The New York Herald Newspaper, November 20, 1874, Page 6

6 NEW YORK HERALD! STREET. BROADWAY AND ANN JAMES GORDON BENNETT. PROPRIETOR THE DAILY HERALD, published every day in the year. Four cents per copy. An- nual] subscription price $12, NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS.—On and NEW YORK HERALD, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1874.-TRIPLE SHEET. Clouds im the European Sky. The remarkable religious controversy now waging in England is followed by new phenomena. There were, for instance, two or three apparently harmless despatches scattered through our European news col- umns yesterday which will bear a second consideration in the view of the Manning- Gladstone war. The temper of the European mind is so uncertain, and there are so many angry conditions in the relations of the States, and this religious question assumes so much prominence, that it is wise to consider critically after January 1, 1875, the daily and weekly | the slightest indication of the temper of the editions of the New Yore Hznatp will be sent free of postage. All business or news letters and telegraphio despatches must be addressed New Yore Uxpaxrp. Letters and packages should be properly | sealed. | Rejected comrgunications will not be re- | turned. | LONDON OFFICE OF THE NEW YORK HERALD—NO. 46 FLEET STREET. Subscriptions and Advertisements will be received ard forwarded on the same terms as in New York. Volume XXX1X Mo. 324 AMUSEMENTS TO-NIGHT. NEW YORK STADT THEATRE, | Bowery.—German Opera Bouife—DIE SCHOANE GA- ESTHEE, ate P. ot. ; closes at 0:30 P.M, Miss Lina Mayr. OLYMPIC THEATRE, Be, 624 Broadway.—VARIETY, at 8 P. M.; closes at 1045 iM. be vg r= RAaRB. fT a 2 Detw wenty-first and Twenty-seeon arse E I AGE, MEP. M.; closes at 1010 P, M. Mi. John T, Raymond. THEATRE COMIQUE, o,f Brosdway. VARIETY, at SY, Bi. closes at 10:30 Tw nd reer aud Stath avenue, —RIP VAN ity tl rreet ani ix! _ No IRELE. a8 P. Mn; closes at 10:30 P.M. Mr, Jefferson. ROMAN HIPPODROME, ‘Twenty-sizth street and Fourth avenue.—Afternoon and evening, at 2 and 8 WALLACK’S THEATRE, | Broadway.—THE SHAUGHRAUN, at 8P. M.; closes at 10. P, Mr. Boucicault NIBLO'S GARDEN, Broadway, between Prince and Houston streets. WILD CAT NED, at8P. Mi closes atll ¥. a. ‘Warm Spring Indians, FIFT! Twenty-eighth, str FRIEND, at 8 P. Davenport, Mr. Fishe: ROBINSON HALL, Sixteenth street, between Broadway and Fifth avenue.— VARIELY, Matinee at 2P. M.; evening gp8P. BRYANT'S OPERA HOUSE, West Twenty third street, near Sixth avenue.—NEGRO MINSTRELSY, ac, at SP. M.; closes at 10 P.M. Dan Bryant. TONY PASTOR'S OPERA HOUSE, No, 201 Bowery.—VAKITY, at 8 P. M. ; closes at 10 P. M, SAN FRAN ‘O MINSTRELS, Broadway, corner ot y ninth street.—NEGRO MINSTRELSY, at 8 P. M. ; closes at 10 P. M. MRS, CONWAY CAMILLE, ats P.M. B. Miss JOKLYN THEATRE, ara Morris. ACA MUSIC, Irving place.—MIGN P.M. Mlle, Albani and | Mule. Heilbron. ETH GLOBE ATRE, Broadway.—VARIETY, at M. : closes st 10:80 P. 3. ERMANIA 6 THEATR®, Fourteenth street —ULTIMO, at 8 P. M. LYCE Fourteenth street and 5 MADAME ANGOT, at #P. Emily Soldene. mn avenue.—LA A FILLE DE +) closes at 10:45 ‘Miss YM. | | woop's | Broadway, corner of 1h. CABIN, at? P. M.; closes at atsP. M., closes at 10:45 P. M. )CIATION HALL, Fourth avenve.—LECTURE ON s. UNCLE TOMS .M.; LITTLE RIFLE, | As Twenty-third street a’ SIAM. Mrs, Leonow AMER. Third avenue, betwe streets. INDUSTRIAL ‘INSTITUTE, Sixty-third and Sixty-fourth HIBITLON. N THEATRE, METROPOL! | Y, at 8 P. M.; ‘closes at 10:3) | No. 58 Broadway.—VARi P.M. TRIPLE SHEET. | times. Thus we have the word of Disraeli, as told in ‘‘Lothair’ and repeated in many speeches, that we are on the eve of a great crisis. So we cannot study the sigus too closely. We observe that Prince Gortschakoff has arrived in Berlin and has had interviews with Bismarck and the Emperor. Prince Gortschakoff is one of the most distinguished of living statesmen ; before the rise of Bis- marck he was the leading statesman of Europe. He is now seventy-six years of age, and people naturally ask what leads him in his old age to take an inclement winter journey from St. Petersburg to Berlin. This is a natural question, one that cannot be asked without uneasiness, Accordiugly the telegraph gives usareply. ‘Prince Gortschakoff has ! discussed proposals for the revision of the Russo-German customs regulations for the benefit of commerce and international inter- course.”’ In other words the telegraph asks us to believe that Prince Gortschakoff has ac- tually come to Berlin upon a cold November errand, that could have been as well performed | by a consul general or an under secretary of state, to talk about salt and beer and hay and flour!!! We pass to Paris and we find that a news- paper as calm and respected as the Journal des Débats has been making a severe attack upon Mr. Disraeli “for his disclaimer that his recent Guildhall speech referred to the Von Arnim case.” The Journal says:— “Mr. Disraeli has simply apologized to Prince Bismarck for his offensive utterances. It is apparent from this incident of Mr. Disraeli’s apology that England in her turn has been invaded. The Prime Minister can no longer speak without submitting to censure from Berlin.’’ A criticism of this nature from a journal of the standing of the Journal des | Débats means a great deal. And we can | learn the value put upon these criticisms in Germany when we remember the conciuding words of the speech addressed to the German Parliament by the Bmperor William. Royal | orators are generally vague in their speeches, and to find the royal meaning we are com- pelled to read between the lines. The Emperor’s exact words are as follows:— “I know myself to be free from all tempting thoughts to employ the united power of the Empire for other than defensive purposes. Conscious of the power at our disposal my | government can afford to pass over in silence the suspicions unjustly cast upon their policy. Not until the malice and party passions to whose attacks we are exposed proceed from words to actions shall we resent them. In such an event the whole nation and its princes will join me in defending our honor and rights.” This isa declaration the more we read it the more menacing it appears. Why should a great Emperor care particularly about the criticisms of foreign journals? What has Germany to fear that the old King should brandish his sword in the face of Europe? What Power “‘attacks’’ his imperial policy? Isit France, or Austria, or Russia? It would seem to us that Germany has been treated with remarkable cordiality and for- bearance by the other Powers. England saw the partition of Denmark without a move- ment. France yielded to Sadowa with a simple protest. Russia stood with drawn sword to prevent any interference in the mu- tilation of France. Germany has had the utmost indulgence from Europe. She has New York, Friday, Nov. 20, 1874, From our reports this morning the probabilities | are that the weather to-day will be cold and | cloudy. ee ke a Watt Srrzer Yesterpay.—The prices of | stocks fluctuated and tended downwards. | Gold was firm at 111}. Investment bonds | of all kinds were generally steady. Money | on call loans ruled at 3 and 3} per cent. We Prt the report of Mr. Douglass, Com- missioner of Interual Revenue, including his | important recommendations to Congress. | Over Mananoy City Letter gives a fall account of the modern Molly Maguires in the Schuylkill county coal regions of Pennsyl- vania. | | | | Ta Tratan Exzctioys have been followed | by prompt government proceedings against revolutionary agitators and the arrest of mem- bers of the Cammorristi. Bostow will not easily part with her historic Commons. The proposition to use it for busi- ness purposes has excited general opposition, the incidents of which are given in our corre- spondence elsewhere. Tae Wassrcton Lossy.—It is understood | that there will bea numerous and powerful | lobby at Washington at this coming session of Congress, and that, although the session | wil! be short, the lobby is promised a rich barvest. Jcpez Potaxn's opinions of the situation in Arkansas are given in our correspondence | to-day, and they are of more than personal value, as he is chairman of the Congressional Committee of Investigation of recent affairs in that State. i Tue Excusa Catnoric Bisxops.—The re- | quest which the English Catholic bishops will make tothe Pope during their contemplated | visit to Rome goes farto answer Mr. Gladstone and to dispel the fear which his recent publi- | cations may have aroused. They wish to assure the Supreme Pontiff of their desire to respect the laws of England and their intention not to blindly submit to the regulations imposed upon bishops in other European countries. Soutnenn Trovrirs.—It is reported that the President will in his Message urge upon | Congress the necessity of immediate legisla- | tion for the protection of the blacks in the | South and in view of the general restoration | in that section of law and order. But after | tinkering for ten years at this melancholy | business would it not be well to give to the | gained great advantages ; but victory, as in the case of Napoleon, seems to have taught the Emperor simply arrogance. He does not propose to pause in his career, and the prob- lem now in all European minds is, ‘Where will he strike?” Is it not also a sad comment upon the civilization of our blazing, boastful century to see a great monarch and the head of a great empire wantonly invoking the spirit of war? Germany has had three wars in ten years, and we should think that even the martial spirit of a Hohenzollern would | be satisfied. The uneasiness occasioned by a speech like this from the Emperor, and the prodigious spread of this religious flame, would explain the visit of the Imperial Chancellor to Berlin. It is not the first sign of unrest that Russia has shown. The whole Brussels Conference movement was an appeal for peace or for such modifications in the actual doing of war that strife would lose its terrors. This Brussels Con- ference was, in some respects, a romantic idea— an effort to adjust all the hard and brutal conditions of war to the conditions of modern civilization. But the fact that a martial Power like Russia should become so suddenly anxious to deprive war of its terrors and to modify in- ternational law in the interests of belligerents shows that in the mind of the Czar the busi- ness of belligerency is not at an end. In addition to this there have been ugly howe symptoms in Russia. This “socialist con- spiracy,” about which we have so many guarded despatches, would seem to be a marked indication of morbid national health, Russia, empire and absolutism as it is, con- tains as many volcanic elements as France. Those who have studied that extraordinary nation closely, its habits, traditions, ambi- tions, its difference in nationality, religion and race, the hundred antagonistic ele- ments that have been welded together un- der the iron rule of the Czar—German and Pole, Tartar and Cossack —will understand how even Russia would respond to the spirit of change which for the past fifty years has been moving to and fro over the nations of the world. While Russia ‘suppresses socialism” all England is commenting upon the fact that the Prince of Wales has been receiving honors from a republican Mayor cf the radical city of Birmingham. This Mayor, Mr. Chamber- lain, is known to be one of the advanced English republicans, The Prince of Wales came to visit the city, and of course the Mayor would be called upon to do him honor. Even as staid a journal as the 7imes compares reconstructed States, each and all, a foir opportunity to govern themselves? the meeting to that of Pétion with Louis XVL. Other newspapers not so reserved wonder because the Mayor received the Prince like 4 gentleman and did not strike from the | shoulder or cry “Live the Republic.” This 1s small event, but it is very significant. England begins to look upon republicanism as a fact in the monarchy, a principle of political action. The trades’ unions and other labor movements have great strength. They sre rich in money and men and organization. Every year adds to their strength. No longer the docile support of crown and caste, like the caryatides that support the splendid edifice, silent, suffering, unresponsive, only to stand and die, that ancient and false systems should exist in undiminished splendor, the people feel that they have rights as well as descendants of the freebooting Stuart and Plantagenet. From St. Petersburg to Bir- mingham, wherever we look we see troubled waters. Danish and Polish and Roman and Eastern questions, Spain and France under the mailed hand of armed adventurers, who represent neither that “grace of God’’ which comes with a crown, nor that still higher grace which comes from the will of the peo- ple. The Commune in. Paris, the intransi- gentes in Madrid, the ultramontanes in Ber- lin, the socialists in St. Petersburg, the repub- | licans in London, all these we see and have | seen. Truly the European sky is in angry mood—shooting flames here and there and lightning flashes, and the ominous thunder that comes from the far-distant canopies of heaven or the far-hidden caverns of the earth. What does it all mean? A proud Emperor brandishing his sword, and elements of dis- turbance everywhere. As if to add to the complication here is the mightiest religious controversy that has been known since the time of Luther, and not unlike that of Luther; for Germany and England have again grap- pled with the power of Rome. All this time Germany and France are arm- ing every able-bodied citizen, and even bidding the old men to be ready to detend their homes. Europe is an armed camp. The sword is the sign that is seen in the heavens. No wonder the venerable Rus- sian Chancellor should take a long and dreary winter journey to see what it means; to try if peace cannot be preserved; to avoid, if possible, the tremendous shock that seems so swiftly coming. As our venerable and illustrious fellow citizen, Mr. Bryant, said the other day, he could remember the time when Napoleon was First Consul, and when no events seemed more distant than the downfall of the Bonaparte Empire, the aboli- tion of the temporal power, the unification of Germany and the emancipation of the slaves and the serfs. But in his life he has witnessed the fruition of all, and now, in his venerable, honored and sunny old age, he sees the coming of even greater events. Like Disraeli he sees that the world is on the eve of a momentous crisis—one of those events that give a monumental gran- deur to the age. It is not for us to speculate upon the nature of this crisis or the tremen- dous consequences it may involve. But we can well understand how Gortschakoff and Bismarck, and those whose trade is the service of kings, would sit in anxious thought as they looked upon these clouds which float, black and threatening, over the European sky and wonder whether the monarchy will ride the storm and whether the time is not at hand which Napoleon predicted at St. He- lena when Europe would be republican or Cossack. Civilization has made the Cossack alternative impossible, but how about the re- publican ? Popular Sunday Amusements. One of the most popular Sunday amuse- ments is sleeping, and, excepting when it is the clergy. occupatior, and the only trouble with it is that its merits are only recognized when one isawake. To sleep late on Sunday morning is conceded to be a general right, and asa rite itis, therefore, religiously observed. But it isa misfortune that few persons who have not thoroughly studied the art can sleep all day. The majority of people are compelled to get up some time or other, and their natural reluctance is, in many cases, only overcome by dinner. The question then is what they shall do. Our sincere advice is to go to church; but as it frequently hap- pens that church is over, such counsel is not always of any value. Consequently the ir- resolute citizen has little to do but to go to sleep again in the afternoon, and, if his strength is equal to the effort, to take a nap in the evening. But for those who have not the talent for slumber developed to a degree of genius the employment of the Sunday hours, after break- fast is over, is often a matter of much deli- cacy. They may read the Sunday papers, | but even that delight must come to an end, especially if they try to read them all, when the joy is transformed to pain. They may walk out to the Park; but even its attractions may become wearisome. They may go to beer saloons or taverns; but then every one does not care for beer or whiskey sufficiently to devote a whole day to the investigation of their effect upon the nervous system and the reasoning faculties. It is an interesting study, but is attended by this inconvenience, that it frequently exhausts the student. To many persons what to do on Sunday thus be- comes a question of great difficulty, and they are apt to settle it by doing nothing, In the meanwhile the public 1s earnestly debating during the secular week what is best to be done with the Sunday, and we add to the contemporaneous literature on the subject new contributions of interest and value. One of these is from the skilful pen of Miss Clara Morris, who replies generally to Mr. Tal- mage’s mild objections to theatres; and another is a defence of that gentleman, and we know of few persons who need defenders more than he. But while the discussion between church and theatre isso earnestly conducted we have only to rian our advice to open the public libraries and free reading rooms. If all their doors were thrown open to the public the question of what to do on Sunday would not be so often asked, or, if asked, would have a satisfactory answer. As We Ixtimatep the other day, there will be no trial of the Beecher scandal ease, The decision of the Court yesterday seems to have that effect and to throw the cause into the eternities. At the rate in which Mr. Beecher's counsel seem disposed to ‘‘gain cultivated in church, it is not proscribed by | hig. heat . Tt ia's harmless and delighttal | prone to wear his heart upon his sleeve for the | the beginning of the next century, and the parties in interest will most likely be the grandchildren of Mr. Beecher and Mr. Tilton. In the meantime Mr. Beecher has the best of it, for he has steady work and good pay. We wish we could hear that Mr. Tilton was at some honest, wholesome work, for we do not know of a young man in the country who seems more in need of it. Seasonable Rumors-—Canards in the Alr. This is the time for ducks, and so look out for canards. We presume there is no better reason for the expressive French word canard than that stories, like ducks, fly about in wan- ton wandering fashion. The true journalist can do nothing better than imitate the true sportsman and shoot them as they fy. We have observed one curious trait about the canard, that if not true it is generally what people would like to have true. There is another reason for the derivative, in this, that nothing is more certain than that sportsmen are never so anxious to see the ducksas when there are none to be seen. Since the election—the tidal wave, the over- throw, the disaster, or whatever the reader’s own rhetoric may prefer—people have been looking toward Washington with straining eyes. They certainly think the time has come to see something. And in this anxious mood, like travellers misled by the mirage, or sportsmen lying with expectant gun in open boat all night, they fancy they see what is too often a mere canard, a foolish story on the wing, flying about until it disappears in the waters and the mist. Everybody felt that the President, if he were the true, manly, sensi- ble Ulysses Grant who made Lee captive under the apple tree, would learn the lesson of the November defeats, as he learned the lessons of Shiloh and the Wilderness—re- trieve his mistake, reorganize his armies, dis- miss corrupt and foolish generals and find his Phil Sheridan, his Sherman, his Meade and his Terry in politics as, he found themin war; that he would change the Cabinet, which was simply a group of staff officers, not statesmen, and call to his side the real leaders of the party—the men who had made it a party when the President was a modest but sincere democrat. Out of this ex- pectation grew the belief, which became a story and finally grew into the proportions of the ‘highest authority,’ that Mr. Washburne had been summoned and was about to come home and serve Grant with the friendship he showed in the beginning of his career. Everybody hoped this and in time believed it. But now we learn from Washington that itis a canard. Our correspondent tells us that the President has not summoned Mr. Washburne and ‘‘does not want his advice.” If our correspondent exactly reports the words of the second Washington we are afraid the father of his country is not in the best humor. He is not now in the position to despise the advice of any statesman, more especially such a mon as Elihu B. Washburne. Of course, if the President wants to keep his Cabinet like a stone wall, dead, inert, expres- sionless, cold, simply to butt his head against it, ashe did in the November elections, he does not reed the advice of Mr. Washburne, or of any one, unless it may be a competent medical adviser. But, although our correspondent re- ports the Washburne story canard, is it a canard? May there not be another canard behind this one? Who says the President denied this story with the sharpness of temper indicated by our correspondent. It may be that General Babcock, Mr. Fish or some of the staff officers who hold Cabinet portfolios deny it and speak “‘by authority.” But do they speak by authority? Do they know any- thing about it? The President was never daws to peck at, and we do not think he does 80 now. Still let the correspondents have their way about it, Put it down asa canard and let it fly. At the same time we remember that when Frederick the Great intended to invade Silesia he told no one of his purpose but one Minister. When Napoleon set out to invade Belgium before Waterloo no one knew the object of his march. When the President means to make his campaign we shall know it when it is made, canard a canard after all? see. Remedies for State Repudiation. A statement has recently been made and copied in the public press that, under the advice of eminent counsel in England and Let us wait and America, a plan has been formed for the con- | version of the bonds of certain delinquent States into a security that can be enforced by legal proceedings. As somewhat vaguely described, this plan is said to contemplate the passage of laws under which the holder of the new security can, by judicial process, compel the exercise of the power of taxation to provide the means of satisfying his claim, and this is supposed to be warranted by recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, especially by the case of Von Hoffman vs, Quincy. Bills, it is said, have been prepared, which the Legislatures of the defaulting States will be asked to pass. We should be disposed to assist in any rational plan that will rescue any of our States from the disgrace of repudiation ; but there are some things that cannot be done, and, therefore, false hopes are not to be encouraged. When our federal constitution went into operation its judicial power extended to all suits to which a State could be made a party. But by the adoption of the eleventh amend- ment, in 1798, the judicial power was re- stricted to suits between States, because it was declared not to extend “to any suit in law or equity commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another State, or by citizens or subjects of any foreign State."’ No private individual, therefore, citi- zen or foreigner, can enforce any contract against a State of this Union in the federal courts, and he can have only such remedy against the State in its own courts as the State may choose to give him, which we have referred contemplates legisla- tion by which a State shal! open its courts to the holders of that State's obligations and give them a right to have taxes levied ina defined mode for the collection of the debt, the right and the remedy would con- stitute a part of the contract which the State could thereafter do nothing to im- pair. But the federal judiciary could not be appealed to unless the Legislature of the State time” the actual trial will be reached about | should undertake by law to impair the obliga So the question may well arise, is this | If the plan to | tion of the contract, and in that case the action of the federal judiciary would be confined to a declaration of the invalidity of the State law that impaired the obligation. In the case of Von Hoffman vs. Quincy, a citizen of New York, who held bonds of the city of Quincy, Il, issued under the authority of laws which authorized the municipal corporation to levy a special tax to pay the annual interest, brought a suit in the Federal Court in that State to compel the city by mandamus to levy and collect the tax to pay his coupons. The city set up a subsequent statute which limited the amount of the city taxes, not leaving enough to pay these coupons. The Supreme Court of the United States held this statute to be void, because it impaired the obligation of the contract, of which an exercise of the power of taxation was an essential part, and directed the mandamus to issue. This, be it observed, was a proceeding on the contract-of a munici- pal corporation, not the contract of a State, and the Federal Court had jurisdiction be- cause of the citizenship of the parties. It was a most valuable and important decision, but its principle is available in any plan for put- ting the debts of States on a better footing, only by legislation that shall either throw the debts upon the municipal bodies of the State, or else by legislation that will open the State courts to suits on the contracts of the State. If the obligations are made to rest on the mu- nicipal corporations of the States—cities, towns or counties—the judicial power of the United States may reach them; but so long as they are State debts merely the remedy must be confined to the State courts, unless a foreign sovereign should see fit to assert his international right to col- lect debts due to his own subjects, Whether this international right can be exercised only by diplomacy, reprisals and war, or can be exercised by a resort to the judicial tribunals, is a very grave question, which will possibly arise somewhere in the world, considering what a mass of national debts of all kinds exists all through Christendom. The opera- tion of the eleventh amendment of our con- stitution is probably not to be regarded as ex- cluding from the judicial power suits brought by a foreign State or sovereign against a State of this Union. If so, and if a foreign sov- ereign should make himself the assignee or trustee of his subjects in respect of debts due from one of our States, could he maintain a suit to collect those debts in our federal courts? This would bea very serious ques- tion, depending upon principles of interna- tional law that have not yet been fully devel- oped. All that can be said now is that the possible existence of such questions, and the various plans that may be proposed for put- ting any of our debts on a better footing, are so many admonitions to our legislative bodies to get out of the disgraces and dangers of re- pudiation by any honorable means that can be agreed upon with their creditors. Sanitary Reform and Winter Relief for the Metropolitan Poor. The problem of winter relief for the poor, now so anxiously discussed. is making strong demands upon the attention of the public and calls for stringent ‘sanitary reforms on the metropolitan authorities. The winter epi- demics, more than aught else, vest the suf- ferings of the poverty stricken with their greatest terror, and any measures for their prevention blunt the tooth of hunger and give courage to the needy to endure the ills of this season. In the recent sanitary in- quiries as to the causes of the diphtheria scourge many have concluded that the disease is due to ‘‘made land’’ and ‘defective drainage,”’ and they point to the net-work of small streams once running through New York but now filled up and built over. This conclusion is evidently groundless, for the cause and effect are disproportioned. The districting of New York and the mapping of its scourged sections may be very useful. But the causes of disease are not found so much in soil conditions as in the domestic | arrangements and economy of the different districts. The atmospheric conditions of New York at all seasons are peculiarly favorable, and its climatology is by no means inviting to the epidemic. While much may be done by sew- erage and strect cleaning to mitigate and minimize disease common sense and sound | philosophy alike point to the interiors of its tenement dwellings as the hotbeds of the pre- vailing pestilence. Let us glance at one of the most prolific sources of winter sickness and misery among the poor. The contamination of indoor air, which every poor family must breathe nearly twenty- tour hours in the day, is the great evil to be abated. This contamination is due partly to the wretched and crude system of house and sewer pipes and drains, from which the sewer gas poison ceaselessly escapes. Perhaps the only remedy for this is the adoption of the Dutch pneumatic sewer system in those dis- tricts crowded with tenements, which city statistics prove are the haunts of pestilence. But, aside from this, a greater and more deadly evil abounds in the matter of house heating, which has been largely over- looked in the construction of homes for the poor. It is a much ignored fact that the heat felt by the human body is not the actual heat registered by the ordinary thermometer but that indicated by the wet bulb thermometer, or that attending evaporation from the hu- | Moist air is a much better con- | man body. ductor of heat than dry air, and is, in itself, a powerful means of arresting the radiation from the skin and keeping the body at a healthy temperature. By evaporating pure water on our house heatersand stoves the air of the house diffuses heat more equally, and with much less fuel consumed the sensible heat of the rooms is increased. The well-known avid- ity of hot air tor moisture explains the insa- lubrity of crowded and dry heated dwellings. During severely cold weather in our latitudes the out-of-door atmosphere has a capacity for about 1.30 grains of water in the shape of vapor. Introduced into our houses and stove heated to sixty degrees Fahrenheit its capa- city for vapor is increased five or six times, and it is insatiable till it abstracts so much from any sources with which it may come in contact. In the absence of pure vapor indoors, evaporated from the heating appar- atus, it absorbs the required quantity from the human body, or from any vegetable and animal substances within reach, however noxious they may be; and this poisoned vapor thus circulated must be again and again re- breathed. There can be no auestion that to this indoor process of wrial deterioration, fertile of disease, more than to any geographi- cal or local soil conditions, our metropolitan winter epidemics are to be ascribed. The poor workwoman, shivering over a fewembers and scantily supplied with fuel, should know that her store of coal would go much further and furnish her more and more salubrious heat if care were taken to supply herapartment with an abundance of vapor formed from pure water. No doubt the failure to do this explains the sickliness and feverish languor which flushes the wan face of the tenement inmate and makes effective indoor labor almost impossible. The numerous charitable associations, public and private, might render enormous assistance to the poor by instruct- ing them in the sanitary reform of their homes, as well as by replenishing their need. Without health no relief is adequate, and health cannot be had where the domestic arrangements invite and detain the conditions of a deteriorated atmosphere. Until publio attention is largely fixed upon this kind of sanitary reform it will be vain to hope for an adequate relief of the winter sufferings of the poor in our crowded cities. Hell Gate. Great engineering achievements have been the marvel of modern times—the Mont Cenis Tunnel, the Hoosac Tunnel, the Suez Canal, which has immortalized the name of De Les- seps, and the election of the democratic can- didates being among the most notable—but none in the neighborhood of New York has surpassed in difficulty and success the open. ing of Hell Gate. So long as this city has a history Hell Gate has been a nuisance, and its name very forcibly expresses its reputa- tion. American literature is indebted to it, however, for one of the finest passages in the splendid series of one of the best of modern novelists, James Fenimore Cooper. Proba« bly the most effective scene in his picturesque novel of the ‘‘Waterwitch’’ is the chase of the smuggler which bore that title through Hell Gate by a British frigate. It is a model of delicate nautical detail, thrilling in its excitement, and very accurately illustrates the period when Hell Gate was an almost impassable bar to com- merce. Since then the rocks that many of our readers remember have been partially re- moved, but they are still an obstacle to navigation through the Sound. Recently the ‘United States government has renewed its ef- forts for the removal of the obstructions at this point, and we print to-day a full account of the methods employed and the degree of success obtained. General Newton and his corps of assistants have ably conducted the difficult labor of subterranean tunnelling and blasting, and the estimates of six hundred thousand dollars to continue the work next year are moderate. There sre few more im- portant plans for the improvement of our harbors than that of the removal of the ob- structions at Hell Gate, for it is indispensable that all the doors to New York should stand wide open for the good of the entire nation. The history we print of the‘ great undertake ing is well worth the study of the public, PERSONAL INTELLIGENCE. State Senator Jarvis Lord, of Rochester, is stays ing at the Metropolitan Hotel. professor Alexander Agassiz, of Harvard College, is residing at the Everett House. General William Mahone, of Virginia, yesterday arrived at the St. Nicholas Hotel. Great success at the Bouffes Paristennes of Offenbach’s last, ‘Mme. l’Archiduc.” , General Henry W. Benham, United States Army, 18 quartered at the Grand Central Hotei. Congressman-elect John K. Taroox, of Massa chusetts, is registered at the St. Nicholas Hotel. Lieutenant Commander Dewitt C. Kells, United States Navy, is stopping at the Metropolitan Hotel, Senator Aaron H. Cragin and jamily, of New Hampshire, have apartments at the Westmoreland HoteL Lieutenant Colonel Jedediah H. Baxter, United States Army, has quarters at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Captain Jeff Maury, of the steamship City of Tokio, is among the latest arrivals at the Sturte- vant House. Dr. I. I. Hayes lectured at Newport, R. 1, last evening to a crowded house upon the “Polaris Expedition.” Vice President Henry Wilson arrived at the Grand Central Hotel yesterday from bis home in Massachusetts. General B. R. Cowen, Assistant Secretary of the Interior, has taken up his residence at the Windsor Hotel. A single small engraving, @ portrait of Aretino, by Mare Antonio Raimondi, sold in London for 780 guineas, or $4,095. ; Rochefort and Henri de Pene, of the Paris Jour- nal, have had a correspondence that, it is thought, mus: Jead to @ duel, Judge Theodore Miller, of Hudson, N. Y., who has just been promoted to the benca of the Court of Appeals, 1s sojourning at the Fifth Avenue HoteL Carlist “treasury notes,” payable three months alter the entry of Don Carlos into Madrid, are offered in London at fifty per cent, but are not bought. Count Tyszkiewicz, of Russia, is at the Windsor Hotel. The Count has just returned from a trip to the Isthmus in the steamship City of Tokio, irom which he landed last evening in good condition, not a singie letter of his name having been dix placed during the voyage. The revenue steamer Northerner, recently re- paired at Baitimore at a cost of $12,000, has been renamed by Secretary Bristow “Thomas Ewing,” after ex-Secretary Ewing. A number of the friends of Secretary Bristow desired him to name the vessel alter himself, but he declined to do so, Modesty! Ex-Governor Hoffman has associated himself at Albany as leading counsel with the firm of Marcus T, & Leonard G. Hun, The former of these gentlemen is the reporter of the fupreme Court decisions of tnis State, The ex-Governor wil! practise mainiy ip the Courts of Appeal and itn United States courts in patent and revenue cases, The health of Prince Leopold, of England, tne eighth child and fourth son of Queen Victoria, which for some time past has been Jeeble, con tinues in an ansatisfactory state. His condition was so serious during the night of tne 18th inst. that Dr. Jenner remained up with bim the entire night, Yesterday afternoon’s Court Cireniar an- nounced that bis case presented more favorable symptoms. ‘The oldest tailor in the world has just died in Paris. He was 109 years of age. He was called Father Fipps. He vegan his trade at nine years of age, and continued atit till his hundredth year! He worked for ninetyone years! Three months age he made @ pair of pantaloons for bis youngest great-great-grandcnild. It took him a fortnight. “and to think,’ he said, “that once upon a timed could make a pair in half a day!’ The Earl of Dunraven, Captain Wynne, of the British Army, and Dr, Kingsley, brother of Canon Kingsley, arrived in this city yesterday from St. Louis, and are at the Brevoort House. They have been hunting grizzly bears and other heavy game Jor several montus past in the wilds of Montana, and return to the East with a lively appreciation Of the blessings of civilization, and @ thorough knowledge of the perils and discomiorts of “‘rough- Ana 10’ Jo the Far West,