The New York Herald Newspaper, March 14, 1872, Page 6

NEW YORK HERALD BROADWAY AND ANN STREBT, map pegnie Riu Ss JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR, 2° 4 BOOTH'S T! - Petey 'MEATRE, Twenty-thirdst., cornor Sixth ay. WALLACK’S THEATR: - THe Vere 8, Broadway and 13h street. NIBLO'S GARDEN, Broadway, ween 4 Houion st.—La Briue Savace ined ‘WOOD's MUSKUM, - poi Broadway, corner 30th st, —Perform- ST. JAMES' THEATRE, Twonty-etghth street and Broad- Way.—MABRIAGE, BOWERY THEATRE, Bowery—Burrauo Biut—Ca' ‘tur WulTs SLavE. si FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE, Twenty-fourth stroet.— Tux New Drama or Divouor, OLYMPIC THEATRE, Broadway.—Tue BALLET PAN- Tomime or HUMPTY Dumpty, LINA EDWIN'S = oniNA, EDWIN'S THEATRE, 720 Broadway.—Witcuns STEINWAY H. Fourt more ¥ EAU, teenth street.—Matinee at 235 MRS. F. B, CONWAY'S BROOKLYN THEATRE. FERNANDE. THEATRE COMIQUE, 514 Broadway.—Com 10 Vooa.- 18M8, NEGRO ACTS, 40. UNION SQUARE THEATRE, Fourteenth st. and Broad- way.—NEGRO AOTS—b URLESQUE, BALLET, 40, TONY PASTOR'S OPERA HOUSE, No. 201 Bowery. — Ne@RO KCOENTEIOITIES, BURLESQUES, £0. BRYANT'S NEW OPERA HOUS! ~ and 7th ava,--BRraNnT’s Ntwereuus’ ipauaeaineetaan THIRTY-FOURTH STREET THEATRE, noar Third ave- Que.—VARIETY ENTERTAINMENT. SAN FRANCISCO MINSTREL HALL, 685 Bi — ‘TRE SAN FRANOI8CO MINSTRELS, a) lei NEW YORK CIRCUS, Fourteenth strect.—SozNes 1 THR RinG, AcnOBATS, 40. ~ TRIPLE SHEET. New York, Thursday, March 14, 1872. oe CONTENTS OF TO-DAY’S HERALD, Pace. 1—Advertisements, 2—Advertisements, 3—The State Capital: Grand Field Day in tne Senate; the Erie Classification Bili Debated in Committee of the Whole and Reported; Persistent Attacks by an Erie Senator; Im- Portant Amendments to the Bill; the Gov- eroor, Cemptroller and Attorney General to Appoint Inspectors of Election. 4—Congress: The Senate Still Wasting Time ; Conkling’s Trouple About the Patronage } The Legislative a npke pean cas Tagging ; The Pacific Mail Literal Exciting Debate in the House—Overcharg! ng for the HERALD—Pigeon Shooting—A Dastardly Assault—The Lobby : A Glance at Some of the Alds to Legislation ; Personnel of the Washington Rings; Abuse Of the Privileges of the Floor; A Pen Picture or the Lobby Heroes at the Capital—Rowipg— Horse Notes. S—Iuteresting Proceedings in the New York and Brooklyn Courts—The Murdered Chevaller— Political Movements and Views—Abanioned | first Bull Run, and the democratic party is all adrift again, at Sea : Foundering of the Men ery Republic in a storm Of Bermuda; ie Oiicers and Crew All Saved—Detective Lambrecht Dy- 1ng—The HERALD Almanac—New Jersey Meth- onista, @—Eilitorials: Leading Article, “The Lesson of the New Hampshire Election; Another Presi- dential Term to General Grant and an Inviting Field Before Him'”’—Amusement Announce- ments, Y—lInteresting from Mexico—Cable Despatches from England, Fran Spain, Italy and Switzerland—Marine isaster—News from Washington—Political—The Woman’s Insti- tni6-—Misceliancous Telegrams—Business No- ices, 8—Financial and Commercial: American Credit Abroad Enhanced“by the Erie Reformation; Pacific Matl and the Subsidy; The Money Mar- ket Stringent; Gold Dull; Dectaration of the Dividend on the New York Central—Tne Reign of Disease—Mr. Miller’a Defence—Marriages and Deaths. ®—The New Custom House Order—The Ohio Mas- sacre—Advertisements, 10—Peace in Erie: The Old and New Directors Shake Hands and Embrace Each Other; In Wall Street—Tammany—Quick Transit—rerry Reform—The Westchester Bribery Case—The Custom House Inquiry—The French Arms In- uiry—Obituary—Art Sale—Naval Orders— Te ‘Late Mr. B. L. Millard—The Comptroller's Paymente—Shipping Intelligence—Advertise- ents, m 11—Advertisements. 19—Adver tisements. Tae ConnEcTiOUT REPUBLIOANS are awaken- Ing to a lively sense of their duty on the Ist of April next. New Hampshire may demand a membef of the Cabinet in consequence of her splendid lead off for Grant, and Connecticut must follow in the same wake or expect a crossbar when the new Cabinet distribution occurs upon Grant’s re-election. Kuve AMApEvs 18 CONCENTRATING His ARMY around Madrid, disarming the National Guard ot Spaniards, and preparing to defend his throne. So says our telegram from Peris. The King of Italy, his father, is reorganizing bis army, and in consultation with Moltke in Rome. This looks as if affairs were likely to become very serious in Spain. Tne ANTI-ADMINISTRATION papers aver that there were seventy-five thousand reasons why New Hampshire should have gone the way she did. They probably refer to the seventy- five thougand dollars alleged to have been sent from Washington to carry on the canvass, If Tammany had been alive, perhaps a round hundred thousand might have helped the bat- tered democracy in the Granite State, Tae Swiss FepEraL Consttrution—Na- TIONAL Provision AGAINST THE Monastio Onper.—A cable telegram, dated in Berne | an external taxations! A day or two de- yesterday evening, reports that the Swiss government will call on the nation to vote the ratification or otherwise of a revised constitution for the repub- lio on the 12th of May. This event will mark an important epoch in the history of Switzerland. The exercise of the franchise by the people on a new charter of government will proclaim an acknowledgment by the Na- tional Council that the present Constitution, which dates from the year 1848, has already failed in fulfilling the intent of its fram- era—the securing of public freedom, secular and religious, in Switserland. The revised constitution contained at first several clausca directed specially against the monastic orders of the Roman Catholic Church, in which it was expressly forbidden to found new con- vents or restore those which have been sup- pressed. The reception of Jesuits in any part of the territory of the federation was also for- bidden, as was the employment of members of the Order of Loyola in ‘‘any clerical or scholastic capacity.” These points were de- bated warmly in the Council. Tbe members from the Catholic cantons were sufficiently powerful to save the nunnerles. The provi- sion against the Jesuits was carried through the GCouncil of States—upper House of the Parliament—almost without division. The countrymen of William Tell must soon say if they approve the executive policy. Raopg Istanp is putting, in ifs nose for some consideration in the new distribution of Cabinet favors when Grant is re-elected. The State election in Little Rhody occars on the 8d of April—two days after Connecticut— and the third in the New England line of the Great columa, of a democratic legitimist restoration; but it was only the delusive apparition of the Northern Lights, portending the approach of a heavy storm. And it opened in Connecticut, and it developed itself into a roaring tempest with the unoarthing of Tammany Hall; and so in November, among the many democratic wrecks, their flagship, New York, was thrown upon her beamends in the raging breakers, Now, in coming round again to New Hamp- shire, the democracy, buckling op to their work, and encouraged by the heavy guns of Sumner, the rattling mitrailleuse of Schurz, the howitzer of Trumbdll and the small shot of Tipton against Grant, are stimulated in their resolve to conquer or die. last ditch, and if they hold it there will be another democratic jubilee like that of their New Hampshire election, It tells them that a few disappointed and angry republican politi- cians, intriguing to get Grant out in order to get themselves into power, cannot shake the cool judgment of an intelligent people. how paltry appears the feeble game of those scheming Senators, with their affectations of reform and national bonor, in their civil ser- vice disclosures, and custom house investiga- tions, and their patriotic chagrin concerning the sales of those second-hand muskets to NEW YORK HERALD, THURSDAY, MAKCH 14, 1872.—TRIPLE SHEET, The Reform in ErieA False Note of | opposition of Senator Madden, and ordered It Pho Lesson ef the New Humpshire Elec- tlen—Aucther Presidentis! Torm to Gen- eral Grant and the Inviting Field Be- fore Him, - New Hampshire has bravely opened the Presidential campaign, in a lesson full’ of wholesome {nstructions to mock reformers and trading politicians. A men of the name of Ezekiel A. Straw—a name suggestive of a lineal descent from the Roundheads—has been elected Governor by a handsome majority, with a republican Council and Logislature to back him; but what does all this signify? Not much to the country at large in a local view of the subject; but from the national issues and parties and factions involved this little State contest, in its results, rises to the dig- nity of the battle of the Wilderness. It dis- lodges the enemy from the jungle; it brings the belligerents in full view in the open field; it discloses an army in retreat, and an army in pursuit,.and it indicates the line upon which the Presidential campaign will be fought all summer, ‘ In March last, from the St. Domingo diffi- culty between Mr. Sumner and General Grant, the old dyed in-the-wool radicals of New Hampshire became somewhat soured and in- different, and, like Achilles in his rage, they remained in their tents. So the democracy at the close of the election were transported with the returas of a glorious victory. The glad tidings created a great joy in the party camps from Portsmouth to San Francisco. It was a revolution, The ‘‘man on horseback” had run his career of military despotism, and the Bourbons were coming back again, and in the front rank appeared Jeff Davis, of the raven black plume and the white feather, radiant in the reviving light of the ‘‘lost cause.” New Hampsbire was hailed as a sign in the heavens It is their The battle is fought and lost, Such is the result to the democracy of this And France, to be used by the naughty French against the Emperor William, our friend and our arbitrator on the San Juan boundary. Have these Senaters, grovelling to the scan- dalous work. of the pot-house politician, lost their wits; or have we a Senate of pigmies in the place of those giants who thundered against Old Hickory as with the voice of Damosthenes against the imperious Philip? The philippics of Sumner, Schurz and Trum- bull, with the growlings of Greeley, against the administration, were wasted in New Hamp- shire, and bave come to naught. But had these conscript fathers, rising above their petty personal grievances and small revenges, made Mexico, for example, and the anarchy of Mexico, and the scandal of Mexico as our next-door neighbor, for whose good conduct we are pledged to the oivilized world—had these indignant Senators made Mexico their theme, and the neglect and the duty of the administration in reference to Mexico their argument, they might have shaken the faith even of the sturdy yeomanry of New Hamp- shire in the wisdom of General Grant as a practical statesman. Here was a theme for Mr. Sumner upon which he might have gained a wider admira- tion from the American people than that se- cured from his trenchant exposition of our Alabama claims, But what is Mexico to Sum- ner while Grant to him is ‘Mordecai sitting in the king’s gate?” But, again, Mr. Schurz, we believe, is a free trader and a leveller of taxes. What a subject, then, for him was offered in the place of Leet and Stocking in a general overhauling of the excesses and in- equalities of our present system of internal voted to the ventilation of this subject in be- half of the interests of the masses of the people might have exalted the sprightly Ger- man orator to the dignity of a great states- man and a genuine reformer. But as the princess in the fairy tale was changed back into acat when she saw a mouse, so Mr. Schurz, the Senator, in smelling the fat things of the kitchen from which he is excluded, becomes again the red revolutionary agitator. Well, we will drop for the present these malcontent Senators, and, leaving them to their consulta- tions with the democrats over the New Hamp- shire election, let us turn to its verdict and its foreshadowings of Grant’s administration. Tue verdict is the endorsement of Grant. The people of New Hampshire have given it upon the weight of the testimony on the acts, the facts and the measures of the administra- tion, They have seen tuat these acts embrace many Wholesome reforms and retrenchments, and that these facts include large savings of the public money, a reduction to the extent of three hundred millions of the public debt with some important reductions of our taxes meantime. The people know, too, that the best results have followed the enforcement of General Grant's humane Indlan policy, and if no American voice has been raised against the American case before the Geneva Tribunal it is because that case is impregnable. These are the acts and the facts which have shaped the popular jadgment of New Hampshire ; and upon national issues in a Presidential canvass the first State to speak indicates the prevailing public sentiment of the Union, We look for the re-election of General Graut in November by increased majorities upon his vote of 1868, aud from the good beginnings of bly first i‘ (iw Mexico is called for by every motive of hu- manity and civilization. try, with its eight millions of unhappy people and its countless millions of money in com- mercial resources and capabilities lying dor- mant or wasted, calls upon us for a deliver- ance from her incessant civil wars and her still increasing highway robbers, border Moss Troopers and general degradation. glory will surround the savior of Mexico, and why should General Grant wait till driven to it or driven off by a European alliance in the cause of civilization ? term we look for great and glorious things from his second term, in the enlargement of the prosperity, happiness, wealtb, strength and honor and glory of the country, His practical experience in the government and the good uses to which he has turned it, and his paramcunt desire and purpose to give us a0 honest administration, have greatly strengthened him among the people. He stands like a lighthouse on a hill, to guide the ship of practical reform to a safe anchorage through the heavy sea of frauds and corrap- tions roaring around us. Onr terrible civil war brought upon the landa general -demoraliza- tion which bas threatened us with the anarchy of Mexico, In 1870 Mr. Tweed was laying his plans to transfer his financial system from the Tammany Wigwam to the White House as the cashier of the democratic party, With the un- limited millions within reach of our city taxes gnd city credit at his command he had, too, & fair prospect of success. But with Mr. Tweed advanced to the United States Treasury on his Tammany financial system, two or three years would have sufficed to reduce the country to chaos. It was the disclosure of the inside horrors of Tammany that brought upon the country in 1871 this general reaction in favor of our national administration; and still the terrors of Tammany, superadded to the spectres of the rebellion, have had their effect upon New Hampshire against the democratic party. The coast there is clear for the re-election of General Grant, and in this view we would in- vite him-to the great name he may wio upon the glorious field of duty before him. A uni- versal amnesty and other gentle means for the reconciliation of the South, and by all avail- able measures the promotion of order and the correction of abuses in that quarter, are urgently demanded. Active intervention to the extent of a military protectorate over That beautiful coun- Alarm from Wall Stecet Operators. It will not surprise any person conversant with the intrigues and rivalries of Wall street to learn that the overthrow of Jay Gould and his Ring associates and the transfer of the management of the Erie Railroad to the Board of Directors, of which General Dix is Presi- dent, does not give unmixed satisfaction on the Stock Exchange. While every person except those who were directly profiting by the unscrupulous acta of the Gould party was anxious for. the destruction of the power of the Ring, there were interests at work eager to secure the succegsion to its authority, and seeking to raise themselves to prominence upon its ruins, All were opposed to Gould but opposed only because they de- sired to ocoupy his position, and willing, proba bly, to continue a great portion of his policy as soon as they bad accomplished their object. The Heath and Raphael interest was of this description ; the Clerke, Manley and Williams combination was similar in character ; the Bis- choffsheim and Atlantic and Great Western opposition was doubtless of the same class. Now that the annihilation of the Ring has been accomplished the several cliques are dis- satisfied because the fruits of the victory do not fall to their share, An attempt is being made in Wall street by a committee claiming to represent the American stockholders in Erie to create the impression that the new management of the road is so closely identified with the interests of the Atlantic and Great Western Company as to render it certain that the affairs of the latter will be saddled on to the Erie stockholders by a compact or consoli- dation of the two roads. Messrs. Clerke, Manley and Williams, in a letter addressed to the signers of the petitions presented to the State Legislature by the American stockhold- ers, complain that the new directors have A halo of We can tell the President that in taking up the cause of poor Mexico now as our cause ho need have no fear of a St. Domingo failure, Our “‘sick man” wants relief, and, in putting him on his legs, we shall have no trouble in annexing him. practical reformer, the President, for the recti- fication of those tariff abuses and monopolies, in the breaking down of this Chinese wall of so-called Home protection, and for a tariff system on the principle of equal rights to all classes and exclusive favors to none. koow that General Grant on this subject is a sort of Pennsylvanian; buat we doubt not that And, again, we look to our We a little more experience will make him a New Yorker. Wedded to no hobby, his mind is open to conviction where other men’s minds are locked up. Last, though by no means least, we expect from the good examples of our national administration under General Grant, in the great work now generally begun of political reform, and in which New York is leading off among the States, the widest and most enduring benefits to the country, The Conviction of Senator James Woot— Let the Work Go On. The report of the Senate Committee of Investigation on the case of Senator James Wood shows the fearful extent to which legis- lative corruption has been carried under the influence of the Tammany and Erie Rings, In a single session this Senator received from Tweed and Gould thirty thousand dollars, and although a thin attempt is made to cover up the transactions under the pretence of loans, there is no doubt of their true character. When it is remembered that this Senator has this session been at the head of the Judiciary Committee, and has held in his power the Erie Railroad bills, the danger- ous character of this legislative depravity can be properly appreciated. Senator James Wood has not yet resigned his seat, but will unquestionably do so without delay. Is he to be the only victim? Suspicion points to others around the Senatorial circle as guilty as himself, Are they to escape, and is the future legislation of this and the. next session to be left in hands no cleaner than his own? The purifica- tion of the body should not end here, butan attempt should be made to ascertain in what other loans the money drawn out of the Erie treasury by Gould, Tweed and Bradner, the lobbyist for “law expenses” during the session of 1870, was invested. The inquiry may consume the balance of the session, but better that all legislation should . cease than that corrupted men should sit in the Senate of the State. The committee find that Senator James Wood's conduct was inconsistent with his po- sition as a legislator, In plain English they find that he was bribed; that his vote was cast for money, whether it came to him in the shape of a loan or an open payment for the disgraceful service. - The law makes the bribery and corruption of a legislator a criminal offence, and It is, therefore, the plain duty of the Attorney General to insti- tute criminal proceedings against those who are shown to have been implicated in the corraption of Senator James Wood. Neither Gould nor Tweed should be suffered to escape, and their prosecution on this charge may bring to light other offenders. Let the guilty be brought to light and punished, whoever they may be, The work of legislative purification has com- menced; let it not cease until every vendl representative and every infamous lobby leech has been driven in disgrace from the capital of the State, Tur War News rrom Mexioo, as stated in our special despatch from Matamoros, con- firms the reverses sustained by the revolu- tionists in the contest for the possession of Son Luis Potosi. A serious difficulty has arisen between the United States commander, Colonel Bliss, and the revolutionists besieging asmall town on the border. It seems that the United States will nolens volens be dragged foto an armed conflict with the “‘sister” re- public, been heretofore unknown ja the reform move- ment of the Erie road, and assert that a ma- jority of them aro officially or otherwise con- nected with the Atlantic and Great Western Railway. If General Dix and his associate directors have not heretofore been prominent in the opposition to the Gould management, their -names are a sufficient guarantee that they are earnest friends of reform, and that no abuse of a public trust will find favor in their eyes. Their independence of all the Wall street combinations that have been for somauy years vainly endeavoring to supplant Gould and his fellow conspirators in the manage- ment of Erie for the advancement of their own special interests, and not in the interests of the stockholders or the public, will be regarded as an additional recommendation in their favor. But the assertion that a majority of the new directors are officially or otherwise connected with the Atlantic and Great Western road is erroneous. Out of the sevetiteen directors now on the Erie Board, only two or three are either directly or indirectly connected with that road. They would be powerless to accomplish any such designs as they are said to entertain, even if the. characters of such men as General Dix, General Lansing, Messrs, Travers, Stebbins, Day and their associates were not a sufficient assurance that no act adverse to the interests of the Erie stockholders would be sanctioned by the new Board. The bugbear of the At- lantic and Great Western may, therefore, be safely regarded as a creation of sharp Wall street operators, who are not satisfied with the change {n Erie simply because it does not place the stock of the road at their control to be used as a football on the market, The new directors have, indeed, furnished. the most convincing evidence of the ground- lessness of the fears expressed by Messrs. Clerke, Manley and Williams, by declaring themselves favorable to the passage of the Southmayd bill, and detailing, two of their number to proceed to Albany to urge its en- actment. As the Committee of the American stockholders profess a desire that the bill shall become a law and appear to find in that a security against the evils they dread, this action of the new Board should convince them of the injustice of their suspicions. It is true they condemn the “abrupt action” by which the ‘deliberate de- cision” of the Legislature was anticipated as “premature and ill advised.” But this opinion we are certain they will pon reflec- tion recall. The ‘abrupt action” of General Dix and the new directors succeeded in rescu- ing the transfer and registry books of the road from the custody of Jay Gould, who would have used them for his own purposes within the next two or three weeks, as he has used them for the last three or four years, Through their ‘‘abraptness” Gould was prevented from issuing to himself twenty millions of new stock—from revisiting Albany with solid arguments against the Southmayd bill—from seeking refuge with the treasury and offices of the road on the friendly shores of Jersey. It was this “abrupt action” that bound the great conspirator in an instant in cords of iron; that paralyzed the arms of his hired rufflans, and that drove him to a peaceful resignation of a position he would have wasted millions of the stockholders’ money to retain. If Mr, Clerke and his col. leagues consider these results desirable in the interests of the stockholders they profess to represent, they are scarcely consistent in brandi ng the action by which they were se- cured as ‘‘premature and ill-advised.” The present Eric Board regard their posi- tions as of a temporary character only. They have been called upon in the name of justice and reform to accept a trust which they hold only as custodians until the dona fide stock- holders of the road shall decide in whose hands they will place the management and control of their property. Among them are gentlemen largely interested in Erie stock, who will act solely for the interests of that company without reference to the advance- ment of any schemes or jobs whatever. There can be no question, even on the part ot the committee of American stockholders, that the affairs of the company will be safer in the hands of General Dix from the, present time until tbe election of a new board than they would have been in the hands of Jay Gould, and hence any attempt to affect the market or to impair public confidence in the present management will be ineffective. For the rest, the State Senate yesterday pushed Sena- tor O'Brien's bill steadily through the Com- wnitteo of the Whole, despite the Quixotig to a third reading, thus giving assurance that the new directors are working in good faith for the passage of that act. The bill will be sent to the Assembly without any important amendment, except the introduction of a clause providing that the stockholders of the road shall be American citizens and residents of the United States. The Assembly will now have no object in Opposing the measure since the closing of the old Erie treasury account, and hence.the bill will probably become a law before two weeks have passed. This ought to satisfy Messrs, Clerke, Manley and Williams, and will satisfy the stockholders and the people. The Atlantic -and Great West- ern humbug may now be considered aa laid at rest, and there is no longer any need to fear that an army of English directors will take charge of the road and carry it bodily across the Atlantic. There has already been general rejoicing over the defeat of Gould and his associates. Tho satisfaction will be heightened when it is kaown that General Dix and his Board have also put to flight the rival outside rings that have been hungrily waiting to seize upon the rescued Erie bone and to pick from it the little meat that Gould would have left upon it, The Lobby in Wa jston—How Legisla- tlon is Governed. We print elsewhere an interesting narrative from our Washington correspondent, Some philosopher has said, ‘The world is governed too much.” He would be a deep philosopher who could tell us how the world is really governed. We are accustomed to read grave debates and statesmanlike orations, and sit under the earnest exhortations of the reverend and pure men who serve the State in Wash- ington, But there is comedy bebind it all, as there is in most of the affairs of life—in busi- nese, society and politics—and this morning we draw aside the curtain and show the comedy of legislation. The story is told with the art of a master. What we see behind the scenes is that there is @ power or an influence in Washington greater than the government, which, in some respects, is really the government, Simple- minded people who read the daily reports of Congress, and muse upon the patriotism and self-denial of these patriots, have only heard of ‘‘the lobby” as of some dreadful affliction, like the smallpox or typhoid, which our legis- lators were vainly striving to repress and flee from, They have pictured to themselves our Roman Senators ambuscaded, trapped, assailed, waylaid by ruffianly men called “lobbyists,” who were ever striving to rob them of their precious legislative franchises. And when some audacious member has risen and denounced the lobby as the incarnation of all evil there was joy, as though a sorely-tempted sin- ner had escaped like a brand rescued from the burning. We now see, the more closely we examine the scene, that this is all a part of the comedy. So far from Congress attracting and sustaining the lobby, the lobby sustains and attracts Congress. In the early days of the republic we read of the miseries of. Washington life—the swamp; the rude, un- cultivated society; the absence of all civiliza- tion and comfort, and the piteous seclusion and isolation of Washington existence. We felt then that if public life had any martyrdom it was in Washington, Better days have come to our legislators. Washington is being rap- idly made a city of gardens and drives—of boulevards as wide and inviling as the boule- vards of Paris. All the comforts and luxuries of that metropolis of sybarites are furnished to Washington by the lobby. It has become the domestic life of our legislators and has devel- oped a profession or a caste. To bea good lobbyist is as much of an accomplishment as to be a good diplomatist. To know wines and cookery and games of chance; to look upon pictures and statues and works of art with the eye of avirtuoso; to know how to measure the exact stature of the legislator ; to subject him to a mental anatomy; to discover his weakness, his strength, his aspirations; to seek out his cherished vanity, and, following. the Arabian legend, to take out his very heart and squeeze from it one black drop, which stands in the way of regeneration—this is tobe the modern lobbyist. Can we despise gifts like these or @ training which makes a man master of the subtle craft? Rather let us recognize it as a new profession, with all the ethics of a profession, especially its immu- table ‘laws of honor.” The simple citizen contemplates with anguish the heedless Congressman in tho power of some Mephistopheles of the lobby, who takes him masked into a deep dungeon at midnight, and by the wicked light of & dark lantern counts out a roll of gold from a black, mysterious bag. He thinks of Judas, who was induced by an ancient lobbyist to accept a little dividend (in all thirty pieces), and what came of him, But we do business better in Washington, Mephistopheles no longer asks his victim to write his name in blood, He prefers ‘‘poker.” ‘‘Poker” is the modern talisman. There is no valgar payment of money; no passing of drafts or certified checks. The Congressman hearkens to the lobbyist, gravely weighs the arguments in favor of the desired measure; votes as re- quired or expected; thanks his God that he is not as other men are; that he has the courage to vote in favor of a hundred millions of acres of land to the ‘Grand International Oceanic Tunnel, with Telegraph to the Moon,” without taking a dollar from the ingenious men who win the franchise. Io the evening he has a quiet, gentlemanly game of “poker,” the lobbyist kindly taking a hand, with wines and viands to kill the name. And after an evening's relaxation he finds that he has won fifteen or twenty thousand dollars, money honestly, honorably earned, and going far towards his subsistence and the aggrogate of his fortune. Nothing could be more comfortable, mora gentlemanly, freer from suspicion or criticism; for “poker,” if we are rightly informed, belongs to no party, no caucus, mo conven- tion, and is in itself that neutral ground upon which men of all opinions meet, and where all passions and strifes are buried. It lies beyond the range of all investigating com- mittees, No envious Senator, no keenly gazing Schura or questioning Sumner, would dare to ask whether the ten thousand dollars that slipped into tho pocket of a needy Southerp Senator was won (rom 4 hand filled with aces by a pair of kings. If the lobbyist quietly pockets his aces and pushes the money over to the fortunate Senator who holds nothing, who is to question him? Money is money, @ game is a game, and chance is chance, and if men play their cards so as to lose large sums who is to question? Sometimes the lobby appears in the shape of lovely woman. Mephisto pheles won Faust . by an appeal to his intellect and ambition. But he made the same appeal to Adam and failed. So he whispered in the ear of Eve, and Adam partook of the fruit, and walked out of Paradise. When-the lob byist fails to reach the intellect and ambition of sn honor, able Adam by means of a pack of cards he fol- lows the time-honored example. What an Iliad we could write if we really knew the battles and triamphs of lovely woman in the lobbies of Washington! Eve has her bills; a scheme fos a railway, @ claim for guns, perhaps; ® necessary line of ships, an endow- ment for preaching the Gospel to the Apaches—in which the virtuous Senator Pomeroy is rumored to have a religious inter- est—or some Yerba Buena scheme to give millions of dollars to a Pacific railway already blessed with millions of acres and bondm Who can say.nay? Senators are men, and men are human, and when woman—‘God- beloved in Old Jerusalem”—throws her melting eyes upon a grave legislator and whispers im soft, alluring phrases of the merits. of her enterprise and the good that must come to the nation if it is accepted, who can resist her eloquence? So it wasin the beginning, and’ so it will be to the end, we fear, and the radiant eyes that illumine the dark, gaudy and sweeping galleries affect more legislation thaa the records will ever tell. Do our friends of the oppressed and suffering sex, who would’ have their rights at the expense of a bloody revolution—our Stantons and Woodhulls and Claflins—really do themselves justice in this respect? True, woman cannot vote; she can~ not hold forth, like Schurz and Carpenter, to crowded galleries; she is honored over much if: she is permitted to nestle in the cloak rooms and peer out on the avenue; but in the lobby she.is queen, for this mighty lobby is demo- cratic and progressfve, and welconies all alli- ances, and many a bill is advanced upon the calendar in obedience to the sweet command of a lovely and gra cious Cleopatra. So we might continue an analysis of thie comedy ; but it tellsits own story. In this day of small men; of demagogues in the place of statesmen ; of jobbers who rank as patriots; of legislation for money, power and place ; whem: Congressmen look upon personal emolumant as! a public duty, and deal with the Treasury and! the nation’s possessions as though they were their own property, it is interesting to know what the lobby really is and who controlit. — Since corruption reigas in Washington it is well that it has assumed an attractive guise; that all the refinements of modern society are utilized to make shame and fraud attractive. At the same time the people will mark well the men who follow this dishonored calling and: the legislators who do their bidding, And since the spirit of reform is now abroad we feel ita public duty to tell the story of the charming infamy of this life, and to contribute to the punishment and degradation of those public servants who go to Washington to sell their honor and waste the treasure of the peow ple for a savory dinner, the smile of beauty or thirty pieces of silver. P More Rallroad Jobs at Albany—Rapié Transit by the City for the City. The Beach Pneumatic tunnel schemers fa Albany have lately met with a set-back evem there. It was reported to have leaked out that the company was already saddled with a debt of five million dollars, contracted in “en- gineering,” not the railroad, but the bill. Mr. Dixon, the agent of the company, stated yes terday to the House Railroad Committee that there was only a flea-bite of some three hun- dred and seventy thousand y them, and made light of that paltry sum. But there are so many things which, if not debts now, may, in the course of juggling such a bill through, turm into mountains on the shoulders of dona fide stockholders, Shares given away for nothing, property holders to be quieted, purchasable - opposition to be silenced, and the thousand | little games well known to the vampire Instincts of the lobbies, will soon hang monetary millstones, if they are not already there, around the necks of such a corporation, with opposition to be overcome twenty times as tough as the rock its tunnel would meet in its northward course. We denounce the scheme as impracticable in every shape and a job in all its phases, We object to Broadway boing turned into a mud heap that greedy speculators may thrive upon brainless credulity with money in ite, pockets, ‘ Among the many other jobs of the kind wa note the appearance of an elevated railroad scheme in a Senate bill to incorporate the Palmer Elevated Railroad. This authorizes the construction of four monstrosities on Had- son and Greenwich streets, and on Fourth aves nue and the Bowery. The very appearance of: these one-legged death traps is suffigiont condemn them. There {s not a street runni north and south but would have its ~own par- ticular hideousness, noise and danger, if these hydra-headed projectors once had their way, between arcades, tunnels, tiers and all the kindred abominations designed to put money in the pockets of an unscrupulous, but by no means ‘‘select” few. Aglance at the map will show that Man- hattan Island needs two lines of railroad to seoure rapid transit for the population—ond of these running north on the west side, and the other in the same direction on the east.’ These should be built on viaducts, each con- sisting of a succession of strong brick arches, with bridges over the transverse thoroughe fares, By this means two healthful, safe, open air lines can be Laat =. all upward-tending city. Lot it pote eietal Wore: done by the chy for the city. With an honest city government in r, whose every act could be scru= inized, the bonds for such an undertaking would be bee up almost entirely in thia city, and would stand at par in any market im the world. With Tammany in power such a soheme would be impossible; with corrup.’ tion of the Erie and Court House order over- tbrown itis practicable. The work could be, done quickly and cheaply, and {fn ten years from the date of running the first passenger train the city might redeem every cent of tte bonds, and from the succeeding profile of rua- ning teduce the taxation of our 'urdened citys