The New York Herald Newspaper, December 12, 1873, Page 6

NEW YORK HERALD BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR Wolume XXXVI... a AMUSEMENTS THIS EVENING, wes. PF. B, CONWAY'S BROOKLYN THEATRE.— ‘Geneva Cross. as LYCEUM THEATRE, Fourteenth street.—Lapy or Lrons. THEATRE COMIQUE, No. 5i4 Broadway.—Vaxtury \ENTERTALNMENT. OLYMPIC THEATRE, Broadway, between Houston and Bleecker sts.—Exoet ANDES, NIBLO'S GARDEN, Broadway, between Prince and Houston sis —Tux Cuinn: tix Woop, WALLACK’S THEATRE, Broadway and Thirteentn street.—Hom, ve UNION SQUARE THEATRE, Broadway.—Lep Astnay, WOOD'S MUSEUM, Broadway, corner Thirtieth st.— ‘Poor GeNtuxmay, &c. Alternoon and evening. Union square, near ACADEMY OF MUSIC, Mth street and Irving place.— “BuLuivay. GERMANIA THEATRE, 4th street and Sd avenne.— Avr Hower Sux. BROADWAY THEATRE, 723 and 730 Sroadway.— Due GRAND OPERA HO st.—Homery Dumpry Anroa) PARK THEATRE, Brooklyn, opposite City Ball.— Jack Cave. FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE, 23th st. and Broadway.— Avixe, ROOTH'S THEATRE, Sixth av. gg Twenty-third st— Euzen Ocr, METROPOLITAN THEATRE, 585 Broadway.—Vaniery ENTERTAINMENT, STADT THEATRE, Nos. 45 and 47 Bowery.—Geruan “Orens—Dix APRICANERIN, TONY PASTOR'S OPERA HOUSE, No. 201 Bowery.— ‘aRiBTY ENTERTAINMENT. BRYANT'S OPERA HOUSE, Twenty-third st., corner ixth ay.—Neceo MinsrReLsy, dc. STEINWAY HALL, 14th st, between éth ay. and <Arving place.—Gnanp’ Coxcent. i ‘TRIPLE SHEET. New York, Friday, Dec. 12, 1873. frm NEWS OF YESTERDAY. jghth ay. and Twenty-third tLo-Day’s Contents of the Herald. #‘SAuARY STEALERS! PUBLIC VIRTUE AND PARTY PLUNDERING’—LEADING ARTI- OLE—Srxra Pace. ‘QHE BACK PAY SINNERS AT THE CONGRES- SIONAL PILLORY ! INTERESTING SPECIAL REPORT OF THE SCENES IN THE HOUSE YESTERDAY—TuIrp Pace. “PECCAVL!” CONGRESSMEN DEFENDING BACK PAY ROBBERIES AND “FLYING THE TRACK” ON A REPEAL OF THE OBNOX- 1008S LAW! CSARISM! MR. STEPHENS ON DEMAGOGUES AND INCREASED SAL- ARY! MR, SUMNER VENTILATES THE FINANCES—Firrs Pace, @OVELLAR APPEALS TO THE BRAVO VOLUN- TEERS TO RESPECT THE LAW! THE CASINOS AND THE PRESS DEMAND FORCED LOANS AND LEVIES TO “SAVE THE SITUATION! NO SURRENDER OF THE VIRGINIUS NEED BE EXPECTED! RUMORS OF A SEVERE BATTLE AT LAS TUNAS! ADMIRAL PORTER AND THE AMERICAN FLEET MOVING TOWARD CUBA—SEVENTH PaGE. PERILS OF AMERIVAN CITIZENSHIP! THE VOLUNTEER BLOODHOUNDS LOOKING FOR MORE VICTIMS IN HAVANA! “NO FLAG TO LOOK TO FOR PROTECTION!” PRESS ZEALOTS ON “THE HONOR OF SPAIN’ —FOURTH Pace. ULL REPORT OF THE MAMBIS’ ASSAULT ON MANZANILLO! A SPIRITED CONTEST AND HEAVY LOSSES! EXCITING SCENES IN THE TOWN! THE PRESS UN CUBA LIBRE— Fourta PaGE. ANOTHER VICTORY CLAIMED BY THE CAR- LISTS IN SPAIN! LOPEZ DOMINIQUE IN CHARGE OF. THE SIEGE OPERATIONS AGAINST CARTAGENA—SEVENTH PaGE. BAZAINE AWAITING HIS FATE! MicMAHON CONSIDERS THE APPEAL FOR MERCY! THE DECISION NOT TO BE MADE PUBLIC GILL TO-DAY! BUT LITTLE HOPE OF A COMMUTATION—SsventH Pace. ‘WHE GREAT LONDON FOG STILL CONTINUES! SERIOUS EFFECT ON BUSINESS—SEVENTE Pace. SCAPTAIN SURMONT’S VINDICATION—IMPOR- TANT GENERAL NEWS—SEVENTH PGE. THE RALLY OF THE WORKINGMEN AT THE COOPER INSTITUTE LAST NIGHT! THEIR REMEDY FOR THE “SLACK” TIMES—Tuirp PaGe. HE MEXICAN ZONA LIBRE FREED FROM TRADE RESTRICTIONS! PROSPECTS OF A REVIVAL OF TRAFFIC—SevenTH Pace, BOSTON'S LATEST HORROR! AN “INSANE” HUSBAND STRANGLES HIS WIFE TO DEATH, ALMOST SEVERS A_ STEP- DAUGHTER’S HEAD FROM HER BODY AND THEN CUTS HIS O THROAT—LIFE INSURANCE TRANSFERS—Fourri Pace. IMPOSITIONS UPON AND PROTECTION FOR OUR IMMIGRANTS! THE CASE FULLY STATED BY A LADY OFFICIAL WHO PERSONALLY INSPECTED ALL THE ROUTES AND AR- RANGEMENTS—DOINGS OF THE ALDER- MEN AND POLICE JUSTICES—Eicuru Pace TWO MURDER TRIALS IN THE COURTS YES- + TERDAY! MURDER IN THE SECOND DE- GREE IN THE MCDERMOTT WIFE-KILLING CASE! THE BRODERICK MURDER—ExxEy- ENTH Pace. POLLAR FOR DOLLAR! THE ADMINISTRATION VS. THE INFLATIONISTS! FINANCIAL BUSINESS YESTERDAY—HOSFORD—Ninta Page, Proresson Acasstz.—When a man of Pro- fessor Agassiz’s acquirements and celebrity is stricken down as he has been the weakness of Janguage in its power to express public sym- pathy is very painfully felt. The few lines of a despatch printed elsewhere will serve to in- dicate, quite as wellas any elaborately ex- pressed condolement would do, the breadth and depth of the grasp he had acquired upon the hearts of his friends and acquaintances, Professor Agassiz is one of the few men of whom it may be said, with some approxima- tion to the truth, that the world cannot afford to lose them. There are too few whole-souled and conscientious devotees to science. Pro- fessor Agassiz is one of those few. Every one who is familiar with his career at home and abroad will await with more than ordinary so- licitude the intelligence of his recovery, and will mourn with no common grief should that recovery be pronounced impossible, A Ricurnous Senrexce.—Recorder Hackett must be recorded as having accomplished a duty. He has sentenced to imprisonment in the State Prison for twenty years a felon who sided in one of the most piratical outrages ever committed in the waters of the harbor of Wow York. Our harbor police must be more ‘on the alert, otherwise condemnation for neglect of duty will be visited upon them gelves, Salary Stealers—Public Virtue and Party Plundering. Public virtue is said to be the essential principle and vital spirit of governments like ours, yet a whole Congress gives us irrefraga- ble evidence that it is not unwilling to profit by petty larceny; to plunge its legislative arm up to the elbow into the national treasure chest and pocket what it was trusted to guard. So that if Montesquieu was right—if virtue is the vitality of republics—then our grand po- litical experiment is in a bad way or our Con. gressmen greatly belie the nation in pretend- ing to represent it. Perhaps the truth is be- tween these points and laps over a little on either alternative. Congressmen are not fair types of the people of their districts; and this is a truth that has no partisan application, for the men of both sides will plunder on any convenient occasion with a noble indifference to platforms and party lines. They are su- perior to narrow dissension on political iasues in presence of any opportunity to put money in their purses. This is the essential point in the ring system of public robbery, and we find the superiority of the people over their repre- sentatives in the very fact that before they can successfully steal on any extensive combi- nation Congressmen must first betray their con- stituents; they must agree not to recognize as an obstacle to their operations those principles which the people elected them to uphold; they must agree with their political opponents that it is better to act together for the more successful prosecution of dishonest schemes in their own interest than to act in opposition for the assumed interest of the people. They are traitors, therefore, before they are thieves; and if the system upon which men in office operate was acted upon by the people at large in their general dealings one with another, then loss of confidence, distrust and suspicion would sap the foundation of our whole fabric of indus- try and commerce, Broadcast among our peo- ple there is dishonesty, of course, as there is in every country, but it is not found with us in greater proportion to the numbers than it is found elsewhere, while we doubt if there ever was a legislative body so shamelessly corrupt as the present Congress. In utter disregard of its responsibility towards the Southern States, with an indifference to the welfare of those great communities that was partly ro- venge, the republican party permitted recon- struction on principles that let in the crowds of carpet-bag Representatives and Senators, and thus the personal composition of Con- gress was adulterated, the governing body was debased by the coming in of a horde of scoun- drels, political vagabonds, refugees, bank- rupts—wretches who had been forced to leave by turns every community where there was any administration of justice or respect for the right. Ifa mass of clipped coin is put into the circulation and is given and taken on an equality with good coin all the good coin soon becomes clipped also or disappears. So it has been with Congress; the bad reduced the mass to its level, and all Congress is animated by the principles and morals that the carpet-bag- gers brought there; and this is the retributive justice that makes the ill we permit to be done to others a catastrophe to ourselves. Investigation has plentifully shown how Congress teems with roguery; but the most flagrant act in violation of common honesty yet brought to its door is that particular ap- propriation of the public money which it has covered with the thin disguises of the Salary bill. As the pay of Congressmen can only be fixed by law, and as they are themselves the lawmakers, their dealings with this subject would naturally bring them into delicate rela- tions with public opinion, for they might be charged with extravagance or demagoguery, as they either made the pay too high or muni- ficently voted to give the country their valua- ble services for a pin’s fee. People have pretty well determined that in politics gratuitous services are the dearest they can have. If we establish by law that a certain set of func- tionaries shall receive no salary, we do it with the hope that it may result in filling the places with men of independent means, who will be above temptation—at least that has always been the motive in this country; but that has never been the operation. Absence of salary does not fill offices with men of fortune, and does not compel the poor man to avoid position as a burden beyond his powers; for the poor man gets into office just the same, only he goes the more readily into plundering schemes because he believes the State which gets his services owes him support, and he excuses his dishonesty to his conscience on the ground that he only takes what justly should be given. And if the de- sire to keep the legislator from such tempta- tion is a good reason for giving him a salary, itis a good reason for giving him a liberal one; so that, viewing the subject in its largest sense, it is perhaps not improbable that the country would assent that Congressmen should have, after due notice, a remuneration equal to that they recently voted themselves. But they removed the subject from any such rea- sonable ground of consideration by making their measure retroactive; by legislating, not that future Congressmen should receive a greater pay, but that they individually should each one pocket a specific sum to be taken from the public purse, and to which sum they had no right and no moral claim. Any in. dividual whatever who has been em- ployed in the government and has received for his services what he agreed to take has just as much right to have five or ten thousand dollars voted into his pocket as those Con- gressmen had, and the Congressmen had just as much right to vote themselves a hundred thousand dollars apiece as one, two or five thousand dollars. Why did they not do it? Only from apprehensions with regard to their own political safety and the imminent danger to their future prospects of any outrageous violation of the public sense of propwiety. Like the burglar and the pickpocket, the embezzling cashier and the swindling con- fidence man, they limited their furtive opera- tions by considerations of the peril and the consequences. Ready to steal, they grasped, however, only so much as they thought it safe to take; undeterred by any innate sense of honesty, they stopped at the limit only within which they thought they might escape popular reprobation. : Was it possible that any considerable num- ber of Congressmen did not clearly compre- hend the moral aspecta of that thieving vote for back pay? In the Congressional pro- ceedings of the past fow days there is abundant answer. They are like so many boys cought im their roguery, and NEW YORK HERALD. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1873,—TR each one accuses the other. It is « continual recrimination, as to whether one honest boy, having stolen with the rest, did not carefully return the plunder from the mere honesty of his nature, before the owner had missed it and before there was any row about it; or whether another honest fellow, pocketing his share the meanwhile, did not prophetically warn his comrades that it would get them all into the State Prison. Never was Congress so thoroughly worthy of contempt ; never was degradation of character so patent ; never was such meanness held up before the eyes of a nation as in the past few days on this subject. It was a shameful fact when the knowl- edge was forced upon the country that a majority of Congress could vote to commit an embezzlement of public funds ; but even that might have been ambiguous—people could have doubted, tor Congressional intelligence leaves room for it, whether members per- ceived fully the scope of their vote ; but as to this latest spectacle there can be no doubt, and it is far more shameful than the primary fact. They are convicted by their own acknowledgment of conscious dishonesty in the first vote, and now of a demagoguery without parallel in its servility and meanness. An endeavor has been mado to relieve the dominant party of the responsi- bility of this public theft, but if can have no result. Salary stealing is of a piece with the other corruptions in which republican rule has been so fertile, and the republican party has not rejected the thieves, even when caught and known. It accepts them all, and must accept as its own the odium of their acts. Of this the composition of the committees in the House is crowning evidence. Democrats took part in the salary theft, and so have no claim to superior hon- esty; but the republicans could have pre- vented it and did not, and it is upon their party the popular indignation must fall. To say, as was said in the Senate, that the Presi- dent would have vetoed the clause for back pay but that it came in the General Appropri- ation bill is only to move the ground of accu- sation and defence, for the republican majority is overwhelming and without practical con- trol, and could have kept it out of the Appro- priation bill and kept it from showing its dis- honest face in any bill whatever if that ma- jority had had the will and the honesty to do its duty properly toward the country. It was in these great respects it was found wanting, and a party without the moral stamina to put down dishonesty within its own lines or else- where cannot continue to rule the American people. The Cuban Insurrection. By the detailed accounts of the operations carried into effect by the Cuban forces against the towns of Santa Cruz and Manzanillo we are enabled to judge the increasing strength and daring of the insurgents. In the earlier period of the war such an event as the attack and sack of a garrisoned and fortified town was almost unknown. The smallest Spanish garrisons were able to hold their own against their inexperienced enemies; but now the circumstances are altered, and the Spanish soldier finds himself unable to cope in the open field with the men whom a few years ago he despised. The temporary occupation of towns has enabled the Cuban forces to obtain, not alone munitions of war, but such other supplies as were most useful to them. This policy has paralyzed the Spanish authori- ties and compelled them to so divide up their forces that they can no longer undertake im- portant operations in the field. At this mo- ment the contending parties have changed their réles, and, from being hunted fugitives, the Cubans have assumed an aggressive attitude, which has already produced the best results. It would be difficult to overrate the heroism and devotion shown by the insurgents in the seemingly hopeless struggle they have waged unaided against their Spanish oppressors, and we hope the day is not far distant when the American government will put itself in accord with public opinion by adopting a vigorous policy in dealing with Spain. The barbarous war of races must be brought to an end, and this can only be done by the armed interven- tion of the United States, to which, sooner or later, we shall be forced to come. Indian Outr: ‘Texas. The Indians are at it again in Texas, mur- dering and plundering. From San Antonio it is reported that in a late raid on the Nueces River they killed twenty-four persons, mostly sheep herders; that at Riell’s ranch a band of thirty of the redskins succeeded in running off thirty-eight horses ; that at one place they came upon two Mexicans, one of whom to save himself jumped into a well, and that the facetious savages, thinking it a good joke, threw the other one in, and went on their way rejoicing; that at another ranch where thir- teen herders were driving sheep, the playful Indians killed seven of the men and hung them up in the trees to dry, and as for the other six men, they are missing. We believe that there are four or five thousand United States troops occupied in guarding the Texas frontier, and that Texas—excluding her In- dians—has a population of some seven hun- dred thousand, and we know that her white men asarule are good shooters and have no objection toa fight. How itis, then, that afew bands of half-naked Indians can roam about at pleasure, killing and plundering in the heart of the State, we cannot comprehend. We fear that the State and its people depend too much upon the United States troops, and we believe that if the State were to take this matter of the suppression of Indian disturb- ances into its own hands these outrages would soon be suppressed. Here the old maxim will aptly apply that Providence helps those who help themselves. Unsnarry Baxz had good reason, it appears, to implore the protection of the United States, According to our late news he is in a critical situation. A formidable revolution has com- menced right under his eyes in the capital of St. Domingo. It is not the fugitive Cabral this time, with a dozen of ragamuffin revolu- tionists, but the oppressed subjects of the dictator around the seat of government. We do not suppose General Grant was aware of the facts when he made reference to Baez's petition in his Message. The Samana Bay Company and those who hold stock in it have been putting the best face on St. Domingo affairs, and have, probably, deceived the President. Wo rather think the scheme of these speculators will collapsa with Baez be- fore long. siucn aAago About Something. We have for the past few days devoted some space to a number of pointed communications criticising a criticism which appeared in the Henarp on Mr. Dion Boucicault’s comedy “Led Astray.” The Henatp departs from no rule in giving redress to those who think them- selves wronged in its columns. When the in- dependent public, which pays for its seats at the theatre, or even interested parties assum- ing the guise of an injured public, present complaints of a Hxnaup critic's opinions, bearing a prima facie value, we have no objec- tion to their stating their case. We thoroughly understand that a controversy of this nature generally furnishes a little cheap advertising to the subject matter, which, when a play is concerned, is salable merchandise just as much as any other commodity in the market. The test of the question, to criticise and to cross- criticise, isfound in the useful light which a discussion can bring about. When good ac- crues to the public, and no harm is done, we should be niggard, indeed, to deny an author ora theatre a little advantage. The comedy now acting at the Union Square Theatre is the feast in honor of the return of the Prodigal Son of the drama. Years and years ago he left the parental home of comedy, where he was a promising son, dnd took a journey into the far country of sensation and there wasted the substance of his brain with riotous writing. Hoe enjoyed it and fattened onit. In ‘The Streets of London’’ he met trange company, and he fell in with such females as ““Formosa,"’ who were the goddesses of his literary worship for a giddy while. “It paid,"’ and he was glad of heart. The public thronged to worship with him, and when the prudes frowned he pointed to the glimmer of white arms and the glances of maidens’ eyes in the proscenium boxes. So our Prodigal worked on until the public delighted them not any more in sensation. It was a drug in the market, and the ‘emotional’ was a bore, Then in the days when the kine of sensation were growing lean he turned him homeward, having no stomach for husks. We all remem- ber the touching humility of the returned Prodigal of old, when he knelt down at his father's feet and asked to be included among the mere “help.” Dion, indeed, does not adopt this exact line to his parent. He is a Prodigal of the ‘‘age of progress,” and his humility might sound to the benighted mor- tals of a couple of thousand years ago very much as if he were patronizing the old gentle- man. He forgot to mention much about his sins, probably from modern motives of family delicacy, and came back asking for his purple dressing gown, seal ring and red morocco slippers, with the following plaintive speech: “Dear Pop, I have come back for the purpose of reviving, if possible, a taste for the legiti- mate drama, which I deserted many years ago for the ‘Formosa’ style of play. There would be egotism and vanity in the assump- tion that I alone am the person capable of undertaking this task if there were any other individual living who could be associated with me init. Unfortunately there is not. I hap- pen to be the only dramatist living whom the English-speaking world have been pleased to accept as capable of writing legitimate comedies that have been ranged among the standard drama of the past.’’ Now, no one but a hypercritic could fail to be impressed by the fine feeling which has brought Mr. Boucicault home to the legitimate. Let him be as legitimate as he can, and We shall help him to eat the fatted calf he kills in his own honor. We know that the dramatic brothers of the Prodigal are unworthy of mention. Tom Taylor, Tom Robertson and Brougham and Gilbert are beings that the world has not heard of; and as the French dramatists are foreigners, who cares to hear of them? ‘We must here deprecate the tone of some of the communications on this important matter. It is not argument, for instance, to say that a man is bilious. His lines should not be judged by his liver. There is a ready con- nection to superficial minds between an impu- tation of jaundice in the physi- cal and strong condemnatory writing from the mental. It is a poor kind of device, and does not help any cause. Mr. Boucicault has invoked the spirits of his gifted fellow countrymen, Goldsmith and Sheridan. Let him get along without the names of their plays being suggested by his reclamations—namely, ‘Stoops to Conquer,’’ “School for Scandal’ and ‘‘Rivals.’’ Let him not be easily pained into cheap self-assertion. In this line he takes an unfair advantage of the critic, who cannot retort by praising him- self. Itis nota faithful critic’s business to praise authors and actors up to the level of their self-esteem, even when that is as moder- ate as Mr. Boucicault’s. The author of ‘‘Lon- don Assurance” and ‘Old Heads and Young Hearts,’ says, “I have been rewarded so highly tor poorer work that I owe something to them and to myself.” Now, despite the reconciliation of his conscience to the matter, we should advise him not to think of paying much of that debt in French notes. But he is the Prodigal to the end, and spendthrifts are often careless of the meumi et tuum, so the glasses jingle. Our desire is that this little breeze may blow somebody good. Mr. Bouci- cault has promised us comedies, original and otherwise, on the understanding that there is nobody else can write English comedy. That be- lief a few will be sacrilegious enough to dissent from. We want good modern comedies, and “London Assurance’ to the contrary, there may be land enough left on this earth for somebody to walk around Mr. Boucicault. Who shall try? is a fair question. Dearth mm THe Swrerts.—-The Board of Health calls attention, none too soon, to the dangerous condition of the excavations on Fourth avenne, for the Harlem railroad track sinking, both as regards the public health and the risk of accidents to life and limb, There appears to be no more regard for human life, not to speak of the convenience and com- fort of citizens, in the whole of this work than there was in the use of the boiler which recently exploded at Harlem. Sewers are opened, excavations are left without proper safeguards, the railroad cross- ings are without sufficient guards, and every. where the work, which is designed as a public good, is a public evil, likely to do more dam- age than its ultimate advantages will recom- pense. Such a work as this, in the heart of the city, should never have been made neces- sary; but being unavoidable, it should at least be carried on with adecont regard for the public safety. IPLE SHEET. Our Shipping Interests—The Duty ef | tained and when it docs not become an Congress. One of the most important duties devolving on the present Congress is that of fostering the shipping interests of the country. The prosperous condition of the iron trade and the difficulties that have occurred in Europe have tended to give an impetus to shipbuild- ing in the United States which needs very little encouragement to lead to important re- sults. Since the commencement of the war of the rebellion we have been losing our position on the ocean until an American line of steamers has been almost unknown. We now appear to have a fair prospect of recovering from this depression if our Representatives will lend a helping hand by wise legislation. What we need is such an amendment to our laws as will enable American lines to buy ships in the cheapest market and obtain for them American registry. A plain, com- mon sense view of this subject must convince every reasonable man of the wisdom of such a policy. We have to-day facilities for ship- building, if we would only encourage them, superior to those of any other nation; and yet we cling to the folly which has heretofore prompted us to throw obstacles in the way of this important business for the sake of special interests, and seem unwilling to learn the lessons taught us by every year’s experience. The great evil against which we have had to contend has been the disposition of such steamship lines as we have had to depend upon the country for subsidies. This is altogether wrong. A line should be made to support itself without direct aid from the government, and wo could have several successful American lines in operation to-day if our laws were such as to enable them to compete with foreign companies, without taking a dollar from the Treasury in the shape of subsidies.‘ The Pa- cific Mail line has recently learned the wisdom of making a revolution in its man- agement, long needed, and has been quietly introducing modern iron propellers in place of the old sidewheel steamers, thus saving in consumption of coal and increased space for tonnage more than any year’s subsidy granted by Congress could realize. But the company has not, for all that, given up the idea of being still a beggar at the public treas- ury. A scheme is on foot to unite the Pacific Mail line with the Philadelphia European line in a grand united company for the establish- ment of an American service between Liver- pool and New York and Philadelphia. The project embraces also the consolidation of the English line from Aspinwall to Liv- erpoo] in the general American com- pany. It is the intention of the projectors of this grand scheme to ask @f Congress, first, a subsidy, and next, such an amendment of our navigation laws as will enable them to buy their ships in the cheapest market and procure for them an American registry. The subsidy should be refused. The amendment to our present unwise law should be granted. We need a free market for ships, and when we have one our own shipbuilders will soon awake to the knowledge that we can build ships cheaper and better in the United States than they can be built in any other country. The Position of Our Citizens in Ha- vane. In another column we publish a letter from our correspondent in Havana, which depicts in forcible terms the position full of peril occu- pied by a large number of American citizens whose business compels them to remain in that city. Notwithstanding the warnings addressed to the government at Washington, no steps have been taken to secure American residents in the Cuban capital from the possi- ble violence of the mob, or to afford them a refuge should popular passion attempt to wreak vengeance on their unprotected heads. It is asad and humiliating sight to see our citizens fleeing for their lives before the shadow of a danger because they have no con- fidence in the will of their government to protect them. The tender sensibilities of a cutthroat rabble are considered by the Wash- ington government as more worthy of atten- tion than the interests or safety of American citizens. The prompt action of the English government in sending its war ships to the scene of disturbance offers to us an example well worthy of imitation. But, so long as the foreign policy of the country is controlled by Mr. Fish, American citizens will probably con- tinue to look in vain to their flag for protec- tion from Spanish ruffianism. The appre- hended resistance to the delivery of the Virginius noted in our later despatches makes it imperatively the duty of the government to send a sufficient force to Cuban waters to overawe the violent rabble whose hostile atti- tude is a source of danger to our citizens, The Cheap Transportation Question. There is unusual interest manifested just now in the subject of cheaper transportation for the products of the remote parts of the country, and from the West particularly, to the seaboard and a market. Congress, during the last session, saw the importance of it, and a select committee was appointed by the Sen- ate to collect evidence and to report on it. A committee of the commercial community of New York has been similarly employed, with the view of urging suitable measures upon Congress. * The farmers’ granges and cognate societies among the agricultural population, now & most powerful body, meke this the prominent object of their association. Public men everywhere, in Washington and in the several States, are following and acting with public sentiment. Cheap transportation, in fact, is likely to become an important element in the future political movements of the country. It has been said that the President would ere long senda special message to Congress on the granger movement and the objects of it. The Senate Committee on Transportation has been working industriously during the sum- mer, and is now about to ask for time to ex- tend its investigations, chiefly in New Orleans and the Lower Mississippi Valley. ‘That something advantageous to the coun- try will come out of all theso movements we cannot doubt, The late panic and the neces- sity thereby shown of enlarged facilities for bringing the abundant products of the West to market have increased the interest in this question. The difficulty will be, probably, to devise practical measures, without involving the government in enormous expense and opening the door to jobs and corruption on one hand and yet to afford tho relief needed on the other. Private enterprise is best to meet the de- mands of commerce whenever that can be ob- | — oppressive monopoly. Unfortunately, the railroads—which are and must be the great arteries of commerce—have become stock-job- bing concerns, under the control of powerful and irresponsible speculators. The people are made to pay on an average at least one-third more than they ought to pay for freight and passage by the railroads, because the capital has been inflated far above the cost. Interest on a fictitious capital hae been demanded, and heretofore the legisla tures of the States and even the members oi! Congress have been so under the influence o!' the railroad power that no remedy eould be found. It seems to us that general and strin- gent laws should be made first to regulate the railroads in existence, for they are the chan- nels of commerce among the several States. Then direct lines ‘of freight railroads exclu- sively, with double tracks, from the trading centres of the West to those of the East, should be chartered by Congress, and, after allowing & reasonable interest on the capital invested, the rate of charges should be defined and limited. The different States also might lend their aid in facilitating and cheapening trans- portation by proper railroad laws and by canal and other internal improvements. We advo- cate help from both the federal and State governments in this way and as far as possible without Congress making large appropriations and creating jobs. However, we must waita little longer to see what will be developed by the various movements referred to for pro- moting cheap transportation. The United States Navy—Western Men and Eastern Measures. When there is a trath, patent and glaring, even though unpleasant, we see no reason why we should not put it into our pipes and smoke it. One of these very smokable truths is the United States Navy, which we were about to say is a minus quantity, worse than a thing of the imagination, and therefore not very tangible even for smoke. We are very well aware that there are those who believe that our navy is the strongest armed marine in the world; but such a feeling, while very con+ soling, will not avail usin the hour of con- flict with a fleet which was built long after our own vessels had lived out the tenure of their natural lives. The plain, simple fact ia that our navy, considering the wealth and dig- nity of the United States, is an absolute dis- grace to the nation. It is as though Mr. Astor were a resident of Baxter street, or Mr. Stewart conducting business on small loans from the accommodating gentlemen who cluster about Chatham square. To whom do we owe the debt of gratitude for this condition of our naval decrepitude? We think that the dis- tinguished benefactor of his country is the Western member. Somebody has said that the Western member is the product of Eastern civilization, the cream of our Atlantio intel- lect—a giant who, finding no peers among the pigmies of the seaboard, flies to the prairie and the gold mine of that wonderful region which has been described as being bounded on the north by the aurora borealis, on the east by the interminable sea, on the south by the American Eagle, on the west by the setting sun. This able and extraordinary gentleman who goes West is known in our Washington despatches as an economist; perhaps he might say of himself, ‘political economist.” When we peruse the proceed- ings of Congress we find him always on his feet (if he be able to stand), and the peculiar movement thathe selects for a forensic effort is on “appropriations.”” It is always a grand field day for him when it is to be a vote on some project for supplying crutches to our tottering marine. ‘What is the navy good for? Why should we keep up o war estab- lishment in time of peace? Is not one American equal to six of another na- tionality if an emergency arise? Let the navy go to.” This is a fair abstract of his oration. Now, if the Western member were a simple unit all this rubbish would avail naught. Unhappily he is not. The Western member means to wield an overpowering in- fluence in the legislation of this country. All of his statesmanship is shaped for one pur- pose and with one end in view, that of the future of the ‘Great Northwestern Empire.” It is not uncommon for him to speak on our national politics in an unguarded hour and to say that the West has no longer any need of the East; that God made the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico for the North- western Empire especially, and selected Den- ver for the future capital of the human race. He would have the West and the South secede from the Atlantic seaboard, because the sea- board is populated by fossils who still believe in such a mediwval institution as commerce. This is all very well—it has been very well for some years past; but when the Western mem- ber, having made some money and thinking that he would like to travel, sets out on his” journey he finds that an American citizen does not amount to much—in fact, that American citizens make very good targets for very bad Spanish riflemen. Then he asks himself, “Why is this thus?”—his own phrase. We will take the liberty of answering, ‘Because we have not a navy.’’ We are not sure that the Western member, even smarting under the conviction thathe is not the peer of ona of those famous men whom we read of a8 Ro- man citizens, can yet forget the great North- western Empire ; but we would suggest as points for his forthcoming oration the inves- tigation of these queries: — If we had been represented at Santiago de Cuba by an American man-of-war would the Virginius have been convoyed into that port as a piratical ship? If we were now represented at Havana by an American fleet would American citizens tremble for their lives and property? If we hada navy would Mr. Fish, having accepted a settlement from Spain, calmly sub- mit to the reckless bravado of the Spanish volunteers ? If we had an iron-clad squadron would the Spaniards point to Morro Castle and grimly smile at Yankee impotency? If we had strength, dignity and respect on the sea would we have been nearly a month in arranging the preliminaries to rescue fourteen American citizens in the hands of an insane race of Burriels? It is not, perhaps, worth while to notice the feeble nonsense. injected into the ears of tha auditors who listened to the debate on the Naval Appropriation bill the day before yoa- terday. It was the same, in kind and quality, that annnally distiggnishos the Housa of Ren