The New York Herald Newspaper, March 18, 1875, Page 6

NEW YORK HERALD | BROADWAY AND ANN STREET, JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR, NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS.—On and after January 1, 1875, the daily and weekly editions of the New Yorw Henarp will be vent free of postage THE DAILY HERALD, published every day in the year. Four cents per copy. wOa! anbecription price $12. All business or news letters and telegraphic despatches must be addressed New York Hen Rejected communications will not be re- turned. Letters and packages should be properly sealed. 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 Aliso sce eeceeee AMUSEMENTS T0-NIGHT. —— ARK THEATRE. ate FM; clones at 10:05 BROOKLY Puiten avenue —VARIBIY. 7 - BRYANT’s OPERA HOT third sreet, pear Sixt SY, ac., ats. 4; closes enne ~NEGRO wre Dan GERMANIA THEATRE Fourteenth street. ~GiROFLE GIPOFLA, at 8 PM closes at lv 4d. M. Miss Lina Mayr NIBLO'S RORY O'MOKe, aud MERRMANS, at 8 P. 0.0 P.M. TONY PASTOR'S OPERA HOUSE a a Bowery. <VAMIETY, at > FM. closes at 1045 ‘Twen, & NN, wa oR M TRRATRE near sixth Pore. Me Mane. Histort irteenth: ie" cure avenge.—MARIE PARK THRATRE Broadway.—French Opera Boutle— [ROPLE-GIROPLA, tS P.M’; closes at io“ ¥ M. Mile. Coralie Geoffrey GRAND CENTRAL THEATRE, Fos Breedway —VARIET) ate PM closes at 10 BOOTHS THEATRE corner of Twenty-third street and Sixth avenue — HENKY V., ater M cclosesat ll P.M Mr. Rignota. SAN FRANCISCO MINSTRELS. war. corner of Twenty-ninth street.<NEGRO SEL SS até P.M. closes at lor M TIVOL] THEATRE, pipeet, hetween pian! Third avenues.— SRinry ats P.M. ; closes “ ALLACK'S THEATRE, Prosar. <TH SHACGHRAUS, at). M+ closes at 10-46 P. Mr. Boucicawtt COLOSSEUM. Broadway and Thirty-jourth street ARIS BY NIGHT. Two exhibitions daily, at 2 aud 5 V MRS. CONWAY'S BROOKLYN THEATRE, 4 ky MAN O° AIRLIE, at POM. ; closes at PLM. Mr. Lawrence Barrett Broo 10:20 WOOD'S MUSEU ™, Broadwar, corner Thirtieth street —SAS-84 CUS, ate P. AM. . closes at 10:45 P.M. Matinee at2P. M. OLYMPIC THEATRE, Pit AA Brestwaye VARIETY, at $F. M.; closes at 1005 _ Post NSON HALL, stres and ages, CALI he ele G Onera MINSTREL P. M.; closes at 10 P. M. THLATRE © $e 514 Broadway. ay AniErY. FE, M.) closes at 10.43 MI rT) METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART. Open from 10 A. M. toS PM. ‘West Fourteenth street. ASSOCIATI Twenty-third sireet.—KE AD) denhof. a ROMAN HIP. Fou ne and Twent TROTTING 4 AND MENAGER atland & TRIPLE SHE NEW YORK, THURSDAY, enth street,—CIRCTR, atternoon aud evening, MARCH 18, 1875, From our reports this morning the probabilities are that the weather to-lay will be warmer and cloudy. Wart Srreer Yesterpay.—Gold advanced to 116}. Stocks were irregnlar. Foreign ex- change closed steady and government bonds sirong. Tur Comptere and very graphic reports of the floods, consequent on the ice gorges on the Delaware, Susquehanna and tributary rivers, given on another page, are illustrated by a map of the Delaware, from Deposit to Dela- ware Water Gap, and another of the country immediately around Port Jervis. Loxpos has its share of commercial troubles. A heavy Mark lane firm has tailed with two millions sterling liabilities, and other snspepsions are said to be threatened in con- sequence, Tre Frencn Assemsy is about to eut down the army of government paupers, A jury of physicians is to inquire into the cases of the Bonapartists who are on the pension list on account of infirmities alleged to have been contracted in the service of the State, Puskeroaei | Grayt has characteristically set- tled the Arkansas question by appointing ex- Governor Brooks Postmaster at Little Rock. From the Exeentive Chamber to the local post ottice does notseem a very desirable transfer; but no doubt Brooks is satisfied, and certainly the President has got rid of one of his white elephants on very reasonable terms. Tre Wise Ones or tae English turf have had oceasion to learn that they are not infalli- Die in their judgment. The Lincoinshire Handicap has been won by an ontside horse, against whom odds were thirty to one, while the favorite, at two to one, was fifteenth in the race. The three place orses were, indeed, all outsiders, the be inst the second and third having been twenty to one and fifty to one at starting, respectively, Tae Frexcu Assempry.— There is likely to be a compromise between the government and the Left on the question of the dissolution of the French Assembly, according to our cable despatch from Paris. Provided a day is fixed tor the dissolution six months after the Easter elections to fill vacancies are These are the terms said to be rocess, no more to be ordered. offered, and the question of filling the vacant seats, which will be immediately bronght up, wili develop the character and decide the fate of the proposed compromise, An-. NEW YORK HERALD, THURSDAY, The Great Spring Floods. | The breaking of the great ice gorge at Port | Jervis, which has been so long an object of apprehension and terror to the inhabitants of that thriving village and of sympathetic inter- | est to the whole country, took place yesterday | morning, with less damage to property than might have been expected. It is fortunate | that the pent-up flood forced its way through by daylight. Nothing so intensifies the horror ot a calamity of this kind as to have it come sight and a small expenditure of money will suffice to turn it aside. An expense of a few | thousand dollars at Port Jervis when the ice | Gorge began to form would have saved the Erie road from the loss of its bridges and the interruption of its travel. We trust this is the last calamity of the kind which will ever occur | | at that point. The Swallow Ta Hats. The unsopbisticated stranger might have the High _in the darkness of the night, when nobody | | can look far enough abroad to take in the | whole situation and measure the extent of the | danger. Night is a fruitful breeder of | imaginary terrors. It is only in the night | that the sbeeted ghosts of the dead are sup- posed to walk, unnerving men who would face | almost any danger without quailing by day- | light. It is not easy to conceive a situation | more terrific than the unloosing of a mighty flood of waters when all nature is enveloped in thick darkness and the excited imagina- tions of men are not curbed and restrained | by a clear survey of the danger. When such | a calamity overtakes a community suddenly in the night the sense of peril is magnified a | thousand fold, because when nothing is | clearly known affrighted imaginations natu- rally picture the worst. We can think of noth- | ing more appalling than the situation of a | quiet village community startled from their | beds in the dead of night and fleeing from a destractive inundation whose extent is hidden from their eyes by a thick veil which they can- | not penetrate. We congratulate the people of | Port Jervis that the floods broke through the ice gorge in the morning, when the friendly | light of the sun enabled them to take in the whole scene and imagination added nothing to the real horrors of the situation. We con- gratulate them that so little damage was done to their property and tbat only one life was | lost. Had the wild outbreak of waters taken | place in the nighttime nobody can say how many lives might have been sacrificed in the panic which would have turned weak heads and impelled distracted people toward the in- undating flood instead of away from it. Whether such catastrophes can be averted | by reasonable foresight and effort is a ques- tion which the citizens of Port Jervis and all who are exposed to similar perils may wisely consider, The immense snowfall of the late winter necessarily swells all streams when it melts, but in most localities it threatens no great danger when the course of the rivers is not obstructed by a blockade of ice. It was not the great spring addition to the volume of the Delaware which made that river so dan- gerous, bat the fact that a great dam of ice | cansed an accumulation of water behind it | whose sudden release, whenever it might | come, would inundate the country below. Was it not possible to prevent this obstruc- tive dum of ice? The experiments of nitro- | glycerine blasting ot Port Jervis would seem | to supply a satisfactory answer. True it is that this species of blasting was | not efficient against a gorge of ac- cumnuleted ice three or four miles in extent; the great mistake was in delaying it so long. | At the beginning of the gorge the river was blocked only at a single point, and it was ageinst this barrier that the ice constantly brought down by the stream accumulated. The successive contributions of new ice trom above kept lengthening the gorge, which | froze together in the cold nights and became cemented and consolidated into a compact mars miles and miles in extent. Of course there was no possibility of blasting out such a coherent mass and opening a free course to the river. But had time been taken by the | forelock, and had the nitro-giycerine blasting been begun when the extent of the gorge was only a few rods, instead of several miles, we see no reason why it should not have succeeded at once and have averted this catastrophe. The experiments in blasting furnished redun- dant evidence that beithey been begun in the | first days of the obstruction they would have been completely successful. It will, therefore, be the fault of the inhabitants if they are ever again exposed to so great a peril. Within the last twelve months we have had in this country an unosual number of deso- luting inundations. The destruction of two | or three flourishing villages in Central Massa- chusetis and the bursting of the banks of the swollen Lower Mississippi are the most mem- orable instances. In both of these last named cases, as well asin the flood at Port Jervis | yesterday, the destructive effects were the fault of man and cannot be imputed to the | violence of nature. They bave no resemblance to the terrible visitations which overtake | regions subject to heavy earthquakes, or which lie below the craters of voleanoes, or which, like some of the West India islands, are ex- posed to sudden and desolating hurricanes. These are evils against which no human fore- sight can provide. But the destructive inun- dations experienced in this country within the last year belong to a different category. There is no one of them which might not have been prevented by foreseeing pradence. The Massachusetts inundations were the conse- quence of a dishonestly built dam, cheaply constructel in order to make a profitable job The engulfing of ple and whole 4 tricts on the Lower Mississippi was a needles destruction of proper y, for it the not been suff to fall inte not have occurred. The the poverty of the river and their inability to furnis levees had it could excuse founded on bordermg on decay St the h funds for strengthening the levees and keeping them in thirss, because every one of tho. ibled its expenses sinee the war. They bad mone ngh, bat it wee misap- propriated aa aniered on objects whieh had little relation to the ved welfare of the communities which line the benks of the Mississippi. We « urd the destruc tive floods of the las neerutable van tations of Provide wy are the conse q f culpable bumaw neglect. There { th which might not h u wv i ; ~ ona bl t \ pe r pe will y awl pe thet an experi. : may teach them 1 i f the people of Port Jervi h 1 con t bel own Tes atthe § which loses ch wv first began t m, will not be by such a di r. Itonl ligent attention to the snowfall of our wary ing winters to anticipate the danger, and in | seasous which threaten a Bood a little fore. | nificant of the lives to which these chifdren i | ner as to bafile its provisions. One hundred | | ings was the reception of a communication | | from the representatives of the Catholic pa- | methods. The Fitz-Kellys, remembering that | foot, would consider themselves traitors to supposed yesterday that a procession of churches, each surmounted by a steeple, was walking up Broadway, so pious seemed the men who walked and so high the hats they wore. The High Hats were out in all their glory, and Heaven smiled upon their efforts to | reach it. If there is anything aristocratic | in age—and the most venerated titles are the oldest—the High Hats deserve to be classed with the nobility. Most of | them are heirlooms in old families, bequeathed by one generation to another, and brought out on St. Patrick's Day covered with the dust and grandeur of centuries long past. Far different is it with the Swallow Tails. They are modern, mushroom, and some of them are sboddy. ‘There is nothing aristo- cratic about the creations of yesterday, and | as a costume for the occasion they were not as proper as the High Hats, For that St. | Patrick might have worn a high hat is possi- ble, while that he never did wear a swallow tail is certain. Still, it may be that both decorations might have been spared with advantage. Suppose that both the High Hats and the Swallow Tails should use the money required for the parade to build a grand hospital, or support a noble charity, might not that be a better way to spend a couple of hundred thousand dollars? The Swallow Tails, no doubt, would subscribe lib- erally if the High Hats should be handed around, and we suggest that before next St. Patrick’s Day the experiment be tried. The Truancy Law and the Parochial Schools. The proceedings at the meeting of the Board of Education yesterday were of more than ordinary interest. The first report of the Superintendent of Truancy, which was presented at the meeting, does not present a fa- vorable account of the practical working of the new law during the brief period it has been in operation. It has been found very difficult to obtain the names and residences of the little street wanderers for whose benefit the law | was mainly exacted, and but few of this class | have been brought into the schools. It is sig- Catholic are doomed that even the youngest of them seem to be well posted as to the law and sharp at replying to questions in such a man- and fourteen truants and non-attendants only have as yet been drawn into the schools in the whole city. Another interesting feature of the proceed- rochial schools, who ask the appointment of a committee of the Board of Education to meet with them for the purpose of consider- ing the terms upon which those schools may | be admitted to the benefits and subjected to the discipline, laws and general management | of the common school system. There are fifty thousand pupils in the Catholic schools, and the proposition comes in good season to add point to the rebuke ad- ministered to the bigoted assailant of the common school system. The proposition, indorsed by the leading Catholics of the city, priests and laymen, will, no doubt, re- ceive the serious attention of the Board. The Fitz-Kellys and the Fitz-Wick- hams. The Patrick Fitz-Wickhams and the Patrick Fitz-Kellys, while they honor the same patron saint, celebrate his birthday in very different | St. Patrick travelled through all Ireland on every manly sentiment and every feeling of reverence if they failed to walk over New York at least once in the year in emulation of his example, Yesterday this pleasant duty was performed with the greatest entausiasm and snecess. The Fitz-Kellys display their devotion to St. Patrick by undertaking extraor- dinary physical labors, and their patriotism and zeai can only be estimated in miles. It is a pilgrimage that they fulfilled, and if they did not get as tar as Jerusalem they passed through Chatham _ street, which was the next best thing. The Pat- tick Fitz-Wickhams, however, never walk in procession. They consider St. Patrick's pedestrian tour through Erin to have been one of the miracles he was so clever at. They honor, they admire, they love St. Patrick, but their affection does not carry them to the ex- tent of aten-mile tramp. But in order to fulfil their duty they are perfectly willing to review the Patrick Fitz-Kellys and to ex- press their satisfaction with the grandeur of the display. They are not able bodied enongh to walk in the Saint's honor, ‘but they show extraordinary power in eating for his glory at the banqueting tables of the Friendly Sons and the noble Knights. Sometimes they go to the banquets of both, and thus show that they can perform digestive miracles which | even the Saimt would not have attempted. | Then the wit comes in with the wine, and | orators, like a spring flood breaking through | sorge, sweeps all differences belore it. is the way the Fi lys and the Fitz- | Wieckhbatus celebrate St. Patrick's birthday, nd we concede that each party has a perfect | right to ite taste. For our part we think the | Pitz Wickhams are to be the more envied of the two, but that the Fitz-Kellys are to be j the mote respected Tux Courrs continue to be occupied with city onit. erday on armory rent suit, whieh w lagainst the city, came up wiore the General Term of the Supreme Court for argument, and the decision wae reserved. A suit to recover a claim * bookbinding was tried before Judge Law- | renee, and a verdict was rendered for the plaintit, The original claim was three hun- red and seventy ars. The amount re- vered, exelasive of the city’s own costs, and eleven dotlars—an in- teased exp only forty per cent to the Tux Acersuos of Alfonso has been an ill vind te Dow Carlos. It has blown away an- Ber partivas, General Elio, from his cause, | then devolve upon twelve commissioners to | be appointed by the Mayor and confirmed by | Nothing | with our city politics and lead to ceaseless in- | and bigoted opposition to our common school | system which is kept up by a small and noisy | | their hands. } with the MARCH 18, 1875.—TRIPLE SHEET, Goosey-Fox's School Bills. Senator Fox has introduced two bills in- tended to tear up and reconstruct the common school system of this city. We see no reason why there should be two separate laws relating to the seme subject, ) Tnsatiate ercher, would not one suffice? ‘We printed « summary of these bills in our Albany despatches yesterday. The first.of | them provides that the offices of Commission-*| ers of Schools and Board ot Education shall | terminate fifteen days after the passage of the act. Itis proposed that their functions shall the Aldermen. If this were intended to save | the schools from anarchy by bridging over | the interval between the passage of the bill | and the election of a new Board ot School Commissioners we could understand it, though we could not approve of it. But when it is provided that these twelve commissioners shall hold their offices for five years we cannot reconcile the provisions of bill number one with those of bill number two. Bill number two aims to replace the present School Commussioners | with another set, who will succeed to all their powers and functions on the Ist of January next. What use, then, can there be, after that date, for the twelve Commissioners pro- | vided for by Goosey-Fox's bill number one? We write from a telegraphic summary of the two bills; and it is possible that if we had their text they might not present quite so ab- surd a jumble, The second of Goosey-Fox’s bills divides the city into eight school districts, instead of | the present seven. This might be well | enough, considering the new territory annexed to the city. The bill provides for three School Commissioners in each district, and that one of the three shall go out each year ; which is, so far, a close reproduction of the present | law. But here foliows the chief feature—and an egregiously bad feature it is—of the Goosey-Foxy bill. It provides that the Com- missioners of Schools shall be elected in each district by a popular vote. If Goosey- Fox had proposed to elect the Comptroller and Corporation Counsel we should not seriously object. These are the only officers besides the Mayor who have ever been elected | by a popular vote. The heads of the other city departments have always been appointed, | and not elected, for reasons whose force | hardly admits of question, Why should the Commissioners of Schools be taken out of this | sound rule? The Department of Education | is the very last that should be controlled by popular suffrage. We cannot conceive of a greater misfortune to the city than a school board of demagogues. Even if an exciting | religious question were not involved in our common schools we should deprecate as a blighting evii any law which would make our free schools a football of party politics and a | part of the spoils to be scrambled for by poli- ticians of the baser sort. But in view of the religious complication, the election of the Board of Education by a popular vote in this city would be a fatal blow to our admirable system of free schools, is so repugnant to the spirit of our institutions as mixing religion with poli- tics, but this would be inevitable from tho moment that the School Commissioners were | elected by popular suffrage. Rival dema- gogues would appeal to Catholic and Protes- tant prejudices, and we should every year have an inflammatory religious scramble for the control of the public schools. Such a contest, waged on such grounds, would destroy tbe usefulness of our system of free schools. One party in each schoo! district would bid high for the Catholic vote, and it would too often put into the Board bigoted enemies of the common school system, who might sometimes be a majority and administer the schools in a manner which would make them a scene of religious discord and kindle the passions of the community into a flame. Goosey-Fox’s bill is the most incendiary measure ever broached in the Legislature. It would stimu- late Protestant bigotry and Catholic bigotry, and the interests of education would be lost sight of in heated religious contentions for the control of the Board of Education. Asa stead- fast friend of the common schools—the most beneficent of our city institutions—the Henry records its earnest protest against any such disturbing, destructive measure, whose effect, if not its intention, would be to fan religious passions and divide the com. munity into hostile camps on a question which, above all others, should be kept out of the arena of political and sectarian strife. Mr. Fox’s bill is the freak of a reckless demagogue. We object to it because we depre- cate incessant tampering with the school laws, | which tends to keep the school system un- settled and disturb the quiet, even adminis- tration, which is more important in this de- partment than in any other. We object to it | because its tendency and inevitable effect would be to put the administration of our schools into the hands of the lowest order of demagogues. Above all, we object to it because it would mix up _ religion flammatory conflicts between Catholics and Protestants for the control of our schools. We do not sympathize at all with the blind set of narrow-minded Catholics. We shall never support any small demagogue who aims to strengthen himself by playing into We stand on the same ground as Senator Kernan, who, though a devoted Catholic, was for twenty years a member of the Utica School Board, and sent his own children to the public schools, Text books and school exercises which are offensive to | Catholics are always to be condemned; but | when justice and fairness are observed in | these respects we would fain hope that a ma- jority of our citizens, Protestants, Catholics and Jews alike, will give a strong moral sup- port to the admirable system of free educa- tion which is the pride and the boast of our city. Room vor tie Rup Mex, Room!—Secre- | tary Delano reports to the President on the present situation of affairs in the Black Hills coun ‘The expeditions forming and those | already in the reserved the Indians, he sa we in violation of our treaty Sioux, and will be prevented from | entering the reservation or expelled there- | may be, by forces of the | The Indians object to the in- | territory to trom, as the case United States. , teusion, At the same time, the Secretary | | ignorant says, every possible effort will be made to extinguish the Indian title to the Black Hills country, and negotiations to that end ore now progressing. The sooner they are brought to a successful close the better. Civilization is bound to advance, and the | adventurous pioneers of the West are hard men to hold back, especially when the tempt- ing stories of the wealth of the Black Hills re- gion lure them forward. The Riverside Improvements—A Desir- able Bill. A bill is in the hands of the Committee on Cities of the Assembly to provide for an assessment for the construction of Riverside | avenue and to obviate a defect now existing | in the law. By the terms of the bill the cost | of construction of the carriageway, walks and drives upon the widened Riverside ave- _ nue, in accordance with the plans already | adopted by the Park Department, is to be paid by the issue of bonds, and is to be as- sessed—one-half on the property benefited and the other half upon the city at large. The whole of the Riverside territory not so laid out is to be held to the public use as a park, The control and munagement of the | avenues bordering the public parks are vested in the Park Department by the present city charter. When the Riverside territory was taken for the public use one distinct portion was taken as an avenue and another as a park. In completing the laying out of the avenue it has been found desirable to embrace within its Jines a strip of the land taken as a park, in order to make the avenue proper one bun- dred feet in width. There is full power in the Legislature to change the ‘public use” for which the territory was taken from a park to an avenue, and the Park Department has | already authority to do ail the work necessary, such as regulating, grading, paving, curbing and flagging on the widened avenue, and to | assess the property benefited. Yet in case of | technical objections to the legality of the as- sessment the proposed law is desirable and probably necessary. There can be no good reason why the bill now in the hands of the Assembly committee | should not be reported favorably and become | a law. The question as to the expediency of prosecuting the work on the River- side improvement at this time does not now come into consideration. and if the present bill had any direct effect on that question, reasons enough .could be advanced in its favor. It appears, however, to be simply a billto relieve from technical and embarrassing objections a power that already exists in the Park Department, and hence it should not meet with any opposition. It can only be opposed by those who desire to throw obstacles in the way of the improve- | ment itself, and who are indifferont how much the public interests may suffor so long as they can accomplish their own ends, There is already enough uncertainty about our local If it did, | fact that these acts of the federal court were received with ‘great satisfaction by the Gen- tile community.” It is difficult not to see in most of the acts of our federal officers in Utah a demagogical spirit which should not be encouraged. Let us deal with the Mormon question as we should have dealt with the slavery ques- tion—peacefully, and to the end that our laws should be vindicated while the rights of the citizens shall be secured. Do not let the avarice of eager, bustling adventurers drive us into injustice toward the Mormons. Polyg- amy isa sin and a crime in Utah, but at the same time prostitution is a sin and a crime in New York. There is as much reason for the | conduct of our federal conrts in Utah as there would be for the same conduct in New York upon the ground that prostitution was here + tolerated and almost recognized evil, and that therefore we, as citizens, had no rights which the federal authorities are bound to respect. Rapid Transit. Colonel Thomas A. Scott, President of the Pennsyivania Railroad Company, in the course of an interesting interview with one of our correspondents, published a few days ago, informs us that he is now about to improve his railway system between New York and Phila delphia; that we shall have rapid transit by “a series of elegantly upholstered and rapidly flying trains, that will lap the distance in about one-half the time now consumod by the swift- est expresses.’ The road is to be improved, sidings are to be built, new engines of the strongest calibre will be put on the track, Philadelphia ond New York aro tho two largest cities of the country. They are closely connected by a _ thousand interests. The distance between them could be accomplished in an hour and a half if we ran trains upon the speed maintained between London and Brighton, What is wanted be- tween New York and Philadelphia is not large trains of heavy cars, but. small trains running in quick succession. It would be much better for us to have the English system of cars, which are smaller and quite as com- fortable for day travel. Ifa train could bo run between Philadelphia aud Now York in an hour and a half, leaving say every how during the day, it would be of incalculable advantage to the two cities. If Colonel Scott succeeds in achieving this result he will merit the gratitude of the people, and, no doubt, add largely to the usefulness and value of his railway. Tae Civ Ricuts Brut iw Opznatioy.—A few unpleasant incidents in connection with the practical working of the much discussed Civil Rights bill have already been recorded, and many more are likely to occur. The mischiev- ous nature of the bill is in its tendency to pro- voke and perpetuate social prejudices, which, | left to themselves, might either die out entirely laws, and it is creditable to the Park Depari- | ment that it desires to clear away all pretence for technical objections before it, commences | its work. The bill should be reported fayor- ably and put upon its passage at once. The Mormon Question, There is a good deal of noise about the re- lation of the general government to the peou- liar people who have made a Commonwealth in the deserts of Utah. Since the solution of the slavery problem there has been no ques- tion about which the demagogues have shown so much cant as this Mormon question. We admit everything that cau be said against the Mormons. They are polygamists; they have a strange, brutal faith; they make war upon the cardinal principles of society and the family relation; they are governed by a tyranny; their President, Brigham Young, and his elders are men, who have founded a rehgious empire; and itis our duty, as a Christian people, to extirpate polygamy, which, with slavery, is a twin relie of bar- barism. We admit all this argument, and yet, at the same time, there is another point from which this Mormon question is to be viewed, and it is‘tnis: That with all their faults the Mormons are citizens and are en- titled to the protection of the laws of the United States. Laying aside the questions of religion and | polygamy, we see in the Mormon country the achievement of one of the greatest works of modern times. When we come to write the history of the Anglo-Saxon race in America the historian will dwell upon the fact that a | strong, seli-willed man marched thousands of miles over the desert, defying the obstacies of nature and the coarse, | attacks of the merciless sav- | age, until he found a plain apparently as far | removed from civilization as the middle of Africa is to-day ; that he there established a community, which, in twenty-five years, has grown to be # powerful, prosperons, well- ordered Commonwealth, rich in every element of material | or become considerably weakened in course of time. Special legislation in such cases can never be productive of good. The good sense of the white and colored people will, however, settle the vexatious question in a more har- monious manner than ever the promoters of the bill contemplated, and the extremists of both races will find their efforts to make polit- | ical capital out of the question fruitless in the end. In Tux Surr brought by the shareholders of the Emma Silver Mining Company, of Lon- don, against Senator Stewart and others as parties alleged to be responsible for the sale, an application was made on the part of the defendants for an order requiring the plain- tiffs to give security for costs. The motion was granted and the amount of security fixed at five thousand dollars. PERSONAL INTELLIGENCE, Scribner, Welford & Armstrong will publisn Scohemann’s “Troy.’” The Bric-2.Brac books have reached a sale of 7,000 volumes each, Mr. John La Farge, the artist, is among the late arrivals at the Everett House. Congressman John M. Davy, of Rochester, ts staying at the Metropolitan Hotel. Mr. Henry A. Tilden, of New Lebanon, N. Y., te sojourning at the St. Nicholas Hotel, The first volume of Putnam’s German classics ‘Wili be Géethe’s ‘Hermann und Dorothea.” Rev. Dr. W. C. Cattell, President of Lafayette | College, is residing at the St. Nicholas Hotel. Genera; Robert Lenox Banks, of Albany, hae taken up his quarters at the Clarendon Hotel. Ex-Senator Keuben E. Fenton arrived from Washington yesterday at the Filth Avenue Hotel, vhe autbor of ‘The Harbour Bar,” pubnshed | by Macmiilan & Co., 18 the wite of an Oxford prov | fessor, The President has appointed ex-Governor Josepn Brooks, of Arkansas, to be Postmaster at Litte Rock, Ark. M. Ledru Rollin leaves behind him a work on Athe- isin, which will, it 1s sald, present to the world the creed of the author, Ex-Attorney General Marshall B. Champlain, of | Cuba, N. Y., has taken up his residence at the prosperity, its capital one , of the finest, if not the finest, city west of the Mississippi, with a hun- | dred towns and villages dependent upon it; a State where frugality, prudence, and most of the virtues which underlie suc- cess in life are brought to a high perfection. ‘The historian will say that this was the work ot an Anglo-Saxon, of a plain man, gov- erned only by a powerful, resolute and rude intellect. He will say that the people who composed this community were drawn from the lower classes of other nations ; that they ‘were taken from worse than poverty and despair to a foreign country and given con- | | tentment and prosperity in America, This work is one of the striking problems in our civilization. We think it is Emerson who re- marks that, with the exception of Mohamme- danisto, Mormonism is the only religion of modern times that has shown foree. wise for as, in considering the Mormon ques- tion, to allow our dislike of polygamy to close It is not | cur eyes to the true merits of what the Mor- | mons have done in Utah. Nor, because we regard polygamy as n crime, and its existence an ulceration in onr society, should we justify the adventurers, the off-sconrings of the East. ern cities, who have been tempted by the prosperity of the Mormons, and have poured | into Utab, meaning to rob the people of what they have sorely earned, and men who 20 there for plunder, not beeanse they want to make war against immorality and irreligion. it is difficult not to see this Gentile spirit in the proceedings against Brigham Young which were reported recently, of his imprisonment in tue Penitentiary, and in the | Metropolitan Hotel. Congressmen J, H. Burleigh, of Maine, and Ti. HH. Hatuorn, of Saratoga, N. Y., are registered at the Filth Avenue Hotel, Mrs. Oliphant’s latest novel, “The Story of Val entine and His Brother,” will be pubiished shortly by Harper & bros, Mr, Frankiin B, Gowen, President of the Phila deiphia and Reading Ratlroad Company, has apartments at the Brevoort House. ‘The literature of cremation has culminated ina book entitled “Cremation of the Dead; its History and Bearings Upon Puolic Health,” by W. Kassie, Civil Evgine Proessor Hitchcock's recent and thorough gee. logical and mineralogical survey of New Hamp shire, the most Interesting of the Atlantic Staser to the scientist of these branches, will be reportec in two volumes of text and one of maps, to be published by B, ©. D Voliowing the admirable exemple of the eariy Englisn Text Society, there has been started tt Parw an Kariy Frenen Tex! Society. ft wilt re print such eearece books in French literature a “Tristan, e Roman des sept Sazes,” “Los Chansons da Mol de Navarre,’ “La Chronique de Jehanie-Bel,” and popalar chaasons of the fe teenth century. The annual subscription will pe only twenty-five iranes, ‘The last bit of the manuscript Of Bret Hartoe novel will be given to the printers on the Ist o April, ‘They have been setting on it up to date so that tt wall hands of the public. Mr, Marte considers that he has put his best work mo this book, wnd laugh ingly Kays that he beeame Very much interested in the story when reading it Over in (ie pros rhe volume, whiea will contain some 50 pages, will be iliustrated by 150 pletures Messrs . Peterson & bros, are making a sues cess of their gorgeous Hew elition of the proline Mrs, Southworth’s noveis, This same iirm have revived Reynolds’ “Court of London,’ Which claims to be the book for whieh tere was a re ward of $5,000 oflered, They aiso reprint Harris Ainsworth’s “Tower of London,” with ninety. three illustrations by George Cruickshanks. Tote Is suid Lo be A InOst romantically truthtul history Of the famous Tower,