The New York Herald Newspaper, January 11, 1876, Page 4

4. NEW YORK HERALD BROADWAY AND ANN STREET, JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR THE DAILY HERALD, published every day in the Four cents per copy. ‘Twelve dollars per year, or one dollar per month, free of postage. All business, news letters or telegraphic despatches must be addressed New Youre HERALD. Letters and packages should be properly sealed, Rejected communications will not be re- turned. zt 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, year. VOLUM E Xu AMUSEMENTS TO-NIGHT. WOOD'S M 4 | Broadway. corner of Thirtieth street.—THE CUT GLOVE, ? P.M; closes at 10:45 P.M. Jule Keen, Matines at | 1 GLOBE THEATRE, Nos. 728 and 730 Broadway.—VARIETY, ab 8 P.M. B THEATRE, ‘Twenty-third street and Sixth avenue.—JULIUS CHSAR, wt8PoM. Mr. Lawrence Barrett, | COMIQUE, Yate P.M THIRD AVENUE THEATRE, ‘Third avenue, between Thirtieth and Thirty-first streets.— PANORAMA, at 5 P.M. COLOSSEUM, N SIEGE OF om 7:30 P, TIVOLI THEATRE, Eighth street, near Third avenue.—VARIETY, at 8 P. M. WALLACK'S THEATRE, Broadway and Thirteenth street.—HOME, at 8 P. M.; closes at 10.40 P.M. Mr. Lester Wallack. PARISIAN VARIETIES, Sixteenth street, near Broadway.—VARIETY, at 8 P.M. BROOKLYN THEATRE, Washington street, Brouklyn—OUR BOYS, at8 P.M. Mr, Jobo B. Owenn UNION SQUARE THEATRE, Broadway and Fourteenth street—ROSE MICHEL, at 8 OLYMPIC Wo, 624 Brondway.—VARIE’ FIFTH AVE Twenty-eight street, sea Panay Davenport. HEATRE, adway.—PIQUE, at SPM. | TONY PASTOR'S NEW THEATRE, Noa. 585 and 587 Broadway.—VARIETY, at § PM. PARK THEATRE, Broadway ani Twenty-second +—THE WIDOW BUNT, M8 P.M. Joho Dillon. Tit FAG E. Broadway and Thirty-th —VARIETY, at 8 P.M GERMANIA THEATRE, Vourteenth street —AMING OF THE SHREW, at 8PM. | BOWERY THEATRE, Bowery.—SUNSHINE, at 8 P.M. Lillie Wilkensom SAN FRANCISCO MINSTRELS, Mow orate House, Broadway, corner of Pwenty-ninth street, wt P.M. WITH SUPPLE MENT.| NEW YORK, ll, 1876, iSDAY, JANUARY From our reports this morning the probabili- | fies are that the weather to-day will be colder, dearing and windy. Tae Hrnavp by Fast Mam ‘Traws.—News- dealers and the public throughout the Slates of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as tell as in the West, the Pacific Coast, the North, the South and Southwest, also along the lines of the Hudson Kiver, New Yorle Central and Pennsylvania Central Railroads and their con- nections, will be supplied with Tox Herarp, free of postage. Extraordinary inducements | offered to newsdealers ly sending their orders direct to this office. Watt Srneet Yesrerpay.--Stocks were active and higher under the leadership of | Lake Shore. Money hardened to 1-32 and interest, closing at 7 per cent gold. Gold was steady at 113 1-8 a 113. Wixtrr reminded us yesterday that it | had been only playing at spring for a few days in honor of the centennial year. | Tar Propuce anp Corroy Excnanaers of | this city recommend the grant by Congress | of the money asked for by the Centennial | managers, Their sensible resolutions will | be found elsewhere. A Riot on Brackwetu's Istanp enlivened the routine of the law’s retribution there yesterday. Fifty out ofone hundred and ten | convicts, it appears, struck work at the north- ern end of the island, considering the air too | eager and nipping for outdoor exercise. One of these fifty attacked a keeper, who shot | j him. Peace is restored. | Tar Caancenct Mixens have had an in- | troduction to the military, from which a | number of the former retired to their graves. More soldiers have been sent from Brussels in case the strikers desire a further inter- change of courtesies; but killing a few work- ingmen will not settle the labor question by | ny means. Qoren Vicronta, it is rumored, will open the coming session of the British Parliament in person. It is possible this would indicate a return of Her Majesty to court life, and hence the bringing of joy to the world of fashion and the tradesmen who fatten on regal splendor. It may also indicate that the remaining unprovided for members of the royal family desire to settle in life. Tax Harp Toes and how to soften them was the theme at the workingman’s meeti at the Cooper Institute last evening. The old idea of a labor party was put forth, and many statements made as to the exemption of the rich from taxation. Unfortunately the | Utopian always swamps the practical in these | gatherings, but such things as evasicns of taxes are deserving of care and cure. Tar Dinect Capiz has been again re- paired, and we hope for the last time in many years. It has had enough vicissitudes. As the public wants some protection against the extortion of a monopoly we hope to see | other cables laid soon, so that the breakage | ofa single line like the Direct will not allow | ‘an advance in the rates to be made forthwith. | be bronght for condemnation. Spain has a “Placing a limit on charges by law would not ‘bo half so effective in keeping down prices as | and the havoc she could make of our ship- | ping would be correspondingly great. The | represents it @ healthy competition, | contests why a war is undesirable in the | vising, that our government should bring | relation to Cuba, in the following remark- | set a good example by insisting that Cuba be | eign, orat least by British opinion, in carrying of the Antilles,” and the scandal and nui- | Spain. NEW YORK HERALD, TUESDAY, JANUARY Il, 1876.—WITH SUPPLEMENT. “ne Plague of the Antilles"—Are We To Have a War with Spain?! The significant leading article which ap- peared in the London 7¥mes yesterday morn- ing, a great part of which was cabled and printed in the Heraxp on the same yesterday | morning (a feat made possible by difference | of longitude and time), will be taken by our government as sanctioning the war with | Spain which President Grant is believed to | have in contemplation. It has been our hope | that if a war must come it might be postponed until after the Presiden- | tial election. This hope grows feebler | with each passing day. It is unde- niable that we have real grounds of complaint against Spain, and herein lies the difficulty of making an effective oppo- sition to the policy of the President. He will be strengthened in his purpose by every foreign recognition of the justice of our com- plaints and the gravity of the evils which we have so long endured, Foreigners can- not be expected to take any note of the domestic reasons growing out of our party year of a Presidential election. They naturally look at the question only in its broader aspects, ‘They assume that our gov- ernment is permanently equal to all exi- gencies which may arise in its international relations, and as mere outside observers they perceive no reason why it should be paralyzed every fourth year in its foreign policy. This mode of viewing the subject is plausible, atleast from a foreign point of view. Thegovernment of a great nation is presumed to be organized for permanent efficiency and to be competent to deal with questions on their merits at whatever period of the calendar they maycome up. Ourcon- stantly recurring Presidential elections are connected with the internal machinery of our government, but foreign observers are justified in disregarding them when they dis- cuss our relations with other Powers. The London Times concedes that we have good grounds of complaint against Spain, and the fact that we are to hold a Presidential elec- tion this year has no weight, one way or the other, in its estimate of our grievances. The strong views of the London Times will encourage the President and the abettors of his contemplated policy. The immediate occasion of the article in the London Times is the Spanish notification to mariners not toapproach the coast east of Bilbao on account of the danger from the Carlist batteries. ‘If the Carlists," says the Times, ‘injure any British ship we must look to Madrid for redress. Either King Alfonso or we must assume the police of the Spanish coasts. The plain duty of Spain is to place a fleet off the coasts such as will silence the Carlist batteries. If the govern- ment will not protect its own coasts it must pay for any damage the rebels may do.” The application of these vigorous remarks to the island of Cuba is sufficiently obvious. What the logic of the situation and interna- tional law would justify England in doing on the coasts of Spain they would equally justify the United States in doing on the coasts of Cuba. The following remarks of the Times, in continuation, are more sig- nificant for what they suggest than for what | they directly assert :—‘‘We fail to see why Spain should be freed from the duty of guarding herown coasts. Her navy is so powerful that in case of a rupture with tho United States she would have a great advan- tage in the commencement of the struggle. Some vessels may be stationed off Cuba; that is an arrangement with which we cannot cegneern ourselves. If Spain insists on hav- ing the luxury of rebellious colonies at a time when wasted by civil war at home she | must take the consequences.” This is a plain declaration that Spain can expect no sympathy from England if she gets embroiled with the United States. But the Times does not hesitate to make a frank expression of opinion respecting the condition of things in the West India Islands. It more than suggests, it goes to the very border of ad- Spain to her senses by decisive measures in able passage :—‘‘The United States might no longer allowed to become the plague, in- stead of the pearl, of the Antilles.” Presi- dent Grant will feel, after such an admoni- tion, that he will be fully supported by for- out the policy to which he inclines in rela- tion to the island which has ceased to be the ‘pearl of the Antilles” to become the “plague sance of the West Indies. Although this strong advice comes from an external, we should be credulous, indeed, if | we regarded it as a disinterested source. The present superiority of the Spanish to the American navy would be productive of con- sequences which would inure to the advan- tage of Great Britain. The feeble remnants | of our once magnificent shipping interest | would be utterly destroyed by a war with | The Confederate States, which had no navy, but only a few cruisers, inflicted a | blow on our commerce from which it has | searcely yet begun to recover. The con- | sequence was to give England almost a | monopoly of the carrying trade of | the world, including our own. If the | civil war had not occurred our shipping would long ere now have been superior to | that of Great Britain. When the civil war | broke out we had nearly overtaken and should soon have passed her in the contest for commercial supremacy, But our ships were driven from the ocean by the Confederate cruisers, the hazard being so great and tho rates of insurance so high that they could not compete with British ships, and the conse- quence was thatthe greater part of them were transferred to British owners. The money awarded us by the Geneva court of arbi- tration was a cheap purchase by Great Britain of the lucrative monopoly of the carrying | trade which fell to her by the destruction | of American navigation. A war with Spain would insure the continuance of British mer- | cantile supremacy on the seas by ruining what remains of our shipping. The Confed- vessels empioyea in our coasting trade would be her most tempting prey. We have retained this part of our shipping undimin- ished, because our navigation laws do not permit foreign vessels to participate in our coasting trade. The Spanish cruisers would pounce upon every steamer plying between our ports on the Atlantic and on the Gulf; the rates of insurance would become so high and the danger so great that passen- gers and freights would be driven to the railroads; the vessels in the coasting trade would be thrown out of employment; and, as a natural consequence, they would be withdrawn and sold to foreign owners. This loss of vessels would insure to Great Britain a long continuance of the supremacy she acquired during our civil war. When, therefore, the London Times encourages and incites President Grant to make war on Spain so intelligent a journal must be aware of the resulting benefit to English navi- gation. Our countrymen must not delude them- selves with the idea that the democratic ma- jority in the House is a secure protection against a war with Spain. It is true that the power to declare war is vested in Congress, and that it requires the concurrence of both houses to pass an act to that effect. But this is a frail security. The management of our foreign relations, in everything short of war, is in the hands of the President, who can easily create such a state of things that war is inevitable. The Mexican war was brought on by President Polk, who ordered General Taylor to march his troops to the Rio Grande, and thereby provoked the Mexicans to cross and fight him, when Congress declared that war existed by the act of Mexico. It does not require two parties to make war, but only one, and when a foreign Power has been goaded to make war on us we have no devico but armed resistance. Nothing is easier than for President Grant to make some demonstration which Spain would forcibly resent, and when hostilities had been once commenced by the act of Spain Congress would be forced to sanction counter hostili- ties by our government. It is clear enough that President Grant can have a war with Spain whenever he wants one and deter- mines to bring it on. The country must not be lulled into a fancied and delusive security by the pro- fessions of moderation put forth by the ad- ministration. If it has resolved to push the nation into a war with Spain such ap ostentation of pacific counsels is an ordinary preliminary. It is an old and stale trick, grown rusty in diplomatic precedents. When a government has resolved on war it always seeks to put its adversary wrong in the eyes of the world by professions of mod- eration and reluctance and the ostentatious display of a spirit of forbearance. Appeals to arms are accompanied with a simultaneous appeal to the moral judgment of mankind. It is ga chief resource of diplomatic cunning to represent that it is unwillingly forced into hostilities. The annual Message of President Grant was pitched in well-known key; but while flaunt- ing profuse professions of the rights of Spain in Cuba it put the United States in such an attitude as renders war inevitable if the domestic contest in that island continues. The Message tells -Spain plainly enough that unless she speedily com- poses the difficulty with her revolted sub- jects and restores tranquillity in Cuba the United States will take the matter out of her hands. Disguise it as the President may, such intervention is war. It willas certainly result would have done to put an end to our civil war ‘‘in the interest of humanity,” which is the smooth phrase employed by President Grant in“ his Message. It is a necessary preliminary to put Spain in the wrong in the general judgment of the world, and the article in the London Times will lead him to think that he has succeeded in this at- tempt. It has been the strong preference of the Hrnap to have this question postponed until after the Presidential election; but if action is precipitated now we must make the best of it. We are profoundly convinced that a war with Spain this year will disap- point the political hopes of the administra- tion. Instead of aiding the third term aspi- rations of President Grant it will render his re-election impossible. But this isa question which we must postpone for future consider- ation. Mr. Blaine’s Speech. The scene in the House of Representatives yesterday gives a fair measure of its temper on the Southern question, and the defeat of Mr. Randall’s Amnesty bill on a strict party vote shows the extreme limits of the demo- cratic majority. Mr. Blaine’s speech, as a forensic effort, will probably earn a different opinion from that which will be bestowed on it as a partisan utterance. The parlia- mentary strategy by which he took the floor on the democratic bill is proof of his superior shrewdness, but the argument he used to justify the exception of Jefferson Davis from the republican Amnesty bill was as weak as the picture he painted was strong. If he wanted to create in fact that figment of fic- tion, which made the blood of sentimental old maids curdle under the title of “A Man Without a Country,” we might see in his bill a touch of highly poetical justice, as it made the ex-President of the Confederacy the sole denationalized being left on the shores of time by the rebellion. case. It is as the man responsible for the horrors of Andersonville that Jefferson Davis is to be excepted from the republican am- nesty. This has the flavor of the demagogue pervading it. What the desolated fields and homes of the South had not paid of the debt to hnmanity at Andersonville was can- celled under the apple tree at Appomattox Court House when the sword of Lee was accepted by General Grant. It is too late now to revenge acts done in the war, no matter how inhuman, upon any one indi- vidual, and hence the speech ot Mr. Blaine reads to the unbiassed like a flaming ap- peal to the bitter passions which moved | men when Americans were divided into “rebs” and “Yankees.” This question de- mands other treatment. If the republican erate States had only a few flying cruisers, | policy is to sow dragon's teeth instead of the with no ports into which their prizes could | powerful navy and abundance of harbors, golden grain of conciliation they may be prepared to reap accordingly, We shall look keenly to the continuance of the debate on the republican side to see how far Mr. Blaine this | respect for | in war as European intervention. But such is not the | Charter Reform a: Spring Elections. One of the most grotesquely odd things in city politics is the sudden and ardent love of our present charter which has sprung up in divers quarters. It is well known that this precious instrument, which has s0 many new defenders, is substantially the old Tweed charter, passed when the Ring was at the | height of its power and when the ‘Boss” was in full sway at Albany. In all its main | features it is the same charter which the Union League Club sent Mr. Greeley to | Albany to protest against just before its | passage, and which the anti-Tweed democrats opposed with all their vigor. Mr. Tilden went up to Albany at the same time with Mr, Greeley and made a strong speech against it before the Senate Commit- tee on Cities, of which Tweed was chairman. It was notoriously concocted in the interest of the Tammany Ring. The long terms of four and six years which it gives to the heads of the city departments was a device for keeping the tools of Tweed in office in spite of occasional democratic defeats in the city elections. This bad charter has verified all the predictions of its opponents. The gov- ernment of the city has never been so bad as since it went into oper- ation in 1870. Poor Mayor Havemeyer protested against it in his Messages ; his successor, Mayor Wickham, denounced it when he came into office; the democrats in tho last Legislature tried to amend it; Gov- ernor Tildon confessed its exceeding bad- ness by asking for a commission to devise a better plan for the government of cities. But, all of a sudden, several of the most prominent people ‘‘inside politics,” both on the democratic and the republican side, have become enamored of this crowning fruit of the Tweed régime, There is evi- dently a bargain between Mayor Wickham and the republicans by which the parties have bound themselves to stave off action in this Legislature for valuable and mutually satisfactory con- siderations. Mayor Wickham dreads an elec- tion next spring, which would consign him to obscurity, and he has appointed two repub- lican Police Commissioners to conciliate the republican majority of the Legislature. As a quid pro quo a prominent republican jour- nal supports his nomination of Commis- sioner Porter. There seems to be a settled understanding between the traders in poli- tics on both sides that the presont charter shall not be disturbed, notwithstanding the denunciations so freely and incessantly poured upon it both by republicans and democrats during the last five years. There is a harmonious under- standing that the present charter shall not be disturbed during this session of the Legislature, because the traders in pol- itics on both sides prefer the results of their scandalous bargain to the welfare of the city. If this bargain succeeds the majority of the members of the Legislature will be placed in a most unenviable light The Heraup sent its correspondents to visit and inter- view them before this disreputable political dicker was made, and when they expressed their unbiassed sentiments there was a major- ity of four or five to one in favor of the | changes advocated in our columns. It re- mains to be seen whether the members of the Legislature will stand by their real con- victions. The Case of Turkey. The Joe Millers of our time chronicle the achievements of a far-sighted person who, to prevent hydrophobia in a dog by cutting off a piece of his tail, made the cut imme- diately behind the dog’s ears. This man should, if he can be found, be put in charge of the reforms proposed for Turkey in Eu- rope. His plan applied to this subject might secure the. desired object—and this is more than can be said for any other plan; for the. trouble of the Christian subjects of the Sul- tan is primarily that they are his subjects, and that the administrative methods pecu- liar to the system of which he is the head cannot be operated on the conceptions of political science os understood in the capitals of Europe, any more than the grasshoppers can become bum- ble bees by an understanding between themselves and the wasps. It seems difficult for the world to understand that there are intellectual and moral impossibilities as definitely as there are physical impossibili- ties ; but scarcely any physical difficulty can be conceived more absolutely insuperable than that of getting the administrative methods of European politics into the skulls of the Asiatic horsemen who have been en- camped on the Danube for four hundred years, and are Asiatic horsemen still. The only solution of this problem is that cut ‘close behind the ears,” which would sepa- rate the whole body of the Sultan’s sub- jects in his European dominions from the Sultan himself at Constantinople. It is the excellence of Count Andrassy’s project of reform that the face is turned in the direction of this policy. It proposes reforms and recognizes that they might as well not be proposed if their administration is to be submitted to Turkish functionaries, It pro- vides, therefore, that these reforms shall be under the supervision of the consular and diplomatic representatives in Turkey of the great Powers—that is, that the government of the country, in so far as relates to points | touched by the scheme of reform, shall be | taken ont of the hands of the Moslem au- thority. This, therefore, is a step toward the deposition of the Sultan from his sov- ereignty. As such it is a step*in the right | direction, and will lead to other and longer steps on the same line. Port Royal. Apart from the question of a war with Spain and its contiguity to the island of ! Guba, Port Royal-is the best naval station on | the Atlantic coast. Norfolk and New Lon- | don are too far north for a fleet constantly | compelled to do service in the tropics, and | | Pensacola and Key West are frequently ex- | posed to epidemic and contagious diseases. Port Royal, on the other hand, is admirably situated as regards climate, and geograph- ically it presents as many advantages as in | the evenness of its temperature and its free- dom from disease. It is not too far south to leave the northern ports unprotected, even | in case of an emergency, and it is within | easy striking distance of Bermuda and the ‘West India Islands. More than this, it com. mands the Gulf almost as well as Kev West | or the mouth of the Mississippi, and the exi-" gencies of the trade winds bring it within the highway to the Mediterranean. But, be- sides these reasons of aclimatic and geo- graphical character, a grave political argu- ment is to be adduced in behalf of Port Royal as our principal naval station. Unlike Brooklyn or Philadelphia, a navy yard at this point cannot be used to control elections. A great abuse heretofore has been the use of our navy yards to carry doubtful States for the party in power. Port Royal can be freed from any such abuses altogether. From every point of view this excellent harbor pre- sents advantages which are possessed by no other port on our coast for anaval rendezvous, and the Navy Department is showing great wis- dom in gathering our little fleet at this point. The possibility of a war with Spain may have suggested the determination of the depart- ment; but, whatever the result, so far as Spain is concerned, the idea is one which ought not to be abandoned. Let us by all means make Port Royal our leading naval station. Mr. Oakey Hall's Retirement. In another part of this issue we print a communication from a personal friend of Mr. Hall, which deals with the strictly theatrical aspects of his recent dramatic venture. It is urged that the result of Mr. Hall's short campaign should scarcely be accepted as final in the judgment of his merits and capabilities as an actor, because he was not only deprived of the ad- vantages of an effective management, but that he had to contend against so many dis- advantages in that direction that success was made impossible. With the history of events of this nature, as viewed from behind the scenes, the public can be at any time but little acquainted, and, therefore, can scarcely take them into account in the formation of critical judgments. Even when they are shown in exceptional cases they appear con- sequently as though urged in mitigation of adverse opinion, and we doubt if Mr. Hall's enthusiastic friends deem his case so bad as to need this defence. None of them can suppose that it needs a defence which would tempt spiteful references to the sort of work- men who find fault with their tools. In his histrionic aspirations and experiences the former Mayor has been treated kindly by the press, and if it did not applaud him to the echo this was because in the discharge of a duty it felt that its obligations to the public were to be considered at least equally with its good will to an old friend ; and this very fact should give greater weight and deeper value to the encouragement it ex- tended. It will, we doubt not, be the gen- eral verdict of the press that Mr. Hall bas done well in withdrawing from a field where such a success as would satisfy his own judgment can only be gained by a labor and patience that time will not permit him to bestow. He exhibited an intellectual en- terprise--a moral daring and energy—in pushing his experiment in defiance of ad- vice ; and that bit of spirit was admirable in itself. But the space that separates the forum from the footlights is greater than the enthusiastic dream. He who has grown up in the forum had better fight it out on that line through the number of summers and winters that may be requisite than to invite the challenge of pitiful people in ‘‘pastures *| new ;” and if he encounters, or through an undue sensibility fancies he encounters, treatment difficult to endure, he must re- member that all the sages agree that the grandest triumph comes out of the hardest fight. It is not a case for pity to see a capa- ble advocate driven back to the Bar. But there is one man to be pitied ; and the only person on whom any calamity falls—the only victim of Mr. Hall's escapade—is the man who hissed him on his last night. That per- son had an opportunity to exhibit the depth of his meanness, and did it. Who Was the Dynamite Fiend? From the multiplicity of stories in circula- tion concerning the identity of the dynamite monster it is not surprising that respectable parties have been spoken of as his relatives. One such story, naming him as a family con- nection of a shipping firm in this city, we have authority to deny. It is surprising to note how suddenly the antecedents of a man become mixed who up to the time of the fail- ure of his terrible plot was received in the best society of Europe. He was first described as Thomas, an American, of Baltimore ; next as Thomassen, @ native of Westphalia, and then asa connection of a New York family, probably of French origin, and certainly from the Channel Islands. From the time of Cagliostro it has been the experience of society that men with money can succeed in attaining social positions abroad which they could never hope to gain at home. The glamour of wealth, real or reputed, prevents the asking of questions about ante- cedents which would not fail to be pro- pounded toa shabby coat or an aged hat. We have had our English “lords,” French, Italian and German ‘‘counts” by the score, who imposed themselves successfully on credulous wealth here, only to fade into gentlemen's gentlemen, valets, couriers, barbers and ‘“‘younger sons of younger brothers.” The fat, jovial and generous Vice President of the American Club of Dresden will doubtless soon be relegated to his proper origin. We can well under- stand the disinclination any family would entertain to acknowledging him, and it is not likely we shall have any “claimants” in his case; but we cannot see that the act of | such an exceptional monster should reflect on the good name of any country which had the misfortune to give him birth We, therefore, await with interest the publicatio of the German official inquiry. Tae ‘“Sravck Jury” Dirrrcvnty in the Tweed civil suits was made partially clear by Judge Westbrook’s decision, and the only way out isa new selection, Mr. Field may be congratulated on his ability to trip the prosecution; but all these obstructions on one side and blunders on the other will not deprive us of the felicity of getting at the facts before the Fourth of July, When the city will get at the stolen money is another question. Cottector WeasteEr, of Chicago, seems to | speak derisively of Boyd & Co.'s denial of the “crooked” whiskey impeachment. This is the refinement of cruelty. a ES Mile. Titiens im Opera. The widely and strongly expressed desire of the metropolitan public to hear Mlle. Titiens in those grand operatic réles with which her artistic reputation is inseparably bound is at last about to be gratified. Mr. Strakosch has realized the soundness of the advice given him by the Hxnatp at the very outset of the season, and the folly of neglecting to comply with the wishes of his lib- eral patrons, the musical public of New York. Mile. Titiens, ere her visit to America, was known to our opera goers as a great lyric artiste, the last, perhaps, of the noble school of Malibran, Pasta and Grisi. Since her first appearance in London, eighteen years ago, she has wielded the sceptre in réles such as Norma, Semiramide, Lucretia Borgia, Leonora in ‘‘Fidelio,” Medea, Donna Anna and Valentine, and her reign in Her Majesty's Opera has never been dis- turbed even by younger and more seduc- tive artists. The eagerness of the public, therefore, to hear her in those réles, should be encouraging to Mr. Strakosch in this ven- ture, and should induce him to surround this gifted prima donna with a company worthy of her. Itis, perhaps, too late in the season to secure in Europe artists like Cam- panini, Cary and Maurel, as they and all others of the same rank on the lyric stage aro engaged; but there may be found some ca- pable singers, lesser luminaries, yct reliablo and attractive in all réles intrusted to them. Success in an Italian opera season in New York at this time would give the manager an admirable opportunity to organize a strong combination of lyric forces during the Cen- tennialand reap a plentiful harvest. We shall await with interest and high expec- tancy the first appearance of Mlle. Titions as the Druidical priestess on the 18th inst. The Abuse of Sudd Wealth, Surrogate Coffin’s decision, given at White Plains yesterday, removes the Singer will case from the public view, and with it a very ghastly domestic story. The second wife's claims have been negatived, and Isaac M. Singer’s will stands as the monument of a frightfully misshapen life, which will not fail to be studied by the ethical historian when he endeavors to concentrate in a sen- tence his scorn of the picture formed by a gross nature rioting in sudden wealth. Free love is a subject which we are loath to touch, but those who plead for the severance at will of the marriage tie will see how wretchedly the unions and divorces of this man resulted. It seemed in his power to cast off and take new wives as he wanted—he was wealthy and had no scruples. What horrible facts hide behind the lives he gilded and smirched! We do not call attention to them to serve a prurient curiosity, but to warn the age that its sins will bear bitter fruit, though the rind be covered with gold. The coarse selfishness which says in its heydey of transgression What of the world around me, what of to-morrow, my sins are paid for in money? is vainly at- tempting to separate itself in one respect from the society in which it is in all other respects aching to shine. The nation is learning better every day how to use its wealth. It was natural, perhaps, that individ- uals should erect their precipitate fortunes into brazen exaggerations of their vices in poverty, as the gold miner's ‘‘luck” of a day often exemplified only the word ‘‘dissipa- tion” on a scale so headlong that it was bar- barously ludicrous. Singer drew his for- tune from a beneficent invention, and we hope that those who pattern their lives in a business sense on his will see that there are loathsome dregs in the ferocity of self-indul- gence that distorted his domestic career; that they will come to the light of day at last to darken and blight his memory as they em- bittered and embitter the lives of those whom all laws say should be nearest and dearest. Fat legacies will not cover these dregs or rob them of their bane. PERSONAL INTELLIGENCE, Hamlet was seventeen. London is to have condensed beer. Glendenning is being investigated in Illinois. Governor Hendricks will speak in New Orleans. Guinnoss, the porter brewer, is an M. P. for Dublin. England is trying to be once more a first class Power. The Emperor and Empress of Brazil will arrive in New York in April. ‘ Wendell Phillips once said:—“I paint with a large brusb—for the multitude.” In Kentucky the warm elder, blackberry and peach eaten by grasshoppers. Says Hyde, of the St. Louis Republican:—“A rock, for example, may be said to be the work of chance,” So may a brickbat if you can’t doage worth a cent. The Cincinnati Commercial says:—‘‘Fifty-thousand novels to 12,000 m‘scellaneous books were taken from the Mercantile Library, of Cincinnatt, during the last year.” “Be tolerant of conviction in others, but be yeur. selves steadfast in doubt,’ may be said to have been the chief moral of Lord Derby’s aavice to the Edin- burgh students. In and about Pitishurg, Pa, in 1875, there were filed 250 petitions in bankruptcy. Tho debts were $12,000,000 and the assets less than $6,000,000, “Filty cents on the dollar” is the general cry. Negroes who bave been slaves tn the southern part of the Atlantic slope are going in crowds of hundreds to the West, mainly to States lying west of the Missis- sippi River, from Arkansas down to Texas, The cost of governing Great Britain is about '$515,000,000; the cost of governing the United States 18 $645,000,000—these sums including all the expenses of federal, State, county and municipal! government. Mr. Picciotto bewails deeply the number of Jews, who, in England more especially, are tempted by social ambition, or dislike of social pressure, or the beauty of Gentile maidens to quit their ancient community ana glide into the mass of the population, The editor of the Washington Republican hopes before the winter is over to convert the tall chasscar who follows round with the Russian Minister. The chances ther has brought out 8, which are greedily are that before the chasseur gets thoroughly im- ~ bued with the spirit of grace Brooks will backslide two or three times himself, In the Iowa canvass for Senator legislative noses have been counted, and the several slates show the fol_ lowing figures :—Harlan, 56; Kirkwood, 52, with several to hear trom ; Belknap, 58; Price and McCrary, 35 eacn- According to these figures, which are given with con- siderable assurance, and backed with proffers of money to clinch them, Harlan and Belknap can be nominated on the first ballot, as there are but 106 republicans ia the Legislature, and it will require but fifty-four te nominate. A writer in the Richmond (Va.) Dispatch is authority for the story that Hon. A. H. H. Stuart, of Confederate fame, was in March, 1864, summoned to Richmond by Judah P, Benjamin, in order that he might confor with President Davis; that Davis told him the Confederate Congress had voted a secret service fund of $3,000,000, gold, to be used in creating peace sentiment at the North; that he, Stuart, refused to take {t in trast, and that the Greeley correspondence and Mr. Lincoln's “Te whom it may concern’ was the result af the mission eferward anvolatea, " . nd