The New York Herald Newspaper, April 6, 1874, Page 3

WASHINGTON. \Nearing the End of the Finan- cial Agony. THE PRESIDENT SPEAKS. He Will Sign the Inflated Cur- rency Bill. —— —— ‘ The Late Treasury Issue To Be Again Withdrawn. 4 Dim Hope of Specie. Re- sumption. WASHINGTON, April 5, 1874, @Whe Financial Question in the Senate To-Day—Merrimon’s Eight Hundred Million Substitute to Pass—A Strong Battle for Free Banking—Provision for a Return to Specie Payments. The culminating point will be reached in the Senate to-morrow, as relates to what has been done on the financial question, in the adoption of the amenéments offered by Senator Merrimon. ‘These constitute the first and second sections, ‘and, as such, having been moved by him on Fri- day as w substitute jor the whole bill of the com- Mittee, will come up as unfinished business in the Senate to be regularly voted upon now as aSenate bill, The reason has not transpired, in anything which can be gleaned from Senator Sherman, why he was anxious that the financial question should go over until Monday; for if there were @nything in the way of compromise or con- Ciliation to be effected between the op- sides he disavows that any such is definitely known by him, or that any Measure or proceeding contemplating’ such a re- eukt has matured by him or his friends. ‘There is no“dogpt that he ie anxious and exacting about the adoption of some pian for specie re- Bumption, and that he is firmly pledged to con- tinued effort and advocacy in behaif of the success of his five per cent gold bond as a vessel of con- vertibility. On the whole he, as well asa large Bumbver of other Senators, will not be satisfied without the adoption of some additional measures, to be provided in the bill, for the two remaining Most important elements of its efficacy and com- prehensibility, which they contend to be, first, convertibility, and, second, a fixed time at which Bpecie payments shall be resumed. Some of the Senate propose to give these issues the go by for the present, being anxious now only to secure, in ad- ition to what has been done, or to supersede it as far as national bank circulation is concerned, the provision for free banking which they want, with the most liberal circumscription possible. The New York system of free banking is being more and more generally quoted within the last few Gays as the criterion whereby the measure can be Batisfactorily and safely secured to its {mends, A ‘Vete wiil be had to-morrow on the Merrimon sub- stitute, and Senator Sherman will offer some * amendments, as he proposed to do at the tempo- rary dismissal of the finance question on Friday last, looking in the direction of convertibility and specie resumption. But he has nothing to offer which will be acceptable to the majority, and the passing of Merrimon’s substitute, which makes the lumit of the currency $800,000,000, equally divided as to greenbacks and national bank circulation, will comprehend all that will be done, so far as now agreed on. The objection to the Sherman proposition to use @ five per cent gold bond, and the return to specie payments at an early day, is that it increases the public debt and multipites it every time a redemp- tion of notes takes place. It is not thought probable that greenbacks would appreciate to gold by making them convertible into five per cent bonds, The plan is not re- garded by leading Senators as practical, because the bond looks to investment, whereas the object sought is not to provide for investments but to proluce convertibility, Some effort will be made to get back to specie payments; but it will not carry the sapport of the whole majority, because it is jeared that there is such diversity of opinion in the House that to encumber the bill with if See She (Pott = anything beyond the present provisions for an increase to $800,000,000 would be very likely to defeat it in the House, and further, as to Senator Sherman's bill, it is opposed because it complicates things which must be made Plain to be understood, Besides this, there is a measure under consideration which, in all proba- bility, will be offered in the Senate, which con- templates that ‘United States notes shall be re- deemed in gold and silver coin at the Treasury of the United States on and after January 1, 1878, and, for the purpose of suppiying the necessary funds to provide for such purpose, the Secretary is author- ized to reserve and set aside from the surplus revenues, $25,000,000 of gold and silver coin, and if the surplus revenue is net sufictent for such pur- pose the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to sell any part of $100,000,000 of five per cent twenty years gold bearing bonds, for the purpose of procuring coin at the rate of $25,000,000 per annum, tional banks tq retain as part of their reserve a certain amount of the coin received by them as interest on United States bonds, The objection to this plan is that gold will be kept out of the market and the government will hoard it without interest. ‘ihe loss in the way of in- terest, however, it is ««'imated will not exceed $150,000, and is thereiv sum compared with the udvantage of @ return to specie payments. Another objection urged is, that it would produce some scarcity of goid in the market and. possibly an ad- vance in the price of gold. As a set of to this, however, the greenbacks, and therefore the whole of the currency, would continue to appreci- ate and approximate toa gold standard until the day of resumption. It ts said the great objection to this would be that it requires some expense and sacrifice on the part of the government, The answer is that there is no return to specie payment without a sacrifice, and the sacrifice in this case, itis claimed, is as nothing in comparison with the great end to be attained. There 1s reason to believe that Senator Sherman will give his sup- port to such a@-bill as this if no better terms can be secured, but he ts, of course, enthusiastic and ex- acting in regard to the «adoption of his own method, as explained in the second section of the vill originally reported from the Senate Finance Committee. The President on Finance—The Four Hundred Million Act Will Not Change the Authority of the Treasury to Keep ® Portion of the Currency in Reserve— The National Bank Notes—No Veto To Be Expected. The question having been raised whether the President will sign an act increasing the legal tender circulation to $400,000,000, in connection ‘with the proposed increase of national banking capital, it can be authoritatively stated that such @n act will be promptly signed by the Presi- dent, In’ this connection the President has said that the proposed enactment re- specting the legal tender circulation would only be regarded as , definitely settling an interpretation of existing law, about which Members of Congross had honestly differed, but respecting whieh he had entertained no doubt, as evidenced under Mr, Boutwell’s ana his successor’s ‘administration of the Treasury Department. so if Congress should tai! to pass the pending measure the Secretary of the Treasury would be at liberty to use the balance of the legal tender reserve, now a Another provision will require the na | regarded as a trifling | amounting to $18,000,000. He did not see how | this cculd be otherwise, ‘panic came upon the country iast fall there had been accumulated in the Treaguryja currency balance For instance, when the | Of over $13,000,000, which Wee Promptly put out in ure! 88, @ipeediost way of relicv- Ing the r GGrrency. If recomtse conld not have been hadto-the reserve, the tary would have been,Ainder the necessity of coin to obtain thg currency necessary to pay the government indebtedness, or would Save sus- pended currency payments. That there was no doubt -as to the right to issue all or any por tion of the reserve was beat shown by the limitea amount of whe currency balance when the minimum amount of legal tender notes ‘was in circulation, Now that but $18,000,000 of the reserve remained, with no authority to exceed the $400,000,000 limit, It would be necessary to hold it in reserve for any emergency. There was no reason Tor apprehending any further expansion of legal tenders beyond $382,000,000, There had been much criticism as to the power of the Secretary of the Treasury to contract the value of greenbacks. If the proposed act, fixing the amount at $490,000,000, became a law, it would not, as he had already said, change the existing law, and the minimum would Still be $356,000,000, to which point, in his opinion, it could again be reduced. With regard to increas. ing the national banking circulation, the addition Of $46,000,000, with a redistribution of $25,000,000 in accordance with the existing act, would un- douvtedly give those portiong of the country clamoring for inore banking (aciiities all tne capi- tal they needed for years to come, and he haa now No reason to believe that Congreas'would pass any ss measure which would not meet his unguali- fled approval. Winget Termination of the ) of the Alabama Mixed Claims: Commission— Amount To Be Paid the British Govern- ment. A Henry Howard, Esq., late Agent of her Majesty's government, under the American and British Mixed Commission, will disburse the money ‘awarded by it to British claimante—a little less than $2,000,000—which sum is to be paid by the United States to the British government by the 2th of next September, The money will be paid by Mr. Howard to the claimants or their legal rep- Tesentatives, The amount thus to be disbursed is included in the estimates of the Department of State. The business of the Commission was closed to the entire satisfaction of ail its members. Thomas C, Cox, Esq., the late Secretary and Disbursing Officer of the Commission, to-day re- ceived the following letter :— LONDON, FOREIGN OFFICE, March 19, 1874, Sim:—The Mixed Commission having concluded its labors, and your duties in connection with 1t being. terminated, I am directed by the Earl of Derby to thank you on behalf of Her Majesty's gov- ernment for the services you nave rendered as Sec- Tetary to the Commission, His lordship has great pleasure in bearing testi- mony to the ability and impartiaiity with which, ashe is informed, you have discharged very deli- cate and sometimes perplexing duties, and he has no doubt that the successful termination of the la- bors of the Commission in the period allowed by the treaty, was in great measure owing to your efforts. I am your most obedient humble servant, TENTEKDEN. Dividends to Creditors of Insolvent Na- tional Banks. The Comptroller of the Currency yesterday de- clared a dividend in favor of the creditors of the First National Bank of Mansfield, Obio, of twenty-five per cent; also the Merchants’ National Bank of Petersburg, Va., of twenty-five per cent, Dividends were also declared during the month of March as follows:— National Bank of the Commonwealth, New York, fifty per cent; First National Bank of Petersburg, Va., twenty-five per cent; First National Bank of Carlisle, Pa., twenty-five per cent; First National Bank of Washington, D. C., twenty per gent, mak- ing in all a dividend of fifty per eent. A dividend will also be paid to the creditors of the First Na- tional Bank of New Orleans of twenty-five per cent us soon as the necessary schedules can be pre- pared, making. dividends of sixty per cent in ail, to the creditors of that bank, The Financial Bill Amended and Under Consideration in the Senate. The following 18 the Finance bijJ as amended and a8 it now stands before the Senate :— A bill to provide for the redemption and reissue of Unived States notes aad lor free banking. Be it enactea by the Senate and House of Repre- sentatives of the United States of America in Con- gress assembled, Tnat the maximum amount ot United States notes is hereby fixed at $400,000,000, SECTION 2, That $46,000,000 in notes lor circula- tion, in addition to such circulation now allowed by law, shall be issued to national banking associa- tions now organized and which may b@organized hereafter; and such increased circulation shall be distributed among the several States as provided in section 1 o1 the act entitled -‘An act to provide Jor the redemption of the three per centum tem- Porary loan certificates and for an increase of na- tional bank notes,’ approved July 12, 1870, Skc. 3.—fhat each national banking association now organized or hereafter to be organized, shali keep and maincain, as apart of its reserve re- quired by law, one-fourth part of the coin received by it as interest on bonds of the United States de- posited as securtiy for circulating notes on go’ ernment deposits; and that hereafter only one- fourth of the reserve now prescribed by jaw for national banking assoctations shall consist of balances due to an association available for the redemption of its circulating notes from associa- tions in cities of redemption, and upon which balances no interest shall be paid. SEC. 4.—Lhat nothing in this act shall be con- strued to authorize aad increase of the principal oi the Public debt of the United States, CONGRESSIONAL NOTES. er bead Wa The Currency Question and the Tariff— The Proposition to Pay a Portion of the Duties on Imports in Greenbacks a New and and Perplexing Difficulty Between the Two Hous WASHINGTON, April 2, 1 imports, introduced to-day in the Senate as an amendment to the pending bill providing for an inflation of the currency, introduces a new and perplexing difficulty in the settlement of the cur- rency question, Mr. Thurman, of Ohio, offered the amendment that, for tne first year from the pas- sage of this act one-twentieth of the duties of imports shall’ be received in greenbachs, and in the next year one-tenth, and in the third year one-fifth, But this was too tender-footed an approach to our present nigh tariff to satisfy Mr. Bogy, of Missouri, who moved that from and after the 30th June, 1874, one-fourth of the dutics on imports shall be paya- these duties shall be payable in the same legal tenders. He was not frightened by the $130,000,000 of gola which the Treasury required every year to Meet the interest on the national debt; for, in re- ceiving one-fourth or one-half these Custom House duties In greenbacks, they would be so far appre- ciated as to make it profitable for the Treasury to buy the goid balance required to meet the interest on the public debt, THE SCHEME NOT DEAD YET. This proposition of Mr. Bogy, however, was too startling to be thought of just now by the Senate, and even the modest amendment of Mr. 'rhurman, in consideration of the exclusive authority of the House to originate bills to raise revenue, and of the exclusive power claimed by that body to origi- nate bilis affecting the revenue, was (19 to 27) re- jected. Upon the plea that if this revenue amend- ment was inserted in the Currency bill in the Senate the bill would be laid on the table in the House, as involving an invasion by the Senate of the exciusive constitutional rights of the House, many Senators in tavor of the propositiofi voted a@guinstit. But the proposition is not by this process to be got out of the way. It will come up again in toe consideration of this Senate Currency bili in the House, aud by the majority of tne House it may be made, in some shape, a condition of a con- Gece with the Senate upon the passage of the ARGUMENTS FOR THE PROPOSITION. It is contended by the irtends o1 this new Idea of making a portion of the duties on imports pay- able in greenbacks, that the measure, if adopted, will operate to the advantage of the government and the d of the country in every way. It will, in reducing the duties on imports, operate to the general guod o! the masses o: the people in reduc- ing the bounties which they have now to pay to manufacturing monopolies, under the principle of wat is called protection to home industry. It will keep our greeubacks so near the gold standard that it will cost the governments very little to buy the gold balance which may be needed to pay the interest on the national debt. Nay, it is contended by the advocates of @ strictly rpvenue tariff that in making our Custom House duties one-half wyable in greeabacks, the revenues {rom mports Will be increased to the extent of twenty or thirty per cent upon @ gold valuation, as com- pared with the customs receipts for the fiscal year ending 30th of June next. It is contended that the overhment has oo right to make one currency for taeli and another for the people; that the most unjust and the most odious Jeamre A proposition for the reduction of the duties on | ble in greenbacks, and that next year one-nalf of | financial 8 ts that which compels the pay- ment of duties on imports in gold, while various other debts of and to the government, and all pri- vate debts are made payable in wreen as & legal tender. It is contended that this distinction requiring gold for the Custom House Keeps up the premium, and the Muctuations in the premium on old, more than anything else; that it maintains ap army of gold and stock gamblers who other- wise would be driven to more Lonest employments for a ving. WHAT WILL BE CONSUMMATED ? Now the Senate has voted for a volume of paper money of $400,000,000 in greenbacks and }, 000, 000 in national bank notes, and that there shall be no redemption of the greenbacks in five per cent gold bearing bonds, and that there shali be no hoarding of gold in the Treasury to create & fund as o basis for 3} ie payments three or four years hence; and i there ahuli be uo locking up by the Treas- ury Of the proposed $800, 000,000 of our national car- rency (fot counting the iractional currency) ; that ther ali be no redemption in gold at less than @ dollar for a doliar and no preparation to fedeqm even § dollar; cy a short, there shail be duly ga, indanon dr thé durrency to the éxtent of 100,000, ore or leas, to distripuved chiefly among the Western and Southern States, and so far we have, no doubt, the law that will be passed on the currency at this session of Congress, REVISION OF THE TANAPF, Pye: revenue ne men of ie rete and pout 0 resen| h protective tarif, Rade ae haere to the grams ae of the peopie by the law exacting the payment of these taxes in goid, and upon this question when this Senate vill on the currency ii be taken up in the House you may look ior @ general overhaul ing of all the 'u ‘alities of our whole budget of taxation, internal and external, that will materi- ay affect the final settlement upon the Currency The Two Houses on the Currency Ques tion—Retrenchment and Taxation— The Coming MHlections for the Next Congress and the Game of the Infla- tionists—The President's Position. . WASHINGTON, April 3, 1874, The country must learn to be patient. Tho people must remember that Rome was not built in @ day, and that bills to regulate our present com- plex paper currency system cannot be passed inside of a discussion of five or six months’ dura- tion. Week after week, for five or six weeks past, we have been promised a settlement upon the Cur- rency bill in the Senate. We were, without the probability of a failure, promised a settlement this week of some sort; but the religious duties of Good Friday were interposed, and so the Currency. bill goes over as the unfinished regular order of the day to Monday. And so for four months (not counting the Christmas and New Year’s Con- @ressional holiday vacation) the Senate has been adjourning over from Friday to Monday next. DRIFTING TOWARD THE END, But simply by drifting the Senate has, mean- time, so far advanced towards its destination that before the second Saturday in April we shall have to record the passage of a bill for the relief of the country upon the currency question. It will be such relief as an additional hundred millions or more to our paper currency is calculated to give— the relief of @ paper money inflation—the relief which more whiskey brings to the sufferer from delirium tremens, The bill as already agreed upon provides for four hundred millions of green- backs and four hundred millions of national bank notes as the volume of our paper currency here- after, and ior iree banking under such conditions a8 will probably be equivalent ‘toa hundred mil- lions more, exclusive of fiity mulions and more of iractional currency. INFLATING THE BALLOON. The House, witn its patience at last exhausted, in waiting upon the convenience of the Senate the House boiling over with patriotism, has mean- time gone to work for itself aeons @ currency bill, hammer and tongs. The members of that- noisy body, primed with their important financial facts and statistics and arguments and conclusions, have for several days, one member aiter another, heen repeating the treadmill round of the Senate; and though they ser keep (the mill going for several days yet, it 1s still possible that under the invaluable proyious question, they may get olf acurrency bill before the slow coaches of the Senate come to an agreement upon their pending amendment on free banking. Unquestionably, we think, that during the coming week the new currency balloon, which the Senate is getting into shape, will be floated over the House, and that after a brief detention in that body, it will be | oated back to the senate, stretched to the point of a collapse, with its increased supply of gas. Now the chances are more ten to one that this prodigious paper balloon Will be set afloat over the country, for the opponents of inflation in Congress entertain but little hope as & last resort, of a veto irom the President. ci, the apprehe: sions awakened among the inflationists o! the pos- sibility of a veto in the event of an extreme meas- ure of expansion, may restrain Mr. Morton and | his followers within comparatively reasonabie bounds, the redemption of the public debt that he cannot look with indiffererfce upon any bill proviling tor an inflation of our paper currency. It is said here that his present visit to New York has at least jor one of its objects a consultation with certain lead- ing capitalists, bankers and business men there, upon this currency question, and upon the present condition of the business affairs of the country, East and West. THE TARIFF, TAXATION AND THE ELECTIONS. The opinion now prevails among the republicans here tnat there will be no material modifications this sesston, if any, of the tariff or internal revenuo laws; that the proposition to lighten the tariff taxes by making a portion of them payable in greenbacks, will be defeated if brought forward, and that in cutting down the regular appropria- tions to @ saving in the aggregate of some $20,000,000, the Treasury may keep its head above water another year without an in- crease of our taxations, on the land or on the sea. ossible, to tax as lightly as possible, and fo ©6float the country delightiully on the smooth waters of inflation until we pass through the elections of the coming autumn for the next Congress, and then this Congress may proceed to supply deticiencies in appropriations andin taxes. But as itis thought that inflation will serve better for present political necessities than contraction, inflation 1s the word, and pay day will be postponed tiil after these Congressional elections. POLITICAL MOTIVE OF THE GAME. The immediate effects of a general inflation of the currency, it is believed by the Western leaders of the republican party, will be such a general reaction of prosperity as will delight the people and cause them to rally again, as in 1872, around the republican candidates for Congress; put after the elections the people must look out for them- selves, The whole game of this session will soon, in this direction, be disclosea, What Will Be Done with Cheap Trans- portation—State Rights in the Senate— The Louisville Canal—Steamship Sub- sidies — Unprofitable Retrenchment — Negro Despotism in South Carolina— “Old Andy” in Search of Jay Cooke. ‘ WASHINGTON, April 4, 1874, When the Senate shall have disposed of the | pending currency bill, if not sooner, the commit- tee on the subject of cheap transportation wilt submit @ report, or rather several reports, em- bodying the different opinions of the members of the committee touching the powers of Congress in the regulattom of commerce “among the States,” and the extent to which Congress may interpose in the regulation of the railroads of the country, There will, from present indications, be a majority of the committee against the House bill of Mr. McCrary, on constitutional grounds, and a ma- jority of the Senate from the outset. Should these subjects be taken up In the Chamber for a regular discussion, in view of some legislative measure, we shall doubtless have a pow-wow on the powers and duties of Congress over commerce and on State rights, which, unless interrupted by an adjournment sine die, will go on to the middle of August. It 18 probable, therefore, that after some skirmishing, this great question of the gen- eral regulation by Congress of the freights and fares of the railways of the Unitea States will be permitted to go over among the unfinished buei- ness of this session to the short session, which wilt begin in December next. At present there is no prospect of any agreement between the Senate ‘and tpe House upon any bill for the regulation of the railroads, and least of all upon the bill of Mr. McCrary, which proposes to give to a high joint commission of nine men a discretionary power over railway charges equal to that of the Czar of all the Russias. THE LOUISVILLE CANAL. The Louisville Canal, through which steamboats and other Ohio River craft pass round the falls of that river (a descent of twenty-two feetin the course of three miles), has been a white clephant to the government for many years. It has cost the Treasury between five and six millions of money. It has for some yea belonged to the government, excepting five shares of the stock, each of the nominal vatue of $100, under which the canal is managed by these five stockholders as trustees, and yet It appears that the ablest lawyers of the Senate cannot determino whether the canal is subject to the autuority of the United States or the State of Kentucky. Meantime, fifty cents per ton Is levied upon every The President is so strongly pledged to | The republican programme is to retrench as lar as | = | cially the Bpiscopal and. Catholic ones, At St. | through the canal, and torelieve the river trade of this heavy toll the Senate passed a bill providing for the purchase of those five outstanding shares Of the stock, so that the government in assuming absolute control of the canal inay reduce the tolls toareasonable figure. The louse amended this bill by providing—First, for a consenting act from the Legislature of Kentucky in reference to the transfer, but as this provision, if adopted, will de- lay the transfer for two years—that is, till the next meeting of the Kentucky lature—the Western Senators pi against this needless delay. ‘They will on the faith of existing contracts carry their point, ory ® heavy appropriation Will still be required cure to the govern- ment the absolate contro! of its own property, for which it has already paid over $5,000, This Louisville canalj affords another example of the Neecing to which the government sy entering a8 @ partner any Jolnt aioe] ry 0] a costs of the enterprise are drawn from the na- jonal treasury and the proiits are pocketed by the other parties, THE WRETCHED bared A Tesolution has been adopted in the Honse re- citing the fact that in the last Congress Le Grand Lockwood had testified that large sums of money had been pala to secure the passage of a Pacitic mail ee subsidy, and that the House had ected the Ways and us Oommittee to inves- ate the same and report thereon, but the evi. dence of said investigation having been deposited with the Clerk of the House, said committee are directed to reinvest te the matter and report the resulte {0 te jouse. The meaning of this resolution at this being a Congress of retrench- ments, no steamship, telegraph or railroad subsi- dies will be tolerated for the present. in face except upon little private bills this has bet! far, and promises to be to the end, the poorest and most profitiess seagion to the lobby since the economical administration of John ieee Adams, Even the bills for the relief of the widow of Captain Hall, of the Polaris, and of the survivors of that ill-fated expedition, hang fire, as if the saving of the small sums of money involved were the main question with this retrenching Congress. THE FRUITS OF SHAM RETRENCHMENT, But, while the retrenching committees of the two houses are cutting down army, navy, Indian and other regular appropriations to a saving in the aggregate of nearly $20,000,000 upon the original estimates, the executive departments are sending in unlooked-for deticiencies which will have to be provided ior. But the deficiencies of the next session will inevitably show that the re- trenciiment of this 'session is a delusion and a snare and @ mere trick of buncombe for election- eering purposes, the savings in some cases result- ing in hedvy losses to the government. NEGRO DESPOTISM IN SOUTH OAROLINA, There is a gathering of Southern newspaper editors in Washington in the form of a couven- tion, and a delegation of the fraternity have volunteered to watt upon the Judiciary Commit- tee of the House in opposition to the memorialists of the South Carolina Taxpayers’ Convention. ‘The case is very plain, There are 400,000 blacks tn the population of South Carolina against 300,000 whites. The whites own the property and pay the taxes; but the blacks, having the power, levy the taxes and divide the profits among themselves and their friends, under the direction of their. friends, the white carpet-baggers, Thus South Carolina presents an example of popular sover- eignty and a despotism based on a pop- ular majority—the most unscrupulous and the most oppressive to the minority of ail the despousms on the face of the earth. And the Worst ol it ts that jor this vicious and reckless despotism there appears to be no remedy except rebellion. There will surely be no remedy applied by Congregs, for here the piea of State rights will be held as-conclusive. ANDY’S VIEWS. Ex-President Johnson.is here again, looking after that litle matter of some seventy thousand dol- lars deposited in the bank of Cooke & Company | when hat firm were supposed to be as good as a | old mine. The ex-President however talks as ‘eely as ever with his triends on pubiic affairs, and gives it as nis opinion that Congress has beep and still is, in its financial expedients, “sowing | the wind to reap the whirlwind,’’ STER ON THE AVENUE AND IN THE PARK. ad tt ES Although much of the blustering spirit of that rude roysterer, March, was in the air yesterday and but little of the tearful gentleness of April, yet neither dust, wind nor cold could daunt the fair church goers, who were determined to be out on the fashionable promenade on Easter Sunday, of all days in the year. There was little, however, to designate the latest spring styles, as seal skin jackets and warm wraps were in the ascendant and veils were necessary to prevent red noses and | chapped lips. Now and then, however, we en- countered a full Medged representative of Dame Fashion, who had discarded the styles or the winter | and had emerged in new redingote, flower-laden hat and close-ttting skirts. From Washington Park to Central Park the handsome thoroughtare | was crowded in the afternoon, and as the services | of each church were closed hundreds of fair prome- naders swelled the gay throng. In the Park | wind and cold seemed not to have any terrors tor | the Easter devotees of fashion, for they were to | be met with everywhere. Down the spacious Mall, bieak and uninviting yesterday, on the banks of | the lake, around the Arsenal and its howling denl- | zens, and through many a devious path in the | Ramble, they constantly were to be iound, and if the air lent an additional color to their cheeks, such a8 no cosmetics could produce, no one’ could complain. As a new tollet is indispensable | tor Easter Sunday—oue large firm in this city bav- ing sent out several hundred new spring suits on Saturday night to impatient customers—the various churches were orilliant toa degree. Tho | beautiful chip bonnets, with their elegant floral ornamentation, attracted the principal share of attention, When the weather becomes more seasonable and something like spring is enjoyed vhere will be @ more favorable opportunity to | speak of the new te ages as they appear on the ave- nue andin the Park on a Sunday afternoon; but | Weather such as that of yesterday is calculated to vie the fashions of the past winter for a while | jonger. EASTER SERVICES IN NEWARK, | | Services unusually attractive, together with the | beautitul weather, occasioned crowded congrega- tions yesterday in all the Newark churciies, espe- | Patrick's Cathedral, in the forenoon, mass was cel- | ebrated by Bishop Corrigan and a sermon preached | by Very Rev. G. H. Doane, V.G. In the course of | his sermon Father Doane dwelt on the beneficent | results of the mission closed last Sunday, under the conduct of the Kedemptionist Fathers. Seven thousand persoas had been led back to their re- ligious duties and confession. The music at St. | Patrick’s yesterday was very fine, the feature being | Millard’s ‘mass. At the House of Prayer, Christ | | Of these savage masks, KING KOFFEE’S AUCTION. The Spoils of Coomassie Sold by the English. “BARBARIC PEARL AND GOLD.” Fine Display of Costly Curios and African Works of Art, er ee “GOING,” “GOING,” “GONE Aggry and Popo Beads, Implements of War and Rude Gold Ornaments. MACARTHY’S TANKARD. [Cape Coast Castle (February 28) correspondence of the London Telegraph.) Never, I suppose, was loot so miscellaneous as that we brought down irom Coomassie. Many times, in one or other hemisphere, has an English | army sacked some barbarous capital and carried | off the treasures stored therein, but never such, I with tanocenee and and thrust oat hand to receive the “Money! ‘cxeleimed the clerk, Amase- ment, perplexity and contusion. Clerk and ‘pur- chaser screera s duet for some minutes, and back ie latter on borrowing bent; comes alter five minutes, with three and sixpence. oi contac, ian pune at tees Sot i pavty By . ager retires. again hot, very much crush: ne Paes be 4 ed, Phant, ‘Shilling by shillin, ' counts out threepenny ing, over ay ah eight. “1 want three shillings more! shouts the angry clerk. Impossible! The coins are reckoned again, and yet again, but si all’ they only twelve shillings. Vastly inaighant, as it a ae peneene anes @ fourth journey jong absen with pan, es ce reappears panting GOLD ORNAMENTS, ARMOR AND THE MACARTHY is TANKARD, --- Of Course, the sale doesn’t stop for such small of skull caps or helmets are offered, One pf them, biack leather, adorned with thick gold plates, fecches £10, but a second, magnificently decorated with figures and armed tor the fight, reaches £26, Two pretty shells of thick gold, weighing eight ounces, are reasonable enough at £31 10s. Brace- lets and knicknacks jouow, curious and valuable,! but il] made; such as gold shells, goid network, shapeless bits of gold, These run at £8 to £10 the ounce. The smallest of the masks iy then put up—a ideous = object, bus. weighing twenty-three ounces of Ly gold, and not very dear, therefore, at £102, We have no hint a8 to the use of these things, four of which have been brought down, ‘They are too small for @ man to wear, and have, besides, no apertures for sight or breathing. ne King’s knife is ofered—a common blade enough, but worn in ® sheath heavily plated with goid, goid hilted, and carryt @n appendage of nuggets and charms by four gol chains. It welghs Dearly twenty ounces, knije and hilt left out, andthe buyer certainly secured @ cu- think, as those we found in the Ashantee Palace, An Indian rajah has precious stones, rich furni- ture, an,endless variety of valuable rubbish. China nas silks and porcelain and works of antique art. | More savage nations offer curios alone, But } Ashantee loot is unique. One seeks among it | for some cheap trifle, to be valued omy | as @ souvenir, in the precious metals. You want a work of art, and the solitary specimen in stock is priced at £100, Then, thinks the specu- lator, I will buy some of these gold ‘nuggets, some some of these barbarous | ornaments, at cost price of metal. But lo! goid | has gone up to £3 10s. the sovereign, and the speculator retires dismayed from the competition. ‘Thinks he, I must get beads or silken cloths; but here comes in the wary native, and while he hesi- tates to risk a sbilling on some ancient string of | beads that black lady in his rear has offered | pounds, Unless the speculator’s purse be abnor- | mally long he soon withdraws from a contest in | which he couid only hope to buy something valu- able at three times its worth, or to buy what Eng- lishmen call trash at its mere weight in ggid, A SOLID BASIS—GOLD AND DIAMONDS, For the Ashantees have but one metal for orna- ment, and their notion is to use it freely, and they know but one precious stene, the Aggry beau. | Thelr silken cloths, only useiul to us for counter- panes or tablecloths, are made to last three gen- | erations, bandsome to the end. Their gold is | either too big tor ordinary purses, or, if in simail bits, is ron up by competition to sixty shillings the sovereign weight; and their cloths have only | an adequate value for those who wear things simi- | lar. Thus it happens that white man and na- tive stare amazed at each other’s bidding in such a sale, “What!” ories the former; ‘£5 for that dirty | old rag, worn and torn and discoiored ; £20 for that | string of old chipped beads?” What!’ mutters the iatter; “a string nugget weighing but one and | | @ half ounces going at £10!” And each thinks the otuer mad. Oi course it isn’tso. The white man is snapping at a chance of getting some souvenir at the price he can afford; the black is making an excellent bargain. White and black don’t under- stand each other, nor never will. But each be- haves reasonably enough according to the end he has in view. It 18 merely a contradiction which must occur in the auction of Ashantee loot. There were Many hesitations before the sale was fixed to take place here. Most of the officers interested had an iaea that London would give better prices, And it was too certain that ail could not be present. But I feel sure that the General's ultimate decision was a wise one. The cloths and the Aggry beads which make such a re- spectable figure in our total, would have goue ior less pence 1p England than the crowns tuey have the gold could bly have realized more than it has. London will enjoy its chance when the King’s regalia are sold; his bracelets—a score of them, laces, \etishes, nodescript articles, all of gold. To offer such things to us here was obviously absurd, No soldier’s purse could afford him a keepsake worth £200 or £300 at the Mint. So the indemnity jewels were withdrawn, and our sale has been confined to the loot actually taken at Coomassie, given up by oMeers or retaken from Fantee car- riers on the road down, SCENES IN THE SALEROOM. A very handsome show it made, when set out for view in the palaver hall of the Castie last Sun- day. This hail, where poor Sir Charles Macarthy held his last court, where Mr. Maclean—that man much maligned—held quiet councils and gave cool orders, which kept peace along all this coast when nota soldier stood at hts back—this hall has tor months past borne a label at its door, “Transport Oftice.” The apartment 1s solidly built and loity, whitewashed ali over except on the green painted door jambs and the jrames of its eight big win- dows, Fifty leet by thirty, perhaps, it measures, | At the upper end a small council chamber opens irom it, in which, be sure, an anxious group has Whispered eagerly together, while the hall with- out was filled with aifrighted chieis, and through the windows came the sharp, faint smell of Ashan- tee fires. That is allover now. Never again will defenders of Cape Coast Custie run to their posts trate in utter fear, Never again will Ashuntees swarm to the Castle wall, and shoot the gunners in their embrasures, For all that table load of Santastic gear is the spoil of invincible Coomassie, the ghttering helmets of 118 King, the ornaments of his court, the fetishes in which he trusted, the accoutrements of his ancestors, the drums and horns which struck terror in the foe; perhaps tie umbrellas unfurled not once nor twice against this Castile itself are there, or buried im the rubbish heap once called the Palace. Fantee girls whis- per and laugh, examining these trophies which to see would have been death three months ago. The sword has passed over Ashantee, the spoil has been gathered, and 1t remains only to divide it, THE “LOOT”? LAID OUT FOR PURCHASE. church and Trinity, all Episcopal, there were very large congregations. As usual on Easter, the altars | or all the churches were richly adorned with lowers, THE “OVERCOAT” THIEF. To THe EpiTor or THE HERALD:— For the past five or six months this precinct, as well as others, has suffered from the depredations of a colored man, who, under the plea of poverty, went toa number of private houses in this and | other precincts, delivered a note asking for assist- | ance to whoever would answer the bell, stating that he desired it to be delivered to the occupant of the house, and when the servant had departed upon her mission he would strip the hall rack and Inake Off with whatever clothing might be hanging upon it. On Friday evening last, at about | | | | half-past eight o’clock, Officer Pratt, of this station - Lana r of this note), succeeded in arresting a colore jan, who gave the name of Thomas Kutus, operated in the manner above stated len an overcoat from the hall of Kast Twenty-fiith street, occupied by But we are unable to make a case James T, Cox, against him, owing tovthe fact that the servant to Whom: he delivered the note only caught a partial glimpse of bis features, and, though she is almost ositive that he is tne ht man, yet would not ike to swear to it, and he has been remanded to the station house so as to enable us to obtain fur- ther evidence. Now, I would like you to be kind enough to make his arrest public through the coi- umns of your journal, asking that parties who have lost overcoats in the manner above stated would call at this station to-morrow morning (6th mst.) for the purpose of oer whe him, as | am certam that he ts the party who Is ty Of all similar robberies which have tagen place In tho upper part o/ this city for phe pest aiX months, ‘ EDWARD TYNAN, Captain hteenta precinct, PROBABLE FRATRIOIDE Anto-Mortem Statement. At alate hour on Saturday night Coroner Wolt- man was called to Bellevue Hospital to take the ante-mortem statement of Richard Hicktoe, & youth of nineteen years, who was very dangerously stabbed by his elder brother, John, at their rosi- dence, No, 27 Thompson strect, It appears that they were pitching pennies about half-past nine o’clock on Saturday evening, when John ran out the door and Richard on coming in came in con- tact with a knife nis brother held in his nand and was badly cut, Richard was attended by a police surgeon and then taken to the hoapital, The wounded youth attaches no biame to his brother and says ho was ag much to blame as John. In their verdict the jury exonerated Jobn from any intention of mjuring bia brother, The wound {a in the left side and tt i foared wit! prove fatal; in fact Richard himscif has little if any hope of recovery, NAVAL INTELLIGENOE, The Wabash at Havana. | and gold, Aqutnst a broad screen bung swords and cartouche | | @ misceliany of odds and ends was piied. A sketch of the display would lead me into much repetition, having to describe the sale ltsel!, It need only be said that the long centre table was covered aa thickly ag it could bear with jewelry On a side table stood the King’s plate, belts of leopard skin, canes with nuge silver heads, | Calabashes bouna tn goid and silver, and embossed brass pans. Beneath lay the stouls, so placed that their tine silver bosses and adornments could all be seen in one glittering display. Under ire eras e other end of the room cloths and silks were dis- posed, neatly wrapped and labelled, one on another, undreds of them. rize agents—Captains Buller and Grosvenor and Dr. Fagan, R. N.—had shown considerable taste in the arrangement of their stores; but it is easy to make a fine display of things tastetully colored, And gold is always pretty, AGGRY AND POPO BEADS. Up to the last it was doubtful whether the heaps of beads contained any of those precious and mys- terious kinds called Aggry aud Popo, ‘The Fantee interpreters and clerks assisting unanimously de- clared each bead suomitted to their judgment to be “Braummagem;” but the prize agents called the ladies of Cape’ Coast to their aid, and it speedily was announced that hundreds of the finest sorts would be found among our plunder. Great excitement followed this discovery; tor an Agery bead is to a Fantee woman -—or, indeed, to @ Cape Coast lady—what a diamond is to us. ‘he sale opened on Monday, at half-past ten A, M., with the disposal of the cloths and silks, Few officers put in an appearance, or only showed tuemseives to go away on learning the matter in hand. But the hall was crammed with natives, those of the better class, and the ladies standing be- hind a rope stretched between the two doors, THE SILKS, though all worn, all dirty and many ragged, fetched fair prices, Tuey were mostly dark of ground, with @ width of checkers and stripes worked on them at intervals, Some specimens of real em- broidery turned up, generally birds or monsters in needlework upon an English silk. The native ioom | will only spin & breadth of about four inches, each |-of which mast be sewn together, The highest price [ saw given was £6 108, fora dark brown wrapper worked in long triangles of black and green and white, very dirty. A most curious piece, embroidered with strips of leather, very thin, odicer for eighteen shillings. A robe o! dark GREEN VELVET, cheokered in the native loom ‘apparently, drew £8 168. from @ colored gentleman, who, when asked for the money, loudly and proudly declared that he was One of the justices of the peace for Anamaboo, I think this price would be about the average of the silks, Alew COTTON CLOTHS Next were so'd, finding purchasers among the oorer class at the back of the hall. They bid eager- ly, Keeping up an excited chatter whieh no effort of the prize agents could stop. Your Fantee cannot talk; his utterance is always a scream or whine. | Amusing littie scenes took piace during this Bopu- | lar part of the entertainment, The money often Proved to be not forthcoming, and that iamous farce, “Lend Me Five Shillings,) was performed at the top of their voices by hulf a dozen excited comedians at once. One droll litte scene I HAVANA, April 5, 1874, The United States steamer Wabash bas arrived Aan_orcacys Lsieampeat parge kee, fatbost or rats paging | here, watched. A cotton cloth put up drew the win- ning bid of fifteen shillings—cheap enough, tov, ‘The collecting clerk made his voice heard above the uproar, “Who bought thst’? Beaming but there is no tride except | ®t | sword, with handle tnickly plated in gold, which | few or none in the room that know its presenc | fetched at the Coast, and no one can suppose that | weighing four or five pounds pure metal—his neck- | over living bodies, packe too close to move, pros- | white, aud fastened only at one end, went to an | riosity at £114, rings of gold, weighing half ap go at £5 apiece. en a handsome necklace appears of gold charms and Aggry beads and scarlet feathers, Which was knocked down for £5. More golden absurdities at @ killing price, and we reach tne stools above spoken of. The handgsomest, a beautiful piece of furniture, snow white, delicately carved, and bound on every mde with silver embossed work, cannot be called dear when the oldest and poorest fetches hall thas. mmoney. The most beautiful of all the stools dis- covered goes to England ag a present to the Prince of Wales, and it will pot be out of place, however Magnilicent its surroundings. After an ancient the Russian prince buys at £10 108., and a war horn of ivory, quite plain, which brings £8 to the fund, we adjourn half an hour for lunch, On returning I find that the native element has: vanishea and comfort reigns, Captain Buller, perched on a table, is selling PLATE. That fine old Queen Anne tankard which I now Uced in the palace has sold for £15, aud the atten- tion of the public is directed to another, less an- cient, but curious, which brings £10. Other fne oid bits of plate command long prices. There is & side dish of great age, mended by native gold< smiths im every part, which seems to be rather’ dear at £61108, but there may be connoisseurs among us, A tine old coffeepot, worn into Ser by years not use, having no handle and not mu spout, produces £16 158., while two neat little cans dlesticks, not marked, and possibly of native make, go (or £6 10s, Sir Charles Macarthy’s drinking et a covered tankard, weighing twenty ounces odd, is bought in all innocence for £10, for there ard among our loot. Not for some hours after is inquiry, made, and the purchaser knows his good fortune. The initials can with diMiculty be made out, but, when tue clew isgiven, “Mac.” 19 apparent to/ the most sceptical, and caiticlsm concentrates; itself upon the first letter, wbich, indeed, may bi anything. But it bas always been anderstood tha’ the cup, which was a fetish drinking vessel of thet King and his ancestors, bore Sir Cuarles’ initials, and the coincidence would be strange if he pos< sessed another tankard so old ard so valuable en~ graved “Mac C.” It has been mended at handle. Afver the plate was sold, or engug! of it for the day, the “gallery” - interes’ languished among innumerable golden toys, not pretty nor very curious, but inorainately % under such competition. The girdle of tne oe | executioner, a beit of large silver sheaths, @m| | and never meant to bear knives, fetched oni: £6 168,, though it Was one of the most extraordi~ | mary objects sold, ‘this girdie is worn over eee | shoulder of that great oficer—a hideous jan we saw bim in Coomassie—when he appears befo! | the King on ordinary occasions. But when His Majesty 1s out of temper, or.when he means War, | the executioner buckled it round nis waist. ‘Tne! | King’s collection of engravings, some of them very’ | tne old prints, sold reasonably well at from £7 108., to £1. The cheaper articies were colored litho~ | graphs of women in national dress, such as any- where may be seen. And the first day’s sale ent BEADS. Next morning, as had been announced, the dis- tribution of beads his and the women of Airica mustered strougly. Itd{d not appear to the ob- | Server that these dames could have need of more | Aggrys or more gold, But whether they neede more or not, more they were resolved to bave, only they could be got at that elastic price which’ ladies call a bargain. And there were biack men, | too, of the class which sports hite hat and a twopenny umbrella; but few officers. The sale began at hall-past ten A. M., but before telling its accidents I must refer to terday, when | anac- countably omitted to describe the oddest article of our loot. Thuis was & crowded group of figures, | eight inches by two, in bronge or copper, show- | ing the King’s procession on his State turough Coomassie. In front are armor bearers | and people prostrate. Then the executioners and | attendants, each portrayed with his appropriate emblem—that 1s, 1 suppose they were portrayed and appropriate; but the dirt lay so thick on this | unique effort of African art that one cannot speak | wita certainty. Then the King, borne upon heads | of slaves, witn his great umbrella over him. After him chiefs, under less umbrellas, and 1 nD, slaves and populace, It was indeed a most ex- | traordinary moulding, full of spirit, and such as! one cannot believe to have come from negro | The Russian Prince bought it for £100, Let us re-| turn to the Aggry beads. No one exactly knows wuere this pearl of West Africa was It is cug from the earth somewhere in the interior, and forms part, no doabt, of sepuichral ornaments, Endless are the patterns upon the ground color, | stripes and spots and rosettes, and a little device | which looks lke @ flower. Most observers have | concluded that the material is a | many belteve that the pattern ts | saic work. It certainly goes all thro: peculiarity it 18 which drives European imitators, to their wits’ end, But I feel periectly sure thas) the mosaic appearance is caused only by imn lapse ol time, during which the bead has been ex. | posed, without protection, to the disintegration | earthly salts. And the material 1 Mf evel glass there was, fact, the y | 8o famous and 80 valuable, is of that | stance which has been called “Egyptian poi lai,’ and every Nile traveller has had offered bi | for sixpence a dozen of the beads worth five ten shillings a piece on the West Coast. Bufficient on this score. There are thousands of the British Museum, and vases and “tear in the same substance. There have been th | Who wrote big folios to prove that the Muren | Vase, far famed, was only @n elaborate spect | of the Aggry manufacture. Our Coomassie certainly sold well. The highest price given for string numbering fifty perhaps was £24—n £19 103. The lowest rate I observed was £7 78, i seventeen of them. A neckiace of beads and co | which cost an officer of Russell’s regiment £18 108, consisted of twenty-tive large bits of an | twelve very large Aggrys, the space between fill up with imitations. 1 heard t ho”, was offere: | £6 168, for the rys alone. Another neck smaller, had twenty-three beads of fine red co! nearly an inch long each, with seventy-seven smal! | Aggry beads between, tt went for £11, and th | lucky buyer instantly sold his useless i nearly the amount he had just paid. our operations were too quick and too heavy the mative dames. They had brought gold di and scales to weigh their beads, just as would buy them irom each other; ap roughly estimated at its weight in gold. Suc slow proceedings were of course imposaiple, an: those who had money and quick decision reapey @ profit, I have no doubt, Some Popo beads were offered, but the best ket for them is lower ror by Lagos. The is also found in the earth. 1t is giass,, nd pute, blue in snadow and yellow in the light. For line strings were bought in at £2 the ounce wei ang an inadequate price ; but at Cape Coast the > bid was £1 1ts. A bracelet, conta! beads, with two or three chips of gold, fi shillings or thereabouts, subsequently sold for £, GOLD DUST MBASURES. An hour afterwards was occupied with the s: of those quaint brass weights which Ashanti and Wassaws use for measuring gold dust, were cast in every possible form—fshes and ons and gates and swords and guns and ini i Napnenpag But the commonest was the ht skull. ° ALLEGED | | VIOLATOR OF UNITED STA’ LAW IN NEWARK, Joaquim Robdiljo, a gentlemanly looking Cul | has been arrested in Newark, and i@ now held {] examination, on a charge of violating the Jaws in selling cigars in bundles without being stamped, Lewis Sambo was also | charged with counterietting five cent pieces. was arrested before and held in $600, On the charge he was heid in $3,000 to await the tue United States Grand Jury at Trenton, THE PURSUIT OF PAPER MONEY, Allan A. Burton, of Illinois, farmerly Uni Minister to Colombia, while pursuing @ hack driver in Sixth avenue yesterday fellon the pavement, dislocating his right der. Mr, Burton haa been taking a ride in Cent; Park, and on tendering the driver a bill in ment the latter attempted to make off wit The driver was overnauicd C but, as he pretended he was goin: changed, he was released,