The evening telegraph. (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, May 14, 1867, FIFTH EDITION, Page 2, Image 2

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    TH NEW YORK PRESS.
DITOR!AIi OPWIONK OF THB LKADIKO JOWISAL8
CroK CURRENT TOI'tCS COMPILED BVEItT
DAT FOB THB EVKN1.N" TELEOBAPH.
presidential Caurilrlatta, Parties, Sce
tlooa, and Factious -VBt I the Pros
pect 1
From the Herald.
What ia the prospect for the next I'resi.
fleucy f What parties, tiiutioua, and candi
alatcB will divide the popular vote who are
u training what ticket and platform are most
ikely to prevail, and what section or party
Will control the balance of power ? As matters
now stand, it is difficult to tell whether the
ton outside Southern States will participate in
the contest; but if admitted by Congress in
season to participate, their votes, we may
assume, will be cast as a unit for the ticket
most farorable to the South. The present
dividing lines between the Republican and
I)mocratio parties will not bold. They are
divided upon dead issues, and they must be
reorganized upon the new and living issues of
the day. In this reconstruction we may Lave
three or four new parties and candidates, and
a regular scrub race, as in 1824, when Jack
son, Adams, Crawford, and Clay were the
competitors, or we may have a powerful lead
ing ticket and a scattering of tho opposition
forces, aa in 1K5G, when Martin Van Uuren
ran as the anointed successor of Jackson, and
when the opposition elements were divided
between Harrison, Webster, White, and Man
gum. Among the newspaper tickets compiled by
the Philadelphia Evening Telegraph are
these: The Tennessee ticket of General George
II. Thomas and General John A. Logan; the
Indiana ticket oi Speaker Colfax and General
l5en Butler; the Ohio ticket of Chief Justice
Chase and John Minor Uotts, of Virginia; the
Hew York Herald experimental sectional re
conciliation ticket of General Grant and
General Lee, which is rallying the South to
Grant; the New York experimental Seward
ticket of General Grant and Admiral Farragut,
and the Maine radical ticket of Wendell Phil
lips and Isaao Newton, of Philadelphia a
steamboat man, like George Law, if we are not
mistaken. There have also been some scat
tering newspaper shots in favor of Hon. Pen
Wade, President of the Senate; Charles Sum
ner, George Peabody, Robert C. Winthrop,
Generals Sherman, Sheridan, Meade, and
other military chieftains; and for Horatio Sey
mour, George II. Pendleton, Clement L. Val
iandigham, and other Democrats of Copper
bead antecedents and associations.
General Grant leads the field, and following
liim in popularity in the order named, of our
military heroes, are Thomas, Sheridan, and
Logan. General Sherman's splendid career
and abilities as a soldier have been neutralized
by Lis mistakes as a politician. He will, there
fore, lose nothing from his voyage to the Holy
Land. He may, in iact, be considered out of
the race, like General McClellan, and may re
main abroad as long as be pleases, without
troubling himself about the White House. We
presume that it will be somewhat difficult to
find a truly distinguished subordinate general
tinder Grant in the late war who will consent
to run against him, if for no other reason, be
cause it would be labor in vain. Poor Pierca
a second or third-rate volunteer general in
Mexico, not only in 1852, ran against his Commander-in-Chief,
General Scott, but defeated
Li in as badly as Scott defeated Santa Anna. It
was really, however, W. II. Seward and his
abolition radicalism of that day on the slavery
question that electod Pierce; for then cotton,
throned upon slavery, was king. Thanks to
poor Pierce, as the champion of slavery,
things are bravely altered now; and powerful,
indeed, must be the political platform of the
Boldier or civilian who will enter the
field for the Presidential succession with
any show of a respectable fight against the
popularity of General Grant.
Yet the extreme Republican radical faction,
from Stevens, Sumner, and liutler, down to
their humblest followers, are as hostile to
Grant to-day as is Wendell Phillips. Their
echemes of Southern confiscation, and for
placing the white race of the South under
political subjection to the blacks, are not en
dorsed by General Grant; and he must, there
fore, if possible, be cast aside. Tho most
formidable candidate named for this purpose
is Chief Justice Chase, who is strong because
lie is backed by the national banks and all
their affiliations of his financial system. But
all this powerful electioneering machinery
may be upset by the ultra radical leaders, if
they pursue their peculiar game of Southern
reconstruction too far. There is reason to ap
prehend that they will so far succeed in their
efforts to array the blak race of the South
' against the white race as to embarrass and
delay the work of reconstruction, and so
bring about a political reaction in the North
which will enable the conservative Republi
cans, under the lead of such men as Pessen
den, Banks, Bingham, Blaine, and others, to
unite the Central States, tke great West and
the South, under the conservative banner of
Grant. This will be easy of accomplishment
with a ptatform embracing a thorough over
hauling and cutting down of our present
oppressive national bank, credit, and taxation
eystem, internal and external; for in these
things we have the issues which are to control
the next Presidential contest and to give shape
to the dominant party of the future.
The session of Congress which will be
opened next December will determine in its
measures of legislation the reconstruction of
parties, and, excepting General Grant, the
availability of this or that candidate for the
succession. President Johnson appears to be
dropped as completely as was John Tyler in
his experiments of political reconstruction;
and of Mr. Seward it need only be said that
his political career will end, at the furthest,
with the present Administration. From sow
ing the wind he has reaped the whirlwind, and
it has left him among the wrecks aud ruins
which mark its ttath. With hundreds of
others assistinc in its creation, North and
Eoutu. In beins drawn into its vortex, he has
leen destroyed. The coming harvest, on both
tiides, will be reaped by those who sought to
avert the storm, with those who battled with
St and aided In shaping its course to a lasting
pence. If we have no session of Congress in
j uiy, mere will probably be at least a Con
Kiessional caucus to define the course of
jsortuern Republican stump speakers in the
3uuvu. viumniBo assuming tnat the Supreme
,ourt meantime will not interfere with the
work of Congress, it is nrohal.l Hint with h
reassembling of the two Houses in December
their first business will be to rectify the blun
ders of Republican volunteer missionaries
among the Southern blacks, and the blunders
of our five Southern military district com
manders. Failing in this, we may look for a
rupture in Congress which will of itseir work
the reorganization of parties for the succes
sion. In any event, we shall most likely have
to wait till December for a decisive troubling
of the waters.
THE DAILY
The Prisoner of Stale.
FVom the TYibune,
Sometimes biography is history. Kilher by
his own force, or by minrnce of offlcs, one
man sometimes stands as the representative of
a nation or an epoch, and includes its story In
his own Such a relation Jefferson Davis bears
to the Rebellion; ho was its apostle, its de
fender, and its chosen loader; he was the Pre
sident of the Confederacy so long as the Con
federacy existed; long before its birth, when
to others it was but a dream, he saw it as a
reality in the future, growing largor and more
menacing, and knew it as the instrument of
his ambition and the destiny of his people.
After its death he clung to the delusion that
it lived. Lee surrendered, Johnston surren
dered, but lie did not. As lie had brought the
battle on, lie fought it out
on, he fought it out to the end. aud
even maintained the mockerv of rnint.npa
To this day he remains "President Davis" to
the people of the South. It is true that tho Re
bellion was far greater tli an he, as the North
in subduing the Rebellion was greater thau
any of our leaders; yet the changes which in
six years made Jefferson Davis a dictator, a
fugitive, and a prisoner, are those by which
the historian will measure the swiftest and
mightiest revolution of modern times.
Six years ago, January 21, 1801, Jefferson
Davis left the United States Senate; owing, as
he claimed, allegiance to Mississippi, his State,
which had seceded; in less than a month
thereafter lie was elected President of the
Southern Confederacy, and, May 2!), arrived in
Richmond, selected as the capital of the new
republic. There he ruled for four long years,
encourngingthe peopleof the South, denouncing
the Union armies as cruel and mercenary in
vaders; there at times he wielded almost abso
lute power; there he prophesied the failure
of our arms, explained away their victories,
mid exaggerated their defeats; there
he remained while Grant fought his
way through the Wilderness, whih Sherman
swept round from Atlanta to Savannah, and
even when the Union troops were encamped
around the walls, aud threatened to cut off all
escape. It was not till April 2, H0r, that he
lied from Richmond to Danville, whence,
three days afterward, when the capital had
fallen, lie issued a proclamation of his
determination never to submit to the aban
donment of one State of the Confederacy.
Swift comment on this boast came when,
on April 9, Lee surrendered his whole army.
Davis lied to Goldsborough, N. C, where
he remained to hear in swift succession that
Montgomery was taken, that Mobile had
surrendered, that Lincoln was killed. He
delayed his flight till it was known that the
truce Gen. Shermau had formed with John
ston was disapproved by the Government,
when he retreated into Georgia, followed by
President Johnson's celebrated proclamation
of May 2, in which a reward of $100,000 was
offered for Jefferson Davis as one of the assas
sins of Abraham Lincoln. He was captured
May 10, and on May 19, 18(55, was imprisoned
in Fortress Monroe.
Now, into Richmond, which six years ago
he entered in triumph, which two years ago
he left a fugitive, Jefferson Davis returns as a
prisoner. Tnen half a million of men could
scarcely break his power; now a company of
soldiers may guard him. In his former capi
tal there is no uniform but the uniform of his
old foes; no llag but the flag he sought to
trample. Then he was the judge and ruler of
hundreds of thousands of men; now, solitary
and "powerless, he stands at the bar of a civil
court, accused of the highest crime known to
American law; and, by a revolution of which
his wildest dreams of disaster could have had
no intimation, he is to be tried for his life by
men for whose perpetual enslavement he used
all the forces and the terrors of war. Five
negroes sit upon the Grand Jury in Judge Un
derwood's Court, and before them the Presi
dent of the Confederacy is to repeat the words,
"I will be tried before God, and by my peers."
If this is not punishment enough, it is
hnmiliating enough. Upon the greatness of the
evil Jefferson Davis did we need not dwell of
that there will be many to speak; but of our
own wrongdoing now is the time to be silent.
For two years Jefferson Davis has been hidden
in the casemates of Fortress Monroe, and for
part of that time in irons and utter solitude;
for two years he has rested under an accusa
tion of plotting assassination a charge urged
by the President himself, and not withdrawn,
even when thorough search had found no facts
to sustain it; for two years he ha3 beon denied
that which just laws grant to every prisoner
a trial. Does this imprisonment atone for the
crimes whereof he is accused 1 No; and because
no informal punishment can by any possibility
satisfy the demands of justice, those who de
fend the long imprisonment of Mr. Davis with
out trial, on the ground that he deserved it,
insult the dignity of the nation. The greater
the crime, the more swift should be the retri
bution. The Frccdmen and their l'rieuds.
From the Times.
We alluded the other clay to the mis
chievous effect which has been produced upon
the colored population of New Orleans by the
fforts of those who claim to be their peculiar
friends. We showed, on the authority of local
journals, that the doctrine of right is pushed
by the negroes far beyond the limit fixed by
their white counsellors and advocates, and
that one of its earliest and least expected
manifestations is a demand for prime consi
deration in the distribution of offices, to the
exclusion of the majority of white candidates.
The circumstance was presented as a sug
gestive illustration of the danger consequent
upon every attempt to separate the races, aud
to build upon the distinction a fabrio of privi
lege for the blacks and disfranchisement for
the great body of the whites. For the un
tutored negroes, Hushed with the possession
of a power they know not how to exercise,
will be likely to use it in a manner at once ex
travagant and unjust, and thus produce diffi
culties more disastrous in their character than
any that have yet occurred.
The letter we recently published from a
correspondent who has just returned to Rich
mond, shows that the tendency which has
been traced in Louisiana may also be dis
cerned in Virginia. A marked change has
taken place, our correspondent writes, in the
disposition and conduct of the Richmond
negroes. They are no longer orderly, civil,
industrious. Thoy have ceased to be content
with their emancipation, or anxious to prove
themselves worthy of it. On the contrary,
they are growing insolent, unruly, domineer
ing; are seeking dominance instead of equality,
in other words, they are settine themselves
up ts a privileged class a class privileged
over 11 else in streets, in courts, in cuureh.es,
in markets wherever men and women con
creeate. It is alleged that a few months have
sufficed to bring about this change, which, if
continued, must naturauy re-estauusn coior
as a divldintr line, with the negroes mistaking
license for liberty, and the prevention of
anarchy dependent upon the strong arm of
EVENING TELEGRAPH PHILADELPHIA, TUESDAY,
military authority. The prospect is not plea
sant; it is not the one we have hoped to con
template. But the facts reported in our Rich
mond letter are positive as indications upon
the point.
Nor are. we at lilierty to consider" the ques
tion of responsibility for the altered state Of
things an open question. It is not the effect
of the mere possession of freedom. It is,
distinctly and unequivocally, the consequence
of the teaching of ultra radical emissaries,
Who, under the pretense of instructing the
negro as to his rights, are filling him with au
over estimate of his importance, and wild
ideas of enrichment and supremacy. Left to
himself, perhaps, Sambo might be lazy until
experience taught him the necessity of in
dustry as the alternative of starvation. But
his disposition, without prompting and gui
dance, is not prone to assert mastery over white
men, or the right to live out of white men's ac
cumulated property. For these manifestation,
as now occurring in Virginia, we muat seek
an explanation in the appeals of demagogues
mid incendiaries; who preach the disfranchise
ment of the whites as a punishment for rebel
lion, and the distribution of their lands as a
recompense for the suffering loyalty of the
blacks. We do not apply the remark indis
criminately to Northern politicians addressing
Southern coloied audiences. We know that
Senator Wilson, for example, demands neither
wholesale disfranchisement nor 'a mild mea
sure of conDscation." That gentleman is nnt
the type of the class of whom we speak,
llunnicutt, of Virginia, is much nearer the
mark. He and such as he are unceasing in
their endeavors to organize the blacks as a
party that shall lmreafter control Southern
affairs, and with this view they teach the
superiority of the negroes as a race, with all
their ignorance and semi-savage vices, over
the whites among whom they dwell. The first
fruits of these endeavors may be seen in the
claim of the New Orleans negroes to the offices,
and in the turbulent insolence of their breth
ren in Virginia.
We apprehend, indeed, that the circum
stances which seem to us pregnant with evil,
are not only the direct results of ultra-radical
teaching, but are in entire harmony with the
j nil poses of the extremists in this latitude.
Wendell Phillips is no longer content with
negro equality. So far as the South is con
cerned, he favors the doctrine of negro supe
riority, which doctrine the negroes are trying
to reduce to practice in some of the Southern
cities. And of course his amended doctrine
of confiscation will equally commend itself to
negro instincts. The original object of Mr.
Thaddeus Stevens, was by confiscation to
realize the means of paying bounties and pen
sions, and so i educing the cost of the war.
But the demand of the Anti-Slavery Society
now goes much further. Ignoring the fact
that the vast area of Government land at the
South is available under the Homestead law
to black and white alike, the society, under
Mr. Phillips' manipulation, calls for such a
measure of confiscation of the improved lands
of the planters as shall give to every freedmau
forty acres ! Emancipation from bondage is
not enough now. Absolute equality before the
law falls short of what is required. There
must be "dominance instead of equality," and
ready-made farms of forty acres besides 1 That
is the latest version of the platform on which
the noisy friends of the freedmen profess to
stand, and the knowledge of it will assuredly
not tend to make the negroes more orderly in
their demeanor or more moderate in their re
quirements. There can be no hope of peace for the coun
try until the negro be banished, as a distinct
and separate element, from its politics. The
true friends of the slave, as in Mr. Garrison's
case, held that with the destruction of slavery
all pretexts for agitation in regard to it ter
minated. All that the opponents of the sys
tem contemplated has been realized; and it we
are hereafter to be troubled with the negro
question as an element in party contests, it is
with a view to the advantage of agitators,
regardless of the effect upon the negroes them
selves or upon society. The South may do
much towards averting the peril with which
it is threatened, by a prompt use of the oppor
tunities afforded by the Reconstruction act;
and with the Union restored, ' the various
organizations for sowing the seed of mischief
among the negroes will soon be rendered com
paratively harmless. In any other aspect, the
Southern question would be appalling.
Disraeli's Compromise and British He-
form.
From the Tribune.
The cable has brought us news oi another
victory achieved by Lord Derby's Government
on the Reform bill now under discussion in
the House of Commons. The tenor of the
despatches received through the same source
a few days ago led us to the conclusion that
the Liberals, driven by the pressure from
without to close up their ranks and to take a
decided position relative to this important
measure, were about to have everything their
own way, and that, with their divisions
healed, they would, in their united strength,
compel the Government so to modify the
measure as to make it acceptable, as a large
instalment of justice, to the"great bulk ot the
people. All this, however, has been suddenly
changed. Mr. Disraeli, it ajipears, pretend
ing to accept the amendments of the true
friends of Reform, and having thus gained
time to sow the seeds of dissension again in
the ranks of the Lileral party, has proposed
a compromise, accompanied with the alterna
tive of a dissolution. Of the latter, the mem
bers of the "New Cave," whose recusancy
at a critical moment caused the defeat
of Mr. Gladstone's amendment a short
time ago, stand in mortal dread; and so
the threat has had its intended effect, is
causing them again to desert the party bauners,
and to help the enemy to victory. But the
triumph, in this instance, will not prove to be
so great and so decisive as some people may
imagine. The insincerity and double-dealing
of the Government with regard to this Reform
question are evidently having the effect of
rousing the leaders of the opposition and the
true friends of Reform, throughout the king
dom, to still more earnest and energetic action.
The cable despatches which we published on
Saturday inform us that the debate of last
week, which ended in the Tory victory, was
an exceedingly animated one, and that both
Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Bright exposed the real
character of the Government measure in a piti
less analysis of its shortcomings, incongruities,
and vices, and reprobated it iu the strongest
language they could command. The popular
demonstrations, in the shape of mass meetings,
in different parts of Kugland, and which are, if
possible, more imposing and enthusiastic than
ever, show what the masses think of the
Government and the bill. In the former they
have no faith, because they believe it destitute
of any real sympathy with the cause of popu
lar freedom and progress.
The people instinctively feel that a party
habitually pledged to reactionary principles,
traditionally opposed to the increase of demo
cratic power, traditionally jealous to a degree
of the classes below their own ordr, cannot
possibly be sincere iu their professions of a
desire to secure the extension of popular
privileges.
And in Hie character of the
bill
find
introduced ly Mr.
Disraeli, the people
ample justification of their distrust of the
Toiies. The bill "holds the word of promise
to the ear, add breaks it to the hope." With
an ostentation of lilerality iu its concessions,
it lias been, nevertheless, So framed that, by
an artfully arranged, system of checks and
counterpoises, its liberal provisions, should it
become a law, will be in a largo measure
neutralized by its conservative reservations.
The leaders of the Reform party in Parliament
have tried to amend it, but they have failed
in their efforts; and it now seems certain that
the measure, with all its odious features, will
pass the Commons, and find its way into tho
Mouse of Lords. What reception it will meet
with in that intensely Tory body remains to
be seen.
Our despatches by cable fail to tell us what
Mr. Disraeli's compromise is; but, frein tho
way in which his proposal was opposed by
Messrs. Gladstone and Bright, we infer that it
is of a nature decidedly inimical to the popular
cause. It is, we suppose, like all compromises
proposed under similar circumstances prin
ciple sacrificed to expediency, right postponed
to inteiest, justice practically ignored in favor
of power. But, like all such miserable expe
dients, it will, assuredly, bring its retribution
in due time. Some one has said that "politics
is the science of compromises;" but there are
periods and occasions when nothing in political
action can be more dangerous than compro
mise. It may succeed very '.Toll in ordinary
tin.es and ordinary circumstances, when
society is comparatively quiescent, and when
political agitation is a mere milling of the sur
face of the waters; bnt it will never auswer
in revolutionary periods, when men's pas
sions are stirred to their very depths, aud
political excitement assumes the character of
the storm.
And it will not answer, in the case now
under consideration, because the spirit of revo
lution is abroad in lingland. The people are
resolved on having their rights. They say so;
and we believe they will carry out their deter
mination. Disraeli, as the accepted oracle of
the luitisli aristocracy, may deprecate as much
as he pleases the advance of democracy in
Pngland ; that will not prevent it from ad
vancing. It is steadily marching on, and that
which the American Congress, acting on the
inspiration of liberty, and in accordance with
the will of a gieat and free nation, has just
given the lately emancipated slaves of the
South, the working classes of England will
wrest from an unwilling oligarchy. Their
battle cry is "manhood suffrage and the bal
lot;" and that it will ultimately come to this
we nave no aouot. me compromise over
which the Tories are so jubilant, so far from
settling the question of Reform, will only have
the effect ot 'intensifying the agitation now
going on, of which John Bright is the master
spirit, and the Reform League the organized
power.
America In Germany.
From the World.
The death of Mr. Wright, for the second
time American Envoy at Berlin, leaves us
without a diplomatic representative in Ger
many, and this, too, at a moment when it is
decidedly more important than it can be said
commonly to be, that the Government should
have in that country accredited agents, able
not only to watch over our great and in
creasing interests there, but also to keep the
powers at Washington enlightened as to the
progress of the vast change which is working
itself out in the political constitution of the
German people.
In 1848, when that German unity which is
now fast becoming an "accomplished fact"
assumed a shadowy aud evanescent outline,
we made haste to reinforce our diplomatic
corps by a special minister, thus giving our
selves at one and the same time no less than
three envoys of the first class in Germany
one at the capital cf Prussia, one at the
capital of Austria, and a third accredited to
the Reichsverfasser, the Archduke John, at
Frankfort. The Grrman immigration to
America was at that time less thau one-half as
great as it has since become, and our commer
cial intercourse with the countries whieh were
comprised within the space of these three Ger
man missions was considerably less impor
tant than our trade with the single monarchy
of Spain. But all this has been profoundly
chaiiged. In the ten years from 1841 to 1850,
there arrived in the United States 422,477 im
migrants from Germany against fc48,3(i!
lroin Great Britain and Ireland. In the ten
years from 1851 to 18U0, on the contrary, there
arrived in the United States 907,780 immi
grants from Germany, against 207,598 from
Gieat Britain and Ireland. So, at least, says
the preliminary report on the eighth census,
which, though it can hardly, we regret to say,
be regarded as entirely accurate or solidly
authentic, may at least be accepted as approx
imately correct. The increase of our trade,
meanwhile, with Germany has fully kept pace
with the swelling of the tide of tho great west
ward exodus of the German people. In the year
1 i-Cl-62, for example, ourexportations of Ameri
can produce to the States of the German Zoll
verein amounted to $12,1172,04(5, against an
exportation of but tjl 1,000,000 to Spain and her
colonies. These figures, however, striking as
they are, afford but a very inadequate notion
of the enormous extent of our present rela
tions social, financial, and commercial with
the forty millions of Germans between the
Alps and the Baltic. It can hardly be extrava
gant to assert that these relations have more
than doubled during the last six years.
Though Austria has lost, to all appearance for
ever, her pretensions to be regarded as the
first of German powers, still, even with the
German dominions which are yet subject to
the Houbo of Ilapsburg, we have a direct and
varied intercourse at least as important as our
trade with Holland or with Portugal ; while,
both as a matter of political interest and by
reason of the rank which our national securi
ties now hold in the continental markets, it is
quite as important that we should be properly
represented at Vienna as at Florence or at
Constantinople. That we should be property
represented at Berlin is much moreimportaut;
as important fully as it is that we should be so
represented at Paris or St. Petersburg. But
the radicals of the United States Senate have
made this in both cases difficult, if not im
possible, to be done.
The legation at Vienna was vacated by Mr.
Motley, as those who call themselves oddly
enough his "friends" now seek to make the
country believe, in a fit of passion and of
wounded self-esteem. The proposition that a
Minister of the United States could have made
a sham resignation his opportunity for de
nouncing the policy of the Chief Magistrate
under whom he held office, is of such a nature
that, if it were to be taken for true, it would
satisfactorily show that Mr. Motley is by no
means the sort of person who ought to repre
sent the United States abroad. It may be
treated, however, we presume, as an injudi
cious invention of politicians, eager only, if
possible, to prevent the President from filling
any public office whatever. Be this as it may,
we have now no Minister at Vienna, nor are
MAY 14, 1867.
we likely to have, since tew persons who are
fit to fill the place will readily incur the
trouble and mortification of going to Europe
in June with a commission wuicu. is pretty
Riuetobe annulled in December., And now
that death has removed Mr. Wright, who was
filling With credit a post to which he had beon
foimerlv appointed by President Buchanan,
we are very likely to bo left unrepresented at
Berlin also ; and this at a most interesting and
important moment in the history of Europe,
of Germany, and of Prussia. The recent ex
tt union of the Prussian authority over those
parts of Germany with which our intercourse
' i 1 1 . 1 ...... ......
JiBS been ana IS uie inrgtiKi. mm muni, uuunumi.,
cannot iail to be followed it has already, in
deed, lieen followed by consequences of im
portance to American interests lninose regions.
New fiscal and commercial regulatijns will be
almost hourly taking effect in one or another
point now for the first time subjected to tho
direct authority of the Prussian crown, or
really brought into dependence upon that
crown through its incorporation with the
North German Confederation. The applica
tion to the whole of Western and Northern
Germany of the stringent aud onerous Prus
sian military system, will le continually
raising new, various, aud vexatious questions
of personal rights in connection with our
American doctrine and practice of naturaliza
tion questions w hich will demand the utmost
delicacy and firmness combined in the treat
ment of them, since, while we have no
earthly interest"in quarrelling with the Ger
many of King William and Count Bismark,
it is clear that tho Germany of King William
and Count Bismark is pursuing a line of
policy which makes it imperative upon the
Prussian rulers to make tho very utmost of all
the military resources within their reach.
The agreement of the Great Powers upon the
neutralization of Luxembourg, while it is au
immediate gaiu to the cause of peace, will
hardly make smoother the task of reorganizing
Germany to a minister who, after leading tho
German people to believe that he would never
abandon an inch of German territory, is now
forced to withdraw the Prussian troops from a
fiosition w hich the Germans rightly or wrongly
told to be essential to German greatness on
the Rhine, and to respect in the case of Lux
euilxurg the principle of local "independence
upon which in so many other instances he had
successfully set his foot.
If, at such a time, and in the presence of
events of so much actual and prospective in
terest, America is to be left without a compe
tent lepresentntion in Central Europe, it must
I e remembered that we owe this to the party
of "great moral ideas," which regards all the
ordinary human subjects of policy, and all the
gravest matters of the public weal, as less than
nothing iu comparison with the high and holy
duty ot reserving "to Uie saints" the earth,
and all the offices thereof.
A Phllozolc Society.
From the W. Y. Methodist.
We see from the newspapers that the citi
zens of Philadelphia are about to follow the
example of New York, and of some other por
tions of the civilized world, in forming a
society to prevent cruelty to brutes. In using
the word brute, we intend no disparagement
of the lower animals. We ourselves are ani
mals, and to talk of cruelty to animals, using
no qualifying word, is to create a pause, if not
to awaken disgust, in the mind of the critical
reader. The charge implied in the intent of
such a society is the harsh treatment of seve
ral sorts of animals by another animal of a
somewhat higher organization. The word of
Scripture is: "Thou hast made him a little
lower than the angels, and placed him over
tho works of thy hands." Man is, therefore,
the governor, aid, in a certain sense, the
owner of brute creatures, and yet his autho
rity is subject to law.
As power, unwatched and unrestrained,
converts the weaker man into a slave, and
stronger men into tyrants over all under their
control, so is it here, and even more surely.
The brute in the master fears no punishment
for the maltreatment of horse, or ox, or dog.
His anger finds an easy outlet, and patient
silence, or trembling, scampering terror, is the
only reproach. And this seems, in most cases,
to be ot but little force. The horse under the
saddle stumbles, and down comes the keen
lash; this makes him start and curvet, and the
stripes are repeated in quick succession, while
the curb is drawn almost to the breaking of
the under-jaw. The butcher, in bringing his
calves to the slaughter-house, allows their
heads to hang over the sharp edge of the cart's
tail-board, thinking it i3 nothing, as a still
worse fate awaits them, or, perhaps, not think
ing at all. And yet the rider and butcher may
occupy comfortable seats in church the next
Sunday, and never think of charging them
selves with cruelty.
This shows that there is much wrong in our
theory as well as in our practice. We have
not been taught that brutes have any rights,
or even that gentleness towards them is any
thing more than a poetic or romantic virtue.
We thought, when we reasoned at all, that a
butcher, or a poulterer, or a fisherman, might
as well be warned against the cruelty of their
callings, as that a man should be taken to
task lor venting his rage upon a brute. That
this view of responsibility prevails in regard
to the brute creation, may be seen in the laws
of at least some of our States. Is there any
thing in the law among us to make a cock
fight, or a dog-light, or a bull-bait a felony ?
Can a man be held accountable before the
civil magistrate for starving his horse or cow ?
Certainly not Our law-makers had no idea
of a refinement which should express itself
favorably to brute comfort, or, if they had,
they regarded such refinellient as below the
dignity of law, and left the brute to the tender
mercies of his more cunning and more power
ful fellow-creature. The truth is, that the
logic of these societies for the protection of the
lower animals is easily capable of being
pushed to a very inconvenient extent, and the
legislators have, perhaps, been a little cautious
on tins account.
If it is wrong, for example, to beat a horse
under the inllueuce of anger, is it not equally
wrong to strain him to the utmost verge of his
strength in a race ? and when the contest is
"neck and neck," is it not especially w-ontr to
ply spur and whip with all the strength of
imuu Buu wneei r And siiould not the ordi
nary horse-race, with its beating and strain
ing, be an indictable offense f If it is wrong
and cruel so much so as to call for the inter
ference of the philozoic society to allow
calves' heads to hang out over the oart tail
board, is it not equally wrong to make sport
of the pangs of insectivorous birds ? Hunting
and butchering are, of course, both lawful
callings, considered as callings ; but to hunt
and to kill for mere sport the creatures that
add a charm to human lile, is altogether an
other thing. We feel a stronger repugnance
to the Bporting bird-shooter than to the angry
horseman. The philozoic society must look
into the amusements which have to do with
the pangs of the brute creation.
But, dear reader, let it not be understood
that we would have these humane societies
cease their work until they can do all that
heir principles call for. Let them save do
mestic animals first, and then the wild ; lot
them protect the horse and the sheep and the
ox, aud proceed to others as thoy have oppor
tunity. But, meantime, let us abandon false,
or fit lelLftt incniiuiMtpiit- rpnnnnincr. Wa ms.r.
r ' f - " r"
for Instance, give to domestio animals the first
benefit.. of onr pity they are our familiars,
our companions, almost our friends ; but when
we talk in this connection of the effect of bad
treatment on the healthfulness of veal or beef,
we are caring for ourselves ; the mercy we
seek for the brute has, after all, respect only
to our own stomachs. One of the Philadel
phia speakers, for instance, in the midst
of a warm address, brought in the lob
ster, and dilating upon the cruelty of
plugging its claws, wound up by say
ing that the lobster, .in a perfectly
healthy state, was a great delicacy, but
that this plugging his claws might injure
his health, and make him unsafe for the
human stomach. This reminds ns of the
well-known wish of Sidney Smith for his
friend who was going out as a missionary to
New Zealand he hoped tho preacher would
agree with the man who might eat him. This
speaker had a similar kind feeling towards the
lobster. Let us be careful of our logio and
consistency in this delicate work: it is easy
to give wit a handle against the best of causes.
I A 1 ...
ii must ne right to diminish the miseries of
life as much a3 possible, even among inferior
creatures, Biia it is especially so as cruelty
blunts our better feelings. Let cruel sports
be condemned as well as cruel anger. Let us
not only be kind to the domestic animals that
render us service, but let humanity prove its
nobleness by gentleness to everything that
feels.
WATCHES, JEWELRY, ETC.
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WATCHES repaired In the best manner, and war;
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Diamonds and all preclons atones bought for cash.
JOHN BOWMAN,
No. 704 AROH Street
PHILADELPHIA,
MANUFACTURER AND DEALER Of
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Our GOODS are decidedly the cheapest in the city
tor
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C. RUSSELL & CO.,
NO. S3 NORTH SIXTH STREET.
Hare Just received, an Invoice of
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Also, a few INFERNAL' ORCHESTRA CLOCK
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Wt Aianuiacturersot
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HENRY HARPER,
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Manufacturer aud Dealer In
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