk—cause, jealousy indirectly ; not Stokes’ but Fisk’s jealousy. Twodays ago, within the very hourthat the murderer Botts was hurried out of the world, a girl of eighteen—a Mrs, Hyde—shot her seducer dead. Yesterday, in front of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, a German, named Henry Hepner, deliberately shot and killed his own son, and afterwards attempted suicide. And so the cases move out into ghastly prominence, with some hellish distortion of the divine pas- sion, love, at their root. If gallows medicine is the only specific for this epidemic of mur- der, why is it so rarely administered? Atthe time that the crimes surge in upon society each murderer and murderess is hanged in imagination, and there only. When the homicide fever passes away for a while the murder virus seems to leave the public mind too, and the criminal is forgotten with the crime. The jealousy murders, or those founded on sentiment, no matter how morbid, flabby or maudlin, always find their apolo- gists among decent people, who never saw the gashed, riddled or jellied corpse of the victim, These people illustrate the mania by applause of the murder, The theory of a murder mania is true also of the more brutal classes of the crime, such as the car-hook murder, or those that arise out of vulgar brawls in the dens of vice. Awakening unanimous condemnation at the time, they pass into oblivion, and the example idea of the law is frustrated. While in most of the murders which come to light the slayer is found at once or clearly traceable on account of the incidents of passion which were part of the murdered being’s life, there is the class of murder which is the accompa- niment of robbery, The failure to trace this class of criminal is a notorious and deplorable commentary on the efficiency of the police, whose sensibilities alone appear to be in no way quickened by the sudden increase of crime. The Rogers and Nathan murders are as much wrapped in mystery now as at the time of their committal, and the murder of the unfortunate Professor Panormo, a couple of nights ago, seems as if about to be sent to keep company with the other two mockeries of our system of detection of crime, as they all three shake our belief in the police as a protective or preventive force. There must be no effort spared to bring the assassins of Panormo to justice; but the ignorance, sloth and blundering of the Brooklyn police give us little hope of this result, As in the Rosen- zweig case, some of the most important links in the chain of evidence have already been worked up by the press writers, and if the so- called detectives will only follow the trail pub- lic vengeance may yet be satisfied, Tne Steamer Horner, after a very “checkered career,” arrived in Baltimore on Friday night, She left Port au Prince, where she had been so long blockaded by Spanish war vessels, under the convoy of the United States frigate Congress, but parted company with the latter in @ heavy gale. During her adventurous cruise in the West Indies Spanish war vessels and the elements seem to have been leagued to accomplish her destruction, And now that sha has at last reached the havea of safetw she stands in danger of being tried and con- demned by the United States authorities for breach of neutrality. France in Danger of a Counter Revolution— Radical Organization for War Against Monarchical Restoration—Thiers = upervised from the Conclaves. The Herat special telegram from Paris which we publish to-day affords positive evi- dence of the fact that France stands in danger of experiencing the shock and conse- quences of a counter revolutionary movement should an attempt be made by any recognized authority for the restoration of a monarchical government on her soil. The plan of a radical uprising in opposition to such a change in the form of rule has been perfected all over the territory of the South. The leaders of the leaguers appear to have constituted themselves the self-appointed guardians of the integrity and permanency of the republic, They hold themselves ready to take up arms should Thiers’ resignation of the Presi- dency have been accomplished, with the suc- cession of the Duc d’Aumale or Marshal MacMahon to the chief authority of the execu- tive. These men of radical reform principles appear to claim that they have a citizen agree- ment with the heads of the French republic, by virtue of which the integrity and perpetua- tion of a democratic government has been guaranteed to the country, and that the observ- ance of their duty of citizen allegiance and fealty depends upon the fulfilment of the bond by the ruling power, and that a breach of the contract in anything which relates to its first essential absolves them from their obligation of duty and will justify @ resort to the inauguration of civil war. Gambetta, it is alleged, met the leaders of this formidable federation in council during his recent visit to Bordeaux. He approved of their plans and assured them that supplies of all the material of war as well as of provisions would be forthcoming for the use of an army of advanced reformers, should the occasion for its services in the field occur. He advised them to continue their preparations for future contingencies in the meantime. Thus, as it appears to us, has the govern- ment of the French republic been made sub- ject to the supervision of a grand committee of what may be termed the patriotic vigilants of the South. France has a revolutionary imperium in imperio, if radicalism will per- mit even the allusion. ‘here are loyal Frenchmen, and Frenchmen still more loyal— “A blue and a betier blue,” like to the party motto distinction which a handful of political and religious fanatics in the North of Ireland have emblazoned on their banner. President Thiers is accepted as an intelligent reformer, but M. Gambetta finds himself compelled to arrange in hole-and-corner conclaves for the espionage and intimidation of Thiers and his Cabinet, on the ground that they may betray the republic and go back either to Bourbonism or modern imperialism. This system of ‘‘ vigilance committee” government is not wholesome by any means for the intelli- gent administration of the affairs of a whole nation. It bears the same relation to an ac- knowledged civil government which the In- quisition did to the freedom of religious opinion, The Secret Inquisitors claimed to be men after God’s own heart, but they forgot or despised the grand injunction of the Lord when he said, ‘Search the Scriptures’— ernuate tas graphais—‘‘for they are they which bear testimony of me,” It remains to be seen whatis the actual force of this French confederation of the South, Is the organization a substantial, solid, sterling fact after the minds of its members have been conscien- tiously convinced of the rectitude of their purpose and the morality of their intent ? Or is it, on the contrary, merely one of those democratic revolationary bugaboos which are just now attempting to be played as “ghost” with the men who govern on the Continent of Europe, and with capitalists and people of industry in every civilized country in the world? President Thiers may be able to solve the questions. It must be acknowledged, in the meantime, that the French republicans of the South, as advised by M. Gambetta, do not appear inclined to permit any great amount of political debate in France on the subject of the future government of the country, and that what Marshal MacMahon may “know about” government counts as very little in the balance against the conceit, or deceit, of those who imagine that they are themselves able ‘to run” a Commune. France must wait. The Dollinger Movement in Germany. The letters from the HERALD correspondent in Munich, which we publish on another page, give a very graphic account of the spread of the ‘Old Catholic” movement, of which Dr. Dillinger is the bright particular light, not only in Germany, but throughout Europe generally, A brief résumé of the diary kept by Dr. Friedrich during the Vatican Council, contained in one of the letters, will furnish the reader with some of the most substantial objections of the German Professor to that assemblage, and from the reading of which no person will be surprised that Professor Friedrich should deny the ecumenical character of the Council. He regarded it merely as an ‘assembly of bishops.” How the infallibility dogma was introduced is described in the manner so often cited by the adherents of the Dillinger school, The progress of the movement outside of Ger- many, notwithstanding the zeal and energy displayed by such able and indefatigable workers as Friedrich, Hliber, Stross- mayer and others, is slow. In France it bas made no headway and is not likely to make any. The Italian clergy keep aloof from it, and are silent on the sub- ject. In Spain the prospects are somewhat better for the reformers, It is thought, from th revelations lately made in Austria regard- ing the reported abuses of the confessional, that that country is a good field for the Dul- lin,erites to work in, As regards Russia and the Greek Orthodox Church, there are chances of an understanding being arrived at between the Greek Church and the “Old Cath- olics.” At the September Congress of Munich Professer Oasinini, of St. Peters- burg, was present as @ delegate of, the Greek Orthodox Church, and was most since his return lead the German reformers to look north with some degree of confidence for success. The endeavor to bring about a union between the two Churches will be prosecuted with zeal, we have no doubt ; but regarding its success the future alone will have to tell its fate. The Principles and Work of Prison Reformers. While the subject of reform is now attract- ing very general attention, both from local communities and legislative bodies, and no- where more thoroughly than in our own city and State, it was an excellent conception of the Prison Reform Association, on Friday evening and yesterday, to get the friends of the criminal classes together in such numbers as they did, and to call public attention to the objects of their association as they have done. We have been frequently amazed, not only at the evident lack of sympathy, but the absolute hostility of the community to three particular classes of criminals who must necessarily dwell among us. They are drunkards, prosti- tutes and State Prison convicts, We as a people seem to look upon all such per- sons as beyond the pale of our sympathy or hope of their reformation. Hence the pub- lic look upon them with dread and disgust— with scorn and contempt, Or if we manifest any kind of confidence in their promises of reform and better living we do it in such an ungracious way as to create grave doubts in the minds of the criminal classes in regard to our sympathy with or sincerity in their efforts, Hence, also, when any of these classes leave the prisons or penitentiaries they are given ‘‘the cold shoulder” by the majority of us, and by none more readily than by those who should, according to their pro- fessions and faith, love the sinner while they hate the sin. Hence have arisen our inebriate associations and retreats, our Magdalene asylums and midnight missions and the Association for Prison Reform, whose proceed. ings we report in the Hzrarp yesterday and to-day. The few must bear the burdea of the many, and as they have to work against this community prejudice to which we have referred, they are themselves sometimes looked upon with contempt equal to that shown toward the criminals for whose moral and physical good they have organized, We, the public, start out upon a false assumption, which was briefly but pithily declared by ex-Governor Seymour in his ade dress before the meeting on Friday evening. “These men,” said he, referring to State Prison convicts, ‘‘had no such genius in crime that they could, of themselves, work out all their baleful deeds if there had not been a state of morals and a depraved public opinion which gave a hotbed growth to their powers to work mischief, They did not make cor- ruption; corruption made them. They lived and moved unknown and unnoticed until they were made pestilential by favoring circum- stances, just as the lurking diseases are made wide-sweeping plagues when a foul atmos- phere develops their deadly poisons, We can- not deal with this subject of the suppression of crime in a large and truthful way without arraigning the public.” Again: ‘‘Crimes do not show so clearly the character of the criminals as they do the social aspect of the communities in which thoy are committed.” Never were truer words uttered by any one, and we think the Gov- ernor very properly laid the blame where it justly belongs—at the door of the wealthy and the intelligent classes, who go constantly for- get that wealth and business have powers and duties devolving upon them as well as rights, Hope, the great key-note of this Prison Asso- ciation, is, as Mr. Seymour remarked, a great reformer. It is that which lives longest and dies hardest in every man. It is that which has made worthy business men and honored and honorable Christian men of many a convict in this and in other lands. It is that which lifts a man out of the “‘slough of despond” and sets him upon his feet, points him to the celestial city, the bright future before him, and, with a cheering word and a warm grasp, bids him strike out boldly for himself. The inspiration of such a hope is worth more to any man, and especially to such men, than all the gold of Ophir or the pearls of India, could they be offered to them. But the principle upon which our prison discipline is carried out is, as it was aptly de- clared, a disgrace to the Christian civilization of the age. Itis the principle of the wicked servant condemned by the Saviour in one of His beautiful parables, because he exacted the very last farthing of the hundred pence due him from a fellow servant, notwithstand- ing the common lord ‘and master of both had forgiven him a much larger debt. Society acts on the assumption that a man who com- mits a State Prison crime is necessarily a hardened criminal. It rarely or never stops to inquire how often, if ever, he resisted the temptation before he fell, and it never takes into account his circumstances and surrouud- ings, which have oftentimes much more to do with the commission of crime than any innate desires which the criminal may cherish, Hence the law shuts prisoners up in its stone walls and iron cages, and seeks by harsh treatment to obliterate every vestige of his better manhood out of his nature; and against this principle the Prison Reform As- sociation is working with zeal and with some degree of success, But it needs the sym- pathy and the encouragement of society and the removal of this unchristian prejudice, which everywhere prevails, before it can fully succeed in its divine mission. Dr. BE. ©. Wines, the worthy Secretary or our National Prison Reform Association, hav- ing lately returned from his European tour through the prisons and reformatories of the Old World, whither he was sent by the Presi« dent, made a brief but interesting report of his visits to some of the principal prisons there. Hegave honor where it was due to the prison system of Ireland, which “plants hope in the breast of the prisoner from the first hour of his confinement, and keeps it there as an ever active force, ine creasing in potency to the last day of his ime prisonment.” That is the whole philosophy in a nutshell of a true and reformatory prison discipline, And that is the true solution of the wonderful decrease of crime and lawless. ness in that land within the past fiteen years, The prison at Lusk Dr. Wines foind without higbly impressed with the programme of the | bolts or bars, and yet he never sw a higher “Old Catholics,” and his labors at home deuree of discipline anywhere than is there