The New York Herald Newspaper, March 27, 1874, Page 6

Or NEW YORK HERALD, FRIDAY, MARCH 21, ‘1874, —TRIPLE SHEET. NEW YORK HERALD BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR. THE DAILY HERALD, published every day in the war, Four cents per copy. Annual subscription price $12. Lg LONDON OFFICE OF THE NEW YORK | HERALD-—NO. 46 FLEET STREET. Subscriptions and Advertisements will be received and forwarded on the same terms | as in New York | ne Measure of Dishonor—An Appeal t the President. To you, President Grant, we make this appeal! The inflation measure has passed the Senate. Our hope that the conser- vative branch of the Legislature would prove to be really conservative has been dis- Representatives. The ‘‘publie opinion’’ which has been sweeping from Peoria to Philadelphia and Newark, not to speak of Oshkosh and Oconomonowoc, and which has found expression in a hundred raral newspapers and corner groceries, has been heard. The cant about the burdens of the Sant Volume xXxXxIX AMUSEMENTS THs , AFTERNOON AND EVENING NIBLO’S GA GARDEN, Broadway, between Prince and Houston streets.—DAVY | CROCKETT, até P. M.; closes at LOOP, Mo Mr. Frank | Mayo | LYORUM | Fourteenth eres near 51x ixth avenue. —Fre ach A 6 igh | | Boufle-L,’ (hil CREVB?, at 8 P.M. ; closes at 1045 | dille, Marie Aunee. | WOOD'S MUSEUM, | ay, corner, Thirtlet) street —RUM; OR. THE | ERkOY GP TEMPERANCE, at 2 F closes at 4PM. Same at 8P. M.; closes at 10:0 P.M DALY'S FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE, Twensy -tighth street and Broadway.—C HARITY, ats P. M.; closes at 102) P.M. Ada Dyas, Miss Fanny Vavenport, Mr. Fisher, Mr. L Bio, Bis Broadway.— INMENT, at 8 | loses at 10 30 P BOO Sixth avenue and Twent BAWN, at 7:45 P.M. eault. —THE COLLEEN sloses #t 10:45 P.M. Dion Bouci- WALLACK'S THEAT! i He enc CENTRAL PARK, at atl P.M. Mr. Lester Wallack. Broad 8PM MRS, CONWAY'S BROOKLYN THEATRE, Wrashingion street, near Fulton | street Brookiyn.— CHARITY, at > M.; closes at LU P.M. Miss Minnie Conway. GERMANIA THEATRE, | t, near Irving place. —DIE ZAERTLI. | NDTEN, at §P. M.; closes at Il P.M. | — | OLYMPIC THEATRE, | between Houston and Bleecker. streets. el ENTERTAINMENT, at | 7:45 P.M. ; Closes at 10:45 P. Broadway, VAUDEVILLE. and NOV fourteenth ilssou, Cai BROOKLYN PARK THEATRE, opposite City Hall, Brooklyn.—LITTLE N&LL AND THE ABUHIONED>. ats P.M: sat ll P.M, Lotta. u BOWERY THEATRE, Bowery, NECK AND NECK, and VARIETY ENTER. INMENT. Begins ats P. loses at LI P.M TONY PASTUR’S OPERA HOUS! ze. 201 Bowery. mana ENTERTAIN j closes at Li P.M. BRYANT’S Twenty-third sireet,, nea BIRKUSY, &e., at 8 P. PERA HOUSE, ixth ayenue.—NEGRO MIN. joses at 10 P.M. COLOSSE Broadway, corner of Thirty~ othe at ati. M.; street.—PARIS BY j closes ac Si. M.; same at7 P. SHEE March 3, 1874, closes at 1) P.M. TRIPLE S$ “New York, Friday, From our see this morning the probabil | Gre that the weather to-day will be cool and clear. ee | ComprnonteR GREEN AND Mayor Have- | Meyer officially stated on January 19 last that | the total gross amount of city and county | debt on December 31, 1873, was $131,204,571. | The gross amount of the city and county debt on December 31, 1873, was $131,869,571. Did the Comptroller and the Mayor pur- posely understate the debt $665,000, or was | the misstatement due to official incapacity ? The possibility of a new issue of inconvertible | paper I regard with amazement and anciety, and, ‘in my judgment, such an issue would be a detri- | sment and a shame.—CHARLES SUMNER. \ Serine Fasnions.—The mild, vernal weather that has happily prevailed this week and dispersed the hosts of rude Boreas, has | Srought out the metropolitan modistes in the full glory of spring fashions. In another col- aman will be found interesting details of what fhe present year of grace, Dame Fashion presiding, has ordained for the feminine itoilet. here is no particular revolution, but wonsiderable progress has been made towards tthe Mecca of faultless taste, united with econ- omy. Be Nor Weary 1x Wei1-Doro.—Iti is pleas- ant to us to note how closely our columns are studied by some of our rivals less successful | than ourselves in their efforis to produce a wood newspaper. It is pleasant to know that ‘the attention is so clese that even our minor tefforta are not lost—that a watch is kept especially for the slips of our juniors, whose Mittle errors are indicated with a point which | ‘often saves us trouble. One of these critics objects te some one in the Heraxp saying ‘that “‘the number of unbelievers in Mexico is ‘very small.” Of course the man who wrote this referred to Mahometans, ‘himself. offence. He deserves the worst. We give him up to the vengeance of outraged rivalry. ‘But we hope our critics will continue to make the Henaty their daily study. Thus in time they will come to understand what a good newspaper is, and their virtue will be its own reward. @ Tae Arriva, or raz Doxe ann Ducuess or Episvrca is Loxpox.—We print this morning a bright and sparkling letter from our London correspondent, giving a full and graphic account of the reception given to the Russian Princess on the occasion of her ar- rival in the British metropolis, and of the subsequent proceedings which tock Windsor. The weather was ‘but in spite of the weather London had its holiday, and the show was magnificent. It was impossible for the onlooker not to feel ‘that Crimeax memories were buried. If the marriage alliance shall have the effect of pre- | serving the peace of Europe and the world | ‘the young couple will be entitled toa double Hlessing. place at Batp Movnrars continues to rumble and terrify the simple-minded mountaineers of | ‘that part of North Carolina, According to our special correspondence and despatch, | fort to restore confidence in our own credit, to | | pica elsewhere, many persons believe there | a veritable voleano about to burst forth ; even the State Geologist of South Carolina is undecided as to the origin of the dreadful shaking and quaking, and if science is baffled at the remarkable phenomenon we may readily | overlook the exaggerated fears of the unsophis- | hicated rustics. The possibility of a new isaue of inconvertthle paper I regard with amazement and arsiety, and, | fn my judgment, such an Tete hid be a deirl. ment and a shame,—CaanLEes SumNER. | vency and credit. i | unpropitious ; | people, the poor West and tho oppressed South has been “‘obeyed.'' All the pregnant lessons of history, the encrusted wisdom and experience of centuries, as seen in the success | and misfortunes of great Commonwealths, have | been thrown aside tor the crude teachings of a Morton and a Logan, and America embarks in a new and dangerous experiment. We have lived upon this revolving globe for some ,thousands of years, and the lessons we | have learned (since Sinai at ail events) have been based upon the simplest rules, that a lie is a lie and the truth the truth; that money is a value and not a decoration or a picture; | that no business can succeed unless based upon integrity; that without integrity there can be no credit; that money, which simply represents a baseless and whimsical promise to pay, is a false pretence. The history of every nation that ever rose to eminence or power illustrates this; for no Power ever became genuine and permanent that was not based upon truth. We had instructive lessons in re- cent history, in the growth of the assignats under Robespierre, and the Continental cur- | reney during the Revolution. We saw what the French did’in their season of dreams and hopes and terror; how, under the | frenzy of the Revolution and the tarantula dame which they called Liberty, they resolved that paper should be money, and that all | values and weights and measures should be at the pleasure of the Convention. The result was seen in the disintegration of all values—the rise of a currency which expressed only the hopes and fancies of enthusiasts— | and which, although protected by the guillo- | tine, soon became the scorn and the byword of France. For of what value was a thousand francs a month to a workman who, it was true, in better days only earned a hundred, when a loaf of bread and bottle of wine cost him fitty ; when he carried his money to mar- ket in a basket and brought his purchases home in his pocket? Never was an experiment of government enthusiasm more honestly tried than during the French Revolution. = | The leaders of that movement began with the ‘axiom that the past wasa mistake and the present a crime; that history had no expe- riences that did not spring from the ambitions | of monarchs and the cupidity of the aristoc- racy, and that liberty consisted simply in tearing down all that was old. So, among other lessons which freemen learned, in addi- tion to their reverence for Regulus and the Gracchi, was this, that the laws of finance and trade were like the laws of entail and mort- main and primogeniture, only so many evi- | dences of a tyrannical rule, and they should | perish with the corrupt systems of the past. But they did not know that the laws of trade and business and commerce, like mathematics | and astronomy, were a fixed science, no more affecting the liberty of the citizen than the moral law, and based upon the moral law as a fundamental principle. But so came the assignats, and France wal- | lowed in the mire of bankruptcy and repudia- tion until the advent of the.steel-like genius of Napoleon, which saw the mathematical aspects of moral laws if no others, and, following these laws, brought the nation back to sol- What was the result? The moment that France passed from the allurements of an inconvertible and irre- sponsible currency to the stern duty of con- | solidating her financial integrity she began | her career of greatness, a career SO prosperous | that when visited with unspeakable disasters | she rose snperigg to them all, and was able in one day to bny the enemy from her soil. Some of onr readers may disparage this achievement, as is our custom to disparage France generally since her defeat. But let us | | Temember our own fortune during the war, when we passed the Legal Tender act and asked the nations of the world toaid us. There was every reason why we should have been | aided. We were an exceedingly rich people— | rich in what we possessed and in what wekoped | to possegs when we had thoroughly developed | our cousy. But the passage of that act was asked the world to accept it. We destroyed the values which the world had imposed upon | money, and the result was that the world ac- | cepted our credit at our own valuation; and we were compelled to fight the South with a | diseased and hampered credit—to sell our | bonds for whatever they would bring, like | Venezuela or Spain, and time and again, for | plying our armies and navies. If we could have entered the war with the credit of | France, and maintained it, we should have | saved a thousand millions of dollars. But we | dishonored ourselves in the beginning, and | since then we have never been free from the | | burden. There might have been an excuse for this in the war, for war excuses everything, even a nation’s bankruptcy. But when the war ended what was our duty? Plainly to undo all that had been done in the rebellion, to re+ | peal the legal tender laws, to withdraw and | | contract our currency, to fund our national debt, to reduce the rate of interest and to | elevate our credit abroad. We had wealth | enough and reserved energy, and we had | way of national sacrifices. Was it too much to expéct that we would make a supreme ef- see it there would have been an | meyer, on January 19 last, represented the effort as supreme and sublime as that | total amount of outstanding revenue bonds, which overthrew the rebellion. But instead | on December 31, 1873, to be $1,474,581. appointed. The Sewate is only a tedious ; fragment of a noisy and mob-raled House of | | to compel Johnson to recognize the surrender | | frenzy the merchants felt this would be their | ing transportation by railroads. The vote | nearly $43,000,000 of debt. | the first step. We dishonored our credit and | and forgot | We neither excuse nor palliate his | the very want of credit, to resort to the most | poy eney patety enouier | Gays Sea eee | painful expedients to find the means of sup- | | whether, Serrano failing, that unfortunate land | that its pastor is one of the happiest of living shown in the war what we could do in the’) men, | legislative system, and yields i eustts to an | inflamed and precipitate public opinion as the House. So that we have no hope but in the | | President ! | And our hope in President Grant rests in | | our knowledge of his conservative character. In minor matters we have time and again criti- cised him. But wo have never failed to honor the grand qualities which carried bim from Belmont to Appomattox, which enabled him of Lee as a practical amnesty, and which were | especially shown when the panic frenzied all minds, and our merchants, falling at his feet, entreated him to imitate Holland, to open the dykes and let the sea come in, In their salvation. The President's calm sense saw it would be their destruction. We appeal to him to apply the same honest, sturdy, unim- passioned judgment to the present situation. There is no hope but in the veto! He has the opportunities of Washington, of Jackson during uniullification, of Lincoln when te ordained emancipation. To him is committed the honor of the country. Let him save it by the veto! He must stand between a wild public sentiment among the people and a truculent subservi- ence in Congress, feeling, as he must, that the country will bless him to-morrow because he prevented it from rushing into endless mis- fortunes to-day. No ruler of a people, cer- tainly no President ever had such an oppor- tunity. General Grant may now demonstrate the wisdom that rests in the veto, and in| doing so save the nation’s honor, and wina tribute of grateful affection from ourselves and our children such as we pay to Washing- ton alone. The possibility of a new issue of inconvertible paper I regard with amazement and anziety, and, in my judgment, such an issue would be a detri- | ment and a shame.—-CHAaRLES SUMNER. Passage of the Bill to Regalate Rail- road Transportation. The House of Representatives passed yes- terday Mr. McCrary’s bill relative to regulat- was:—Yeas 121, nays 116. There was some skirmishing the day before to lay this bill on the table, but the motion to do so was negatived by 127 nays to 95 yeas. There was a pretty full House voting on the passage of the bill—237 votes in all. The majority was five only. This shows that either the railroad influence is great in the House or that nearly half the members doubt the expediency or constitutionality of the measure. The fate of the bill in the Senate is doubtful, as that body is more conservative, and, possibly, less disposed to make war on the railroads. It is an important question and not free from many difficulties. Still the time is not far off, if it has not already come, when Congress will have to do something to protect the pub- lic from the exactions and mismanagement of the railroad monopoly. The interstate com- merce carried on by railroad is enormous and affects ail interests. Wet the railroad power is well nigh irresponsible. It controls nearly all the State governments or overrides State laws as it pleases. There is no competent author- ity that can reach the evil, at least where the railroads are not strictly local and confined to one State, except that of the federal govern- ment. CompTRouteR GREEN AND Mayor Have- meyer stated on January 19 last that the city | and county debt had increased during Mr. Green's term of office, up to December 31, 1873, $14,494,712. ComptrollerGreen and Mayor Havemeyer stated on the 23d inst. that the city and county debt had increased during Mr. Green’s term of office, up to December 31, 1873, $22,658,862. Comptroller Green and Mayor Havemeyer stated on January 19 last, and subsequently, that it takes $3,000,000 more to pay the in- terest on the debt of 1874 than it took to pay the interest on the debt of 1871, when Mr. Green came into office. Three million dol- lars represents interest at seven per cent on Now how much has our debt really increased since 1871? And are the official misstate- ments of the Mayor and Comptroller designed or due to incapacity ? Tue Frnaz Srrvocre ww THE Norra oF Spary.—According to our news of this morn- ing a desperate engagement has been fought at Bilbao. The national army was led by Serrano. The battle began on the morning of Wednes- day, at nine o’clock. It lasted all day long, and it was only when the darkness made fur- ther fighting impossible that the soldiers rested on theirarms. The battle was not decisive. It is claimed that the republicans had the best of it, and that they encamped upon positions which they had captured from the royalists; but it must not be forgotten, in this connec- tion, that the news comes to us by way of Madrid. The national troops lost, according to their own confession, four hundred and determine the question whether Spain is to come once more under one government, or is again to lapse into chaos. The presumption is that Carlism, for the present, must go to the wall. Serrano has taken all bis measures so cautiously that we are scarcely permitted to doubt the character of the Anal result. Tue Conerrcationa, Counce, yesterday, as will be seen from our reports this morning, did much talking, but accomplished little work. The session was secret; but the | doings of a secret council in such circumstances can no longer be kept from the world. The day of “Star Cham- bers’’ is past. Plymouth church remains proudly indifferent, and we have no doubt Drs. Budington and Storrs haye good reason already to complain of the evil genius undo the appalling consequences that came | regrets will be the fewer, from the Legal Tender act? Certainly if Sen- | ators had seen this as onr children will | of this we drift on, on, on, into a sea of repu- | diation and bankruptey. There can be no | other meaning in the vote of the Senate. That | which has led them so far astray. Mind your own business in future, gentlemen ; and your Vourrotinun Green anp Mayor Have- The amount of revenue bonds outstanding on December 31, 1873, was $10,449,979. Was this gross misstatement intentional, or -to his opinion of Green. ‘| man would die.” Our Municipal Tyrants. Athens had thirty tyrants and Syracuse had one, while New York, which fills im the modern world the sphere of both those ancient cities, oscillates between the examples and inclines at one time to the autooracy of ‘Tweed and at another to the oligarchical ex- pansion of a Committee of Seventy. Just now our tyrants are few as to numbers, but tyranny was never more oppressive than they manage to make it, because it was never more comprehensive, and never more thor- oughly covered the field open to the opera- tions of extravagant authority. Comptroller Green, Mr. Van Nort, Mayor Havemeyer, Mr. Foley and Commissioner Gardner have us at their mercy for the time. In their existence and operations we see the repetition of all political history. Tweed, the personal auto- crat, who had turned all the streams of municipal revenue into one pocket, so that the mass of minor politicians could scarcely steal an honest living for themselves, was therefore put down, thanks to Sheriff O’Brien. Ho was, of course, put down in the name of virtue, and. like the gentleman in the ‘‘Tempest,”’ ‘‘of his bones was coral made.’’ Purity arose as naturally from the ruins of his authority as honey came out of the dead lion, ‘‘From the eater came forth meat.’’ But naturally there was not meat enough for seventy, and the number worked down inevitably, as revolting oligarchies always work down to organized tyrannies of half a dozen, this being about the number that practically gives a separate sphere of tyranny to each person and makes control so thorough that resistance ‘is im- possible. Green is the financial tyrant. The famous monarch who sat in the parlor and ‘‘counted out his money’’ was a constitutional sovereign, mild, inoffensive and reasonable, by compari- son with him. He is a financial King Canute—only that he has the power, and his word is obeyed. He says that the tide shall not rise, and sure enough it continues low water. @fhe declares there shall not be any light thete is no light. He says there shall be no improvements, and controversy ceases ; that ends it. And this is an intellectual supremacy. Noone but Green is competent to form an opinion. He is the only person who even knows the amount of our public debt. Journalists sometimes have ventured to discuss public financial topics; but they have been properly informed that such con- duct is impertinent, that it is an intrusion and an _ interference for them to even pretend knowledge on such subjects, that only Green has the requi- site knowledge and capacity. Green is useful as an exhibition of the fallacy of reform. Tammany robbed us badly, and the Tammany thieves are all in retirement ; some in retire- ment, more or less elegant, beyond the seas, and others in retirement, not elegant at all, and not the consequence of their volition. But, even in full remembrance of their careers, the people may well pray that Heaven will save us from reformers. Other angles of the financial triangle are Foley and Van Nort. Mr. Van Nort is Commissioner of Public Works, and the most important public work that he can find to attend to, apparently, is what is done at Albany in the Legislature. He is laying some sort of pipe in the lobby there. lobbying at Albany is not strictly within the sphere of Mr. Van Nort’s official duties, and that a regard to the public sense of propriety should restrain official persons from any en- deavor to influence legislation in their favor? Are we so utterly drifted away from political morality that this cannot be per- ceived by the public or by persons in office? Two years ago Foley also ‘‘was an Arcadian.’’ Foley was the friend of Green and Green was the friend of Foley. They had a bond of union stronger and broader than that of the Siamese Twins in their mutual probity and resolution to get into office and stand by one another. They were terrifically upright persons. But Will it be an intrusion to suggest that | that was in the hard and hungry times. Green | is now in office, which changes him, and. Foley is not, which certainly changes him—as They make out papers against one another which are formu- lated and signed, and are altogether so much like the certificates made up to show the honesty and usefulness of a fashionable charity that it is impossible to believe a word of them. Havemeyer is altogether the least aggressive of the tyrants. He is a worthy, respectable old gentleman, and was a tolerable Mayor of the city in the days when life was so quiet and the operations of our political system so even and easy that a well polished old pump-handle with a cravat on might have been depended upon for the discharge of all the duties of the office; but now he is tumbled about hither and thither in the whirlpool of our politics, and remains only to prove Shakespeare’s error in saying that ‘‘when the brains were out the His principal occupation or pastime is to walk about in the evening with his dear friend Matsell, with whom he holds sweet conference on the excellence of the city pavements. They are respectively the good Haroun al Raschid and Giaffar al Barmeki of bar metropolis, and woe to any unfortunate creature whom they in their romantic trips shall catch expressing disrespectful opinions as to the condition of the streets. Mr. Gardner is the tyrant of physical force. All the others are tyrants by indirect applications of power; they oppress usin our rights; Gardner does it in our per- sons. We are sorry that any man in authority over the police should express opinions di- rectly tending to encourage those bad habits of his subordinates which he should endeavor to restrain. The possibility of a new issue of inconvertible paper I regard with amazement and anaiety, and, in my judgment, such an issue would be a detri- mend and a shame,—CHantes SUMNER. Toe Monnisanta Hotocavst AND THE Cor- oner.—Yesterday the public mind was shocked with the account of a terrible fire which bad occurred at Morrisania the day previous. Not since the unfortunate Stinor case, @ few months ago, has anything so heartrending occurred in this city. It is lamentable, in fact, that two such disasters should be possible in a city like New York. The fate which has befallen poor Margarst tanate children aye be buried in the ruins. It is seldom, indeed, that official heartlessness takes so offensive a form. To what are we coming? The cost is the Cor- oner's excuse. [If this is the kind of economy we are to have from our new rulers it is time ‘we were done wit with t them The possibility of a new issue of inconvertible paper I regard with amazement and anxiety, and, in my judgment, such an issue would be a detri- ment and a shame.—CHARLes SUMNER. Our Imereased City Debt and Taxa- tion—Why Should the People Be De- ceived? The taxpayers and business men of New York do not need to be told by Comptroller Green that the rulo of the Tammany govern- ment of 1869-71 was a rule of extravagance, recklessness and robbery. It is because they knew this fact two years and a half ago that they rose up and drove the Tammany office- holders from power, and they are not likely to forget it to-day, whilo Tweed is on Black- well’s Island, Ingorsoll at Sing Sing and many another dishonest official in exile. But when « “reform” administration came into power— indeed, from the moment the control of the finances and the key of the treasury passed out of Tammany hands, we were promised exemption from the payment of another dol- lar of dishonest claima, strict economy in the administration of the government, decreased debt and lessened taxation. We have no reason to suppose that Mr. Green has paid a | single dishonest claim since he has been in office, but the promises of reduced debt and lessened taxation have not been fulfilled. We are now told that their violation is due to the former ‘Ring rule;” that the in- creased debt of 1874, the amount of which the Finance Department appears to be unwilling or unable to tell us, is the “legacy of Tam- many corruption,” and that over $39,000,000 of taxation for the present year, a levy of $3 40 on every $100 of taxable property in the city, is due to the same baneful cause. These pleas are false upon their face. Comp- troller Green and Mayor Havemeyer, who seem incapable of making two financial state- ments that will harmonize, stated in their January Message that $9,717,397 of the in- | crease in the debt was fo “pay old debts,” and in their reply to the Foley memorial they put the amount at $8,943,334. Accept- ing the largest sum as correct, we find the interest at seven per cent on this amount to be a little over $680,000. We are repeatedly told that it requires $3,000,000 more to pay the interest on the debt in 1874 than it required in 1871. How, then, can the increase of the debt be wholly or even mainly attributable to the old Tammany extravagance and corrup- tion? So far as the increased taxation of 1874 is concerned, not a single item of the $39,000,000 which the taxpayers of New York are called upon to pay this year is on account of the Tammany rule of 1871 and the preced- ing two or three years, with the exception of the amount of interest we have named, $680,000. And even this cannot be said to be paid on account of Tammany corruption, without implying that Mr. Green has paid dishonest Tammany claims. “The Board of Apportionment has found it necessary to appropriate $39,218,945 to meet the expenses of government for the present year,’’ says Mayor Havemeyer, in his January Message. Now we are told that, while the tax levy of 1871 was nominally $23,362,527, the actual amount required and which ought to have been levied was $35,730,843. That is to say, the amount of taxation imposed upon the city of New York in 1871, when “sinecures, waste and extravagance’’ abounded in every department of the municipal govern- ment, was in fact $35,000,000. Well, in 1874, when every department of the city govern- ment is in the hands of professed reformers, the taxation is $4,000,000 more than that amount. Of this the taxpayers justly com- plain. “Mr. Green is not to blame,” cry the satellites of that primary financial planet. But Mr. Green is not the whole city govern- ment, and every department is now in the hands of professing reformers, who came into power under pledges of honest administration, decreased expenditures, diminished taxes and reduced debt. The people demand to know why this isthe case. They are put off with false figures made up to impose upon them, or amused with complicated financial problems designed to show that while we owe $30,000,000 | or $40,000,000 more under reform than we owed | under Tammany and pay $16,000,000 more in | 1874 than we paid during the ‘Ring’’ Rule,’’ our expenses have actually decreased $9,000,000 or $10,000,000. Ordinary brains cannot master these intricate calculations, but every man of common sense who owns $20,000 of taxable property in this city knows that while he paid a tax of $400 three years ago he is called upon to pay $680 this year. The people have a right to know exactly | how these heavy expenses are incurred, and there is a plain and simple method of inform- ing them. Last year the large amount of $77,000,000 was drawn out of the city treas- ury through warrants on the Chamberlain. Let us have an account in detail of these warrants, showing the exact amount drawn for each department of the city government. ‘We shall then see practically what the departments cost. Let us have, also, a de- tailed statement of the claims outstanding | against the city; not a mere summary, but the names of claimants, with the character and amount of each claim. Then we shall see how far it is true that we ‘pay as we go.” Let us have a plain, straightforward state- ment of our city debt. The statements here- tofore put forth by the Comptroller and Mayor are incorrect and show either a want of truth or gross incapacity on the part of our finan- cial and executive heads. The taxpayers and business men of the city must see the neces- sity of a thorough investigation of our finan- cial condition and management when they find misrepresentation in all the official finan- | cial statements with which they are supplied, and they should demand such an investigation without reference to the vagaries of John Foley or the personal squabbles between that ‘veformer'’ and his old associates, Green and Havemeyer. — A Succrssor To Cuanues Sumner has not | yet been decided upon by the Maseachusetts Legislature. Two joint ballots were taken Burns and her three little ones will not soon | yesterday, with the simple result, it seems, of be forgotten. should be added to the situation ! Pity that any additional horror | proving that, for the present there are many | conservative body, which was intended by | was it due to ignorance and incapacity on the ‘the fathdis be the balance-wheel of Con- | part of the heads of the financial and execur | gress, is only a fragment of an irresponsible | tive departments of the city government? Yet Cor- | who seck the coveted mantle of the great anti- oner Miller (who is this man?) refuses to | slavery pioneer, but no one sufficiently influen- take steps for the recovery of one of the unfor- | tial to secure the votes necessary to a choice, The Repid Transit Bills-A Test te the Honest Assemblymen, The people of New York are in the hands of the Legislature, and the Legislature appears to be in the hands of the wealthy corporations of the city and State. If Mr. Lincoln, of On- tario, and other gentlemen from the honest rural districts choose to give away the railroad and other franchises of the metropolis, without regard to the wishes or interests of the resi- dents of the city, they have the power to do go. People will entertain their own views of the honesty of the act, despite the rant and fustian of a political clown or the effrontery of an ex- member of an Erie investigating committee. But they are powerless to resist the outrage, and legislative corruption is so shrewdly cov- ered up that, so long as the bold and flagrant perjury of lobby agents is permitted to go un- punished, it is difficult to send the bribed and the bribers to the State Prison, where they onght to ba. Rapid transit is so essential to the people of New York that so long as they secure steam railroads they do not care in what manner they may come. But itis as necessary thatea rapid transit road shall be run for the publis convenience and at low rates of fare as that it shall be built. If we had steam: travel to- day between the Battery and the Westchester | border it would only bea mockery tnless suf- ficient trains were run to meet the publio want and at fares low enough to be within the means of the laboring classes. This is one reason why a Rapid Transit Commission should be appointed, with the power to regulate and control the operation of such roads in the interest of the people. ‘ Mr. Vanderbilt is a practical railroad mas, possesses large wealth and owns two lines of railroad terminating in the city. He manages his railroads, not as stock- jobbing speculations on Wall street, but in a business manner, for the good of the roads and the accommodation of the public. He could, no doubt, give New York such rapid transit as the city needs if he chose to do so, and should he be the coming man who is to solve the problem every citizen would be in favor of giving him as many franchises ag he might desire. But two things are to be guarded against in common prudence, with- out implying any insincerity of purpose to Mr. Vanderbilt. First, we must take care that he does not hold the franchise without building the road, for the purpose of prevent- ing any interference with his present mo- nopoly of steam travel, and next that he does not use the rapid transit road when it is built simply as an extension of his through lines and refuse or neglect to supply the residents of New York with such accommodations as fhey need at low rates of fare. The first danger can be guarded against by making the forfeiture in case of the mnon-con- struction of the road five hundred thousand dollars or one million dollars, instead of only one hundred thousand dollars. If Mr Vanderbilt honestly intends to build the road he will be just as willing to make the for- feiture one million dollars as one hundred thousand, since he knows that the amount will never be forfeited. The second danger can be averted by stating in the bills the minimum number of trains that shall be run on the road per day and the maximum amount of fares that shall be demanded of the passengers. Now, if the members who stand up in the Assembly asserting their honesty with vigor- ous lungs intend to give the rapid transit fran- chise to Mr. Vanderbilt, for his own purposes and his own profit, they will not allow these eminently proper, just and prudent provi- sions to be inserted in the bill. If, on the éther hand, they give the franchise to Mr. Vanderbilt in the interest of the city and for the public good, they will favor these provi- sions and will not suffer the bill to pass with- out them. Their action in this matter willdo more than all their rhetoric to settle the ques- tion of their legislative integrity. The possibility of a new issue of inconvertible paper I regard with amazement and anciety, and, in my judgment, such an issue would be a detri- ment and a shame.—CHARLES SUMNER. The Charity Matinees in the Theatres. New York may well be proud of the mag- nificent charity of her citizens. Thecombined matinée performances organized by a number of the most prominent theatres were given yes- terday with overwhelming success. So gen- eral was the public response that though the houses were crowded thousands were turned away from the doors unable to obtain even standing room. This result must be alike gratifying to the public and to the managers of the undertaking. It is calculated that over thirty thousand dollars has been received at the various houses. This ig certainly a welcome addition to the relief fund, and will secure the distressed part of the community from want until the revival of business shall have rendered charity on a large scale unnec~ essary. The best thanks are due to the artists and managers who have assisted in this lauda- ble work, and to the Police and Fire depart- ments for their co-operation. One of the most pleasing features of the day's charity is the ready assistance given by the public departments in the work of relieving the existing distress. Neither the general public nor the poor who have been directly benefited will be likely soon to forget a conduct which is above all praise. Both the Police and the Fire Department are likely to derive increased popularity from the humanity and the sympathy with the poor which they.have manifested on this occasion. The combination performances given yesterday were peculiarly American in their thoroughness. In charity, aa in all else, our people avoid half measures. Whether they seek to span a continent with a railway or relieve a great @nd overwhelming need they go directly to the end to be attained without stopping to consider the difficulties that lie in their way, and success unfailingly waits upon their energy and enterprise. We may congratulate the people upon the success | of the charitable undertaking of the theatres, because, after all, it is to the generous support of the public that the success is due, and, while | we accord tho highest praise to the artists and managers who gave their ‘services for the noble object of relieving the poor, our beat thanks ate reserved for the ever charitable and generous New York public. Dr. Lrvixastone’s Remars.——The remains of the great missionary and explorer lett Aden on the 23d inst. on board the steamship Malwa for England. The body was preserved in salt and encased in a coffin of lead. All