The New York Herald Newspaper, January 6, 1874, Page 6

6 NEW YORK HERALD BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR THEATRE, UN GARTH, at 8 PL posite < ‘hae Fg nee rirmiu, Mr John Jack. closes at 1h P.M. BOWERY |HEATRE, Rowery.—MAZEPPA, ai bP. M.; closes ati #. M. Mise Kate Fisher ie TR! OPOLITAN THE ATR! 585, Broadway. VARIETY VNTHRATN MENT, at 73465 PML; closes at 10.0 P.M. NIBLO! 3 GARDEN ouston streets. — ROMEO JAPESE 8 THE BELLS OF THE KITCH to P.M; closes at 10:30 P. M. Vokes family, Mr. Lettingwell. WOOD'S MUSEUM, Broadway, corner HUSBAND TO Ba impey street. ORDER, at : BY. NEWYORK, a8 BM veloses util P.M. STREETS OF GRAND OPERA HOUSE, and Twenty third street, HUMPTY Right ven ABROAD, at 745 2. M.: closes at 1045 P.M. DUMPTY A) Mr GL. FIFTH AVENO THEATRE, hth street and Broadway:—MAN AND WIFE, Twenty. yeloses at 11 P. M. Mr. Harkins, Miss Ada Dyas. acs Py MES. CONWAY'S BROOKLYN THEATRE, MY og gore street, Brooklvn.—LITTLE SUNSHINE, at Closes at ii P. Miss Lilian Conway, WALLACK’S THEATRE, may and Thirteenth stree:—A MAN OF HONOR, one at 10:50 P. i. BOOTH'S THEATRE, Sixth avenue and Twenty-third street—KIT; OR, THE ABKANSAR TRAVELLER, at 79 PM. ; closes at 10:30 ®.MO Mr. F.S. Chanfran, Miss Bella Pateman. Page phe THEATRE, Houston and Bleecker streets. — Bredrer: de tween GABRIEL GRCB. at SP. M.:closes ati P.M. Majtiton- ‘nor Family. TONY PASTOR'S OPERA No. 21 Bowery VARIETY KRATERTAINMENT, at 8 P. MC; closes at 11 P.M. BRYANT'S OPERA HOUSE, ‘Twenty-third street, corner of Sixth avenue.—CINDER- ELLA IN BLACK, NEGRO MINSIRELSY, dc., at 8 P. M.; closes at 10 P.M. ROBINSON HALL, Sixteenth street.—MAGIUAL ENTERTAINMENT AND BAUGHING GAS, at § P. closes at 10:30 P, M. acne BAIN HALL, Great Jones street, corner Latnyette place. —THE PIL- @BIM, at 5 P. M.; closes at 9 DR. KAHN’S MUSEUM, No. be sesissibaine iste wanna AND ART, TRIPLE SHEET. THE NEWS OF YESTERDAY. To-Day’s Contents ot the Herald. “NEW YORK AFFAIRS! STATE Page. Mr. JAMES W. HUSTED, OF WESTCHESTER, SE- @URES THE INSIDE TRACK FOR THE SPEAKERSHIP OF THE STATE ASSEMBLY! THE PRELIMINARY CAUCUSES—lsento Pace. THE PRESIDENT SAYS THE VIRGINIUS “HAD THE RIGAT TO FLY OUR FLAG AND TO CLAIM ITS PROTECTION!” HOW THAT RIGHT WAS OBSCURED BY A FOG UF “DIPLOMACY! THE SPANISH DKAW- CANSIRS KNUCKLE TO GENERAL SICKLES, BUT PULL THE WOOL OVER THE EYES OF FISH—Tuimp Pacs. BEVOLUTIONIZED SPAIN! SERRANO DESIRES TO HAVE CASTELAR IN HIS CABINET! THE POSITION OF AFFAIRS IN MADRID! A REVOLT AND SEVERE FIGHTING IN SARAGOSSA—SEVENTH PaGE. SPANISH OUBA IN ECSTASIES OVER THE DOWNFALL OF CASTELAR! ROYAL EM- BLEMS RENEWED AND A KINGLY DEVICE PLAUVED UPON THE CAPTAIN GENERAL'S PALACE -SEVENTH PAGE. CONGRESS AGAIN HAMMERING AWAY AT THE SALARY REPEAL BILL! MR. STEPHENS ON CIVIL RIGHTS! A COLORED SOUTH CAROLINIAN ANSWERS! RETRENCHMENT IN NATIONAL DEFENCK—Fovsta Pacs. SENATE SUBSTITCTE FOR THE BANK- RUPTUY REPEAL BILL! MANY IMPOR- TANT CHANGES! THE PREVENTION OF FRAUDS—FovurtTu Pace. UNANIMOUS CONDEMNATION OF THE “ASPIR- ING YOUTH” WHO AIMS TO LEAP INTO THE SUPREME JUDICIAL SEAT—SPRINK- LING BAPTIST BABES—FourTH PaGE. CIVIL RIGHTS IN THE VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE! A PROTEST AND A COUNTER PROTEST FORWARDED TO CONGRESS! COLURED JURORS—TuIRD PaGE. BOSTON’S FRAUDULENT MERCHANTS TO BE CRIMINALLY PROSECUTED—Tairp Pace. PLAYS AT THE PRINCIPAL PLACES OF PUBLIC RESORT--RUM VENDING AT A DISCOUNT IN THE MODERN ATHENS—TzyTH Pac. ‘THEY MUST HAVE WORK! THE TOIJLING ARTI- SANS OF GOTHAM HOLD A MEETING IN UNION SQUARE TO CONSIDER THE SITUA- MEETING OF OUR LEGISLATURE”—LEADER—SixTH THE TION! THE “ESSEX STATESMAN” AP- PEALED TO! 100,000 IDLE MEN—FirtH Pace. THE KIGHT KIND OF A POLICE RAID! A THIEVES’ DEN BROKEN UP! RURAL OP- ERATIONS EN MASQUE—Firtu Pace, MR. FOLEY SHOWING UP ANDY GREEN! THE ECONOMIST IN SCRUBWOMEN'S BILLS SECURES A $20,000 PLUM FOR HIMSELF— HERALD ENTERPRISE AT A BEFOGGED FERRY—THE STIGMATA FRAUD—Focrrn Pace. CONFUSION WORSE CONPOUNDED! TOO MANY CHAIRMEN FOR THE BOARD OF ASSIST- ANT ALDERMEN! NO NEW PRESIDENT TO BE ELECTED—WHO WILL SUCCEED GENET !—FirTn Pace. Conorrss Arren tHE Howmmays.—Both houses of Congress met yesterday after their Christmas festivities and New Year's calls, and, in resuming the business of the nation, they seleeted eminently practical and inter- esting subjects. The Senate wasted the precious hours in discussing the irrepressible salary grab, and the House was not behind- hand in its earnest disquisitions on the equally irrepressible negro. The principal speech concerning the colored gentlemen was made by Mr. Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, who, it was to be presumed, knew all about the practical bearings of the proposed Supple- mentary Civil Rights bill among the Southern people, and who eloquently opposed it. His arguments were based on constitutional grounds and also on the inexpediency of such @ bill, and, in his peroration, indulged in a glowing apostrophe to ‘‘old Jeffersonian demo- cratic and republican principles.”’ Tue Boston Post (democrat) is disposed to favor the confirmation of Attorney General Williams as Chief Justice. ‘Fire away!” ex- claims the Poet in ite usual fanny style to the opponents of the confirmation. M. Mr. Lester Wallack, Miss | Sew York AMaire-Meeting of Our State Legislature. The two houses of our State Legislature meet at Albany to-day. Though much more strongly represented by the opposition ele- ments than the last, it is a republican Legis- lature in both branches. In the Senate the republicans have seventeen members, against twelve democrats and three liberals and inde- pendents; while in the Assembly the repub- lican force is seventy-three, against fifty dem- oerats and four independents and liberals. Having thus the two houses, with the Gover- nor and Lieutenant Governor, the republi- cans will be responsible and will be held re- sponsible for the failure of this Legislature if it fail to meet the urgent wants of the city and the State and the just expectations of the people. We shall doubtless have the Governor's Message before the close of the day. The Senate, with the Lieutenant Governor as its presiding officer, will have only its Clerk and other subordinates to choose to perfect its or- ganization; while for the Assombly the choice ot a Speaker, always a delicate matter and frequently a disastrous bone of contention to the dominant party, was settled in favor of Mr. Husted, of Westchester, by the republican caucus of last night— Husted 44, Prince 28. Mr. Husted is well qualified, from his abilities and legislative experience, to fill the responsi- | ble position. The most important duty de- volving upon him will be the first duty he is called upon to discharge—the appointment of his standing committees; and this task, we have no reason to doubt, he will perform in every case with a supreme regard for the public interests concerned and to the public satisfac- tion. For example, in his selections for the Committee on Cities we may assume that they | will be made with especial reference to the knowledge of the members touching the para- mount interests of the cities of New York and Brooklyn, in which to a great extent are directly involved the ggneral interest of every corner of the State. We shall probably have in the Governor's Message a foreshadowing of the legislative programme of the session, although it is un- derstood that a considerable portion of the Message will be devoted to national affairs, and particularly to the Governor's orthodox views on the important questions of banks, currency, inflation, contraction and specie payments. We dare say, however, that on our State and city affairs his recommenda- tions will not be limited to that narrow policy of expenditures which would put a stop to all improvements in order to make a deceptive show of retrenchment and reform. But, whatever may be the Governor’s recommenda- tions, there are certain things which it will be well for this Legislature to do, and there are still a disputed point whether an overwhelm- ing majority of the same party in both houses, like that of our last Legislature, or a close di- vision between the dominant party and the opposition forces, like thatin the present Legis- lature, is to be preferred in view of honest legis- lation. On the one hand it is contended that where the change of two or three votes will, for instance, change the vote of the Senate, the lobby, in the case of a bill with “money in it,’’ will find no difficulty in pur- chasing those two or three votes, if required, from one side or the other. In favor of a close division of parties it is contended that the constant danger to the dominant party of a damaging break in its lines keeps it con- stantly on the watch, while the hope of an opportunity to the opposition keeps its forces equally vigilant and united. All our legislative teachings from Albany and from Washington will serve to strengthen this argument, that where the ruling party possesses decisive majorities against all possible contingencies it becomes rapidly and reck- lessly corrupt, and that when it is reduced to a close division in both houses, or in either, it becomes cautious and comparatively honest. The general expectation that this Legislature will prove better than the last rests upon the idea that the republicans are not strong enough in either House to enter into any broadly corrupt or entangling alli- ances with the lobby. There is or should be another guarantee for honest legislation at Albany this winter in the fact that upon the acts of this Legislature the republican party of this State will be held to a rigid account in our elections of next autumn, which will em- brace the Governor, the whole State delega- tion for the next Congress, and an Assembly which may turn the scale in the election of a United States Senator in place of Mr. Fenton. In this view of the subject one would think that the ever present and controlling object with the republicans in this Legislature must be a good record for next November, and par- ticularly in view of the possibilities of a crushing defeat in that important election. All things considered, our last Legislature did as well ad could be expected. The work demanded of this one is comparatively light and easy. We shall want, for the present, but little tinkering with our city charter, although a clearer definition than now exists of the powers, rights and duties, respectively, of the heads of our city departments is much to be desired. Above all things, in view of the recent annexations to the city from Westchester, we need rapid transit for a hundred thousand passengers down and up daily between the widely separated northern and southern ex- tremities of the metropolis. With our present inadequate, slow and uncomfortable means of commanication Harlem, from the lower end of the city, is, in the important matter of time, farther off than Newark or New Branswick, in Jersey. Within the last ten years we have been building up numerous towns and cities in Jersey, on Long Island and in Connecticut because of the difficulties to business men of reaching the upper from the lower end of this island. Rapid transit, then, for a hundred thonsand passengers down and up daily be- tween the Battery and our new acquisitions from Westchester is our paramount necessity. And we want a double line of swift communi- cation to begin with, which will not require ten or fifteen years for its completion, but which within twelve months will be in active operation, though the work may demand for this period the constant employment of fifty ‘thousand men. As an investment the more rapidly this work is pushed through the more profitable it will be to the city and all con- cerned in the enterprise. Our harbor obstructions and our river fronts should not be neglected by this Legislature. Brooklvn's white elephant, the East River things which it will be well to avoid. It is | Bridge, in calling for & State come @ proper subject for a snagehing investi- gation. Nine millions, they aay, will finish the bridge; but if the work done upon it has cost five millions the work to be done at the same rates will hardly be finished short of twenty millions. Both cities want the bridge; but the taxpayers have the right to demand some reasonable limit to the bill, and some fixed responsibility and solid securities for the faithful expenditure of their money. So far the bridge has been a very costly job, but mill- ions may still be saved upon it in retrench- ments from rigid responsibilities. It is reported that there are some twenty-five or thirty grangers in the Assembly, and that the ruling idea with them is cheap transporta- tion by rail and by canal. [f so, while no one can predict the action of this Legislature upon our railways and canals, it may be safely assumed that special favors to our railway kings have had their day, and that a general reaction bas set in against them which will not be checked short of a general system of wholesome regulations. The West is all alive upon the subject; Pennsylvania has taken it up in her new State constitution, and Congress al- ready feels the pressure of public opinion upon this vital matter of cheap inland trans- portation. If, then, we have thirty grangers at present in our State Assembly we may have a hundred before the end of the session, and bills regulating railway freights and charges which will gladden the grangers of the West. But, notwithstanding this new disturbing or stimulating element of the grangers, we antici, pate nothing startling from this Legislature. We rather incline to the opinion that it will be distinguished only for its masterly inactivity ; that if rendered too cautious to venture upon any grand schemes for the public plunder it will be too indolent and too discordant to give us any substantial measures in the way of much needed improvements or wholesome re- forms ; that it will expend the session upon the ordinary routine bills and in dabbling in little jobs, and that finally it will return to the people with a record with little in it toadmire and not much to condemn.’ Against the recent general demoralization and corruptions of our legislative bodies, from Congress to Kansas, there has been a general popular awakening which, we think, secures us against any great schemes of robbery from this Legislature. Otherwise we are disposed to be thankful for small favors and have learned the folly of great expectations. A Remarkable Winter. ‘The summer-like weather of Sunday, which extended over nearly all the Atlantic States, was a most abnormal freak, and has been speedily followed by a reaction. The peculi- arity of this warm streak of weather appears, from an examination of the Signal Office reports, to be due to a remarkable phenome- non. On the 2d inst. the equatorial winds in the Gulf of Mexico and the Southern States became established, and the vast stream of the equatorial current projected, in tongue- like shape, from the Gulf to the Ohio Valley. On Sunday it pushed its way to Lake Ontario with thermometers ranging seventy-three at Pittsburg and sixty-seven at Rochester—about the same temperature which the soft austral winds now bring to the invalid in Florida or to the consumptive retreats on the shores of the Mediterranean. The prevalence of these long continued deflections of the equatorial air current northward has been, so far, the characteristic of the winter. The mean tem- perature of Key West for the month of January is lower than that which prevailed this side of the Mississippi River on Sunday. The effect of this broad southerly air stream is observed in the great humidity and frequent dense fogs which follow. Its remote cause would seem to be traceable to an extraordinary radiation of solar heat during the present mid- summer of the Southern Hemisphere, the excess of heated air being forced across the Equator into our hemisphere. These warm spells have already very materially shortened and mitigated the winter, which the poor so much dreaded, and if they should continue at intervals till February this will be one of the mildest winters in American climatology. These non-periodic or abnormal changes, in the opinion of able meteorologists, come from causes exterior to the Continent, and it is said that they seldom have compensative changes during the same year and in the same hemisphere. It does not, therefore, follow that the extreme mildness of the early part of the winter will be followed by extreme severity, but, if we may judge from ex- perience, rather the contrary. Ville du Havre—The Decision in the French Court. The decision of the French Admiralty Court in the collision case between the Ville du Havre and the Loch Earn has been decided in favor of the French ship. The mancuvring of the Ville du Havre is declared to have been blameless, and the disaster is ascribed to the bad management of the Loch Earn. In place of condemning the Court eulogized Captain Surmont. The decision in the French Court is thus quite the reverse of the decision in the English Court. Captain Robertson is pro- nounced blameless; Captain Surmont is pro- nounced blameless. Whois to blame? The trial on both sides of the Channel bas been a farce. No one is held guilty; and yet the disaster occurred on a clear night, when the lights of both vessels could be easily seen. The result of the two investigations—the one in England and the other in France—proves the necessity of a grand international marine court. Until such a court is established na- tional jealousies will stand in the way of just and righteous decisions in all cases which bear any resemblance to that of the Ville du Havre. We do not belittle the difficulties which lie in the way of the establishment of such a court; but the difficulties are not in- surmountable. This is a matter which ought at once to command the attention of all the great maritime Powers. The Taenr Was Nor Mucn Concorp among the depositors in the Concord, N. H., savings bank the other day when they were informed that there was a defalcation in the institution. People hereaways, however, have become somewhat used to such events and public demonstrations in that connection are rare, * Ir 15 Unpenstoop in Wisconsin that ex-Gov- ernor Washburn denounces the appointment of Williams as Chief Justice as an ‘‘outrage.’’ The people having repudiated Washburn as @ candidate for Governor may make things somewhat even. the President's Message. The message sent by the President to Con- gress regarding the Virginius affair will never take a place among the explicit in literature. It is very vague, and seems as though the fog- giness which pervades it at the most impor- tant parts was studiously outspread. It cannot well be otherwise, for the President had to reconcile strong and firm demands made in the first instance with feeble and paltry re- quests made in the second instance, and with these latter fizzled into nothingness from the protocol to the performance. It would have seemed that the blood shed at Santiago should have had some place in the President’ s message, but it is dried into gingerly phrases before it geta ‘there. Of course dear, old republican Spain must not be offended; but the most squeamish hidalgo could not more euphemisti- cally describe the bloody deeds of Burriel and his sub-butchers at the Slaughter House than by the President’s formulation thereof, as “Spanish tribunals taking jurisdiction over the persons found’ on the Virginius. This is bad enough, but we come immediately to another point which is especially vague. ‘The President tells that he demanded ‘the pun- ishment of the offunding parties.’ There is not a hint as to whom he considered or considers these to be, but it is plain enough why he lays lit- tle emphasis on this point when we come down to the flimsy promise of the protocol which is devoted to Spain's ‘proceeding against’’ those who had violated treaty rights, We find, to be sure, in the sentence describing this part of the protocol, that ‘Spain under- took to proceed against those who had offended the sovereignty of the United States.’’ Spain would be very much sur- prised to learn that she had undertaken any such gigantic task. It sounds well, but analysis conveys an idea of what could not be included in any protocol or treaty except an offensive and defensive alliance. We may attribute this mistake to simple negligence; but the reasons given for the loss of the Vir- ginius and the dramatic touch of the officers and crew placed in charge, risking their lives in the attempt to keep her afloat, are admir- able specimens of the vague art. That ‘most tempestuous of our winter storms,’’ coupled with her ‘‘anseaworthy condition,’’ prepares us for the catastrophe, as though it was the most natural thing in the world that leaking ships should be sent out to founder. The prisoners, however, reached New York sately, and there his trouble con- cerning them and their murdered shipmates ends vaguely. Nota word respecting indem- nity for the lives taken finds place in the mes- sage. Having wrapped the massacre up in foggy verbiage it would be too much to expect that a suggestion of responsibility, should rest upon the blood spillers whom he groups as ‘‘tribu- nals.’’ Out of it all we can gather that the President has contended that Spain had no right to overhaul the ship on the high seas, and that being vaguely acknowledged in the sur- render, he is content to let the fifty-three mur- ders and the insults to the American Consul go begging for vengeance or compensation. The correspondence presents a sad but cer- tain explanation of all the inconsequences and shortcomings of the message. The servant who was suddenly called on to explain for his imaginative master how the latter shot a buck in the hind hoof and the ear with the same bullet had a difficult task to make both ends meet. He did it by declaring that the buck was scratch- ing his ear when the gun went off. President Grant, trying to make a credible story of un- tarnished national honor and dignity out of the alternate bluster and truckling of Secretary Fish, had greater extremes to bring together. The picture of Fish, the furious, thundering along the cable an order for Sickles to close the Legation if reparation is not granted, and gasping at the end a_ request for the impressive talismanic word “New Jersey,” is hard to reconcile with Fish, the flaccid, signing the ignoble protocol which surrenders America’s case for @ filth-covered ship and the survivors of the crew, who were saved by an English gunboat from the Slaughter House. The President is not so ingenious as the servant, and we are not at all surprised. But is this all? Tse Mayor or Broosiyn’s Messacz.— Mayor Hunter, in his message yesterday to the Board of Aldermen, takes the position of a thorough reformer—a very popular kind of person nowadays. He wants the public in- terests to be protected from those naughty people who are so fond of insinuating them- selves into the city treasury, and he believes jin making a commencement towards the liquidation of the city debt, which is a trifle over thirty-seven million dollars. He will likely bring o storm about his ears on ac- count of the suggestion to make church prop- erty bear its share of taxation; but in a city where churches and dwelling houses are popularly supposed to be equal in number he parsons should certainly do something handsome towards the public treasury. The vast amount of money absorbed by the East River Bridge seems to frighten the worthy Mayor, for he is of opinion that the Brooklyn people would, on their part, have postponed the undertaking had they foreseen the finan- cial consequences. There are many prac- tical, sensible and well-timed suggestions in the message. Tue Bar Association will give their views this evening on the qualifications of the President's protégé and candidate for the Chief Justiceship. As there are many eminent representatives of the legal profession in this association their opinions will be looked for- ward to with interest. The catdidate for the lamented Chase's shoes will have to run the gauntlet of the entire country before he reaches the goal, if such ever will be the reward of his overweening ambition. “Supposz,’’ says a Western paper, ‘not to put too fine a point upon it, that Williams did receive ten thousand dollars for his opinion in favor of the Wisconsin Central Railroad land claim, is that any reason his personal integrity should give rise to the gravest suspicion ?’’ Yes, the very gravest—the grave of over- reaching ambition. Tax Pnovipence Journal (United States Senator) thinks that the Bankrupt law is likely to be modified or amended rather than repealed by the Senate. After all is this not the wisest view to take of the qubicot ? [ movers: ment—An Orjginal Salary Grabber. From communication published else- where in to-day’s Henry it would appear: that we are on the eve of St. Andrew's Day ; not the anniversary of St. Andrew the Apos- tle, who was crucified in the year 95, but of St. Andrew the financier, who was canonized in the councils of municipal reform as the only honest man in New York, and whom the late candidate for Chamberlain, Deputy Chamber- lain, Commissioner of Jurors and Sheriff, Jobn Foley, seems bent upon nailing to the cross. The enfant terrible, whose injunctions -have long been the dread of office-holders, turning up his nose at the odor of sanctity that should surround a saint and warn off the irreverent, has been rummaging among the musty records of the Park Depart- ment with the object of showing that the present head of the Finance Department of the city of New York is in reality a con- firmed sinner of the ‘salary grab” stripe, The*people have for many years indulged the belief that the Central Park Commission has been from its creation up to the present time an unselfish, honest, patriotic body of high-toned gentlemen, who have been willing to give their services to their fellow citizens gratis, and to be contented with the honor of the positions they have filled with- out asking for the enormous salaries, perqui- sites and pickings that pertain to less dignified city departments. The laws that have been enacted in regard to the Park Commissioners have justified this belief; for they have all prohibited the members of the Board from re- ceiving any remuneration, except in the case of the Treasurer, who might be paid a small compensation for his extra services, and ex- cept also a trifling amount, not to exceed three hundred dollars, which a Commissioner might claim, if he should choose to do so, ‘for his personal expenses in visiting and superintending’ the Park during the year. Comptroller Green has, however, in his capacity of Park Commis- sioner, managed to so evade the spirit of this law as to make the office pecuniarily valu- able, and has, besides, according to Foley's showing, distinguished himself in the ‘salary grab’”’ or back pay business. The Park Department has always been a sort of secret institution, It has not been required to keep its accounts as the accounts of other departments are kept, and it has had a great deal of license and almost entire irre- sponsibility in any expenditures it might choose to make, The receipts now unearthed do not by any means represent the whole amount Commissioner Green has received from the treasury of the department during his long term of office. They are only a few stray items which have come into the posses- sion of a busy, active investigator; but they serve to illustrate the manner in which a public officer who is vigilant and un- sparing in his scrutiny of the ac- counts of scrub-women, office-cleaners, watchmen and laborers in the employment of the city, can stretch his own arms shoulder deep into the municipal money bags when he is drawing out “compensation” for his own services. Commissioner Green, it appears, has received from the Park Department gener- ally a salary of ten thousand dollars a year as the Treasurer of the Board. We believe that all right-minded citizens will pronounce this a most extravagant and unjustifiable amount for the services rendered. When the law pro- vided that the position of Park Commissioner should be an honorary one, but that the mem- ber actingas treasurer might, notwithstand- ing, be paid a remuneration for his extra trouble, it could not have contemplated that this one Commissioner should receive a salary larger than that of our highest judges or than members of Congress. Yet Commissioner Green managed to draw this amount from the public treasury for a number of years without considering that he was doing an injustice to our taxpayers. Nor do we learn that he relinquished any portion of it on ac- count of absence from his post through sick- ness or otherwise, although, as Comptroller of New York, he is ready to denounce asa fraud the claim of a poor scrub-woman for a tew days’ work which accident or illness has prevented her from fully performing. But the unearthed accounts and resolutions of the Park Department show that Commis- sioner Green has been an original ‘‘grab! of “back pay,” or, more correctly speaking, of extra pay, above the amounts agreed upon, for services already performed. Thus, in 1865, we find that Andrew H. Green received five thousand dollars as “additional salary” for the two preceding years, 1863 and 1864, orat the rate of two thousand five hundred dollars a year. Again, in July, 1868, we find him taking out of the Central Park treasury seven thousand five hundred dollars for ‘additional salary’ for the three preceding years, 1865, 1866 and 1867, and a further sum of one thou- sand eight hundred and seventy-five dollars for extra pay for the following six months of 1868. In 1870 there was a change in the personnel of the commission, and one of the last acts of Mr. Green in the old commission was to introduce a very singular and extrava- gant claim of nearly three thousand dollars for an alleged balance of the statutory allowance of three hundred dollars a year from 1857 up to 1870, and for ‘expenses incurred in visit- ing Albany and Washington in 1863 and 1870."’ This last raid on the Central Park treasury certainly seems to be without justifi- cation. As Mr. Green received a salary as Treasurer, he certainly had no right to draw the three hundred dollars a year compensation for personal expenses in lieu of salary paid to the non-salaried commissioners. No amount of “reform” reputation can place the stamp of honesty upon such a claim, made in 1870 and dating ack thirteen years, nor does it improve the un- savory odor of these transactions to know that some of the resolutions through which they were consummated were offered in the Park Board by Thomas C. Fields, and that all, or nearly all, of them received Mr. Green's own vote for their passage in order to obtain for them the requisite number of votes, As these unpleasant disclosures have been made, it is very desirable that the Park Com- mission should make a thorough investigation of its back accounts, and let the people of New York know what smount Mr. Green or any other paid Commissioner has drawn ont of the public treasury since 1857, in the shape of salary and extras, for services on @ nominally unaalaried comsnisgion, from the Park Depart. | Reconstruction ‘FenasmAnether tate Govwermment Set Aside by Judicial Decision. The Supreme Court of the State of Toxaa has just set aside the recent election in that State, apparently because the right party did not win. There is no doubt whatever that the people of Texas are overwhelmingly “‘oonser- vative’’—that is to say, democratic—and with a free and fair election we could expegt only: what has happened in the return of democrats to every office by large majorities; but it is one of the important features of Southern politics that the very fact that communities give democratic majorities is accepted as an evidence against the validity of elections. In fact, the reconstruction machinery is organ- ized solely to give republican victories at the polls, and if there is any failure'in this par- ticular it’ is clear from the standpoint as- sumed that somebody has prevented the proper operation of the machinery and thus invalidated the election, There is a very, pretty little piece of philosophy in the Chinese! religion. If a man is about to enter upom any important enterprise he may consult the gods to know if his undertaking has their as- sent and favor; they will pronounce definitely for him or against hint, If they pronounce against him he may repeat the ceremony by: which he endeavored to learn their will; andi if the answer is still adverse he may repeat the ceremony again and again, and go on in-. definitely. But if the gods have pronounced in his favor once it is forbiddem to repeat the inquiry; all doubt must stop there, Republican authority in the South applies the same principle to the cere- mony of inquiring the popular will at the polls. If the popular voice decides in favor of the republican candidate the result is ao- cepted as thoroughly and completely satisfac- tory; but if the popular voice is the other way, then a repetition of the ceremony is in order, | and the only limit to repetition is a favorable vote. It is » pretty and dimple principle, enormously encouraging to the -people who areon the right side. If the others do :ot like it, so much the worse for the others. The Legislature of Texas is called the Third teenth Legislature. It is democratic. Governor, Edmund J. Davis, is a republic He was recently a candidate for re-electi and there was a majority of forty thousand votes against him. Another Legislature waa elected at the same time, which also was most! decidedly democratic. Texas, therefore, wad evidently dreadfully-unreconstructed, and the case called fora repetition of the politicall ceremony. Tt was said that Governor Davia would take no notice of the election and treat it as not having occurred; but this was, perhaps, deemed unwise, Judicial deci/ sions have the form of law, and, when ani election is set aside by their assistance it is possible always to make some thousands of the people believe it right. Besides, this was the plan that had worked well in Louisiana! There is no knowing at any time but that the people may resist, and force can always be fairly called in to sustain the judgment of a Court ; so it was thought better to put the case in a reconstruction law mill and grind! out a decision. This was done. Itscemsa@ man had been arrested as a repeater, and he was brought up on habeas corpus and his die+ charge demanded, as nearly as now appears, om ‘the ground that he had committed no offence, inasmuch as the statute he was charged with’ violating (the Election law) was not a law of the State, because it had been made in defi- ance of the‘requirements of the constitution ;/ and, if the Election law was void for unconsti- tutionality, the election which had been held) under it was without legal effect. Thus the Thirteenth Legislature and the radical Governor remain in authority untill another election can be held, which, it is said,) will be before the 28th of April. The Thir- teenth Legislature had repealed, in the words of the democratic State platform, ‘‘a number of the oppressive, odious and unconstitutional! acts passed by the Twelfth Legislatare in pur~ suance of the radical policy to overthrow the government of the people.” It appears that among the laws of the Twelfth Legislaturethus described was an election law which the same! democratic platform says was ‘framed for the purpose of preventing free and fair elections, and openly encouraged the perpetration of frauds to defeat the will of the people and to perpetuate radical misrale.’” That law the Thirteenth Legislature repealed and made another in its place, which, im turn, is now put aside by the Supreme Court of the State. Although our despatch chroni- cles some excitement, we hear of no disorder,, and scarcely believe it will come to that. Ag the democrats have a sweeping majority and can win legitimately as many elections as ara ordered, they will scarcely be so foolish as to commit acts that would afford the pretext and the opportunity for putting them down b; armed force. But if the use of armed force be part of the programme that has been agreed) upon to guarantee the State a republican form of government, it will, of course, be very easyt to get up all the disturbance that is necessary: to justify the authorities in calling on the na= tional troops. The Assistant Aldermen in a Muddle-— A Tempest in a Teapot. The Board of Assistant Aldermen had » lively time yesterday, growing out of the at. tempt of the democratic members, who are im the majority, to reorganize the Board by the election of a new President and Clerk. The | old republican President, elected by a bargaim one year ago, refused to surrender, and there: was for a time s double-headed session and a general row, ending in an adjournment untilf Monday next. Mr. Wade was chosen Presia dent of the Board in January, 1872, for ona year, his term expiring with the year. Subse- quently the new charter was passed by tha Legislature and became a law. In section si the charter provides that the boards of Aldera men and Assistant Aldermen shall eachy “choose # President from its own members by; a call of the names of the members of tha Board, upon which call each member shall an~ nounce his choice, and when once chosen ha can be removed before the expiration of his term: as Alderman or Assistant Alderman only by am vote, taken by a call of ayes or noes, of foura fifths of all the members of the Board of whicky he shall have been chosen President.” The same section further provides that ‘‘this{ section, however, shall not be construed tai require or authorize a reorganization of -the existing Board of Aldermen or Board of As« sistant Aldermen.” The reonblican Assistant Aldermen alaimn Ss