The New York Herald Newspaper, May 31, 1874, Page 8

NEW YORK HERALD | BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. 4AMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR. All business or news filles ond telegraphic despatches must be addressed New Youx Hepat. Letters and packages should be prop- | N erly sealed. LONDON OFFICE OF THE NEW YORK i HERALD—NO. 46 FLEET STREET. Subseriptions and Advertisements will be recoived and forwarded on the same terms as in New York. Wolume YXXIX BUM, ‘ tieth street CHRIS AND closes at 4:9 P.M. Same at 87, M Baker and Farron DALY’S FIPTH A " = Twenty-cinih street and Broadway. LOVE'S LABOR LOST, at SPM: closes at 10:30 PM. Miss Ada Dyas, Miss Fauny Davenport, Mr. Harkins Mr. George Clark. Broadway, co.ner 5) , WENA, at “2 PM, closes at 10:50 P.M E THEATRE, NIBLO’S THEATRE, Broudway, between Prince and Houston streets. —THE LADY OF ‘THE LAK! at $1. Mo: closes at 1u45 P.M Vir. Jowepa Wheelock and Miss lone Burke. THEATRE COMIQUB, No. $14 Broadway.—ON HAND, and VARIETY ENTER TAINMBNY. at 32. M; closes at 10:30 P. BM. S THEATRE, street—FATB, at 8 lotta Le Clercq. Broadway and Thirt Closes at li PM. Mis y, bet 4 and Bleecker streets Wega vi. TY ENTERTAINMEN TGP. M.; c M. NEW PARK THEATRE, BROOKLYN Pulton street, 0} te, the Cily Hail.—Transatiantic ’ 30 8. M, loses at 10:30 P.M. Nowelty Company BRYANTS OPERA HOUSE. ‘Twenty-third stroet, near STRELSY, dc. at 8 P.M ERO MIN. closes at 10 2. 3 CENTRAL PARK GARDEN, Fifty-ninth, street and Sixth avenue,—fHOMAS' CON. CERT:, at 8 P. M.; closes at 10:30 7. M. co} LO . © ot Thirty fifth ‘street.—LONDON BY Same at Broadway, corne NIGHT, at lO A.M. M.; closes at 5 7. M. Same at7 P. M.; closes at 10 P. M. ROMAN HIPPODROME, ue and ‘Twenty-sixth ‘street —GRAND ONGRESS OF NATIONS, at 1:30 P.M. and From our reports this morning the probabilie lies are that the weather to-day will be generally clear and warm. Tue pourricaL and personal friends of Mr. Salem H. Wales evidently approve of the course he has adopted in resigning the posi tion of Park Commissioner and assigning his | reasons for retiring. They testified this by tendering bim a banquet at the Union League Club. Reat EsraTe wy tHE West.—The Chicago | journals complain of the stagnation in the real estate market and the great fall in val- ues, This simply means that prices have been too high, thet they have been falsely supported. The truth is, we presume, that real estate is finding its value. ‘Tae Conorep West Pomr Canpipastes | Fauuine Bewixpv.—Out of the ninety-seven candidates for admission to West Point, thirty- two could not pass. None of the colored can- didates were successful. To go through the ordeal brain power is necessary as well as pre- paratory training. Supposing the colored candidates had equal advantages with the white for preparation, their failure would indicate an inferior mental capacity. The colored young men must wake up if they would jus- tify the claim of theirradical friends to being intellectually equal to the whites. Morz Cums or Broop in THE SovrTs- west.—The body of a former deputy sheriff, Winn Lake, of West Tennessee, was found yesterday morning about two miles from Memphis, in a horribly mutilated condition. ‘The head was beaten into a shapeless mass. Lake had sold property the day before, and had money about his person. It is thought he was murdered by two negroes who were seen with him. News comes at the same time of aterrible tragedy in Mississippi county, Arkansas. Two brothers named Clair went to the house of a planter, an old man of sixty, named Campbell, and in the presence of his family killed him with a shotgun and rifle. The murderers were arrested. toay be naturally supposed, great excitement in the neighborhood over this fearful crime. | We have savages in the midst of our civiliza- tion us well as on the unsettled prairies. Tue Mitt River Disaster Inquest brings out more and more damaging testimony as to the well known insecurity of the reservoir dam, Mr. Bassett, the contractor, was re- called yesterday, and after being put to the test by searching qnestions, he admiited that both he and his partner bad entered on the work in the belief that the dam might give way, even if built according to the specificas | § tions, This is an astounding admission. It Mr. Bassett and his partner ever thought of | the terrible cousequences that might follow the breaking of the dam they were guilty of | ® great crime in not making the tact known, | or in not refusing to undertake such danger- | At any rate they were guilty of | ous work. most shameful recklessness. This terrible disaster aud the evidence elicited show the necessity of laws, where there are none, to punish both the proprietors and contractors of dangerous structures. Tae Corron Cror.—Much interest is shown in the condition of the cotton crop. Reports from the Carolinas, Alabama and Georgia show that the prospects of the crop are back- ward. Considerably less acreage has been planted than last year. The general impres- sion is that the yield may reach about three and o@ quarter millions of bales. This is not as good as we had hoped, being three-quarters ofa million bales less than the crop of last year. Something of this is attributed to the poverty of the planters, who do not have money enough to buy fertilizers and who ex. perience much difficulty in obtaining money on fature crops. There is a good deal of po- litical disquietude arising out of the angry dis- cussions occasioned by the Civil Rights bill and the misgovernment of so many of the States. This, of course, disheartens the peo- ple and prevents that cheerful energy and in- dustry without which # people can raise ‘either eotton nor corn. ‘There is, as | NEW YORK HERALD, The “Bridging Over” Policy of the City Financial Department—Where will it End? In the debt statemonts published by tho Commissioners of Accounts we find the fol- lowing city and county stocks and bonds out- standing on December 31, 1873, aud talling due during the present year :— | Central Park additional fund stock of 1874 (payable trom sinking fund) ..... $1,000,000 | Volunteer soldters' family aid fund bouds, 1874... 500,000 Assessment 2,429,400 New York city stocks lor docks 8 50,000 | Sex per cent assessment bonds. + S21, 400 | Seven per cent assessment bo! a | roary 1 : 100,000 Seven per cent assessment bonds, No- vember i. «8,517,700 2,918,500 rovement tant bod: k Commission in Six per cent improvement bo Seven per coat improvement bonds Seven per cont revenue bonds (cha 1), payadle January 15, 1874 Seven per ceut revenue bon! ”), Dayabie February 1, 1874. | Six per cent revenue bonds (chapte | _ payable October 1, 1874........... oe 278,000 Six per cent revenue bonds of 1873, pay- able in is74. * 900,000 Seven per cent 48% Payable in 187 1,172,547 iX per cent rey Laws of 1871), payable in 1874 2,004 Soldigrs’ substitute county redemption | , DONS, 1874........-seeeerreecsveerrenese 500,000 Seven per cent county revenue bonds (chapter 1), payable January 15, i874 Seven per cent county revenue bonds | ~ (chapter 9), payable February 1, 1874. | Seven per cent county revenue 1873, payable mM 1874........... bonds of 1 | $23) | Of this amount the Central Park additional | fund stock ot 1874, $1,000,000, is payable out | of the sinking fund. The rest is payable party from taxation and partly from assess- ments; bui a portion of the latter ialls even- tually on the city, and the whole must be pro- vided for by the city until the assessments j are collected. The amount which should | have been paid directly by taxation in 1874 is about $12,000,000. But although the final penses of the current year reaches the sum of Volunteer soidters’ jamily atd ‘und, bonds No, 10, redemption of.... -. 600,000 Reduction of city debt by chapter 535, Laws of 1878. 250,000 Redemption of couaty debt. 864,458 Vevassenaeteeeaeieantnwsescnevertss: 1795,221 From the financial report for the three months ending March 31 last it does not appear that the $1,000,000 Central Park additional fund stock has yot been re- deemed ; but, admitting that the amount is to be paid out of the sinking funds during the year, and adding it to the sum set apart for g 5 final estimate for 1874, we have $2,795,221 provided for from all sources out of a total of $23,642,750 falling due this year. We thus “bridge over” by retaining in the public debt year it we were strictly to ‘‘pay as we go,” but which, under our present financial policy, is “extended” to a future day, retaining about $1,400,000 in our annual interest account. The answer to this will be that the bonds, as or paid out of the proceeds of new bonds issued to replace the old ones, in accordance State Legislature. But these laws have been enacted at the instance of Comptroller Green, | and forced through the Legislature by the | efforts of lobby agents paid by him out of the public treasury. If they are unwise and harmful | laws, and if the system they license is detri- | mental to the interests of the city, Mr. Green is alone responsible; forthe system originated with him and the laws are of his own framing. This is particularly the case in regard to the extension of the bonds which ought especially to have been provided for in the taxation of the present year, and which, as we have said, amount to $12,000,000. Of this sum only $1,795,221 is included in the ‘tax estimate, thus driving over to a future day of payment more than $10,000,000, with- out taking into consideration assessment | Mr. Green chooses to call ‘temporary debt,” but a great share of which falls upon the city. ‘The question of interest to the citizens and taxpayers of New York is whether it is a } sound financial principle to keep rolling be- fore us a great ball of public debt which increases in size year by year and adds a heavier and heavier load of annual interest to our other burdens. No person pretends that our “bridging over’ policy is pursued with- out the warrant of law; but is it wise to enact laws which afford us a delusive and tempo- | rary relief only to increase the embarrass- | ments and perils of the future? The evils of our present pernicious system can be better understood when we look at the | prospect before us for 1875. The bonds and | stock falling due next year, as appears in the | statement of the city and county debt on | March 31 last, made by the Commissioners of | Accounts, are as follows: — Water stock $2,163,600 | New York city stock for docks and si 50,000 | Volunteer soldiers’ family aid bond: 500,000 Assessment bonds..., 1,356,500 | Assessment fund bond 1,349,500 | Street improvement fund bond: 1,350,000 | Central Park - 1,245,000 ponds. . 2,816,200 ! County Court Hoase stoct 100,000 Soldiers’ substitute bounty redemption DOM: «syiewnsienscndvedessesscaenvese 500,000 TOTAL... ccc ce eeeeeeeee eversvevcecsocs $11,131,100 “extend’’ the bonds and stocks as they fall due beyond the time he is likely to remain in | charge of the city finances, if from the present moment we were to “pay as we go’’ the tax- ation of next year would reach forty-six or | forty-seven million dollars, calculating the estimates of the departments, the State tax and the interest on the city and county debt | to be no higher than they are this year. But | we shall no doubt “bridge over’’ in 1875, as | we have bridged over in 1872, 1873 and the present year, and go on swelling our debt and our interest account for the sake of securing » temporary relief from the excessive burden of | taxation and in order tg enable the Comptroller to keep up @ false pretence of economy. It calculation to reckon where we shall land after we bave travelled | over a few more of these “bridges,” pushing before us new loads of unpaid bonds and stocks year after year, in blocks of jfrom ten to twenty million dollars. ‘There might be no objection to leay- ing to @ future generation the payment of 6 debt incurred for the purpose of improving and advancing the Prosperity of the metrop- olis—a debt resulting from the completion of grows public works. of steam railroads, mag- | would be a curious estimate of the amount required for the ex- | $39,218,945, we find the only appropriations | for payment of debt to be as follows: — | Pioating debt, fund stock of 1878, annual f mstalment........-.secosccercesscrsseees $130,763. Redemption of stocks tor docks and slips. 50,000 | the payment of city and county debt in the | $20,847,529 which would be wiped out this | they fall due, are put into consolidated stock | with the provisions of laws passed by: the | bonds and street improvement bonds, which | Although Mr. Green has been careful to | nificent and commodious docks, fine roads, broad avenues, bridges, river improvements and other splendid and remunerative enter- prises, the full benefit of which would be reaped by those who come after us. This | would be only justice, and it would be cnough | for us to bear the burden of: interest, and to | contribute our genius and our labor to the | common cause. But our present debt is | | swelled by mismanagement, by financial in- , capacity, by useless and spiteful litigation; | by gross extravagance in some instances and | ruinous parsimony in others; by discord, in- efficiency and dishonesty in most of the city | departments; and while we are driving off to a future day the payments we ought to make | at the present time, we are leaving a legacy of , desolation to those who come after us, With | an increasing debt we have stagnation in all | our public works and ar entire stoppage of great public improvements. Our progress is | not only checked, but we ara driven backward | by the dead weight of senility, stupidity, ob- stinacy and incapacity that presses so heavily against us. It is doubly unjust that we | should be crowding our indebteduess on to | | the next century while we are doing our best { to destroy the magnificent prospects of the metropolis, or at least'to give a shock to its progress from which it will not recover for the next ten or twenty years. Yet this is just what our “bridging over” financial policy is | doing. < We need at the head of our city Finance | Department a bold, honest and capable | financier, who will tell the people just where | they stand and what it is necessary to do. If | we are to consolidate and fund our present | debt it should not be done in driblets and in @ covert, sneaking menner, but as a bold | financial policy. We have no right to be pay- | ing six or seven per cent interest on our city ' bonds, They are fitst class securities under any circumstances, and should not bear over | | five per cont interest at the outside. Our honest debts should be paid and paid promptly. At present many of our city’s | | creditors, however just their claims, are driven to the courts to get their money, and | | legul expenses add thirly per cent to | ; our indebtedness, The floating debt of | the city is purposely concealed, and the people cannot ascertain its true amount, | although it is known to be from twelve to ‘fourteen million dollars, An honest and | capable Comptroller would make public every fact connected with our financial condition, | Propose some plan for the consolidation and | gradual liquidation of the debt and take tho | Tesponsibility to ask all the taxation needed to meet our necessary expenses, But our pres- | ent financial policy is one of concealment, | deception and trickery, and its only object | seems to be to drive off the crisis which must | sooner or later come, until the objects of the | present officials, whatever they may be, have | been accomplished. Such a policy cannot be | too speedily brought to a close. Decoration Day. | Yesterday was so universally and so enthusi- | astically observed as Decoration Day over all the Northern States that it may be regarded as a settled matter that the Thirtieth of May will become, like the Fourth of July, a grand | national holiday of the American Republic. | For some years after the war the decoration | ceremonies seemed unwise, because they kept | alive the memory of a strife which many re- | gretted and which not a few wished to forget. » At Srst Decoration Day had the appearance | of an annual insult offered by the victorious | North to the conquered and humbled South. | For this reason many true Union men—men | who fought and bled and otherwise made | great sacrifices for the conservation of the Re- | public in all its integrity —regretted the annual ceremonies, and hoped that Decoration Day would cease to be generally observed. As | they had saved the Union by blood and sacri- | fice, they did not wish to disturb the Union | which was saved by unnecessary ceremonies ' over the departed dead. Time, however, has worked a cure which the philosophic Unionist did not deem possible. The enmities begotten | by the war are dying out; North and South | now cordially shake hands; but the day of | decoration becomes more and more a national holiday. The flowers—‘God's jewelry and the playthings of children,’ as De Quincey \ beautifully called them—are sprinkled no longer over the graves of tke Union soldiers alone, but over those also who, if less wisely, not less bravely, fought on the other side. In a few years trom now all the enmities of the war will be forgotten; but Decoration Day will remain; and the opportunity will annu- ally be given for the indulgence of those ten- der sentiments which will ever be cherished | by many towards a struggle which, though sad and sorrowful while it lasted, had a glorious and beneficial result. If the Fourth of July commemorates the birth of the Republic, the Thirtieth of May will forever be associated with its salvation. Our reports of this morning show how generally the day was observed ; and the propriety and good taste which charac- terized the ceremonial observances do credit to the enlightened sentiments of the American | people. Tuz Rep ann tHE Warrm--The crisis in France assumes new and interesting phases. The Left Centre, or the resolute republicans who follow M. Thiers, deem the Bonapartists strong enough to or- | ganize against them, althougu what the friends of the Ewpire can do but in- trigue is a mystery to us. It is amusing | to see Jules Favre, the extreme republican, proposing to unite with the Extreme Right to effect the dissolution of the Assembly. Ex- | tremes meet, even in France ; but it is odd to 1 have the descendants of Terror joining hands | with the followers of the Bourbons to effect a | coup d'état. This alliance, or rather the dis- position of a man like Jules Favre to form it, shows the depths into which French politics | have fallen. What these contestants want is revolution. Out of the revolution the royal- ists expect the king, the radicals a republic, ‘The best solution for france would seem to be the proclamation of the Republic on the | part of MacMahon and the dissolution of the Assembly. MacMahon would make as good a President of a republic as France could want, and republicanism generally attains a healthier | growth when it begins in conservati«m, ' Tae Nortnwesters States complain of a | | flood the world, and the millennium to be | cal coreligionists of the slain irreconcilable, | of Harlem, will talk, may become elevated in‘o | ‘ uses. Every familyand honsehold has more or grasshopper plague. The ‘grasshopper country,” a6 it is called in Minnesota, is sup- plied at this season with immense flocks of pigeons, blackbirds and so on, which feed olmost entirely om arasshonnary, Rochefort's Manifesto. The able and scathing review of French politics, which we publish this morning from” the pen of Monsieur Henri Rochefort, throws a new light on the Commune and the actors in the terrible scenes which followed the capture of Paris by the party of order. Although the accusations are so terrible that for the sake of humanity we should like to be able to doubt their correct- ness, the evidence on which they are based is so overwhelming that it is impossible to refuse credence to the revolting details. Whatever sympathy may have been felt with the men who made the killing of Arch- bishop Darboy an excuse for the whole- sale slaughter of the Parisian people will be likely to die out when the eruelty and bloodthirstiness of the Versailles party comes to be fully realized. There is something appalling in the thought that in the boasted centre of civilization, in this most ad- vanced century, when light is supposed to at hand, the lives of thirty thousand men should be sacrificed to satisfy the vengeance and the hatred of a political party. Yet the fact remains that the slaughter was done, and done, as time has proved, uselessly, What the French Army sought was to strike terror and crash by the fire of the mitrailleuse the liberal aspirations of the French people. In this they have signally failed. The slaughter only resulted in dis- gusting the country and rendering the politi- and implacable enemies. The power which the white demagogues seized under the pretence of saving France they used ruthlessly in the endeavor to advance their own interests and secure the return of a ridiculous king, or rather the coronation of a ridiculous person who would like to be king. But, notwithstanding the bloodshed and the state of military terrorism under which France groans, the people will not have the Bourbon nor yet the Bonaparte again. It is in vain that the press is bribed or silenced, the people only proclaim with more distinctness by their silent votes their undye ing opposition to the reactionists. Thus crime defeats itself and. the massacres com- mitted in the name of order will only serve to whet the guillotine of some future revolution, unless the definite establishment of the Republic should prevent any sudden outburst of popular passion. The un- stable condition of the present French gov- ernment daily grows more critical, and the reappearance of M. Rochefort on the political stage at this moment augurs iN for the continuance of the Mar- shalte. Personal and public griefs will combine to make the escaped prisoner even more bitter and unrelenting in his oppo- sition to MacMahon than he was to the gov- ernment of Napoleon III., and the circum- stance of his romantic escape will renew and strengthen his popularity with the republican party in France, His power for good and evil has been tenfold increased by his sufferings and the persecutions of which he was the object, and the victim of New Caledonia re- turns, a power that may well be feared even by a Marshal President, whose power rests, as did his former master’s, on half a million of bayonets. The Pulpit To-Day. This in the Catholic and Episcopal churches is Trinity Sunday, a great day with these de- nominations. Their regular services are so selected and arranged as to be a reminder of the doctrine of which the duy is commemo- rative. Few other denominations or churches give any more heed to it than they do to any other Sunday in the year. This fact may easily be inferred from the themes chosen by the pastors to-day for their meditation. Dr. Fulton, not satisfied with last Sunday’s talk about the baptism of Carist, takes up the theme to-day where he left it off then, and will present the lessons that it teaches, His evening subject we judge to be of peculiar in- terest to ladies—‘A Few of the Perils Threatening American Womanhood.’’ Of course the ‘‘few’’ implies that there are many more; but he will consider only the most prominent perils to women, and will, doubt- less, give them such advice as they should hear and heed. Dr. Samson believes that lack of faith is the chief cause of spiritual failures, and will so instruct his people to-day. He will also explain the physical cause and the moral end ot the Deluge, so that readers of the Scrip- tures may have a more intelligent understand- ing of that event. Mr. Gordon, of Chicago, | will portray the ‘Christian's Rest’’ and present it as a motive for Christian work. He will also urge the Christian duty of caring for the souls of others. It will be Mr. Hepworth’s pleasing duty this morning to present sorrow in its disciplinary aspects, so that those who are called to mourn may not sorrow as those | who have no hope. They need not, if the will is consecrated to God, and the consecration of that power is the important theme chosen by Mr. Hepworth for his evening discourse. The “Minor Moralities,” about which Mr. Clarke, major moralities by the ‘‘Baptism of the Holy Ghost,’ about which Mr. Davenport will preach. We gave an account some time ago ofthe Church of England's mimicry of Catholic ‘“missions,'’ and to which ila advocates gave the high sounding title of a ‘great awaken- ing.’’ Later reports make it appear to be a poor imitation of the original thing. But such as it was, great or small, Mr. Borham, who has recently come hither from Great Britain, will give an account of it this even- ing and it may result in a similar awakening in the United States. Birthdays and decoration days have their legs of the former, and the patriotism of the Americans has taken on the form of the latter. Mr. Mitchell will say some things wise and witty about birthdays and Mr. King will draw from the churchyard floral decorations such lessons as, no doubt, the people will be glad to learn and to remember. Other pastors will present to their congregations topics of more or less local importance, Paooress or Pressyrentanism.—The Pres- | byterian General Assembly at St. Louis has | been considering the subject of home missions, and in the course of the remarks made it was shown that great progress had been made in missionary work in Kansas and the Indian \ Territory. Six years ago the Presbyteriahs | had only forty-three churches and thirty-four | { ministers in Kansas, Now there area hun- SUNDAY, MAY $1, 1874—QUADRUPLE SHEET. dred churches and a hundred and sixty minis- tors. Important assistance for this work in the West was given by the East. Let churches and schoolhouses keep pace with the rapidly extending settlements westward, and that will Prove effective, both in checking the bar- barism of the Indians and advancing the civilization of the white people. The Evil in the Park Department : and Its Remedy. In resigning his position as Park Commis- sioner Mr, Salem H. Wales admits that the department has not been managed in @ man- ner altogether consistent with the public in- terests;"and points out the cause. Economy has not been practised in the expenditures -because Comptroller Green has insisted upon “the retention and appointment of his per- sonal friends—not always the best—in and to various offices of the department,” and be- cause the dismissal of these inefficient em- ployés could not be attempted ‘without pro- voking Mr. Green’s hostility.” In plain language, this means that the Comptroller, who andits and approves the bills and requi- sitions of all other departments in the city government, forces ineapable and unnecessary employés upon such of them as he can control, ahd thus provides for his friends and creatures at the expense of the taxpayers of the city. If a department refuses:to defraud the city by quartering these drones on the treasury Mr. Green’s ‘‘hostility” is provoked, and he revenges himself by withholding money from the offending department, embarrassing its work and assailing the official capacity and integrity of those who control it. We can now understand why the Park Depart- ment has been managed with secrecy; why the details of its expenditures have been care- fully hidden from the public eye, and why the names of its employés, the salaries paid and the work done have been mysteries to all but the inside management. We can now see how it is that consulting architects, supervising architects, superintending archi- tects, engineers and a whole army of sine- curists have been preying on the substance of the Parks; why elaborate art museums and monkey houses have been designed and built, and why tunnels which nobody would use when completed, and roads and bridges which nobody wants are ander prog- reas. These are the jobs that sup- ply the necessities for Mr. Green's ‘‘in- competents.’’ Mr. Wales recognized the evil and resigned. Colonel Stebbins no doubt recognized the evil when he retired from the presidency of the department some time ago, He will remedy it now if the Mayor will give him an associate on the commission who will act for the good of the city instead of the in- terest of the Comptroller. No taxpayer begrudges the money spent on Central Park if it is honestly expended and ina manner which will afford a proper return, What the people now want in the Park is a grand drive for four or five rows of carriages, a bridle path for horse riders and a broad promenade for foot passengers, com- bined, so that all New York can meet together there as all London meets in Hyde Park and as all Paris meets in the Bois de Boulogne, to see and to be seen. This improvement can be secured without the expense of architects and engineers, by the employment of labor directed by competent overseers, at very little cost. If the Mayor will nominate as successor to Mr. Wales a gentle- man who has taste, leisure, energy and the experience of foreign travel, the future prog- ress of the Park ‘will be in this practical di- rection, and we shall soon have a scene be- tween Stetson’s and the Fifth avenue en- trance on Fifty-ninth street which our own people can enjoy, and which we shall be proud to show to the Englishman from Rotten Row, the Frenchman from the Bois and the Vien- nese from the Prater. Mr. Leonard W. Jerome, who combines all these qualifications, is the best Commissioner the Mayor could se- lect if he should search New York from the Battery to the Westchester border. With such an associate Colonel Stebbins could not only economize the expenditures of the depart- ment, but render the Park a hundred- fold more popular and attractive than it has ever been before. The position of Park Com- missioner is an honorary one; hence the poli- ticians may not be over eager for the appoint- ment, unless for the sake of patronage, and this they would find it difficult to render avail- able with Colonel Stebbins in the presidency of the department. It is, therefore, worth the Mayor's while to do something for the city in filling this vacancy, The appointment of Mr. Leonard W. Jerome would be popular and desirable in every respect, and would be accepted asa guarantee that Mr, Havemeyer, at least, desires to retain for the Park Commis- sion the high reputation it has hitherto held, but which Mr. Green is doing his utmost to destroy. The Scientific Outlook. Wendell Phillips said in a recent speech that the time was coming when we might com- municate instantly with San Francisco with- out either wire or operator. The audience laughed at him. Perhaps his statement is not | so extravagant as it seemed. Had the ordi- nary work now dove by the magnetic tele- graph been predicted forty years ago it would have been received with the same incredulity, The truth is that science, like politics and love, slways develops in unexpected direc- tions. No sooner are men fixed in their scien- tific opinions than some startling discovery reveals their ignorance and shows the world that all things are possible ander the sun. Ever since the invention of the use of steam men have agreed that only hot vapor had the least power; but quite recently a Philadelphia machinist exhibited an iron globe, no larger than a gallon jug, full of cold vapor, showing @ pressure of twenty thousand pounds to the square inch, and neither time nor temperature diminished its tremendous power. ‘I'he dis- covery is said to have been accidental. The inventor was experimenting with an engine run by compressed air and a vacuum, when to his profound astonishment he stumbled on the cold vapor secret ; and it was some time before he could make a gauge strong enough to test its power. Until then he had not imagined such a discovery possible. Nature seems to coquet with the inquiring intellect of man until he is sure of some great secret, when she confounds him with dis- appointment; but in his less inquisitive moments she reveals what he never dreamed of, Modern science ia a oaradox, Water, which was always considered the most income» bustible matter in nature, produces the great est heat known. Watch springs burn like pitch. The chemist prepares delicate muslin — 60 that it can be cleansed with fire. Arsenio is prescribed for dangerous diseases. Frozen feet are saved by plunging them into snow. Children are told to keep away from iron dur- ing thunderstorms, yet hardware stores are never struck by lightning. Persons suffering with hydrophobia go into convulsions at the sight of water. A French physician, how- ever, has cured fifty cases of thisawful malady with hot baths. An oditor of a New York newspaper lost his sight until a surgeon put a knife into his eyeballs, whereupon the man recovered and went about his work. The wildest imagination is unable to pree dict the discoveries of the future, For all we know families in the next century may pump fuel from the river and illuminate their houses with ice and electricity. Iron vessels, prop- erly magnetized, may sail through the air like balloons, anda trip to the Rocky Mountains may be made in.an hour, Perhaps within fitty years American grain will be shot into Liverpool and Calcutta through iron pipes laid under the sea. By means of condensed air and cold vapor engines excursion parties may travel along the floor of the ocean, sail- ing past ancient wrecks and mountains of coral. On land the intelligent farmer may turn the soil of a thousand acres in a day, while his son cuts wood with a platinum wire and shells corn by electricity, The matter now contained in a New York daily may be produced ten thousand times a minute, on lit- tle scraps of pasteboard, by improved photo- graphy ; and boys may sell the news of the world printed on visiting cards, which their customers will read through artificial eyes. Five hundred years hence a musician may play a piano in Now York connected with instruments in San Francisco, Ohi- cago, Cincinnati, New Orleans and other cities, which will be listened to by half a million of people. A speech delivered in New York will be heard instantly in the halls of those cities, and when fashionable audiences in San Francisco go to.bhear some renowned singer she will be performing im New York or Philadelphia. In the year 1900 a man may put on his ine flated overcoat, with a pair of light steering wiugs fastened to his arms; and go to Newark and back in an hour. All the great battles will be fought in the air. Patent thunderbolts will be used instead of cannon. A boy in Ho- boken will go to Canada in the family oir car- riage to see his sweetheart, and the next day his tather will chasten him with a magnetic re- buker because he did not return before mid~ night. The time is coming when the Haratp will send a reporter to see @ man reduce one of the Rocky Mountains to powder in half a day. Skilful miners will extract gold from quartz as easily as cider is squeezed from apples, A compound telescope will be invented on entirely new principles, so that one may see the planets as distinctly as we now see Statem Island. Microscopes will be made so powerfal that a particle of dust on a gnat’s back wil appear larger than Pike’s Peak. And marvel- lous progress will be made in psychological and mental sciences. Two men will sit in baths filled with chemical liquids, One ef them may be in Denver and the other ig Montreal, A pipe filled with the same liquid, will connect the two vessels, and the fluid will be so sensitive that each man will know the other’s thoughts. In these coming days our present. mode of telegraphing will be classed with the wooden ploughs of Egypt, | and the people will look back to steamships and locomotives as we look back to sailboats and stage coaches. The Religious Press on Mill River and Chicago. Two principal topics engross the attention of the religious press this weck, the Mill | River disaster and the trial and acquittal of Professor Swing in Chicago. For the former the Christian at Work asks, ‘‘Who is responsi- ble?”’ and, in its own incisive style, dividea the blame between the engineers who planned | the dam and the contractors who put in cheap material or too little of it and the capitalists who screwed enginecrs, contractors and ma- sons down to the lowest point at which any- thing that looked like a dam could be con- structed. It declares that New England is thick with such dams as this Mili River one, and they all need looking after. The Christian Leader, commenting on the same sad accident, thinks the owners.and cone | structors of the dam were to blame for not | building better, but it acquite them of inten- | tional wrong-doing in this matter. They ; would not and they did not willingly jeopar- | dize the lives of their employés. It therefore | emphasizes the lesson for all fature dam ! builders, which this terrible expericnce makes | so patent. On the trial of Professor Swing the Hvane | gelist, the leading Presbyterian organ in this | city, gives first a review of the proceedings, ‘and then comments on the spirit of Dr. | Patton, who, having been defeated by more than three to one in the Presbytery of Chicago, appeals the case, and thus drives Professor Swing out of the Presbyterian Chorch. To | lose sucha man at such a time as this, it | says, may appear to some a gain to the purity | and efficiency of the Church, but the great | mass of sober thinking men will not share their sentiments. It thinks the legitimate effect of this trial and withdrawal of Professor Swing will be to hinder young men from entering the ministry of the Presbyterian Church, where already far too few seek to enter. The Independent regrets that Protessor Swing should have declined to fight the good fight and withdrawn from the Presbyterian Church. He has missed, it thinks, one of the best opportunities that ever came to any man to liberate thoasands of his ministerial breth- ren from the bonds of old time creeds, The Presbyterian Ohurch would not have vem tured to expel such a man from its com munion, and he should have stood fast in his lot and defended the right of less fortunate men to believe and preach a religion which | consists not in the letter that killeth, bat im | the spirit that giveth life. i | A STUDENT DROWNED, Iraaca, N. Y., May 30, 1674. | ©. §, Emerson, of Bowling Green, Uhio, astudems ; ta the Cornell Oniversity, while bathing tn Fall Creck this afternoon, got beyond bis depth, and, | being unable to swim, was drowned. was recovered after about forty minutes, but lle Was oxtuct,