The New York Herald Newspaper, April 25, 1874, Page 6

NEW YORK HERALD, SATURDAY, APRIL 25, 1874.—TRIPLE SHEET. NEW YORK HERALD SROADWAY aND ANN STREET. JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR. THE DAILY HERALD, published every day in the | pear, Four cents per copy. Annual subscription | price @39. All business or news letters and telegraphic | despatches must be addressed New Yorx Hazrat. Letters and packages should be properly | sealed. Rejected communications will not be re- turned. REM i: 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. Volume XXXIX AMUSEMENTS THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING NIBLO'S GARDEN, Broadway, between Prince and Houston streeta—V ARI. EtY ENTeRTALSMEN:, atS ’. M.; closes at 10:30 P.M. Matinee at 2). M. Ly M THEATRE, Sixth avenue.—LA MARJO- Four‘eenth stree! ?. ss at 1 P.M. Matinee atl :30 Lalas, at § P.M, OF MUSIC, place.—Miss Cush- at 8 PL M.; closes at IY. M. Company—LoHien ni. Mime. Lucca, Signor WOOD'S MUSEUM, . Broadway, corner ot Thirtieth street.—THE GAMBLER’S CRIME, at2 P.M; closes at 4:30 P. di; closes at 10:30 PLM. Mr. Dominic& Murray. PARK THEATRE, Broadway and Twenty-second street.—LOVE’S PEN- ANCH, at 5 &. M.; closes at ll P.M. Charlies Fechter. ‘Matinee at 1:30 P.M. GERMANIA THEATRE, Fourteenth street, near Irving place.—-MARIE STU- ART, at 3 P. M.; closes at 1 P. M. “Fanny Janauschek. DALY’S FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE, Twentyeighth street Broadway.—MONSIEUR Fog tat eb: pels closes By 10 G2 4 Liha eo yas. Miss Fanny Davenport jou Hero re er, Mr Clark. “Mutitee atl 3 P.M. i “ THEA'RE COMIQUE, No. 514 Broadway.—VARIETY ENTERTAINMENT, at 8 &. M.; closes at 10:30 P.M. Matinee atz P. M. WALLACK’S THEATRE, ‘ay and Thirteenth street.—THs VETERAN, at 8 loses at LLP. MM. B i : Maunee at 1:30 P. M, MRS, CONWAY'S BROOKLYN THEATRE, Washington street, near Fulton street, Brooklyn.— CAMILLE, at 8 P.M; closes at 1 P.M. Miss Clara Morris, Matinee at2 P. M. OLYMPIC THEATRE, Broadway. between Houston and Bleecker strects.— VAUDEVILLE and NOVELTY LNTERIAINMENT, at 7:45 P, M. ; closes at 10:45 P. M. Matinee at 2 P. M. Fighth es senisethin aces TICKET.OF. 3 avenue and Twenty-third street.—' ET-OF- LEAVE MAN ats. Mscloses atl FM. Mr. aud Mrs, Florence. Matinee at 1:30 P. M. Broat ee eer WUMPT ‘oadwav. opposite Vashington lace.—t v DUMPTY AT RD. &c,, ats P.M; doves athe, M. GL. Fox. Matinee st 1:3) P. M. s BOOTH’S THEATRE, Fizth avenue; corner of Twenty-third street —AS YOU IT, at .; closes at -M. Neilson. ‘Matinee atl :w0'P. M. aie Woes BOWERY THEATRE, Bowery —OLD SLEUT!i THE DETECTIVE, and VARI. PE ENTERTAINMENT. Begins at5 P. M.; closes at IL NEW YORK STADT THEATRE, Bowery.—MLLE. ANGOT. ‘Begins at 8 P. M.; closes at METROP No. 583 Broadway. —V 75 P.M. ; closes at 10 2 TONY PASTOR'S 0 No. 201 Bowery.—VARI!-TY T, at 2:30 530 P.M. ; Closes at li BRYANT’S OPERA HOUSE, ‘Twenty-third street, near -ixth avenue.—NEGRO MIN- SyAELoY, c., a8 P. M.; closes at lu P.M. Matinee at IN: ROB: IN HALL, Sixteenth street.—ART ERTAINMENT, at8 P.M, co corner of M. filth’ street.—LONDON IN M.; closes at 5 Broadway. 1874. at 1 PL M. Same at7 P. M.; closes TRIPL are that the weather to-day will be cloudy. ‘Te Amwenican Conony in Paris has a sen- sation in the desire to fight a duel evinced by two young Améficans who have learned French very fast. Ko Kxvx Prisovens.—We still hear of Ku Klux prisoners being brought North. Would it not be better to pardon these men and teach them a code of love by telling them to “go and sin no more ?”” for the President. ‘Trovsies 1x Hayrt.—Our colored brethren ‘of Hayti seem to have the imitative faculty strongly developed and show some desire to follow our example. North and South are divided on the Presidential question and Hay tian legions are mustering to support their | ballots with bullets. Hayti should avoid a a “little unpleasantness. Tue Brooxtyy Disaster.—Another disas- ter, involving loss of life and limb, occurred in Brooklyn yesterday by the falling’ of a house in the course of reconstruction. It is alleged the underpinning was insufficient to support the superstructure, and that the dis- aster is the direct result of recklessness in making changes in the house. Indeed, it is not impossible that mere greed was the real cause of the terrible accident, the owner of the house disregarding safety for cheapness. If this is the case, and the fact can easily be determined by investigation, punishment must be meted out to the man who could so recklessly imperil the lives of others and bring mourning and death into the homes of his workmen. Cremation.—From the proceedings of the very respectable meeting last night in Associa- tion Hall it appears that a large number of our best citizens are contented that their decom- position should be hastened by fire. Doctors of medicine and divinity give their sanction on moral and sanitary grounds, while men of Jaw declare it proper, and economists demonstrate % a cheap method of consigning earth to earth. One bold man was not only willing to be burned, but certified that his guardians also would consent. A public meeting in adyooacy of this progress backward is promised for an early day. We note also that the novel custom of cremation seems to be gaining ground in Germany. Dresden and Leipsic have offered to legalize the custom, and a furnace is to be built, at an expense of about twelve hundred and fifty dollars, in which it is believed a bodv can be consumed in an hour. M. Strakosch Italian Opera | ir. Lester Wallack, MissJetireys | Here is another chance | it | !wme Politica: Future—New Problems and New Parties. Grant’s Veto Message is a paper in which the Executive, in the popular phrase, puts | down his foot. He goes neither to the right nor left of the subject, but plainly puts it on record that he will not sign any bill which he regards as “a departure from the true princi- ples of finance, national interest and national obligation to creditors.’’ He holds, therefore, that the first financial legislation in order is some measure framed to fulfil the pledges of the ‘act to sustain the public credit,” some measure in which a practical step shall be taken toward resumption, and it is fairly to be inferred from the line of his argument that he will not sign any financial bill without | some provision of this nature. Such is the position of the Executive; and how does Congress stand with regard to it? Is there any good reason to believe that Con- gress will moet the President as he requires it shall meet him in order that they may act to- gether for the settlement of the financial issue which now looms vagu¢ly before us in pro- portions likely to fill the whole future, to the exclusion of the vast majority of topics now on foot? In no part of the recent course of Congress is this possibility apparent. Not only was the recently vetoed bill perfected in the Senate by the exclusion of every word that had even the appearance of prepara- tion for resumption, but the gen- eral propositions presented by different Senators in the hope to compel the recog- | nition of the necessity and propriety of such steps were rejected with a contemptuous in- difference to their claims. In one view we might regard the recent bill as a trap prepared | by the wily Southern democrats to catch re- publicans animated by the impulses that seem to have taken possession of the majority of leaders in that party, and as a trap it has served very well certain purposes that the democrats may be supposed to have always at heart. It has tempted them into a false po- sition, where they are compelled to stand at issue with the head of their party or to admit their own incapacity and unfitness as ex- ponents of party principles. But it would be altogether too amiable a view to take of the conduct of leaders like Logan and Morton to regard them as merely persons led away by a democratic will-o’-the-wisp. They went into | the inflation campaign not, perhaps, as men seeing all the possible political consequences | of the step, but yet with definite resolution, | and distinctly impelled by the instincts of a Western war against Eastern capital and cred- itors. And they are still under the influence ot those impulses. In the same way the South- ern republicans are as firm now in their ‘‘con- victions’’ as they were before the veto. No doubt if the vote were to be taken again in the House as wellas in the Senate it would be found that the veto had affected some. It would also be found that enough still stand by the measure to carry it again or another like it. The agreement prompted by interest that has bound these Western and Southern repub- | licans temporarily to the democrats who vote with them is stronger than those principles that hold them in their own party. | Itseems to us, therefore, utterly unlikely | that Congress will meet the President on the | ground he indicates in financial legislation. Discipline in the republican party is not what | | i} of every day domestic problems that are settled on the principles of that finance. People will and do differ widely, and even passionately, accord- ing to their knowledge on economical abstractions as well as.on the facts related to’ them on the theory of credit and on the rela- tion o% prices to the quantity of paper in cir- culation ; but there is no peculiarity in these topics that should make a certain number of persons look at them in the same way merely because these persons agreed formerly in their views on some other and totally different topics. If the American people followed leaders blindly and without thought this might happen, but with their character and habits we know it will not and cannot. New party lines will be drawn, and, indeed, as we see, already are drawn on the subject | that now occupies the thoughts of the people. It has ceased “to be satisfactorily distinctive to speak of Congressmen or Senators as demo- crats or republicans, We call them inflation- ists or anti-inflationists—as these names have already gathered around the agitated point— or they are hard money men and rag money men, and the difference on a great vital issue that is already clear enough for names will grow deeper and stronger as the people feel more generally the need of a final settlement of that which touches immediately the welfare of every individual. It is absurd to talk of the President's veto as saving or destroying his party, and equally absurd to say the same thing of the recent legislation. There was a time when the republican party could have settled the financial question ; but that time is gone by, and the issue which cannot be put aside is a necessary solvent of the party crystallizations as they now exist. The Calamities in Louisiana. One painful report follows another of the havoc and distress caused by the flood of the lower Mississippi. All hope that the river might fall after the first few breaks in its banks and that the flood might not extend beyond a limited area in certain parishes has fled. The crevasses have increased and widened, until more than a thousand square miles of territory are said to be submerged. The Mayor of New Orleans, in his appeal to the citizens of New York, through Mayor Havemeyer, says truly | that this overflow in Louisiana is unexampled. It is not difficult to imagine the appalling dis- tress of the thousands of families driven from their homes and made destitute. The destruc- tion of property is immense, and the loss will fall heavily upon a people who were already terribly oppressed by pov- erty, debt and misgovernment. We, in our happy homes and prosperous con- difion, can hardly realize the great and widespread suffering. Prompt relief is ur- gently needed. This isa case of such fear- ful distress that immediate action is necessary. Happily, both the government and people understand this. Congress, acting upon the recommendation of the President, lost no time in passing a resolution authorizing the distri- bution of military stores to the sufferers, and the local governments and people are moving in the matter. Mayor Havemeyer calls upon our citizens for help and announces that he will receive subscriptions. The business men of Boston have had a meeting and are raising a fund. The Cotton Exchange of this city is | it was in the days when Thaddeus Stevens | held up his finger and drove in his scores of voters, as though they were scores of sheep, to | vote yea or nay, as party said, on any con- | ceivable subject. On the contrary, the lines are so loosely drawn that it-is far from easy to | say always just where they lie, and the cohe- | sive power of the public plunder is of less im- | portance than it was in the days before Con- | gressmen had discovered that by the ring prin- | ciple of combination with political opponents | they can vote into their pockets by corrupt | | jobbery in any session ten times the plunder that legitimate party patronage could ever put in their way. There is no likelihood that party fealty can be stimulated sufficiently to overcome the opposition of Western and Southern republicans. Now that the Pres- ident has come out plainly no one who has followed his history can believe that he will recede from the ground he has taken. Between the President and Congress, there- | fore, there seems to be a deadlock on the finan- | cial issue ; and so in its political aspects the case must stand practically as it is now made | up for an appeal to the people.. Congress can do nothing with it; the President and the Secretary of the Treasury have no such | power over the finances as will enable them to exorcise the rising spirit. Without legisla- tion no such disposition can be made of our currency difficulties as will enable the politi- cians to smother or cover up the question of finance or reduce it to secondary importance, or in any other conceivable manner get it out of the way before the next appeal to the coun- try ; that necessary legislation cannot be had in view of the present respective relations of Congress and the Executive to the great issue, and there is no likelihood that these relations will change. If the republican majority could be rallied to carry through a bill framed on the indications of the message the spectre of a financial issue could still be laid and the | great topic of the day be settled inside the republican party ; but that dim likelihood is the only one apparent of a settlement of this subject with party divisions as they now stand. | Assuming that the financial differences are beyond the capacity of the republican party in its present condition; that its function | | | does not reach the case, because the issue is | | on points of principle that were not in view | when the people of the country accepted their present attitude in the party lines, and that | the subject muat inevitably fall to the people to be settled by a national decision given at the polls, we see almost in the statement of the subject the changes that will necessarily result in the relations of parties. It is a new issue, and makes new parties as new parties are always made—that is, by the presentation of a point in support of which, as well as | against which, men will gather from both the | old parties regardless of former ties. It splits both the old parties in two, and democrats and republicans who were hostile, and even bitterly opposed on the point of the relations | of the North to the South, may stand heartily | side by side, and take precisely the same | views on the necessity of sustaining the national honor as well as on the more strictly commercial and economical aspects of the case. Obviously there is neither republican- ism nor democracy, as we know these terms, | ways and the construction of canals. subscribing a good sum. Still, with these and other charitable movements, a larger amount of relief than they can supply is needed. Let there be more general and simultaneous efforts throughout the country, as there were in the case of the Chicago fire. Numerous small rills of charity will swell into a stream, and those giving will hardly miss what they part with. Our people are never disposed to turn a deaf ear to the cry of the distressed at home or abroad, and they will respond to the appeal for their suffering fellow citizens of Louisiana in this terrible crisis. Cheap Transportation. The Senate Committee on Transportation has made a clear and comprehensive report on the defects of the present system of transport, and suggests some remedies which are well worthy of consideration. Tae importance of the internal commerce is too liable to be overlooked in the heat of political controversy, and yet it more closely affects the well being and happiness of the people than even our external commerce. Owing to the little attention paid to the subject it is im- possible to give correct figures to show the magnitude of the internal trade of the States, but some idea may be formed of it from the value of goods carried over the railroads in 1872, which amounted to $10,000,000,000. The railway receipts for the same year amounted to $473,241,055. This enormous commerce has been left almost com- pletely uncared for by Congress, and grave abuses have grown up with the proverbial rankness of ill weeds. The extortion and overcharges of railroads have become a source of grave discontent in the agricultural regions, | and some action is called for which will pre- vent railroad combinations levying blackmail on producers in the West and indirectly on | the people of tbe East, to the manifest injury both of the producer and the consumer. The measures recommended by the committee to cure the existing evils are:—The direct regu- lation of railroad transportation by Congress under the power to regulate commerce be- tween the States conferred by the constitu- tion, the improvement of the natural water- Every one will agree that these suggestions ought to be acted upon ; but the idea of intrusting so much power and patronage to the central gov- ernment will compel us to give the question the most serious consideration. ParttaMentary Assavit on Mr. Gap stoyz.—The House of Commons last: night was the scene of political assault worthy of Congress in its palmiest fighting days, Mr. Gladstone was arraigned for his recent disso- lution of Parliament, and he replicd with o vigor that he seldom shows nowadays, characterizing the charges of Mr. Smollet, who had moved the vote of censure upon him, ag untrue, absurd and impossible. The most* remarkable part of the episode was his chal- lenge to Mr. Smollet to repeat the word trickster’ which had been applied to him. We can scarcely fancy the great statesman fighting a duel at his time of life, but states- manship seems to impose strange duties, of which one of the most notable in history would be Mr. Gladstone justifying the usages, in economical science, nor in the vast nwaber of the code. The Letter of Dr. Livingstone. The remarkable letter of Dr. Livingstone to the editor of the Hera, which reached us through the English Foreign Office, shows the man in his real character, and is another proof, if proofs were needed, of his devotion to what he regarded as his life work. The horror of the slave trade in Central Atrica is the subject of this letter, as it wus the theme which mostly occupied his thoughts. The singular freshness of his style, the force of his reasoning and the simplicity of his illus- trations cannot fail to excite admiration, while the keenness with which he refers to men and things and_ events in England and America serves to show how he continued to think of homeand progress at home, though he felt compelled to serve hu- manity in a far distant land. Dr. Livingstone was much more of a philanthropist than a traveller and geographer, but in pursuing his work of humanity he did not overlook or for- get his duty to science and discovery. He was a simple man, who did the work he found to do with all his might, and the account he has given of that work in his letter to the Henaxp will go far to make both the man and his work better understood. Dr. Livingstone, though weak of body, as he evidently must have been, was chirrupy in mind when he penned this letter. The zest with which he tells the story of the poor Englishman who learned African speculation from books of travel and found his snuff- boxes with the looking glasses in them a drug in the market of the ignorant heathen is a proof of his lightness of spirit. But then, again, the reproofs he administers to the English missionary clergy who settled down at Zanzibar instead of pursuing their work where it could best be pursued, show the earnestness which was the chief trait in his character. It is a graceful tribute Dr. Livingstone pays to the industry and in- telligence of the African women, and in his eyes they were evidently much less heathen than the Colonel Aboo who went about the world in the charactor of ‘‘a persecuted Chris- tian,” but who in reality “had no more Ubristianity in hith than @ door nail.” But we need scarcely recount any part of Dr. Livingstone’s letter. No reader of the Herranp would neglect to follow him in his account of the occupations of an African day. Never betore has the inner life of the people of Central Africa been described by one who knew it so well and in these few lines has recorded the gathered wisdom of a long experience. And then the life of the Arabs and the harems of. the slave traders also come in for their share of deseription, and thus we only begin to understand why the slave trade of Central Africa was so terrible in the eyes of Dr. Livingstone and of civilization. And just here we notice a remarkable idiosynerasy of this strong, earnest man, at which we are first disposed to smile, but the logic of which we at lastare forced to concede. Like the haif caste Arab prince who advanced the opinion that all women are utterly and irretrievably bad, Dr. Livingstone almost thought all men were slaveowners at heart. Even the sympathy in England for the ‘Southern cause’’ he at- tributed to the liking to become slaveowners. But we leave the letier to our readers, who will find every line of it an interesting revela- tion worthy of perusal and productive of a wider charity than the modern world has known. Warr Srreet anp THE VETO.—Our great rendezvous of speculative spirits is swayed one way or another by so many varying currents that it is seldom a thoroughly safe guide as to the movement of any single current of the number; and what is true of the street generally is more particularly true of that partion of its activity which is exercised in the stock market. With the market, as it is in a great degree, at the mercy of one operator, its changes indicate rather his whims and fancies and projects than the legitimate effect of events. On Thursday stocks went down somewhat more rapidly than they have gone lately, and this was attributed to the Presi- dent’s message. It was doubtless due in some degree to apprehensions drawn from that document. The veto was a shock, andstartled the street; and people who did not very keenly perceive all the results likely to flow from the defeat of inflation apprehended ore than they felt. Inflated prices must of course necessarily go down in the presence of a measure that tends directly to increase the purchasing power of our paper money; and, as holders realized that prices must go down, there was a disposition to anticipate the unpleasant consequence, and this precipitated the fall. Yesterday the market recovered itself somewhat, and remained firm at points higher than those indicated the day before, all of which seems a proper and desirable consequence of the veto. The property which Wall street nominally buys and sells every day is not worth any less because of the veto, but the figures that presumably represented its value will be changed. Tae Arrroacutnc Visit or THE OzaR TO Lowpon. —It is now said that Prince Gortscha- koff, General Schouvaloff, the Grand Dukes Alexis, Vladimir and Constantine will ac- company the Czar on his visit to England. It- cannot be the intention of ‘the Czar to give offence to the magnates of the British Empire ; and yet it is difficult to believe that either Gortschakoff or Schouvaloff will be welcome guests in London. It was Schouvaloff who made to the British government promises which his master, willingly or unwillingly, broke in regard to the annexation of Khiva. It was the diplomatic Gortschakoff who out- witted the courtly Granville, and accomplished the annexation of Khiva, to the disgust of the British people, but without a protest trom the British government. How Earl Russell must rage when he thinks of the insult which isthus being added to injury. His Lordship has called for the papers which passed between the governments of Great Britain and Russia in regard to the Khiva affair. It is too late to make a fight over the matter now. And, then, it is tobe remembered that if Russia has taken Khiva England has captured tho the Grand Duchess Marie. Tae Mexican Cuamms Decision.—Sir Ed- ward Thornton, who acted as umpire between Mexico and the United States in Indian dep- redation claims, has decided that the Gadsden treaty of 1853 exoncrates us from all liability for the acts of the Indians. This decision is most important, as something like thirty-one, million dollars were involved in the claims, Brightening Skies. It is a mischievous mistake to suppose that the triumph embodied in the veto of the Presi- dent is the victory of one section over another—of the North and East over the South and the West. We have all along in this dis- cussion of inflation deplored the tendency on the part of many of the leaders of the infla- tion movement to advance sectional wants and the pride of States, not to speak of the ani- mating purpose of revenge, as among the reasons in favor of the passage of the bill. We have suffered so much from sectionalism in the past, from the efforts of the dominant men of one section to command the country and bend its combined resources to their own aggran- dizement, that we look with a feeling akin to terror upon any attempt to revive this spirit. It seems to us no less crimiual to array New York against Mlinois on the currency issue than it was to array South Carolina against Massachusetts on the issue of slavery. The success of the inflation bill would have been the triumph of a measure as sectional in its character as the Nebraska billand the Fugi- tive Slave law; for it would have been the passage of a bill in response to the appeals of demagogues that would have injured the whole country under the pretence of aiding the local interests of several States. For it may be laid down as an axiom in our peculiar American system that sectional legislation will always disturb the country. The interests of the various Stutes form- ing this Union are as closely allied as the members of the body. The American Republic is like thé complete living man. What affects one Stafe will be felt in another, just as the body cannot be comfortable in the head or the heart if there are pains in the limbs. We can understand how a bill might be passed protecting or in some way develop- ing the cotton or rice or sugar crop, stimu- lating the growth ot wines and the mining of gold in California. But this would not be a sectional bill, for the prosperity of the cotton and sugar and wine interests is as dear to the North and as much a part of Northern wealth as the prosperity.of wheat and corn and gen- eral manufactures. When it is sought to passa bill dishonoring the national credit, breaking the solemnly pledged faith of the nation, committing us all to a policy of repudia- tion and inconvertible currency, and when the argument is that this shame is necessary to stimulate the ‘drooping industries’ of the South or give relief to the ‘‘suffering farm- ers” in the West, it assumes the worst phase of sectionalism. The nation is dishonored. We suffer in every branch of busi- ness, in the money paid for labor and commerce and investment in every kind of property. Money has no longer any value. All men with fixed incomes, and more espe- cially the poor and laboring classes, find their incomes decrease because the purchasing power of money decreases. Of what value is the earning of a hundred dollars a week by a carpenter or a blacksmith if he can only purchase a ton of coal or a barrel of flour? More than all, the ‘‘relief”? which such a bill would give is altogether an illusion. There can be no relief from inflation. We might as well expect to cure a man of delirium tremens by giving him brandy. The remedy would only produce a new stimulus, from which there would come a more serious’ reaction, with mania, madness, exhaustion and death. Nor do we agree with even as thoughtful and experienced an observer as Colonel For- ney, whose journal occupies a singular | attitude on inflation, speaking as it | does for the great material interests of Pennsylvania, when he says that the Presi- | dent has taken issue with a large part of the | American people and with a large part of his own party. We are sure that events will show that the President is to-day stronger with the people and more powerful in his party than he was before the veto. Take New York city for an illustration. A month ago and if a public meeting had been called to sustain the administration there would not have been a hundred persons present outside of the delegations from the Custom House and Post Office. Let a meeting be called to- morrow for the same purpose and twenty thousand men will fill Union square with their noises and shouting. And so it will be in Pennsylvania. For if there is one thing which every Pennsylvanian knows (except, perhaps, Colonel Forney, Judge Kelley and General Cameron) it is the difference between figs and thistles. He knows that no act of Congress can make thistles figs; that a law may be enacted declaring that two and two are eleven, but that itis only four after all. What Penn- sylvania wants for her iron and coal is not the productions of a Treasury press, but hard coin or something that means coin. There is no State in the Union whose interests are really more adverse to inflation than Pennsyl- vania; no State more anxious to reach the hard, golden bottom of solvency and specie payments. We may say as much of .linois and the West, and we are glad to feel from our special despatches this morning from the West that there is the best feeling on the sub- ject. The country is really with the Presi- dent. Business shows a firmer and more healthy tone, and all around the universe we see radiant, brightening skies. Ir Wovrp Nor be atall surprising if tne penal colony of New Caledonia—the island in the Pacific which the French have selected for | a penal settlement, and to which have been ban- ished several thousands of the Communists— should beeome an important and valuable French colony. We hear that many of the Communists have sent to France for the re- maining members of their families, and that there is a tendency to emigrate to New Cale- donia from many crowded manufacturing cen- tres of France. The climate and soil are un- exceptionable, and as there are no palaces to burn and no colurans Vendome to pull down, | even the most turbulent Communist will have | a life of harmlessness and peace. Tse Repvsticans will have another oppor- tunity to make a demonstration in the House of Commons. Prince Leopold, the youngest son of the Queen, is about to enter upon his twenty-first year, and, of course, application will be made to give him an allowance. Mr. Taylor, who led the opposition to the grant to the Princess Louise and the Duke of Edin- burgh, is in the Honse, as well as Sir Charles Dilke, who aided him; but Mr. Herbert is no longer a member, and we are curious to see how many of the new tory House will follow Mr. Taylor and Sir Charles belong toa party composed of two or three members. But even this forlorn and aban- doned attitude is not without its compensa- tions, when we remember that, in 1852, Mr. Sumner was one of the three Senators who opposed slavery, and in 1862 the leader of an anti-slavery majority in the Senate. Ten years isa long time in modern politics, and the republicans are young enough to wait. The Amenities of Journalism. There has been no local event of more im- portance, recently, than the memorial meeting in honor of Dr. Livingstone. Our largest public building was filled from the pit to the highest tier with the best people in our society, who came to celebrate the memory of a man who had done more for civilization and humafity than any other in this generation, whose life was given to the noblest endeavors, and who died in lonely isolation, but as every true man should pray to die, in the silent and cheerful doing of his work. There were two events about this ‘Liv- ingstone memorial meeting” which, of course, were in all men’s minds. The one was the honor which England had done in giving the dead hero a burial in the Abbey sacred to the dust of her kings, heroes and statesmen; the other was the honor which America had paid Livingstone in sending ono ot her citizens, an intrepid young journalist, to discover and succor him when all hope of his return or of his safety had been abandoned even by his own countrymen. In England it was deemed honorable and proper that this young man should take the post of honor as the head of the pallbearers who bore the dea’ hero into the Abbey. Fur- thermore, every journal in London bore its tribute to what he, a simple American, had, achieved in the pursuit of his duty. This same honor was paid Mr. Stanley at the meeting. The different speakers vied with each other in complimenting his courage and resolution, As Americans they were proud that America had earned its part in the work of Livingstone. But, unfortunately for Mr. Stanley, his work was done in the service of anewspaper. And, consequently, no allu- sion was made to him in any other journal but the one he served. It required the most care- ful editing to succeed in omitting all allusions to Mr. Stanley, for the speeches all referred to him. But our contemporaries succeeded, and we trust never again to hear them charged with carelessness in the editorial supervision of their columns. Success, duty, enterprise, national pride, humanity, are all commendable in their way. But, after all—business is business! And Mr. Stanley must content himself with the approbation of the London press. The Last Chance for Street Reform— Shall Fifth Avenue Be Repavedt The near approach of the adjournment of the Legislature leaves little hope of a reform in the present method of cleaning or pre- tending to clean our streets. We are likely to remain, for another year at least, one of the dirtiest cities in the world. We are almost as badly off as dwellers in Oriental cities. But in Mecca, Bagdad or Constantinoyle there is no pretence at cleaning the roads and keeping them in order. Yet it is questionable whether these abominable places weuld not compare favorably with a great portion of the city of New York. Why should we not have good roads, per- fect cleanliness and sufficient sewerage? Our taxes are heavy enough, our expenditures are large enough and our city is rich enough to procure us all these necessities of civilization and of health. The reason is simply that we do not go the right way to work to secure them. A legislative committee meets, investi- gates, reports, and we continue on in the same old rut. A new charter is proposed, and when it has passed through all the stages of politi- cal management and becomes a law we find or examination that the evils under which we have been groaning for years are continued in a new and very likely in an aggravated form. Reform would be a simple matter enough if we had the firmness and the honesty to actas common sense dictates and would apply to public affairs the same rules that we apply to our private affairs. As the foundation of a sufficient and perma- nent reform we need good laws, made in the interest of the people, and not in the interests. of parties or individuals. As a superstructure we need earnest, capable and honest business men to execute those laws. The whole business of paving, cleaning and repairing the public streets and constructing sewers should be placed in the hands of a commission of five citizens of established capacity and in- tegrity. The commissioners should. have no other duties to perform, and they should per~ form those assigned to them in their own. way. They should have fhe power to macadamize allthe principal thoroughfares of the city;. for, whatever interested parties may say, ex- perience has proved that the Mac. adam pavement is the best, the most durable, the cleanest and the most easily re~ ‘paired of any that bas yet been invented. Ouce get the roads macadamized and the ex- pense of keeping them in order would be comparatively trifling. With good Macadam roads the labor and cost of cleaning would be diminished one-half, while the repairs could be so easily made as to insure us excellent travel at all seasons of the year. As a work of humanity this pavement. also is especially desirable, since it is the easiest and safest for horses that has yet been invented. But how can we secure an unexceptionable commission to undertake these: important duties? The best method that suggests itself is its appomtment by the Governor of tha: State, and the constitutional difficulty that: seems to stand in the way’ could bai surmounted by uniting Brooklyn and New} York in » common commission as a singh { district. The sentimentality about selé( government is all nonsense, What the people want is some relief from their present disgraceful and dangerous pavements, their filthy streets and their insufficient and un healthful sewerage. If there should be any doubts as to the desirability of tho Macadam pevement they can readily be settled by placing Fifth avenuo under the control of the Park Department and having that fine thoroughfare macadamized at once. Its present pavement isa disgrace to the city, a oraclty to the horses and an annoyance and injury to all who use it os a drive, It would be well to have at least one avenue under the authority of the Park Commission, to be set into the lobby. Itis rather discouraging to avart as a public drive through the heart a}