Indianapolis Journal, Indianapolis, Marion County, 13 January 1886 — Page 4

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ffHE DAILY JOURNAL BY JXO. C. NEW & SON. —: ~ '■ -= JpTJLSHINGTON OFFICE-513 Fourteenth St. P. S. Heath, Correspondent. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1886. • - ■■■— RATES OF SUBSCRIPTION, JJ*BMS INVARIABLY IN AD VAN OK—POSTAGE PREPAID BV THE PUBLISHERS. THE DAILY JOURNAL. /Dne year, hr mail $12.00 *€)a® j*mt, by mail, including Sunday 14.00 month*, by mail 6.00 f>3x months, by mail, including Sunday 7.00 months, by mail 3.00 flThree months, by mail, including Sunday 3.50 On® month, by mail 1.00 One month, by mail, including Sunday 1.20 S*er week, by carrier (in Indianapolis) 25 THE SUNDAY JOURNAL. Ttt copy 5 cents One year, by mail $2.00 the Indiana state journal. (WEEKLY EDITION.) One year SI.OO Less than one year and over three month*, 10c per faonth. No subscription taken for less than three •Months. In clubs of five or over, agents will take Curly subscriptions at sl, and retain 10 per cent, for eir work. Address JXO. C. NEW & SON, Publishers The Journal. Indianapolis, Ind. THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL. 43n be found at the following places: LONDON —American Exchango in Europe, 419 Strand. PARlS—American Exchange in Paris, 35 Boulevard des Capucines. , NEW YORK—St. Nicholas and Windsor Hotels. CHICAGO —Palmer House. CINCINNATI—J. R. Hawley & Cos., 154 Vine street. / 4jOUISVILLE—C. T. Bearing, northwest comer Tnird aud Jeiferson streets. ST. LOUlS—Union News Company, Union Depot and Southern Hotel. Telephone Calls. Business Office 23S j Editorial Rooms 242 The Weekly Journal. The Weekly Journal comprises twelve pages •f carefully selected reading matter, and has no Superior as a paper for the farmer. It contains •11 the current news up to the date of issue, and a vast quantity of the best literature of the time. The sermens of Dr. DeWitt C. Talmage are reglarly printed in the Weekly Journal. The Weekly Journal is furnished at the low price of $1 per year. ____________________ The weather has been very frigid at St. Paul, but hardly a marker to the low temperature at Minneapolis. Well, it can’t be denied that the King of the islands of Samoa held out longer than Democratic civil-service reform did. Col. William E. McLean, of Terre Haute, has been confirmed by the Senate as First Deputy Commissioner of Pensions. This is one of the best appointments made from Indiana. The names of ex-President Arthur and ex(Senator Conklin;? are mentioned in connection with the succession of Senator Warner Miller. It is not likely Mr. Miller will be reelected.

Miss Fought, employed in the Adjutantgeneral’s office, has gone the way of all Republicans. She was regarded as an “offensive partisan?” In such company one may feel proud to be so classed. A Virginia mail-carrier turned back on a trip because a rabbit crossed in front of him while on the way. He feared some awful calamity. Watterson’s star-eyed goddess must have met a rabbit or two. There is a movement in favor of making Thanksgiving Day come earlier, say on the 12th of October, the anniversary of the discovery of America. If Thanksgiving can be bad at an earlier date most hungry men will favor it. The thermometer seems to be reversed. The Northern Pacific is free from snow blockades, while the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe road, which has always boasted that it is open the year round, was unable to run trains for several days. The flowers of personal friendship still hang over the garden wall of party politics in Ohio. The exchange of compliments and courtesies between Governor Hoadly and Governor Foraker were quite gushing, even for such giddy young things. There is to be no more smoking in the sesjjions of the Board of Aldermen. The smoking hogs have been driven from the inside of the street-cars, and now they are to be run out of the . Council boards. Verily, reform, with a stunning “R,” is being inaugurated. It seem that even the churches have fallen tinder the blight of the Pullman monopoly. There is no more grinding or odious monopoly under the sun than this one, and it is not creditable to legislatures or courts that so far jit has been permitted to loot the public at will. Or course, Chief Webster is correct when he says that the new State-house is not fireproof. No one but the commissioners ever supposed it was. Indeed, at the time when the roof was being put on, the Journal called public attention to the fact that it was very like a a large tinder-box. j Colonel Donavin’s open letters to Senator Payne are of the same character, and but little less classic, and none the less forcible than “Arthur Richmond’s” “Letter to the Secretary of State,” in the January number •f the North American Review. The Democrats are stirring each other up. ALTHOUGH Minister Winston cannot wear bis brigadier’s uuiform, it is said that be has determined to uphold the importance of the United States by a display of Chicago raagnifi-

cence which will cast the oriental splendors of the Persian court into the shade, and cause the Shah to turn green with envy of a people whom he has not been accustomed to treat with the distinguished consideration to which they are entitled. It is to produce this sort of impression upon foreign potentates, probably, that Secretary Bayard prefers men of wealth in the diplomatic service, and Minister Winston evidently has a clear comprehension of the duties expected of him. THE SILVER QUESTION. The silver question bids fair to have more interest to all the people of the country than any other subject that is likely to bo brought before the present Congress. There are all sorts of notions and theories about silver and what to do with it. Cranks in finauce are as numerous, noisy and dangerous as quacks in medicine. Finance, national or individnal, is not a matter of theory, but is a question of plain, practical, common sense, and all the fine-spun theories of congressmen cannot and will not make prosperous times, except as they may be consistent with the laws of trade, founded by trade itself upon the controlling power of supply and demand. Money, whether it be represented by coin or paper, is a measure of values. Gold and silver have been and are the metal currencies of the world; all paper issues by governments or banks are founded on the faith of redemption on demand in one or the other of these metal currencies. A short statement of facts in regard to the two coins will be of interest and profit in arriving at a just conclusion as to what should be done by the present "Congress with the silver dollar. By the act of 1792 the silver dollar was made the unit of value in the United States by law, as it was and had been, in fact, the unit of value in both North and South America, as well as in half the other countries of the civilized world. Generations had come and gone in which the silver dollar was, almost the world over, the unit or standard of value. Until after the discovery of .gold in California there was little appreciable difference in this country between gold and silver, nor, in fact, in any other part of the world, except in China and India, in which countries silver was largely in demand ever gold. After the discovery of gold in California, and thereafter in Australia, the relative values of the two metals, as theh coined, parted. The production of gold was so great as to relatively enhance the value of silver, and even at tho United States mint, at Philadelphia, the silver dollar was worth a premium of 8 per cent, over the gold dollar coined at the same mint the same day. After a time the gold supply fell off, and the two metals again joined company. Then the Nevada mines were discovered, and silver was produced by the ton, necessarily causing a decline in the intrinsic value of that metal, as compared not only with other values, but of the value as compared with its own value at a previous date. Then came the time when the government of the United States was compelled, after the period of suspension during the War of the Rebellion, to resume specie payment. The government had issued greenbacks and fractional currency, of which there was then outstanding some four hundred million dollars, and the national banks had a circulation outstanding, redeemable in coin or greenbacks of about as much. The resumption act was passed in 1875, to take effect Jan. 1,1879, and the United States, in the meantime, was trying to refund the 5 and 6 per cent, bonds in long loans at a lower rate of interest. Therefore, when the day of resumption of specie payment was fixed at Jan. 1, 1879, the United States was in the market to refund its bonds, and the national banks were the holders of the Uhited States bonds which they must dispose of to furnish either gold or greenbacks in which to redeem their notes. In this juncture the coinage of silver dollars was suggested as an additional measure of redemption. The compulsory coinage bill was passed in 1878, and it well answered its purpose. It enabled the United States and the national banks to prepare and be ready for resumption at the day fixed by law. This coinage bill was passed Feb. 28, 1878, and thence on there has been a compulsory coinage of not less than two million silver dollars a month.

Certainly, it was not intended by tho most fanatical silver man that this coinage of two million dollars, or to the extent of four millions per month, should be perpetual. This is nonsense, and worse; it is suicide. A little consideration will demonstrate the fatality of this policy. The United States now recognizes six several issues of coin and currency, to-wit: gold, silver, greenbacks, national bank notes, gold certificates and silver certificates, not to speak of the subsidiary coinage. In only one case is there any compulsion; that is, the issue of at least two million 412 1-2 gi*ain silver dollars each month. This compulsory coinage has gone along until it has become a great danger. The silver dollar is a legal tender in this country, and unless this law is changed it will continue to be not only a legal-tender, but, in a little time, the only legal tender left in the country, and then we, as a people, will become a prey to a premium of exchange that may utterly destroy our commerce. The thing that should be done to remedy our present wants is to stop the compulsory coinago of silver. Let silver take its place with gold, by reasou of its value and its merit. The compulsory coinage of silver, with a fixed value of so many grains to the dollar, is no better than the coinage of so much lead or tin with the stamp of the government. The silver

THE INDIANAPOLIS JOURNAL, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1885.

dollar of 4121-2 grains has the tradition of the fathers as to its value and also the enactments of law. The idea that there should be added more silver to the V dollar—say to make it 480 grains, is preposterous. How often is the change to be made between the silver dollar of 412 1-2 grains —9OO fine—and the gold dollar of 25 8-10 grains? Shall it be every day, or month, or year in which there shall be a variation in the London, New York or Paris market between the intrinsic values of gold and silver? No. What should be done, and done at once, is tho passage of an act abolishing the compulsory coinage of silver. The standard of values between the two metals, gold and silver, may or may not enter into the question of the issue of gold and silver conjointly by future legislation, but the “Silver man," the man who wants to enhance the price of silver and make it the measure of a dollar, by the stamp of the United States added, is the very first man who should cry out against compulsory coinage. There is no compulsory coinage of gold, or greenbacks, or national bank notes, and the value of these several issues is firmly fixed and established; but the value of the silver dollar is not fixed, because it is ordered by statute that an additional sum of at least 2,000,000 per month shall be added to the silver currency of the country. A currency or a metal value not redeemable in anything. The issuance of gold, and especially of silver certificates is another measure of evil. Why should the United States issue silver certificates for the deposit of silver any more than it should issue warehouse receipts for the deposit of corn or wheat? There might as well be steel rail certificates, or pig-iron certificates. What is needed is to give the silver dollar a fair chance with all the other dollars; not to handicap it in the interest of speculators. Our word for it, that when it is left to itself it will take care of itself with the best dollar the world can put against it.

COAL-OIL CORRUPTION. The second open letter of Hon. S. K. Donavin to Senator Henry B. Payne must cause a profound sensation among all honest citizens, without regard to partisan bias. In his first letter Mr. Donavin offered to furnish the facts to back his charge that Mr. Payne, or his friends for him, had used money with prodigality to defeat Hon. George H. Pendleton, and to secure the election of Mr. Payne to the United States Senate. This was generally understood at the time of Mr. Payne’s sudden and quite unexpected entrance upon the campaign as a candidate, his determination to do so being kept a close secret until after the election, lest the honest men of the party take warning and refuse to elect the Democratic candidates. We say that it was generally understood at the time that money was used to corrupt the Ohio Legislature to make it return this unexpected candidate over a man to whom re-election was due, and \cho had done so much for his party. But while this impression obtained everywhere, it lost much of its effect by reason of the fact that it could not be proved that such a monstrous fraud upon the people had been attempted and accomplished. And even when the Hon. S. K. Donavin published his first open letter to the beneficiary of these alleged frauds, the feeling obtained that it was a bit of spitework by a man either snubbed or disappointed in some political ambition. The conclusion was that he had no more information on the subject than that had /by the public at large, which amounted to a deep-seated conviction, grounded on evidences conclusive enough to convince anybody, but not of a character to establish in court the charge of bribery and corruption. Mr. Donavin offered to produce the facts should Mr. Payne care to have them or dare deny the charges made. After waiting a few days and hearing nothing from Ohio’s Democratic senator, Mr. Donavin, on his own motion, returns to the charge, and without circumlocution names the legislators bought and the amounts paid them, ranging from $5,000 or more down to $1,200. If this kind of charge does not astound and alarm the people it will bo proof only that popular elections are in greater danger than it is pleasant to confess. Here is a practically specific charge that Henry B. Payne, through his friends and by his tacit consent, has bought his way to a seat in the highest law-making body in the land. An analysis of the accusation shows that it is not the work of a partisan of a hostile organization, uttered to prejudice electors against Mr. Payne, nor to influence any pending election. Mr. Donavin is a fel-low-Democrat with the man he accuses. He makes no pretension of being anything else; and he names his men and gives his figures in a manner that indicates he knows what he is about. Ho either does, or he is a very rash and very foolish man. The character of his charges is such that no honorable man, or indeed any man, can quietly rest under them. There must be, and of course there will be, vehement denials right and left. Mr. Donavin has challenged these men and it remains to see how they will lake it. He names fifteen of them, and gives the amounts they respectively received to vote for Mr. Payne. Where is all this corruption and fraud to end? How much will the people submit to before compelling the courts to take cognizance of corruption in elections, and to punish the guilty parties? According to Democratic testimony a Democrat bought his way to the Senate from Ohio by bribing a score or more of Democrats. Captain Anderson, a Democratic member

of the committee of one hundred at Cindfl!nati, after an investigation extending over weeks, gave it as his deliberate opinion that in the late election there “the only organized fraud against the registration and election laws has been within the Democratic party.” He alj- declared that “the only organization shielding and protecting the perpetrators of fraud is also within the Democratic party.” This is a grave arraignment by a man who has been and expects to remain a Democrat. It has been demonstrated beyond the possibility of successful contradiction that someone broke into the ballotboxes at Cincinnati, and changed the totals on the tally-sheets, in order to “elect” certain Democratic candidates in Hamilton county, the ultimate purpose being to fraudulently return another Democratic senator from Ohio. Exactly the same kind of fraud was attempted at Columbus, apparently under direction of the same men and for the same purpose. There is enough in all this to arouse the indignation of honest men in all parties. What hope is there for honest Democrats if the wealthy men of their party can buy up the men they need in the Legislature? Aud what hope is there for State and Nation if characterless scoundrels be allowed to practice their villainies without fear of punishment? If Henry B. Payne can buy his way to the Senate, Henry B. Payne or any- other man of wealth can buy such legislation as he wants. And if ballot-box stuffers and electionfixers- can have their own will and can cheat their way into places where they can realize on their honor, then it is useless for honest men to take the trouble to vote, and popular elections become an expensive farce. Unless Senator Payne can disprove these charges he must go into history literally buried in infamy, from which all the wealth of the world would not deliver him. It is the duty of every honest man to insist on the fullest and most impartial investigation of this case, and unless Mr. Payne can clear himself from these charges of perfidy, he should be expelled from the Senate as unfit to sit with honorable men. This is the only safe course for honest citizens above such villainy and anxious to keep the government up to that high standard that alone can insure its perpetuity. No apology is needed for the action of the Ohio House of Representatives in refusing to seat the Democratic delegates from Hamilton county. The infamy of their attempt to take seats in the Legislature could only have been made greater by making a success of it. It has been demonstrated beyond the shadow of doubt that in one precinct in Cincinnati more than enough votes to elect were credited to these men, the day after the election, by changing the totals, some scoundrel making a bungling attempt to make a “9” out of a “7”, so as to make the Democratic total read “926” instead of “726,” as it was when the votes were counted. These 200 “votes” were needed to “elect” these men, and hence the attempt to get them in this easiest and least expensive way. To cover and divert attention from this infamy, the Democratic press set up a yell of fraud in other wards, as possibly there was; but here was fraud published, and there could be no question about it. To have ignored it would not only have seated men not elected, but would have put a premium on election scoundrelism. If the impudent pretenders who were contemptible enough to lay claim to office under such circumstances could have been kicked out of the Capitol, the example would have been wholesome and the indignity well merited. It is a pity that such frauds cannot always be exposed as thoroughly, and as thoroughly defeated.

“Read it again, and read it slow, Mars’ r Davy,” said Pegotty, when Copperfield had finished reading the letter from Little Em’ly. He couldn’t understand, couldn't believe the awful import it only too plainly conveyed. The good people of Indianapolis, dazed in somewhat the same manner, read and reread the report of the proceedings of the last meeting of the Board of Aldermen. A resolution is drawn up, read and passed by that body, in due form, to the effect that any member of the Council or Board of Aldermen who appears in the Couucil chambers under the influence of liquor shall be fined in any sum not more than $25 nor less than $5. A second reading of this order will cause Americans to entertain more charity toward the writer of “American Notes” and “Martin Chuzzlewit,” who was bold enough to offer criticism of American manners. The passage of such an order conveys the impression that it has been the custom, or it has happened often enough to provoke formal action, for certain members to appear at meetings in an intoxicated condition. And, as if this were not enough, another member caused an order to be passed forbidding the practice of smoking during the session of the board. It is a disgrace and shame that such orders are needed to control the conduct of gentlemen honored by election as city legislators. The State-house commissioners state that the place whore the fire broke out is the only place in the building where such a thing could have occurred. Os course; and did the commissioners ever know of a fire in any public building of which the same could not, or would not, be said? When the building is completed and a fire then breaks out, it will be at the only spot where it could occur; but that won’t change the fact any, nor reduce the amount of the loss. We should not fill ourselves with the east wind about the new Capitol building. It is a very good building of the kind, and has

been carefully and economically built, no doubt; but it will not prove to be one of the seven wonders of the earth, as the public would be most likely to infer from the constant stream of praise emitted from certain quarters. Commodore Truxton is the toady who painted out the inscription on the guns at the Norfolk navy-yard, and effaced the inscription on the dry-dock, and discharged ex-Union soldiers to give employment to ox-Confed-erates. The explanation doubtless is that the old fossil thought he could obtain more social recognition from the “first families of Virginia” by means of this disloyal servility. Whatever the truth, it is well for the country to have it, in obedience to the resolution of Mr. Boutelle. The next thing to do will be to abandon the stripes in the national flag because *of their indication of the everlasting whaling the rebels got at the hands of the men who fought under its folds. Let “the era of reconciliation” proceed to its legitimate end. New Orleans justice, with a good grip on the murderers of Ford by assassination in the street, has been able to do a little as a side issue while awaiting the hanging of tho condemned. The City Council had been ordered by court to pay certain expenses contracted during the prosecution of the assassins, and seven members had refused to allow any action to be taken in compliance with this order. The court held them for contempt, and each was fined SSO and sentenced to ten days in the parish prison. A writ of habeas corpus saved them for a time, but the Supreme Court decided against their appeal, and, on Monday, they were placed in jail, according to sentence. The people of the Crescent City are to be congratulated. In the Philadelphia public schools 23,000 girls receive instruction in the necessary accomplishments of sewing, cutting and darning. This branch of instruction was introduced into the schools about one year ago, and the results so far seem satisfactory. Whether the knowledge gained in this way will, when given a practical trial, prove to be of the same imperfect character as that which results from the attempt to teach book-keeping, or the German language, is a matter which the future will disclose.

The reports that such and such a Democratic official is about to resign, followed next day by a denial that he has any such intention, are becoming a trifle monotonous. It is only the unsophisticated who are deceived by such reports. Os coui’se they will not resign —not one of them. After having watched and waited for office for twenty-five years they may, in their exuberant delight, toy with the prize for a time, as a cat with a mouse, but it will never get away by their permission. Pity the poor and ignorant stranger among us who endeavors to instruct himself on the subject of the currency by reading the newspapers. One says the present policy, if persisted in, will ruin the country; another, equally emphatic, insists that coinage can only be stoppod at the risk of paralyzing every industry, while a third favors a compromise as the only possible method of regulating the matter safely. It is more confusing than the fifteen puzzle. A REPORT from the Syrian missions states that a large number of Moslem girls, who have been taught by missionaries during the past fifteen years, have married, and not one of them has been divorced, nor have their husbands been known to take other wives. Those missionaries should be called back at once to exert their excellent influence in those portions of the home vineyard where divorces most do flourish, as Chicago, Philadelphia and Connecticut. The reports are already coming in—the fruit crop everywhere is to be a total failure next season. Long experience, however, will enable the hopeful citizen to bear up uuder this sad news, and even to cherish a secret belief that he will not find the market of 1886 entirely bare of the healthful pippin, the luscious peach and the melting “banan-two-for fi-centa.” • Mr. Sherman need not distress himself longer. He received eighty-four votes in the Ohio Legislature, yesterday, to sixty-one for Allen G. Thurman. In the joint convention to-day Mr. Sherman will be given a majority of equal size, and the babble of the idiots about the probabilities of defeating him for re-election will be put to eternal rest. Ohio wakes up this morning with a new Governor. Now let her make a desperate effort to reform some of her bad wayt Chicago News. A good start has been made by the i. gislature. The Cincinnati method of electing by changing the totals on tally-sheets has been rebuked. “The King was in the parlor, counting out his money. The Queen was in the kitchen, eating bread and honey." Change “honey” to read “strawberries,” and the situation resembles that which exists in the court of Italy. King Humbert and Queen Margarita will lose their reputation for beir.g the model pair of royal lovers if they quarrel over the daily bill of fare. It doesn’t look at all nice in the eyes of a critical world for a king to refuse his wife her special dainty. What if the good of being a queen anyway, if one can’t have strawberries in season and out? The English sparrow generally manages to take care of himself under all circumstances, however adverse to his comfort. A Philadelphia court of justice suspended business for five minutes, on Saturday, while the court officers assisted in thawing out a half-frozen sparrow.

When it began flying about the room business was resun *.d, and the judge ordered it to be allowed to remain in the house until Monday. The New York papers report a chicken fight in which “nearly $20,000 changed hands.” The authorities failed to find out anything about it, though, as usual, the reporters got full particulars. Judging by the amount of money that “changed hands,” we would say the financial situation is improving. Those who bet on the winning bird probably take the same view. A Philadelphia coachman who wanted to marry his employer’s daughtor has been arrested for “persecuting her with his attention*," and sent to the insane asylum. Coachmen will make a note of this: If one of their number succeeds in eloping with an heiress no ona thinks of charging him with lunacy; if he fails insanity is self-evident. Don’t expect an advertisement to bear fruit in one night—New York Mail and Express. It all depends on the nature ot the “ad.” If it is a “want” in the morning paper for an office boy, ora female copyist atahigh salary, a threestory warehouse will be required to hold the “fruit” which comes in before night in the shape of applicants. Even royalty owns up that this is a hard winter. The Queen of Italy has bargained with Humbert that she will eat strawberries but twice a week, instead of daily, if he will come a little nearer weai’ing out his clothes before laying them aside. The King expects to realize enough off the berries not eaten to pay his tailor. Editor Hill, late of the London News, the man who refused a testimonial of $5,000, now declares that the circulation of the News is stationary. The circulation of all papers, in a certain sense, is stationery. But think of a man refusing $5,000 in order to be free to say a little thing like that. A Pennsylvania paper urges the people living in the border counties of the State to remember, when making up their donation parties to the pastors, that the new marriage-license law has cut the reverend gentlemen out of many fees, and to increase their gifts in proportion.

ABOUT PEOPLE AND THINGS. Mrs. Sala, the wife of George Augustus Sala, is dead, in Australia. Theodore Thomas is in his fifty-first year. He was born in Germany. Mrs. Brownlow, the famous parson’s widow, is still living at Knoxville, Tenn. The death has been announced of Dr. Julius Glaser, who was Austria’s most eminent lawyer. Three snow-white beavers were lately captured in the river St John at Frederickton, New Brunswick. “How To Be Happy Though Married” is the alarming title of a volume that has been presented to the Princess Beatrice. Oliver Johnson, one of the few survivors of the old abolition is lying dangerously sick at his home in New York city. Count Puckler, who has just resigned the post of High Court Marshal on account of his aee, is only six months younger than Kaiser Wilhelm. The Bank of England issued nearly five millions of dollars between 1797 and 1819, and the numismatists are asking what has become of these dollars? The late Col Henry Goodfellow, Judge-Advo-cate of the Department of the Missouri, was next to the last surviving member of the Kano Arctic expedition. Mrs. Jessie Benton Fremont and her sister, Mrs. Jones, are visiting in Washington. Mrs. Fremont remains, as she has always been, a great social favorite there. Claus Spueckles, the sugar kingof the Sandwich islands, manages to eke out a miserable existence in San Francisco upon the insignificant annual income of $5,000,1)00. Harrison, the “Boy Preacher,” who is now forty-four years old, has opened fire on the forces of Satan in Manchester, N H. This is the boy’s first venture in any of the New England States. The grinding of the crown glass disk of the immense lens for Lick Observatory, California, is well under way at Cambridge, Mass., yet a whole year’s work remains to be done before it can be finished. The hedgehog is a faTorite food of the gypsies; and those who have eaten of it as cooked by them in their traveling caravans in England say it is excellent. Hedgehogs are nicest in the fall months, and are said to be more delicate than piglings. Dr. Hartwell, of Johns Hopkins University, says that a German soldier can scale a twentyfoot wail with his arms and accoutrements, or jump an iron-spiked fence without getting caught, and he attributes this to the fact that gymnastics are compulsory in the German schools. Mitchell’s proposition to fight Sullivan for the benefit of charitable institutions opens up a new field of benevolent enterprise. We may presently see “scientific sparring” replace the raffle at church fairs, and “slugging for a knockout” succeed the antediluvian kissing games at Sunday-school picnics. Dr. Fillmore Bennett wrote the favorite hymn, “SWeet Bye and Bye,” in 1868. Dr. Bennett lives at Richmond, 111., and is quite poor. He says it did not take him more than twenty minutes to write the hymn which Lotta, the actress, did so much to render famous by its introduction in one of her plays. Senator Gray, of Delaware made a fine impression by his first speech. He is not only n handsome man, but an able one. His voice wae clear, resonant and well sustained throughout He was generally congratulated, and senators feel that the Delawarean has proved himself tcbe a decided acquisition to the chamber. Prof. Huxley, recalling the fact that he is four years older than the oldest steam railroad says: “I confess it fills me with astonishment think that the time when no man could travel faster than horses could transport him, when our means of locomotion were no better than those of Achilles or of Ramses Maimum, lies within my memory.” If M. Grevy lives to the end of this present month he will be the first ruler of France—if he is its ruler—for sixty years who has served out his full term of office. Louis XVIII ended his reign naturally by death. But his three successors, Charles X, Louis Philippe and Napoleon 111, died in exile, and M. Grevy’s two predecessors in the presidency, Thiers and MacMahon, resigned. The Duke of Edinburgh will assume command of the Meditteranean fleet in February. The Duchess of Edinburgh will transfer her home to Malta and will there set up a mimic court and make her residence as brilliant socially as her position will permit It’s said that she frets a good deal because her position as a royal princess is practically ignored in England, and that she goes to Malta gladly. Since the Philadelphia Presbytery refused to admit Dr. Leonard Woolsey Bacon as a member, it has withdrawn from the Woodland Church the privilege of employing as “stated supply” any minister not belonging to a presbytery. But, at the urgent request of this church, whose pulpit he has been filling for the last year, and whifsh had lately called him as pastor, Dr. Bacon is permitted to remain until July 1. Some of his Episcopal friends are urging him to enter that denomination. The Sult&n has a sweet tooth, which was a good thing for a German tramp who stopped the royal carriage in a suburb of Constantinople not