Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 4

a enter into an undertaking not to prosecute him? If he did not steal it, what right have they to take this $9,000,000 from him?" The President of the Erie Railway might reply that he is neither the Prosecuting Attorney of New York nor foreman of the Grand Jury, nor yet editor of a newspaper, any one of whom might properly move for the indictment of Gould, under the criminal law of the State. On the other hand, he is specially charged with the duty of protecting the interests of the Erio stockholders, and recovering their property as far as possible. What he has done in no wise puts" Gould beyond the reach of the criminal law, while it does certainly put some millions of dollars into the Erie Treasury. The Chicago produce markets were generally dull on Saturday, except wheat. Mess pork was inactive, and nominaily unchanged at 11.75 cash, and seller March.

Lard was in fair demand, and a shade easier at $6.95 per 100 ibs cash, and seller March. Meats were rather quiet and easier, at for shoulders, for short ribs, for short clear, and for green hams. Highwines were more active and unchanged at per gallon. Dressed hogs were in fair demand, and 5c per 100 tbs higher, at 4.40. Flour was dull and easier, Wheat was less active and 1o higher, closing at cash, and seller January.

Corn was dull and steady, closing at cash, and Beller January. Oats were in better demand and firm, closing at cash, and seller January. Rye was in good demand and 1c higher, closing at 66c. Barley was dull at the lowest prices of Friday, at 65c for No. 2, and 53 for No.

3. Tho live hog market was dull and heavy. Only a few sales were effected, and prices closed weak at The cattle and sheep markets were inactive. Aside from the public interest that is felt in the investigation of the Credit Mobilier scandal, there is another and more cogent reason why the Committee should opon the doors upon its re-28sembling, after the holiday vacation. The experience of the people with respect to close investigating committees has not been of a kind to promote confidence in their verdicts.

The people want to know the evidence upon which these verdicts are based. It is not enough to furnish this evidence in printed reports which never reach the people, and which are not even published until long after the interest in the controversy has passed away along with the opportunity for doing justice. If tho present Committee were to admit the public to the testimony which they receive, they would take away from themselves a strong temptation to puts prejudiced construction upon it, Knowing that the public has equal opportunities for estimating the value of evidence as it is currently given, the Committee would be mora careful to make their estimate correct and impartial, There is no other matter now before Congress in which so great an interest is felt, and this interest has altogether ceased to have partisan The Honorable Simon Cameron made a speech the other day, which fills nearly two pages of the Globe, advocating the payment of the French Spoliation claims, which date back to the Administration of Thomas Jefferson. All the original claimants are dead, and their immediate descendants also. The third generation, 80 far as they can be discovered by advertising, are now moving to secure what they call justice.

The claims are for spoliations committed upon our commerce by the French Republic prior to the year 1801. The present movement to secure payment is fathered by one James H. Cansten, of Washington City, who advertisos in the newspapers for all the de scendants of the originally despoiled to come forward and make themselres known and heard. The original claims were for $20,000,000, but Mr. Cansten proposes to compromise for $5,000,000.

Senator Sherman made a speech in opposition to Cameron's bill, holding that the claims, whether valid or not as against France, had never been paid to our Government, either in cash or by way of offset, and; therefore, that there could be no equitable demand upon the United States for said spoliations. The Rock Island Union demands that the proposed Illinois and Mississippi Canal (to wit, the projected water-route from. Hennepin, via Sheffield, to the Mississippi River, at or near Rock Island,) shall be included in the general scheme of improvements to be undertaken by the Gorernment. We second the motion. If the Government is going into this business, Tre shall look out for our share by all means.

No arguments can be made for any of the proposed works that cannot be made for this one, which looks to the relief of the entire Mississippi Valley north of Rock Island, and for coneiderable south of that place. The cost of the proposed work is set down by the Union, on the basis of estimates made by Colonel Macomb, U. 8. at $12,480,910, which includes the cost of a navigable feeder from Dixon to West Sheffield. The objection to all such works is, that since the taxes imposed upon the whole people are employed to pay for them, every locality is entitled to and will demand its share of "improvement," and the whole will swell to an expense which not even the Government, with its great resources, can pay.

This is our answer 1 to a censorious article in the Davenport Gazette, which insists that what we want in this matter is scrutiny, and a judicious of money for canale. There can be expenditure no such thing as scrutiny and judicious expenditure under a system whore every man is as good as every other man, where every taxpayer is entitled to oqual consideration with every other, and is armed with the power of the ballot to enforce it. The new Insurance law which has just passed the Massachusetts Legislature, authorizing the formation of insurance companies, contains one important provision which is not to be very found in the insurance laws of any other State, Section 18 of the law provides that before Oct. 1, 1873, the authorities of every town and city in the State, having over 4,000 inhabitants, shall divide them into fire districts, that no company transacting business in the shall, after the above date, have at risk on property, other than detached dwelling-houses, farm buildings and their contenta, in any such town district, an amount exceeding its net assets available for the payment of losses in Massachusetts, the premium notes of mutual companies to be computed among the assets. The section further provides that when "from any cause the net assets, aforesaid, of any such company or association shall be reduced to a sum less than the amount taken or held at risk in any town, or any such fire insurance district as provided in this sec- THE CHICAGO DAILY TRIBUNE:" MONDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1872.

TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION (PATABLE IN ADVANCE). 6.00 Weekly $2:88 Parts of a year at the same rate. To prevent delay and mistakes, be sure and give Post Remittances may bo made either by draft, express, Post Ofice address in fall, including State and County. O5ice order, or in registered letters, at our risk. TERMS TO CITY SUBSCRIBERS.

Daily, delivered, Sunday excoptod, 25 cents per wook. week. Daily, included, cents Address Corner Madison and THE TRIBUNE Chicago, fu. COMPANY, TERMS OF THE TRIBUNE. TRIBUNE Branch Office, No.

469 in the Bookstore of Messrs. Cobb, Andrews where advertisements and subscriptions will be received, and will have the samo attention ag if left at the Main Office. CONTENTS OF TRIBUNE. FIRST PAGE -Washington News -Miscellaneous Telegrams. SECOND PAGE Saturday Night's Telegrams Farm and Garden--The Aplary.

THIRD PAGE Boston Letter: Sorrowful Holidays; Queer Political Combinations- -The Now Dominion: A Comprehensiva Review of Canadian A Genoral News Items- Business Directory--Advertise ments. FOURTH PAGE -Editorials: The Currency Question; The Problem of Municipal Government; The Genera Award; The Cold Snap--Current Nows Items. FIFTH PAGE- Stanton Company's Business Card. SIXTH PAGE -Monetary and Commercial Railroad Tima Table. SEVENTH PAGE -The Pulpit: Sermons by Rev.B.

E. S. Ely and Rev. John Wood -The Law Courts-Hyde Park -Stroator the Headquarters of the Vermilion Coal Fields. EIGHTH PAGE-Periodical Literature Eranston Mattors Miscellaneous Telegrams.

TO-DAY'S AMUSEMENTS. A'VICKER'S THEATRE -Madison street, between Etate and Dearborn. Engagement of Miss Charlotte Cushman. Guy Mannering." HOOLEY'S OPERA HOUSE Randolph street, between Clark and LaSalle. New Comody Company.

The Lancachire Lass." AIKEN'S THEATRE-Wabash avenue, corner of TOES street. Engagement of Lawrence Barrett. Julins Cesar." ACADEMY OF MUSIC- Halsted strect, south of Madison. Engagement of the Carroll Family. New SonEational dram, entitled Our Mother." MYERS' OPERA HOUSE Monroe street, between State and Dearborn.

Arlington, Cotton Kemble's Minstrel and Burlesque Troupe. GLOBE THEATRE-Desplaines street, between Madison and Washington. The Leon Brothers. The Union Scout.1* NIKON'S street, between Washington and Rendolph. Engagement of Zoo.

BUSINESS NOTICES. PIMPLES REMOVED AND SKIN MADE SMOOTH by using Juniper York. Tar Soap. Manufactured by Caswell Now FOR DYSPEPSIA, INDIGESTION, Ferro DEPRESSION Phosphorated of Euxir of Calisara Bark (Calisaya Bark and Iron), is Spirits and General Debility. the the best tonic.

Made by Caswell, Hazard Co, New York, and sold by Druggists, HOW UNNECESSARY THE ANGUISH MANY persons toothache, undergo and earache. We say annecessary. because from rheumatism, gout, pearalgia, the flicted application or a of few drops of it in the ears or tooth, afMoxican Mustang Liniment to the afpart, fords to tantaneous, and what is better, permanent inja- Tolist, For cuts, wounds, bruises, swellings, and all ries or diseases which require trestment externally, this liniment is ererywhere regarded as the For all most external potent and injuries, reliable or healing ailments agent of in horses and cattle, it is infallible. existence. UNITED STATES WATCH COMPANY, Wu Arperican observe, continues manufacturers, to At the the fairs held in different hold leading position among parts of in the this line, country, the Marion (Giles, Wales Co.) United where there has been great Slates Watches hare been regarded as greatly have superior, beon in erery particular, to any on exhibition, and the first have premiams been over exhibited, all competitors securing.

in the gold every fair ruedal where at the they fair of the American Lastitute, New York, jest closed. The Chirag Tribune. Monday Morning, December 23, 1872. The Public Library will be opened to the public New Year's Day, for the first time. The French Assembly has adjourned for the holidays, and Franco may rest; but Gambetta's predicts that when it reassembles a Beorgan riots Parliamentary crisis may be expected.

It ie said that a number of the stockholdors of Union Pacific Railroad have asked the Presitho dent to sue the members of the Credit Mobilier for $18.000,000, which they hare taken from that railroad and divided among themselves. The floods in the Seine are rapidly falling. Thames is now breaking its banks, and The Windsor and the neighboring country are suffrom an inundation which has not been fering squalled since 1852. The coal miners now on strike at Springfield complain that their employers, besides refusing them the higher wages which should follow the increased price of coal in the winter season, force them to buy supplies of powder and oil at their own stores at a figure far beyond cost. They further charge that a loaded car, for which they are paid as for ten tone, is sold as twelve.

On the other side, the mine-owners say that the miners are free to buy their supplies where they please. BIr. John R. G. Hassard, who assumes the editorship of the New York Tribune ad interim, though without much experience as manager of a newspaper, is one of the most forcible and pungent writers on the American press.

He was formerly employed on the literary work of Appletou's Cyclopedia, and subsequently served a brief newepaper apprenticeship on the Chicago Republican, when that paper was under Mr. Dana's charge. From this city he returned to New York, where he took a position as editorial writer on the Tribune. Mr. Orton might do thing than to retain him.

He might also rotso do a worse thing than to get Mr. Blaine to take the chief editorship. Mr. Blaine possesses and clasticity of mind, together with quickness forecast and experience, which would political largely compensate for his lack of training in dally journalism. In our correspondence from the New Dominfou, this morning, a review is given of the condition of the chief Canadian railways.

Of these, the largest are the Grand Trunk and the Great Western lines. Neither of these seem to be embarrassed with riches. The Grand Trunk Railway, with 1,309 miles Di track, employing 5,000 men, and with ninety millions oF cash investments, has not paid a dividend for years. Its expenses consumo per cent of its gross earnings. The Great Western Road makes 810,403 gross earnings a mile, the largest of any single track in the world, but rung its expenses up to 60 per cent of the receipts, which are found to increase in a faster ratio than the earnings.

One year of the ten which the Dominion Parliament granted for the building of the Canadian Pacific Road has passed without a stroke of work done, but a company been formed. Its stock is to be placed with has most rigorous precautions against its being controlled by any other than Canadian capitalists. The New York Times percoives a great moral backalide in the acceptance of $7,000,000 by the President of the Erie Railway from Jay Gould. Perhaps some old-fashioned people," it says, what laws for the punishment of may ask, made for? It Gould stole this thieves were money, That right hare the Erie Directors to tion, such company or association shall forthwith either cancel or return to the holder the unearned portion of the premium upon policies upon property in such territory to an amount equal to the difference between the net assets and the amount taken or held at risk, as aforesaid, or effect reinsurance upon such property for like Sum and no such cancellation shall take place except after notice to the holder of the policy." This excellent provision of the Massachusetts bill so disperses risks as not only to protect the insured, but also to make the business itself more remunerative. The soundest insurance companies in this country are those which have distributed their risks most widely.

While it will change the whole system of Boston insurand undoubtedly put them in the field ance, equipped with numerous agencies, it contains a valuable suggestion for change in the Bystems of companies outside of Boston, which change might be facilitated by legislation, and it has been done in Massachusetts. THE CURRENCY QUESTION. The proposition to authorize the issue of legal-tender notes to any amount that may be called for in exchange for Government bonds, which bonds in turn may be exchanged for greenbacks, deducting the interest in the meantime, is not open to the objections that apply to a general expansion of the currency. Its adoption would test the much-disputed question whether the present volume of currency is or is not equal to the wants of the country. That question can never be determined to the satisfaction of the public until the opportunity is afforded to the community of having more currency if they want it and can pay for it.

If the present issuo be enough to meet the necessities of commerce, no more will bo called for; if more is needed, then, upon the surrender of outstanding bonds, the Treasury will issue in exchange therefor a corresponding amount of currency. When the currency becomes too abundant, it will be retired for the bonds. The present stringency in the money markat is caused, we think, by a dearth of loanable capital (that is, of the surplus products of labor), rather than by laok of currency with which the products of labor are exchanged; but such is not the common belief. Anybody who has Government bonds can get money for them now, taking the risk of a rise in the price before he wants them back again. It is believed by those who favor the proposed measure, that this risk of a rise in price prevents the holders of bonds from selling them, and investing their money temporarily in commercial loans, which afford double the rate of interest that the bonds draw.

Bonds issued in exchange for currency would be something after the kind of securities known in England as exchequer bills. When the Gorernment needs money temporarily, over and above its revenue, it issues exchequer bi bills to the Bank of England. These bills pass from hand to hand as money, aro issued for sums ranging from £5 to £50, bearinterest at the rate of to pence per day on each £100, or from to per cent per annum. The amount of these outstanding sometimes exceeds 000. They are redeemable On demand.

All persons having money unemployed geek these exchequer bills, which, being convertible into money on demand, are a most convenient form of investment. The greenback proposition goes beyond this. It authorizes the Governmont, upon the surrender of any bonda, to issue greenbacks in lion of them; these greenbacks bear no interest, and consequently the receiving them loses the interest on his person bonds, or, rather, pays that much interest for the use of the currency. On the other hand, it offers to any person having curan interest-bearing bond in exrency change therefor. HOw much interest these bonds should bear is an after considerstion.

It should probably be in the neighborhood of 5 per cent. Whatever interest they bear will be the measure of the interest paid for the 1188 of the currency, upon the highest security, and it is not likely that there will bo any inflation upon those terms, or any demand for currency beyond the actual wants of trade, so long 43 it involves a loss of 5 per cent gold interest. The Government now has outstanding 000,000 of overdue paper. It is irredeemable, and bears no interest. The Government should either redeem it, or offer its creditors the opportunity to put it into 80 interest-bearing shape.

Under this system, there need be no limt to the amount of greenbacks that may be issued; if the country wants thousand millions of currency on those terms, and will surrender interest-bearing bonds in exchange for it, the country ought to havo the opportunity. If, however, the public do not want $360,000,000, they ought tohave the privilege of surrendering so much of it as they do not need, and receiving an interestbearing bond worth par in The immediate effect of establishing this convertibility of currency and bonds will be to give the currency the same value as the bonds, The 5 per cent bonds are now worth 98 cents on the dollar. Will this measure reduce their value, and to what extent? The making of the greenbacks convertible at the pleasure of the holder into bonds will certainly have the general effect of impairing the credit of the Government, because it will be the fulfilment, in part, of its promise to redeem its demand notes. Hence it is not probable that the existing bonds would decline in value by the adoption of the proposed measure. They ought rather to advance.

THE GENEVA AWARD, The disposition of the award made by the Genera Tribunal promises to bring up as many knofty questions as did the original arbitration itself. There will not only be a long diecussion upon the manner of constituting the Court to decide upon the claims, but vigorous contest also be expected as to the classes of claims may which can bo introduced, and, before these are settled, the law courts may have to step in and decide, The marine insurance companies are already coming to the front, and, by virtue of their more compact organization and consolidated influence, are preparing to overwhelm the individual claimants, who can only act of thmselres or through their attorneys, and not by an influential joint effort. This will 110- doubtedly be the chief point at issue, and, in getling it, several important questions must come It will have to be decided whether the OWnup. of a vessel after receiving his insurance is ener titled to receive anything from the award, and if so, then whether he is entitled to get the full amount of the loss or the value of his vessel minus the insurance paid him. On the other hand, it will also have to be decided whether the insurance companies, by charging war risks, did not sufficiently indemnify themselves and in reality debar themselves from any share in the award.

The insurance companies already are preparing to meet this issue, and will have powerful lobby on hand. The whole matter of the distribution is now in the hands of the House Judiciary Committee, and it is understood that General Butler, who is a member of that Committce, has prepared voluminous tribunal bill, to which not only provides for a judicial pass upon the claims, but defines the exact classes of claims which can be admitted, and excludes all insurance companies which charged war risks. As this would virtually exclude all the marine insurance companies, a lively if not bitter fight may be expected after the recess, as the companies have made a powerful organization with reference to this very emergency, and are 11 better condition to engineer their claims than individual claimants. The discrimination a made by the Butler bill seems to be founded on reason, however. It is little olse than extortion for an insurance company, after having charged and collected enormous premiums covering this very risk, to step in and take also the value of the vessel and cargo; while, on general grounds, the long and tedious Geneva arbitration has' been of little account it the Government has been put to all its expense simply to pay insurance companies for a riak for which they have already been paid once by the vessel-owners.

If the latter are to have tho award then let the Government present, as an offset, its own expense account for the pursuit and capture of the Alabama. THE PROBLEM OF MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT. The personal reforms which have been effected in the City Government of New York have brought about the consideration of such statutory reforms as will insure the permanence of the official integrity that has been obtained by little less than a popular revolt. This is a more perplexing and more difficult problem. A number of plans for new city charters have been sub- mitted, but all of them have been met with a flood of objections.

Mr. Havemeyer, the Mayorelect, suggests that the number or Commissionera in the control of the departments shall be diminished, and that, where it is possible, there shall be but one Commissioner, or Chief, for each department. It is a evident, too, from a conversation Which Mr. Havemeyer recently held with newspaper reporter, that he believes the appointing and removing power should be vested in the Mayor. Mr.

Dorman B. Eaton, who is a 'lawyer of ability, and who has deroted much attention to the of municipal government, insists that the Assembly District system should be abolished, and that the system of electing members of the Legislature on a general county ticket should be revived. The small Representative Districta, he claims, are little nests for little politicians, who become; dangerous in "the aggre. gate when they can control the local Government of New York City. Other plans contemplate a restoration to the people of New York City of the management of their own municipal affairs.

They claim that 'the interference of the State Government, which was first called in to check abuses in the New York City Gorernment, has now become the source of all municipal evil, and that, in the new charter, tho Legislature must abandon all its privileges for assisting in the management of New York City. Still other plans, modifying or simplifying those that bare been mentioned, are the topics of discussion; but none of them offers a complete or satisfactory solution of the problem. The difficulties of 8 practical and permanent reform of the City Government are found among the peoplo themselves, and are summed up by the Nation As ollows: 1. A class of adventurers, who are now known as professional politicians, but who would have been outlaws in the fourteenth century; 2, A small community of respectable people, who hare neither the time nor the qualifications to contend with these freebooters; 8. A large ignorant population furnishing the votes which are necessary to the professional politicians; and 4.

The means that are provided for rewarding these followers and retaining their allegiance. Hence the Nation concludes that permanent reform can only be secured by diminishing the number of elections, doing away with a portion of the political prizes, and insuring the tax-paying portion of the community, if not the control of the City Government, at least a powerful minority in the Common Council, -How the latter and most important feature of the proposed reform can be attained under the law of universal suffrage, the Nation does not undertake to say. It will be seen, from these mere suggestions of the various plans which have been submitted, how intricate the problem of securing good Municipal Government has become in city which has once been subjected to the riot of official corruption. We incline to the belief that no legislation and no city charter can assure it absolutely, and that it is only through the exertion of that power which the respectable and tax-paying community can always assert in a combined effort that official corruption can be defeated. The first requisite is, that the respectable and tax-paying community should act together without regard to party politics.

was in this way that the official thieves of New York were dethroned, and that their places were supplied with men of acknowledged integrity at the late municipal election. It was by a concentration of this kind that Mr. Havemeyer was elected Mayor, and he has recognized it by announcing that he will not listen to diotations from any party or association in regard to the appointments ho. has to make. The decided action of the several prominent citizens of Boston, who declined to accept political nomination for Mayor, was part of this general programme; and the election Mr.

Pierce was undoubtedly due to the acceptance, by the Republicans, of the non-partisan disposition of the offices which he made as condition of his candidature. The last two municipal elections of Chicago have been conducted on this plan, and have met with abundant success. Mayor Mason and Mayor Medill were both elected by the respectable community, who organized against party caucuses and conventions. It the Common Council has fallen short of this standard, it is because the Aldermen were mostly chosen by the old system of the word primaries, and because the citizens movement was not applied in the case of the various wards. While it is certain that a city charter can never assure permanently good government for cities, it can afford important auxiliaries.

Perhaps the election of Aldermen the general ticket, and not by the various wards, would 1 enable the citizens' movement to include with the general city officers, and take them from the dictation of the caucus. The doctrine of centralization in municipal government is by no means so dangerous as in the I tional Government. and that system which makes heads of departments responsible to the Chief Executive, who is, in turn, responsible to the people, undoubtedly has distinguished advantages. With the power of appointment and removal of subordinate city officials, the responsibility is fixed upon the Mayor in a way that ho cannot evade. But, back of all these and other auxiliary positions, comes the responsibility of tho respectable, tax-paying community itself, which can always assert its power in municipal government separating itself from party feeling, and by concentrating its forces upon the single purpose of electing honest and capable men to govern the city.

THE COLD SNAP. If any person in Chicago yesterday morning was caught napping by the sudden cold snap, and found himself with a frozen nose, or bursted water-pipes, or a jug of solid syrup for his buckwheats, it was not the fault of the Signal Service reporta. The faithful messengers on the icy ramparts of the far northwest have been giving daily warning of the insidious and rapid march of the frosty winds from the North Polo. The battalions of winter were preceded by a furious snow-storm, which swept from the great lakes to the Ohio River, coyered all the Eastern and Middle States with its white mantle, and spent its force on the Atlantic seaboard, carrying down many a. tall three-master in its wrath, and strewing the shores with the debris of vessels, and cargoes, and white upturned faces of dead seamen.

At Pembina, on the far northern frontier, on Wednesday last, the thermometer marked 29 degrees below zero, and at Breckinridge, 200 miles southeastward from that point, it WAS 28 degrees below zero, while the gradient of the thermometer from the Southern States to the extreme northwest showed a descent of over 90 degrees, or nearly one degree for every fifteen miles. Since that time, the wave of cold from the Arctic regions has rolled steadily on, becoming more dry and intensely cold as it passed over Dakota and Minnesota, yielding somewhat, however, to the climatio influences of the lakes as it reached us, and undoubtedly growing colder again asit passed beyond their influence into New York and the Now England States, The weather reports in our last issue are exclusively from the West. Manitoba, in the extreme northwest, reported 42 below zero; St. Paul and Minneapolis, 30 below; and Milwaukee, in the direct line of these polar winds, 20 below; Dea Moines, Iowa, 22 below; and Madison, 25 below. Illinois is somewhat out of the direct line of the intensely cold wave, for Ottawa reports 15 below, LaSalla 12 below, and the lowest point resched during the day in Chicago was 15 below.

What point was reached during the night in Chicago may never be known. The scientifio observer who might have had courage enough to stay out of bed would undoubtedly have either frozen to death or died in despair the discovery that his thermometer was incapable of registering the degree of temperature. Whatever may have been the degree of temperature it was sufficiently cold for practical purposes, and its vigor could not have been mitigated by any mercurial knowledge. After mercury gets to a certain point, it resembles a depraved human being. It gets so low that it isn't of much account how low it descends after that.

When a man is pierced through and through with the cold, even to the marrow, it is of very little consequence to him whether the thermometer is 20 below or 40 below. He can't get much colder, and the addition of a few more degrees is a matter of supreme indifference to him, is a mere abstract scientifio fact, in which takes no more interest than ordinary human beings do in the discovery of asteroid, having more of those useless shining points already than they can make use There is nothing particularly consolatory in announcement of the fearful cold in the Arctio regions to a man with a frozen ear or a frostbitten nose. He has already attained the maximum of frosty delight, and for all practical purposes ho is as cold as an iceberg, and is suffering as keenly and intensely a8 any greasy Esquimaux in the Arctic Zone. The efficacy and value of the Signal Service have been signally tested in this sudden snap, although its announcements have not pared us to accept the cold with any greater degree of Christian philosophy, simply because we knew it was coming. But there other points than the scientific to be regarded studying the lessons of the cold.

There is patriotic element in it which the philosopher may contemplato over his grate to-day. present ware of cold, like those awful waves last winter, comes in a direct line from Alaska, and they are, generally, signalled first at Benton, on the Upper Missouri. Since Mr. ard effected the purchase of that delightful country from Russia, re have been at a loss know what it was good for, and hare more once suspected that the Czar made very bargain when he got rid of it, and pocketed seven and a half millions of gold. Ag a real tate operation, it was creditable to the Czar, when he called homo his two-headed eagle, which had in vain tried to derive some fort screaming among its icy crags the Aleuts, he must have laughed his sleeve at the cheerful prospect an eagle with but one head would have trying pitch its voice to a patriotio key among and white bears, icebergs and boreal auroras.

At the time of the purchase there was an definite report that its seal fur business both immense and lucrative but as it was sequently developed that a ring of speculators has the monopoly of clubbing and flaying for several years to come, the business ceased to ba interesting to the people of of United States, except in the matter of prices, which are 50 per cent higher this winter they were last. Being an integral part of a Union, and invested with colonial dignity, never having contributed anything to that in return for the privilege of living under Stars and Stripes, enjoying the protection of frozen American soldiers, and tho attentions frigid Revenue Assessors and Collectors, a other officials who are essential to preserve dignity and responsibility of this new Commonwealth (or common poverty), Alaska has mined to do something for the Union and ompense the General Government for extending its republican blessings to the icebergs, bears, and Aleuts. She anything so can be feminine has therefore sent us a of cold, frozen up our water-pipes, sent on thermometers down lower than an auctioneer'8 ever went, and has set woman, and child into the shivers. man, We appreciate the patriotic motive Alaska. We are glad to learn Alaska is good for something at last.

Still Na- are not prepared to say that we admire the with which they do things in Alaska, and, were it not for the danger of bringing on a coolness between the President and the Czar, we should certainly argue in favor of returning the Aleuts and their icebergs to him, and trust to his generosity to give 119 something warmer. In any event. there can boresfter be do warmth of feeling either between us and the Aleuts, or between us and tho Czar. The least Alaska can do is to keep her cold weather at home. IMPORTANT CHANGES AT HARVARD.

Two radical changes are announced as about to be made in the discipline of Harvard College. The first discontinues the custom of morning prayer and chapel service; the second abolishes compulsory attendance at recitations. There is no doubt that the inauguration of these chr will shock the conservative ideas of a large class of persons made up of professional educators, men who have learned to confuse, the Professor's position with that "'of and antiquated alumni who recollect how they were whit in their studies by the college rules of 1 day. There are many others, however, who will recognize in the proposed changes a decided step in advance toward the true university standard, which rises above the fundamental noti one of applying the birch and the parrot-like acquiring of the A C'8. Those who fall back: upon tradition for an argument against these rumored innovatio: asmsy be answered by citing the circumstance tr at the oldest and most famous universities of Zurope have not, and never had, the customs which Harvard now proposes to dror In these very two pointy, more.

than any others, perbaps, is to be fo and the distinction that is made between the universities and gymnasiums of Gerraany. A pu rely technical education can ba pursued in the latter as far 88 in the former. 'The gymnasiu' me are provided for those whose youth or dis inclination to learn is brought, under direct d'iscipline, and whose morala are cared for by pi rescribed religions exercises. The universitier on the other hand, are repositories of learning where maturer minds are permitted to seek fur ther and broader knowledge in the way most natural and congenial to them. While it is entirely probable that a proposition to discontinue public morning prayers, at which.

all students are required to de present, will call out some earnest protests from those who con-. ceive that the college should be as much a moral guardian as a public instructor, the intellectual classes will discern raany good results in the change. They will readily recognize the facti that no enforced attendance at chapel service can be productive of religious progress. There could de many genuir.e cases cited in which this system of yreligious exercises haarendered prayer and ch urch-going actually repulsive, and to such a dega'se that the sufferers fromithave persistently refused to return to the practices in after life W.hen they could follow their own inclinations. Few college men will deny that these services were inconvenient at times, and often assumed a dreadful and almost sacrilegious monotony.

There is no reason why young: men who have resched the advancement necessary to matriculation in a university should not bo permitted to exercise their religious devotions in such manner and at such times as they please. The moral standard of a college may be enforced without a formal observance of chapel worship, which may interfere seriously with habits of study and personal preferences. The discontinuance of compulsory class attendance Ands AD approval in the same line of argument. So long 89 the examinations are rigid (and they are apt to be more rigid if conducted outside the familiar routine of class duties), there is no need of the restraints that are put upon the pupils in elementary instruction. Strict division into classes frequently causes serious loss of time.

The student who develops an aptitude for mathematics does not always need to follow the slower processes of a. majority of his class who do not possess this natural advantage; and the time which is consumed in sitting out the hour get aside for geometry might be more profitably employed Fin his case, by studying Greek, which does not come to him so readily. The habits and inclinations of a hundred students are too various to be monided into one routine without embarrassments and hindrances in the way of equal progress. The class system, and the rules of attendance at college services, prevent that individual division of study and recreation which is requisite to the best use of a student's time; and the greator self-reliance that is included in greater freedom will increase the qualifications of successtal applicants for degrees, though it may diminish the number of Bachelors of Art. This would certainly be a change for the better.

Mr. Albert Brisbane, the inventor of the Pneumatio Tube, has gone to work at the construction of one of his tubes from the Capitol to the Government Printing House, for which Congress appropriated $15,000 at the last session. The process of operating these tubes is exceedingly simple. Instead of a car with four wheels, a sphere is used. The sphere is moved by exhausting the air at one end of the tube, 60 as to creato a current through it, and this air-current pressing against the sphere, which is two or three inches smaller than the tube, propels it with great velocity.

Rapidity and power are gained by the saving of friction. Mr. Brisbane claims that books, documents, and manuscripts will go whirling along through these tubes at the rate of 300 miles an hour. It is also his firm belief that the day is not far distant when pneumatic tubes will be applied to the transmission of freight from one side of the Continent to the other. It is not safe to gainsay the prediction, after the experience of the English scientist who wrote a book demonstrating that no vessel propelled by steam could ever cross the that was brought over to this country by the first steamer that practically disproved the scientific demonstration.

Mr. Birebane proposes to do the freighting of the country at onetenth the present cost, and at the rate of 100 miles an hour to bring the grains, and meats, and iron, and coal to the seaboard so low as to make them cheaper than they are in England, and to accomplish as great revolution over steam as steam did over the ox-cart. It is certain that many capitalists are waiting for the demonstration of Mr. Brisbane's new application of power with great interest. It is only the old-fogy railroads that are delaying him now in their slow process of furnishing him the materials he needs.

In connection with the bill now before Congress for the relief of Mrs. Dahlgren, widow of the late Admiral Dahlgren, to be applied in the shape of compensation for the use of the AdA miral's patent method of making cannon, correspondent of the New York World calls attention to the fact that what was claimed distinctively as the Dahlgren gun" is not now in use in the navy. The Dahlgren process WAs 88 follows "The gun was cast as solid cylinder for the purpose of getting rid of 'places of weakness' caused by the unequal cooling of masses of molten cast-iron of such irregular shapes aa pieces of: ordnance. The gun received its external share, which wan devised by the Admiral, in lathry, and the trannions were attached to it by 8 jacket and breeching. The present guns of the nary are cast with tru anions forming a part of the mass.

Thoy the Dablgren shape, bat aro cast Lollow, 8 ad are cooled from the irterior, after the method of General Rodman of tho army. In fact, cast-iron gurus as large as those now used in the nary could not successfully be cast in any tions would be willing to undertako to make other way, and no founder under other condithem." General Rodman is also now dead, and never received any thing from the Government When alive, although it has been obliged to pay many thousands of dollars of royalty for the usa of ideas which Goi reral Rodman once offered it for the mere cost of the experiment. Edward A. Pollard, the editor and author, whose death was announced by telegraph a day or two since, was born in Virginia, in 1827, and first came into public notice from his prominent connection with the cause of secession, during the war of 'the rebellion. Before the war, he had published a volume of letters under the titlo of Black Diamonds, Gathered in the Darkey Homes of the South," which was mainly devoted to defence of slavery.

During President Bua chanan's Administration, be held an official position in Washington, and doroted himself to secret assistance of the Southern cause. After the war commenced, he conducted for several the Richmond Examiner. In 1862, ha pablished a "History of the First Year of the War," and added, from time to time, new volumes as the war progressed. Near the close of the war he was taken prisoner by the Federal troops, and confined in prison for eight months, after which he wrote a history of his confinement. At the close of the war, he compiled a complete history of the conflict, from the Southern standpoint, under the title of The Lost Cause." Afterwards ho published Lee and His Lieutenanta," Tho Lost Cause Regained," and a 66 Life of Jefferson Davis." In 1867, he started at Richmond a now Weekly paper called Southern Opinion, which was suspended in 1869.

Since that time ho has devoted himself, with great ability, to obtain a recognition of the National authority in the South, and was an actire supporter of the Liberal ticket in the recent campaign. A novel Spiritual seance was given in New York City, recently, at which Miss Tackerbury, a Cleveland Spiritualist, Agared as the medium. She was placed in a cabinet, her mouth tightly sealed up with rolls of sticking-plaster, and her body sacurely fastened to 8 chair with ropes. The room wag then darkened. A.

murmuring sound followed. Strange lights appeared in ditferent parts of the room, and the cabinet moved about in a mysterious manner. One of the audience then inquired who was present, and a voice a in the cabinet replied that spirit had come; whereupon there 1F88 long conversation between the audience and the spirit. At the expiration of an hour, the cabinet WAS opened, and Miss Tackerbury was found untied, with the ropes fin her lap, but with the sticking plaster still on her mouth. The cabinet was then closed for another hour, during which new lights and spirits came on the scene, and there was much talking and singing.

At the expiration of the second hour, the cabinet was opened, and Miss Tackerbury was this time found tied up again, and with her mouth still tightly sealed. The rope-trick is a dodge known to jugglers long before Spiritualism was invented by the Fox sisters, and, as to the sticking-plaster, every one st all acquainted with the peculiarities of the sex knows that al I the sticking-plaster in the world cannot prevent a woman from talking, if she wishes to do so. biss. biss. NOTES AND OPINION.

Congressman Snapp looks at things from a practical point of view, and declares that the succegsful party must run this Government." The startling anomaly" of the oppoeite principle was hatched by a traitor to his party, and buried at Cincinnati; but the Civil Service humbug sticks to the Republican party like Nemesis' shirt." Don't meddio with other people's wash, Mr. Snapp, for, like the laundry-women, you are liable to mistakes. We believe the mark on that historic article was Nessus; Nemesis wore a chemise. Springfield Republican When the Fifteenth Amendment was made, it was thought that its mode of enforcement WAR to make void any Stato acts defying the suffrage for race, or color, or previous servitude. The act of Congress went considerably beyond this, by providing that candidates deprired of election by such denial, may bring suit for their offices.

Judge Durrell has gone considerably beyond this, by holding that, when affidavits are presented negroes were prevented voting, he may take possossion of the State Government and all the election machinery and returns, and install the candidates of the other party. According to the strict letter of the law, the time for him to interfere would be when the Canvassers had declared who was elected, and a candidate bad brought suit upon the claim that he had been defeated by denying to negroes their right te vote, because of their color; and the manner would be--not by reorganizing the Board of Canvassers, which is a State affair, but by determining the rights of the two candidates according to the votes cast, and the affidavits of voters excluded for Cincinnati Gazette. is evident, from movements now in operation among Mr. J. Young Scammon and certain Republicans in this State, that, notwithstanding the vanquishment and retirement across the big drink of Minister Washburne as a United States Senatorial candidate, President Grant has deliberately arrived at the conclusion that It will never do to give it up so, Mr.

Brown." Hence it has been determined that the Chicago InterOcean will not be properly recognized as "the Republican paper" in the election of Governor Oglesby to the Senate, but that some one Mr. J. Young Scammon, for instance,) whose relations are more' pleasant with Grant must be chosen, if possible. Consequently Mr. Scammon is mysteriously traveling over the State, private" and "important letters are seeking their destination to verious friends of the Administration through its mail-bags, and murmurings of discontent are heard in various directions.

The whole programme of Ogelsby for Senator, Beveridge as Governor, and Callom for Speaker, is not at all satisfactory to Mr. Grant and his admirera, specially as the services of that eminent statesman, J. Young Scammon, and his big paper, are not recognized in the (Ill.) Regisler. Mr. Boutwell has, in reply to a resolution the House, furnished at last an explanation of the reissue of the $5,000,000 greenbacks in October, and it is a very curious explanation, It appears that the person who thus took upon himself to increase the volume of the currency was not ever the Secretary of the Treasury, but the Assistant Secretary, Judge Richardson, and the object of the reissue 45 the relief of the business of the country, then suffering from the large demand for Carrency employed in moving the crops from the South and West that is, in short, that a gentleman named Richardson, whom most people have hardly ever heard of, settled in his own mind that the American nation needed more currency to move its products from its farms to its ports, and he thereupon, on his own motion, added whatever he thought proper to its circulating medium.

Mr. Bout well now tells the House that this was done under the theory, laid down in that two the judgments acta of the Supreme Court, authorizing the issue of greenbacks "contemplated a permanent circulation of $100,000,000 until the re: sumption of specie-paymenta;" and actually treats of no account the subsequent acts April, 1866, and February, 1868, -the first of which authorized Secretary McCulloch to iretire" greenbacks, notoriously with the view of contracting the currency; and second of which, in withdrawing tho authority conferred by the first, explains in terms that the "retiring or cancelling" authorized by of the the first WAR for the "reduction currency." So that Mr. Boutwell's defence is substantially that a judgment of the Supreme Court on the intent of an act passed in 1862, deprives acts passed in 1866 and 1869 of all force, though they are neither contradictory nor no. constitutional, and leaves him and all his subordinates at liberty to exercise a power never yet conferred on a single man in any free coon: The Nation, Bursting of a Water Main. LOWELL, Dec.

main twentyfour inch water pipe on East Merrimac strat burst this morning, filling to overfloring the cellars in the brick block occupied by H. ML J. Rice, provision dealers, and L. Empson, cera. That portion of the city known as Lal videre is, to-night, cut off from A A A A A supply of water..