The New York Herald Newspaper, December 26, 1875, Page 6

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 Yorx Heraxp will be gent free of postage. All business or news letters and telegraphic despatches must be addressed New York Haparp. Letters and packages should be properly sealed. Rejected communications will not be re- turned. LONDON OFFICE OF THE NEW YORK HERALD—NO, 46 FLEET STREET. PARIS OFFICE—AVENUE DE L'OPERA. Subscriptions and advertisements will be received and forwarded on the same terms as in New York. THE WEEKLY HERALD, every Saturday, at Five (Ceyts per copy. Annual subscription price:— ‘One Copy.. Three Copies. 5 Five Copies 8 ‘Ten Copies... | Sent free of postage. Any larger number addressed to names of subscribers $1 50 cach. An extra copy will be sent to every club often, Twenty copies, one year, $25, and any larger Oumber at same price. One extra copy will be sent to clubs of twenty. These rates make the Wexkiy HeRaLp the cheapest publication in the country. VOLUME XL... ~~ AMUSEMENTS TO-MORROW, NEW THEATRE, ARIETY, at 3 P.M. TONY PASTO Nos. 585 anu O57 Broadway. LYCEUM THEATRE, Fourteenth street and Sixth avenue.—SERAPHINE, at 8 VOM, Parisian Company. THIRD AVENUE THEATRE, Lhird avenue, between Thirtieth and Thirty-lirst streets.— MUNSTRELSY and VARIETY, at 5 P. M. COLOSSE: PS pe fourth street and Broadway. ¥3 - Open frcm 1 P. M. to4 RUSSIAN RIEGE 4 M. and from 7 :30 P. WALLACK'S THEATRE, [Broadway and Thirteenth street.—THE ROMANCE OF A YOOR YOUNG MAN, at 8 P. M.; closes at 10:45PM. Mr. Mona Gilbert. PARISIAN VARIETIES Wixteenth street, near Broadway.—VAKIETY, at 8 P.M. GERMANIA THEATRE, ‘Fourteenth street, -COMTESSE HELENE, at 8 P.M. CHICKERING HALL, Fifth avenne and Eightwenth street.—CONCERT, at 8 P. M. ‘Vou Bulow. BROOKLYN THEATRE, ‘Washington street, Brouklyn.—HENRY V., at 8 P.M. Mr. Aignold. GRAND OPERA HOUSE, Twenty third street and Eighth avenue. VARIETY, at 8 J. M. Tony Pastor's Company. UNION SQUARE THEATRE. Bregewey and Fourteenth street.—ROSE MICHEL, at 8 OLYMPIC THEATRE, Rio, 824 Broadway.—VARIETY, at 8 ¥'M. Matinee at 2 BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC. Brooklyn.—CAMILLE, at 8 P.M. Miss Clara Morris. FIPTH AVENUE THEATRE, eighth street, near Broadway.—PiQUe, at 8 P. M. Fanny Davenport. STEINWAY HALL, Fourteenth street.—THE MESSIAH, at 8 P.M. New York Oratorio Society. PARK THEATRE, Preary and Twonty-seeond street.—THE CRUCIBLE, at P.M. Oakey Hall, ACADEMY OF MUS: Poarteenth street Geer ‘Opera WELL. IAM TELL, at 8 EAGLE THEATRE, Broadway and Thirty-tird street.—VARIETY, at 8 P.M. BOWERY THEATRE, Bowery.VALLEY FORGE, ond 1776, at 8 P.M. Mr, Brewsoa. SAN FRANCISCO MINSTRELS, Sow Overs House, Broadway, corner of Tweuty-ainth street, ate. MUSEUM, Broadway. corner of Thirtieth street.—THE PICKET < om LEAVE MAN, at 8 P.M.: closes at 10:45 P. M. Chunfrau. “Matinee at 2 P.M. GLOB! Nos. 728 and 730 Broudwa: From our ‘ports this morning | the probabil fies are that the weather to-day will be cooler. Tue Henavp zx Fast Ma. Trars.—News- dealers and the public throughout the Slates of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as well as in the West, the Pacific Coast, the North, the South and Southwest, also along the lines of the Hudson River, New York Central and | Pennsylvania Central Railroads and their con- nections, will be supplied with Tun Henaxp, free of postage. Extraordinary inducements | offered to newsdealers by sending their orders | direct to this office. ‘Tur Successrs of the book season are a | pleasure to chronicle, and in our reviews elsewhere a number of these are noted. A Cunistmas Eve Spree ending in a shoot- ing match resulted in one dead man and five | men under arrest, either as witnesses or prin- | cipals, A bad beginning for the holjday sea- son. Sometaine Has Disacrexp internally with the world, for, while Vesuvius is ominously smoking and Richmond receives @ shaking, we learn that another earthquake shock was felt in California on Christmas Eve, ‘Tux Stony or Henny ©. Corz, who seems lingering at the edge of the grave in a ‘Tombs’ cell, is a sad one and deserves at Teast the investigation of the authorities. Our reporter's interview with the unfor- tunate man is published in another part of the Henat. Lave ow Taw Rio Gnanve furnishes daily | a batch of tragedies and robberies whichare a disgrace to our civilization, The Mexican cattle thieves along the river carry on their | pvperations with alj the dash and daring of | the cattle “lifters” of the old Scotch border | forays; but while this sort of existence fur- fishes material for the novelist itis extremely andesirable that it should longer prove a purse to those who are settling in the Texan wilde | Paris despatch just as we print our daily \of esgavists and telegraph writers. The NEW YORK HERALD, A Tate of Two Cities—The Coming Together of Modern Civilization. The cable despatches which we print this morning from London and Paris may be said to have a Christmas significance. They indi- cate the progress of modern journalism, as shown in the bringing together of widely apart and varying civilizations. The long postponed and ever vanishing dream of a republic of nations and a confederation of races, where each man couid sit under his own vine and fig tree without standing ar- mies to exhaust ora privileged class to op- press him, may be in a certain sense realized by the advancement of the press. It is in this sense that journalism becomes, to use an Oriental figure of speech, the asylum of the world. There are many things pertain- ing to Paris, London and New York with which neither of them have sympathy. ‘There are many events of deep importance to the people which are of little value to those outside. But there are other cireum- stances and incidents of life and manners, the growth of customs and amusements, opportunities and achievements, in which, whether we be Englishmen, Frenchmen or Americans, we all feel an interest. Their chronicle becomes the highest development of news. Some of us feel an interest in what is taking place in the French Assembly. Others watch with eager eye the ever increasing im- portance of the Eastern question, the insur- rection in Herzegovina, the purchase of the Suez Canal, the paralysis which has fallen upon Turkish credit, the triumphant tour of the Prince of Wales through the tiger jungles and elephant kraals of India, and who see in it all the dawning phenomena of an issue that may in time wrap the world in fire and battle smoke. These great questions will never cease to interest us as long as we have a common civilization. In their discussion and solution are involyed questions that come home to the humblest life, to the din- ner table and the day’s labor and the wages at the end of the week. But these are not the questions which bring the world together. War, when it comes out of them, we accept with amazement and grief as we would an earthquake or a hurricane. But our concerns in the daily life of Paris and London are with the humbler things. What do our friends do across the sea? What wandering American brother has eaten his Christmas dinner in the capital of England or France? What is the latest sensation on the Boule- vard? What is the name of Offenbach’s latest opera or Sardon’s latest comedy? What are the whisperings of the club, the salon, the café? What was done in the Parisian theatres on Christmas Eve? What pantomimes’ shall be played in London to- morrow? What wonders of toys and fancy articles were turned out by the tasty and skilfal French workmen for the delight of children, grown up and otherwise? What was done in the churches at midnight in Paris and London? Who preached at West- minster Abbey? What new pulpit light struggles for the surplice of Lacordaire in the French capital? What the London Times thinks of Christmas in 1875? These are the questions in which we all have an interest. They come to our fireside and our tea table. Therefore, when the Henarp publishes, as it does this morning, its modest and some- what gossiping chronicle of yesterday's life across the sea, it must not be supposed that we demean our office as news gatherers. If there were wars to be chronicled these col- umns would tell in full detail the sad and ghastly story. But we accept the fact that with the cable at our bidding our office is to tell to-day what took place yesterday, be it love or hate, war or peace, a battle ora serenade. Thus it is that journalism marks the prog- ress of our civilization. Representing the people, it becomes our duty to respect their wishes, to make every agency of science our messenger. If Fifth avenue or the Bow- ery must know to-day what was said or seen yesterday on the Boulevard or Strand, then it is our duty to gratify that wish. ‘It is of no consequence whether these gossiping de- spatches cost a penny or a dollar a word. The journal must accept that cost as its ob- ligation to its audience, which is the coun- try. The progress of modern journalism makes possible any achievement known to science or enterprise. The finding of Livingstone, the expedition to the poles, the tracing out of the Russian con- quest in Central Asia, may make more noise throughout the world and ob- tain rank among the loftiest trophies of the press ; but what we do to-day of its kind is as much worthy of attention as the more ostentatious and brilliant successes of the Heavy. This we believe, because the time has come when the representative journal in | New York must print its daily London and despatch from Washington. Thirty years ago, when the wires were first opened between Washington and New York, the trifling bit of telegraph that was sent from day to day was looked upon as an extrava- | gant and unusual expense. The worthy men | who then presided over our journals viewed | with apprehension the increased cost which these despatches entailed. They coyly took a bit of news now and then, no doubt wish- ing in their inmost soul that such a thing | as the telegraph had never been invented to disturb ‘‘Washington letters” and add to the weekly bills, In time the news gatherer | and well the news gatherer of that genera- tion knew his work—compelled the publica- tion of despatehes sometimes taking whole pages. Now the telegraph is as much our messenger as the post office. What we have done so long with Washington we find our- selves compelled to do with London and | Paris, The distance is greater, but there is | something romantic in the thought of this cable, lying fathoms deep in the bosom of the sea, pulsing and beating as it does our work. London and Paris are as near to us by cable as Washington by telegraph, and therefore, in recognizing this relation and giving ex- | pression to it in the columns of the Hznaxp, we mark simply a new step in that progress of the press which, as we have said, is an- other name for the progress of civilization. The time will come when the special cor- respondent will follow the Conestoga wagon and the old lumbering mail coach, he journalism of the future will be in the hands quick, sharp, curt despatch that, tells its story in terse English will take the place of the long, amply adorned, exquisitely written correspondence. This is the journalism of the future, and it finds expression in the Heraup of to-day. We have every capital contributing its story of life and manners, and coming bya thousand minute electric currents, which permeate the world like a nervous system. Thus the newspaper of to- day becomes the complete epitome of yester- day’s life in all the civilized countries of the world. Christmas Topics in the Pulpits. The festival which yesterday we cele- brated or began to celebrate gives tone to nearly all the topics prepared for discussion in the pulpits of this city. The song of the angels, announcing the birth of Christ, will be elaborated by Messrs, Lloyd, Jutten and McCarthy—Methodist, Baptist and Uni- versalist—thereby uniting substantially in the same great song. The bright and morning star by which the magi were Jed to the city and place where the young child was will be followed in its course by Mr. King, and as we go with them and with Dr. Deems to Bethlehem and find that, being crowded out of the inn, His mother took refuge in a manger, we may, with Messrs, MacArthur and Lloyd, pause a while and study the lessons of the manger, or, with Dr. Armitage, inquire why Jesus was born at all. His birth was truly wonderful, and from His manger cradle beams of sunlight haye gilded the ages for eighteen centuries, These Mr. Taylor will trace in all their illumining and life-giving influences. The hour that gave to the world a child Saviour is, and should be, sacred to chil- dren, and it must be a pleasure to Dr. Fulton to picture the sacredness of the children's hour. Besides the suggestions which the Christ- mas festival give, the close of the year also brings up memories of past failures and promises unkept and opportunities lost. Hence, Messrs. Saunders and Jutten, Merritt, Harris and Lightbourn and Drs. Armitageand Deems will present the departure of 1875 in its varied aspects. With Dr. Deems we be- lieve it should lead us to number our days so that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. But in the gleaning of its results we hope Dr. Armitage will have something better than leaves to gather, and in Mr. Merritt's outlook that he shall see in the signs of the times the good time coming for which we have been taught to pray and wait. Dr. Hall will deliver a general missionary ad- dress and Mr. Rogers a special one with ref- erence to evangelical work among the Indians. It may be important to know, with the Apostolic church, that spiritual gifts are the permanent endowment of the Church, but to us it is worth more to know that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation, and that the salvation which it offers is free, as Mr. Leavell will present it, The begin- nings of sin will be indicated, that they may be avoided, by Dr. Fulton, and the con- tradictions of the Scripture, in their bear- ing on its inspiration, will be harmonized by Mr. McCarthy, and Bishop Snow will present Christ as the second Adam and the Everlasting Father. Rational Spiritualism and Shakerism will help the Spiritualists to while away a weary hour and give them something to think about until next Sabbath day. Advice to Our New Judges, The recent elections give us six new judges, including the Surrogate, and restore Recorder Hackett to the Bench. They also give us the civil justices, who are elected from the various districts. We observe that the friends of these gentlemen, as is natural, gave them a serenade recently. There was enthusiasm, music, bonfires and speeches. But it was not pleasant to find a judge with this serenading party. ‘This reminds us that at one of the Tammany meetings three of the vice presidents were judges of the Superior and Supreme Courts. Now, we think that, as New York protected the independence of the Bench by restoring Recorder Hackett in spite of Tammany Hall, the judges should respect the wishes of the people by retiring from politics. Gentlemen who come upon the Bench by the will of the people expressed on election day belong really tothe new régime. They were nom- inated as reformers, and as such were elected. They are, we are glad tosay, without a single exception, men of irreproachable character, and will, we have no doubt, re- flect credit upon the administration of jus- tice. Let them therefore enter into the spirit of the new régime by resolving now and here to have nothing to do with the po- litical manwuvres in New York, that they will take no part in public meetings, that they will not be governed by the dictates of | a caucus or convention, and that, while pay- ing all respect and courtesy to the organiza- tions which gave them place, they will not allow the wishes of any organization to in- terfere with justice. There is nothing more unseemly than the presence of a magistrate in a political con- vention. In the old Tweed days judges were looked upon as mere politicians, and one of the charges against a Tam- many candidate for the Bench was that he had in a moment of weakness made a sub- scription to the Tweed monument. We do not especially censure the judges who have taken part in politics, because we know that the fault is not with them, but with the sys- tem. We only admonish the new men who are going upon the Bench to reform this alto- gether. They are trusted with the highest function that can be given a citizen of a free State. They administer justice—an office almost sacred in its function. They will win the respect even of the parties that opposed them if at the outset they take the high ground that in the administration of justice they know neither parties nor friendships nor obligations, nothing but the highest, solemn, cold sense of duty, and no obligation but that to God, who is the fountain of all jus- tice. ‘Tae Crost or THe Boxy Forornres Surr in the Superior Court yesterday with a ver- dict of eighty-eight thousand eleven dollars and fifty-one cents damages for the plaintiff, will, we trust, prove a warning to those who venture on this dangerous road to wealth and should rejoice the entire business com- munitys Lessons from. the Chinese. The Chinese are certainly a wise and a witty people. The march of European civ- ilization, althongh centuries behind their own, having shown them the necessity of representation at foreign courts, they at once improve on European custom in this respect by adopting the wonderful plan of sending two ambassadors to each country, instead of a single one. Of course, with a quiet, sar- donic appreciation of human nature, one of these is sent to watch the other. In Rome the princes of the Church—the Pope, the cardinals and the bishops—are each attended constantly by a vicar, who acts as a “shadow,” keeps him out of secret scrapes and constitutes in some sort a refer- ence for good character. In all deliberative bodies an opposition watches the conduct of the majority. In connubial life the two partners have a watchful eye on each other's morals and behavior, while in social life is not Mrs. Grundy ever invisibly present to pounce upon whatever is irregular or naw hty, and if not to restrain the evil at least to tell’ about it? Long before the Chinese Empire beasts and men are said to have walked into the ark by twos, which is @ precedent for the weakness of the indi- vidual. What a world of mortification and disgrace the people of this country might have been spared if such a double had been sent out with the present Minister to the Court of St. James to watch over his little pecuniary and mining transactions! And a dual Executive, such as was once proposed by Mr. Calhoun, might have saved the President from suspicion of interest in certain rings, especially if the alternate President had been a member of the Young Men's Christian Association or of the Washington Temperance Society. There is no better way of holding a mischievous per- son in check than by coupling him with another, even of the same sort, and the Siamese twins no doubt stood in each other's way in the perpetration of many little im- proprieties. Indeed, it is not certain that a hereditary family of executives ought not to have been bred from that peculiarly con- structed pair. But if this principle would work well in politics what might not be effected if the Chinese plan were introduced into the ad- ministration of our railway corporations? There it would seem that noone can be quite trusted, and to get at the truth we are com- pelled to rely on the revelations of such special detectives as Dunan in the Erie or Barrett in the Michigan Central cor- poration. What an evident advantage it would be to have our corporations governed by two heads in an equal official position, or what we might call a self-compensative ad- ministration. Ifit should work a little in- harmoniously it would at any rate arrest the over great authority and concert of wrong now practised ; it would break up the de- ceptive taciturnity of one great chief and it would annul the voluble mendacity of an- other ; there would be an interesting conten- tion which would disarm directors and ben- efit a credulous public, who would learn the truth from the disagreements of the two heads of affairs with neither of whom it would probably quite lie, and the half infamous process of employing spies or paying for “leaks” would drop out of custom, There seems no better plan than this, un- less it be @ modification of Carlyle’s plan propounded to Jean Paul Richter of con- fiding the administration of affairs to a cast metal king and which ‘made that philoso- pher laugh louder than the neighing of all Tattersalls ;’ the administration of a cast iron railway president would, if not able, be at least impartial; he could neither rob, conceal, nor pervert, while he would have disability enough to prevent the customary disastrous annual struggle for his place, and we should have no more revelations of bor- rowed dividends or stock-jobbing consolida- tions to disgrace us abroad and fleece us at home. Our Commerce with Cuba. The President says in his Message that “the protracted continuance of the strife” in Cuba ‘‘seriously affects the interests of all commercial nations, but those of the United States more than others ;” and he gives this as a reason for intervention, But, according to the economical theories which General Grant favors, it ought to be an advantage to us to have the struggle inCuba goon. Our own country produces sugar and tobacco in large and increasing quantities. No doubt if the supply of sugar and tobacco produced in Cuba should be materially diminished, this would stimulate and rapidly increase the production of these articles in our own Southern States. It would act as a sort of protective duty; and of the advisability of protecting and increasing our home prod- ucts General Grant has spoken in almost every one of his annual messages. Hitherto, however, our imports from Cuba have not decreased, except in the last year, when the prostration of business and indus- try in this country seriously affected our consumption, and consequently our im- portations from all foreign countries. In 1871 we imported from Cuba the value of $58,240,584, and exported to Cuba the vale of $14,200,496. In 1872 our imports were $67,720,205, and exports, $13,168,958, In 1873, imports, $77,365,749; exports, $15,231,039. In 1874, imports, $86,272,466; exports, $19,597,980. For the current year, ending June 30, 1875, the imports were $66,745,527; the exports, $15,586,658. What should strike an American most painfully in these figures is the miserably small amount of our exports to Cuba com- pared with the values we receive from the island. Here we have a just cause of com- plaint against Spain, which we are surprised the President has not mentioned, nor, so far as the public knows, dealt with. We have a right to ask Spain for a thorough reform of the commercial regulations under which she permits us to trade with Cuba, These are an- tiquated, absurd and contrary to the spirit of the presentcentury. They attack directly our commerce, and attack it ina manner which, | day, while it seriously injures the prosperity of | the inhabitants of Cuba, deals with us as | | readers, and thinks that besides giving gifts though we were enemies instead of friends. Our true policy toward Spain is to show her that she gains nothing, but hazards every- thing, by continuing to cripple our com- mercial intercourse with Cuba, and that her wisest policy would be to throw oven at | | SUNDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1875.—TRIPLE SHEET. once the commerce of the island to us, and enable us to establish a direct trade with it. ‘There are satisfactory reasons to believe that such a proposition made by our government to Spain would receive respectful attention, and, if properly urged, would meet with ac- ceptance. Spain. has statesmen, among them some now in power, who see the folly and injury of her commercial and colonial policy, and who, under the stimulus of our government’s action, would be encouraged to carry reforms which, while they would be of great importance to us, would do much to quiet Cuba and to advance the prosperity of the mother country. But, if Spain should refuse to reform her commercial regulations, we have another remedy, We have another sugar producing country on our Southern border. Why should we not establish more intimate and freer commercial intercourse with Mexico? That country would take more millions of our products than it now buys thousands if only we took pains to establish with it a more liberal commercial code; and it is hardly to be doubted that the Mexican gov- ernment, anxious as it must be for the con- tinuance of friendly relations with the United States and for the increased prosperity of its own people, would consent to any mutu- ally advantageous system for the interchange of the products of the two countries which General Grant might propose. Nor is there any doubt that, with free trade between Mexico and the United States, we should in a few years be able to draw from the Mexican States the greater part of the sugar we need, beyond what we ourselves produce, and pay for it entirely with the products of our own skilled mechanics. The establishment of free trade with Mexico would bring Spain to her senses at once, and she would give us the most liberal terms of commerce with Cuba in her own defence. The talk about intervention in Cuba, which means war, is needless, while we can carry all our own points peacefully. Intervention isan antiquated expedient. It belongs to the age of buccaneers and of colonial vassal- age. Modern statesmen know that wars are wasteful ; that commercial treaties perform } all the offices of a successful war, without waste ; and it would be well for us to remem- ber that for the sum a war with so weak a power as Spain would cost us we could build a railroad into the heart of the sugar producing parts of Mexico, and make our- selves independent of Cuba ata blow. In- tervention is, in sailor phrase, a policy of “main strength and stupidness.” It is the direct attack, where true generalship de- mands 8 movement on the flank, which would rout the enemy without loss to us. Religious Editors’ Views ot Christmas, General and almost universal as is the | observance of the Christmas festival, it is viewed by the editors of our religious contemporaries in as varied hues as the lights with which the Christmas trees were adorned yesterday. Dr. Talmage, in his Chris- tian at Work, would not have the Christ of life and light and joy dismissed from our homes and our society when the Christmas bells and the Happy New Year's greetings have subsided into silence. The Christian life, he declares, is not a form of worship, nor an order of doctrine, nor an act of sacramental homage, but a cultivation of that spirit which brings its possessor into real fellowship with Him who came to es- tablish peace and good will among men. Mr. Beecher, in his Christian Union, this | week has an editorial which sounds like the | bugle blast of the coming conflict between himself and Dr. Talmage, growing probably out of the opposite views which each holds regarding the expediency or righteous- | ness of retaining the Bible in the pub- | lic schools. The editorial is a review of a | previous one by Dr. Talmage on ‘Pins and Prayers” in which the latter took the ground | that not o single prayer was ever lost, but | that God has treasured them all up and in some future time will answer | them all. Talmage is set up as teaching Universalism, and is ridiculed pretty freely all the way for his illogical | utterances and conclusions. It will be his | turn to reply next week. Mr. Bowen, whose , Independent is beginning to be more unmis- | takably anti-Beecher in its tone, and whose columns this week and last has only words of | good will for Mrs. Moulton and the opposite for Plymouth church and its pastor, is amazed that, after all these driving and driven centuries since the angels’ song fore- told good will, peace and glory, there should be neither among men. They are still far, | far before the editor, who, like Mary, fore- bodes many across between. Mr. Donahoe looks through the Boston Pilot with a busi- | ness eye at this Christmas, which, he thinks, | indicates a year that will be unusually memorable in American history. There will be a great influx of money and people from all countries, a revival of business, a reduc- tion in the prices of the necessaries of life, and an increase in the wages of mechanics and laborers of the land. This is at least a | hopeful prophecy to make, and we can only | hope that it may be fulfilled, so as to en- | | courage the prophet as well as his patrons. The editor of the Catholic Review, being in a pious mood when he wrote, and not having received his Christmas box, thinks Catholics ought very devoutly to commemorate the and for two principal reasons— viz., because it dates the foundation of the Church, and because the Church is at present enduring persectmion throughout the world. He would have us all therefore weep and pray instead of re- joice and m#e merry on this occasion. Very differently does the Jewish Times view this Christmas festival. It is allied in point 6f time to the Jewish festival of Chanukah, or the dedication of the Temple under the Macca- bees, and as that has always been a season of rejoicing Jewish children have come to look upon both festivals alike, and no Christian household in the land observes the custom | of giving Christmas gifts to the children with greater regularity than do our Hebrew fellow citizens. And this is just as it should be. | Dr. Wheeler, through the Methodist, presents his congratulations and good wishes to his to our children we should ourselves accept | God's great gift of His Son. Dr. Thompson makes civilization, which has felt the influ- ence of the Gospel, ask through the Church Journal if Christianjty oan do nothing more for her:—‘Crime, fraud, corruption, brutal violence—the boasted progress and culture of the nineteenth century has not extermi- nated these. There is for communities and nations, a8 well as for individuals and house- holds, but one hope—the success of the cause of Him who came to be Satan's conquerer.” The Northwestern Advocate’s editor, Dr. Ed- wards, thinks that ‘if Christianity had done no more for us than to give us Christmas, this great central feast around which gather so many memories and hopes and affections, we should still have cause for profound thank. fulness. On this day we forget our immedi- ate and personal sorrows and annoyances in the all-prevailing happiness around us. It isa time when friends long severed meet again to renew unforgotten acquaintance, when families are reunited, when married bliss becomes more blissful, when youth and age gently interchange their hopes and their memories.” Mazi Tacrionz seems only a name belong- ing to the past of the ballet, a name en- shrined in etherealized muslin and tights, but the old divinity of the footlights, who turned a great many heads that are now white or bald or in dust, still lives, and a Heratp correspondent, who re- cently saw her in Milan, gives us some interesting reminiscences of this only sur- viving one of those who capered in the historic pas de quatre with which your anti- quated buck frowns down all allusion to any- thing that has ever been danced since. Curisrmas Was CeLesratep 1x New Yore with all its old time features of religious ob- servance, domestic cheer and kindly gifts to friends and to the poor. The damp weather, with its dull, leaden sky, did not lend much help in the direction of enjoyment, except by way of contrast. The sermons, as will be seen by our reports, were filled with the spirit of the day so great to Christianity, and polemics were laid aside. The dinners to the poor in the public institutions were as generous as usual, and the newsboys who ate their turkey at the expense of the Tele- gram probably enjoyed the inner man_por- tion of the festival with as much zest as any one on Murray Hill. pest hil tase s Tus Wutskey Fravps.—It is not to be expected that so powerful a body as the Western Whiskey Ring will allow itself to be thrown down, bound and butchered on the sacrificial altar of Justice without making the most determined efforts to save itself and disarm those intent on slaying it. It is not, therefore, surprising that the attempt should be made to implicate in the frauds those foremost in bringing the actual perpetrators under the hand of the law. The Chicago despatch, which we publish elsewhere, comes from a reliable correspondent, and, while fearing that the story it recites may be the invention of the Whiskey ‘Ring,’ we give it for what it is worth, If untrue Secretary Bristow can promptly nail the allegations. If it contains, however, but a shadow o truth, it deserves the attention of all inter- ested in purifying the administration o public affairs. PERSONAL INTELLIGENCE, Somebody calls Wagner the Vandal of Music. Fifty per cent of the Christmas slippers did not ft. Ex-Senator Nye has not recovered, He is hopelessly insane. Cassel’s glorifies the inteliectual triumphs of plain women. There have been 1,500 lives lost on the Pacific coas within a few years. Byron's complexion was that “of antique marble gilded by the suns of centuries."" Twenty thousand books have been stolen from thy Mercantile Library of Son Francisco in one year. Mr. Dorrance Atwater, American Consul at the So, _ ciety Islands, has married the Tahitan Princess Moetlia, The Chicago Times, which taps the ‘suburbs’? with wires, pays $100,000 a year for special local telegrams. In-some parts of Austria the snow ts nine feet deep) and in Vienna many accidents, caused by the presence of snow, sre occurring. Mr. Hovace White, the political economist, finds from his stucies of Europe that he has a great respect for “paternal government.” “Grace Greenwood’s” husband, Dr. L.. K. Lippincott, has been appointed Chief Clork of the Land Office, in place of W. W. Curtis, resigned. Norristown Herald:—‘ ‘Nomination by prayer it good, Suppose we elect him by doxology.—Nzw Yours Herat.’ To which we say, Amen.”’ ‘The army of Illinois numbers 3,256 meo—that being | the strength of the muster rolls of all the uniformed and equipped militia companies in the State, Miss Yonge's new book, which isto be called “The Young Alcides,” is an attempt to modernize, somo- what after the fashion of Miss Thackeray's fairy tales, | the labors of Hercules, George Eliot's new work ts, the Atheneum has reason to know, like “Middlemarch,” @ story of English life, but of our own day, and dealing for the most part with a higher sphere of society. One of the queerest studies at the newsboy’s dinner on Christmas wasa boy, half Chinese, half Milesian, who sang with high glee—‘Malch, match, malch— malch Mellican Guards.” Two ex-members of the House have lately sough, work im the document folding room, at Washington; work which inciudes the wheeling of mail matter in ‘a barrow to the Post Office. Mayor Stokley, of Philadelphia, has sent to the Lord | Mayor of London a superbly bound volume of his third i} annual message. The Lord Mayor won’t care so much for the binding as he will for the statesmanship. The Paris theatres have been complaining of hard times, but it turns out that their receipts for the year will amount to $5,000,000, against $4,000,000 in 1873, and $3,740,000 in 1872, in fact, considerably larger than they have ever been before. During the twelve years Mr. McPherson was Clerk of the House of Representatives he disbursed over $6,000,000, The other day, when he had a Qnal settle- ment with the Treasury Department, it was found that there was a balance of $1 66 to his credit, “Chock Wong, one of the editors of a Chinese paper at Sen Francisco, has declared his intention of taking out naturalization papers in the United States District Court, which will test the question of the right of Mon- goltns to become citizens.’ Didn't Sargent and Gor- ham settle this, after all? A village lunatic a fow days ago scared a sick girl to denth by telling ber that he would in two days die and go to the bad place. Why can’t families who let their lunatics roam at large be subject to aut for damages on jai basis thatan owner is responsible for of s vicious horse or dog? Mr, Hyde, of the 84 Louis Republican, is sure that civil service reform can never be obtained through mere politics and that the only way toward ite achieve- ment is through agitation by the people, in whose hands it must remain. In saying this much Mr, Hyde seome to recogni: in & republican government overy- thing tangible and permanent arises {rom earnest pub- lic opinion, The St, Louis Globe-Demoorat, evor witty in its critt- cism If not always correct, says that Senator McDonald, ot Indiana, stands firmly by tl@ theory that the federat government has no powers except such aa it derived from the several States. This is a very good theory and was @ fact ninety years ago; but the present gon- | eration is inclined to believe that, asa matter of fact, the federal government never derived any powers from the State of Indiana, but that the State of Indiana, om the contrary, came into existence only through (he ad of the federal government