The New York Herald Newspaper, December 20, 1876, Page 6

6 NEW YORK HERALD BROADWAY AND ANN STREET. JAMES GORDON BENNETT, PROPRIETOR aesbhatemsedina nation THE DAILY HERALD, published every day in the year. Three cents per copy (Sun- day excluded). ‘Ten dollars per year, or at rate of one dollar per month for any period Jess than six months, or five dollars for six | months, Sunday edition included, free of ‘tage. All business, news letters or telegraphic i | despatches must be addressed New York Herarp. Letters and packages should be properly Bealed. Kejected communications will not be re- turned. PHILADELPHIA OFFICE—NO.112 SOUTH SIXTH STREET. LONDON OFFICE OF THE NEW YORK HERALD-—NO. 46 FLEET STREET. PARIS OFFICE--AVENUE DE L'OPERA. NAPLES OFFICE—NO. 7 STRADA PACE. Subscriptions and advertisements will be received and forwarded on the same terms as in New York. PARK THEATRE. LITTLE ee asp. M, . 5 oF TIRATRR, MIK8 NULTOA. AQUARIUM. Dpen daily. THEATRE. BOW CROSS THE CONT yron. , at 5 P.M. Oliver Doud | L RICHELIEU, at 8 GERMANIA DER HERR PRAE: TONY, VARILTY, at 8 P.M. TIVOLL THEATRE, VARIETY, at 8 P. M. EAG VARIETY, at8P.M. } SAN FRANCISCO MINSTRELS, atsP. M. KELLY & LEON'S MINSTRELS, ater. M. HELL PRESTIDIGITATEUR, THEATRE, FIFTH AY TUE AMERICAN, at 8 f WALLACK THE SHAUGHRAUN, at 5 COLUMBIA oO” VARIETY, at 8 P.M. THEATRE COMIQUE. VARTETY, at SP. M. Matinee at 2 P, M. ERION THEATRE. wH EATRE, A HOUSE ert VARIETY, at 8 P.M. niaeet PALACE, ETO THE EARTH, SH E E -- rovick 70 NENSOEALBRS AND THE PUBLIC, Owing to the action of a portion of the carriers, newsmen and nows companies, who are determined that the public shali not have the Heratp at three cents per copy if they can prevent it, we have made arrangements to place the HeRALD in the hands of all our readers at the reduced price. Newsboys and dcalers can purchase any quantity they may desire at No, 1,265 Broadway and No. 2 Ann street, and also from our wagons on the principal avenues. All dealers who have been threatened by the news com- panies are requested to send in their orders direct to us, at No. 2 Ann street. From our reporis this morning the probabili- ties are that the weather to-day will be cold and partly cloudy or clear, Watt Srreer Yzsrerpay.—Transactions in stocks were fairly distributed and lower prices were established at the close, espe- cially for shares that have recently been prominent. Gold opened at 1073-4 and closed at 107 1-2. Money on call loans was supplied at 5and7 percent and finally at 5 percent. Government and railway bonds were steady. We Punusn an InrerestinG letter on Florida affairs from the pen of Mr. Manton Marble, late of the World. Tae Evivence Grven in the Emma mine ease yesterday shows how the uncertain walks of life are not all above ground. Ir rae Postat Section of the early train from Jersey City were made up by mules, or even by snails, fifty minutes would seem rather a long time to consume in the opera- tion, yet the postal cars for the 4:20 A. M. ‘train on the Pennsylvania Railroad were hauled out at 3:30 yesterday morning, while the Adams Express Company's car was in receiving condition up to the moment of starting. This may bea new form of rail- woy enterprise, but it is not such as is gen- erally encountered on Colonel Scott's roads, and until more is known about it the public willnaturally suspect that bad feeling of private carriers is at the bottom of it. For Bravtirvt manifestations of confi- dence nothing can exceed the opinions which certain of the Brooklyn Bridge Com- pany's trustees gave to our reporter yester- day in relation to the management of the company’s affairs. No one, how- ever, complies with the public de- mand for an explanation of the statements of Mr. Hill, which have appeared in the Henatp for several days past. Mr. Hill's figures are indorsed by high scientific authority, and if no reply is voluntarily made to them the courts should be asked for an injunction to prevent the expenditure of the people's money until there is more satisfactory knowledge about what the money is to pay for. Nornina or [nrereEst occurred at the meet- ing ot the special committee of the House of Representatives held here yesterday to investigate the alleged frauds in New York and other places, no witnesses being in attendance, A resolution offered that a subpeena be issued to tho President of the Western Union Teiegraph Company was not entertained by the Chair, on the ground that it exceeded the power intrusted to the com- mittee by Congress. An amendment, de- signed to meet this objection, was presented and adopted. It will be seen by the report that the substitute will be reconsidered | time. to-morrow and that subpenaes will be issued to witnesses in New York, Jersey Oity and Brooklyn, Demagogism and Reaction. Excess always begets reaction. This isa universal law, which governs the course of history equally with the movement of a pendulum. @ regulates the fashions of gov- ernment as rigorously as it rules the fashions of garments, The dainty little hat, perched on the crown of the head like a trophy from a toy house, gives way to a broad brimmed, overshadowing Gainsborough. The wide- spreading crinoline is replaced by close clinging skirts. Eras of plain dressing alternate with eras of flounces and fur- belows. The long cut corsets, the stiff brocades, the heavy costumes of Marie Antoinette are succeeded by the baby waists, the plain lawns and the classical drapery of the women of the Republic and the Consulate. Laxity of administration leads up to severity, free thinking to bigotry and demagogism to tyranny. In any era of excess it becomes men so- licitous for the liberties of their country to beware of the form which the reaction will take on, Most of all is this true when o people rebels against a government of dema- gogues and upsets it. The energies of the moderates are exhausted in the struggle for emancipation, and the nation submits to despotism for the sake of stability. It is easy to choose a hundred illustrations of this truth from history, but none are more complete than the two familiar examples of Rome and France. When Cassius, Brutus and Casca murdered Julius Cwsar they un- consciously founded the Empire and invested Octavius with the purple. The Roman Republic did not perish at Philippi, but in the bloody Senate chamber on the 15th of March, two years and o half before. The assassination was a triumph of demagogism, which was doomed to an inevitable recoil. When Danton and Marut and Robespierre set up the guiliotine on the bank of tho Seine and put it to its bloody work they also unconsciously founded the Empire and crowned Napoleon. The French Republic did not perish on the day when Bonaparte returned fron? Egypt and abolished the Directory, but five years earlier, on the 27th of May, 1794, when Marat’s Committee of Public Safety usurped the executive power. It is also noticeable that the tyranny which succeeds un epoch of demagogism invariably is a period of such national splen- dor that the people are contented for the Augustus found Rome brick and left it marble. He enforced peace at home and waged successful war upon the borders. He organized the system of military colonies, He regulated taxation and revived com- merce, The Empire of Napoleon united the glories of regal France—the vivacity of the reign of Francis, the statesmanship of the administration of Sully, the successful | subtlety of Richelieu and the grandeur of the greatest Louis—with the fervor that in- spired all that was best in the Revolution. His magnificent conceptions and achieve- j ments reconciled his country to absolutism by their contrast with the vague purposes and uncertain administration.of the dema- gogues who paved his way to power. The revolutionary period in our own country, which began just sixteen years ago, on the 20th of December, 1860, when the South Carolina Convention voted a secession ordinance without a dissenting voice, has at last brought the executive government of the United States under the control of dem- agogues more incapable and unscrupulous than those who provoked the creation of the French and Roman empires. Oassius and Brutus and Casca, Danton and Marat and Robespierre, have their American counter- parts in Cameron and Chandler and Logan. President Grant is their willing or unresist- ing tool. They manage him as they please, by exasperating his prejudices and flatter- ing his ambition. The indomitable will, the unswerving patriotism on which the people counted in Grant, have failed. The hero of 1865 is the puppet of 1876. A tri- umvirate of demagogues reigns in his place. To what disastrous ends, by what dangerous courses they will drive him is their own secret. We have no fear of their permanent success, but we confess to serious fear of the reaction which is as sure to follow their proceedings as it is certain that the universe is regulated by law and not by caprice. They are responsi- ble for the prevalence of public anxiety ; for it is they who are withholding the Presi- dent from the noblest duty of his public career ; it is they who are restraining him from commanding a union of moderate men against the desperate radicals of both parties in the electoral controversy, and it is they who are responsible for the growth of a sen- timent among men of business throughout the whole country in favor of any plan, right or wrong, if it will only give speedy stability to mercantile enterprises and calculations. Now it will be a great shock to our liber- ties anda great discredit to our frame of government if during the interval of nearly two months which precedes the counting of the electoral votes the conscience of this country cannot be satisfied which is the truly elected President—Hayes or Tilden. In- tense partisanship, especially when it is the partisanship of demagogues like those who control President Grant, always infringes popular rights. We condemn it alike in democrats and republicans. Its existence onone side foments it on the other side. We do not believe that s man of Mr. Morri- son's character and antecedents ever would have proposed so despotical a measure as the sacking of all the telegraph stations in the country in an indefinite quest of evidence against the republican case | in Louisiana, if the republicans themselves always had been careful to keop within iegal bounds. When President Grant, under the malign counsels of the triumvirate to whom he gives his ear, sent no observers to the doubtful Southern States but republicans, when he permitted the interference of the army with the local government of South Carolina, and when he avowed himself the chief of aparty in his relations to the great political controversy, he set the example of despotic practices whose precise result no one is wise enough yet to foresee. The his- tory of other nations in other ages teaches, as we have shown, that always heretofore a period of such confusion as this, if it is un- duly prolonged, ends in a splendid tyranny, welcomed by the people as a relief. ‘The way out of this unfortunate condition is not by any overreaching, sharp practice or ee. ee a eee ee ee a NEW YORK HERALD, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1870.--TRIPLE SHEET. | | feats of of legal ingenuity ; not by any novelty of plan in counting the votes or astute devices for parrying an adverse result, but by an exhibition of manliness and probity on the part of leading men, There are already some signs of a better tone of feel- ing, and every considerate man, both in and out of Congress, should encourage and foster it. Every display of candor and modera- tion on either side should be recognized and responded to by the other in a similar spirit. Men of honor and sincer- ity who mean well to thé Republic as easily recognize each other as people of both sexes in what is called society discriminate between genuine good breeding and var- nished vulgarity. There is a natural sym- pathy, in spite of political differences, be- tween able lawyers like Senator Edmunds abd Senator Sherman; between men of chivalric bearing like Senator Conkling and Senator Bayard ; between menof singular candor like Senators Anthony sand Kernan ; between frank soldiers like Senators Burn- side and Gordon. The best men on both sides, who have learned to respect each other socially and morally, who have confi- dence in each others’ integrity and _patriot- ism, may accomplish-great good in this con- juncture without at all impairing their party standing. By their united efforts they can fill Congress with a moral atmosphere favor- able to an honest decision of the pending questions, If in the debates which will arise on the method of counting the votes the ablest and most conservative members on both sides will exhibit a spirit of mutual deference and consideration, and cultivate acalm judicial tone, the two houses will be brought into such a temper while agree- ing upon the rules that it will be easy to carry them further in the same direction and secure an honest application of rules fair in themselves. Our Revolution and Other Revolu- tions, There was a comical notion started at one time by that rather heavy joker, Senator Morton, to the effect that this country was so essentially unlike all other countries that no lessons profitable in its administration could be drawn from the history of other nations. This he said when they discussed finance, and in face ot the facts that finance isa plainly inductive if not an absolutely exact science, substantially the same for all ages of time and all races of men. Politi- cians of that stamp will also deny the validity of every lesson drawn from his- tory; but the fact is, nevertheless, indis- putable, that similar crises of national history, dealt with in the same way, produce the same, results, whether the people are Italians or Hindoos. There was at one moment ten years ago a pleasant prospect that we had donein our case what no people had ever done before; that we were so far grandly exceptional. It ap- peared that we had in five years gone through a terrible civil war and realized a happy peace without danger to liberty. Then we rejoiced naturally; but that ap- pearance of peace was delusive. In the same way people in France rejoiced in 1791 that their revolution was over and that two years only of discord had sufficed to recon- struct the whole machinery of public life ; but the Reign of Terror was still.in fhe future, and the 13th Fructidor and the 18th Brumaire and the slaughters and tyranny of the Empire. They had re- joiced over the end of the first stage as if it were the end of all; and we did the same. Through what stages of revolutionary fury may the future also lead us! This is the problem for the people and for their trusted leaders in high places. If these leaders err in judgment or fail in courage, as did the conservative politicians in France, our case will not be widely differ- ent in results. In France all went well while the moderate men kept the front; all went to ruin when they yielded the control to those extreme partisans who classed. men of opposite views with themselves as fit only for the guillotine. In the feeble abandon- ment of their great battle against the Jacobins the Girondists not only prepared the way for their own execution but sacri- ficed the only chance that remained to save the country. Let the calmer and stronger men of the republican party remember these lessons of the past. If such men as Conk- ling, Sherman, Edmunds, Frelinghuysen, Dawes, Anthony and Burnside permit the policy of the republican party to be con- trolled by the Chandlers, Camerons, Logans and Chamberlains, the result cannot be dif- ferent with us from what it was when France was given up to Marat, Danton and Robes- pierre. Abolish West Point. We hope to see among the appropriations by the present Congress a decent provision tor the West Point Academy. It is discred- itable to the country that an institution to which it owes so much should be permitted to degenerate for want of funds. The ef- ficiency of West Point has been proved be- yond a doubt. Nearly every general of dis- tinction who served in the late war was a graduate of this school. The ability of the West Point officers stood out in marked con- trast to that of the merely civil or political generals. The foster mother of sons who have done the nation such service as Grant, Sherman, Dix, Sheridan, Meade, Hancock and a host of others should be dealt with generously; not starved down to the strict measure of a miscalled economy. If prop- erly maintained West Point will be as valu- able to the country in future as it has proved in the past. If it cannot be properly maintained it had better be closed up at once. Either let Congress promptly abolish the West Point and Annapolis academies or let them be decently provided for. Better to have them sold for sheep stalls than to see them drag out a pinched existence, dis- creditable to the country and disgraceful to the government. Tue Wax of rapid transit does not run smooth. We publish this morning the state- ment that the appeal taken from Justice Daly’s decision adverse to the road has been dismissed by the Court of Appeals. The effect of this is, on the authority of General Pryor, to continue the injunction granted by the Court of Common Pleas, and, what is worse for the friends of rapid transit, renders @ second appeal impossible, The Political Situation. Within the last few days a perceptible progress has been made toward that candid temper of mind through which alone it is possible to reach a satisfactory solution of the present complication. We believe that more depends’ on the tone and spirit in which the questions are approached than upon sagacity and acumen in the discussion. It requires no extraordinary talent to deal with such subjects as are now in. dispute. To canvass and _ count the votes given in an election is a simple operation, successfully performed every year in every State by men of the most ordi- nary faculties. Election laws are never complex, They are always framed to be administered not by lawyers and jurists but by such plain citizens of moderate education as are chosen inspectors in average election precincts. All that is needed for ascertain- ing who has been elected President is honesty and fairness in those ap- pointed to make the investigation. If the returns from any State are incorrect it is not because its election officers and can- vassing board were incompetent, but be- cause they were dishonest, A fair-minded committee, seeking only for truth and re- solved to accept the undistorted truth, no matter which party it may help or harm, can ascertain by diligent inquiry who really had the majority in any disputed State. But the investigation must not be con- ducted for the purpose of finding evidence to support a foregone conclusion, for in that case it will be so warpea and colored by the bias of the committees as to be of no value, We rejoice in the improved public temper which is the hopeful feature of the changing situation. We have had enough of confident assertions, The positive and absolute as- sumptions that Mr. Tilden is elected and that Mr. Hayes is elected, put forth with such an air of dogged assurance by their re- spective partisans, prove nothing, and tend to beget a stubborn tenacity which will make it difficult for the defeated party to yield, however clearly the facts may be against it. It is folly for either party by a provoking rivalry in boasting to push its opponents into such a position that they cannot accept the result with a good grace when bluff assertions are upset by evidence, Each party desires the frank submission of the other when the final result is reached, and the more confident each is of success the more careful it should be not to set the other an example of swaggering obstinacy and unyielding persistence. The first step toward an honest and peaceful result is an acknowledgment by both parties that they may possibly be mistaken, and a willingness to hold their judgment in suspense during the progress of the investigations. On the mere face of the certificates the republican party has succeeded, but if some of these certificates can be proved to show a false result no honorable re- publican Senator or Representative will maintain that they must nevertheless becounted. They are not to be rejected on mere suspicion or unsupported charges ; but if it shall be proved to the satisfaction of impartial men that some of the certificates are fraudulent no honest man will ask that they be received. The new facts which have been disclosed relating to the canvass in Florida and Louisiana create well founded doubts as to whether the republicans carried either of those States. These doubts do not justify anybody in jumping to the conclusion that Florida or Louisiana belongs to Tilden. The most that the present state of the evidence requires is that the republicans abate the dogmatic positiveness of their claims, admit the ne- cessity of an exhaustive re-examination, and express a willingness to accept any result which a final survey of the facts may war- rant. If the republicans will assume this reasonable attitude and the democrats will refrain during the investigation from mak- ing any claims or statements broader than the facts, we may expect a result which the public judgment and conscience will indorse. Milk and Law. There aro several points of public inter- est, scientific doubt and legal lunacy in the case of the Board of Health against the ven- ders of adulterated milk. In the first place, the pretence to punish tradesmen for dis- honest practice is an admission of the fail- ure of one of the great theories on which our system rests. It was the faith of the fathers that the world was governed too much. They believed that the minor evils with which the police supervision is mainly concerned in old countries would correct themselves if left olone; that, for instance, if a denler sold impure articles he would lose his custom through the com- petition of another dealer who sold pure ones ; that the protection of the authorities was therefore unnecessary, and that its ex- istence gave government a pretext for all sorts of supervision and regulation and “paternal” care, which was commonly used for tyrannical purposes. They therefore made a clean slate as to those laws and left the people to fight it out for themselves, “Corners” in grain and kindred fantastic fancies of dealers were all punishable under the old laws against ‘‘forestalling.” But the practice of going around the corner to buy in a pure state that which is adulterated by the dealer over the way does not prove an efficient remedy ; for both cheat, and thus we are driven to the system of paternal gov- ernment. But at least we should apply it intelli- gently and with a distinct perception of what we wish to secure, for otherwise the remedy is only an additional evil. It does not assist us and does increase the taxes. At present the endeavor of the Board of Health is to establish by judicial decision the principle that it is a punishable offence to sell a lacteal fluid not of a certain defined specific gravity. Now, our opinion is that the dealers will supply it of any specific gravity you want; and if you make it a crime to sell the article with too large a pro- portion of water to solid contents then they will add to the solid con- tents without making many wry faces, On the contrary they will laugh—laugh [ssi perhaps—at the imbecility with which the law is administered in a great city ; for all this will haveno relation what- ever to the purity of the milk. It will be no purer when it affects the lactometer as de- manded than when it does not; it will merely have in it chalk or sheep’s brains or similar “thickening.” In fact, we believe the Board of Health is laboring to secure the commission of an additional crime. It is bad enough to have the milk watered, but the effects of water we know. It makes the milk dearer practically, but it does no bodily harm. It will be quite otherwise when the milk is “thickened”. with we know not what disgusting substantes to bring it up to the test of the lactometer. Second Sight emd Other Sight. Fortunately for Heller the time has gone by when it was popular to broil people who did things that nobody could understand or account for on the few rational principles that everybody is acquainted with. Had he exhibited to the pious forefathers of the Republic in the Down East districts such an entertainment as that with which he puzzles our metropolitan public he would infallibly 4 have followed the good Mrs, Arabella John- son, who ‘took New England on her way to heaven ;” but instead of passing away as she did, in the odor of sanctity, he would mani- festly have gone out in a strong smell of roast meat. ‘Those grim wretches did not permit any man to unsettle their faith in the limits of human dexterity except at the highest possible expense to himself, and they did not believe that one person’s mind could act upon facts appar- ent only to the senses of another person, or that the chasm between the two minds could be bridged over in any other way than by speech or visible signs. This generation is more credulous. Indeed, its faith is so large that it has almost lost the capacity to be surprised. It accepts as commonplace and trivial demonstrations of dexterity su- perior to those upon which in some former ages great impostors founded a dominion over half the human race. Even now the Slades and Humes are prophets to millions of men as Spiritualists on the ground of manifestations that are clumsy and vulgar compared with what Heller does; but Heller is not classed with the prophets, be- cause he declares in downright plainness that it is all trickery. If the ideas that are passed from mind in his séances are com- municated on the principles of the use of words or signals in an arbitrary code sense the skill exhibited is at least very great. But are they? Is there not a secret of which perhaps Heller himself is unaware? Is it not possible that minds intimately associated and of the same constitution and cultivating the same ideas may communi- cate with one another by some insensible means that physical science does not yet appreciate? Is there not an intellectual operation analogous to the scheme of the ‘telegraph without wire?” There are some facts which seem to make this probable. Mi Ln Tr Pe A Subject Not To Be Forgotten. It will be unfortunate if the recent tum- bling down among the savings banks is suf- fered to pass out of the public mind until some better protection than they now en- joy has been securéd to the depositors in such institutions. People are naturally for- getful. Occasionally we are startled by the occurrence of some terrible calamity which ordinary prudence might have prevented, or at least rendered less appalling, and for a time we do nothing but talk about the necessities of guarding against similar dis- asters in the future. But before many days or weeks pass away the busy events and cares of everyday life crowd these thoughts out of our minds, and we go on with as much recklessness of danger as before. We might fear that even the ghastly tragedy of the Brooklyn fire would fail to insure the public sufficient protection against its repe- tition in other places of amusement if the authorities did not seem to be aroused to the necessity of action and re- solved to compel strict compliance with the law, and if the managers and proprietors of our theatres did not evince such a sincere desire to second the efforts of the authori- ties. Savings bank failures are public calamities. They sweep away in an instant the savings of years of toil. They bring ruin and desolation to thousands of homes. They shake the faith of the poorer classesin the prudence of pinching and stinting themselves while they have health, strength and employment for the sake of shielding their families from actual want in case of sickness or enforced idleness, When such failures are the result of lawless and dis- honest management the victims naturally become embittered against capital and feel a contempt for the law which would punish the starving man who steals a loat of bread, but is powerless to reach tfie rogues who have robbed them pf their hard-earned money. Our present savings bank laws require a searching and thorough revision. The re- ceiver of the Third Avenue Bank, in a letter to depositors, published elsewhere, summa- rizes the rascalities which occasioned the collapse of that institution in a striking manner. We read that they embraced ‘‘rob- beries by clerks,” about $120,000 ; ‘loss by raised checks,” $23,000; ‘United States bonds unaccounted for,” $20,000 ; ‘collected and unaccounted for on Lee’s bond,” $6,000 (Lee, the néphew of William A. Darling, having robbed the bank while filling the office of cashier) ; ‘‘loss on settlement with Jocelyn & Co. in Atlantic Mail matter,” $260,000—the “Oo.” being Spencer K. Green and other of the bank officials. It is startling to think that such crimes as are here enumerated can have been committed and the crim- inals have escaped all punishment. What must be the condition of the laws, what the character of the Bank Superintendent and the public prosecutor, when such a state of affuirs is possible? Itisto be hoped that this statement will revive the recollection of the widespread suffering resulting from these savings bank failures, and will point the necessity of a revision of the laws and a reform in the manner of their administration. A severe storm prevailed yesterday morn- ing in Nova Scotia and over the mouth of the St. Lawrence. It was due chiefly to the merging of the several areas of low pressure which passed over the United Stat:s during the past two or three days, and which pressure of: 29 inches. The gale at Halifax attained a velocity at eight o'clock A. M. of fifty miles an hour and was the most violent recorded at that time for the whole circumference of the storm area. At Plaister Cove, while the wind blew at the rate of thirty-six miles an hour, the temperature rose to 40) degrees above zero, oF 10 degrees higher than at New Orleans and 16 degrees higher than at Mobile, Ala. By comparison, therefore, the morning tem- perature along the Gulf coast was exceed- ingly low, that region experiencing a regular Northern winter degree of cold. In the Northwest 26 degrees below zero was recorded at Fort Garry and 25 below at Pembina, while the isotherm of zero curved from Yankton, Dakota, northeastward to Es- canaba and northward through the centre oi Lake Superior. Between this line and the Gulf the temperature was many degrees below freezing, thus presenting another phenomenal area of cold in the United States. As the day advanced the tem- perature rose southward of the lakes, and the isotherm of freezing moved northward of Louisville and Leavenworth, Kan., with a southeasterly trend toward the Atlantic coast from the first named point. Another ice gorge is formed at Cincinnati, resulting from a rise in temperature along the Upper Ohio, The highest pressure is now in the upper lake region, with another high area in the Lower Mississippi Valley; a depres- sion is evidently approaching from the Northwest. Rain prevailed last evening in the eastern part of the lower lake region and off the Nova Scotia coast. The westher in New York to-day will be cold and partly cloudy or clear. Merry Christmas. Of all the red letter days in the year Christmas is the rosiest, and comes to us in the snow, smiling like a child’s face peep- ing out of warm furs. What should it be if not merry? Other holidays have theiz especial merits, but Christmas excels them all in richness and variety. It is the oldest of all our great festivals, and the holiest and happiest associations cluster around it. It is covered with the ivy of nearly two thousand years, and with its solemn antiquity are blended the memo- ries of childhood. Forever old, and yet for- ever young, Christmas rules the year with the double sceptre of sweet religion and in- nocent joy. ~Its picturesqueness is charm- ing, for it comes in the winter like a rose which blossoms in the snow. It is the child of the North and the nurs. ling of winter. Who can imagine Christmas in the South? And in Australia, where it is celebrated in the season of flowers, it must be more like May day than its own dear self, The pleasures of summer holidays are sought abroad, but those of Christmas are found at home. Its flowers bloom by the fireside ; its tree is the ever green pine ; its fruits are like those enchanted gema which Aladdin plucked in the magician’s cave. The winds may race over the snow like wolves on an Arctic desert, the rivera be frozen and the skies dark with clouds, but the cold without only increases the warmth within. This contrast is essential to Christmas, and the sterner the reign of winter the more beautiful isthe summer of the heart, the softer and sweeter the happi- ness of home. Christmas does not come alone, but with a train of attending days. It looks before and after. First, there are the pleasures of anticipation, cheerful preparations, deep plots for agreeable surprises and profound consultations of the domestic cabinet, Then comes Christmas itself, when all these hopes are fulfilled, these affectionate schemes disclosed, these wonders revealed, Then we cut from the bond given by the year all the pretty coupons of love and friendship. But Christmas does not end with the day. As it was preceded by the pleasures of hope, so it is followed by the delights of content. Merry Christmas blends with Happy New Year, as when the rising moon and the setting sun interweave their beams into one delicious light. PERSONAL INTELLIGENCE Albert Grant will not practise law, Gladstone will unveil Byron A bully never argues like All men are greater than they do. Swimming baths are popular in London. A hen’s cackle (s usually a “lay sermon.” Washington ladies like to take long walks, Salmon travel up stroam about fifteen miles a day. Electricity, passing along telegraph wires, kills birds. Tho new Sultan has discharged hundreds ot eunuchs. Sam Bard has determined to settle in Pensacola, Fla. The Boston school girl is handsome and will not flirt, The silk industry of England is gradually declining, Warm oaths should be taken just before going to bed. The mule, like a good many theologians, argues back- ward. China and France produce the groatest number of fans, Burdette’s lecture is callod ‘‘Auwkeye, hear an angel sing.” Secretary Gorham, of the Senate, will be married Clty Timesbays that @ young man can. adoll. The ‘Personal’ column of the Philadelphia Times ts generally about two weeks old. The managers of Niblo’s quarrelled and said to cach other, ‘‘Ba’-ba’, black sheep,” An English lady who climbed Mont Blanc in January last year will marry bor Swiss guide. lt was blustery yesterday, and, between wind and water, a good many fellows got show In St. Louis there is much borrowing of money by tho packing, flour and cotton Interests. Boston marvels that the Russian Essipoff is the greatest interproter of Chopin tho Pole. New Orleans Republican:—“'The hooks and eyes of this world do not amount to a row of pins.” Now Orleans Republican:—*Quaker bonnets answer the same purpose as blinders to a harness.” Emerson :—"'I think sculpture ond painting have an eflect to teach us manners and abolish hurry, Congressman Scott Lord, of Utica, arrived from Washington yesterday at the New York Hotel, < “Miss L.":-—-One can no more describe a good salad than one could describe a poem ot Tennyson. New Orleans Republican:—*'At a distance small men are thought to be great, and they should stay thefe.”? Evening Telegram:—“New York during and immo diately after a snowiall is one of the most beautiful of cities, The superabundance of brown stone offers a dark background, which is in rich and picturesque contrast to the white frost spangles that settle down upon it, The numerous small parks are bowers of whito beauty. The leafless branchos of the trees present a pattern upon which the fingers of the frost work a glittering embroidery, and the statues, bird houses, fountains and musie stands aro so many corns of vantage upon which the Snow Angel porehey. All these points were brought out to perfection to-day, The cold completed the beauty which the snow developed by their union the very low | vegan.” @