The New York Herald Newspaper, January 25, 1876, Page 5

4 — NEW YORK HERALD! BROADWAY AND ANN STREET, JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR, THE DAILY HERALD, published every day in the year, 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 Nzuw Yore Heranp. Letters and packages should be properly sealed. Rejected communications will not be ree tnrned. PHILADELPHIA OFFICE--NO. 14SOUTH SIXTH STREET, 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. VOLUME XL I. sessmswnetogebisyeteseeses---NO, 25 AMUSEMENTS TO-NIGHT. FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE PIQUE, at 8 P.M. Fanny Davenport. TONY PASTOR" M VARIETY, at 8 MM. Mati PARISIAN VARIETIBS. VARIETY, at 8 P.M. BAN FRANCISCO MINST! WOOD'S M DONALD MeKAY, at 8 P.M. inee at 2 P.M GLOBE THEATRE VARIETY, at 8 P.M. BOOTH'S THRATRE. JULICS CHSAR, at S P.M. Mr. Lawrence Barrett. THEATRE VARIETY, at 8. M. GERMAN MUCH ADO ABOUT N THIRD AV: VARIETY, at 8 2’. M. S THEATRE. Mr. Lester Wallack, wa MARRIED IN HAST TIVOLI TU VARIETY, at 8 P.M, cor PANORAMA, | to 4 P. BROOKIYN THRATRE. ROMANCE OF A POOR YOUNG MAN, at 8 P.M. Mr. Montague UNION SQUARE THEATRE. BOSE MICHEL, at 8 OLYMFIC THEATRE, VARIETY. at 8 P.M. =— WITH SUPPLEMEN RY 25 are that the weather to-day will be slightly colder and clearing. Tue Herarp py Fast Mary Trarns.— News- dealers and the public will be supplied with the Dairy, Weexry and Sunpay Hernan, free of postage, by sending their orders direct to this office. Tur Lonspa ROK still adhere to their determination of starving rather than accepting the reduced wages. Tur Trrat or Burnovens, the wife mur- derer, was opened yesterday in Brooklyn. The story is a horrible revelation of a brutal ‘nature, Wat Street Yesrerpay.—Stocks were active, in some instances higher, but gen- erally irregular. Gold sold at 113 a 113 1-8. Money on call ruled at 7a5a 6 per cent. Government bonds were very strong. Tux Senate anp Asszmery met last even- tng, but the upper house was without a quorum, and the lower house transacted very little business. Our legislators must give up this mere killing of time and set to work, ‘Cue Districr or Corvstnt, Bonps bill oc- eupied the Honse yesterday, and was passed with some amendments. In the Senate Mr. Davis’ Treasury accounts resolution had its Jeeth drawn by the republican majority, who ‘urned it over to the Finance Committee. Atronso’s Government have taken such precantions in regard to the elections for the Cortes that it is not wonderful a ministerial | majority should be chosen. The report that Sefior Castelar has been elected in Barcelona will gratify the many admirers of that large hearted Spaniard. Mexican Retyrorcements for the Rio Grande mean, we hope, that the neighboring Republic is awakening to the necessity of stopping its marauding citizens from rob- | bing our stock raisers. If it simply means protecting them from pursuit the ing those in this country who desire a war. are help- Spary’s Pactrrcation Pian ron Crpa seems similar to the treatment of Sangrado, the celebrated Spanish physician in ‘Gil Bl This, it will be remembered, was blood-let- ting and hot water. The weaker the patient grew the more blood was to be taken from him, the more hot water he was to drink. Tittrens at the sht comes with a heard her There s possession former in the old charm to the enjoy- or Mri t on se who h Tar Success Academy of M feeling of relief to th in the great operatic riles y is a sense of doubt which of even the best friends « such cases, and the proof th remains adds a kétner zest ment. Crosk Communion was the lively debate among t this city and Brook]; lution insisting on baptism by immersion as “@ necessary qualification {i was passed by a vote of forty Dr. Thomas, of Brooklyn, in the course of the proceedings presented a resolution bar- ago ubject of a > Baptist ministers of yosterc and a reso- the Supper” pur to nine, lesquing the one above referred to. We would respectfully remind the Doctor that the reductio ad absurdam is a dangerous method to pursue in church matters. Re- ligion is a serious thing, and trifling with it should be left to its enemies. Tar Fantan Porrcy adopted by the Bona- partists may appear very shrewd, but as it is the only one they can adopt which can in- sure their existence as an open political party the plan does not merit great praise. If the legitimists and Orleanists had the courage to stand out with a defined policy it would be found to be very similar up to the period when MacMahon’s term of power ex- pires. Thereafter, of course, their plans wonld diverge. Meanwhile the present is | secured to the Republic, and after four years more of the steady exercise of political power, the people will be less than ever likély to listen to the siren voices of im- \perialists or monarahista . NEW YORK HERALD, TUESDAY, JANUAKY 25, 1876-WITH SUPPLEMENT. The Pretorian Guard. It is interesting to observe the plots and | counterplots of the minor republican candi- | dates for the Presidential nomination ; but the motive of the interest is pure curiosity. | nows for whose tiny mouths the morsel is too large, while the monarch of the flood, | | fanning his fins in the shelter of the White Honse, bides his own time to dart upon the | prize with a sudden and successful lunge. Thus the manceuvres of Senator Morton in the Republican National Committee, to di- ciary Committee to render President Grant ineligible to another term by a constitutional amendment, framed expressly for that pur- pose, is courageous and patriotic, but im- practicable, because it is too late to secure the autumn election, wrong that even the office-holders will forsake him in feir of the awakening of popular indignation, Our own suggestion of an vert the place of the Convention from the seaboard to the Mississippi Valley, and the combat of the rival leaders of the party in New York for the control of what they call | the “Central Committee” of this city, areonly | the play of gudgeons. Even the combina- | tion which is now forming here of disinter- ested republicans with dissatisfied demo- | crats to promote the chances of Secretary Bristow is only a school of minnows rein- | forced by that liberal republican sculpin | which invades every pool in quest of office. | All this agitation is too late. President | Grant holds the republican nomination at his mercy ; the united vote of the Southern delegates is within his control ; he needs only to secure a few Northern delegates, and of them he cay have a surplus without the | | asking. The suggestion, therefore, that | the democrats have gained an _ im- | portant advantage by the early speci- | fication of the day for the Republican | Convention is moonshine. It is founded on the fact that by fixing a later day for their | own Convention they will be able to adapt | their nomination to the republican nomina- | tion and avail themselves of the weak points of their enemy. But it is just as sure this | day as it will ever be that Ulysses 8. Grant | will be renominated for President at Cincin- | nati on Wednesday, June 14, 1876, if he | wishes, and we challenge the production of | any evidence that his wish is not fixed and | firm. The only advantage of the democrats | is the possibility that this desire will be voluntarily relinquished, and how great the | chance of that is any one who has studied | Grant’s biography can easily compute, Grant possessed a stubborn will from childhood, and history teaches that it isa safe rule to explore the yonth of men of | strong will but narrow intellectual acquire- ments for the germs of all the elements of | their character, since their disinclination to seek or receive new ideas from reading or couversation helps to develop their innate or | early tendencies. We read, therefore, with much interest, in Mr. Dana's excellent biography of General Grant, that he ‘‘became accustomed to harness horses while he was yet so small that he could not put the bridle or collar on without climbing into the manger,” and that “long before Ulysses had reached his twelfth year he could ride horses at full speed, standing upon their backs and bal- ancing himself by the bridle reins.” Mr. Dana relates that even at that age ‘‘he suc- ceeded in riding the trained trick pony of a circus company in spite of the pony's and ring master’s efforts to dismount him, aided by a monkey which fastened itself upon his head and shoulders.” ‘‘His quiet and gentle disposition,” Mr. Dana adds, ‘‘together with a remarkable degree of firmness, rendered him particularly successful in controlling horses and bréaking them to the saddle” Although, in 1868, when this biography was first published, its author was too prone to praise his hero—a fault for which ample atonement has since been made—yet we prob- ably may treat his anecdote of the trick pony as veracions. Grantis now riding the re- publican party in a similar way. The party itself is skittish, its former leaders have made desperate efforts to dismount the young _ political equestrian, and a whole wilderness of monkeys, in the shape of republican newspapers, have fastened their teeth and claws upon his head | and shoulders; but he keeps his seat, and the pony obeys his spurs and rein, and will continue to obey till the skilful rider voluntarily quits the saddle. Referring again to Mr. Dana for confirmation of our analysis of Grant's character, we find it said that nothing is more remarkable than ‘‘the | | easy simplicity with which he does the most | extraordinary things.” Eight years ago, when the people first elevated this simple soldier to the Pres Y, not a soul in the | United States conceived that apolitical | chieftain more intense and absolute in his | personality than even General Andrew Jack- | son had arisen —a chieftian who could expel from his party half of its trusty leaders | within the next four years, and then be re- elected by a vastly increased majority, and | who during the succeeding four years could | so distract the leaders that remained that none of them could hinder his third nomi- nation. Morton and Blaine, Morgan and Conkling, Bristow and Hayes, Washburne and Adams, might by a grand combina- tion, perhaps, accomplish to-day what Sumner and Trumbull and Cox and Schurz ght in 1871 and 1872, before they finally forsook their party; but such a com- bination is impossible in the nature of men and things. It would require a degree of i srestedness which is extinct in public life, and which Grant has largely helped extinguish, “iy Such being the facts, is it not wiser to piseate President Grant by extending his present term of office two years than to wrench the framework of the Republic by a Presidential contest involving the question | ofathird term? In this inquiry the process by which the third term would be sought | and possibly attained is ever to be kept in | mind. If the will of the people is but a re- | flection of the will of the office-holders | wherein do the United States of America in | the nineteenth century tail to resemble the | Roman Empire in the second century? | | Surely in nothing save that our pretorian | cohorts are armed with postal balattces | and ganging sticks instead of swords and | | lances. If they can name the President to- day to-morrow they may sell the chief execu- | tive power by auction. After Pertinax came | Didius Julianus, who bought the imperial | crown at publio sale against other bidders. | Itis unavailing to bewail idly this condi- tion of affairs, It is statesmanlike to acknowledge the evil and make tho best of it. We shall see this week whether any statesmanlike quality survives in Congress, Tha nravosition of the maioritv of the Jndi- vainly so | ever is to be the termination of the struggle— | has pluckily undertaken to build one for | commendable, and shows that our handsome amendment which shall prolong his term for at six years, and probibit re-elections, ful- fils this requirement. We have no pride or conceit of self which will prevent us from The Centennial Appropriation. That the World should again mistake our position is quite in keeping, but is of slight consequence. Its last article contains little beyond a long quotation from Madison, as- They flit about the coveted bait like min- | its adoption by the States, in opposition to | serting that the power of appropriation is | his will, before the summer nomination and | limited by the other enumerated grants, and No proposition is a statement that Jefferson held the same | practicable which does not command his view. As this is not disputed quotations to assent or else put him so clearly in the | prove it were quite superfluous, except for making a vain show of reply when resources of argument had failed. It would have been more pertinent to have quoted from | Hamilton, Marshall, Story, Kent and Web- | two years, fix the limit of subsequent terms ster, whom the World asserted, but we denied, to be on the same side. It after- ward corrected one of its errors by with- drawing Hamilton from the list, but the advocating any other proposition which will | others no more belong in it than did Hamil- has been suggested from any source. of President's Grant ambition our only anx- | iety has been for the safety of the Republic. | answer the same purpose; but none such | ton himself, In fact, they were all old From | federalists and reverent disciples of Hamil- | the time of our first discovery of the object | ton, except Story, and he was a reverent disciple of Marshall—that is, of Hamilton at | second hand. The hardihood of claiming As we were the first to warn the people that | them, or any of them, for the strict construc- the Republic was in danger, so we shall ever | scheme for its security. The Straggie in Cuba, In the present a!t'tule of our government on the much vexed Cuban question it is well to consider how little we really know of the insurrection in Cuba, or of the con- dition or power of the insurgents. The meagre reports filtered through the govern- ment journals of Havana can scarcely be re- garded as reliable, and the underground in- formation afforded by the members of the Cuban Junta in this city must certainly be looked upon with equal suspicion. What- whether independence or enforced allegiance to the mother country--it is narrowed down to a sentimental point of view as regards the American citizen, so long as it neither inter- feres with his commerce or his comfort. The Spanish government is at present almost equally in collision with two power- | ful parties in the island—foreibly with one; morally with the other. Of these the strong- est party, numerically, are the insurgents, whose ranks are largely made up of the | native born Cubans, representing tho well educated, enlightened classes of the island. Most of these, reared in the schools. of the United States, have returned to their own country strongly imbued with the convic- tions of their early education, and with an equally strong hatred of the institutions by which they found it governed. This party, in actual warfare with the government, claims to sustain itself with courage, patience, per- fect faith and forlorn hope. The other party is represented by the fierce body of voluntarios, who, either born or educated in Spain, are rabid monarchists, opposing with violence all innovation or reform, and are apparently as prepared to dictate their terms to the | home government as the insurgents would be when successful These two parties, in fact, represent the American and Spanish ideas of civilization, differing as widely as the poles, | and now coming in conflict in Cuba. Which- ever are the truest are sure to gain the mas- tery. But, in the event of the insurgents gaining their independence, another disturbing power will come to the surface in the negro population, to add to the elements of discord, which would bid fair to plunge the island in a labyrinth of revolutions and possibly re- duce it to the present deplorable condition of St. Domingo, with all the horrors accom- panying its descent to that depth of ruin. “Cuba shall be Spanish or negro,” was the ferocious apostrophe of an eminent political leader in the Cortes at Madrid, and this fore- shadows the possibility of such a disaster. To maintain her power in the island of Cuba Spain must establish free institutions, abolish existing laws and admit her colonies to equal rights with her other provinces, instead of treating them like a conquered, country. History is full of illustrious examples of the uselessness of armed forces against a people fighting for liberty. Meanwhile the friendly governments who look on may, perhaps, achieve something by moral interference, but this is all that right permits or justice can claim. 1 | The Seventh Regiment Armory. The authorities having declined to build a new armory for our crack militia regiment, the Seventh, we observe that the regiment | itself. This spirit of self-helpfulness is boys in gray are prepared to conquer on | every battle field. Their purpose is to erect a suitable home for the regiment on the piece of ground on Sixty-fourth street granted by the city. For thisasum of three hundred thousand dollars is needed, and the gallant members are engaged in a siege on the cita- del of capital, which will be carried on until every cent of the demanded tribute is paid. Firstly, they have levied on themselves, and will repeat the attack as’ often as prac- ticable; secondly, they have been assisted by a number of gentlemen residents who have subscribed handsomely, and, thirdly, it is reasonably expected that the large prop- erty owners, bankers, insurance and trust companies will come to their aid. With good reason, indeed, should the latter classes, those who represent ‘‘property,” assist a rogiment like the Seventh in keeping its fine organization up to the highest standard. There are times when ‘‘property” would give millions to have itself protected from the ravages of a mob, or the often unintentional destruction which is wrought in times of popular tumult. A few thousands now will enable this fine regiment to possess a home wherein theeyoung citizen soldiery can be trained, and whence they would issue at the tap of the drum to quell any such disorders as might become dangerous to our city by tion side is a curious illustration of the value | be the first to assent to any reasonable | of our contemporary’s opinions, or, rather, its assertions, on topics ‘connected with our constitutional history and jurisprudence. The World thinks it a piece of presump- tion for us to say that a view held by Jeffer- son, Madison, and itself, ‘discloses an adequate conception of the constitution.” Our apology is that our four greatest jurists— Marshall, Kent, Story and Webster—held the strict construction view to be inade- quate and false before the authors of the theory received tho recent reinforcement which completes the above trio; and, as the new authority has merely repeated their well-worn arguments, it did not seem so bold a piece of presumption to express our dissent as the World deems it. Chief Justice Marshall, in one of the ln- minous and weighty constitutional opinions which are the basis of his fame, spoke of the Jeffersonian theory as ‘that narrow con- struction which would cripple the govern- ment and render it unequal to the objects for which it is declared to be instituted.” Sotrue is this that Jefferson himself, the very author of the theory, made a practical confession of its inadequacy in the most im- portant and brilliant act of statesmanship, not merely of his own, but of every adminis- tration. We, of course, refer to his purchase of Louisiana, which he believed and declared to be unconstitutional—as it most certainly was on his own principles of construction. He searched the constitution in vain for any enumerated power which would authorize the purchase, and professed to hope that the instrument would be so amended as to give an ex post facto justification, or, as he called it, “indemnity.” This great fact in our history, this most important and statesmanlike act | of Jefferson, explodes his own theory of con- struction, and isa full practical answer to all his casuistical metaphysics. For, since his time, we have purchased foreign territory again and _ again without doubt or question as to the constitutionality of such acts. Judge Story in his “Commentaries” says that ‘there is no pretence that the purchase or cession of any foreign territory is within any of the powers expressly enumerated in the consti- tution.” He further says that “there is no possibility of defending the constitutionality of this measure [the Lonisiana purchase] but upon the principles'of liberal construc- tion which have been upon other occasions so earnestly resisted.” We submit, therefore, that Jefferson de- molished his theory by his own greatest act, and that the country has rejected his crotchet by its unanimous indorsement of the consti- tutionality of purchases of foreign territory. An Example for Commissioner Camp- bell. If General Slocum, the new President of the Commissioners of City Works in Brook- lyn, holds out as he has begun, he will be a model for all officers in similar positions. During the brief period he has been in office he has explored the past transactions of his department and has made discoveries which prove the need of a radical reform. He has found by an examination of the books of the department the remarkable phenomenon that the streets, sewers and hydrants of Brooklyn get into a periodically bad con- dition once a year, and that for the month preceding an election they requirea great force of laborers not needed at other times, Atany rate there are great additions to the payrolls of the department during that ex- ceptional month. One of the men so em- ployed was assessed by the Democratic Gen- eral Committee twenty-five dollars for elec- tioneering purposes on the ground that he was an office-holder. When he was dis- charged immediately after the election he complained of the injustice and threat- ened to bring a suit for the recovery if it was not returned. So his name was again placed on the rolls for six and a quarter days at four dollars a day, by which he got his money back, although he performed no service. General Slocum does not fancy this way of doing business, which he has exposed in a letter to Mayor Schroeder, who yester- day communicated it to the Common Council. “I think the time has come,” says President Slocum, ‘‘when the city government can put a complete and final end to compelling the taxpayers of this city to support in idleness the hordes of relatives and retainers of our political managers.” We commend this praiseworthy example to the imitation of our new Commissioner of Public Works, hoping that he, too, will see “no reason why the business of a city should not be transacted on the same principles that govern men in the transaction of their private business.” A Church Sensation. A cable despatch, which we copy from the having passed the control of the police. | Evening Telegram, gives the substance of an Property should think of this when it sees | article published in the London Morning Post the subscription list. A Syow Storm has so deranged the Eng- lish telegraphic system that since Saturday the lines from London have been broken in almost every direction. They are not veed to heavy snow storms over there, to the effect that the extreme ritualists are making overtures to the Pope to be received into the Catholic communion on the condi- tion that he will grant tlfem certain exemp- tions and indulgences. It is represented that 100 clergymen, with a constituency of 75,000 men and 150,000 women, are ScanweLt has been pronounced sane by | engaged in this movement, and that they Drs, Gray and Ordronaux, and must in con- | have sent a memorial to Rome expressing sequence be liberated. This will raise the | their wishes. They aré willing to recognize question whether thirteen mon ever believed | the Pope as the head of the Church, to accept him to have been at anv time a lunatio the Vatican decraea to canform in all points of doctrine and worship; but they desire a dispensation for such of their clergymen as are already married to continue as priests, while celibacy is to be the rule for the un- married, and to conduct public worship in the vernacular, excepting the mass. All this seems very fanciful. We do not | doubt that the ritualists would find more re- | ligious comfort in such an arrangement than | they do in the Established Church; but, to | say nothing of the inadmissibility of the | conditions they ask from Rome, there is an obstacle at home which will cool the enthu- | siasm of the one hundred clergymen. The | Church established by law controls the ec- clesiastical property, and we doubt if there is such a spirit of martyrdom among these ritualists as would reconcile them to the loss of their benefices. John Bright and the Liberal gramme, There are a great many points in the social and political condition of the English peo- ple that afford grand opportunities for the future of the liberal party—the material for conflicts as great and as successful as any that distinguish its history; but it has been the misfortune of that party to fall into the hands of leaders who were only sentimental- ly liberal; gentlemen who came of ‘‘liberal families,” and liked to be spoken of in the catalogue of great liberal leaders; and these have turned it aside from its assault on the great abuses. Not liberals at heart, not in- spired with hatred for the iniquities of the law, they were disposed to spare them in that sort of spirit of picturesque politics which regards some old wrong overgrown with the ivy of national prejudices as not only not an evil, but a benefit In that weakness the conservatives naturally found their advantage; and seeing the liberals in a sentimental mood in the presence of the beautiful old abuses they could not find it in their hearts to assail, they led them away on all sorts of feigned issues and tumbled them into innumerable traps. But the note of John Bright at Birmingham sounds like the recurrence of the old spirit. He warns his party away from those issues where the gov- ernment i perhaps, more than half right and might welcome inquiry; he advises not to waste any opportunity in a fight over the vapid nonsense of the anti-slavery socie- ties, but to turn attention to topics of more vital interest; not to make any mistake so far away as the Isthmus of Suez, but to give freedom to the vast masses of English people that are without a voice in the national poli- tics, and to remember that primogeniture is the evident cause of some of the greatest evils from which the nation suffers. Simple common sense of this sort is the one great need in the councils of the liberals. The Overcrowded Cars. The car companies, in foisting the ‘salt” amendment on Mr. Bergh’s bill, show that they will take every advantage they can of the public, no matter at what cost of health to the latter. The salt which dissolves snow at street crossings produces a liquid of the temperature of zero, into which it is exces- sively unhealthy for man or beast to tread. But this is a minor evil beside the practice of packing the cars with passengers until de- cency and courtesy are made impossible, and the air in the car becomes as fetid and un- healthy as that ofthe Black Hole of Calcutta, This practice must be stopped. The inno- cent car companies and their ingenuous mouthpieces say the public is to blame, and that the companies are left no option but to take all the fares they can get. This is the cheapest kind of sophistry, and demolishes itself. No doubt the public is to blame for allowing any abuse to grow unchecked, and it is equally undoubted that no monopoly ever gave the public any more for its money than the monopoly could help. The necessity for a cure, how- ever, is not denied, but the apologists of the present system would have people tire themselves out by waiting on the sidewalk for what, with the present accommodations, would not, at certain parts of the day, ap- pear in an hour—namely, a car with a vacant seat. A correspondent proposes a cure which would prove effectual—the licensing of each car for a certain number of passen- gers, with o penalty for overcrowding. Some such measure is necessary, and if one were introduced into the Legislature we should be anxious to see who would dare to oppose it In no country in the world would this abuse be tolerated as it is here. The workingman on his way to toil and re- turning from it has a right to the seat he pays for but in three cases out of four does not get. The working girl who makes two journeys a day should not be, as she is daily, hustled about in the passagaof a car foran hour at a time, tothe destruction of health and decency. Every one who pays a fare has a right to a seat, and, as the omni- bus lines and car companies of England and the Continent provide it, it is mere im- pertinence to say that our grasping monopo- lies cannot do the same. In London, where the population is far denser, and demands fourfold accommodation, it is done. The suggestions we have thrown out about double-deckers are for the companies to con- sider. That and all such modifications is the companies’ business; ours is to insist that a seat for a fare shall be the stringent rule, Pro- dom goes by without mournfully reducing | the number of those whom old age has made less able to endure the changes and extremi- ties of the season. Even in Italy, with its | mild climate, this is as true as with us ; for, as the changes of temperature are the great- est sources of physical disorder, it scarcely matters whether the changes occur on a | Tae Por axp Antoneui1.—Winter sel- | & higher or lower scale of the thermometer, and they are as great in Rome as elsewhere. Indeed, as our winter this year 1s exception- ally mild, the winter in Europe has been exceptionally severe, and it is probably true at the Hoty City that “spring has set in with its usual severity." That the Pope and Cardinal Antonelli should have felt the con- * seqttences of this severe weather was there- “fore to be expected, and it remarkably illus- trates their elasticity and tenacity that they come out so happily, That the Pope, at his great age, should have recovered from a seiz- ure in the nature of an epileptic fit, and that, thus weakenetl, he should pass through the severities of the winter weather. is a very remarkable circumstance. A Cénvention ef Southern Repubil- cans, There has come into our hands a copy of s printed circular, issued from Charleston and sent to large numbers of republicans in the Southern States, inviting their co-operation in holding a convention of Southern repub- licans to consult on the interests of the party and devise measures for putting it on a better footing. The circular sets forth that seven years ago the republicans were in possession of every State which | had joined the war for secession except Virginia, and that at present there are only two in which the party has a clear ascendancy, ten being completely and three more virtually in the hands of the democrats. It goes on to state that these losses have occurred in spite of the great advantage for the republicans that the whole inflnence of the federal government has been actively exerted on their side with the whole office-holding element in both State and national positions. The circular attributes these. sweeping reverses to the bad management of the republican party in the South, and suggests that if the party is not to be utterly wrecked and destroyed it must — at once put an end to the ascendancy ot leaders whose unwise, selfish and corrupt practices have loaded the party down with disgrace and disasters, and threatens its ex- tinction even in the two States of which it still retains possession. There is more truth than poetry in these representations, but we doubt whether they are calculated to be persuasive with such a body as the circu- lar depicts. Tar DisGracerut Arrempr at the Lyceum Theatre last night to’turn a sparring exhibi- tion into a regular prize fight was very properly stopped by the police before it had culminated in all the savagery which these encounters develop. Public taste has changed, both here and in England, since the time of Humphreys and Mendoza, who may be seen in an English engraving of the period ‘‘setting to” on a raised platform, in a spacious building, with the young bucks and bloods ofthat day seated on benches arranged in amphitheatric tiers. The box- ing gloves worn to disguise the real purpose of the encounter of last night do not appear in the old engraving ; but this small tribute to advancing civilization may be taken as the pugilistic form of Rochefoucauld’s maxim, that hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue. PERSONAL INTELLIGENCE, Bass is botter. Blaine speaks prancing in the aisles. The Rio Grande is a very shallow stream. Lady Thoroton leads Washington fashion. Kentucky grass lands are now bright green. Jimmy Blanchard is editing the Washington Republi- can Forty-seven millon pins are made in the United States every day. Don Piatt got $100,000 from his father-in-law, and 1s going to keep a dog. Baron von Schidzer, German Mivister at Washing- ton, is now at the Brevoort House, in this city. Senator George F. Edmunds, of Vermont, arrived at the Fifth Avenae Hotel last evening, trom Washing- ton. n Six logomotives are required to haul a heavy train through the snow drifts om the Central Pacific Railroad over the Sierras. * The Chicago Times’ personal intelligence is always bright and fresh, and that paper has the genius to sepa- rate its original from its reprinted matter. Miss Sarab N. Randolph has written for Lippincott’ press a new “Life of Stonewall Jackson.” Her drat book was # domestic life of Thomas Jefferson. Flood and O’Brien, who whipped out the Bank of California, are going to send a ten million dollar chank ofsilver from the Nevada mines to the Centennial, Mr. Cooper has an orchard within about twelve miles from Santa Barbara, Cal., of 12,000 almond trees, 1,000 English walnut trees, 5,000 olive trees, 6,000 grape vines, 6,000 eucaly ptuses, ‘A cable telegram from London, under date of the 24th inst,, reports:—Rigbt Hon. Hugh C, Eardley Childers, member of Parliament for Pontefract, and formeriy member of the Cabinet, has started for Canada, Vicksburg (Miss.) Zerald:—‘The negro. exodus-from Georgia, it seems, will never end. Every train arriving here is heavily freighted with ‘the man and brother,’ in search of the new Eldorado, to be found in <urning over the soil of the ‘bottom country.’ , The Hon. General Mann, Hon. H, J. Kembie, Hon, George Solomon, Hon. Robert Nunes and Mr. Simon Soutar have been appointed Commissioners to conduct the arrangements for the due representation of the Island of Jamaica at the American Cemtonary Celebra- tion tn Philadelphia, : The French do not bury in single graves, like their English brethren. They buy or hire a plot of ground four or five or nine or ten feet square, if they are rich, and there dig one grave deep enough for all the family. Over this is built a ttle house in stone—a chapei—in the sides of which are written the uames of the dead below. Says a communication from Sicily to the Osservatore Romano:—“Etna {8 not perfectly tranquil. Abou seven on the evening of December 19 people remarked that on the eastern part of Mount Gibel a dense smoke, mixed with reddish vapors, was issuing from a sec- ondary crater. While the giant is emitting dames from his fanks bis head ts covered with snow,’’ According to the Irish correspondent of the London Times the only agitation in which the Irish peopie are really interested, the only one which has the stamp of sincerity and earnestness about {+ and which has proved the possibility of uniting all creeds and classes of irishmen in the pursuit of a common object, is the agitation for closing public houses on Sundays. Near Santa Fé a Mr. Chisum owns 80,000 head of cat tle, roaming over 1,600 sections of land—an extent of country equal to that embraced within several States ofthe Union, This grazer can fill an order for 20,000 ot even 40,000 “beeves” upon a notice of ten days by tele- graph from’ am eastern city; and to guard his immense ‘sbands” or berds he employs 100 cowboys and as many trained horsemen, Livingston (Ky.) Zra:—“How often have we seen the blooming maiden apon whose face smiles danced like sunbeams upon the bosom of the sea, and whose life e promise of happiness analloyed and hope anre- quited, sitting with a hago wad of gam In her mouth and her beautiful chin rising and falling like a wave upon the ocean, while the meck pastor endeavored to point her to the New Jerusalem. "’ he Chinese watch the pear! mussel closely, and when {t opens its shell insert pieces of wood, hard earth, or Little images of their gods, These irritate the fish and cause it to cover the substance with a pearly deposit which hardens and forms an artificial pearl. This sort of poarl making ‘s carrief on to @ great extent at Ning-po, and the articles thus obtained are considered very little inferior in valae to the real, A Chicago poetess writes for a local journal the fol. lowing poetical conandram:— © monster man, handsome bat untrue, Wire sail s loving, lonely maiden dot Angastus—‘Oh, Adele, Adele, why cast my love away for sordid wealth? Why, he’s in his second child hood. Adele—“But Augustus, childhood is so sweet, and think what experience in childbood he has already had.” Sir Rutherford Alcock, who has a minute and com prehensive knowledge of bis subject, is deeply im- pressed with the power and the permanent character of the Chinese Empire, Adopting the largest estimate of the population, he justly holds that a commanity of 400,000,000 men under a single government, and with the same language and institutions, contains in itself sufficient guarantee of vitality. Itis his deliberate opinion that Russia is more liable than China to per- manent disruption