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

* 4 NEW YORK HERALD BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR. AR ti THE DAILY HERALD, ad in the year. Four cents per copy. welve dollars per year, or one dollar per month, free of postage. ts All business, news letters or telegraphic despatches must be addressed New Yors | Herau D. Letters and packages should be properly led. Rejected communications will not be re- barned,. PHILADELPHIA OFFICE--NO. 112 SOUTH 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 on the same terms as in New York. published every — VOLUME XL AMUSEMENTS 'TO-NIGHT. TWENTY-THIRD STREET OPERA HOUSE, CALIFORNIA MINST: £50. M Thompson. AEATRE, BROO JANE EYRE, at SP’. N. QUARE THEATRE, M. TAL AC. AL EMY OF DES WATE LOKS NA EXHIBITION oY ACADENY ¢ LA FAVORITA, SPM. M FIFTH AVENUE T PIQUE, ot SP. M. Fanny Dav THIRTY-POURTH SURE VARIETY, ais P.M. te ff OPERA HOUSE. now UNCLE TOM'S CABLN PAR VARIETY, at 51". it STADT THEA 2.atS P.M, Mile, Bugenie Pappenheim, SPM. TRE, IEATRE, P.M. Mrs. G. C. Howard, TAN VARIETIES, Matinee at PM. TL TROVAT: BAN FRAN © MINSTRELS, GLOBE THE VARIETY, at 5 P.M. BOOT TIVOLI TH VARIETY, at 8 P.M. WOOD'S MUS TACK HARKAWAY; at 8P, M THIRD AVEN VARIETY, ats). M. WA JOHN GARTH, ats OLYMPIC VARIETY, at 5 P.M. col PANORAMA, 1 to4 P, M EAGLE VARIETY, at SP. M. WITH SUPPLEMENT. NEW York«, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY M. 1876, He % 4 aq Me probabilitie pill be warmer, cloudy From our report. are that the we: and possibly r Tne Her. dealers and will be su Scnpay Hex their orders ¢ Werex1 publi ed with the Dart 7 . by sending | free of 7 to this offic Watt Srnezer Yesrerpay.—Stocks were | dull. At the close a sharp decline was made in the ‘coal combination securities.” Other investinent stocks were steady. Money ruled ‘at 4 per cont, and gold at 112 7- Tar GATHERING tHe Evropran fleets off Ragusa shows that the guaranteeing Pow- ers do not put a very deep trust in Turkey's intentions. or Price Bismarck has thanked the Reich- stag, on behalf of the Fedeygl Council, for its labors previous to an imperial message slosing the session. The adoption of some inti-ultramontane amendments to the penal tode put him inthe better humor for his speech. One of the.bad features of Bis- marckism is that it requires so much re- pressive legislation. Germany, triumphant and united in a powerful empire, is as ridic- | nlously swathed with penal laws as_ the legs of Malvolio with his memorable cross-gar- terings. Tre Two Sues or tHe Cusan Question, as presented in our despatches respectively from Madrid and Washington, show how flifficult the problem is for Spain to solve. The government at Madrid are rosily sketch- ing the reforms they will inangurate when the rebellion is terminated, while the private advices show that the lack of the ‘‘sinews of war” at Havana promises a long life to the in- surrection. Spain's task is, indeed, unen- viable, and it would only be a mockery to discuss its promised reforms under the pres- ent hopeless condition of things on the island. Me. Puimsoxz’s Ficur against the practice | of sending unseaworthy ships to sea, with the inhuman object of having them founder for the sake of the insurance, has resulted in the introduction of two bills the English House of Commons—one supplementary of the temporary Ship- ping act passed at the close of the last session and one devoted exclusively to the subject of marine insurance. Sir Staf- ford Northcote, who introduced the latter, was President of the Board of Trade in a | . former conservative Ministry, and Sir Charles Adderly, who introduced the former, is the present President. There is thus some guar- antee that both measures are carefully pre- pared, although they may fall short of Mr. Plimsoll's ideal. Tae Ano.o-Eeyrrian Baxx, which has contracted to lend the Khedive eighty mill- ion dollars, is stated to be practically a French institution, and not, as its name | would indicate, under English control. It is evidently considered in England a coln- ter move by Fyance to England’s advance upon the Suez Canal. This makes the cun- ning Khedive's position much more comfort- able than taking all the money he wants (and Mohammed knowg how much that is!) from England alone. He will now be in the position of the Irish Kadi in the “Veteran,” whose “Begor, it’s looking bad for you, plaintiff,” or ‘The evidence is going again you, defendant,” according as the bribes | on either side were advanced, used to flow unctuously from the lips of John Brougham. “It will be remembered that the Kadi contis- cated the cow after the purses of the litigants | exhausted, and after the ruler of Egypt bbe English money against French | not suffice to make it a great effort. * Fnomination, in | NEW YORK. HERALD, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 1876—WITH SUPPLEMENT. | Mr, Blaine’s Speech on the Currency— A Bid for the Cincinnati Nomina- tion, The galleries of the House were crowded yesterday with throngs of eager, listeners, | assembled to hear Mr, Blaine. FAmeritod a compliment to his skill as a debater was not ‘richly rewarded on this occasion. There and the mere interest of his manner could Mr. Blaine’s peculiar strength lies in grappling with immediate antagonists on the floor of the Honse and their | arguments by dexterous * But on this occasion his speech had no rela- tion to the pending bill, and lacked the raciness and enlivening personal hits with which he enchains attention in the exchange | of thrusts in a real debate, The business | before the House was the Diplomatic and Consular Appropriation bill, and Mr. Blaine devoted his speech to the utterly irrelevant He accordingly lost the advantage of the sharp thrusts and skilful parrying in which he excels. | delivered a commonplace speech, written out, put in type and sent to the press of dis- crumbling logic. | question of the currency. tant cities in advance, and having no refer- ence to the question under discussion. This laborious speech does not contain, from beginning to end, a new | hardly an original illustration. As a contri- | bution toward solving the problem of specie | payments it has not the slightest value, be- | ing a mere reproduction of the trite argu- | ments for resumption without pointing out idea nor } any method. injected a speech on this subject into a de- bate with which it had no connection, when he had nothing | been repeatedly said before? It was for ‘the same reason that induced Governor | Tilden, with equal irrelevance, to devote | t half of his annual Message to our State \ Legislature to the same question. Mr. Blaine is trying to make such a record as he thinks } wil] improve his chances for the Cincinnati It is unfortunate for him that !ho is under the necessity of beginning his | hard money record at this late day, and that the urgency is so great that he could not wait until the subject should come up for consideration in .the House in the regular | order of business. Mr. Blaine’s perception of the exigencies of his Presidential canvass seems to have | been surprisingly quickened by the recent vigorous movement of the friends of Senator | Conkling. No public man has a better record on the: currency question than the republican Senator from New York. When the Legal Tender act was proposed, in 1862, Mr. Conkling, then a member of the Honse, strongly opposed it as inexpedient in policy and repugnant to the constitution. _ His record on that occasion shows that he isa “dyed-in-the-wool” hard money man. When the Legal Tender act had passed he acqui- esced, like a true patriot who waa unwilling to embarrass or weaken the government in a great crisis by factious opposition to a policy it had deliberately adopted against his judg- ment. There is no evidence that Mr, Conk- ling ever changed his opinion on this sub- ject. Certain it is that whenever the ques- tion of retracing the false steps and return- ing*to specie payments has come up in Con- ; gress Mr. Conkling has been foremost | among the champions of a sound currency. In the protracted currency debates of 1874 his speeches, his votes, his zeal, his vigi- lance were uniailingly on the right ; Side against the inflation heresies of | Morton, Logan and Ferry. Now it is certain that the Cincinnati Convention will adopt a strong hard money platform, and if that is to be the main issue against the |} democratic party, there is no candidate | (with the » exception of Mr. Bristow) | who approaches Senator Conkling as a con- sistent repr tative of hard money princi- | ples. The recent activity of Mr. Conkling’s friends has thoroughly alarmed the , ex- Speaker, who is conscious of his inferiority as a representative of Eastern financial opin- } ion. He made his irrelevant speech yester- day from sheer jealousy of his New York | rival, who bids fair to start in the Cincin- | nati Convention with the seventy votes of his own State against the fourteen votes of Maine for the New England candidate. Was there ever so active and ridiculous a | political mocking bird as Mr. Blaine? He | has no distinctive song of his own, but he | will promptly sing you the notes of every | other songster in the Presidential forest. | When President Grant went West last fall and made the longest speech of his life, | putting forth the school question as an issue in national politics, the vocal songster in the pine forests of Maine immediately | poured the same notes from his swelling | throat, with a perfection which would have gained him the credit of being the author of | that exhilarating burst of Presidential | melody if he had been first in the | order of time. When another of , his | rivals, Mr. Morton, founded his canvass jin raven croaks against the South, | our accomplished political mocking bird made it evident to all ears that he could | croak with equal skill. And now, when, | contrary to his expectations, he finds that he | has an energetic rival in the East whose | silvery notes resemble the tinkling of the | precious metals, these also are promptly imitated with equal skill and success. A mocking bird resembles those pretenders in | literature who plagiarize the sentiments and manner of original writers. There is a satiri- cal fable—it is Lessing's, we believe—which hits off this class of imitators very pleasantly. | A mocking bird proudly ruffled up its feath- | ers and said vauntingly to a fellow songster }of a different species, “There is no bird that sings in the branches of this lovely grove whose notes I cannot exactly imitate.” The reply was rather keen. ‘Yes, but which of them all would ever think of imitating | you?” It would be dificult for Mr. Blaine's Presidential rivals to steal any notes from him, since he has none which he has not bor- 1 | was nothing new in the matter of his speech, | He. | Why should Mr. Blaine have | to say which has not | pear at Cincinnati as the only Eastern can- didate, and that President Morton, Secretary Bristow and Governor an Eastern rival suddenly started up who jis likely to go into the Convention with quadruple the number of votes which he can command, and who is a truer repre- sentative of Eastern ideas. With Senator Morton as his chief rival Mr. Blaine had nothing to fear on the currency question. But against Senator Conkling he has no such easy advantage, | on the currency question is very similar to Hayes, all Western men, were his only | formidable rival’ “A change came | o'er the spirit of my dream” when ' | | for erring brethren. | debates two years ago Speaker In the heated currency Blaine did last fall between the hard and soft money men of his own State and Ohio. splitting on the currency question, in 1874, after President Grant's veto of the inflation | bill which had passed both houses without asign of dissent from Speaker Blaine, he is known to have exerted a great deal of trim- ming activity to bring about a compromise, As soon as a sterling hard money candidate from the East is brought into the field Mr, Blaine suddenly discovers the necessity of ; making a hard money record, and finds the urgency so pressing that he cannot wait until the currency question comes regularly before money principles in the face of the country.. We think it a mistake to smuggle a speech subject when Mr. Blaine had nothing to say which had not been often said before. Everybody must see that aspeech so m timed, so irrelevant, so foreign to the busi- ideas, cal so utterly destitute of practi- Suggestions as to methods, is a mere personal fetch to give its au- thor a hard money record when he finds that he is threatened with a formid- able hard money rival whose record on that question is bright, clear and consistent, and the Eastern States. the intellectual and political servility which keeps a jealous watch of rivals and attempts to sail in their wake will not raise Mr. A statesnian should not thus subsist on the crumbs which fall from the tables of men who are independent and original enough to have a policy of their own. The Dangers to Life at the Hippo- drome. " ‘A correspondent calls attention to the bad ; Management at the Hippodrome by which | thousands of sinners are kept out on the | damp sidewalks for an hour or more before the doors are opened, and then admitted in such a way as to make a dangerous crush. rowly escaped being crushed to death against a lamppost. Now, this is bad for bodily and spiritual health, but can easily be remedied by opening the doors earlier and letting the hall fill gradually. Mr. ‘Moody is too practical a Christian to think that those who flock to hear the Gospel as preached by him should get cold feet as a preparation for having their hearts warmed, and will, doubtiess, see that the change is made as suggested. This concerns getting into the Hippodrome, but the problem of getting out of it is far more serious. We have been pleased to learn that the audiences capacity, but we confess to considerable trepidation when we come to examine the holy purposes and the way its means of ogress are managed. mass of highly inflammable pine boards ; but itis fair to presume that the best possible care is exercised to guard against the danger of fire, Still, the law of accidents leaves it possible for a fire to occur, though the odds against it are more than ninety and nine to one, of panic are unfortunately greater, though we have every confidence in the common sense of Mr. Moody to assure us that the great magnetism of the man would be equal to calming down any senseless tendency to a stampede. There are, nevertheless, cir- cumstances against which the preacher might appeal in vain to stay the headlong precipitancy of his audience in rushing to the doors. An actual outbreak of fire is one of these. What is our astonishment, then, to learn that, although there are cight doors, every one of them opens inward! This is | bad enough, but during the services, when ‘the building is packed with six thousand | people, these doors are closed and actually barred with great wooden beams, This | is done to secure the services agninst inter- ruption, but surely no one will say that only | by such means can the object be attained. | We do not wish to see that which is intended | for the salvation of souls become a trap for | the loss of hundreds of lives. The proper | alterations in the doors and the arrange- ments can be made in half a day, and we ask the fire and police authorities to insist on | having them carried out. What has leaked out about the present bad management has already deterred thousands from going to | the Hippodrome, and though the twin } | evangelists are not responsible for these dz | fects in the first instances, they owe it to. | themselves to have them instantly remedied. M. Burrer has fortunately a skort lease of unexpired power in France. His appoint- | ment of a reactionist Deputy tothe Prefect- | ship of the Paris Police, and his placing | that department under the Ministry of the | Interior, show how deadly a gusp he fain | would take upon the throat of Finch liberty. | The strictures of the Monileur yon the ap- | pointment show how it is regaided in even | moderately conservative and nstitutional | circles, M. Buffet is playing his heaviest Grant, Senator | Mr. Blaine’s former record | | that of the democratic Governor Hendricks— | a hard money man with boundless tolerance | stood as neutral as Goyernor Hendricks | | When the republican party was in danger of | the House before flaunting his new hard | on the eurreney’ into a debate on another | ness before the House, so barren of new | | who faithfully represents the sentiments of | This fresh exhibition of | Blaine in.the estimation of his countrymen. | Our correspondent says that his wife nar- | nightly fill the large building to its utmost | nature of the building since its alteration for | The interior is one | The chances\ ag that on street abuses from Mr. Derby, rowed, When he restores what he has mim. icked from’ Grant, from Morton, and now from Conkling, it would puzzle his most ad- miring supporters to point out his distinc- tive policy. the Babcock trial yesterday vas a victory Mr. Blaine’s sudden alarm at the recent | for the prosecution. The Judge's decision active demonstration in favor of Senator | admitting itis a model of judcial fairness, stake on the coming election) for the As- sembly. Tre Apwission or Evenrst's Evipence in “Cill there's no more to be had he will proba- "ly keep the fat kine of the land of Osiris for himsoit. Conkling is natural enough. It is a menace | and shows the value of the tetimony to lie | to his hopes from an unexpected quarter, | more in its connection with oher evidence ‘He bas hitherto fancied that he would ap-| than asa solitary fact. | Attorney General Pierrepont’s Mistake. An obvious rule of propriety restrains us | from commenting on the proceedings of the , Court at St. Louis during the progress of | General Babcock's trial, although a journal published at this distance might, without | disrespect for the Court, indulge in more | freedom than would be proper in the local | newspapers near the scene of the trial. | General Babcock is innocent all just men must wish that his innocence may be vindi- cated, and the press has no moral right to prejudice the jury either against him or for | him. The duty of standing aloof and refraining from all attempts to influence the trial one way or the other is equally binding on the President, the Attorney General and all | officers of the government who have no im- mediate connection with the trial. They have no more right to prejudge the case and | _ attempt to infiuence the Court than the press | of the vicinity or the press ata distance. Judged by this sound rule the course of At- torney General Pierrepont seems incapable of defence. He seems, at an earlier stage of | the proceedings, to have mistaken the | extent of his authority. The statute of 1869 takes the prosecution of revenue offences quite out of his hands and gives the | Treasury Department complete control over them, authorizing it to settle or compromise cases in the interest of the government, and, of course, to exempt minor offenders as a means of procuring evidence against *the | greater criminals who have used them as tools. It is a common practice with prose- cuting officers to promise lenity to accom- | plices who are willing to turn State's evi- dence and whose testimony is indispen- sable for the conviction of their asso- ciates. In apparent defiance of this sound practice Attorney General Pierrepont issued, | just previous to the Babcock trial, a cireular to the District Attorneys engaged in the pros- ecution of the whiskey thieves which would naturally be understood as forbidding the | usual immunity to criminals who consent to give testimony against their associates. That circular, if understood in its obvious sense, would prevent any person from turning State's evidence and defeat the ends of jus- tice by terrifying witnesses and shut- ting their months. A thousahd newspa- | pers could not so effectually interfere with the administration of justice as a threat ; from the Attorney General of the United States that accomplices who consented to testify against their principals shall be rigor- ously punished on the strength of their own confessions. It looks too much as if the | Attorney General’s devotion to the wishes of the President had swayed him to a compli- ance inconsistent with the duties of his po- sition and subversive of one of the ordinary means of convicting criminals. If this was not the intent of this strange and unexam- | pled circular it is difficult to assign any reason why it was issued at all. Public Spirit Municipal Abuses. When the citizen of a free country hears the subject of an absolute ruler account for his indifference to what we regard as tyranny, | by saying that his “strong” government | saves him a world of trouble by its vigorous way of dealing withy the small concerns of life, the citizen is likely to regard the sub- | ject as a submissive slave. He accepts the} odious intrusion of the policeman and the | spy and the menace of the armed janissary _ because these officers of despotism regulate, discover and overawe the offenders or proba- ble offenders against the rules of comfortable | civic or rural existence. The Parisian | bourgeois or the French farmer under the Empire would probably give such a reason | for his passive acquiescence in its national enormities. Liberty is, however, too inesti- mably valuable to be weighed against such small advantages, and our most indifferent citizen would scout the idea of sacrificing | his great rights for the best municipal sys- | tem that could be devised. He would hasten to assure you that under our system the good can be enforced and the bad elim- inated. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and when we receive such a letter vse which we publish elsewhere, we recognize the difficulty that besets reform in all its branches among us, not only in enacting, but in en- forcing. We find that the constant tendency of getting other people to do things and caring little how they do them is the great evil. A universal shirking of responsibilities prevails, and it is only when some victim emits a concentrated groan, like Mr. Derby's, that citizens begin to say to each other, “the same thing has happened to me; sir, it is infamous.” Fifty men who would promptly follow up each infraction of municipal or- dinances that came under their notice would put nine-tenths of Mr. Derby's tangible com- plaints out of sight. Grumbling in private, | writing to the newspapers or asking an in- different policeman to do something will nevér effect as much as a single determined prosecution of any one offence. When Police Commissioner Smith came into office as President of the Board he in- formed the public, through convenient re- porters, that henceforth all laws and ordi- nances were to be enforced, the city swept and kept clean by his new broom, the gar- bage to be separated from the ashes by his new system, the policemen to be vigilant and even polite under the new rules, and re- form in every branch of his department to become as fixed in thefcity as the north star in the sky. But the light of his reform waned as rapidly as the moon's after the full. It was as uncertain as a will o’ the wisp and as unsubstantial. The streets were never filthier; garbage is dumped into the ash carts ; robberies are unchecked ; policemen still chat at corners, dodge the roundsmen and receive a citizen's complaint with quiet scorn, or a threat to ‘club the head off you.” We suppose General Smith to be, like other men, prone to let things slide when nobody finds fault with his inactivity, and when it is If | so hard to achieve perfection. The remedy lies in individual citizens keeping officials to their work. The newspapers will be found ready to do their share, but “public spirit” must be the real reformer which will bring offenders to justice and be a constant terror to boasting and neglectful or criminal offi- cials. With a vigorous prosecution on each count of the indictment, “Public Spirit vs. Municipal Abuses” will always end in a vic- tory for the vlainti® ° The Horse Car Abuses. Mr. Killian’s bill, introduced in the As- sembly day before yesterday, makes it a pun- ishable offence to collect a fare on a street car from any person not provided with a seat. Its several clauses give effect to this pro- vision, This is in the right direction; but the bill is incomplete, because in the absence of any authority witha general control over these corporations the declaration that they ‘‘shall place a sufficient number of cars on their line” leaves them to judge what number is sufficient, and defeats the law ina vital point. ‘There are some inconsistencies also. Thus it is forbidden to take a passenger on a full car, but if a passenger gets on another sec- tion of the law gives him rights on the car that the conductor must respect. It was supposed, doubtless, that despite the rule that passengers should not be taken when the car was full, they would be taken, and that the provision against collecting fare from them would be effective in preventing violations of the other clause ; but it results from these provisions that under one clause a conductor would be required to resist the endeavor of a passenger to get on when the car is full, and under the other he would ex- pose himself to a suit for the attempt to put such a passenger off. These little difficul- ties could be’ readily enough sifted out of the bill, however, and, so improved, it would be a substantial benefit to the public. All this difficulty of passengers and seats would perhaps be best covered by a clear provision forbidding undera specified penalty the carrying on any car, at any one time, of more passengers than there are seats. If a car has twenty-four seats it would be a viola- tion of the law for it to have twenty-five pas- sengers on board at any one time. There is great likelihood that such a rule, “if ever it can be put into operation, will be regarded as a restraint and a grievance from the standpoint of that sort of popular im- patience that can never wait for the ferry- boat to get up to the bridge. People whose haste impels them to jump for the boat while she is still six feet away, though a very little thought will satisfy them that the man who is last on board gets across the river as soon as any one, will clamor against any system intended to secure the general con- venience. Already, indeed, we have heard from a quarter where good sense was thought to be very much at home a protest against depriving people of the right to hold on by astrap. Let us confess that we have no par- ticular respect for that right, and that, as between the rights of the very impatient gentleman who wants to hold on by a strap and the rights of the twenty or more persons who wish to be seated comfortably, and do hot want that gentleman dancing a hornpipe on their toes, we are for the rights of the twenty or more. How the public deal with eases of this sort results very much from education. People must remember that our proposition does not require merely that the public shall wait for the next car, but it re- quires also that the next car shall be not more than two or three minutes behind. If a man will not wait two minutes for his own con- venience and comfort, he should be com. pelled to respect to that extent the’ conven- ience and comfort of the twenty-four who are actually in possession and who are also a part of the public. In a very little while people would get over the eager and “unnec- essary haste that now impels them to ride any way rather than wait.and ride comfort- ably. In Paris this system works admirably. No one pretends to stop an omnibus when the sign that it is full is put up, and the conductors do not pretend to stop in such cases; yet all passengers are accommodated; the omnibuses are wonderfully prosperous ; for everybody rides when sure of comfort ; there is no complaint and no one has a grievance. As things now are with us any one of the greater street car companies gets on with from three-quarters to two-thirds the number of cars necessary to properly ac- commodate its passengers,, because it can pack them in as it pleases. Forbidden to pack them in, it would have the option of losing thousands of fares or providing cars to carry them; and it wouid provide those cars, there is no doubt. Mr. Killian’s bill does not leave them such an option, and, perhaps, his plan is better. He provides that they shall be com- pelled to have a sufficient number of cars, and it is necessary to designate how such sufficiency shall be determined. It is, more- ever, necessary to have the whole adminis- tration of these lines made distinctly subject to some part of the city government or the police, which should be charged with the determination of all such points. In the absence of such a control we would suggest that all fines for carrying an excess of pas- sengers shall be given by law to the Society forthe Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the President of that society be author- ized to sue for and recover them. By that means the penalty would not become a farce, and Mr. Bergh, who, we fear, has never fully appreciated our sympathy with him or our efforts to help him, would have asplendid field opened to him for saving the horses and serving the public. Ovr Patnrroric ALDERMEN yesterday adopted a series of resolutions directing, as far as their power extends, and requesting as far as it does not, the observance of Washing- ton’s birthday by the citizens of New York asa public holiday with bunting, cessation from business and an official Je Deum, There was some trouble about the lat- ter part of the business, as we have no State Church. The Mayor, who has a fine voice, might lead the singing, and if a church cannot be settled on the Hippodrome or the Academy of Music might be settled on as a compromise, There was, we are pained to observe, no complimentary allusion to Mr. | Tupper's play of “Washington.” Neverthe- less, we can assure our Conscript Fathers that the day and the man will be fitly honored by the first city of the nation he did so much to found, and their good inten- tions in the matter remembered to their credit. Tae Harvest Queen.—We cannot by any means join in the self-gratulatory despatch which the White Star Line Company sends from Liverpool to its agents in this city re- specting the finding of the English Board of Trade in reference to tho sinking of an American ship by one of its steamers—the Adriatic, The Board of Trado has re- turned Captain’s certificate and —_ first and third officers ithholding information respecting the catastrophe. This leniency may be all within the line of English maritime regula tions, but morally it wears a very grave as pect, for the facts show that a decided en- deavor was made to keep all knowledge of the collision from the public. It is morally ) as discreditable as the conduct of the man who, justifiably or unjustifiably, drives his vehicle over a pedestrian and then lashes his horses to escape the consequences of an identification. It will be remembered that not a soul was saved of those on board the Harvest Queen. r the cen- the for A Costly Passenger. The verdict of the jury in the Court o | Common Pleas in the case of the young man Henry Friede, which compels the Third Avenue Horse Car Company to pay bim ten thousand dollars damages for injuries result. ing in the loss of a limb while descending from one of the defendants’ cars, comes at an opportune moment. Contributive negli- gence was, as usual, the company's defence. There is something so supremely impudent in one branch of this defence that it deserves special attention. ‘This is that the defend. ant contributed to his injuries by standing on the front platform, against which practice the company has a posted notice in every car. It has long been ruled that the greed which takes the money from passen- gers who are so forced to ride im order to get carried at all breaks down the validity of any defence based on the notice. That it should have been used in tho late trial shows conclusively that the companies know the danger to life of the practice which they keep lobbyists dt Albany to preserve for them, and when they come to calculate that this single trial will cost the amount of two hundred thousand fares, exclusive of the law expenses, they will be moved to consider whether it pays after all to be so avaricious. We have no sympathy with the muicted company, which has shown itself the leader in every infraction of the publié rights. Te the people who go home hanging’ on the straps, crowded unhealthily together like hogs, with all the concomitants of discour- tesy, indecency and discomfort, we com- mend this defence, showing that the com- pany will not only do wrong, but seek to make that very wrong their defence. It will make a “no seat no fare” man of even the inveterate “‘strappers.” Tue Dear or Reverpy Jounson removes qjom among us a man whose purity of life was always unquestioned amid the sharpest criticisms on his public course ; whose broad learning and legalacumen placed him among the very first of American jurists, and whose career, despite its occasional failures to in- terpret the désires of his countrymen, will be longand honorably remembered by tha State of his birth and the nation at large, PERSONAL INTELLIGENCE, Blaine is ahead in Minnosota. Bleeding Kansas is tor Blaine, Nebraska wants marriageable girls. Mrs. Jewell wears garnet silk and point lace, ~ Early frost has injured Georgia’s winter strawberrioa M. D. Conway has not, as is reported, goue to Blirope He is tn Wisconsin. A scientific writer says that it isa strong drawback to call a sea-urchin a “strongylocentrotus drobachiem sis,” ; On the Central Pacific Railroad recently twelve loco motives were roqttired to move one train through the deep snow. Mr. Sankey, in giving his performances, does not folk low the example of other great artists. His melodeon does not bear the name of the maker. A Bordeaux wine maker has introduced Amorican vines, which escape the ravages of phylloxera A French graft on the American root proserves flavor. A Milwaukee editor says he has seen in his neighbor- hood the skull of an Aztec with a glass eye. He did not add that the Aztec had a silver plate engraved, “Jim-jams.” } O'Brien, of ‘Frisco, bought of Senator Sharon a $2,000 fireplace. On the Atlantic slope speculators are willing to wait tl after death and got a fireplace | cheaper. On Wednesday morning Theodore Tilton occupied General Banks’ seat in the House of Representatives; ‘and sbveral sleepy members from out Wost were afraid | he would carry them around without their knowing tt. Replying to our wish for a campaign rhyme for ‘onkling “‘W."? sends the following :— As the clouds to a lofty mountain peak at dawa cling, So gather we around the towering Conkling, James Parton, who married bis step-daughter, not knowing that he violated a Massachusetts law, will, if refused a special act of Legislature sanctioning the marriage, have the ceremony repeated in Now York Stato. A correspondent sends, in reply to our wish fora campaign rhyme to Conkling, the following, signed “An Irish Patriot: — ‘<The foal of the aes—is it not a donkiing? And ts not this a word that rhymes with Conkling?" Von Balow recently said:—‘Another thing about American women which delights me is the size and character of the ear. That is one of the first things E | Igok at. A handsome ear is a wonderful feature about ; awoman, When it is woll rounded and finely chiseled it is @ magnet to any man of taste.” A writer from Northern Georgia says:—<‘lt will re | quire the very wisest ion on the part of the de- | mocracy in the gubernatorial nomination to avoid @ | split of the party. I do uot exaggerate the danger. It ig going to take the best kind of managemont to avold | independent action to a large extent.” Miss Frances Power Cobbe says of dogs. that ‘one half the factors of the moral life are theirs; they have the passions and desires which form the warp of our | own. But the woof of froe choice, determined by love | Of right for its own sake, they nover throw, or if they do, it Is 80 rarely and obscurely ad to elude our ken.”” ‘The editor of the Boston Transcript thus describes = meteor:—‘A snaft of golden light was seen to shoot athwart the sky. After traversing a path which might have consumed a second in time the erratic body re- laxed its speed gradually until it had become motion- less, Inan instant it burst into @ shower of crim- son and emerald brilliants, which descended in a tu- minus rain antil they were extinguished.’ Then he | sat down on the oilcloth in the baliway, and his wife | pulled off his boots. |” Mere is another story from Washington :—There fs = rebel door-keeper whose duty it is tO hoist the flag over the House, which designates whether that body ia in session, The memories of the glorious past are so | overmastering to this faithtul devotee of the lost cause that he will not raise the flag in person; that duty is performed by a negro at ten centeaday. When it comes to lowering the flag the Confederate performa that proud and grateful office himself, The subject ia said to worry the Speaker. ‘The Pali Mail Gazette thinks that the people who, while only yet @ few, could build tlie great wall of China over. high rangos of mountains and impracticable steeps 1,250 miles ia length, to keep out their enemies, and in the seventh, thirteenth and fourteenth com turies, under successive dynasties, Mongol and Chi- nese, could devise and execute a grand canal opening & ‘water communication from Pekin to Canton, @ dim tance of 690 miles, across two great rivera, and carried for more than nmety miles some twenty feet above the surrounding country, are not a people to be despised because of defective administration in our dwa da and their unwillingness to accept modera Innovation from a foreiwn hand,