2 Washington Critic (Ind.). THE story that Mr. Blaine has given up the idea of seeking a renomination for the Presidency, and desires to run for Secretary of State in John Sherman's Cabinet sounds like a Canadian fish story. New York Graphic (Dem.). THERE is small doubt of the re-election of Edmunds to the Senate, but the friends of Mr. Blaine must be very forgiving if they don't require a pledge of him with respect to the politics of 1888. National Republican (Rep.). THE Republican party is rich in Presidential timber of excellent quality, but the business in hand now is the election of a majority in the next House, not the selection of candidates for '88. Brooklyn Eagle (Dem.). THE hens--bless 'em-out West are beginning already to lay eggs distinctly marked with the names of Presidential candidates for 1888. New York Star (Dem.). THE eagerness with which the Sun springs to the defense of Blaine is entirely in accord with its bitter opposition to Cleveland's election. Alta Californian (Rep.): MR. ELKINS no longer has charge of the Blaine boom. Mr. Phelps, of New Jersey, is the new boss of that interesting political relic. Cleveland Plain Dealer (Dem.). It is certain that Brer Blaine's boom is in course of construction and that he accepts Brer Foraker's experience as encouraging. Nashville American (Dem.). MR. BLAINE could not have the success of his party sincerely at heart, and at the same time desire to be its chosen leader. Philadelphia Times (Ind.). BEHIND the Blaine mask of indifference the bright eyes of the magnetic man sparkle more eagerly than ever before. St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Dem.). GAIL HAMILTON is thought to be profoundly convinced that Mr. Blaine is the very man for the Republicans in 1888. Boston Journal (Rep.). WE question whether any man living knows to-day whether Mr. Blaine desires to be considered a candidate. New York World (Dem.). It was largely on account of his ultra jingoism that Mr. Blaine was not elected President in 1884 Cincinnati Times-Star (Rep.). THE Presidential resources of this State are simply inexhaustible. PENSIONS. THE Comments here given have been elicited by the passage by the Senate of the bill "for the relief of soldiers of the late war, honorably discharged after three months' service, who are disabled and dependent upon their own exertions for support, and of dependent parents of soldiers who died in the service or from disabilities contracted therein." Chicago Herald (Ind.), May 22. No Senator who voted for the Blair pension bill knew, and no such Senator seemed to care, what the operation of such a measure would cost the country. Twenty-five or fifty millions a year was the complacent suggestion thrown out by the father of the bill, while Teller, of Colorado, declared that whatever it was no increased taxation would be necessary. Logan, whose greatest present unhappiness it must be that his name is not thoroughly identified with the measure so excessively generous to the boys in blue, of whom he poses as a particular patron, wanted the minimum paid any pensioner to be $6 a month, but this amendment lacked one vote of success. Why a suggestion so entirely in keeping with the lavish character of the bill was not accepted by the majority capable of carrying the bill through the Senate is explicable only as a mere eccentricity. The bill, supplementing an over-abundance of happy-go-lucky law-making of the same character, is calculated to let everybody who had any sort of record as a soldier in on the ground floor. Given three months of military service during the war of the rebellion and a present disability or indisposition, however contracted, and the Government welcomes a new pensioner. The apparent restriction that the pensioner under this act must be dependent for livelihood upon his own exertions, is no restriction at all. Every grown man so classes himself. It is immaterial when, or where, or how the disease of which he complains was contracted; the three months of military service, during which he may never have smelled gunpowder or crossed the Ohio, entitles him to a comfortable place upon the Government pension list. The ninety-day man, who years after the close of the war becomes, through his own vicious practices a victim of delirium tremens, is placed on a par with the soldier of four years' service, who is still suffering from honorable gun-shot⚫ wounds. The poltroon who yesterday was kicked by a mule or felled by John Barleycorn, or lost a finger in a street brawl, is ranked with the brave fellow who was hit twenty-odd years ago by a rebel bullet and has carried the lead in his person ever since. The bill is of the same kidney with that which made the young widow of an old soldier, a person who may not have been born when Sumter was fired upon, equally a beneficiary with the woman who was a wife when the war commenced, a widow, war made, when it closed, and has had the hard task of rearing the soldier's children with no greater aid from Government than is given the chit who married for a pension. It is a bill prepared by demagogues for the purpose of catching votes at a cost to the people of untold millions. Not a Senator who voted for it knew or cared what it would cost the Government. He knew and cared only that it was calculated to help him in his scheme for continuing to pension himself upon the Government as an ariant politician upon the pretense that he is a capable statesman. It is a bill which insults and degrades every meritorious soldier now honorably upon the pension list. It is a swindle and a fraud perpetrated by frauds and swindlers. Every Senator who voted yea upon its passage is a coward or a demagogue. The fate of this bill in the House it is not difficult to guess, for while there is in that body a higher average of intelligence, patriotism, and good sense, its members are not free from the blighting fear of the claim agent lobby's denunciation of every one who will not obey its behest. But at the White House it will meet a ringing veto, or the President will lamentably fail to sustain his reputation for high moral courage. General Grant, when President, did not fail to give the finishing stroke to a claim agent's scheme for depleting the Treasury in the name of equalizing soldiers' bounties. President Cleveland will have an illustrious precedent as a guide in disposing of the Blair thievery. N. Y. Star (Dem.), May 23. THE present movement for greater pensions does not arise out of any conviction that our Government has been unjust or even illiberal in its treatment of the soldiers of the Union. There are but two motives for these efforts. The first is pure demagogy, and has for its object the securing of the votes of ex-soldiers for those who propose to bribe their favor with public money. The second is a desire to continue large expenditures of public money in order to render high tariff taxes necessary. Neither motive is honorable, and no one is deceived by the pretense that public gratitude inspires the bills. If members of Congress would vote according to their honest convictions, no such measure as the Blair bill could pass a Democratic House that is pledged to the retrenchment of public expenditures and the reduction of the burden of taxation. We yet hope that the majority in the House can be induced to defeat the bills, but this hope is weakened by the fact that Senators Brown, George, Gibson, Hampton, Voorhees, Walthall, and Wilson, all Democrats, voted for the measure in the Senate. Messrs. Brown and Voorhees doubtless sympathize with the motive that leads the high-tariff Republicans to support such measures, but the other Senators, we fear, voted against their judgment, through an apprehension that their motives would be misconstrued. Milwaukee Wisconsin (Rep.), May 20. Will ARE the ex-soldiers in the average eager for such wholesale appropriations? Ask any dozen men of good war record within the circle of one's own personal acquaintance and it will be found that a majority oppose reckless pensioning; and from those most reputable and most manly come the strongest opposition. the poor of the land, the poor ex-soldiers included, be benefited? These vast pensions payments must be made out of taxes levied directly or indirectly upon the whole people. And proofs are not needed to demonstrate that it is the poor, not the rich, who bear the burden of the nation's taxation. The craze for pension legislation is a craze of politicians, incited by a desire for further political preferment. They will be benefited. The pension agents all over the land will also be made wealthy. But neither the people as a whole nor the deserving ex-soldiers will begin to reap benefits commensurate with the gigantic cost to the tax-payers of the country. Still, let it be repeated, if universal, or nearly universal, pensioning is to be the rule of the Republic, the sooner the fact is known the better for the people who must fit their shoulders to the load. Washington Post (Dem.), May 20. THE vaults of the United States Treasury are the preserves of bankrupt politicians, and the "old soldiers" are the chips with which demagogues play their game. The most outrageous pension bill that ever received favorable notice in Congress passed the Senate yesterday. If it could become a law, it would provide for the payment of forty or fifty million dollars a year to men who once fought in the war for the Union, for no earthly reason but because they are poor. There are intelligent and honest Republicans in the Senate who ought to be ashamed of their vote for this bill. Doubtless there are many who would not have voted for it if they had supposed it could pass the House. It is, of course, a reckless bid for votes, but even from that groveling point of view it is a mistake. The nation rightly honors its soldiers, but it feels that they have been paid. Not one-fortieth of the present voters of the North were in the army; the other thirty-nine-fortieths know that they have been taxed enough. Charleston News and Courier (Dem.), May 21. New York Sun (Dem.), May 21. Of course this bill is merely the entering wedge for the vast scheme of a general service pension law, involving, as Mr. Blair himself blithely admits, an outlay of $500,000,000 or $600,000,000 to begin with, and a permanent increase of $150,000,000 or $200,000,000 in the annual budget. The attempt to force such a law through Congress is inevitable. It is in the near future. The demagogues are already getting their voices ready for it. When it comes, to resist and defeat the outrageous project will require far more courage, independence, and patriotism than has been manifested by the United States Senate on the present occasion. Nashville American (Dem.), May 21. THE pension bill, as it passed the Senate, provides that every Union soldier who was three months in the army and has since been disabled, though he received no injury in his country's service, and though he may never have been within cannon shot of the enemy, shall receive a pension from the Government. There can be no mistaking the rank demagogy thus masquerading under the guise of patriotism. Mr. Saulsbury gave a correct statement of the motives of such pretentious political charlatans as Logan, Blair, and Ingalls when he said that we would hear little of this constantly increasing pension legislation if soldiers were without votes. SENATOR BROWN, of Georgia, has stated with candor and clearness the peculiar principle that has determined his own conduct, and doubtless that of some other Southern Congressmen, in dealing with pension bills. The principle is, in brief, that whenever it is believed that a majority of the people of the North favor a particular pension bill, Southern Congressmen are bound to vote for it, whether they or their constituents approve it or not. A rule of duty should be of uniform operation. Are Southern Congressmen, who think and vote with Senator Brown, prepared to apply in all cases the principle he has formulated? If so, the business of Congress can be much simplified and accelerated; and, it may be added, the expense of Congress can be greatly reduced, by their resignation and return home. St. Louis Globe-Democrat (Rep.), May 21. Alexandria, Va., Gazette (Dem.), May 21. THE names of Senators Brown, George, Gibson, Hampton, Payne, Voorhees, Walthall and Wilson, all Democrats, are recorded in the affirmative in the vote on the pension bill, which bill pensions every man who was enrolled in the Federal service during the war, who has the least disability, even though it may have occurred yesterday, or may occur hereafter. That they can suppose the people of the States they represent want to be taxed in order to pay the millions required by such a bill, no reasonable man, at all informed about the opinions of those people, believes. THE pension bill just passed by the Senate is not intended, as certain Democratic statesmen allege, to give a pension to every man who served in the Union army, regardless of the question of personal disability. It expressly provides that such aid shall be given only to those who are or may become disabled from any cause not the result of their own fault, and who may be dependent upon their own exertions for support. A gift thus conditioned is surely not to be opposed unless we are ready to declare that the Government should permit its veteran defenders to go to the poor house and it is safe to say that the people are not prepared to adopt a sentiment of that sort on any account. Springfield Republican (Ind.), May 21. Pittsburgh Dispatch (Ind.), May 22. SENATOR VOORHEES' defense of the wholesale pension schemes is based on the singular ground that the money distributed over the country for the payment of pensions last year had a large effect in shutting out financial stringency and averting panic. This applies just as well to the river and harbor and other grabs, but its operation in practice is doubtful in view of the probable result. When the U. S. Treasury is bankrupted it is likely to be discovered that Voorhees' plan for the prevention of panics has a fatal error in the calculations. THE State of Massachusetts, however, has, by its State and military aid law, done what the Blair bill proposes to do, expending over $400,000 a year for the relief of the veterans. Under national legislation such expenditure will not be as closely supervised as it is under the State law, however happy we might be as a State to be relieved of the burden. Oshkosh, Wis., Times (Dem.), May 21. AND in addition to the reckless regard for expense manifested in the passage of this bill, it is a clear invitation to the practice of all sorts of knavery, fraud and wrong such as will place the iniquitious proceedings of the past in the pension department in the shade. The Pension bill will doubtless pass the House, and it will remain for President Cleveland to show the courage and firmness to check this onslaught upon the Treasury, this outrageous invitation of corruption and fraud, by vetoing it. St. Paul Press (Rep.), May 20. NEITHER Senator Logan nor Senator Blair has been able to state what the bill will take from the treasury; but it is probable it will be an aggregate charge of between $200,000,000 and $300,000,000 at the lowest calculation. No bill should be passed in loose estimates. Pension legislation has been carried to an extreme of lavish prodigality, and it is time that business principles, and not sentiment, should control such legislation. Chicago Journal (Rep.), May 22. THERE is a very general feeling, among the old soldiers as well as other thoughtful people, that Congress is getting to be just a little too reckless and lavish in the matter of voting bounties. It is not the old soldiers, but the professional pension agents, who are clamoring for more bounties or for changes in the bounty legislation. Boston Transcript(Ind.), May 20. SUCH reckless voting away the people's money can not be too severely condemned. If this demagogical scheme is indorsed by both Houses, President Cleveland will have another excellent opening to demonstrate his regard for the country's interests, as a whole, despite all specious pleas in behalf of a single class. Richmond Whig (Dem.), May 21. IF IT were possible for the country to be astonished at anything done by Congress nowadays, that emotion would certainly have been aroused by the passage by the Senate of the new pension bill, which is the most sweeping in its provisions of any similar measure ever enacted. Pittsburgh Commercial-Gazette (Rep.), May 22. THE rapidity with which pension bills are acted upon by the Senate was made the subject of a complaint by Beck yesterday. He is not the only one who is made dizzy by the way they are rushed through the Senate. Washington Critic (Ind.), May 20. ISN'T it about time for the President to send another special message to Congress on the subject of pensions? His last one seems to have been mislaid. Raleigh News and Observer (Dem.), May 21. THIS bill will lay an additional burden of ten millions of dollars on North Carolina. It will cost us annually more than our present State government. D Sma 低 C MISCELLANEOUS. DR. HOLMES'S ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND-THE GREETING AT LIVERPOOL.-The small figure in the armchair, the shrewd, kindly countenance that turned toward us, were not to be mistaken. We stood around him as well as the peculiar arrangement of a ship's saloon would permit us to form a semi-circle, and knew without any spoken announcement to that effect that our eyes rested upon Oliver Wendell Holmes. His laugh, which we heard almost as soon as his formal greetings, was hearty and firm, and when he rose to acknowledge the introductions which Mr. Russell made of his visitors, there was no crook in his back, nor any resting of nose on chin or chin on breast. Under the circumstances in which, as we presently were told, we found him, most men at his time of life would have been tucked up in a birth or covered up with rugs in a private cabin. But the professor is not physically, any more than mentally, a common person. He was cheery, brisk, bright, and, though bearing the outward signs of a frosty age, very much alive. With eye undimmed and natural force but little abated, the cleanshaved face gives the signs of humor and good temper about the mouth an honest chance of doing their appointed duty. The doctor soon apologized for resuming his seat, explaining that he had had no sleep for several nights, and had until 3 o'clock that morning struggled, by the aid of medicated cigarettes, against the asthma. Indeed, the evening air caught his breath even as he spoke to us, and rendered further explanation unnecessary. But his manner of telling how much he longed for rest, sleep and quiet was just what you might have expected from the man who told the story of the one-hoss shay. While a melancholy poet, worn out by sleeplessness, would have moved you, as he pointed to the restless couch, by the pathetic roll of his eye and the tragic resignation of his attitude, our humorist, on the contrary, rather indicated that it was altogether a droll business to confess to, not to say material, when he had the time, for a comic poem. Still, there was a practical touch in it. We were all thirsting to have a word with the distinguished stranger, yet in an instant felt that our chief concern must be to spare him; but of course we soon fell to chatting again, and though his daughter, Mrs. Turner Sergeant, had evidently been schooling him to silence, out of the fullness of the heart the mouth spoke, and the doctor, as everybody called him, taking their cue from those in our midst who knew him, heartily thanked the gentlemen who had met him on board his ship. I might here state that the special tender by which we had steamed forth was chartered by Mr. Russell, but that he had in the most courteous manner given passage to a deputation from the Liverpool Medical Association, consisting of Dr. Burton, Dr. Kelly, and Dr. Howie (treasurer). Then there was Mr. Rathbone, of South Kensington, charged with hospitable invitations from Mr. Jowett, vice-chancellor of Oxford; Mr. Ruskin; Mr. Flower, mayor of Stratford-upon-Avon; Dr. Liddell, the dean of Christ Church; Prof. Boyd Dawkins, of Owens College; and M. H. Willett, of Brighton, the last named offering him "the rest and quiet of a comfortable English home, with occasional trips to nooks and corners of Surray scenery." Mr. Edgar P. Rathbone and Mr. H. Rathbone, with their cousin, Mr. E. Rathbone, son of Mr. W. Rathbone, M. P., were there to invite the doctor to sojourn while in Liverpool at Greenbank, the residence of their father, Mr. P. H. Rathbone. The party was completed by Mr. Sewell, U. S. Vice-Consul, who knew the doctor at Harvard University; Mr. Bullock, representative of the Amercan Exchange in Europe; Mr. Donald Fraser Waterguard, surveyor of H. M. customs, and Mr. Turnbull. It was at once made known to us that the doctor had already formed his plans. Fearing the disquiet of London at the time of a royal visit, he would leave the town at once and go on to a certain quiet and rare old city, about which all the delightful American authors of his school have charmingly written. "I want to bury myself," he remarked, with a hearty laugh; "I want to sleep, and I must have rest.' "" Then he thanked the deputation. "It is too much honor," he said; "you remind me of the man who deprecated too much fuss about his child's funeral on the plea that it was such a little one." I dare say this remark, coupled with the fact that the speaker at the moment stood up, induced us to observe that he is small in stature, in figure, and in face, though the keen expression of the gray eyes under bushy brows, which, like the hair, are white, told of an inner strength of which the frame is no measure, and his whole bearing, voice, turn of sentence, and quick movement betoken one who always keeps the boy's heart within the man. Yet he would like to see Liverpool as it is. He had, however, been to Liverpool long years ago, and could remember coming there especially to see and travel in a railway carriage for the first time. Some one volunteered the statement that this must have been in the 30's. "I should not be surprised," he answered dryly, adding, "and I remember I wrote home a flaming account to my friends about the wonderful novelty of traveling in such a fashion. In those days we thought it was very much like an arrow shot from a bow." the chief officer now came down to say that the special tender must be off, as another tender was waiting, and the Cephalonia had to go into dock while the tide served. At this hint we trooped after the doctor and the consul on board our own little craft, the sufferer from asthma wrapping his plaid around him, and thanking the officers of the Cephalonia for their attention before he left the saloon. There was a search to be made for a missing piece of baggage, and when it appeared the familiar initials, "O. W. H.," painted upon it reminded us very agreeably of the combination as we used to welcome it upon many a printed page. From the wheel-house on deck, where the doctor sat during the short run to the landingstage, the sights of the Mersey were pointed out by Mr. Sewall, who not only knew his companion as a don at Harvard, but sat under his son's (Oliver Wendell Holmes, jr.) professorship; and, as the shelter would not contain us all without removing the man at the wheel, and in truth abolishing the wheel itself, we on deck vied with each other in offering attentions to Mrs. Sergeant and keeping the poet's luggage company. Meanwhile it had been worked out that the train which would bear the voyagers to their chosen city of refuge left Birkenhead at 4 o'clock, so on the landing stage Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Dr. Nevins, and Mr. Russell got into the latter's carriage and drove up to the Grand Hotel for luncheon. At But the appointed time the doctor and Mrs. Sergeant took their departure as arranged, and are now, let us hope, enjoying the quiet which a tedious voyage and persistent asthma have rendered an absolute necessity. Dr. Holmes, after his three or four, days' rest, will spend a couple of months in London.-London Daily News. A BOAR HUNT IN MOROCCO.-Up the narrow street of Tangier goes a long string of pack animals, loaded with tents and all the necessaries of camp life. This is the first big meet of the season, and we are off to spend a week in the home of the wild boar; and a fine fellow he is, the wild boar here. Some years ago the boar round Tangier became all but extinct. At Shaf le-Khan, our present huntingground, about twenty miles from Tangier, a certain Spaniard kept large herds of pigs. For some reason he was ordered by the Moorish authorities to remove them. Two old sows, however, could not be got out of the bush. They were known to be with litter, and the Spaniard offered a reward for them. Sir John Drummond Hay, hearing of this, offered to buy the two sows of him, on condition that they should be left unmolested. The Spaniard was glad enough to sell, for if a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, a little money is worth a good many half-wild pigs lost in a Morocco jungle. It is thus to Sir John Hay that the fine sport one gets now is due. The two old sows brought up their litters among the wild pigs, and from them descend the boars of Shaf-le-Khan. This slight cross of the domestic pig has not only made them bigger, but also much fiercer. There. are plenty of them, and truly grand sport they give. Up the steep street and out by the Socco gate, our Arab drivers shouting their "Balak! Balak!" to clear the way, across the Sok, or big market, and we are on the road to Shaf-le-Khan. The road, or rather track-for it is nothing but a little path, such a thing as a road being unknown in all Morocco-winds away among hills covered with the gumsistus and white heather, all in flower. Here and there one sees a quaint. Moorish village, its gardens full of fig trees, surrounded with aloe or prickly pear hedges, its few patches of cultivated land standing out bright green with the young wheat on the dark hill sides. From time to time we ford a stream, fairly full at this time of the year, though in summer nothing but a dry ditch, and now and then we have to make a little detour round a mud hole. Slowly we ride along, for it is but twenty miles to camp, and to-morrow our horses must be fresh for their work. And now we cross the last little river, and we are in the hunting grounds; for once past this river, between it and the sea, a tract of land some ten miles square, the wild boar is as sacred as the English fox; here no man shoots him; here, by common consent, he is reserved for the spearing. The sun shines out brightly, and gives a strange look to the little party of European horsemen, almost lost among the crowd of Arab beaters, dressed in their picturesque costumes, and as it catches the spear-heads it gives a most martial look to the meet. All are mounted now, and the beaters and their dogsstrange-looking animals, far more like jackals than hounds are sent ahead of us. Then the word is given to start, and, spreading out in a long line (for we might put up a chance boar en route) we make for the first beat. Soon we are all in our places, the ladies placed on a convenient sandhill, whence they can see the sport and be out of danger, the hunters all hidden behind the big myrtle bushes. And now in the distance we hear the cries of the beaters; then a shot, the signal that a boar is on foot. A few minutes more and we see him coming along across the little strip of open ground right towards us. He passes by, and then round go half-a-dozen of us and after him. The ground is not like the flat English meadow land, but is a jungle of myrtle bushes and palmetto tufts, stones and fallen cork trees; and over this country the boar goes at a tremendous pace; but our little Barbary horses are well used to it, and will carry you over anything. Ten minutes' hard galloping and the foremost spears are up with the boar. Already a slight wound has made all his bristles stand straight up, and he looks double his size, as now, finding he cannot escape, he turns to fight for it. With a sudden twist, he charges full down on the nearest horse; but the rider has lowered his spear, and receives him on it. Round he goes again, and at another; but here the spearman is not so lucky, and a deep gash in his horse's leg shows us that our boar is not an enemy to be despised. Two or three more deep wounds has he received, but he is by no means dead yet, and he looks truly grand as he sets back on his haunches ripping the dogs, who have by this time come up, and are now daring to worry him. And now the horses, too, fight a bit shy of him, and refuse to be spurred to within reach; but at last a well-directed thrust finishes him, and he dies without a groan, almost without a gasp, fighting to the very end. In the meantime the beaters have sent us out more game, and we join in pursuit of a fresh pig, away over one bush, round another, struggling through a third until the boar breaks out into the open. Here the ground is a bit heavy, and he can keep ahead of our horses yet for awhile, but he finds us gaining on him, and back again he gets into the thick country. At last a spear brings him up, and he, too, now must turn and fight, and fight he does, for with a rush he drives the nearest horse back on its haunches, cutting a long gash up his chest, and throwing the rider backwards to the ground; but others are there, and two or three spears are buried in him, rolling him dead. So five more are run down and added to our bag, and as the sun, begins to set, we make our way back to camp, followed by the mules bearing the game. The next day horses are rested, and we get a day's shooting; round the camp are plenty of partridge, and about two miles away is a splendid snipe marsh. In Morocco game is not wanting. And now comes Friday, the second day of the boar hunt. All night the beaters have slept round the pieces to be beaten, for they have marked down the boar, and will keep them in there. We add six more fine boar to our bag, and no more casualties than a few dogs killed and one or two of the less experienced riders landed in the midst of a myrtle bush or a wait-a-bit thorn.-London Field. A REMARKABLE MODERN ROGUE.-The career of Plymouth or "Plin" White, whose death at the age of sixty has just occurred, was a remarkable one, and deserves to rank with those of the most accomplished and successful rogues of this or any other age. What is most strange about it is that White possessed abilities so considerable that had he employed them in any legitimate enterprise or profession he must have attained distinguished eminence. It is clear that in his case there was an uncontrollable prepossession for evil; that, in fact, he was so constituted as to derive more pleasure from the perpetration of a clever swindle than honest men do from the performance of a virtuous action. The mental constitution of such a man is an interesting study. "Plin" White was intellectually well equipped. He must have possessed all qualities save moral ones in an unusual degree. He had so winning an address, so dignified and attractive an appearance, so complete a command of himself, and so masterly a power of chicanery that he actually deceived those who had previously been his victims, and who, it might be supposed, must have been disillusionized as to that particular rascal at least. A more corrupt scoundrel never masqueraded under a form and face which seemed to give assurance of absolute integrity. It has been said that he looked like a venerable clergyman, and his manners were polished and fascinating. The extraordinary force of the man, however, was shown in the magnitude of his robberies and the virtual impunity with which he committed them. He is said to have acquired $1,500,000 in twenty years by sheer swindling, and in one instance his gains amounted to $400,000; yet, though his notoriety was world-wide, he was able, on the few occasions when he found himself in custody, to cajole, and sometimes even to rob, the very officers who had him in charge. The most amazing case of this kind was that in which he not only persuaded a New York sheriff to give him his liberty, but lured $20,000 from the pockets of the officer he had thus hoodwinked. So confident was he of his personal magnetism that he did not hesitate to approach with fresh deceptions men who had already been fleeced by him, and in more than one instance his confidence was justified by the event. No doubt he had made a close study of the law with a view to circumventing it. He was too farsighted to take needless risks, and his judgment as to the outcome of his nefarious plans was seldom at fault. Had such a man, so variously and highly gifted, been on the side of right, he would have proved most useful to his generation; but there was a hopeless twist in his character. He evidently had no moral sensibility, no conscience whatever. When he had driven his partner to suicide by his scoundrelism he merely slipped away to Europe, and there enjoyed himself calmly until he thought the affair had been forgotten, when he returned to his crooked adventures as coolly and deliberately as ever. He probably never had a moment of remorse. He ruined scores of people, and left misery and suffering behind him wherever he went. He acted toward women with the same absolute indifference to any moral standard that characterized his intercourse with men. A more thoroughly dangerous man, in fact, never infested society. Beside so cold-blooded and accomplished a villain the ordinary criminal, even the worst type of the frontier desperado, appears comparatively innocent. It is fortunate for the world that there are not many men of the "Plin". White stamp. Ferdinand Ward resembles him in some tendencies, but White would never have tied himself up in such an entanglement as Ward caught himself in. With Ward's opportunities he would probably have beggared half Wall street, and when the crash came he would have been enjoying himself somewhere beyond the reach of extradition.-N. Y. Tribune. " EARLY COACH BUILDING.-The first London coach-builder we read of was named Walter Rippon. He was employed by Queen Mary Tudor to build her a turning coach," with pillars and arches. Presumably the fore-wheels turned on a pivot, as our modern carriages do. In 1584 he made a chariot for Queen Elizabeth, with four pillars, surmounted by an imperial crown, and with two lower pillars in front, surmounted by a lion and a dragon, her armorial supporters. The same sovereign is represeuted in one of her portraits in an open litter, borne by the great officers of the Court. It is from her reign that coaches (a name derived from Hungary) and carriages resembling those we now use came into fashion. For many years carriages were possessed only by the Queen and the great officers of the kingdom; they were exceptional luxuries. Her Majesty's carriages were open at the sides. She was fond of progresses from one great nobleman's house to another, or to and from her own palaces, and wished her liege subjects to see her. The closed coach, as already remarked, was introduced from Hungary. It had a wooden top, plentifully garnished with gilt nails, and the sides were closed by curtains. The Emperor of Germany went to Frankfort to his coronation in such a coach in 1475. The German princes in the sixteenth and following centuries seem to have been far in advance of other potentates in the number of their carriages or coaches. Henri IV of France had but one, and he was in it when he was murdered by Ravaillac. The coaches or carosses of Louis the Magnificent were numerous and sumptuously decorated. According to Macauley, a procession of a hundred carriages belonging to His Majesty and the Court was sent out to receive James II when he took refuge in France. Glass coaches, or coaches with glass panels instead of curtains at the sides, do not seem to have been introduced into England till the middle of the seventeenth century. Plate glass for the purpose was of Venetian origin. The manufacture was established at Fulham by the Duke of Buckingham, and it was used for carriage panels during the reigns of the Stuart soverigns. The coach of the Speaker (iv) is said to have been made for or used by Oliver Cromwell. It is of carved oak, similar in general outline to the state coaches of more recent times, but more upright on the angles and more compact in appearance. The body is hung by stout leather straps to iron standards, which rest on groups of well-carved figurework, representing Jupiter, Neptune, the City of London, and Africa. Other mythological groups are carved on the driving box and at the back. It must be of enormous weight, as it measures nineteen feet in total length and fourteen from axle to axle. It is drawn by two horses only etiquette does not allow the Speaker a larger number-so those two have to be of elephantine weight and strength.-Magazine of Art for June. USING ONE'S EYES.-How many of us go through life without ever realizing that our eyes have to be educated to see as well as our tongues to speak, and that only the barest outlines of the complex and ever-changing images focused on the retina ordinarily impress themselves upon the brain? That the education of the eye may be brought to a high state of perfection is shown in numerous ways. There are many delicate processes of manufacture which depend for their practical success upon the nice visual perception of the skilled artisan, who almost un consciously detects variations of temperature, color, density, etc., of his materials The hunter, the mariner, the artist, the scientist, each needs to educate the eye The following story from the Penn Monthly, which is quite apropos, is related of Agassiz, and it is sufficiently characteristic of this remarkably accurate observer to have the merit of probability. We are told that once upon a time the professor had occasion to select an assistant from one of his classes. There were a number of candidates for the post of honor, and finding himself in a quandary as to which one he should choose, the happy thought occurred to him of subjecting three of the more promising students in turn to the simple test of describing the view from his laboratory window, which overlooked the side yard of the college. One said that he saw merely a board fence and a brick pavement; another added a stream of soapy water; a third detected the color of the paint on the fence, noted a green mould or fungus on the bricks, and evidences of "bluing" in the water, besides other details. It is needless to tell to which candidate was awarded the coveted position. Houdin, the celebrated prestidigitator, attributed his success in his profession mainly to his quickness of perception, which, he tells us in his entertaining autobiography, he acquired by educating his eye to detect a large number of objects at a single glance. His simple plan was to select a shop window full of a miscellaneous assortment of articles, and walk rapidly past it a number of times every day, writing down each object which impressed itself on his mind. In this way he was able, after a time, to detect instantaneously all of the articles in the window, even though they might be numbered by scores.-Scientific American. FRENCH AND English Saws. We English seem to have selected the mouse as an emblem in our "As dumb as a mouse"; the French have preferred a glass, for they say "As dumb as a glass." We say "As deaf as a post "; the French "As deaf at a pot." "As dull as ditch water" Gallicized becomes "As sad as a nightcap." "Don't count your chickens before they are hatched" is changed into "Don't sell the skin of a bear before having killed it." Instead of "Biting off one's nose to spite one's face," a similarly useless experiment is illustrated by "Spitting in the air that it may fall on one's nose." The self-evident impossibility in the words "You can't get blood out of a stone" is represented by "One could not comb a thing that has no hair." (This last also "goes without saying," which, as literally translated from the French, now forms a proverb in our own language.) In the proverb, "One man may lead a horse to the water, but a hundred can't make him drink," our neighbors have not inappropriately selected an "ass" as the illustrative animal. "When you're in Rome, you must do as Rome does," every Englishman will tell you; though few, perhaps, could say why Rome was chosen as an example, and whether it is more necessary, when in Rome, to follow the general lead. than in anywhere else, is to us a matter of doubt. To the Frenchman, the idea is sufficiently well expressed, however, by impressing upon you the necessity of "howling with the wolves." "Easy come, easy go," though terse and to the point, is in itself scarcely so intelligible as the somewhat longer sentence, "That which comes with the flood returns with the ebb." That "a burnt child dreads the fire" is perfectly true, as every one will admit; our neighbors go further than this, and in choosing a "scalded cat" as the object of consideration, speak of it as being in fear of "cold" water even, thus expressing the natural distrust of the cat, after having once been scalded, as extending even to cold water. Money makes the mare to go," and "For money, dogs dance."--Chambers' Journal. A MILE OF COAL CARS.-A correspondent wants to know how much coal there RELIGIOUS. THE PULPIT AND THE PEW. There I HAVE been struggling for years against a constantly-increasing dislike to attendance at church. The principal cause is the sermon. I go there asking for bread and chaff is given to me. I want to learn more about the Bible; about each book, who wrote it, when it was written, in what language, what books have not been included, and why; knowledge of the people referred to there, gathered from other sources than the Bible; a complete historical view of the Jewish people from Abraham to the present time, giving habits, dress, etc.; the New Testament books, writers, dates, authenticity, etc.; a picture of the origin of Christianity and its development, proof of its divine origin, to furnish arguments for opposing scep ticism; a knowledge of other religions, in other parts of the world, their good points and their defects; a knowledge of the sects of the Christian Church; and other information of a similar character. I wish for a sermon that would be a digest of Darwin's ideas of evolution applied by a Christian scholar to the Biblical story, reconciling them. I wish the ministers would read some of the books and articles that are continually appearing, which are founded on truth, but which çontradict some of the beliefs of strict Puritanism in which we were brought up. *** Then I turn to the pulpit for help, and the sermon may be on Romans iii, 10, "There is none righteous, no, not one." It may begin with a pleasant exordium, the text may be divided into three heads, the meaning and application of the word " righteous," etc., followed by an eloquent and emotional peroration. To me, that is all chaff. To many of my neighbors it is a real help and consolation, and I am thankful it is so. But what am I to do? I can not possibly go on year after year in this dutiful but unsatisfactory and very unpleasant way. Every minister's sermon seems to be moulded in the same form. It is filled in with a new arrangement of the same words, and some new rhetorical figures; there are some quotations of beautiful thoughts; the language is well chosen, and the emotions of the listeners are aroused; but what is there for thought afterward? What is there of fact and knowledge to fortify me with arguments against all sorts of opposing questions.-A Layman in the Christian Union, May 20. MANY are called to the pulpit, but few are chosen; many have no more business with such a delicate trust than a coarse-haired, unfeeling man has with a finesouled woman for a wife. Upright and downright strength and sweetness of life and spirit chains the hearts of men to the church, because there is a man in the pulpit. The world is sometimes cynical, but, after all, the judgment of the world is just, if sometimes a trifle too keen and shrewd in ts criticism; it generally surrenders to sincerity, modesty, sweetness and self-sacrifice, if, when touched, they always ring the true metal. Such men do not have to explain empty pews and a dwindling church by whining about infidelity, agnosticism and the increase of religious indifference. The human heart is just as sensitive as it ever was to religious influence, but it is far keener in its discernment between the touch of a dead and a living hand. Theology and the metaphysics it stands for has little power to day to assemble, much less perpetuate, a living church, but the preacher who has caught the tender persuasiveness of the Master's voice, who tries by the Master's simple method to put himself into intimate communication with the everyday joys and sorrows of the people, is seldom without a church and never without disciples. Human nature is quick to feel whether a man is walking abreast with the best of himself, whether his speech is only a beautiful gift, or the breath of a beautiful life. The spirit of Christ that walks as well as talks is the real power of a pulpit. No pulpit was ever dead yet that had a sweet, sincere and noble life in it. If a church is dead or dying it is because there is death or paralysis in the pulpit. The great preacher is one who flings an honest, humble, simple, warm heart ahead of him and fights his way up to it; the glow of a blessed life makes a sermon a burning and a shining light, no matter how plain and rugged the delivery. The Oregonian. cases. THE Rev. Dr. Brann, who preached in St. Patrick's Cathedral yesterday, commented on the sins of America, and struck the nail on the head three times. That kind of plain talk-not violent, but pungent; not passionate or impulsive rhetoric, but cool and skillful dissection of the body politic and social-is instructive and interesting. Marital infidelity was the first crime of the day into which he put the knife. We hardly dare to whisper the fact abroad, but the reverend preacher instanced Boston-where, as popular tradition or perhaps delusion runs, if a man happens to be born there he need not be born again—as a fruitful field for divorce A home, says the Catholic Church, should be organized with prudence, and, once organized, it should remain intact forever. The second peculiarity of the age is theft. This is such a large domain that the preacher only looked at it from a distance. He evidently referred not only to the ragged urchin who slips his unwashed fingers into a stranger's pocket, but also to the begloved hands of speculation which manipulate railroads and turn the "water" of a dozen ponds into the stock thereof, and to the gentlemanly aldermen of 1884 who are restlessly looking up the Hudson to see if Sing Sing is in sight. The third crime which must be surgically operated upon is anarchy. True, and the sooner the better. It is blatant and ignorant. Its object is to legalize robbery, and to find an excuse for plunder. It has fastened to our labor organizations like a vampire, and would make itself fat out of the hard earnings of the workingman. When justice is on its track, however, it creeps under a bed.-N. Y. Herald, May 24. sophy is not table-tipping in an Oriental phase and with a Greek name. "Simply 'spiritualism,' with chocolate complexion and turban," Mr. Conway calls it; but the Greek name, too, imposes on us Westerners, if not on the Hindus. Under whatever name and with whatever skin and head-gear, it is, at all events, so far forth a humbug. But Colonel Olcott is quoted as saying that Theosophy is not dependent on phenomena. That means that its doctrine has value if its miracles have not. Two-thirds of it might perhaps be taken under the protection of this statement. Of the "Brotherhood's" three purposes (1) the establishment of a universal fraternity, (2) the study of ancient language, science, and religion, and (3) the investigation of the hidden mysteries of nature, as well as the psychic forces latent in man-it may be that only the third has hopelessly come to grief; for it would surely be regarded as trifling to claim that the third has been a brilliant success, and that the hidden mysteries of Mme. Blavatsky's nature, whereby she has been able so completely to gull those elsewhere not wholly gullible, or the triumphant psychic forces latent in Colonel Olcott, whereby he is impelled to retain faith in a TheoBrotherhood," sophy which does no miracle, are a genuine result of life in the " and not rather cause and ground of the Brotherhood's" existence. What the historian will proceed to remark on this point will depend, in a measure, on whether he is a zealous theologian or a passionless philosopher. Theology--another Greek name, but somewhat more venerable-will teach him how imperfect the aims of this declaration of principles are, and how impossible it is to realize even these opinion, and then take a more dispassionate, philosophical view of the case. aims by theosophic methods. It may be worth while to make a note of theology's What attractive power is there in theosophy? What craving does it meet? For one thing, it is part of a great reaction against materialistic and positivist notions. It began in America, where materialism as a fact is certainly quite as rampant as the materialistic theory has been ever or anywhere. Of the reaction which must follow such excessive emphasis on the sensuous, New England transcendentalism and the American type of Hegel's philosophy, with which our own decade is familiar, are legitimate children. It is worth noticing that the Concord School of Philosophy has drawn its lecturers not only from New England, where there has certainly been a more general pride of intellect than in the plutocratic towns farther west, but also from those States where material forces were achieving their greatest triumphs and were most loudly glorified. The Concord type of thinking is a genuine rebound from materialism. A like rebound has been felt even in India, where the speculations of the few have long permitted the many to sink into gross and unredeemed idolatry-almost as materialistic as dollar-worship. Spiritualism and Theosophy-ashamed of the relationship, but still its twin-sisterare bastard daughters of the same reaction. Their blood is not pure. Speculation, untrammelled and wild, is mixed in them with coarse`" materializations." This syncretism, which gives them a certain popularity, needs a fanatical and self-sacrificing faith, such as that of Islam (also a syncretism,) to make it a permanent force; but neither Spiritualism nor Theosophy has yet been proclaimed with Mohammedan energy and devotion. Theosophy has gained many adherents, no doubt, because some of its aims are practical. Most men-even in India-are trying, amid the perplexities and sorrows of the world, to live, rather than to think. Even Hegel can not always cure heart-ache. The cry of "universal brotherhood" was conjured with before Mme. Blavatsky was born, and spirits have always fesponded to it. Even Mme. Blavatsky's tricks appealed not merely to a craving for the marvellous, and not merely to a childlike fondness for object-lessons, but also to a real and natural desire to see some practical, tangible results from the new teaching. Mme. Blavatsky's cabinet furnished an evidence for Theosophy corresponding, in some remote, caricature-like way, to the evidence for Christianityf urnished by clothed and civilized Hawaiians. For all these sources of attractiveness, however, Theosophy must have more vitality than it ever showed in New York, if it survives the recent exposures without at least hiding its head under a change of name. Even the philosopher may be allowed to grow practical and add thus much: Inferences quite too large may be drawn, and have been, from the Theosophic collapse. Theosophy is not a movement of wide and profound meaning, like Brahmoism. Nor is it the great danger of our time. It has not attained the dignity of even a great heresy, a majestic error. It was the self-seeking vagary of a few ill-balanced, ambitious minds, drawing after them a few other ininds of a higher order and of respectable conscientiousness, but weak. Some lives it has warped, perverted, stunted; but, at least as far as our Western world is concerned, it belongs to the mere fringe of society. A far more threatening danger springs from the superior and self-sufficient wisdom that laughs at the mysterious because it can explain the marvellous; that applies to the sky the same compass and measuring-rod with which it has surveyed and staked out the earth; that, in view of the victories of science, denies that which transcends science; that exposes the trick of a cabinet, and straightway proclaims the heavens empty; that wraps in one bundle, and throws away together, the pretenses of vulgar imposters and the mysteries that vitalize a mighty religion. The Critic, May 22. THEOSOPHY.-Theosophy may be considered from different points of view. To the historian it is a kind of mushroom. It sprang up overnight. One day nobody had ever heard of it; the next-"What!-not know Theosophy? You are behind the age." A few minds, empty and therefore hungry, ready to swallow anything, swallowed Theosophy, and said they found it pungent and stimulating. Still, the leaders thought the American soul did not for the most part open wide enough to receive its high mysteries—or they felt a subtle and powerful affinity drawing them around the world. They moved to India, the home of speculative thought and feeling, too; and, in these latter days, the home of eclectic religions. There they succeeded better. They established many branches. Their teachings were vague and comprehensive. They praised now Hinduism, and now Buddhism, but so as to give to both Buddhists and Prahmanists the minimum of offense. They also worked wonders. It has sometimes been said that a new religion is dependent on miracles to accredit it. No doubt this was true of Theosophy. At all events, it had the miracles in defiance of time and space. Miracles created enthusiasm. In Ceylon, Theosophy is said to have converted many native Christians back to Buddhism-probably of a theosophical type. So things went on swimmingly for half a dozen years. Even some Occidentals of repute yielded more or less fully to the charmed music. The Society for Psychical Research, in its turn, sent out a man to look inside the image and see where the music came from—a cool and cruel revenge for the attempt of India, in the person of a Russian woman and an American man, to convert England in and through the person of Mr. Sinnett. Inside the image, singing sweet and alluring melodies, sat Mme. Blavatsky! Society for Psychical Research must make a new entry in its encyclopædia, cross out the word "Miracles," and insert "Theosophy, Clumsy and Vulgar Tricks of." It is now in order for those interested to tell us why, in this aspect of it, Theo-effect. The JOHN RUSKIN ON THE BIBLE.-Let me tell your readers who care to know, in the fewest possible words, what it is. It is the grandest group of writings existent in the rational world, put into the grandest language of the rational world in the first strength of the Christian faith, by an entirely wise and kind saint, St. Jerome; translated afterwards with beauty and felicity into every language of the Christian world; and the guide, since so translated, of all the arts and acts of that world which have been noble, fortunate and happy.-From Mr. Ruskin's Latest Article. NOTES. Rev. W. P. Tilden says "that Unitarianism has never stood for dogmatic statement, but for a movement a movement in search of higher truth and nobler life."The Catholic University, at Washington, D. C., is assured.Father Riordan has a beautiful church for immigrants at Castle Garden.- -L'Unita Cattolica, of April 15, repudiates any responsibility of the Vatican for the widelyadvertised memoir of Leo XIII.- The Catholics have started a daily paper in Ohio.Archbishop Gibbons' denunciation of the anarchists is having a good -The English May meetings are in full blast.- -The American Congress of |