The New York Herald Newspaper, April 18, 1874, Page 6

6 NEW YORK HERALD BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR. 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. anhause: .--Mo. 108 Volume XXXIX AMUSEMENTS THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING ——>—_—_- MRS, CONWAY'S BROOKLYN THEATRE, ashing! ar Fulton street, Brooklyn.— Foe hocktrats PM. :closesatil P.M. Mr. and Mrs. Barney Williams. Matinee at2P. OLYMPIC VHEATRE streets — | Broadw: aston an se VAUDE VLE Mind, NOVELTY. EareeiAieaey, at 7:46 P. M. closes at 10:45 P.M. Matinee at 1:30 P.M. GRAND OPERA HOUSE, twenty third street-—THE TICKET- cha Ve MAN bar ap 4 closes at ll P.M. Matinee 190 P.M. *eithw Mr. and Mrs. Florence. ROADWAY THEATRE, > Washiny pen piace.—H mer vat aOR Ces at LN ‘M.; closes at LP. M. x. Matinee at 1:30 P. M. ESy ‘Bri Di ot Po: BOOTH'S THEATRE, f Twenty-third street.—ZIP, at orn. Soloees | maticsoe’s Lota, Maunee at130P. M. BROOKL’ RK THEATRE, eat Brookiyn LA MARJOLAINE, at 8 EPRENNiaes ae’ r. me Fanny Fosier. Matinee’ at? | ToT. DETECTIVE, nd VARIETY —THE LITTLE a ENTERTAINMENT. Begins at 8 P. M.; closes at 11 P. M. METROPOLITAN THEATRE, No. 585 Broadway, —VARIETY ENTERTAINMENT, at 7:45 ¥. M.; closes at 10:3) P. M. Matinee at 2 P. NIBLO'S a, wtedete: mace Bi ‘ay, between Prince and Houston strects.—! CROCKET!. ats PM closes atld:0 YM. Mr. Frank Mayo. Matinee at | :30 P. LYCEUM SERAZER, ace Fourwenth, street, near Singh avenue.—Grand Parisian Yolly. ats P. M.; closes atl P. M. Matinee at 1:30 P. M. wr Tate strer— OLIVER TWIST, Bi var" of ie! ree! Bt2P. Me; closes. at 43 MACBETH, at 8 P.M; closes at l):20 2. M. ir and Mrs. a L. Davenvort. PARK THEATRE, Broadway and Twenty-second sireet.—LOVE’S PEN- ANCE, ai 8 P. M.; closes atllP. M. Charles Fechter. fiddinee ‘at 10 Fake GERMANIA THEATRE, Fourteenth street, near ene place.—MAMSELL ANGOT, at 3 P. M.; closes at 12 P. Mf. DALY'S FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE, Twenty-eighth street and Broadway.—MONSIEUR ALPHONSE, at 8 P. M.; closes at 10:30 P.M. Miss Ada | Dyas. Miss Faony sPavenport, Mr. Fisher, Mr. Clark. Matinee at 1:3) P, THEATRE COMIQUE, Bo, Slt Broadway.—VARIETVY ENTERTAINMENT, at 8 M. ; closes at 10:30 P, M. Matinee at 2 P. M. WALLACK’S THEATRE, Broadway and Thirteenth street —THE VETERAN, at 8 M.: closes at U1 P.M. | Mri Lester Wallack,’ Miss Jemreye Lewis “Matinee at 2 ACADEMY OF MUSIC, Irving place, corner of | Fourteenth street —Grand ~ Coera—LUCTA DI LAMMERMOOR, ai Mi: at430 P.M. Mile. Mma di Mursk; ‘harmonic Society, at 8 P. M.; closes at TONY PASTOR'S OPERA HO! No. 201 Bowery.—V ARTETY ENTERTAINMENT, at 8 P. M.; closes at 11 P.M. Matinee at 2 P. M. BRYANT’S OPERA HOUSE, ‘Twenty-third street, near Sixth avenue.—NEGRO MIN- ea. a&c.,at5P. M.; closes at 10 P.M. Matinee at COLO Broadway, corner oe Thirty -1 NG SONA atl Pp. M.; closes at 10 P.M. ‘M. ith street.—PARIS BY M.; closes atSP. M. Same at7 P. | TRIPLE SHEET. New York, Saturday, April 18, 1874, Toon our reports this morning the probabili- ties are that the weather to-day will be partly cloudly. Hanoman’s Day came round again yester- day, and we have to record four more execu- tions this morning. This makes ten execu- tions in three weeks. If murder is not restrained it will not be because of the infre- quency of the hangings. Tae Nicaracva Canat.—We print this morning another letter detailing the progress | of the Interoceanic Commissioners in exploring | the San Juan River. As the results of their inquiries are so important every step of their explorations cannot fail to be of the highest interest. Excusx Oprosrrion To Exicration.—We ‘have reports by cable this morning of pla- cards posted in many English towns discour- aging emigration, and giving Consul Archi- bald, of this port, as authority for the state- ment that forty thousand workmen were about to return to England. While expressing the | strongest reprobation for such a silly and unprincipled act as the posting of these placards, we take pleasure in exonerating Mr. Archibald from the imputations cast upon him by the foolish authors of this canard. Avoruzr Srxp towards the re-enactment of the franking privilege was taken yesterday by | making an appropriation for postage stamps for the State Department. Though the appro- priation asked for was reduced from fifty + thousand to one thousand dollars the moral isall the same. It would have been better for the department to have paid its postage as Part of its contingent expenses than to reopen ® question which the people demand shall be considered as forever settled. Tae Sovurm American Repvsiics continue their free and easy methods of government. Pera was to have a jolly little revolution the other day, according to our news this morn- ing, but instead of the conspirators seizing the President the President seized the con- spirators. And then the Bolivian government deliberately went to work to survey and settle the boundary line between Bolivia and Chili without even consulting the Chilians. In ali this there is a freedom from restraint and red tape that we thought could exist nowhere except in Louisiana and Arkansas. Tae Cuance or Reconper Hackerr upon | the trial of ‘Lempleton for the attempt to take | the life of his wife some months ago, which appears in fall in the Herat this morning, is one of those clear, dispassionate, unbiassed | of the law to the jury that have given the Recorder the high place he holds in | public esteem as a just judge. The ver- dict of guilty was a righteous one, but as the | defence was based upon the plea of insanity, so much relied upon as 8 chance Wor escape in desperate cases, it needed such a charge to prevent the rendering of an erroneous verdict either for or against the prisoner. It would have been even more unfortunate if, insane, he should have been convicted than if, sane, he should have escaped. Fortunately the Re- corder's clear and concise exposition mude the application of the law to the facts com- | cumnavigated it NEW YORK HERALD, SATURDAY, APRIL 18; 1874.—TRIPLE SHEET. eee en of nature which are in perpetual strife | Are Our Publishers Only Republishers? Ieeland’s Millennial. Far away cn the very confines of the Arctio gone there is an is'and which bas for a long time attracted but little attention. Its place among the nations was once conspicuous; but its climate was then different from now and ita soil more productive. The whole aspect of the island was, indeed, unlike what it is to-day. A thousand years ago, when first discovered, it possessed extensiva forests, which have since disappeared. The Northmen migrated there in considerable numbers from Norway, Denmark, Sweden, the Faroe Islands and the Hebrides, but prin- cipally from Norway, whence they fled from the tyranny of their kings. It was indeed a sort of Plymouth Rock to the persecuted sub- jects of Harald Harfagr—he of the fair hair— who made a vow, and kept it, that his hair should never be cut until he had broken the power of the Jarls and concentrated the authority which they had long wielded in his own hands. Too feeble to make further resistance, and too proud to remain after their subjugation, they fled, with their families and followers, to this island. They took with them cattle and sheep, and large herds and flocks were soon reared upon the rich and abundant pastures of the exten- sive meadows. The island produced every- thing necessary to satisfy their needs. Its lakes and rivers abounded with various kinds of fish; water fowl and game were plenty. They imported horses, constructed roads and extended their facilities for intercommunica- tion. Atan early day they had established a considerable trade with the ports of Europe. They founded a republican form of govern- ment and a literature. They recorded, with Runic characters, the sagas of their ancestors and gave form to the Norse religign. The soul of Anglo-Saxon literature and fhe spirit of Anglo-Saxon law gained new life from the example of this lone, lonely, far-distant island commonwealth. In this hardy, liberty-loving people we discover that same independence of spirit which resulted in the Magna Charta and our common law. It was a great poet of this island who gave to the world ‘‘The Sub- lime Discourse’ of Odin, and their great law- givers who first gave form to Norse jurispru- dence. Its peculiar climate lends to it a special interest. In summer the sun scarcely leaves the heavens and the atmosphere becomes surprisingly warm. Vegetation is of rapid growth, and is in places extremely vigorous. In winter the sun gives but little light and less heat. Constant cold succeeds constant warmth, and the trembling hues of the aurora borealis and the weird brightness of the moon guide the footsteps of the traveller. It was first discovered by Naddothr, a Norwegian Viking, in the year 860, although it is more than probable that some Irish monks had been there before. He saw its lofty moun- tains covered with eternal snow, and called it the snow land. Garthr, a Swede,, cir- four years later, and in 867 Flokki, surnamed the Raven, on account of the birds he turned loose to guide his course, surveyed the southern part of it and called it Iceland. Then Ingolfr ana Hjorliefer landed there in 870 and began its colonization. This was at the time Harald the Fair-Haired was persecuting the Jarls. The great migra- tion then began. On the 2d of August, 874, the colonists assembled themselves together and founded the Republic—the first of Northern Europe—whose descendants celebrate this year their thousandth anniversary. They have gone through those thousand years without material change. Their lan- guage is unchanged, their laws are intact, and, except in their warlike disposition, their habits scarcely differ. From warriors, who tilled the soil and caught fish and captured game in the intervals of their more hardy pur- suits, they have gradually become a pas- toral people, educated, hospitable and kind. They have sometimes changed their rela- tions with the country of their origin, but neither their customs nor their character. Although practically a free Republic from the first they were not wholly free from depend- ence upon Norway. No formal recognition of any real allegiance was, however, mado until 1261, which was by a decree of Alsling or general parliament of the people, when Hakon was the Norwegian King. But no tribute was exacted, and the Icelanders were allowed to hold civil offices and acquire hon- ors in the parent country. In 1380 the Crown of Norway was annexed to Den- | mark, and from that time to the present the silken bond which had held Iceland to Norway has stillheld it to Denmark. Tho Danish | King now grants them an absolutely free con- stitation, which absolves them from their fee- | ble allegiance, and on their millennial day, on the same lava beds of Thingvalla where the Althing met annually for near a thousand years, from the Lagberg, or law mount, it will be proclaimed as a part of the celebration that the Republic of Iceland is wholly free now, as it was in the beginning. It will be o singular and unprecedented spectacle—a government celebrating its thou- sandth anniversary. To us, as republicans, it is of peculiar interest. There is an air of romance in the very act which will excite the attention of the whole world. Thousands of curious people will flock there, and millions who have thought of Iceland only as a land of bleakness and barren hills will be sur- prised to discover in the far Arctic seas a people worthy of their sympathy and admira- tion. For we know it only by its great ice- covered mountains, its desert plains, its isola- | tion in a dreary, ice-encumbered sea adjacent | to the Polar Ocean, which rolls there in its vast loneliness. Remarkable in these respects as regards the people, their history, their cus- toms, their laws and learning, the island is yet doubly interesting as a geological phenomenon, which will attract many students, not only to witness a great event and take part in its pageantry, but to behold those great snow and ice clad mountains which, far more than its People, have given it its world-wide character. It will, indeed, be something worth all the trouble and inconvenience of a long voyage to see the lofty volcanoes, which have thrown forth fire and smoke through their everlasting ridges of frost. Even now fiery eruptions take place and streams of molten lava burst from fissures in the rock. Volumes of black, sulphurous vapor are emitted from yawning craters, and showers of ashes are blown away before the winds over land and sea for many league. Heat and cold are forever paratively easy, and rendered a mistake by the jary next to impossible, struggling for the mastery, and the violence of the contrast between the opposing forces makes the spectacle one of appalling sublim- ity. For, while with the arctic regions we associate frost and with the tropics heat, Chimborago, crowned with snow under the Equator, is a less startling spectacle than Hecla, blazing beneath the Pole. Whether, therefore, we consider the grand scenery of Icsland itself, its people or its long established government, there is abundance to satisfy the highest anticipations of the throng that shall gather this summer on the lava plains of Thingvalla to celebrate its thousand years of existence. The Recent Disasters at Sea. Our special cable despatch from London gives a fuller detail than has previously been re- ceived of the acts of the gailant officer who en- deavored to take into a British port the aban- doned French steamer Europe. Mr. Buck's story, like the stories of sailors generally in cases of this nature, is clear and to the point, and, without direct reference to those who had given up the Europe, it must necessarily deepen the impression that the most stringent reforms are necessary in our whole seafaring system. ‘ It is the opinion, then, of the officer who ventured his life on the Europe in mid-ocean, when her Captain thought she would not float three hours, that he could have taken her into port if she had had pumps adequate to the service for which pumps are supposed to be made, that, namely, of freeing the ship from only an ordinary quantity of water. In this connection the reports hitherto received fully sustain what now we hear from Mr. Buck by cable. An inspection, it will be remembered, was made of the Europe at night, subsequently to the trans- fer of passengers, and another inspection the next morning. Eleven hours intervened be- tween these two inspections, and on the latter occasion there was only a foot more water in the compartment than there had been on the first occasion. In this period of eleven hours there was not a soul on the ship; so, of course, not 8 pump was touched to keep the water down. During eleven hours, therefore, in which not a hand is stirred to fight the danger, the water only gains one foot, and one may conceive what might have been the result if the ship had been supplied with the well fitted pumps and donkey engines to operate them which should be an essential part of the equip- ment of every ocean steamer that carries passengers. In the light of the facts before the world it seems to us that if this leak which has sent the Europe to the bottom had occurred on the Greece it would never have been heard of by the passengers, and would have been written of nowhere save in the laconic chronicles of the ship's log. The water never would have got a start. It would have been pumped out from the beginning, and the weak place, perhaps, have been found and cared for. In Mr. Buck's judgment, given as the result of his experience in the case, we see a full support of the inference that might be drawn trom the results of the two inspections of the ship made at the outset by the officers of the Greece. effective and inadequate, and stowed away in a remote part of the ship he finds a pump that had not been used at all. Fancy a great ocean steamer, with tour hundred souls on board and a cargo valued at two hundred thousand dollars, suffered to fairly and slowly settle into the sea by apathetic and incapable officers, not only without the utmost having been done to save her, but with nothing done that could be regarded as an earnest effort. Indeed, the facts in regard to the equipment of the ship seem to us such as to call for official investi- gation in the interest of the travelling public. ‘They seem to remove this case altogether from the class of marine accidents, properly speak- ing, and to establish that the loss of the Europe was not a consequence of a mishap at sea, but the direct and necessary result of the neglect of those precautions to insure safety that are taken on the ships of every well man- aged line. It this view of the facts is ultimately sus- tained it will somewhat aggravate the conduct of those persons who have led the way in vilifying Captain Thomas, of the Greece, in the name of Captain Lemarie, of the Europe. Chagrin and wounded vanity appear to have been behind this ungenerous course, and we are sure the French Captain will ultimately feel that he was very badly advised in the premises. No more honest and capable evi- dence on the facts is needed than we find in the letters of Mr. Burridge and Mr. Lloyd Phenix. Mr. Burridge writes generously and vigorously, and, with the instincts and im- pulses of a whole-souled man, expresses his indignation at the attempt to injure Captain Thomas. Mr. Phenix’s testimony is that of a competent witness. He was an officer in the United States Navy during the war and before the war, and has seen every variety of service. He is, therefore, thor- oughly trained to the sea. He has that fa- miliarity with ships and their discipline that can along fully enable a man to judge of all the facts. Where landsmen aré ‘agitated, or alarmed, or, at most, deeply interested in car- ing for their personal welfare, gentlemen of this class take a calm, cool and consequently accurate view of an event that to them is not altogether extraordinary, and their testimony is correspondingly valuable. We regard Mr. Phenix’s statement as conclusive evidence that the French officers had no desire to re- turn to their ship; and we are of opinion that they have agitated the subject very un- wisely, and will do well to press it no further. Tu Granoens have advanced a step in Ore- gon, where they have formed a platform and nominated a ticket. If the Grangers were be- lieved to be lacking in any of the ordinary qualities of politicians this lot have proved they, at least, possess them all, for they are looking after jobbing interests so thoroughly that they are ready to care even for the set- tlers who suffered by the Modoc war. This sounds like the voice of the true demagogue. Law CoprricaTion anp Nationa Arprrna- t1on.—These important subjects were pre- sented for consideration at a meeting of legal experts which assembled ia Albany yesterday. They were discussed in the same pacific tone which usually prevails in meetings of the Peace Society in Europe. Quite a number of precedents, ancient and modern, were cited, and resolutions of a general and hopeful char- acter were adopted. Such pumps as he finds prove in- | The dulness of the times is the reason given by our publishers for their present in- to undertake the publication of new American books. At the same time their lists of foreign issues are so large as to sug- ot the inquiry whether our publishers have not become, in a general sense, mere re- publishers. If the hard times are a bar to the appearance of works by American hands the same logic apparently ought to apply to tepublications, It is well known that in the absence of an international copyright law our publishers, in order to preserve a comity of dealing among themselves, have a system of “announcements” by which they regulate their “righta’’ in books first published abroad. The latest of these announcements, which is only a specimen of others which appear from time to time in rapid suc- cesion, is @ curious subject of study, especially when considered in connection with the inquiry we hive suggested. This bulletin includes the names of three publish- ing houses. One of them announces as having “in press’ as many as twenty-four new books; another announces eight and the third is con- tent with four. The longest list includes pretty nearly everything which has just appeared or is just about to appear in England, while the two others, besides including some of these, take in the chance omissions of the first. A careful examination of the advertisements in the English literary weeklies does not reveal a single book other than these or those pre- viously announced which would be likely to have any sale in America, if we except ‘The Mill Wheel,"’ by Miss Helen Dickens, a little novel that would have some interest for Americans on account of their admiration for her father’s genius, Two of these houses will bring out a novel called ‘‘Claude Meadowleigh, Artist,” and two of them announce Mrs. Oliphant’s ‘For Love and Life,"’ a novel en- titled “Seven Years of @ Life’ and another called “Ingram Place,” besides Campanella’s “My Life and What I Learnt in It.’ What is more remarkable still is that the leading house in this list is about to publish thirteen other English novels besides those named. The same house will republish ‘Through Rus- sia,” Mrs. Guthrie's account of a journey from St. Petersburg to Astrakhan and the Crimea; ‘The Fall of Prince Florestan of Monaco," a clever squib, intended as a satire on liberal politics in England, but which can have no interestfor American readers except such as centres about M. Blanc's world- famed roulette table; ‘“The March to Coo- maasie,’’ by the correspondent of a London journal, and the ‘Journal of Henry Cock- burn,” a continuation of the Scotch Judge's Diary, part of which appeared nearly twenty years ago. The publication of this part of Lord Cockburn’s journal has been withheld, we suppose, till most of the men and women described in it are dead. Another house will publish Palmer’s ‘History of the Jewish Na- tion’ and Dr. Farrar’s ‘‘Life of Christ;’’ while the more modest rival of the others will give us Percy Fitzgerald’s ‘‘Boswell” and Molesworth’s ‘‘History of England.” It will-be seen that there is not a work of sur- prising interest in this entire list. The theory about the dulness of the times preventing the publication of American books is completely overturned by it, and we are almost inclined to think the strange desire on the part of our publishers to become republishors is based on some other reason. But we can assure them that if it is their policy to keep American books out of the. market because they would. have to share their profits with American writers, while they may keep all they can make out of English books, they will find they have adopted a shortsighted course. We have publishers not disposed to undervalue our native writers, and when the quality of the opposition with which they must contend is made plain American readers will sustain them by buying what they have to offer and refraining in a great measure from the pur- chase of English books. The Senate Currency Bill. It is not too early to estimate the force and influence of the Senate Currency bill, now awaiting the decision of the President. Its passage was unfortunate, inasmuch as it pro- poses to legalize what is familiarly known as the reserve of forty-four million dollars, and to add forty-six million dollars to the circulation of national notes. Either of these issues, unqualified as the; are by any measure Bowide ing for porn or remote redemption, is an inflation of the currency that seems destined to carry in its train the worst of commercial evils. It is a well known fact that millions of cir- culation which, under the provisions of the National Banking act should haye been re- tained in local banks, have heretofore been concentrated in’ Wall street, where it has found more or less of employ- ment at the prevailing rates of interest. The presence here of such an amount of surplus capital naturally stimulated speculation, and perhaps was one of the incidental causes of fhe panic, while its retention at home might have done tiuch in strengthening the re- sources of the country banks and enabling them during the crisis to meet the demands of depositors then made upon them. If the pro- visions of the Senate bill, however, shall be enforced, seventy-five per cent of the bank reserves must hereafter be kept at home. In other words, the increase of lawful money required to be held by the country banks un- der the new law will amount to twenty-eight millions of dollars, which must be withdrawn from New York and other redemption cities. Of this amount the metropolis will lose by far the larger proportion—to wit, about twenty- four million five hundred thousand dollars. No business man can fail to appreciate the effect of such an enormous drain upon the resources of ao business centre and the consequences that may result when least expected from a curtailment of loans to the extent of three or four times the sum above named. ‘The friends of the measure, in their blind prejudice towards what they term ‘Wall street gamblers,’’ have thus struck a blow at the vital interests of New York, and through New York at all of its commercial dependents. Surely a Congress of blockheads never exhibited greater stu. pidity than in thus attempting with one hand to put outs hundred millions more of cur- rency, and with the other to deliberately lock it up in localities where money at cer- tain seasons of the year is of no use. The facta will doubtless be well weighed by the President before he affixes his signature to a bill so fraught with evil and so powerless to achieve the main object which its framers evidently had in view. First, there has been an illegal issue of legal tenders; second, » badly drawn provision for the enlargement of the bank currency; and, finally, a change in the law of reserves that may produce financial derangement in all of the redemption cities of the United States. The Conflict in Arkansas. Another of the. Southern States, recon- structed on the radical pattern, is showing the fruit of the unfortunate policy pursued by the party in power towards the South.. The tele- graph has told the story of the war of political factions in Arkansas over the Governorship of the State, which has just commenced, or, rather, which has been revived, through the action of the Circuit Judge, Whylock, in issn- ing a writ to oust Governor Baxter. Tho election for Governor took place as far back as November, 1872. There was o dispute at once between the two candi- dates, Baxter and Brooks, as to which was legally elected and entitled to the office. Baxtor, however, got possession of the office and has held it since last year. Suits were instituted by Brooks a year ago, both in the Circuit Court of Pulaski county and in the Supreme Court of the State, to prevent Baxter being Governor and to give him the office. The latter Court decided that the courts of the State had no power over a contested election for the office of Governor. The matter was regarded as settled so far as the courts were concerned, and, the Legislature having in 1873 opened the election returns and declared Baxter elected, he continued to exercise the functions of Governor till last Wednesday, when the fresh trouble com- menced. The case, which was brought before the Nisi Prius Court of the Little Rock circuit last summer by Brooks, was suddenly taken up by Judge Whylock on Wednesday and the writ | instantly issued to oust Baxter. The Chief Justice immediately administered the oath of office to Brooks, It appears to have been asort of ‘snap judgment,’’ as the proceed- ings occurred during the absence of Baxter's counsel. Each of the claimants is supported by his partisans, and the lesser officials of the Siate are divided. As the despatches show, both parties are de- termined and are surrounded ‘by an armed force. There is danger of a serious contest. Both claimants have appealed to the govern- ment at Washington, but the President seems inclined to remain neutral in the whole matter. With the experience of Louisiana so fresh in his memory, and which has proved so damag- ing to the administration party, he would rather not touch this Arkansas affair. In caso of a riot, however, he will be compelled to use the United States troops to enforce order, and then we fear his action will be in favor of the usurpation under the authority of the courts. This will be only a repetition in Arkansas of the outrage perpetrated in Louisiana by similar agencies. Indeed, such is the condi- tion of affairs in Arkansas that even if the President fails to interfere at all the cases will bealike. The trouble in both States is that the courts act merely for political ends. It is a terrible state of things, and we can only hope, almost against hope, that peace may be maintained and that the right will prevail. Txxas.—The Mobile Register, one of the most prosperous of the Southern journals, referring to the growth of Texas, calls attention to the vote recently polled in that State to illustrate the great strides that the State has taken. According to the Register the entire vote polled at the last election ‘‘was 158,000, indicative of a population of 1,050,000. In 1860 the popu- lation was but 604,000, and in 1870 it num- bered 818,000. An increase of neurly a quar- ter of a million in less than three years is absolutely wonderful. The best blood and energy of the South are concentrating on her magnificent plains.” The Register might have said more. The secret of the prosperity of the State lies in the fact, first, that it is not weighed down by a burden of debt ; and, sec- ond, that its people possess the public spirit to encourage emigration. This, after all, is what is most desired to make the States not long ago desolated by the war acquire a higher degree of prosperity than they could ever hope for under the enervating influence of slavery. Tae Massacuuaerrs SENATORSHIP,--In the Massachusetts Legislature yesterday the friends of Mr. Dawes and Judge Hoar agreed to end the contest by uniting upon Governor Washburn as a compromise candidate. In view of the important legislation before Con- gress it had become important to fill the va- cant seat, but beyond this the election of Mr. Washburn has no significance. The only un- wise thing about his election was in depriving the State of a Governor chosen by the people that the State might be represented for a short time in the United States Senate. Other men, in every way as acceptable, might have been selected, but there is a little point in the choice of Governor Washburn that must not be over- looked. This is, that the contest is to be fought all over again a year hence and that Dawes must win the battle with the people before he can hope to be United States Sena- tor. As regards Governor Washburn it may be said that he is neither a Webster nor a Sumner, but he is thoroughly conversant with legislation at Washington, and, above every other consideration, he has the reputation of being an honest man. Sream Lanzs.—Our shipping news of yester- day contained five columns of small type mat- ter, which, if printed with the same sized char- acters as our editorial page, would cover the space given to our triple sheet. This intelli- gence, appropriately classified and digested, contained the movements of thousands of vessels, of all classes and tonnage, in every quarter of the world, recording sales, transfers, launches and disasters. To the mariner who will examine this page these facts will be the strongest argument in favor of tracks across the ocean; indeed, in favor of ‘steam lanes’’ in general, but across the Atlantic in particu- lar. The loss of the Amérique seems'to have been largely due to a want of police on the seas, to the fact that the moment a steamer or ship leaves port it is independent of all control and subjection to just penalty in case of crimi- nal negligence, striving alone through its officers to reach its destined port by the shortest and quickest possible route. Thou- sands of vessels sailing to and fro on the sea and legislative action. . We cannot too strongly urge upon Congress and upon all bodies and organizations which have an interest in ous maritime population the promotion of steam lanes and their auxiliaries in every sea. The Thermal Stratification of the Ocean—The Latest Deep-Sea Re- searches of the Challenger. Among the splendid contributions to science made by the outstanding Challenger expedi- tion we have now to record the exposition of the thermal stratification of the ocean. It was said by the late Sir Roderick Murchison that the solving of this interesting problem, in- volving the oceanic circulation, would be as im- portant in physical geography as was Harvey’s discovery of the circulation of the blood in physiology. If we may depend upon the data of deep-sea exploration taken by the Ohal- longer, and published in one of the latest issues of the London Times, the long-disputed ques- tion of marine temperatures is practically set at rest. The data referred to are the complete results of the Challenger’s thermometric sur- vey of the North and South Atlantic, which have been recently submitted to the Hydro- graphic Department of the Admiralty. The first temperature section taken across the North Atlantic by the expeditionary sur- veyors ran trom the Island of Teneriffe to St. Thomas. In the eastern half of this district, at 900 fathoms depth, the cold water stratum -was met, having a temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit; and from this to the bottom, which lay at 3,150 fathoms, the mercury fell to 35} degrees Fahrenheit. As the section crossed the tropic, about 100 leagues from St. Thomas, at correspondingly extreme depths, the water grew still colder (34 degrees); and the cold bed of water also came nearer the sur- face, although the ship was nearer the Equator. This remarkable thermometric depression on the broad floor of the Atlantic was traced to the extension of a vast underflow of ice-cold water from the Antarctic regions, whose glacial discharges have an unobstructed gateway in the submarine channel between Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope. The instra- mental readings reveal, therefore, the extraor- dinary phenomenon of a vertical difference of nearly 40 degrees in temperature between the surface and abyssal strata—the former being about 75 degrees, the latter as low as 35 de- grees. From Madeira southward to St. Vin- cent, as the survey proceeded, the nearer they approached the Equator the hot surface stra- tum grew thinner and the cold Antarctic underflow surged higher upward from tho ocean bottom. Justa little south of the Line were found the highest surface temperatura and the lowest bottom temperature encoun- tered anywhere in the Atlantic, the formor being 78 degrees and the latter 32 degreos— affording.a contrast of 46 degrees in 2,000 fathoms. In addition to these instructive and extended deep-sea observations, the Chal- lenger, in her later cruise, discovers that, lati- tude for latitude, the South Atlantic Ocean is much more glacial than the North Atlantic. This is owing, probably, to the wide and ever open communications it maintains with the South Polar basin. It would appear from the thermal contrast presented by the two At- lantics thet the greater refrigeration in the Southern Sea demonstrates the continental (as opposed to marine) character of the Antarctio area. This has been before merely surmise, but it seems now corroborated by the exces- sive iciness of the Antarctic seas, as far as the Challenger has tested their depths with the mercurial thermometer. The results obtained from this survey, in- valuable to the science of the physical geography of the sea, confirm the reason- ings of several eminent American hydrog- raphers, who gave that science its earliest impulses. Indeed, nearly all the deep-sea phenomena, now so reliably brought to light by these scientific researches—such as the underflow and reflow of the glacial and sun- heated strata respectively, their most marked” contrast near the Equator, the movement of the superior Antarctic currents and the ther- mal contrast between the North and South Atlantic, were matters of prediction among our physical geographers before the Chal- lenger left England. The only great field that vessel is yet to furrow in the interests of ocean science is the” Antoxctis Oocan, high has long been in- vested with mysterious Interest hy the voyages? of Wilkes and Ross. Doubtless the investiga- tion of those waters will be rich in geographi- cal revelations of the character of the South- Polar territory, and may, finally, prove whether it is land or water. We shall look with the utmost interest for whatever sheds light on that interesting problem of physical geog- raphy. Will the President Veto the Bill? In the. response of the President to the com- mittee of New York bankers and merchants who waited upon him with an appeal to veto the Inflation bill, that now only needs his sig- nature to become a law, there are some words that would have an encouraging sound if they were not so intimately associated with an om- inous “but.” General Grant says his views are known as opposed to inflation and in fa- vor of holding sacred the nation’s pledges. “He was,” he said, “always opposed to ex- pansion without redemption and in favor of free banking, accompanied with such legisla- tion as would carry* out the pledges of Con- gress and the party in the direction of a re- sumption of specie payments.” Why, then, he should clearly veto this bill. Here, how- ever, comes his “but,” which introduces the declaration that this committee only representa New York, and that New York is not the whole country. Perhaps the gentlemen scarcely needed to go to Washington to learn this. It is well known here that our metropo- lis is not the whole country, and we do not wish it to be so regarded; but we wish it to be considered for what it really is and its opinion for what it is worth. Sailors are said to be made in storms and soldiers are thought to be made at West Point, and in battle. If this be true it is just possible that financial knowledge is mostly to be had at great finan- cial centres, and we insist upon it in this sense that the opinion of the combined bank- ers of this city on a financial point is of more weight than that of all the prairie statesmem together. If the Prosident’s ‘but’? means that he will sign the bill, his not thor oughly courteous answer to our citizens am signs Very poor reasons for it,