The New York Herald Newspaper, April 12, 1872, Page 6

6 JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR, AIMUSEMENTS THIS EVENING, FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE, Twonty-fourth street,— ARTIOLE 47, gee es ST, JAMES' THEATRE, Twon' way.—Macuvor's NEw b BOWERY THEATRE, PATRA--SHOF BINDER CF Ly hth atrest and Broad- p—-ANTONY AND CLEO- ACADEMY OF MUSIC, Fouricomth street.—Irauiay OreRa-Les HUG URNOTS, DWAY THEATRE, opposite New York Hotel.— ev OLYMPIC THEATRE, Broadway.—Tag Bauuer PAaN- TOMINE OF HOMPTY DUNPTY, POOTH'S THEATRE, Twonty-thied st., cornar Sixth A Surer in Wour's CLoTHiNG—ToE HONRYMOO: WALLACK’S THEATRE, Broadway ant 18th trast, — Tek VEIT GAN. el EDWIN'S THEATRE, NE GRAND OPERA HOUSK, corae: LALLA Rookn, roadway. —LitTLEe Dox f Shay. and 2a st NIBLO'S RDEN, Broadway, between Prince and Houaion sts.—PoLt. AND Parnes JOR, Woon's MUSKUM, way. corner 1a st. Perform: ances afteruoon anceveniug—HUNTED DOWN, MRS, VB, CONWAY'S BROOKLYN THEATRE,— CHRISTIE JOUNSTONE. PARK THEATRE, ‘ity Hall, Brooklyn,— TRovvEN DOWN; OR, © FLags. BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC, Montague street— Tralian Orr ta—HAMLET. THEATRE COMIQUE, 514 Br abas, NEC \dway.—Cowrd VooaL- ) AC1b. AC—BLACK EYED SUBAN. UNION SQUARE THEATR way.—DEGHO ACTS—b ERLE: arteenth at. and Broal- BALLER, £0, TONY PASTOR'S OPERA UOUSK. No. 901 Bowery. — DPGRE Leck TMCITIES, BUKLTSQUES, &0, NEW OPERA HOUSE, 231 at, between 6th BRYANT'S MIN 8. THIRTY-POURTH STRE ATRE. near Third ave- NUe—\ AWEEY ENTRRTA it 5s atinee at 244, SAN FRANCISCO MINSTREL HALL, 585 Broadway. — TNE SAN FeANcisco MINsrenss, NEW YORK CIRGU MIN aLPeeL —SCENRS ry Thr Ring, ACROKATS TRIPLE SHEET. New York, Friday, April 12, (87 OONTENTS OF TC-DAWS HERALD, PAGE pmieetiersse : 4—Advertisoments, 2—Advertsements, 3—Who ts Gordon? The Earl of Aberdeen; Lord George Gordon; Gordon Gordon; George H. Gordon; The Litrd of Gordon; Loomis City, ou Pelican Lake; A Winter at St. Pani; A Party the Name of Gordon; The Special ‘Tram e Sage of Chappaqua; Breakfast for Three; The Famuy Plate; ‘Tne Visit of Jay Gould; the Aiysterious Guest at Room 116— The Case of Dr, Houard—Virginia Chivalry— An Alleged Defaulter—The Judicta: Titice: the Close of the Investigation and the Drama—Rights dren. Music and Wrongs of lavery: America and England to Com- lor It8 Suppression; A United states War- Ship to Notly the Tmaum of Muscat—The at New Orleans—Tne ‘The Kepudlican State Republican Central orca Convention ninany Primaries. Committee—The Lib Committee—The Jer ‘airie Races—Loulsant ck Pg NU C put ancl in the North— ddress of ine Gov. ament—' it Savings Bank—The Hon on the pipe M and te Fatr for the tlome S—Fivancial and Commeret the Government ( oney Tight; cover, Advan the Bank of England isson, opathic Hospital. he “Bears” Bay ~The Methodist Confere ewale 3 octety—The French Arms Fizzie—keal Mstate Market—Lattailon Drill of the Seventh Regiment, toriais: Leading Articie, “The Cooper Insti- tute Meeting—Opening of the Liberai Repub- licau Campaign’ —Amuscment Announce ments, 7—Hdllorials (Continued from sixth Page)—The archy in Mextco—Cabie ‘Telegrams from mt nd, France, Spain and Rome—Another flolucaust: About Seventy Peaple Killed by te Blowing Up of a Red River Steamboat— Disastrous Tugboat Explosion—News from Washington—vemocratic State Convention: Suunel J. Tiiden and His Braves in Con- jerence—Business Notices, S—Intcresting Proceedings in the United States, New York and Brooklyn Courts- The Ticket Specniators—The Alieged Allentown Bond ‘The Rye Shooung Affray—New Peni- tenliary fur Newark—Another New Chureh in ee eee and Deaths—-Adveruse- ments. 10—The state Capital: No Prospect of an Eariy Ad- Jouruiment of the Legisiature; ihe Charter to Be Passed; A Bargain between the Repuvit- cuns aud the Seventyites; The Brookly Bilis Pas Appropriations for the Prosecutors of th ‘ammany Thieves; The Court of Generat Sessions; Debate on the Fourch Avenue Im- provement Bil—The New Jersey Midland Raliroad Accident—Snipping lateligence— Advertisements, 11—\ dvertisements. 12—Adverusements, Ure axp Dowy.—Up, the Pennsylvania Cameronians, Down, the Pennsylvania For- neyites. Suppression oF ARraB SLavery.—Presi- dent Grant has consented to co-operate with the British government in suppressing the slave trade in the Persian Gulf. The first United States man-of-war which visits Mus- cat will notify the Imaum of the termination of the commercial treaty under the pro- visions of which the transportation of slaves frum Zanzibar to Muscat was permitted. Tur Arsaxy Journal (administration) an- nounces in its heading to the account of the recent municipal election in that city, “A re- publican Mayor honestly elected!” Is it so very unusual for the republicans to elect their candidates honestly that especial mention should be made of the fact when it does occur? Tax Days or Steampoar BoiLer Horrors seem to be upon us once more, The steam- boat Oceanus, when twenty miles above Cairo, on the Mississippi River, yesterday morning, exploded her boilers, carrying to sudden death some eighty persons—officers, crew and passengers, The special misery of this case grows out of the = fact that, although many succeeded in gaining the water in safeiy and wearing life-belta, nearly all: perished from the be- numbing cold of the river. It is fearful to think of those human beings fleeing from death by scalding steam to meet it from the lifc- freezing cold of the great river, just unlocked from its icy, winter fetters, At our own doors, too, as it were, we learn of the explosion of a tugboat on the North River, whereby five persons were at once killed and one badly injured. In the absence of positive information we are, of course, unable to say where the blame for these holo- cansts can be Isid; but the recurrence of these terrifying catastrophes seems to prove the laxity of the law and its maladministra- tion, These explosions have reduced the boiler tesia about which so much has been said of late to only one: namely, that all boiler are good—until they explode, Itis a pitiable state of affiirs, aad these are awful illuatratious of tt NEW Y ORK HERALD, FRIDAY, APRIL 12, 1872.—TRIPLE SHEET, The Cooper Institute Meeting—Opening lican Campaign. The first gun of the Presidential campaign in this city will be fired this evening. Wo have had a great deal of sharp shooting and picket fighting, and many flags of trace and inquiry passing between the hostile camps, but no real, defined, earnest opening of the liberal republican action. In some of the outside towns and districts there has been aa occa- sional gathering of disappointed office-seekers, and in Washington there have been. numerous speeches against the administration, As yet there has been no clear, defined, positive line of atiack, no statement of reasons and motives. We have had the elements of a party, but no party; anger, but not argument. The time for this uncertainty and helplessness is happily at an end. Mr. Trumbull, Mr. Schurz, Mr. Greeley, Mr. Wilkes, Governor Fenton and their followers will hold public counoil this evening, and we shall know what they mean to achieve in their war upon Grant, It will, we trust, be a large meeting, The curiosity seekers will be there; for the mon who lead this movement are curiosities enongh from the advertising they have received. But it will not be the meeting it would have been had bright days remained with Tammany Hall, At this time wo miss the ready, practical genius of William M. Tweed. What a meeting he would have given the eminent recalcitrants! The banners that would have waved, the guns that would have been fired, the fireworks that would have corruscaied, the music that would have filled the evening air, the honest yeomanry from the Coroners’ office and the public works who would have poured forth to shout approval to every spoken word, to cheer Mr. Greeley's coat, Mr. Schurz's spectacles, the pensive, ancient, maidenly countenance of Mr, Trambull, tho Iron Duke visage of George Wilkes, Governor Fenton's aurora borealis of a smile—all of this we can imagine, and more, had Mr. Tweed been at liberty to manage this republican demonstra- tion. The lamented Tammany chief had a special gift for managing republican demon- strations, and the men who assemble to-night were especially his friends, But demonstra- tions cost money, and there is no complying Garvey to add the amount to his bills, no gen- erous Dick Conaolly to sign the warrants. The perennial springs of Tammany, in whose waters the cattle of the republican party have lapped and dabbled and sported for years, are dried up, Any anti-republican meeting com- posed of republicans must pay its own bills. Therefore we expect an orderly, poverty- stricken, sad assemblage, We remember the great pity that inspired Dante when the mas- ter led him to that hell to which were doomed those who kad lived with the love of Fran- cesca de Rimini. Did the divine Italian ever see that hell to which fate condemns the dis- appointed politicians—those who hungered for office and were not refreshed, those who en- joyed its blessing only to be suddenly and rudely dispossessed? It would fill him with a sub- lime pity, we are sure, a pity not altogether uncolored by cynicism, could he sit this even- ing between Carl Schurz and Mr. Greeley on the Cooper Institute platform and look out upon the stand and anxious multitude who will fill the hall. Out of office, out of money, ostracised by the relentless Tom Murphy, dis- possessed by the downfall of Tweed, no Americus Club, no sinecure departments to welcome and comfort them, no long list of snuggeries and warrens in which to burrow at the public expense; without employment, and, more than all, without pay; with hollow voices and Jack-lustre eyes, without even the courage to go West and buy land, we can imagine few objects more dismal, and, to the mind of a man s80 sensitive and hysterical as Mr. Trumbull, more absolutely distressing, than the gathering that will probably welcome him to-night. At the same time we are glad he will come. The act required courage, but we want these liberals to speak, and, mastering their emotions, to tell us why the republicans should not nominate General Grant for the of Presidency, and why the people should not elect bim. We want living reasons for this belief. The men who are to speak are grave and ¢xpo- rienced and have been held in high honor by the party they propose to defeat and betray, That party has served them well, It has given the owners of Mr. Greeley’s newspaper great sums of money because of that gentle- man’s advocacy of a tariff and ‘republican principles.” It gave Mr, Schurz an office as soon as his lips had sealed his oath abjuring allegiance to the monarch he has served with such signal fidelity in the Senate. It con- tinued bim in the highest offices it can bestow, making him Minister, Major General, Senator, while a youth and analien. Caressed, petted, pardoned, Carl Schurz, as the ‘‘fortunate youth” of the republican party, cannot strike his generous political mother in the face witb- out ingratitude. Governor Fenton has been treated with graciousness and signal honor by the party. Intellectually an indifferent and uninteresting man, a leader only when the lower elements could be found to follow, who has never given the party an idea oor taken a single risk in its service, who opposed it in the day of its adversity to join it in the day of triumph and power, Reuben E. Fen- ton has been kept in office for years and years—bas been made Congressman, Gov- ernor, Senator, and enabled to shower fortune on his followers, through the kindness and the mercy of the party he now assails; What shall we say of Trumbull, who bas been io office for two political generations, chosen Senator over that same Liacoln, whose administr a a8 President be vexed and embittered? The persistent, eager, dogmatic, implacable politician until the rays of the Presidency lightened his horizon, when he suddenly became virtuons, and, like spas- modic, hasty converts, celebrated his new- born faith by persecution. We say, when men who have been honored as signally ag treeley and Fenton, Trumbull and Schurz, advertise their intention to destroy the party which has made them, they must give living reasons for their course, They desire another candidate than Grant; but that is 00 reason, It is well kaown they had no desire for Grant in 1868, He was not their choice, as he was not the real choice of any of the politicians, But he was necessary to the success of the republican party. Its organization bad been auaken; Mr. Jobnson had divided it, aud may of its ablest men had followed him to the thresbold of democracy. It was 60 | A Remance of the British Peerage—Tuo | Boston, the death by drowning of George bruised and shattered that had Mr. Chase been nominated even Grant could scarcely have saved it. With any other candidate than Grant the success of the democracy would have been as easy as it was in 1856, when Buchanan was nominated against Fre- mont, Let us emphasize this argument as one overlooked by most of our political writera, but which has an unusual significance now. The failure of impeachment, the unsatisfac- tory condition of the finances, the chaotic condition of the South, the burdens imposed upon all classes by the war, had made the country dissatisfied. A change of adminis- tration was wanted. A candidate was needed who would arouse enthusiasm, The republi- can party had no such man. General Grant had come out of the war with a world-wide fame. He held a life office, was in receipt of @ large income and had a dignity as General of the Army which was eminently grateful to him as a soldier, Under any aspect the Presidency was a sacrifice. He had no career in politics, no skill in the tortuous, unhealthy maneeuvres by which politicians gained power. He was free from ambition, Had he been ambitious, had he been a vulgar, unscrupu- lous self-seeker, he had only to have given his hand to the democracy in 1865 to have become as powerful in its councils as Jackson in the zenith of his power and fame. Had he followed the tokens that filled the political sk'es he would have accepted the alliance. He was content with the command of the army, with an honorable ‘station for life, in preference to the stormy and uncertain tenure of the Prosi- dency. That office could add no more to his fame than it added to the fame of Washington. He had written his name among the few im- mortal names that are not born to die, Tho republicans sought him. They appealed to him asa soldier and a man of honor. They represented to him that as a party they had sustained him in the field, and they appealed to him, in common gratitude, by the memories of the glorious strife through which he led the armies of the Union to vistory, to lead the party out of despair, Heconsented, Ie took their nomination, He went before the coun- try. He won a victory the fruits of which were of less value to bim than to the humblest leader of the party that chose him. He ac- cepted the platform, and he has kept every pledge embodied in that platform wi'h a bean- tiful fidelity which his harshest critics have never failed to recognize. The effect of his administration has been to rehabilitate the republican party and to give it a stronger hold upon the country than it has had at any time since the election of Lincoln. For he has paid the debt; he has kept the peace; he has shown mercy and justice to the South; he has behaved with signal energy and frankness in all foreign relations, he has dealt with the Indians like a Christian, and not like a robber, he has striven to re- form the civil service, he has guided the coun- try in paths of prosperity, he has avoided every adventure that would embarrass the return of the nation to peace and stability, and he bas borne himself in his high office with a dignity, patience and moderation equalled by no President since Washington, and by Washington alone. This is high praise, but we feol that in writ- ing it we anticipate the verdict of history. Goneral Grant is nothing to the Werarp. Whether he reigns, or Greeley or Sumner reigns in his stead, does not affect us a pin's value, And it is because of this independent judgment of his administration and his charac ter, and our just reading of the hislory that all men should know, that we look upon the intrigue to displace him with so much con- tempt. We insist that the honorable men who are to instruct us this evening shall give us living reasons for their course. We shall not stop to inquire why Mr. Greeley, as a protec- tionist, should sign a call that favors free trade ; why Mr. Trumbull, asa Senator who opposed impeachment, should seek the political alliance of Mr. Wilkes, who denounced him as a traitor for his vote; why Mr. Sumner, the life-long abolitionist, should crave the nomination for the Presidency at the bands of the slave- holders and slave-hunters, or any one of a hundred pertinent interrogatories the true answers to which would show a painful ab- sence of political morality and a tendency to chicanery and double-dealing on the part of our liberal republican friends that would seriously wound the nation’s sense of public virtue. We put it to these men as politicians whether it is an honorable and manly deed for them to conspire against and cover with infamous and brutal calumnies the man who sacrificed his comfort and his gain, and brought vexation and annoyance and peril to his peerless fame, simply to lead a party which had slipped from their control back to power. Is it fair to make this dastardly, unmanly war upon the man who took their party in the hour of its uttermost despair and gloom and carried its banners to victory? Is it patriotic to ask the conntry to punish and rebuke Gen- eral Grant merely because their ambitions have been unanswered, their vanity has been wounded and their selfish hopes disappointed ? We have too high a respect for the manhood of our people to anticipate such a result. All the eloquence and anger and enthusiasm that will answer the echoes of Cooper Hall to-night cannot change the deep-seated conviction of the American people. General Grant is the President of the people. He has served them and they will defend him. The liberal repub- lican movement is simply an intrigue, with- outa principle, without a following, without the hope of victory. The forlorn errand of Mr. Trumbull and bis friends in this, the first combat of the campaign, would excite our amusement and commiseration were it not that the contemplation of so much ingratitude and unfairness on the part of men who have been caressed by the repablican party leads to «raver and sadder thoughts, Tne Lecistative SEssion AT ALBANY is drawing (o a close. As a cousequence we find resolutions reported in favor of printing American Institute roporta, State Medical Society reports, Homaopathic Society reports, Belectic reports, Agricnitural Society reports, House of Refuge reports, and all the other extra printing jobs by which the State is robbed y after year, he thieves have again broken loose; but do the members reflect on the record they are rolling up for themselves? Stery of the Earl of Aberdceu and the Postscript of Lord (ecorge Hawilton Gordon, The sensation-loving portion of the English nation is just now in unusually good fortune. The exhaustive excitement of the Tichborne trial has not yet died out. The claimant, Orton, Castro or Tichborae, butcher or baro- net—appeals from his cell in Newgate to “every British soul who is inspired by a love of justice and of fair play, and who is willing to defend the weak against the strong,” to stand by him still, and to supply him with fands, so that he may be able to defend himself in his struggle for justice “against the purse of the government of England.” He promises the public a renewed fight in the Criminal Court of the Old Bailey, as compared with which that recently fought in a civil court will dwindle to the dimensions of a sim- ple skirmish, ‘That I am Roger Charles Tichborne,” says the corpulent prisoner, ‘I solemnly declare, and which fact I have al- ready proved by eighty-six witnesses, and will prove again by more than two hundred if necessary; and that Iam not Arthur Orton I will prove beyond the shadow of a doubt by witnesses who knew both Orton and myself. As to the tattoo marks, at least twenty-four disinterested witnesses will prove that I, Roger Tichborne, was never tattoed, but that Arthur Orton was there will be conclusive evidence forthcoming.” So it is still uncertain whether this singular person will in the end grace the baronetage or the Newgale calendar, and those who have believed that the verdiot against the claimant was induced by the natu- ral disinclination to sully the fair fame of the aristocracy by admiiting to its sacred ranks a horse thief and a busliwhacker, continue to insist that the reputed Sir Roger, in spite of his present misfortunes, is as likely to go to Court as to the treadmill. On the heels of this remarkable case comes another story almost as marvellous if more simple in its incidents, The new drama, the main features of which are told in the Hzratp to-day, touches the history of one of the oldest and most noble of the families of Great Britain, the Gordons, Earls of Aberdeen, whose ancestry, traced back a thousand years, presents a long array of statesmen and warriors with records equally brilliant in the cabinet and in the field. The plot is complicated and the interest increased by events transpiring at the present moment on this side of the Atlantic, and it seems not improbable that the English courts may yet be called upon to fight something like the Tich- borne battle over again. George Hamilton Gordon, sixth Earl of Aberdeen, succeeded his father in the title in 1864 and took his seat in the British House of Lords as Viscount Gordon in the peerage of the United Kingdom. He was then twenty- two years of age, unmarried, andhad a_ bril- Nant, and, apparently, a happy career before him, He had two brothers, James Henry and John Campbell, the former of whom died in 1868, unmarried. Two years after Lord George Hamilton Gordon's accession to the earldom of Aberdevn he left Eagland for the United States, informing his family that he designed remaining abroad for an uncertain period. He came to New York, and will be remembered by many of our citizens as a somewhat eccentric young man, but pleasing, courteous and intelligent. He suddenly disappeared from the city and nothing further was known or thonght about him. His mother received letters from bim at intervals, in which he was accustomed to sign himself simply “George,” and to omit any allusion to his exact location and pursuits. Ifhe men- tioned scenes and incidents he carefully avoided giving names, and thus evinced his desire to withhold any direct clue by which his movements could be traced, Thera seems to have been no apparent reason for this mystery or concealment in the habits or pursuits of the man, as he was temperate and moral at home and in this country, so far as anything is known of his conduct here. The principal reason given for his wanderings was that he was much attached toa seafaring life, and entertained the idea that his constitu. tion required activity and toil. He had also a desire to see the world from a standpoint dif- ferent from that of the highborn and wealthy, and to learn the real character of the work- ing classes by mixing among them on equal terms. These explanations satisfied his friends at home, and nothing was thought of the reserve manifested in his letters. But in the spring of 1869 his correspondeace with his mother ceased, and after several months had elapsed without bringing any tidings of the Earl bis family became alarmed for his safety and determined to set an inqniry on foot. A competent person, who was well ac- quainted with Lord Aberdeen, came to Amer- ica and after a patient investigation traced out the movements and the fate of the young nobleman. It appears that the Earl, a few months after his arrival in New York, in 1866, discarded his real name and title, and, calling himself George H. Osborne, shipped before the mast on a merchant vessel and steadily followed the life of a sailor fur four years. Wherever he could be tracked the story told of his life and habits was a creditable one. He had been found steady, diligent and efficient, and none of his shipmates could have dreamed that a wealthy peer of Great Britain stood by their sides on the deck in the person of the hard-working Osborne, At last he rose to be mate of the ship Hera, of Boston, and started on a voyage to Australia. Oae day in a storm he was lost overboard; his foot, it is supposed, was caught by a rope, and he foll into the soo, Efforts were made to save him; but the winds and the waves fought against his rescue, and so the poor Earl went down. Ono of his shipmates, who gave evidence as to his losa, told how he heard the last cry of the drown- ing man before the sea engulfed him forever. I is easy to imagine how, in that brief but desperate struggle against death, the whole story of his singular life may have uo through the miod of the unhappy nobleman ; how tie may have thought of the mother he should never meet again on earth; of the peace and ease and luxury be had given up, to die there in the cold and angry ocean, and how he may have wished and prayed that he bad never left his home to plunge into such wild, unnecessary adven- tures, As we have said, the [Marl was lost, and on tho log of the good ship Hera, of | twoon the nicks H. Osborne, the mate, was recorded in the usual brief and formal style. All these facts were established by proof in the Scottish courts, and the claim of the sur- viving brother of the sixth Earl of Aberdeen, Lord John Campbell Gordon, to the family estates has been confirmed, The identity of Lord George H. Gordon, the Earl, and George H. Osborne, the mate, was clearly established by the photographs, handwriting and signatures of the two men and by articles found among Osborne's effects after his death, The claim of Lord John Campbell Gordon to the earldom has yet to be beard and deter- mined by the House of Lords and con- firmed by the Queen, but there is little doubt of the result. The story thus far is singular enough, No fiction can be much stranger than this truth, Lord George Hamilton Gordon was a man of edu- cation, of good intellect and of excellent character, and yet he voluntarily adopteda life of toil, hardship and danger, giving up luxuries, comforts, honors, home and family, and courting the fate he eventunily mef. But there is a sequel that adds to the marvellous character of the drama, and imparts to it something of a ludicrous interest. Our English cousins will be no doubt surprised to learn that a claimant of the Aberdeen peerage is in existence, and that all the learning of Scottish jurists and all the wisdom of British Lords may yet bo astounded and confounded by the sudden appearance in their courts of a second Tichborae case, ‘This information will probably be none the less astonishing from the fact that it comes in the form of legal proceedings, remarkable land speculations, wondorful stock operations, arrests and bail bonds. For the details of this phase of the story we must refer our readers to the history of the adventures of Lord George H. Gordon, or Lord Gordon Gordon, or the Lord knows who, told in another part of the Heranp. It is a singular tale, to say the least, and the question of the hour is, Who is the Lord Gordon who is at present among us? We pause for a reply. The Question of Imprisonment for Devt Before the Legislature, Mr. Husted introduced a bill in the Assem- bly it Albany on Wednesday to abolish imprisonment for debt on civil process, which is based upon a memorial of Silas M. Stilwell, presented at the same time, explaining the object of the act of the 26th of April, 1831, abolishing imprisonment for debt, of which Mr. Stilwell was the author. Although the intent of the law was to do away with impris- onment for debt, the object has not been fully accomplished, for at this very time there are | anumber of poor debtors confined in our jails. It will be remembered that Judge Bar- nard, acting upon the principle of the Stil- well act, set free a number of debtors a short time since. But it is evi- dent some such additional legislation as that proposed by Mr. Husted is necessary. Mr. Husted’s bill simply provides that ‘no person shall be arrested cr imprisoned on any civil process issuing from any of the courts of this State,” and that ‘‘all laws in any manner inconsistent with this act are hereby abol- ished.” It is a fact worthy of notice that New York was the first State in Christendom to abolish imprisonment for debt. After the bill introduced by Mr. Stilwell in the Legisla- ture and passed forty years ago, one State after another in this country and abroad fol- lowed the example. Lord Brougham took particular interest in this question and opened a correspondence with the author of the mea- sure with a view to proposing a similar one for England. Starting from New York this excellent and humane law has made the cir- cuit of the civilized world. But, in conse- quence of amendments made to the act against the intention of the framer of it and from the praciice of the courts, there remains something to be done to make the principle operative in this State, and to accomplish that is the object of Mr. Stilwell’s memorial and Mr. Hnusted’s bi!l. The Avarchy in Mexico. Mexican banditti may rob, steal and wage war at will, not only in their own country, but also on the neighboring soil of the United States, According to our special despatch from Matamoros these unterrified gentry have carried their high-handed proceedings even to the lengths of invading an American town, breaking open a jail and deliy- ering their captured companions who had been caught cattle thieving—yes, doing all these things in open defiance of the Sheriff and citizens of the whole place. Encouraged by the impunity they have so far enjoyed, Mexican marauders make themselves supreme arbiters of the lives and property of Ameri- can citizens. This state of things cannot, however, Inst mach lonyer. We are glad to see from onr Washington despatch that the government has at last come to the conclu- sion that patience toward these Mexi- cans has long since ceased to be a virtue, and that rigorous measures are to be adopted for the protection of the suffering people of Texas, But any action stopping short of annexation wonld be only a half meisure., At present no recognized authority oan be said to exist in Mexico, but least of all on the Rio Grande, Even now the revolutionary General Treviiio is about to besiege the important city of Matamoros, and wilh the arrival of the heavy guos which, according to our special report, he is momen- tarily expecting, the bombardment will probably begin, and the fall of the place prob- ably soon afterwards follow. With which an- thorities are we to treat? Thus, to avoid the dilemma of choosing between the revolution- ists and the Juarez government, the only alternative would be to ignore both and annex the country to the United States. Tre Srate Leasnarore 8 making a spasmodic effort to appear to do something about rapid transit In New York before the seasion finally closes ; but il is now very cer- tain that aniess the members are paid for their voles, d ily or indirectly, in money or in shares, no bill will be passed. When the people are rid of these Albany sharks we shall be prepared to show, froma review of their labora, that the present Legislature has been as corrupt as the most infamous of its prede- coasters, with only the difference thet exists ° ay and grand larceny—be~ oket and the highwayman. between petit lar Tho Late Polittcal Conveutions=Tho Preste dential Contest and Its Probabilities, From day to day as we draw nearer and nearer the appointed time for the meeting of the Republican National Convention, the State conventions of the party, with increas- ing emphasis and enthusiasm, pronounce in favor of the renomination and re-election of General Grant. The recent elections in New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island have so distinctly indicated the prevafling popular sentiment that the republicans, relieved from the restraints of doubting Thomases, speak their minds freely upon the main question. In their Connecticut Gon- vention, preceding the late election in that closely divided State, they refrained from instructions to their Philadelphia delegates in favor of General Grant, because of their fears of the anti-Grant republicans ; but, as subse- quent events have shown that these malcon- tents did all they could do to make a diver- sion in Connecticut against Grant and in favor of their Cincinnati Convention, and that the effect was only to close up the repub- lican ranks around the administration, all reservations touching the Presidential candi- date of the party have been properly aban- doned, and General Grant is now declared their champion against all comers and oppos- ing combinations, Thus in their Massachusetts Convention, where it was supposed some delicate reserva- tions would be required,in deference to Mr. Sumner and his triode, the republicans fearlessly affirm that ‘we, moved by an earnest appreciation of the fidelity and wise patriotism of President Grant, do most oor- dially recommend that he be renominated and re-elected; forasmuch as his administration bas taught the American people all the high obligatious of that period of peace which followed a war inspired and elevated by the great declarations of Abraham Lincoln.” Mr. Sumner was simply ignored by the Conven- tion, and he may gohis way in peace. And this is an old trick of Massachusetis; for sho discarded even her great Webster when she was brought to the conviction that, regardless of her will, he had become a compromiser for the Presidency. In the present case, how- ever, an emphatic rebuke of the recent course of Mr. Sumner is involved in the hearty recommendation of his Senatorial colleague, Mr. Wilson, for the Vice Presidency. In a word, the republican party of Massachusetts, in the most exoressive form, endorses Wilson and renounced Sumner, and leaves the r. jected Sumner at perfect liberty to join his fellow miserables at Cincinnati. Next, in the great central State of Penn- sylvania, concerning which it has become & proverb that ‘‘as goes Pennsylvania so goes the Union,” the Republican State Convention has spoken as strongly as Massachusetts for another term to General Grant. And this, although in Pennsylvania it was apprehended that Colonel McClure and his sympathizing soreheads, disappointed in such vital matters of the seven party prizciples asthe five loaves and the two fishes, would create some trouble touching a hearty endorsement of Grant for the succession. But the Convention says that “the delegates from this State to our National Convention are hereby instructed to cast the entire vote of the State for General Grant for President, and that on the question of the Vice Presidency they are instructed to act together for the best interests of the republi- can party; and upon all questions arising in said Convention they are iostructed to cast the vote of the State as the majority of the delegates may direct.” There are to be no seattering votes from Pennsylvania, Fur- thermore, this Convention points with pride to the records of General Grant's administra- tion, and confidently counts upon the people “rallying to the support of the man who nobly fought the battles and brought the na- tion through its struggle, and who has since so successfully administered the government as to command admiration at home and abroad.” And from Florida and from New Ocleana, from white men and black mea, comes the same universal voice of the honest masses of the republican party. There can no longer bo adoubt that General Grant will be renoml- nated at Philadelphia ; not on the first bailot, but without a ballot and by acclamation. In happy accord, meantime, with these late re- publican couventions comes in the Brooklyn speech of the Rev. Mr. Beecher in support of General Grant as the man of all men for the next Presidential term, But Mr. Beecher's ideas of the Cincinnati Conveution are paxtic- ‘ularly suggestive. He thinks that the men concerned in that remarkable. movement will have a council, and will confer and take coun- sel, and take counsel and confer, and that that will be something; but that as to the new party proposed, you cannot run up a party as you can rua up a brick house; that you can- nol extemporize a party; that you may extem- porize mushrooms, but you cannot extempo- rize oak trees. Brother Beecher, in short, evidently entertains the opinion that this Cin- cinnati Convention will be a fiasco, like the independent Captain Tyler Convention of 1844, or the famous band-in-hand Andy Jobn- son Convention of 1866, or the almost forgotten Fremont and Cochrane Convention of 1868; and yet tothis experimental Cincinnati Con- vention the question is referred of the contin- uance or dissolution of the democratic party. Tais is the forlorn extremity to which the once all-powerful democratic party is now re- duced. Beaten since 1860 from all its strong- holds on slavery and ‘‘a white man’s govern- ment,” from the Fugitive Slave law to the fifteenth amendment, and driven to a capitu- lation on negro equality and negro suffrage, there is no good reason why the pariy should not be turned over into the opposition repub- lican movement, And what is the use of ran- ning three or four parties in opposition to Grant, even if by this process you oarry the election into the House of Representatives, when it is an ascertained fact that in this event Grant would be elected by the House? Tho only way in which be can be defeated is in the contest before the people; and here it is confessed that the State elections of 1871 have proved the democratic party too weak to fight him with ang hope of success without reinforcements, These republican bolters at innati invite a joint stock ooa- lition, They say to (ho democrats, you enn our assista: do nothing withous ther can we do anything without yours, Lot ua join our forces, and az your party has ran ta ;