The New York Herald Newspaper, February 16, 1876, Page 4

4 SOUTH CAROLINA. What Chamberlain Pro- poses 'To Do. THE REAL ISSUES IN SOUTH CAROLINA. | Carpet-Bagger, Scalawag and | Negro. THE NEGRO LEGISLATURE IN COLUMBIA. The Career of Moses and Whipper. THE WAR FOR REFORM. Corumata, 8. C., Feb. 4, 1876. To tax Epior ov Tax Hexatp:— Boath Carolina ts once more becoming a national question, and # brief survey ef the political situation here may enable the people outside of tho State to comprehend the character and extent of the issucs at stake, The difficulty ip dealing with these South- ern questions is that the passions of warare not | dead—that men look at politics with anger and appre- hension. On one side we have a race once powerful and still proud, whose ancestors ruled this Com- monwealth and the Union behind it, and who, rather than surrender this domination, forced the eountry into civil war. On the other side we have a this | formant knew his State, that prouder blood flowed in sin that of many of the delegations.from the North, at | the winding stairs, ‘he used to black my boots, and I | he used to polish, Taco, only yesterday in slavery, and in that darkest form once seen in the rice swamps, suddenly given freedom and power and called upon to govern themselves and their masters. The slave race outnumbers the white by over 190,000 1m a population | of @ little over 700,000, as I find it recorded in the | ensus of 1870. This numerical superiority is strengthened by the presence of federal troops, by the mysterious power of the government, and by the patn- ful fact that South Carolina, once rich in statesmen and warriors, bas since the war produced mo one even worthy, to pronounce the name of McDufie or Calhoun, ‘The proud Pulmetto spirit, scems to have fallen into abject submission, and all that the bravest of the old leaders dares to hope is that the State may be saved by the | aid of a gifted and, courageous Yankee, a son of | New England and graduate of Yale, who never saw | South Carolina until after the war, and who now sits in | the Govornor’s chair. 1t is to Chamberlain that all con- Servative eyes now turn with hope. It is Chamberiain, who two years ago was among the detested “‘carpet- Daggers,” who is pow hign in the favor of the white men of the State, He is regarded by them as tho | Moses suddenly arisen to lead them out of the wilder- | ness and into the pleasant lands, And, what is more, | these proud Carolivians are only too willing to follow | the New England Moses—to follow him with enthust; asm if he will only take them to tho promised land, CHAMBERLAIN. There is no problem more interesting than this now solving itself in South Carolina, Can any good come out of the carpet-bagger? Is there any way for good government, except by the return of the men who once ruled nere—the Hamptons, the Ker- | shaws, the Rhetts and their companions—to power? | Is there any hidden purpose in the new policy of this Yankee Governor? Does he crave social recognition or business patronage, or does he aim to be Senator, or to be namod even in the National Conventions for a still higher place? for the enemies of Chamberlain are fer- tile m the development of motives for his course, Tonly read the events as they appear on tho surface, and it seems clear that no good citizen, no matter what his politics, can hesitate to wish the Governor well in his intents, and to feel that they are wise and just, and, if successful, must redound to the credit of the Northern residents 1m the South and to the honor and peace of South Carolina, THE NEGRO LEGISLATURE You can better understand this when you think of the recent history of South Carolina Here first is the question of race, uppermost in the minds of every Boutnern white man. Tne white men who grant social and political equality to the negro for political purposes do it with a shudder and an apology Good’) friends told mo when I came to Celumbia to hurry to the Capitol, tnat I might see the Congo Legislature, and mourn or make merry, as the humor swayed mo, at what I saw, lL swent | became to the Capitol Thero were the ate «and the House in full session The Lieutenant Governor of the State presided over one body, ex-Congress- man Elliott over the other. They were both black. They seemed to preside weil enough, and were evidently mon of as much-intelligence as many of our Congress- men from New York. I would much rather they had been white men; but, as God Almighty in his infinite wisdom made them, there they were, and such work as came before them they did as well as Mr. Kerr or Mr. Ferry would do in Washington, To be sure, it is got much that presiding officers have to do, but the footy statesmen did it with dignity amd cour tesy. The embers were generally black, with s little section of proud white men elustered in & corner “There they sit,’’ said a kindly cicerone, who had done his share fn the Confederacy, and who took o grim, melancholy pleas- ure {np showing mo what the Union had brought to his poor, prostrate State, ‘There they sit, str—the Spar. tan band—every one a true Southerner and democrat, clustering around all that romains of the honor of old Carolina, siz, and willing to set-side by side with darkies, sir, to make the last sacrifice in the hope of doing something to save the old State, Think of what they must feel! But, like true men, they stand up to it” I asked my friend if they were paid, and when he told mo that they were and that there was no accessible evidence showing that they had declined their pay, my sympathies became more under control. I was admitted to the floor, and sat scar the Spartan band, some of whom were eating peanuts, freshly roasted, with much resignation and industry. But the main body of the statesmen were black—all shades of black, from tho shining ebony dark with the suns of Congo River, to the pale olive-tinted malatt ‘ho told even a sadder tale than that of slavery in his finer | tempered and more delicately framed organization. I expected from what 1 had heard that we | should havo onusual ceremonies during the session. 1 was quite prepared for a ‘‘walk-around” or a plan- tation jig, the Speaker patting time and the members singing the “Essence of Old Virginin’’ Nor wouid it | have annoyed me tf one member, a gray old coon, who comedians preserve on the stage, had inaststed upon ad. dressing the chair in rhyme with banjo accompaniment: The poor old soul seemed capable of it, as he sat blank and dull, half sieeping, wondering what it all meant—only yesterday a slave down in the rice lands of Edisto and now a statesman and an shambled along with that peculiar gait whieh the negro | | “honorable member.”’ Well, it was a transformation, | and I pave no doubt! felt my gorge rise within me as I thought of this sovereign Carolina, trampled in the dust, affd those savages rioting over her spoliation and her shame. But as my duty was to see what was to bo | it, I had no time for mero | emotions I saw a body of well behaved men of | seen, and to record ‘various colors—some mapping, some shafing around © the aisles, some whispering, one speaking, some trying | to speak, many eating peanuts, freshly roasted. [ | saw a clerk who read through bis nose, so that no { one could understand him. There was a considerable quantity of tobacco in various processes of use. I saw &@ couple of doorkeepers in chairs tilted against the wall, with strings tied to the door to save them the labor of rising to open it, just as | had seen it in our Washington Supreme Court. I saw groups of lob- byists in the rotunda plying their calling, and the ever present, apple and cake women, who are, I am per- suaded, the forerunners of civilization, 1 saw a gath- ering of very ordinary men, many of whom would not carn their living by intelligent employment. I have no doubt should have commented upon all I saw, with due emphasis and indignation, and have eried out upon all this sacrilege if 1 had not re- membered that you can see this, every phase; Bf ih bub the Colom” in Almany and Washington, | | an enviable place in history, is a person difficult to NEW YORK HERALD, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1876.—TRIPLE SHEET, ‘The House presided over by Speaker Elliott was about the same as that presided over by Speaker Kerr, with exception, I have no doubt, for my in- the veins of some of these negro members than flows least from a Carolina point of view, for remember I am looking at things from that aspect now. It was an or- dinary, indiiferent body of men, but I have never seen | a Congress that was not It was largely a corrupt body of men, like the Legislature that passed the Tweed charter and the Congress that passed the Crédit Mobilier fraud of two hundred miltions. Its members sometimes broke into violent temper and denounced one another very much as a Kentucky member once denounced 8 fellow member, and as Mr. Cox, when he called Mr, Blaine a hyena, I did not learn that for words spoken in debate one of the members had biudgeoned another, wounding him to the death, so that in one respect it did not resemble a national Congress. But the ruling fact is that the members are largely of African descent, and I was presented to one, a famous member— Senator from Columbia—the Hon, W. B, Nash, or “Bev, Nash,” as he was called by the gentle- man who did me the honor of a presentation, Bev. bad been a slave, 1 was told, and had blacked boots in a hotel for years, among other boots those of my informant, Iwas taken up stairs into @ committee room to see this Senator who in his person helped to degrade South Carolina. “Yes,” said my friend in a whisper, as we walked up call him Bey. now, as of old, and, by God, sir—think of it, sir!—he is a Sengtor, and his old master, General ——, you can see any day on the Main street, sir, old and gray, and his fortune swept away.” Bov. is @ rather tall, well dressed, sedate black man, his beard | and hair tipped with gray, with a keen, intelligent face, who had, like General Grant, little to say, and was cor- dial but mot abject to the owner of the boots Woll, as wo eame away, I asked my companion if Bey. in his other days did good work with his boots, “Yes,” was the answer, ‘Bev. was a sharp, spry nigger, and always gave satisfaction, and we all know him and liked him in the old days.” “And I suppose always took the quarter when you gave it to him?” ‘Yer, and did you ever see a nigger that did not? But think of what must be tho feeling of every Carolinian—what would be the feeling of any New Yorker—to think of a nigger like Bev. Nash sitting in the Senate!” I was about to express myself on this point as a New Yorker—one jealous of my State and proud of my race—but I happeaed to tnink that I had known Senators who had never done 80 honest a thing as black gontiemen’s doots for a live- libood, Senators who had blossomed from pugilism into gambling, and my mind ran so rapidly into a | discussion as to which State was worse served— proud Carolina, with its nogro Senatorial bootblack, or proud New York, with its white Senatorial gam- bler—that I am atraid Iwas not in a condition to answer becomingly the angry questions of my good friend. ‘THE BURNING QUESTION, For, above all things, as I have striven thus to con- vey to you, the burning qaestion is that of race. It is not sentiment, intelligence or corruption, bat race. If this Legislature were composed of men as valiant as | tho black Othello, or as eloquent 4s Frederick Douglass, or as devout as the Moorish saint, Boniface, if I remem- | ber, who was held up tho other day to the veneration of the negro by the Catholic Bishop of Florida as one of their raco who had been found worthy of high place in heaven, it would be all the same in the mind of South Carolina The slave sits in tho seat of the master. The degraded race is dominant, Nor dol censure sucha feeling, nor reproach my Saxon brothers who indulgo it, nor feel anything but sad over the pros- pect. But how can it woll be otherwise with only 290,000 white men in the State and 416,000 black men— all, with a few exceptions, slaves until afew yoars ago? - Here, then, is the practical fact that you must Pere in South Carolina—the negro in the majority and, under the constitution, the political equal of his master, with a life and avote that the laws protect. He has certainly given this State a deplorable gov- ernment. 1 say the nogro through ignorance, and certain white adventurers who bave used him. I con- fess 1 have only a feeling of pity for the negro, even asIeaw him in the Carolina council balls—a pup. pet in the hands of base, bad men. I did not blame | him, for I felt that he had been a slave and that we | had made him so; that he was degraded and we were the authors of his degradation; that he was blind be- cause we had denied him light; that he was ignorant because for generations we had made education a crime; that he was dishonest because we had made him so through slavery, the sam of all dishonesty; that he was almost a brute beast that lacked reason, because we would not allow him to bea man. When | saw him, therefore, the master of South Carolina, this dark- mindod, ignorant, grovelling stave, who only yesterday was cowering in the rice swamps under tho tash of | the master, now in very truth the ruler of this State, and sitting in the seats of Calhdun and McDuMe and Hayne, I could not but tremble and ask if this is really one of the centennial fruits of American liberty—if South Carolina was to be. one of the contary plants whose blooming in this gra- cious and happy time was to excite the envy and tho’ admiration of the world, Icoald not find it in my heart to say, with the prophet:—'I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the sound of tho millstones and the light of the candle, and this whole land shall be an astonishment and a desolation,” although such might well be the reflection of sterner moralists thinking of the misery and crime of slavery and of this appalling retribution. ‘THE CARPHT BAGGERS, Tis hard to make cloar the condition of affairs in | South Carolina, Tho Stave had passed from the hands of Scott—e clamay, grasping adventurer, and a carpet- bagger—into the hands of a young man named Moses, Scott's chief fame ts that under his administration and it is said by his ald, one way or the other, the land swindle was consummatod and a gang of spec- ulators were al’owed to plunder the State, You see wo had Just built the Pacific Railway, and theStates braised and bleeding from the war were anxious to have in- ternal improvements. The result was that democrats and repablicans alike—bore, in Georgia and North Carolina—-rushed" into the bond business. The bonds wore issued, stamped with the seal of the State, sold | to credulous purchasers in New York at prices rang- tng from fifty to sixty, and the money divided up. Then came repudiation! When Orr left the | Governorship the debt was about $7,000,000, In four years it arose to more than $25,000,000, This was Scott's achievement, and, as an evi- dence that he does not think the resources of the State | exhausted, he ts now loafing around Columbia a candi- date for renowed honors, But even the frauds which Scott did not succeed in preventing were tame com- pared with those of Moses. I know of no history of | modern republics more disgraceful than the four years | of Scott and the two years of Moses. Tweed’s achive- | ments in New York may have cost more in money, | but Tweeddid not drive you to repudiation, which Scott and Moses have done to South Carolina. ‘MOSES, THR GOVERNOR. Francis J. Moses, Jr., whose name will probably have describe, He is a native of the State, his father, who is now Judge, having been State Senator many years since. He was s Confederate and is said to have raised the Southern Gag ou Sumter whon Anderson was shelled out, I have never heard that his zeal for the Southern cause led him to abandon the Sumter bomb- proofs, but after the war ho became a ro- publican, and was made Speaker of the House. Here bo is famous for overissuing pay certifi- cates, which wore scattered among the greody mem- bers, fresh from the cotton field and rice swamp, and as anxious for emoluments as their white predecessors, Moses became Governor, Soutn Carolina elected him, | Inrgely through the aid of Southern votes, because he ‘was native bora, over Reuben Tomlinson, a Quaker from Pennsylvania, who is everywhere respected for nis ‘tntegrity, simply because Tomlinson was a carpet-bagger. I despair = of recording the achievements of Moses. There was no gov- ernment, The segro mob ruled the capital, There was no chgek on appropriations. Bills were passed for money. Tho credit of the State was destroyed, Pris oners were pardoned without stint, The party was Stripped of ite bess mon, and, as Governor Chamber. | lain says, over his own signatare, Moses, himself, in | the inst days of his power, sold out bis own party for | $30,000, one halt cash, This Governor is a young man, | with a pale, worn face, with a hunted down look, | shrinking, one would think, ander the infamy that rests | vpouw bia young life. How he furnished a house | with furmiure which bas never beam sau for | ern man since be came into the State | business with me, meet me in public places and show and which is now in the hands Sheriff, how he ran up bills in cigar stores, made companions of gamblers and others of evil fame, how In all ways he brought shame upon his name, bis party and his State, is known and spoken of by all men. Chief among his associates was a negro named Whip- per, a member of the Legislature, Whipper camo from Michigan since the war. He was a gambler, as he confessed ina public speech, an ignorant, bratal, pushing megro, with more than ordinary courage, but chief among those who have degraded the State, THE NEW REGIME, When Chamberlain came into power he made certain pledges. He would reform the State and introduce economy and integrity. No one paid any attention to him, Moses and Seott had promised in the same way and bad broken the promises, He was said to be one of the same school—a carpet-bagger—only waiting bis turn to steal, The tact that’he was a Yale graduate, a lawyer of ability, astudent and an orator were only againsthim. These gifts, twas said, would only give him more power for harm. So the good men—the na- tives—folded their hands in despair, and waited as those who have no hope for the hour of deliverance, THR BLECTION OF WHIPPER AND MOSES. * Tt was found in the beginning that the new Gover- nor did some good things. ‘Oh, well,” said despairing Carolina, ‘this is meant to blind us, that he may steal with more security.” But “the party"? becamo restless. The leaders had schemes and aims for “the good of the cause.” They went to the pew Governor and asked his ald. He pointed to his record and saia that he meant to redeem its promises, There was dismay among the ‘leaders, and the new Governor was plainly told that he would be ruled out. About a year since a republican caucus was held to name candidates for judges of the rank of those on your Supreme Bench, Whipper, the gambler and vagabond from Michigan, who proba- bly never read even the title page of @ law book in his life, and does not know whether Blackstone was a mag- istrate or a pugilist, was nominated, Chamberlain arose, and, in the presence of Whipper and hts party, denounced him as infamous, ignorant and cortupt. The effect of the speech was such that the nomination was beaten and the matter postponed, When I remind you that these judgeships are among the most important in the State, that they have criminal, civil and equity jurisdiction, you can imagine their value. The safety of society depended upon them and the character of tho candidates. The defeat of Whipper, however, only postponed the question, Chamberlain had some business in a distant county. The moment he left Whipper and Moses indaced the Senate and tho House to meet in joint convention, and while the Governor was on the train he received a de- spatch announcing that Whipper, the negro gambler, and Moses, the infamous Governor, had been | elected by the Legislature of South Carolina to admin- Whipper’s court was that embracing | ister justice, Charleston city, This was the crowning act—the last straw. The State arose as one man. It could stand equality suffrage, corruption; it could stand Moses as Governor; but with Whipper and Moses to sit on its high seats of justice it was felt that society was at an end. You cannot imagine—and you know a great deal about courts—you cannot lancy for a moment what would have been the effect of this act in Charleston, The Governor came home and sard that he would never sign their commissions. Joint Convention or not, he would never consecrate this act, They threatened | to impeach him. He would not budge. In the mean- time meetings were held all over the Stata Grave men declared that, law or no law, Whipper should never sit on the bench unless he was under a federal guard, Summary measures were dobated, and I have been told by the calmest and wisest of mon that nothing is more certain than that if these two men de- feat the Governor and open court they will be slain. It is hard to patiently record such facts, but I write what I hear and believe. THE SURREND®! Well, the party split, and Chamberlain found himself | in aminority. Whipper denounced him on the floor of the House in terms so vile that the newspapers sap- pressed the report, I8 was @ coarse, vulgar, obscene speech, in which ne said no power would keep him | from his seat on the Bench, They say Whipper doeg,| not lack in courage. But Moses is a thorough coward, and feels already so keenly the execration that rests upon him that only yesterday he called on the Governor and talked about resign- ing. In the meantime the Governor has gone on, The party which opposed him and whieh threat- ened to throw him over crumbles. The best of the ne- groes, Elliott, the Spoaker, among the number, begin to seo that they have been duped; that, after all, the Gov- ernor is right. Already about a third of the party aro | with the Governor, One-third around a reso- Inte man, whose action mects the approval of | all honest men, will in time give him a majority. The party managersare in a panic. The Charleston Collector, Worthington ; the Senator, Patter” son; Whittemore, Moses, and the rest, all fear he will break the party or sell it out as Warmoth did in Louisiana and Walker in Virginia, The cry of third term is raised as @ shibboloth for the pur- pose of invoking the Prosident’s aid. THR TROUBLE BRTWREN RACES. Why is that the Southerners, the whites who were masters before the war, have not divided the negro vote, and, uniting with those who were intelligent, gained control of the State so as to secure it an efficient government? It would seem to the ordinary political thinker thateven three-sevenths whites could control the four-sevenths blacks, One thinks of the Saxon in India with the Hindoo, in Canada with the French, in Jamaica with the negro, in Ireland, afer a turbulent fashion, with the Celt. The Saxon came as a conqueror with the matied hand, and yet his rule is now absolute. Why is it that in South Carolina it is otherwise? My gifted and honored colleague, Mr. Nordhoff, in his series ot letters from the South, says it is because he has been corrupted by the carpet-bagger. With all deference to that distinguished authority his answer is an imperfect solution. Surely tho negro who knows his old master, who has lived | with bim during his life, who in most cases looks with affection upon him and all who belong to him— surely in the new relation he will look to the master as a friend, and take bis guidance in so solemn a duty as entering apon citizenship, This, too, because as we learn from all authorities, and from none more clearly than Mr. Nordhoff, that the master ‘‘accepts the now relation,’ and has no purpose of renewing the war, and, so far from wishing to return the negro to slavery, feols that the old system was an error, even from an economical point of view, and that in time its abolition will prove to be a blessing to the white, whatever it may be to tho black. Why, then, this being the caso, has the carpet-bagger been able to strangle a Common- wealth like South Carolina, and, with the aid of tho negro, plunder his old master? The only answer that I can see is that the whites have not taken any pains to cultivate the blacks, who would naturally go with them, or the intelligent and honest Northern men who came here, meaning in good faith to make the South a home and to grow up with the Southern people. In nearly every caso, ‘with scarcely an exception, the whites havo drawn the line, just as Jefferson Davis drew it when he embarked upon the Confederacy. They alone have aright here, Whoever opposes them is a “‘scalawag,'’ a ‘‘carpet-bagger’’ or a “nigger.” A “gealawag”’ if as a Southern born man he votes with the republicans; a carpet-bagger if he comes from the North no matter how he votes, This line is drawn with severity and with scarcely an exception. A worthy citizen of Charleston, who came from the North in the beginning of the war, from motives of philan- thropy, to educate the blacks, who has lived in the State ever since, and holds a high repatation from all | classes because of his integrity and ability, told me that he had never been asked to the home of a South- “They do me all respect, but never open the latch key." A rov- erend and highly-esteemed prelate of the Metho- dist Church in the North came here to tend a gathering of African churches, He was in an official postion, tor these churches were under the control of his denomination. He remained here severay days, presiding over the gathering. He was known to be an bonored prelate, whose life was given solely to his religious duties. He told me that during his stay in South Carolina be had not received a single atten- ton from his Southern fellow Methodists, The clergy | bad not noticed his presence nor asked him into their pulpits, He saw only fellow Christians who had come trom the North or wegroes. I cannot imagine how the Iine can be more closely drawn, and 1 now speak of what happened only a few days since, THE NRORO AND M9 NORTHBRN ALLY, The negro, then, bas been thrown back upon his Northern ally, Every memory, every name, every an- | niversary of the war. ig cherished as sacred, Allsha rest san abomination, You may well ask, “Why should this not be 0, for are not these memories dear to thom by the blood of slain brothers and chil- dren?” Truly so, and far be it from me to profane so holy a thought as that which would honor them, But I am answering the question propounded some time since as to how it is that the Southern whites have never succeeded’ in dividing the colored vote so as to give the States a good government, They have driven the negroaway. In Georgia when they gained power they have practically disfranchised him. But for the Inter- ference of the federal Congress they would have forbid- den hts appearance im their legislatures, I do not think any frank Georgian will deny that this result was largely due to intimidation and ferce. In a State with 545,142 megroes in 1870 to 638,926 whites they have virtually stamped out a republican party. The negro is afraid to vote, is not in many places allowed om the jury, ts punished severely for trivial crimes, and Mr, Nordhoff has told you that af least 25,000 of them have left the State in the jas} five or six years, and yet in Georgia they pay taxes on a large property. The negro in South Carolina sees what has been done across the line, and he knows, or naturally fears that, should the white man rule here, the game results will follow. Asa consequence, therefore, the negro is in the hands of the adventarer. He fea that his master will make him a slave, or reduce him to acondition akin toslavery. The result is, there- fore, that not one of them will vote the democratic ticket. I have heard of democratic negroes, but I have seen none. I have spoken on this subject with Southern men in Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and there 1 only one story. “I have negroes hore,” said one eminent gontleman, “who were my slaves in the old time. They bang aronnd my house They will fight for mo, work for me and bring me their money to keep, They take my advice in all things, and are all trustworthy and devoted, They will not vote for me.- My eoach- man there will vote against me and in favor of the meanest republican in the county.” The negro thus far sees nothing i politics but his own freedom He votes for Grant alltho time, His political education embraces @ sen- timent anda fact, The sentiment is Lincoln, the fact is Grant, I was talking to a woolly-headed vagabond tho other day, who had learned that I was a Northern man, and wanted to go home with me as an attendant He was a worthless, ragged, shining darky, as black as night, and earned his living, he told me, by dancing the juba for gentlemen on the sidewalk when the potice was not looking. During the war he was a slave lad, “Did you know you were free,” I said, “before the wat was over?’ He told me that the ne came very quickly; that thoy all kept ‘mighty shady,’” never pre- tending to know until “Massa Sherman came with the soldiers.” But they knew it all the time, and there was never a night that his ‘old mammie didn’t pray to Massa Lincoln.”? This 1s the thought that has burned deep into the negro mind. You cannot erase it You cannot take it from Lim. He bas heard the slavers’ horn. He has worn the yoke and carried the scar of the lash into furrow and swamp. He has seen father and mother, perhaps, taken to the block and sold into slavery. That memory ever lives, as it would live with you and I, if such a carcer darkened oar lives, So Moses may stoal and Whipper may ‘administer justice ;” to him they mean freedom. Coming out of the night they find no hand to grasp but the hand of the adven- turer. Is it any wonder, then, that they follow him as blind men or those who see darkly? BETTER SIGNS. I cannot resist the conclusion, and it grows upon me every day in the South, that for much of the wrong that has been done in these States the old Southern- ers are to blame, I say this in sorrow and with no harshness of feeling toward them, and not without making allowance for a feeling which, after all, Is one of human nature, a feeling of hatred of the men who defeated their hopes of empire and of contempt for the negro, who is to-day a Senator, but who yesterday could have been sent to the whipping post, It is not easy for a planter who has hardly enough to eat to rejoice over the tact that the servant who once washod his beardts now a ruler of the State But,, whatever the motive or the feeling, the negro in South Carolina is at the feet of Moses and Whipper, because he was driven there. The old master has as yet mado no sign of sympathy or friendship. I am profoundly convinced that if, instead of mourning over tho lost cause, as in the past they were wont to bluster about the Yankees and slavery, these people had dealt wisely with the negro and generously with the Northern immigrant, these States, and South Carolina especially, would be free and powerful. I hail the Chamberlain movement in one of its aspects as the opening of a new era. The support which that off cer receives from the leading journal in the State, and one of the leading journals in the South—the News and Cowrier—shows the awakening of a new spirit. This paper, thoroughly democratic, its editors gentlemen ‘who were in the Confederacy through the whole war and firm in thoir devotion to the lost cause, sees that the only hope for South Carolina is In supporting tho honest, intelligent Now England Governor, who says thas he is a republican from conviction and never can be a democrat; that he has no sympathy for the democracy or desire to be in it councils, but that as Governor he means to give tho State an honest government The News and Courier takes the Gover- nor at his word and cheers him on, while newspapers over the border, in Georgia, mock and deride If Uhamberlain succeeds he will divide the colored vote, and for the first time array parties upon some other dividing line than that laid down by Jefferson Davis when he founded his Confederacy. HOPR VOR CAROLINA. But whether he succeeds or not the movement which he began a year ago, and which now is almost national in Its extent, must goon. Thore is no way for South Carolina to win a good government except on this basis, Here the negroes are, and ina large majority, They cannot be driven away, they cannot be slain, they cannot be disfranchised. Thoy must be asked to take part {in government, to unite with hon- est men in punishing crime. Education makes this more and more easy, and amid all this sorrow and etrife and tumult the work of education goos on Tho negro pants for the primer and tho speller as the hart for the water brooks, I have taken pains, im some bookstore lounging, to inquire about this. I learned in nearly every case that the ne- groes were constant purchasers, and almost in- variably of school books—elementary and advanced. IT am told that the negro is as anxious to read and write as he used to be to own a yellow cravat, I do not suppose this education goes far, but it ts something. It is there I see day—there, and nowhere else This old feeling must die out, These memories of the Southern Con- federacy must be put away with the family laces and grandmother's samplors, Leaders like Toombs and Hill must be superseded. Those negroes must be taught that freedom means responsibility and that honesty is safoty and peace, These lands and ports, these rivers and watercourses, these widely stretch- ing and vast acres, must respond to capital and energy, the money and the skill of the North, Here is room in South Carolina alone for all New England, and in no State could the spirit of New England work such marvels. But so long as the fogs of slavery and misgovernment and ostracism and social hatred hang over them like the malaria of their own rico lowlands, so long South Carolina will be a prostrate State, crying for sympathy and help, Let us trust that the time has come for the people to help themseives, and in doing #o raise their Commonwealth to a pinnacle of grandeur and prosperity such as even its proud history has never known. JOHN RUSSELL YOUNG. TWEED STILL INVISIBLE. The statement publishea in two or three morning papers yesterday to tho effect that William M. Tweed would return and surrender himself to Sheriff Conner, if he bad not already done so, has no foandation in fact. Mr. Conner stated yesterday that he knew abso- lutely nothing whatever of Tweed's w! ats and had not held any conversation with the fugitive’s friends in regard to his return. A WEALTHY BROKER'S SUICIDE. Mr. Henry Hanks, the elderly gentleman who took an extraordinary dose of poison at the Cosmopolitan Hotel, om Saturday last, died yesterday. An inquest ‘was held over his fomains. The proprietor of the Cos- mopolitan Hotel testified that Mr. Hanks bad resided to that hotel since 1869; that he did no business in the meantime, and that he was formerly a broker and a member of the urm of Duramt & Ce. The cause of Mr. Hanks’ suicide was, i ie said, temporary pecuniary A CELEBRATED FORGER ARRESTED. CHARLES J, PERRIN, ALIAS WILLIAMSON, ALIAS PABNUM, CAGED AT LAST—THE RECORD OF HIS EXPLOITS, The arrest of Charles J. Perrin, ex-convict, of 126th street, alias Charles Williamson, alias Obarles 0. Far- num, for passing $17,500 worth of forged California and Oregon Railroad bonds, supplies along missing link in the matter of the New York, Buffalo and Erie Railroad, New York Central and Western Union bond forgeries, of which the prisoner was one of the first issuers. Perrin, who is now in .the Tombs, obtained a loan last week of $6,000 on the above mentioned California and Oregon Railroad bonds trom Messrs. Rollins & Brothers, of No. 21 Wall street. Sabsequently that firm took an over- due coupon on one of the bonds to Messrs, Fisk & Hatch for payment, when they were told that it was a forgery. A messenger went to Perrin’s residence at the Irving House, at Twe!fth street and Broadway, request ing his attendance at Ro!lins’ office, He came and was arrested by Police Captain Petty, and taken to the New street police station, and on Monday afternoon he was locked up at the Tombs and remanded for examination. If he bad not left the overdue coapon on the bonds he would still probably have been at large. For several years he has been wanted by the et forthe forged Buffalo bonds, and ifbe turns ‘tate’s evidence, as it is believed he will, he can ma- terially help tn the conviction of his former confeder-. ates, Last evening a reporter saw the forged Cahfornia and Or Railroad bonds in the possession of Police Captain YY, and which, to give at! con- corned their due, are splendid executions of engraving and forgea signatures. Mr. Eugene Kelly’s. name ap- pears as one of the trustees of the road, which was con- solidated with the Central Pacific Railroad on the 22d of August, 1870, SKETCH OF THR PRISONER. Charles Williamson, alias Charles C. Farnum, alias Charles Perrin, Ne ed before stated, one of the first dealers in forged New York, Buffalo and Erie, New York Central and Western Union bonds, in compan’ with Olmstead, the engraver; Dr. Blaisdell, of Burdell murder notoriety; Gleason, Andy Roberts, Gottlob ble a>} Ralston, of the Prodace Exchange; Cantor Steve Raymond, who was extradited m Eng- land. The plot, one of the most colossal on record, was exposed at its inception, in the Hearn before many of the worthless bonds had been disposed of. Sev- eral millions’ worth of them had been pre} by Rob- erts and Gleason, who are now in Ludlow Street Jail. Spence Pettis, now im jail in Massachuset! was cognizant of the ir, and several ineffectual attempts have beou made by District Attorney Phelps to have him pardoned out to give evidence im the mat- ter, but Governor Gaston always opposed it William- son was the cause of the arrest by Detective Thomas Sampson of old Mr. Brown, a respectable but needy Wall street broker, who offered some of the forged bonds to a Pine street banker opposite the Sub-Treas- ury. Mr, Brown stated he had tirst met Williamson at lunch at the Belmont Hotel. Mr, Sherman, a broker, gave testimony in this matter, Mr. Brown was subso- quently honorably acquitted after a long incarceration dn the Tombs. idhamson resided at the time when the forgeries were first put into circulation in Jersey City, where he waa an intimate triend of Colonel Carles French, of Philadelphia, of the swindling Palisades Insurance Company, of whom Colonel Decatur Poster, one of the brightest heroes of the Mexican war, ailowea himself, through French’s misrepresentation, to become president. The shareholders, ifthere were any, never subscribed a cent French*!s now in State Prison in Trenton. Colonel Potter is in this city, ready and willing to give evidence. Gottlieb Engels, the renowned forger, who was proved to have been an accomplice of Macdonald and the other Bank of England forgers, is believed to have done all the “writing,” or , of the New York, Buffalo and Erte bonds, while’ Olmstead, of Staten Island, did the engraving. The head- quarters of the Bane, were at Blaisdell’s and Mra. Lydia Roberts’ house, All Andy Roberts’ property was attached on behalf of several of the victima, and several suits have been gained, in- cluding $30,000 on behalf of th York Guarantee and Indemnity Company and $60,000 on behalf of the New York Trust Company, Am the victims of the swindle may be cited Messrs, Saunders & Hardenbergh, Obrig, Orvis, 8. V. White, Lieutenant Colonel Brain of the Ninth regiment, and numerous others, who los! in the aggregate several hundred thousand dollars, Fortunately the Heratp exposure reduced the contem- plated amount of frauds committed on the Wall street community The Buffaio, New York and Erio Ratiway forgeries were so admirably executed that Mr. Miller, the president of the road, pronounced them genuine. till ne had critically examined them. Steve Raymond, the Englishman who was extradited from England, and who took a number of the torgeries over, ‘was previously robbed of a large amount of money he had realized by the sale, while drunk, by Red Leary at Fort Hamilton. He was accompanied to London by Mrs. Bowton, a Washington Market widow, and his paramoar, bis wifo being in Sing Sing for grand larceny, undor the name of Mrs. Flowers. Williamson is very respectably connected in West- chester county, his family residing a few miles from Harlem. He has brother-in-law in Wall street. He was Tombs by a relati accompanied by Captain Peuy, who has hi the workmg a4 or the present caso placed in his hands. At the first discov- ery of the forgeries Detective Sampson traced William- son through a letter he had written to French, of Jer- sey City, to the Pierrepont House, Brooklyn, but thence lost sight of him. A particular intimate of Williamson was one Keepers, who was interested in the lightning rod business. Williamson’s notable victims were Saunders & Hardenbergh and the New York Guarantee and Indemnity Company and others, tho aggregate amount being upward of $150,000, In Jerse: City bis headquarters were the bar at lor’s Hotel and in this city his favorite drinkin, tm Dutch street. Williamson was ex. potortous Sacia of Broadway, arrested for nogotiating false deeds ot property, was an intimate friend of French, of Jersey, and the prisoner Williamson. A favorite trysting place of Williamson and Cantor, the forger, in this city was at the late Mose Monaghan’s tavern, A CENTENNIAL BANNER. A number of Indtes forming a committee of the women of New York assembled yesterday afternoon at Chickering Hall for the purpose of receiving sub- scriptions toward procuring a handsome silk embroid- ered banner to be sent by the women of New York to the Department of the Women's Centennial Union at tho great Exhibition. The banner is to be of large size and embroidered on both sides with the arms of the city of New York, and bearing above and below the fol- lowing legend:—‘1876. God and Our Country. From the Women of the City of Now York. Centennial 1876."’ The formation of the committee arises trom the fact that the women’s nye at Philadelphia is said to be In noed of decoration, that other States and eitios have contributed their share toward tho embetlishment of the spaces allotted, and that hitherto pocergry Se been done by this city to which, how- ever, space has been given. This depart- ment, it be remembered, is set for the pur- pose of exhibiting in detail samples of women's work and invention, and is expected to prove ono of the features of tho exhibition. —“Subseriptions toward the banner will bo to-morrow, at Chickering Hall, by of the committee, from two to five subscriptions are limited to tho from any one individual, while donations of twonty- five cents or upward are as readily received. Over $500 were received yesterday, The cost of the banner will be about $1,200. Any jus remaining is to be page to the further decoration of the department. Mrs. Pierre Van Corttandt, Mrs. George &. Schuyler, Mrs Jamos W. an, Mrs. Rutherford St ki Mrs H. Manigenlt Morris, Mrs. Wm. Van Rensbolaor, Mra. Marinas Willets, ‘Mrs James Gore King, Jr., Mrs, Cambridge ad Mrs. Oolden, Mrs. Alexander on, Mra Daniel Le Roy, Mra. John C. Crager, Mrs. Honry 1. Soott, Mrs Osoar Irving. Mrs. Wm. C, Schermerhorn, Mra Van den Houvel, Mrs. A. Morris Stout, Mra. Thomas Addis Emmet, Mrs David Lane, Mra. General Mra William G Ward, Mrs. Gowvernour M. Ogden, Mrs. Howard Potter, Mrs. General Cullum, Mrs. W. Gerard, Mrs. B. Silliman Chareh, Mra. Francis R. Rives, Irs. Robert B. Minturn, irs. John J CUSTOM HOUSE NOTES. Four promotions of clerks, of subordinate character wero made in the Custom House yesterday, and four yet been received by the Custom respecting the second flagstaff which ia to be erected over the portico, by order of Secretary of tho Treasury Bristow several months This order applies to all the custom houses in the United States. PILOT COMMISSIONERS. The weekly mecting of the Board of Pilot Commis- stoners was held at thei office yesterday at the corner of Burling slip. The session was occupied tn settling a dispute as to pilotage which had spran, two old pilots, - saried mie: POST OFFICE NOTE. The work of estimating the number of persons visit- ing the Post Office during the business hours of the day has occupied the attention of the Assistant Custo- dian, Mr. James McAfee, who reports that by actual count, during the hours from nine A. M. until six P.M., the number entering and leaving the doors averaged 195 per minute. Assuming those figures to be correct, the average number of os entering the building and not counted when leaving it would be $2,660 geniag business hours there each day, makiog s ol luring the six business days of we ot | 315,900, 6 COLLISION ON THE NORTH RIVER. | Shortly after six o'clock yesterday morning, as the forryboat Newark, of the Dosbrosses street line, was crossing the river it ran into a steam bolonging to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. rudder of the boat was displaced, | Sixty-eighth street, both above described; ae THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. Reports of the Committees of the Board of Education, CRITICISMS AND RECOMMENDATIONS. Favorable Review of the Work Done in 1875, ‘The reports of the different committees having charge of the several departments under the Board of Educa- tion will be presented to-day and acted upon by the Commissioners, The Henaxp has already given résumés of the reports of the superintendents, and it will be seen that there isa complete harmony between tha Commissioners and their officers. The report on course of study states that the course of instruction during the past year has not been essentially modified. The recent action of the Board in dealing with the question of German in the schools suffices for comment on the study of German and French in the schools, Commis- sioner Goulding, in nis report on the truancy and compulsory education subjects, which causes some doubts as to its ultimate success, reviews the question as follows :— TRUANCY AND COMPULSORY EDUCATION, in Uinder, the law of May 11, 1874, passed by the Legis. 'o of this State, entitled ‘An act to s cure to chil- dren the benefits of elementary education.’ the Bo: of Education appointed eleven agents of truancy at an expense of $14,850 per annum. Owing to the fact thas tho duties of the present officers are very onerous it is contemplated to increase the force to sixteen, being two for each school district, These stxteen agents, with the districts fairly divided arid the duties of the agents distinotly defined, will enable the Board more thoroughly to carry the provisions of the law into full effect. If, in addition tu this, the Commissioners of Police could be required to specially detail an officer 1» each district to assist the agents, the work of the Boaré would be rendered still more effective. When the Com pulsory act was first introduced in Prussia {t met with decided opposition, and great difficulty was ex’ pertenced in obtaining from the new provinces, and particularly those on the Rhine, the exe cution of that article of the law which imposes on parents, under severe penalties, the obligation of vending their children to school, The Ministry had the wisdom to suspend this part of the law in these prov: inees, avd to labor to bring about the samo results by persuasion and zeal. When a desire for instruction had been thus gradually encouraged and the population ot those provinces had appeared sufliciently prepared for such a measure, the law was rendered erent ‘This took place ia 1875, and from that moment to the pres- ent ithas been steadily and vigorously enforced. A similar law is now on our statute books, and under it itis our duty to secure proper instruction for all chil- dren of the proper school age, and to prevent even the poorest among them from | plain up in ignorance, subject to the vices which idleness begets and fosters. - At the present time there exist two great evils in our system, which the proper enforcement of this law will overcome if not eradicate—viz., irregularity of attend- ance and absence. To accomplish the true in- terest of the law relative to those who never attend and are part sustaining themselves by manual labor, it will be necessary to establish truant schools similar to ‘the licensea minors’ schools of Boston. In the report of the Saperintendent of Boston schools for 1874, 168, we find the following description of the working of the licensed minors’ schools :— “These schools, which have now been in successful operation for several PP bre one in North Mangin street and the other in Kast Street place, are a sort of half-time schools for the benefit of shoeblacks and net ys who are a part of the day occupied in their callings. “The average attendance in both schools last year was 58, each being taught by a female teacher. Hee ieee of carrying them on last year was 2, . ‘License is granted to bootblacks and newsboys only on condition that they attend senool. “Some attend the grammar schools, where they are obliged to be present both at morning and evening sessions, but some choose to attend tho licensed minors’ schools, as they are required to attend only one session’ of two hours daily—tho bootblacks attend- ing with the newsboys. The revocation of their licenses is the penalty for non-attendance.” These schools have done much good and deserve en- couragement. In this city the propriety of establish- ing two truant schools for incorrigible pupils as well ax habitual traants, where they may be detained for a cor- tain period from their parents and tho influence of former companions, is under consideration, TRE EVENING HIGH SCHOOL. This school was opened in October, 1866, and hag been a comptote success. It is the pioneer school of tts kind in the United States, The latter portion of the ninth term of the school commenced on January 4, the attendance on that evening being 1,057, From this date 65 evenings of instruction were required to finish the ter which always consists of 120 nights, the balance of 65 nights of instruction having been given during the period embraced between the first Monday in October and the 23d of December, bota inclusive, in the year 1874. The term onded on the evening of Bo 6, with tho closing exercises at Steinway Hall. Th tendance for the first week in Januar bere epee thy the term 752, ani 7 nights rkapsi of the pupils was 20 years, ranging from 14 to years. The rage register number for the first week in January was 1,049; for the last week of the term, 835, and for the whole 65 nigh 809. The tenth term of the school opened on Monday evening, October 4, 1875, with an atgendanco of 1,544 and a register number of 1,737. During the two weeks preceding the examination for admission was con- ducted by the principal and six assistants. About 8,500 applied for admission, ef which 1,737 were foun® abie to pass the required examination. Most of the re- Lance page foand admission to the other evening schoo! EVENING SCHOOLS. The evening schools constitute one of the most essential departments of the common school system, affording, as they do, the means of instructton to all whose age or avocations prevent their attendance av the day schools, These schools are opened on the first Monday in October of each year, and continue their sossions during eighteen weeks, with an intermission between Christmas and New Years. During the torm which ended in February last there was a total babel attendance of 10,343 oat of an aggregate enrolment o! 22,548, of whom 16,709 were er 6,506 females, ope 343 colored persons, principally les. The number of these pupils who were under twelve years of age wad comparatively quite small, amounting to only 952, and the number over twenty-one years of age was 2.870, about eighty per cent of whom were Bat very fow of these pupils were totally illiterate at the time of admission, the number who were unable to read Le | only 782, and who were unable to write,: ¥ Of the whole number of pupils admitted,’ 21204 were foreigners, chiefly Germans, who [oe the schools to receive instruction in the @ Nautical School was opened for the admission of jig on the llth January on board the ship St. *s, at the foot of Twenty-third East River. On the 2d of February the boys on _—70 im pumber—were examined in arithmetic, English gram- mar and geography. Academic studies and a profes course were then arranged, and the boys daily wenton a cruise from July 22 to October 8 in Long Island Sound. The aver- age daily attendance for the year was 97. After avaca- tion from tho 16th of October to the 15th of November the school was reopened, with 85 pupils on board. About the Ist of October next it is ex that about 40 papila will be graduated. The Chamber of Com- merce nas taken steps to secure the assistance of ship owners and masters In obtaining for these boys good Positions on-board of good ships SITES AND SCHOOL BUTLDINGS. During the year ending with the date of this report: sevoral applications boards of trustees for the archase of sites have been considered by this Board. None, however, resu!ted in adding to the number ofsites. purchased in IST4ou ‘Hast Seventy-hfth streot, making in on Kast ty the entire plot 100 feet front the 15th of Decem- ber, 1875, the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund of this city set apart for common school Poot iwerr bored street, lows, being unitedly 100 feet square, on corner of Lexinj a avenue and Sixty-oighth ‘The sites under the control of this ‘not comtain~ ing buildings, are as follows:—One in 1864, on Sixty-first street, about 100 feet west of the Boule~ vard, Dein, 100 feet square; one on East Seventy-fifth street, and one on the corner of Lexington avenue and chased in 1874, ‘on 157th street, between ington and Courtlandt avenues, being 100 feet front by about 195 feet deep, During the past nine he the Board paid $403,700 for sites for buildings. The new buildings, one on First street, between First and Second avenues, and ah enveon between Sixth and Seventh ave- nues, were completed and ready for occupation on the 1st of September last. The former is now occupied by School No.9 and the latter by. Grammat ‘0. 68. The new building on West Fifty fourth street will be” for occupation by September next. The building on Ninth street, between avenues C and D, erected in 1! atacost of $100,000, and known as Grammar School No. 36, was totally destroyed by fire on the Ist day of June, 1875. Contracts were awar for rebuilding in October last; total cost, includin heating aud furniture, will be about $30,000. The building occupied by Grammar School No. 38, on Clarke street, bas been enlarged and remodelled during the past season at a cost of nearly $30,000. The build- ing and premises formerly occupied by Grammar School No. 64, on the Heights, about three-quarters of a mile southwest from Fordham station, have been given over to the Commissioners of the Sinking Fund of this city, and the school, together with Primary School No, 43, have been transferred to the new ‘and commodious building on Thomas avenue, about 400 yards south and west of the railway station, said premises having bee penal of pupils, od furniture, at ap about $15,000. The one story frame build. corner of We: ‘hty-second street ang larged and improved. The building on Courtiandt avenue, Conese: lah and 148th streets, and occupied asa branch of the primary de- partment of Grammar School No. 60, having become unfit for school purposes, is to be removed, and anew structure is to be erected capable of accommodating the entire primary department. Contracts have bees rarded for bikers Ba new building, whieh will prob ably be completed before the closa af LA7é: tatal com will ba about §50,000,