The New York Herald Newspaper, March 4, 1876, Page 4

4 NEW YORK HERALD BROADWAY AND ANN STREET, JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR. THE DAILY HERALD, published every in the year. Four cents per copy. Twelve dollars per year, or one dollar per month, free of postage. All business, news letters or telegray hic despatches must be addressed New York Herarp. Letters and packages should be properly pealed. i Rejected communications will not be re- éurned, PHILADELPHIA OFFICE—NO. 112 SOUTH SIXTH STREET. LONDON OFFICE OF THE NEW YORE HERALD--NO. 46 FLEET STREET. WARIS OFFICE—AVENUE DE L’OPERA, Subscriptions and advertisements will be received and forwarded on the same terms as in New York. VOLUME XI weecccccceses NO. o4 AMUSEMENTS TVS APTERNOON AND EVENING. CHATEAU MABILLE ‘VARIETY, at 5). M. Matinee at BROOKLYN INCLE TOM’S CABIN, at 8. 3. G. C. Howard. TONY PASTOR'S VARIETY, at 5 P. si. UNION Si BOSE MICHEL, at 8? ACADEMY yee. ats PM. M ive Kellogg. BUROPE ON FIFTH AVENUE THEATRE, PIQUE, atSP.M. Matinee at 1:30 P.M, Fanny Daven- port. THIRTY-FOURTH VARIETY, aS). M. Mal BO} SI SLOCUM, at 8 P.M PARISI VARIETY. P.M SAN FRANCISCO MI P.M. GLOBE TH VARIETY, atS8P.M. Matinee ai BOOTHS THEATRE, ULIUS CAHSAR, atS?P.M. Matinee at 1:30 P.M, Mr, awrence Barrett. GERMANIA THEATR DER VEILCHENFRESSER, at 8 P. M. TIVOLI THEATRE. VARIETY, at 8 P. M. « UNCLE TOM'S TWENTY- CALIFORNIA MINS1 WOOD'S M SCHAMYL, at 8P. M. Matinee at THIRD AVE’ VARIETY, at 5 1’. M. 4 WALL BATRE. OMANCE OF A POO MAN, atSP.M. Mati. eatlvOP.M. HJ. M o VARIETY, at 8 P. M UNCLE ANTHONY WITH SUPPLEMEN SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1876, NEW YORK, — = Siriaas From our reports this morning the probabilities gre that the weather to-day will be clear or partly cloudy. Tne Henarp ny Fast Maw, Trarns.— News- dealers and the public throughout the country will be supplied with the Darix, Weexiy and Sunpax Herarp, free of postage, by sending their orders direct to this office. Want Srneer Yesrerpay.—Fancy stocks, with the exception of Western Union, were firm. The market, however, is unsettled and gives evidence of manipulation. Goy- ernment bonds are in good request by in- vestors. Gold advanced to 115, but ended at 114 5-8. Money was supplied at 203 1-2 per cent. Parxcr Bismancr’s Heart is now reported as in a very satisfactory state, and it is pos- sible that the blood and iron policy will be relaxed, at least until he gets worse. Tl health is often full of evil to nations as well as to men. Srven Years ago this day the President took the oath of his great office. How has he kept it? If seven years of his administra- tion have caused American republicanism to bow its head in shame, what degradation might we not expect from twelve? Tue Corron Fravps of the Liverpool brokers, recently reported, are to be investi- gated by the Cotton Brokers’ Association. It seems that frauds, defalcations and in- vestigations are becoming as common on the other side of the Atlantic as they have been on this. Dow Canxos was still in France at the latest accounts. He is a man without a country, and, like the others of his name, he will probably die in exile. Carlism has been un- fortunate for Spain and for the pretenders from whom it derives its name, and it is to be hoped the Spanish people have seen the last of the Carlist wars. Wixstow, tHE Boston Forcren, was formally committed for extradition yesterday and will be sent to this country after the ex- piration of the fifteen days of detention be- fore surrender. The commitment was mado Bpon charges of forgery and the uttering of Yorged paper. The case against the accused Js thus made a very simple one, and it will be left to a Boston jury to determine whether “the Boston forger” is indeed a forger. Misister Ontn is about leaving Austria to return to this country. We presume his purpose in returning is to make his canvass for Governor of Indiana. It is a sign of healthy republicanism when American states- men are willing to give up high positions wbroad for the honor of being Governor of pne ot the States of the Union, and Mr. Orth 1s to be congratulated on the impulse which brings him home. Mr. Mansu.—Some of the “organs” assail Mr. Marsh with characteristic ferocity. No- body can altogether admire that gentleman's career; but he is not, as they seem to as- sume, a mere informer. He was subpoenaed and put under oath, and so the story came out evidently not by his volition. But the organs perhaps believe that a man who had participated in such corruption should not have stopped at perjury. But Marsh clearly thought he must draw the line somewhere, and in this only showed the possession of a conscience. In any just view of the subject it will be conceded that this wretched per- son has at least made to the nation all the reparation that was in his power in further- ing the ends of justice by making a clean breast of it, NEW YORK HERALD, SATURDAY, MARCH 4, 1876.-WITH SUPPLEMENT. . ‘ The Republican Party in Disgrace— Belknap, “The President and All of Us." The infamous and revolting despatch which Secretary Belknap sent to New Or- leans in January, 1875, contained an apt phrase, which is more truly descriptive now than it was on that memorable occasion. Nobody who listened to Mr. Evarts can have forgotten his scathing denunciation of the “all of us” despatch at the great indignation meeting in this city, immediately after the dispersion of the Louisiana Legislature by federal soldiers. The rebuking eloquence of the great lawyer and incensed patriot rose to its highest strain of burning vehemence while he commented on that official proof that ‘all of us” were accomplices in that daring act of military usurpation, and the effect of his speech was so great that within three days Mr. Fish and other respect- able members of the Cabinet denied that they were consulted or had ever given their consent. But the moral obliquity of that disgraceful transaction in which Belknap telegraphed that ‘‘the President and all of us” were implicated did not approach the turpitude of the sordid corruption at which the country now stands aghast. While it may be true that only the President was consulted before sending the ‘‘all of us” despatch, the fact that Belknap and his chief dared to commit the other members of the Cabinet to such an act without their knowl- edge betokened the servile complaisance which emboldened the authors of the telegram to take such a liberty with members of the Cabinet whom they had not consulted. Their subsequent disclaimers did not help them, because the public rightly judged that if they had been men of spirit and indepen- dence Belknap and the President would not so coolly have presumed on their acquies- cence, and the fact that they did not resign after so unwarrantable an insult to their self- respect confirmed the public opinion of their abject servility. Ifthe ‘‘all of us” telegram was not literally true in fact it was substan- tially correct in spirit, the failure of the un- consulted members to resign after such an affront to their independence making them accomplices in spite of their distlaimers. Be that as it may, there can be no reason- able doubt that not only the administration but the whole republican party must share the deeper and more damning disgrace which has now fallen upon Belknap. It is impossible for ‘‘all of us” to shirk it without a denial of that party responsibility which is essential to the success of republican insti- tutions. It is the accepted rule of our poli- tics that the party in power is answerable for the conduct of the men it puts in office—a rule which is never disputed except in some astounding emergency like the present, when the thick-and-thin organs of a dis- graced party try to limit responsibility to the individual offenders. Perhaps we ought not to blame our vigorous and slashing contemporary, the Commercial Advertiser, for being consistent in its réle of a party organ, when it has never professed to be anything else; but an independent journal cannot accept its stress- of-weather view of party responsibility. The Commercial, in its comments on the Belknap infamy, , says :—‘*The Henaxp tells us it will crush the republican party. If Mr. Belknap represented all that made the republican party that party could not survive such a blow as this. But no one man, nor one clique of men does that. The party stands on a foundation that cannot be destroyed even by such acts as Belknap's. His act was isolated—it was his individual weakness, his particular shame.” There would have been as much political sense in attempting to shield the democratic party four years ago from the ruinous con- sequences of the disgrace of Tweed. It was true in point of fact that not one democrat in a hundred thousand had any complicity with the Tweed Ring; but nothing was said by the republican press at that time about ‘isolated acts,” or ‘individual weakness,” or ‘particular shame.” The whole republican press held the dem- ocratic party answerable for Tweed's colossal thefts, and with perfect justice, ac- cording to accepted ideas of party responsi- bility. The democratic party of the United States staggered and reeled under that tre- mendous blow, although the crimes had been perpetrated bya small knot of local politicians in a single city, without the knowledge or complicity of the party at large. ‘The democratic organization was so broken and crippled by the Tweed exposures that it durst not go into the Presidential canvass of the following year on an indepen- dent footing and was forced to the humilia- | tion of taking shelter behind the Cincinnati Convention and accepting Mr. Greeley, its bitterest foe and reviler, as its Presidential candidate. It was in vain that the demo- | cratic organs asseverated and protested that Tweed and his immediate accom- plices were the only guilty parties and remonstrated against the injustice of hold- ing the democrats of every State in the Union responsible for frauds of which they were ignorant until the blasting exposure. It is idle to resort to this line of argument in acountry where government by political par- ties is of the very essence of our institutions, Party responsibility does not mitigate individual guilt, but the public security re- quires that both personal and party obliga- tions be rigidly enforced. If the doctrine were accepted that only individual officers are answerable for their personal crimes we | should lose the chief guarantee of honest | government under republican institutions, It is the nature ot_free institutions, where government is possible only through the agency of political parties, to put the successful party under bonds for the good behavior of all its members whom it elects or appoints to office. Party respon- sibility is similar in its nature to that of the personal bondsmen of public officers; but not pecuniary, but political. In one view it may seem hard that the innocent bondsmen of the official whiskey thieves in the West should suffer for crimes committed without their knowledge, but it isa sufficient answer to say that the public security re- quires it. In a higher degree and a broader sense the public security requires that each political party be held responsible for the conduct of its members in office; and a | party justly forfeits power when the officers | with this difference, that the penalties are | whose character it guaranteed by electing or appointing them disgrace themselves and it by scandalous malversation, It does not answer at all to pretend that their ‘isolated acts” and ‘individual weakness” entail no consequences which reach beyond them- selves. In the present shocking case, which fills the whole country with disgust and indigna- tion, the blame, to be sure, lies primarily upon Secretary Belknap, but it is justly shared by President Grant and by the party which gave political bonds for the purity of President Grant’s administration. It is pre- posterous to whine about the injustice of other people suffering for crimes not their own when it lies in the very nature of free government that a political party stands in the relation of bondsmen for the officers it puts in power, and that the condition of the guarantee is political forfeiture if the officers Is the President a Fool? We read that the President was ‘‘astound- ed” when he heard of the knaveries of Bel- knap—that the whole thing was ‘a surprise” to him, that he had never heard a word against his Cabinet officer, and that his “emotion,” when the discovery became known, was “something terrible.” Now if the President had read the New Yorx Henaxp of February 10, 1876, he would have found a despatch from Washington, column in length, reciting certain facts. He would have there learned that his Secretary of War had farmed cut trading stores and posts. He would have found that the store at Camp Supply, Indian Territory, paid ten thousand dollars a year, that the store at Fort Sill paid six thousand dollars a year (precisely as Belknap confesses), that a store in Kansas pays eighteen hundred dollars a year, while Fort Dodge returns two thou- foil in their duty. It remains for the people of the United States to declare, by the regular method of elections, that the republican party has justly incurred this forfeiture. It will not do to make a scapegoat of Bel- knap nor even of President Grant. The republican party is responsible for both of them and for the multitude of other officers who,have abused their trust and disgraced theircountry. Senator Cameron's indignant criticisms of the President are only half just. It is true enough, as Mr. Cameron alleges, that the President has caught up obscure men of no political standing and foisted them into the highest positions from mere personal favoritism. But how has he been able to do this when the Senate holds a check on all his appointments? The an- swer is easy and it lays bare the core of the present hideous corruption. The republi- can Senators have assumed, as one of their rights, to control the chief federal appoint- ments in their own States—that is, they tell the President whom they want appointed to this or that office, and he complies with their wishes. But he complies on this understood condition: that they are not to vote against the confirmation of his favorites for offices which he wishes to fill himself. The natu- ral fruit of this log-rolling arrangement, by which a part of the offices are farmed out in order that the President may have complete control of others, is the revolting corruption which pervades every department of the public service. Instead of the joint action of the President and Senate which the con- stitution contemplates and caution requires, the rule is kept in form but violated in sub- stance, and the President and each republi- can Senator has a bundle of appointments which he virtually makes according to his own pleasure. It is futile and ridiculous to contend that the whole republican party is not responsible when all its chief members have selfishly contributed to build -up the system which has covered the administration with disgrace. The Vacancy in the Marine Court. It is reported from Albany that Governor Tilden will fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of Judge Spaulding by appointing Mr. Sinnott, one of the defeated Tammany candidates of last fall; and further, that he will appoint this gentleman without sending his name to the Senate, thus taking the ground that the appointment does not re- quire the confirmation of that body. By the act of 1852 it is provided that ‘‘any vacancy occurring in the offices created by this chap- ter shall be filled in the manner prescribed by law for filling vacancies in the offices of the Justices of the Superior Court of the City of New York.” With the learned men it is in dispute what this means; and some hold that it must refer to the mode of appointment to the Superior Court, which is laid down in the constitution—the actual law | on the subject; and others hold that it refers to the mode in existence previously. By the constitution appointments to vacancies in the Superior Court are filled in the same manner as those in the Supreme Court, and in these they are filled until the next elec- tion by the appointment of the Governor, “by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.” But the statute of 1859 directs that “the Governor shall appoint a suitable per- son,” and confirmation is not necessary. In favor of appointment under the statute, pre- sumed by Mr. Tilden to be the law of the case when the filling of vacancies was pro- vided for, itis argued that the Legislature meant to designate a specific mode of ap- pointment then in view, and not a mode that | might be subsequently established for the Superior Court. On the other hand, it may bo urged that the Legislature meant to assimilate the mode of filling vacan- cies in the several courts, and that they should be alike in all, and that each should follow the changes made in the other. If it meant the former it could have designated the method by express words; if it meant the latter it could only | give effect to its will by the words employed. But the Governor has overlooked the fact that tho statute of 1859 cannot apply to the | method of filling vacancies as established in 1852 in any sense in wXich it is not reached by the constitution; for as between the | lapse of seven years and the lapse of sixteen | there is no difference for a point of this na- ture. Indeed, if any subsequent act is valid in sucha case it must be the one that is most remotely subsequent. If the Governor holds that the constitution does not apply, thea it is not to the statute of 1859 that he must recur. If, as he argues, the appoint- ment must be made in accordance with the method in force when the Court was created, then he must recur to what | preceded the statute of 1859—and this he will find in chapter 255, Laws of 1847—where it is provided that “if a vacancy shall occur at any time | in the office of any such justice or judge before his term shall have expired, by death, | resignation, removal or otherwise, then such | vacancy shall be filled for the residue of the | unexpired term at the next general election.” | In other words, there is no appointment by | | the Governor. Mr. Tilden must, therefore, | not appoint if he deems the statute his au- | thority, or he must appoint with the consent | | of the Senate if he acts on the constitution. | jE a . Tue Turret Sworns—The sword which | Grant drew in the war, the sword which he took from the hand of Lee, and that which sand. He would have learned that one of his wife's relations—a real Dent—has a store in New Mexico, while a rela- tive of Babcock controls one at Fort Wallace. He might have gone over the whole field and easily calculated that the trading stores at the various forts paid to some one very near his person at least a hun- dred thousand dollars a year. He would have read the charge there distinctly made that the recipient of this blackmail—black- mail levied upon the poorly paid officers and soldiers of the army—was his own Secretary of War. He would have read in these columns the very facts which Belknap con- fessed. President Grant is not a fool. What was printed to the world in a hundred thousand newspapers was certainly within his reach. If he were an honest President, seeking to do right, he would have inquired at once into these charges. We made them because we knew them to be true, not to annoy the administration, which is far from our intent; not to destroy General Belknap, for whom we had no feeling but kindness, but to ex- pose a crowning shame. We made these charges in the interest of the public. The President in ignoring them failed in his duty. Now let the President—having seen that apart of this news is confirmed by his own Secretary of War—refer to the files of the Heratp and read our further narratives. ‘Let him inquire into the New Mexico stores, and see how much money one of the Dents has made out of the soldiers. Let him ask Bab- cock how much money his relatives make out of Fort Wallace. Then let him send for his own brother and question him about the money that was made in the Sioux country by starving squaws and children. The President will find it all printed in the Heraxp of last July, column after column, in great detail, from a correspondent sent by us into that country to seek out these frauds. 2 The President is certainly not a fool. His friends impeach his sanity when they say gravely that he is ignorant of facts which, as we haye shown to-day, and might con- tinue to show in even greater detail, have all been printed in the Heraxp, Indictment and the State Prison. Impeachment is a process altogether out of the ordinary criminal and merely vulgar range; it implies not simply crimes and misdemeanors, but ‘‘high” crimes and misde- meanors, the large offences that result when great souls find the limits of the law too little for the indulgences of a vigorous vi- tality. In our studies it is associated with the parade of Justice in her grandest pano- ply. One remembers the tremendous ora- tion that drove Verres to immediate flight and left no opportunity for the delivery of the five others. It calls up the story of War- ren Hastings and revives the days when the country was divided over the acts of Andrew Johnson. Tliat is not the kind of process to apply to the sordid creature who deals in a bribery that in its last resort is taken out of the officers and soldiers who guard our fron- tiers—bribery that compels a soldier to pay twenty-five cents for a glass of whiskey which would be dear at five. For this man in- dictment and the State Prison—the ordinary machinery for the punishment of ordinary malefactors—is the only one in character. Impeachment is, moreover, conceived in the political fabric as the means of reaching the offences out of the scope of the ordinary courts. In England it is the only trial of an offender at which he may not plead the royal pardon, and in this country all the impeach- ments have been for acts not punishable by | the statutes ; but Belknap’s delinquency is within reach of the commonest kind of jus- tice. There comesa sort of promise from Washington that the President has deter- mined to mete out this kind of justice to his offending Secretary of War. The Attorney General is to proceed against General Bel- knap in a criminal prosecution and try him in the courts for the yulgar offence of which he was guilty. As Marsh is to be included in this prosecution it is difficult to see from what source the government expects to get its evidence for Belknap’s conviction unless his confession is alone to be relied upon. But President Grant may be in earnest neverthe- less. If he is we are disposed to give him full credit for the act, and we are free to say that Belknap’s conviction and punishment upon a criminal prosecution would go far | to redeem the President's hasty and ill judged acceptance of his Secretary's resigna- tion. Indeed, it is the only thing left open to General Grant whereby he can save his own honor in this unfortunate transaction, Tar Macpovean Wart, which was issued on the 10th of January last, was served on General Schenck yesterday, as will be seen by the special cable despatch to the Hznay this morning, when the Minister was about leaving London on his return to this country. The service was an absurdity, apart from | the question of General Schenck’s guilt innocence of the charges regard- or ing the Emma mine, and we, are sorry | the English courts permitted its issue in dis- regard of the rights of the defendant. Atthe same time we should like to see General Schenck take his trial hke any ordinary man, He forgot he was an ambassador when he commended the Emma mine scheme, and it would be refreshing to find him forgetting may be the most terrible of all, the swortl of Damocles, it again, now that he is asked to undergo a | trial in the English courts. The Acceptance of the Resignation. The President's acceptance of Mr. Bel- knap’s resignation is an act worse than the offence of the Secretary. To screen him from the consequences of this arbitrary interfer- enee between Congress and the guilty official General Grant's friends claim that he was not aware of the extent of the Secretary's offences when he accepted the resignation. But this defence will not do. The President had been informed of the scandals of the War Department, and besides this the very fact that Mr. Belknap resigned was revela- tion enough. President Grant had no ex- cuse under these circumstances for accepting the resignation instantaneously and with “great regret,” but was bound by official dignity and duty to consult with the Cabinet and await the action of Congress. The reasons why we consider the act of the President worse than the offence of the Secretary are these :— First—The President has endeavored offi- cially to protect a criminal who confessed to him his crime. It matters not how far that crime was confessed or how ‘confused and incoherent” was the manner of the offender. The President knew there was guilt. Second—The President has endeavored to prevent Congress from vindicating the honor of the Republic. The disgrace which Mr. Belknap inflicted upon the country required that Congress should instantly purge the government by his impeachment and con- viction. This was necessary to the honor of the country, and this the President has for- bidden. The articles of impeachment adopted by the House, it is feared, will fall like spent bullets. The President has par- doned Mr. Belknap before the Senate could try him. Third—The President crowns by this act of interference along series of acts of pro- tection to officials who were suspected or accused or convicted of crime. The list need not be repeated now, but the final act casts a retroactive shadow over a record already dark and doubtful enough. Fourth—General Grant has by this act placed the Executive in a suspicious atti- tude in the sight of the world. What the world may think of Ulysses S. Grant may not be important, but in the opinion that other nations may hold of the President of the United States the people have cer- tainly an interest. The President disgraces the people when he uses his authority to protect criminals, and puts a veto upon their punishment, The felony of the Secretary of War was bad enough, but the act by which the President removed him from the hands of Congress, and tried to baffle impeachment and prevent the nation from vindicating its honor, constitutes a moral offence which the law may not be able to punish, but which the people, who made the laws, will not for- give. Grant on Removal Under Fire. From the President's declarations it ap- pears that he will not remove a man “while under fire ;” but it also appears that if aman who is under fire wishes to run away the President will help him and endeavor to cover his retreat. So long as allegations are made against an officer of malfeasance or misconduct in office—allegations which seem merely to require that the person im- plicated should get out of office and give place to one who will perform its duties with more regard to the public interests—then the President is solicitous with regard to the side of the case that concerns the man’s honor. He will sustain him, have faith in him and otherwise assist him to answer the allegations from the standpoint of a man in position—which is certainly better than the standpoint of a man dismissed, and, there- fore, under quasi condemnation. There is, in that view of the case, a notion the people appreciates the more, because it not merely gives the man achance to explain from high ground, but puts him under the obligation to do so. i But it appears that the President takes a different view when the case is the other way; for when the charges against a man are of such a nature that his vacation of office is not a satisfaction to justice, but an escape from it ; when the charges require an examination while the man is in office, and his dismissal from office and exclusion from all other oflices are seen to be the principal penalties that the law can impose ; when his abandonment of office enables him to slip through the fingers of the law—then the President, who would sustain a man in office against accusations, does not require his man to remain in office and face accusa- tions. On the contrary, he not only permits his man to run, but takes time by the fore- lock to give him an early start, and becomes the accomplice of his flight. From both points of view, therefore, it ap- pears that the President takes a far livelier interest in the fortunes and welfare of his men in office than in the efficient administra- tion of the public service. If the public in- terest requires that a rogue shall be removed from office the President keeps him there, under cover of an epigram that seems to in- yolve a principle ; and when this principle itself is depended upon in another case to | hold a man where justice can get at him, | behold, the principle has evaporated, the man is gone and the President is assisting his escape. But the President is a man who “stands by his friends”—and what friends! A Remarxasiz Travevter is Mr. Caleb Marsh, who, in the expressive language of other day. His manner of going to Montreal is not unlike his intended trip abroad; but then he was going because he did not wish to expose the Secretary of War, and now it seems he has gone because of his own ex- | posures. Gexenat Surrman would make an excellent ad interim Secretary of War. His thorough knowledge of the department and the affairs of the army; his practical habits, and the uncompromising spirit in which he would overhaul jobbery, all designate him as the man for the piace at the present moment. | Why did not President Grant name General , Sherman instead of Mr. Robeson, who, if | rumor speaks true, will have quite enough | to do to straighten out matters in his own | department? If there are other and greater | abuses than this sutlership scandal in the War Department, Sherman is the man to deal with them vigoronelw and promotly. Detective Tilley, ‘turned up Belknap” the | Standing from Under. At the time when General Shermar changed his base from Washington to St Louis, though the public did not see nos comprehend very clearly the reasons for it, it was comnionly conceded that there was. some sound strategy in the case, which would appear sooner or later, Now we set it. Belknap was put into the War Depart ment between Sherman and Grant. It is said that Sherman recommended him ; and if he did it is at all events true that up to that time Belknap was only known as a good soldier and as a man believed to be capable and upright. But the meaning of the ap- pointment was that the War Department should be in the hands of a dummy, and that Grant and Sherman, while they could agree, should run the department to suit themselves. But they could not agree for- ever, and in this case disagreed early ; so that Grant and Belknap had the thing all to themselves and Sherman necessarily saw how they proceeded. Having a head a little longer than Grant's he could see further than the day after to-morrow, and saw what must come, This induced the reflection that, as he was associated in the accession of Belknap, it might be unpleasant to be picked up in that neighborhood after the mine had exploded. He had gained great fame by his march to the sea, and here was a fine chance for a march to the Mississippi, and he moved immediately, in the most level- headed manner. Wuen Avery offered his resignation to the Secretary of the Treasury it was refused, and he was suspended, tried and convicted. Yet with Mr. Bristow's example before him the President has endeavored to save a confessed criminal from trial and punishment by Con- gress. Prose Derr.—We like the resolution fos . the investigation of the improvements of the District of Columbia. There have been more assertions in reference to the manner in which the improvements of the District of Columbia were made than of any other act of the administration. If true, not only should Governor Shepherd be pun- ished by imprisonment, but the severest censure should fall upon all in power who have either shared in his rascality ox countenanced him in its enjoyment. But let the whole business be investigated. This coming campaign for the Presidency prom- ises to be rich in scandals and slanders. The sooner we know what are really sins and what are mere averments meant to hurt or aid a party the better for the canvass and the better for the public sense, now deadened by this Niagara of scandal which has poured over the country for the past few years. Let the whole District of Columbia business be probed and probed deep. ‘ Tuar roe Cenrenntat Year of the Re- public should be attended by a national disgrace is too truly a misfortune. But it is also the year of a Presidential election, and it is well that the people should know their danger. Let us have the bottom facts, that wo may vote in light and not in darkness. PERSONAL INTELLIGENCE, What a drop was there, my countrymen! Olive Logan says that Miss Kellogy’s mouth is a rose and pear! music box. It is believed that Belknap never said dam” with. out putting a dash in front of it. Senator William Sharon, of Nevada, arrived in the city yesterday from Washington and is at the Sturte vant House. Fora man who had been dividing plunder with a Secretary of War, Mr. Caleb Marsh becomes a phenome- non of very sudden conscientiousness. The Erie Despatch, writing in this age of corruption, makes the pastoral remark that “thus far apples are safe."” The Despatch is an innocent paper. Dr. Bellows thinks that freedom of thought and re- ligion will gradually make Americans a handsomer race. This is what makes Barney Aaron beautiful, In a country town Belknap was a man of very sys- tematic habits on the right side. In Washington he ‘was a man of systematic habits on the wrong side. ‘The papers cannot agree concerning Belknap’s birth- place. Although 1t was Hudson, N. Y., it would have been better that he had never have been born at all. In California the spring is far advanced, so that @ forty-niner can He down in a fleld, kick bis hoofs in the air and roll over two acres and a halt every time, A bear the other day at Cleveland, Ohio, swam ashore on a cake of ice. This makes a fellow feel as if he had thirteen columns of Sylvanus Cobb, Jr., poured down his back. The final volumes of ‘Lord Palmerston’s Life,” now in press, will contain many interesting details relating to the coup d'état of Louis Napoleon and the political history of that time. Owing to the peculiarity of the season the bads throughout the country are greatly damaged by trost; so that Sam Bowles won't be able to string many peach-pits together this year, When Belknap lived in Iowa he was satisfied and honest, His rollicking, swaggering good nature, adapted to the prairies, bocame swollen pompeosity when General Grant took him ont of his natural sphero, The new High Chureh daily paper just started in London 18 called the Express, and $250,000—a very small sum for such an enterprise—has been subscribed to set it on foot. The paper will make a specialty of church news Out in the Black Hills gold region, when you buy a bow! of bean soup, you take off your coat, dive for a bean, and when you come up with it the proprietor of the saloon takes it away from you and say's you only paid for soup. Ascientific authority says that a properly qualified old ram never butts without first backing. This ig true; and trom the way the democratic Congress hag been going back, it probably will soon butt the ganle ena off of something. The Atheneum gives unstinted praise to M. C. K, Paul’s “Life of Wiltiam Godwin,” just out in Londog in two volumes, It says Mr. Paul’s volumes are more interesting than almost any novel, and he shines ag the accomplished literary crattsman. The Detroit Post (rep.) is quite exercised because New York, the most powerful State in tho Union, ig not represented on the Congressional committee of thirteen appointed to drafta financial bill. Tho Post says “this is a direct slap in the face of the New York democrats.” Dr. Gibson, of Corinth, Miss., has a claim against the government for $1,906 for “property taken for the use of the federal army during tho war, including a groat number of obstetrical instruments.” We hopo Dr; Gibson will be modest enough not to lug astronomy invo the case. A magnificent cameo, supposed to be the portrait of Octavia, the second wite of Mark Antony, and the sister of Augustus, bas been brought to the notice of the Paris Académie des Inscriptions. The stone is a sardonyx, with a milky surface, the interior being of a reddish black, and the workmanship of the cameo is exquisitely delicate. The face ts evidentiy a portrait, and the head resembles that of the Venus of Milo. The Charlotte (N. C.) Observer tells the following:— “A darky in that place approached a citizen the other day and asked if it would be a very great sacrifice on his part to accept an office, ‘Fur,’ continued the darky, ‘we niggers wants somebody for Mayor whatill let de cows run loose, what'll let de barrooms stay open on Sunday, and what'll lot de gamblers raise hell every night ifdey Wants to, and you is jast de man dat we wants.’ Our friend uncovered himself and bowed hig «rateful acknowledgment of the comonlimast 17