The New York Herald Newspaper, January 27, 1876, Page 4

4 NEW YORK HERALD, THURSDAY, JANUARY 27, 1876—-WITH SUPPLEMENY. . NEW YORK HERALD BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR. ae aaialces THE DAILY HERALD, published every lay in the year. Four cents per ‘eopy- Twelve dollars per year, or one dollar per nonth, free of postage. ‘ All business, news letters or telegraphic jespatches must be addressed New Xorg fleraLp. Letters and packages should be properly sealed. R Rejected communications will not be re- \urned. PHILADELPHIA OFFICE—NO. 114SOUTH SIXTH STREET. LONDON OFFICE OF THE NEW YORK HERALD—NO. 46 FLEET STREET, PARIS OF FICE—AVENUE DE L'OPERA. Subscriptions and advertisements will be received and forwarded AMUSEMENTS TO-NIGHT. EAGLE THEATRE, TARIETY, at 8P. M. BOWERY THEATRE. ONCLE TOM’S CABIN, at 8P.M. Mrs. G. C, Howard. PARISI LES. VARIETY, at 81. M. ts BAN FRANCISCO MINSTRELS, at 8 P.M. WOOD'S MUSEUM, DONALD McKAY, at 8 P.M. Oliver Doud Byron, Mat fuee at 2 P.M, it GLOBE THEATRE, VARIETY, at 8 P. M. E § THRATRE. JULIUS C.-ASAR, Mr, Lawrence Barrett. Mati- fee at 1.8) P.M. COMIQUE. TH VARIETY, at SP. M GERMANIA THEATRE Tr VARIETY, at 8 y Ks THEATRE, MARRIED IN HASTE, ats P.M, Mr. Lester Wallack, LI THEATRE. TI VARIETY, at 8P, M. BROOK THEATRE. ROMANCE OF A POOR YOUNG MAN, at 8 P.M. Mr. Biontague. TONY PASTOR'S NEW THEATRE. VARIETY, at 3 2. M. CARE THEATRE. UNION ROSE MICHEL, at 8 P. OLYMPIC THEATRE. VARIETY, at 8 P.M. FIPT] PIQUE, at8P.M, Panny Da THIRTY.POORTH STRE VARIETY, at 3 OPERA HOUSE. PPL reports this morning the probabilities From our are that the weather to-day will be cloudy, with, possibly, rain. Tre Herary py Fast Man. Trarws.— News- dealers and the public will be supplied with the Damy, Werxiy and Sunpay Hera, free of postage, by sending their orders direct to this office. Watt Srreer Yestrrpay.—Gold was dull at 1127-8. Money on call was supplied at 6 and 5 per cent. Stocks continue to show , firmness, and were generally strong. Foreign | tried some of his own, and with such a) on the same terms | rhrow Party Physic to the Dogs! It is rumored about town that the way Charles O'Conor got well was by disregarding the prescriptions of his learned and excellent | physicians, Something ailed him which was | outside the ordinary experience of medical | practice, and at last, as all his treatment was theoretical, it is said that after submit- | ting in vain to the experiments of others he | happy result that he will soon be busy again | in his accustomed fields of public usefulness. It is an experiment of the same kind which we propose that the body politic of the city of New York shall try upon itself in the Legislature will only give us the opportu- nity. Never since the day when the miasma of corruption rose from the sink of Tammany we been permitted to hold a municipal elec- | tion pure and simple, Never have we been ‘without overshadowing the discussion of of State or national policy. Never has either | party, republicans or democrats, been per- mitted to nominate a ticket of municipal candidates without perverting its composi- Albany or to Washington, or to both those places. All the schools of political doctors | their nostrums, and the patient has only worse; for the haphazard remedies of the | parties, like the guessing of the practitioners, | | co-operates with rather than limits the dis- order. But with the political doctors put out of doors and their theories thrown out of patient's vitality and the instinctive sugges- the right way? It would be answering a fool according to his folly to argue with those persons who contend that a separate municipal election is inexpedient because good citizens will not give another day in the year to the perform- ance of their political duties. Our munici- pal debt exceeds the national debt of the United States at any time prior to the war of the rebellion, and is more than double what that was at the close of the Mexican war. Our annual municipal expenses are equal to those of the United States at the height of the last war with Great Britain, which in- cluded the cost of maintaining armies on all the frontiers and navies on the ocean and the lakes. Our rate of taxation exceeds that levied on any city of equal rank elsewhere in the world. Surely it is not unreasonable to expect the people whose serious interest in municipal affairs is indicated by this gigantic scale of expenses to give one day in three hundred and sixty-five exclusively to their regulation. Any argument to the con- trary implies that the voters of New York are not only indifferent to the prosperity of their home, but careless of their own pecu- niary profit—a reproach with which the exchange is also firm. “Tax Prerertnce or New Yorx.”—Under ‘the above heading the Albany Evening Jour- nal nominates Roscoe Conkling for the Pres- idency. Reuben E. Fenton should now get somebody to nominate him, since he has made bis peace with the party. Senator Mornissey’s speech in the State Senate yesterday will not hurt him in pub- lic estimation anywhere. He gave secta- rian faggot-binders ‘‘one from the shoulder,” and his eulogy of the public schools has a pathos of its own about it which will come home to thousands. Tue Assempiy Commirrer on Care in their report will make a great many sweep- ing propositions, all of which will deserve earnest discussion. Many changes are needed in gur criminal machinery, and it temains to be seen whether the ones to be offered are among them. ‘Tue Scuran Insistina on getting his full interest on his share of the public debt, when all Europe is put off with half coupons, is a very amusing picture of an absolute raler in his financial moments. It will do more to disgust England with him than if he took another thousand wives. Reiciovs ToteraTion under a menarchy in Spain, if only existing in the shape ofa constitutional clause, would be a novelty. By the time the fanatics accustomed them- selves to seeing it there they might be in- duced to permit it to be tried in reality. A curious feature of these religious hates is that Christians of one sect prefer smiting Christians of another sect to warring upon infidelity, which is the foe of both, and which alone is making proselytes on a large scale in Europe. Now tuat Tre Trvrn is leaking out about the French Senatorial elections it becomes evident why the government kept back the returns so long. The voice of the nation was against M. Buffet’s conservatism, and it is | not in him to gracefully acknowledge oa defeat which must make his of office impossible or compel him to carry on the government in a manner which will rob France of the quiet she so much needs and make all sorts of catastrophes possible. As the republican majority in the new Assembly will be doubtless still greater than that which is computed for the Senate Marshal MacMahon had better be looking about fora more popular adviser, as we do not think that gallant soldior would riska civil war or a coup d'état for the sake of keep- ing an impracticable in office. Tux Dmect Castx Compasy, through its chairman, made, in the columns of the London Times yesterday, an assertion re- garding * the repeated breakings of its cable which deserves the most marked attention. It is, in effect, that its cable has been regularly broken for stockjobbing pur- poses by parties “operating” in England. It will be remembered that at the time of the break before the present one, some very strong statements were com- tenure | severest censors of the American people never have ventured to upbraid us. Nobody will deny that the city of New York is the victim of a dreadful and myste- rious malady. We feed its various depart- ments with almost forty millions of dollars a year, and o large part of the vast sum passes off undigested. Last year we fed our local judiciary with twelve hundred and six- ty-eight thousand dollars, paying some of its members a salary almost twice as large as that of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and nevertheless a legislative committee sat here for months taking testimony about the increase of crime. | We fed the College of the City of New York with one hundred and fifty thousand dol- lars, a sum two-thirds as large as the annual income of Yale College; and we are ashamed to compare the products of the two institu- tions in quantity, without opening the ques- tion of quality. We fed the street cleaning bureau of the Police Department with eight hundred thousand dollars; and yet in a mul- titude of streets householders combine to sweep the pavements at their private ex- pense, because the city does not keep them clean. We fed the Police Department itself with three million three hundred and eighty-seven thousand dollars; and gambling houses ply their trade in daylight, unli- censed grogshops distil poison on innumer- able corners, houses are broken into at high noon, burglars and assassins thrive without arrest, and in few districts of the city can a young woman walk half a dozen blocks after nightfall without the certainty of insult. We fed the Health Department with two hundred and twenty- two thousand dollars; and scores of acres of flats reeked for months with foul abomina- tions, and a myriad of tenement houses are suffered to exist under such conditions that | upon the incursion of an epidemic every ono | of them would hoist The yellow fag of sloth and sin. We fed the Department of Publio Works with a million five hundred and eighty-two thousand dollars, and our system of sewer- age isso imperfect that typhus and diph- | theria slay as many victims in a year as perished at Antietam or Gettysburg in the fight for the Union. The construction of our | water works is inspected by barbers and hair- dressers, and the employment of laborers is delegated to a Tammany committee, We fed the Department of Public Parks with five hundred and eighty-four thousand dollars, | and a large part of the sum is deliberately | squandered in paying workmen fifty cents a day. more than the market value of their | labor. We might prolong this catalogue, but we have cited examples enough of imper- | fect digestion. It is safe to say that out of its forty millions raised by taxes the body politic does not digest nearly'so much as is necessary to maintain it in ordinary health. It is a mysterious case of atrophy of the mu- nicipal stomach. There is no digestion, and the patient grows alarmingly feeble; but the tablo is served sumptuously every day for | some one’s benefit*and the bills come in regularly. One legislative doctor proposes one nos- matter of a spring election, if the State | { Hall and spread like a fog over the city have | permitted to conduct a political campaign | municipal questions by debates about lines | tion by considerations wholly irrelevant to | municipal affairs, and having relation only to | have urged their theories and proposed | grown worse, and must continue to grow | the window is there not a hope that the | tions of his consciousness may put him in | us of the report that during Mr. O'Conor’s illness persons repeatedly invaded his house with the assertion that they were divinely commissioned by spiritual revelations to effect his cure. We have great faith in the inherited soundness of the patient's consti- tution, if only he can be let alone to accom- plish his own salvation. The first necessary step in that course is to give the city of New York a special and separate municipal elec- | tion. A day in the spring of the year is manifestly the proper time, before any of the | citizens depart to their summer residences. ‘This step can be taken without complicating Let those stand or fall on their own merits, We do not deny that many amendments are | needed—on the contrary—nor have we | faith that a spring election will instantly and magically cure all the patient's ills ; but we do assert that it is an essential feature of any and every meritorious scheme for mu- nicipal reform, and that, since the members of the Senate and the Assembly have almost unanimously committed themselves to it, as | the interviews which we have published | recommended it, there ought to be no delay | in its adoption. When we entered on this discussion we expected no aid from the office-holding and | office-seeking brigade on either side. We | had become convinced that it was for the in- terest of the city and of the State at large | that our municipal affairs be taken out of the scramble and turmoil of party politics, We | thought the present juncture favorable in one respect to the success of this reform, | The Governor belongs to ono political party, the Legislature to the other, ind inasmuch | a8 this mutual check prevents either party from gaining any unfair advantage we hoped they would mutually consent to sound non- partisan reforms, since both admit that radi- cal reform is necessary, Ordinarily the leg- islative and executive departments are in the same hands, and the party in control tinkers the charter or makes a new one in its own interest. When the other party comes in it does the same, and the consequence is ; that the sick horse has no other respite than a change of its booted and reckless riders. Governor Tilden is a professed ad- voeate of reform, but he was unwilling to | have any charter changes last winter, while | there was a republican Senate, because he hoped both branches of the present Legisla- ture would be democratic, when his party could fix things in the city to suit them- selves. The republicans also pretended to favor reform, but as the democratic Governor can this winter veto any bill they might pass in the interest of their party they prefer that the question shall go over to another year, when they hope to have a Governor, as well as a Legislature, of their own stripe. So the patient languishes and suffers, the victim of its successive partisan doctors, who prolong the malady for the sake of their fees. But it is the interest of the patient to get well, and the Henratp urges it to emancipate itself from its medical tyrants. Remedies for Car Overcrowding. The long suffering people of New York are arousing themselves to the necessity of ac- tion in reference to the disgraceful over- crowding practised on the horse cars. We print elsewhere a few letters out of a num- ber we have received on this topic, showing that plans of relief spring full armed from the public brain. Indeed, they have re- mained there long enough to give the public a headache, like that which Jupiter com- plained of until his skull was split open with an axe, allowing Minerva a chance to {enter the world. Some of these plans evince the bestowal of thought upon the subject; some are mere makeshifts; some again are Utopian, and a few are ,dubious. All confess the necessity of reform and all but one would make it thorough. The gen- tleman who describes his car that will ‘carry seventy passengers shows conclusively that there is no difficulty in providing seats for the public, although seventy-seven is the number the Third avenue company’s directors like to see on each car of the present construction. Still his business is with ‘the companies. The correspondent who wishes to see two classes of cars, one for the richer andthe other for those who would ‘take their chance for seats,” puts a case which would be singularly to the taste of the com- panies, but which does not solve the prob- lem atall. Nothing would suit the compa- nies better than to put on ‘‘first class cars,” and by reducing the second class cars to the level of hogpens make it undesirable for any but the poorest touse them. The thing first to be assured is that all who pay fares shall get seats ; the question of first and second class cars and all such modifications to be decided afterward. The reform by cheapen- ing the price of cabs is # good one in its way and is worthy of attention, but the workman on his way to and from labor, and the work- | ing girl goingand returning from her shop could not take advantage of cabs, even if fares were as low as twenty-five cents. The ideas of making the fares paid by those who do not obtain a seat go, as one correspondent desires, to the city, and as another proposes to the city's poor, are impracticable and | Utopian. In the very objections which one correspondent urges to his plan there is a confession that it could not be enforced. | Weare glad to see the advocates of these plans admit that merely limiting the companies to collecting fares from those who obtained seats would lead the pickpockets and those who now crowd helpless women indelicately to select the packed cars as a ‘‘froe” field for | their operations. Adl these earnest plans prove that the reform, to be effectual, must be radical. Health, decency and comfort alike demand a law compelling the companies to | give a seat for a fare, and to make overcrowd- ing on any plea a punishable offence. A law passed to-day and to take effect in a | month would find the companies prepared, | for they know the value of their franchises too well to let them lapse by the inadequacy of accommodation. No sympathy need be | wasted on them, for they aro wellable to take | care of themselves, and have never considered i municated to the Henarp declaring that | trum for this dreadful disease and another the public any more than they were abso- these breakages were the result of dark de- | proposes another. We do not deny tho | /tely forced to. signs. Tho crime of Thomassen is sufficient | learning or the excellence of these physi- | Tae Campaton Acarvst tar Oan.ists is to show that the conception of such ascheme cians. Nor do we impeach the virtuous mo- | being pushed with a fair show of vigor. The as rupturing a cable for private gain is pos- | tives of the “political reform” societies who | Alfonsist Generals are carrying out a long sible; but the difficulty of executing it, owing | essay to heal the disease, after the fashion of prepared plan, but the counter movements to the necessity of a number of conspirators, would be very great the king’s evil, by laying their own hands on the afflicted parts, although they do remind | of the Carlists do not appear to have taken | a decisive shape as vet, it with other amendments of the charter. | | prove, and since the Governor has often | Real Estate and Susiness Centres. New York city is very much like London in its tendency to create business and social | centres. During the period of growth these | centres have been changing from year to year, and the fashionable quarter, owing to the encroachments of business, has been in | a different locality in every decade. It is within the memory of many of our oldest inhabitants when the Battery was still the resort of fashion. Mr, Thurlow Weed called the attention of our readers the other day to the time, not so long ago in the history | of a great city, when Canal street was still a swamp. Bleecker street opened its fashionable portals to the boarding house mistress within the memory of all. The Fifth avenue celebrated in satire and in song was below Twenty-third street, and Flora Mc- Flimsey herself dwelt in Madison square. Now, however, the fashionable quarter does not extend below Murray Hill, while the whole district between ‘down town” and “ap town” is given up to retail trade and the middle class of boarding houses. South of Twenty-third street everything is busi- ness. The artists are gathered about Union square, and every calling which has any re- lation to the arts is ensconcing itself in that neighborhood. The wholesale trade is making its centre in Broadway, between Tenth and Canal streets, and the lateral and parallel thoroughfares in that part of the city, but yesterday the haunts of vice, are looming up with magnificent business palaces and factories. But another change, this time in localities where ten years ago it was deemed the character of the business had become fixed, is inevitable. The erec- tion of the new Post Office has made the transfer of the money centre from Wall and Broad streets to the neighborhood of the City Hall Park a necessity. Already the banks and banking houses and insurance offices are beginning to cluster in that lo- cality. From Chambers to Lispenard street the wholesale trade is preparing to go further up Broadway at the demand for a new money centre, while below Fulton street the im- mense warehouses required by commerce will have a splendid district contiguous to.the harbor for the accommodation and de- velopment of our foreign trade. This new tendency is a fact upon which New York asa great commercial metropolis has every reason to congratulate itself. When the change is effected, as it must be within a comparatively short period, every line of business and of trade will have a locality admirably suited to its peculiar necessities. ‘The avenues, especially the Third, the Sixth and the Eighth, will be the centres of the retail traffic. The importers of foreign goods and the metropolitan agencies for American manufactures will have an ad- mirable locality for their specialties in what is becoming the new wholesale centre, Wall street is the natural home of the ship- master and the shipping agent, and the neigh- borhood of the new Post Office the true finan- cial centre of the metropolis. With these changes effected the fluctuations of business centres will. cease and the city will settle into well defined and thorough marked busi- ness localities. This will give a per- manence to trade which it has never had, owing to the tendencies to change arising out of metropolitan growth, and it will also give a stabilty to real estate values which has been wanting in the past, but is especially desirable in the future. It is a happy fact that these business fluctuations are so nearly ended, and it is especially for- tunate that the principles of natural selec- tion which we have been applying to our business localities have resulted in giving all classes of trade centres peculiarly adapted to their needs. Aut Coesar, Aut Tooker, Aut Nullus. Anybody can advertise, but the great point often is how to advertise sensationally. This is not always to be done by saying, ‘Don't Read This,” or ‘How to Get Rich in a Day,” or such mysterious inscriptions on walls as ‘S. T. C. X. X.Y.” Sometimes it is necessary to paste a bill on a Prime Minis- ter’s hat, so that when people imagine they are looking at Disraeli they are really looking at “The Shaughraun.” No doubt that the Prime Minister has been flattered by the attention recently paid him in public ; but the fact is he was looked upon principally as the adver- tising agent of Mr. Boucicault, Notwith- standing Mr. Oakey Hall's non sequitur that, . because Dickens did not expose Dotheboy’s Hall and the Circumlocution Office merely to sell his novels, therefore Mr. Boucicault did not demand the release of the Fenian pris- oners with the object of attracting attention to his Irish plays, the public will continue to look upon his letter as a masterpiece of advertising strategy which any advertising agency in New York might emulate in vain. But Mr. Boucicault is not alone in the noble art of making indirect use of great statesmen and governments. ‘ If Shakespeare had had a Tooker he would have been as rich as Jarrett & Palmer. But that inventive genius was roserved for the nineteenth century and New York; and William died comparatively poor. He never conceived that his tragedy of ‘Julius Cwsar’’ would be produced with fifteen hundred Irishmen, each six feet high, to represent the Roman army. He never thought that the students of Yale College, accompanied by “the Professors of Ancient History,” would be made accessories to the murder in the Capitol. He did not dream that Governor Tilden and the State officers, both houses of the Legislature and the Court of Appeals were to be drafted next week into the com- pany at Booth’s. He could not have im- agined that the President of the United States, Congress and the Judges of the Supreme Court were to be chained, like cap~ tive kings, to the chairiot wheels of Cmsar. But all this has been done, and no doubt all these eminent men will accept Mr. Took- er’s invitations. We question if even the President himself will be brave enough to say, with Brutus J— Fo, Sa no; think not, thou noble Roman, ‘That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome, Tooker “engages” a Lord Mayor or a Presi- dent as Jarrett & Palmer engage a great actor, and in these days the auditorium of a theatre is quite as dramatic as the stage, and plays are cast on both sides of the curtain, | We would be willing to wager that when Dom Pedro lands in New York the first per- son he will meet on the pier will be a mes- aenger with two free passes for Booth's. for “himself and wife.” If Tweed had been put in Tooker’s custody he would have been kept prisoner in a proscenium box for life. “Pique” is another play which is being advertised very liberally. The excitement in this case is about the authorship, which Miss Rose Rayland, one of our correspond- ents, attributes to Florence Marryatt, while Mr. Stephen Fiske, another correspondent, insists that it was written by Mr. Daly. These letters display an intense and pas- sionate interest in this important question, and'we printed them with pleasure because we believe that advertising deserves to be encouraged. It is, of coutse, unnecessary to state our belief that they are written by different persons. Mr. Fiske agrees with us, and thinks Miss Rayland’s letter was written by three persons, Why not by half adozen? It would be a great thing for “Pique” if its authorship should create as much discussion as that of the “Waverley Novels,” or the ‘Letters of Junius,” or whether Shakespeare wrote ‘‘ Shakespeare.” But a still more exciting question may arise, and that is, Who writes the letters? Is it pos- | sible that Tooker, not having enough occu- pation, has volunteered his invaluable aid? We shall be glad to hear from Mr. Waljack on the subject of his theatre. Is it true that “Married in Haste” is a base plagiarism of an Indiana drama called ‘Divorced at Leisure?” If it is, or is not, let him write to the papers. What have Messrs. Shook and Palmer got to say about the fifty law suits concerning “Led Astray?”’ We wish to hear from all managers in distress, all authors who have grievances, all actors who want engagements, and it shall not be our fault if they are not advertised all over the world. It is our wish to serve the theatrical profession, and as criticism does not seem to do it much good, we are willing to test the value of anything that managers may be kind enough to suggest. A Slippery Fish. Between Secretary Fish and the House the hidden strings of our diplomacy are kept pretty closely concealed. This is as much due to the bungling ‘of the House as to the Secretary’s want of frankness. The demo- cratic leaders are too raw in such matters to know how to ask for what they want, and, as Secretary Fish barely gives them what they ask for, the country remains quite in the dark on the points in which it feels most in- terest. Mr. Morrison framed the first requi- sition on the Secretary, and when he com- plied with it it was found that what he com- municated lifted only one corner of the cur- tain. A second bungler then offered another resolution, which was so unskilfully drawn that when the House lifted its net out of the water there was nothing in it, the wily Fish having glided through its too wide interstices. They asked for the cor- respondence about Cuba with other govern- ments than Spain; Mr. Fish replied that there was none. What they should have asked for were the despatches of our Ministers to the State Department giving an account of their interviews with the respective European Ministers of Foreign Affairs to whom they read the Cushing note or verbally stated its contents. Of course it was not received in dumb silence ; of course our Ministers sent home an exact and detailed report of all that was said in the interviews; and this is the information which the bunglers ought to have asked for, and which the evasive Secretary is able to withhold in such a manner as to make their clumsy request seem ridiculous. American Antiqurrims.—In another column we give a report made to the Smithsonian Institution by Dr. W. M. Clark, of Ten- nessee, of the exploration of several mounds and an examination of the relics of an apparently prehistoric people. The mounds examined were near Franklin, in Williamson county, Tennessee. It ap- pears there is a range of these mounds ex- tending from Florence, Ala., on the Tennes- see River to the Upper Cumberland River, near Monticello, Ky., and those examined were in this range. The largest isan isolated point which commands a view of the level country for many miles, and the mound proper, four hundred feet in circumference, is twenty feet higher than the terrace on which it stands. This might originally have been at once a lookout, a stronghold and an altar for human or other sacrifices. The utensils and idols taken out appertained either to a people different from the Indian race known to us, or to that race ata time when it’ possessed some conceptions that were lost ere the earliest navigators from Eu- rope reached these shores, The Kill Von Kall. By the report of the Seoretary of War we learn that the labor on the channel between Staten Island and New Jersey, which was’ very obnoxious to the oystermen and acanal company, is to be discontinued. This labor was in pursuance of a plan proposed by General Newton, which involved the dredg- ing of the channel and the construction of dikes, so placed as to cause a current in tho channel swift enough to maintain the depth to which the dredging was carried. This plan was thought necessary for the com- merce active in those waters when it was made ; but it encountered opposition, and the delay thus caused seems to have sent the traffic to other points, so that now no Cameron and Stanley. We do not see any necessity to enter inte comparison between the relative good work perform4d in Central Africa by these bold explorers. If Mr. Cameron has not accom: plished all that he might if he had left Ujiji for the West Coast at the head of a well- appointed expedition, he has surely done better than if he had turned back to Zanzibar instead. The information brought by a keen observer, who has crossed the continent ot Africa where it is nearly three thousand miles broad, is doubly welcome when wa know that it has been done under excep- tional difficulties and in the face of delays and disappointments. That he was -pre- vented from following the broad Lualaba to its mutation into the Congo or the Nile is a misfortune, but he has sent us an observation of altitude- which, if verified, will dispose of Livingstone’s theory almost as effectually t as absolute exploration, though it leaves the mystery of the river as great as ever. It ia much better to examine what Lieutenant Cameron did see thanto regret what he did not, or to balance doubt ‘against theory re~ garding what he guesses at or takes on hear« say. Hence the full story of his journey from Nyangwe to Loanda may be looked for- ward to with a deep interest by those wha study the ethnography of the African con- tinent as well as its geography, and its social and commercial as well as its natural features. If there is any real regret to be made in the matter it is that Lieutenant Cameron has so barely outlined his experiences, A little more communicativeness would not have taken the edge of the curiosity with which his fuller descriptive work will be welcomed; for, of course, he will write a book. Meanwhile we get a glimpse once more ot Mr. Stanley in the sadly interesting lettera of M. Linant de Bellefonds, who was so soon to lose his life after writing them. We sce Mr, Stanley busy with his great work, rich in spirits and in hopes, pushing off to com- plete his survey of the Victoria Niyanza, What he had accomplished up to that time we have already published in the lettera which were borne by Colonel Bellefonda when he met his death at the hands of tha savages. From our gallant explorer we may fairly expect the best possible results. He has mastered the secret of African trayel, knows how to be civil and conciliatory when he can, to pay tribute where it is needed, and is able to fight when he must. The determi. nation of the position and size of the Albert Niyanza and its connection with the Central African water system will engage his atten- tion when he has disposed of the Victorian Lake, and, this accomplished, we may look for asolution of the other great problema which the successive travellers before him, English, German and French, have left un- solved. West Port was under discussion in the House of Representatives yesterday, and the democracy had an inning to show what they would dé in the way of retrenchment. We think the democratic majority will do well to act carefully: in the direction they ar¢ taking. In their anxiety to make a record for economy they may be expected to’ slash in all directions, but if is doubtful if they believe in their own scheme in its entirety. They have abuses enough to deal with, but cutting sa many inches off everything indiscriminately is not statesmanship. It is true the demo- crats count on the rectification of the Senate to settle the matter, but the onus of increaw ing the estimates will rest upon the repub- licans; and this is just what the democrats desire, Canana, it seems, was a little hasty in sew ering judicial connection with the home government. The Dominion bill, debarring an appeal to the English Privy Council, ‘must, says the English Colonial Secretary, be repealed. Canada must not try to soa alone before her wings are full-feathered. PERSONAL INTELLIGENCE, Maine lets men make cider, Fremont is sixty-three years old, A California snow storm scattered 100,000 sheop. Now they speak of old “Dan Tucker,” of Virginia. Adolina Patti will be thirty-three years old February 19. Miss Wyatt, of Ohio, has a head as big as Daniot Webster's, ‘ An Indiana man has 17,000 cat skins for sale. 4 patron of the muse. Darwin says:—‘Man is the only being of the anima creation that abuses the female of his race." Danbury News.—Elihu Burritt can drivo a strange dog out of his yard in thirty-three lamguages. A Wyoming Territory paper says that eggs and woot have come down. Omelets and rolling pins. Mrs, Senator Boutwell, over green gros grain, stripes with white, wears green and white striped gauze, High land rice is lighter than that cultivated ia water; it is also softer aud does not bear the pestle as wo ll. Chevalier Rossi, who was recently cremated, is de scribed as a rare young man. Thought he was well done. The most notorious horse thief in New Mexico has been killed, and there is nobody left to edit » aows Paper. ‘ The Hindoo merchants of Calcutta are described as the most wary, wily and unprincipled people in the world, General N, P. Banks, having been crushed to earth, rises again. Now he is up and sow he 1s down—s regular bobbin boy. Itisso hard to find an honest official in Paterson, N. J., that the people think of inviting tramps to ge and run the town. Mr. Robert G, Wataon, First Seoretary of the British Legation at Washington, sailed for England yesterday more is to be done on the dikes, and the depth deemed necessary by the commerce that remains must be maintained by occa- sional recurrence to the dredges. It was the tendency of things at the time the first plan was made to build up on the Kill Von Kull and Arthur Kill and Newark Bay an exten- sive seat of shipping trade—a port whose issue would have been on Raritan Bay—but the oystermen of that neighborhood pre- ferred to save their oysters, and this city has no reason to lament the result. Tue Heazecovinan Insvprectionists ‘are opposed to the peacefal solution of their grievances through a reform to be adminis- tered by their enemies, the Turks.” It is very natural that they should have taken a leaf from the Mussulman’s book, and prefer to “smite his soul to hell” rather than make a “pact with the infidel.” Their view is one that Russia and Austria may be believed to share privately. They have also had several successes lately, and that makes it a bad time to treat propositions that do not look to a | final deliverance from barbaric miarnla. in the steamship Russia. Two Mil Journalists foaght their first round ina Turkish bath, and are going to fight the soc. ond round in soup 8. B. Mills, the great pianist, is preparing a book o studies forthe pianoforte upon his own successfw method, It will appear in the spring. Gail Hamilton says that @ girl should pick outs husband as she picks out am apple. And Bristow thinks s man should pick out his girlas be picks out his apple-jack—a little above proof A California Assemblyman nearly killed a news paper correspondent for calling him an ass Nows- paper reform bas practically begun. Boston Post (news item).—The removal of Genorm Sherman's headquarters to St. Louis deprived Wash ington society of its best dancers. ‘The Bosion Traveller says:—‘The birth of achild is the imprisonment of a soul.’ It must be the newlp- incarcerated soul that hailoag |ike biazes to get out Tho Boston Journal asks:—'\Why is it that there are so many smart boy babies and so few smart mien ?* Did you think you were smart whon you wore a baby # In his speech to the singors in Vienna Herr Wagner exclaimed :—‘'I hate the newspapers, because they en- deavored to ronder my offorts ridiculous; I never reas ‘8 newspaper |"’ In Austin, thore is a Liars’ Club, The last member got in by saying that he counted 9,000 birds i« ® flock. The editor of the Wasnington Republican wants to be an honorary member,