against the monstrous tyranny of the Czar, which, in the name of Pansclavism, is attempting to subvert the glorious civilization of the Latin-Germanic race.

The Courrier des Etats-Unis, New York, September 17.
[Translated for PUBLIC OPINION.]

ENGLAND can indulge no longer in delusions as regards her absolute isolation in respect to the three empires of Central and Eastern Europe, but she is moreover forced to recognize that nothing is less stable than the ties by which Turkey is bound to her in the future. It has been seen that Turkey has good reasons to distrust a protectress, whose rapacity is still more dangerous to her than the covetous aspirations of the powers, which divide in advance her heritage amongst themselves. Hence, she has strong temptations to throw herself into the arms of Russia, and she has already made a considerable advance in that direction, if it is true, as has been affirmed, that she is relying upon the support of the latter in her demand upon England to evacuate Egypt. The British government seems, moreover, to be anticipating the blow by which it is menaced in that quarter and is preparing for the inevitable. The new combinations born of the Bulgarian incident cause her to foresee clearly-in a future that may be to-morrow-the liquidation of the Turkish empire and, as its immediate consequence, the occupation of Constantinople by Russia. Now Russia at Constantinople means the Czar at the gates of the Mediterranean, that is to say, on the threshold of the Suez canal, which would be a deathblow to the free intercourse of Great Britain with her Indian empire and with China. We do not believe the European powers are disposed to permit England to possess herself definitely of Egypt, so much the more as we see an agreement almost established between the three empires for the definite settlement of the Eastern question. The basis of this agreement has been carried to Gastein in the last few days by Count Kalnoky, Austrian minister for foreign affairs, in accord with M. de Giers, the Russian prime minister, and it is very probable the conditions have likewise been assented to by M. de Bismarck. The maintenance of the statu quo relative to the integrity of the Ottoman empire is certainly one of these conditions, and, in consequence, an enterprise which would dispossess the Sultan of Egypt would assuredly not be tolerated. A correspondence addressed to the New York Herald from Constantinople gives precise details upon this sub. ject, and in it there are certain statements in reference to France to which we wish to call attention. The author says that at the urgent desire of the Porte that a precise date be fixed for the withdrawal of the British troops from Egypt, the hand of Russia is not seen, but it is the influence of the French embassy which is at work. It is very probable that French diplomacy has some hand in the pour parlers whose object is the evacuation of Egypt by the English, but in this she would have no need of seeking to please Russia. France has interests of her own which she intends to protect without being the puppet of any one. The Herald correspondent makes use of the expression "French vanity" in this connection. This is perfectly ridiculous. Vanity has nothing to do with the policy of France relative to Egypt. Her interests are opposed to those of England, and, at least, are quite as respectable. She denies, especially, the independence and neutrality of the Suez canal, over which England assumes a dominion for her own exclusive The difference is little other than this.

use.

Financial Chronicle, N. Y., September 18.

WHEN we remember the stir and excitement of 1878, when the Berlin Conference was convened to undo the treaty of San Stefano, we wonder at the apparent apathy and indifference of the powers in the present emergency. We wonder all the more, when we consider that the distinctive feature of the treaty of Berlin, as compared with the treaty of San Stefano, was the provision for the permanent restriction, by the latter treaty, of the influence of Russia south of the Danube, and particularly in the Balkan region. Russia was compelled to forego the advantages she had secured by the first-named treaty; but it is quite clear from recent manifestations on her part that she yielded for temporary convenience, and that her purpose remained unchanged. If, indeed, she is left at liberty to revolutionize Bulgaria at will, to depose her princes and to dictate who shall and who shall not be their successors, it is difficult to arrive at any other conclusion than that she has already practically made her purpose good.

New York Evening Post (Ind.), September 20. BULGARIA fears Russia, and may soon intensely hate her. This change of feeling might be indifferent to the great Slav Power if it had only moral bearings; but it mightily strengthens the hand of Austria, the vanguard of Germany, in the affairs of the Balkan Peninsula, especially as the methods employed by the friends and tools of Russia in dethroning Alexander are radically estranging the kings of Rumania and Servia from Russian guidance and influence. Russia has, perhaps, little to lose in Servia, for King Milan is even now almost a vassal of Austria-Hungary; but Rumania is wavering between opposite policies, and the fate which has overtaken a Battenberg will weigh heavily in the decisions of the Hohenzollern. Whether the attempted assassination of the Rumanian Premier, Bratiano, has also sprung from pro-Russian revolutionary motives or not must soon appear.

BUYING ENGLISH NAVAL DESIGNS.
New York Tribune (Rep.), September 18.

THE full speed power of modern ships-of-war is apparently nominal. Great efforts have been made by English naval designers to build armored and unarmored cruisers that will exceed sixteen knots in sea-speed, and at the same time It is only after repeated trials that the maximum carry a formidable armament. speed can ever be obtained, and there are frequent accidents owing to the violent vibration of the machinery. The Engineer, a competent authority, asserts that the speed of British war vessels, as given in Parliamentary reports and current statistics, is from 25 to 30 per cent. higher than that at which the engines can be safely worked. "There is evidence," it says, "that the machinery of her Majes

ty's ships constantly gives trouble and that in many cases it is only after repeated attempts that ships can be made, so to speak, to drag through full speed trials, all concerned knowing that once through the test they will not be submitted to another like it for years, if ever." This significant admission is made in an article describing the recent accident to the Phaeton, a steel cruiser with double screws, designed to have a speed of sixteen knots. On her first trial trip her piston-rod broke, and the cylinder cracked under the racking strain. The necessary repairs were made, and on August 23 she started from Spithead for a two hours' run on the measured mile. With eighty-five revolutions the mean speed obtained was 14.8 knots per hour. It was found impossible to force the engines up to the full pressure of ninety-six revolutions, which might have given the sixteen knots required. During the progress of the trial trip a crack four inches long appeared in the low-pressure cylinder of the port engine and the piston-rod was found to be bent. The accident which had disabled the vessel on the previous trial was thus repeated, disclosing the inherent weakness of the machinery under the tremendous strain of working the engines up to the highest pressure in the attempt to make sixteen knots. These facts, which we find dispassionately stated in Broad Arrow, are confirmed by articles in the Engineer and the Admiralty and Horse Guards Gazette. The forced draught on these high-speed cruisers is said to be unbearable for the stokers. The Curlew, with only one-third of her coal supply on board, draws eight more inches of water than was contemplated in the design. In some instances the difference between the actual and the designed draught is twentyeight inches. When high speed is obtained, as in the case of the new dispatch boats Iris and Mercury, the vibration of the machinery excites suspicion of structural weakness of the frame. Indeed, the complaint is general among British naval engineers that nearly all the fast cruisers are unseaworthy, that their machinery is constantly breaking down, and that not more than 75 per cent. of their nominal speed is practically available. Such facts deserve serious consideration from the Navy Department in Washington. Apparently in despair of having fast cruisers designed by American naval architects, Secretary Whitney has appointed Mr. White, chief of the British Board of Naval Construction, as his special agent and designer. He is hoping to build from English models and designs a cruiser that will have a speed of eighteen or nineteen knots. We sincerely trust that he will be successful; but from the ominous warnings of these engineering journals we conclude that he cannot be too precise in insisting that the contractors shall guarantee the results even if they do not design the ships or engines. This was what the Secretary and the Attorney-General decided that Mr. Roach should have been forced to do under Congressional legislation. Their theory should be put in practice in building the English-American navy.

New York Star (Dem.), September 19.

OUR sometimes hysterical contemporary, the Tribune, is moved to tears by the report that Secretary Whitney has bought some designs for naval vessels from Mr. W. H. White, director of naval construction in England. It declares that several of the great war vessels that Mr. White has assisted in designing for the British navy have turned but badly. It seems to assume that Mr. White has learned nothing from such alleged failure, and that he will hand over to our Government precisely the same designs that have proved faulty, and that Secretary Whitney will, with similar obliviousness to facts, proceed to duplicate the vessels so severely criticised by the English newspaper quoted by our distressed contemporary. Now we are by no means ready to assume that American naval architects fall behind those of England. It is true that the latter have, since the era of ironclads and iron ship. building generally, had vastly more experience, but that does not conclusively de monstrate their superiority. We fail to see, however, how the inspection of the English plans can do the most brilliant and inspired American genius any real harm and hence fail to follow our contemporary's reasoning when it declares that the Secretary of the Navy has, in purchasing these plans, "deliberately discredited Ameri can naval architects" and declared that they are incompetent to design either ships or engines that will yield.the highest attainable speed." We beg leave to remind the Tribune that the ships about to be built by the United States are not designed for exhibition in some world's fair, displaying the results of the peaceful arts and industries. Their comparative excellence is not to be judged by a spec tacled committee of experts. The object in building them is to enable them, according to their character, to either overcome in battle or else run away from the great ironclad ships of other powers. If the present Administration were to follow the advice given by its opponents in the fishery dispute, the first which our new navy might have to contend might be England. If, then, we can secure any benefit from that nation's costly experiments, we ought to do so, and in any event the better our naval constructors understand the plans of a possible enemy the better will they be prepared to improve upon those plans and to take advantage of any faults in them.

on.

power

with

THE COLORED CONFERENCE IN BOSTON. Boston Transcript (Ind.), September 16. On the whole, the colored citizens in conference here yesterday over the resolutions "indorsing" President Cleveland show political good sense in not following the venerable Mr. Downing's lead in the matter. The President is not a man who needs indorsement from anybody to keep him straight in a course once. resolved But the great point is that the colored citizen should begin to make an end of arraying themselves, or permitting themselves to be arrayed, as a separate body, either to demand or sue for consideration as such. What they should strive for is to lose their class and racial identity and become assimilated as individuals, politically and socially. This will take many generations at the best, but it will be much retarded by their holding together in politics as a race and emphasizing con tinually their downtrodden and deprived condition. Let them try to clear their minds of cant, and look at things as they are. "To be respected, be respectable," sums up the whole practical philosophy of social standing in this Republic. While

the great majority of the blacks have been so lately steeped in the ignorance and moral degradation of slavery, the battle for those who aspire must be hard and pitiable. The whole will be carelessly judged by the largest number, and no amount of legislation for their civil rights can practically prevent this. In Europe in the brightest society of Paris or Berlin--the colored man is welcome on his personal merits as an individual, because he has not been identified with a servile class. As the era of slavery grows distant it will undoubtedly be the same here, and the sooner the blacks refuse to play the role of professional political martyrs for or against any political party, the sooner will this class stigma be forgotten. The Republican party long ago did everything for them that law and government can do; it can never legislate them into social equality. In Boston no more than in Charleston can they demand acceptance in ordinary fashionable society or expect common marriage with whites; but every black man's or woman's individual abilities, character, wealth, and accomplishments will undoubtedly have due recognition here, as in Europe, fifty years hence. The key of gold will unlock many a barrier, and with the showing of the census statistics there must be a class of wealthy colored men arising even in the South. We have yet to witness in this country the social phenomena that would surround a colored millionaire in New York; and the effect of two or three generations of wealth and culture on a colored family is wholly unknown. It will only retard such developments to have the colored people continually depending on their mass and class rather than on individual personal manhood.

NATIONAL INDEBTEDNESS.

New Orleans Times Democrat (Dem.).

THE Argentine Republic is decidely the most prosperous country of South America. It is securing more immigration and growing more rapidly in wealth and population than any of the other States of that continent. The Argentines have the utmost confidence in the future of their country, but they are trying a very rash experiment in testing how great is its credit. No country has ever possessed a relatively greater debt than the Argentines to-day. The population of the territory is 3,000,000-less than the States of Illinois or Ohio-and yet its debt is already $456,000,000, and growing rapidly. This is an investment of $152 a head. It is equal to an indebtedness of $150,000,000 for Louisiana, nearly as much as its total assessment, and to $9,000,000,000 for the United States-which this country would consider a fearful burden. Rich as the republic is, its total wealth is barely four times its indebtedness. Some of this, it is true, is invested in productive property, but the fact still remains that the Argentines are paying an annual tribute of $20,000,000 to the holders of bonds, living mainly in England. This is too great a drain upon the resources of any country, and while the republic is growing in consequence of immigration and a boom in business, any check to this progress which is likely to come there, as in the United States, would precipitate an unfortunate crisis, and render this tribute a burden greater than the people of Argentina can bear. This is an age of great national debts, but the Argentine Republic has tried the experiment on too grand a scale.

ton.

MR. TILDEN'S WARNING.

New York Sun (Dem.), September 18.

THE warning letter which Mr. Tilden wrote concerning the necessity of fortifying our seaports was treated with indifference by the Administration at WashingIts lesson, however, has not been lost upon the country. The Republicans have been quick to avail themselves of the suggestions thrown out by the Democratic statesman. In the platform of the Republican party in Connecticut for the present campaign is this little plank :

"In the present condition of our coast fortifications the country stands practically defenceless. It is incapable of conducting international controversies upon equal terms, and is liable to shameful humiliations. Prompt and energetic action is a high and immediate duty. We commend the Republican Senate for its patriotic attempts to meet the emergency, and declare the Democratic House of Representatives without excuse or palliation for its refusal to co-operate.

This is no negative utterance. It is the assertion of a positive, affirmative policy on a subject of national importance-a policy which is certain to command strong popular support, and in the end sure to prevail. A great public measure, proposed and formulated by the true leader of the Democratic party, is disregarded and neglected in what ought to be the house of its friends, and adequately appreciated only by the political opponents of the statesman with whom it originated. In thus treating Mr. Tilden's sagacious advice the Democrats responsible for the conduct of national affairs are justly liable to unfavorable criticism, not only as officers of the Government, but as members of a great political party. They have supinely permitted the enemy to capture and carry off their biggest guns.

ATTACKS ON CIVIL SERVICE.

New York Star (Dem.), September 21.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL has recently proposed and carried a motion for a commission to investigate and correct certain abuses in the civil service of Great Britain. Whereupon some American politicians, who pride themselves on being very much more Democratic than Thomas Jefferson or Andrew Jackson, exclaim that this demonstration of the failure of the English civil service shows the utter folly of having a civil-service system in the United States. Such reasoning is not even entitled to take respectable rank as a fallacy. The abuses in process of correction in England relate to details of administration by officials already in place, and

have no direct connection with methods of appointment. Neither the Conservative leader nor any one else in England proposes to interfere with the civil service in the current American use of the term. To revert to the former methods of appointment through favoritism and family influence, without regard to merit tests, would be an impossible revolution in British government. Beyond doubt, our methods of executing the civil-service appointment law can be and are being improved. But that these practices are susceptible of improvement, and need it, does not show that they are vicious and useless, but rather indicates that they are salutary and useful, and capable of being made more so. It would be as logical to condemn the elective system and constitutional government for the reason that bad men are sometimes elected to important offices and constitutions frequently need amendment. The attempted argument by analogy from what is going on in England would be unsound, even were it not based upon gross confusion of terms of similar sound but different meaning. If there is to be a fight for the abolition of our civil-service system, let it be an open and manly one, free from mere tricks in the use of words.

THE NEXT HOUSE.

Special Dispatch to the Boston Journal (Rep.).

WASHINGTON, Sept. 18.-Congressman W. W. Grout, of Vermont, writes to a friend in this city: "If the vote on Vermont and Reed's majority in Maine are any guide for the rest of the country, we will easily have the next House; so mote it be." On the other hand, shrewd political observers with a Democratic leaning make this estimate: There is no special likelihood of any change in the delegations from New Hampshire and Rhode Island; both Connecticut and Massachusetts have each one reliable Democratic district, and one only, but there are two in Connecticut and three in Massachusetts which are more or less close and doubtful. Two of these districts are now represented by Democrats and three by Republicans. The probabilities are, apparently, that the Democrats will at least hold their own in these States, and will, perhaps, make gains. In New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania there is some prospect of Democratic gains, unless interfered with by the labor vote, which is drawn mainly from the Democratic party. In Ohio there will be Democratic losses in consequence of the redistricting of the State. In Indiana and Illinois the delegations, which now stand thirty Democrats and twenty four Republicans, may possibly be reversed. Michigan. may show a gain of two Republican members, which will probably be offset by corresponding losses in Wisconsin. In Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska, if there is any change, it will be in favor of the Democrats. In California there will be a Democratic gain. In the far Southern States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas the Republicans or the opposition of all sorts can not lose much, for the very good reason that they have very little to lose, the delegations from those eight States being, with one exception, solidly Democratic. The Republicans have one member from Maryland, two from Virginia, one from West Virginia, one from North Carolina, three from Tennessee, one from Kentucky, and two from Missouri, or eleven in all. Their strength in the next House, owing to the disorganization caused in the party in these States by the loss of the Federal patronage, is likely to be diminished. From this review of the whole field it seems altogether unlikely that the Democratic party can lose control of the next House. It may not have quite so large a majority, although the chances are quite good that it will have a still larger one.

LIEBKNECHT AND HIS SOCIALISM.

Pittsburgh Dispatch (Ind.), September 16.

THE arrival of Herr Liebknecht, one of the leaders of German socialism, in this country, has evoked some expressions from the press to the effect that we have had enough socialism here and that Liebknecht should be informed of it. Perhaps it would have been wiser before expressing such opinions as that to have waited long enough to find out what sort of socialism Liebknecht's socialism is. An interview with that leader of the ideas which Bismarck is trying to suppress in Germany affords some information on that point that people should study before classifying him with the anarchist lunatics and incendiaries. After disclaiming any "red specter" in connection with his party, declaring that "in Europe anarchists are regarded as spies organized by the government," and asserting that the proper place for Most is a lunatic asylum, Herr Liebknecht gives this view as to the need of social reform in this country: "Too much wealth on one side, too much poverty on the other side, ruined the great republic of Rome. It will ruin this Republic of the United States unless some check is put to it and a healthy middle class encouraged and protected to hold the balance of peace, not of power, between the rich and the truly poor." This may be destructive socialism but if it is a good many thousands of thoughtful men in this country are full of the same sort of socialistic ideas. Going to another branch of the subject our German visitor says: "It is the duty of the state to give every child not only thorough moral but physical training. The children are the nation's wards. We improve the welfare of our people by making good citizens of them." There is of course a wide difference of opinion possible as to the measures to be adopted for the correction of the tendencies which involves all the evils of a plutocracy on one hand and proletariat on the other. No doubt the condititions which Herr Liebknecht has studied in Germany would lead him to advocate a policy that would be impracticable and unnecessary here. Indeed, he expressly states that he comes to this country as a student and not as an apostle of socialism, and declares that if he has any mission it is to disabuse the public mind of the impression that there is any anarchy in connection with his school of thought. Whatever criticisms may be made of Liebknecht's theories of governmental organization, there cannot be much doubt that in its purposes his socialism will make pretty good American citizenship.

THE NEXT PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN.

MAINE AND BLAINE.

THE issue of PUBLIC OPINION for the 18th inst. contained numerous press opinions on the result of the Maine election, and its bearing on the assumed Presidential candidacy of Mr. Blaine. The appended extracts are a continuation of the same line of comment.

New Orleans Times-Democrat (Dem.).

WHAT makes the Maine election at all interesting is the fact that the contest within the Republican party for the Presidential nomination depended largely on the result there. It is Mr. Blaine's State, Mr. Blaine's campaign; and he hoped to demonstrate the fact that he is still the popular hero of the Republicans, to prove that he can carry Maine by an increased majority, and thus show that he is stronger to-day than he was in the last campaign, and therefore entitled to the party nomination. It was for this purpose that Mr. Blaine opened the canvass in person and carried it on earnestly and energetically. Has he won? The Associated Press, which in New England has always been ardently pro-Blaine, asserts that the Republican majority is the largest ever known in the State during an off-year, at the same time it can not quite conceal the fact that the party has not polled as large a vote as in 1884, which will probably be explained as due to the fact that Mr. Blaine was not on the ticket, and his magnetism was needed to draw out the entire Republican vote. The general sentiment, however, is that the hero of the Mulligan letters has won a sufficient victory to make him decidedly the most promising Repub. lican candidate for the Presidential nomination, to render it certain, in the absence of any other great leader, that he will be the standard-bearer of the party in 1888. The Republican press is rapidly admitting this. Wherever interviews have been held with Republicans a majority have expressed themselves as favorable to Blaine. The New York Times and other Mugwump papers see the prospect ahead and are already republishing the letters to "My Dear Fisher," in the hopes that they will thereby frighten the party from making the mistake of renominating Blaine. It is early in the day for that gentleman to begin his campaign, but he believes in the early worm. As things now stand, it is scarcely possible to imagine any event that can defeat his renomination, exccpt his death or physical or mental decay. This renomination will be a bold stroke, and in the light of political history, a great mistake. To choose a defeated candidate, a man repudiated by the country, whose shame and dishonor are known everywhere, seems a fatal error. Blaine's friends are advocating his cause with the remarkable declaration that if he is renominated, it will be impossible to say anything new against him; that the country will know, from the start, the charges that will be brought. They say that the Democrats spent their ammunition in 1884, and will have nothing but old stale powder for use in 1888. And while they do not openly say so, they insinuate that charges like those made against "the plumed knight" lose their weight and influence with time and are never so powerful as when first made. If renominated, Mr. Blaine will go before the country again; there will be nothing new for his opponents to say against him, and with the public tired of the reiteration of these charges; and finally, "as distance lends enchantment, time softens offenses," Mr. Blaine's Little Rock deals will not present so criminal an appearance as two years ago. It is a bold policy to pursue, but we have too much confidence in the judgment of the American people to believe that the bravado of the "plumed knight" will ever win.

Chicago Herald (Ind.).

Mr.

Two years ago, when Mr. Blaine went to the polls in Augusta, he refused to vote on the question of constitutional prohibition because it was "a local issue," and because, as he was then a candidate for the Presidency, he did not care to commit himself on the subject. That was called a "dodge," and such it was. This year the same question came up in another way. The Prohibitionists, believing that the law was not being enforced by the Republicans as it should be, put a separate ticket in the field, and, by making a vigorous canvass, they compelled the gentleman from the Kennebec to define his position once for all. This he did in a way which the result shows was reasonably satisfactory to the preponderating prohibition sentiment of the State. He candidly admitted his belief, not only in the efficacy of prohibitory enactments, but in their wisdom.

It was his confidence

that the Republican party was a better prohibition party than the Prohibitionists themselves which made him a Republican. To go outside of that party for temperance legislation was, in his opinion, entirely unnecessary. It had given Maine, Kansas, Iowa, and Rhode Island prohibition, and it could be depended upon to enforce the laws which it had made. By these and many other utterances to the same effect Mr. Blaine committed himself as never before to the policy of prohibiAs has been said, the result of tion, so far as the State of Maine was concerned, the election there shows that his accession to the ranks of the cold water army was regarded by the people of Maine as final and unequivocal or they would not have given him the support which they did as against such men of undoubted sincerity as ex-Governor St. John and General Neal Dow. It has been proved on more than one occassion that two-thirds of the people of Maine are in favor of constitutional prohibition. How strong Mr. Blaine's advocacy of that policy must have been may be seen in the fact that with the great temperance leaders of the country all arrayed against him, he was able to shut them out with only a paltry 3,000 No man who was not himself believed by his utterances to be thoroughly in sympathy with the movement could have done that. The Blaine ticket wins in Maine because it is regarded, as Mr. Blaine intended that it should be regarded, as the one which represented the best temperance sentiment of the State. If Mr. Blaine is in earnest in the stand which he has taken he is to be commended for his manliness and independence. If policy dictated his course in Maine the same expediency will cause him to be an anti-prohibitionist in States where the temperance sentiment is not so strong. This will involve more dodging and will inevit

votes.

ably bring him to grief. As the matter stands it is difficult to see how he can be the candidate of the Republican party again unless that organization indorses prohibition. If words mean anything he is a prohibitionist. He cannot stand for that policy in Maine and profess hostility to it in Ohio and Illinois, as he has been in the habit of doing. Boston Globe (Dem.).

not.

We believe in looking the facts in the face, whether they are agreeable to us or There is no use in denying that Mr. Blaine has carried Maine by a majority which, considering that it is an off year, is fully up to the vote given for him in 1884. The logical deduction of this is that Mr. Blaine is now as strong at least as he ever was, and the inference may not unfairly be drawn that, as in Maine, so in the country, he is still the most popular of all the Republican leaders. But there is another view of the Maine election even more favorable to Mr. Blaine's prospects of a renomination, and that is the plurality cast on Monday was by no means enormous. We have said that it was fully up to the plurality of 1884, when due allowance is made for the off year, but still a plurality of 14,000 out of a total of nearly 130,000 is none too large a margin to speculate on for Presidential purposes, especially when it is remembered that twice within ten years the State has been carried by the opposition. Taking further into account that this 14,000 represents the result of the canvass made by Mr. Blaine in person in a series of speeches that were quite up to his Presidential standard, backed by a whole corps of speakers from other States, and it may well be questioned what would become of that plurality if any other candidate were running as the head of the Republican Presidential ticket. Disappoint Maine by nominating any other man than the plumed knight and the next Republican National Convention may well inquire whether the principal September State may not be classed among the doubtful, if not wholly removed from the Republican column. Mr. Blaine's partisans may well claim that in more senses than one the results of Monday's election in Maine make it absolutely essential to renominate their favorite in 1888. * * * * * The Transcript says that with New York's electoral votes the Republican candidate can win without Maine's electoral votes. But the cold, hard fact of history is that Mr. Blaine came nearer to success without New York in 1884 than any other man is likely to do again, and if he had had New York's vote he could have spared Maine's, Vermont's and California's and still have succeeded. Beyond this the Transcript cannot name any Republican who is at all likely to be able to carry New York in 1888, and hence all the more necessity this time to hold on to Maine and her favorite son, who alone can surely carry it, and, by a bare possibility, enough Western and Pacific States to make up for New York's loss. Mr. Blaine's renomination two years hence is inevitable. At the finish he will be beaten as before if the Democratic party makes a wise and strong nomination. But any other Republican candidate now in sight would be beaten not at the finish, but from the start. That is why they will take Blaine-because they must.

Boston Post (Dem.).

"OH! for one hour of James G. Blaine !" ejaculated the attorney-general of New Hampshire in his capacity as chairman of the Republican State Convention. There being no immediate prospect of realizing this fervid aspiration, he substi tuted one hour and a quarter of Tappan, which, after all, proved to be very much the same thing. In fact, the New Hampshire Republicans have opened their campaign with a servile imitation of Mr. Blaine's canvass in their neighboring State. It does not need the assurance given by the chairman of their convention that "the coming contest is but the forming of the skirmish like in the great national strug gle of 1888;" for if the candidate of 1884 had managed the affair himself he could not have given it a richer flavor of demagogy or set it ringing louder with rant, with the same end in view. Chairman Tappan, indeed, was not alone in his longing for Mr. Blaine. The whole convention, in its resolutions, cried aloud for him in every paragraph. The chairman committed himself to the assertion that "the solid South refuses to let the colored people vote, and the North is outvoted and beaten and put down by fraud." The resolutions "denounce as heartless and hostile those Presidential vetoes of nearly a hundred pension cases which Congress had found to be worthy." The chairman "felt humiliated by the attitude of the Administration on the fishery question." The platform condemned "the purpose of the Democratic party to degrade labor and reduce wages," by a reform of the tariff. Together, it was a race between the chairman and the committee on resolutions as to which should go farthest on the road to folly which Mr. Blaine pointed out in Maine. When the chairman had finished, no one else had anything to say. When the platform had been adopted, nothing was left for the candidate to remark in addition. The ground had been fully covered. But it may be questioned whether intelligent Republicans in New Hampshire-for there are such there-relish the dose which thus comes to them at second hand from Mr. Blaine. The approval of fraudulent pension claims, a high tariff on raw material, hope to make much of a figure in " the great national struggle of 1888." They the bloody shirt and constitutional prohibition are not issues upon which they call are rather such as sensible men would choose to avoid; but as they have been proclaimed by Mr. Blaine himself and reiterated by the party organization in New Hampshire, there seems to be no escape from it.

New Yorker Staats-Zeitung (Ind.).

[Translated for PUBLIC OPINION.]

How the Blaine organs can encourage themselves by the result of the Maine election in respect to the prospects of their candidate for the Presidential nomination is almost incomprehensible. The old telegraph "trick" of duping the public through a puffing up of the intelligence of an election victory no longer deceives. In history this practice has ceased from the epoch of the Franco-Ger man war, and in politics because the beliefs of the community in the trustworthi ness of party organs is becoming weaker and weaker. The Blaine organs must consequently wait until the public can correct their fallacies, and then will that class of the latter who are unusually susceptible to first impressions quietly recover themselves and look in vain for the grand triumph of Blaine in his State of Maine.

As the Blaine prints have been so much occupied hitherto with boasting over the result, that they have not had time to analyze the vote, we do not yet know how they will try to embellish the defection of more than one-eighth of this vote. The attempt made by the press agency, which is friendly to Blaine, to coerce the public at present into a comparison with the result in 1882, in which the Democrats, in consequence of a fusion, were able to bring about considerable defection from the Republican party, proves that the Blaineites do not feel as well as they would like to make us believe. If Blaine arrives at a just conception of the truths which are contained in the figures that represent the present vote of parties, and does not suffer his head to be turned by the incense of a sinfulated triumph on the part of his organs, he will be compelled to exclaim: "One more such victory and I am lost!"

Der Deutsche Republican, Baltimore (Dem.).

[Translated for PUBLIC OPINION.]

IN the Blaine Republican prints throughout the country there has reigned great jubilation since the 13th inst. on account of the result of the Maine election, since the candidacy of Mr. Blaine has thereby obtained a solid foundation, which is quite agreeable to us, and generally to all good Democrats. Blaine is not altogether the weakest of all the candidates which the Republicans could bring forward, but, he is a weak candidate even though he should succeed in entrapping more Irish votes than he received in the last election. That he carries Maine in his "breeches pocket" signifies little. Maine is a small State, and her motto " Dirigo," I lead does not express a truth. But the victory of last Monday even is not so notable as the partizans of Blaine assume. It is not to be forgotten that the Republican vote shows a considerable falling-off, that in comparison with the last Presidential election amounts to 27 per cent. The Democrats, it is true, have also fallen off, but not so considerably. Besides, the fact should not be overlooked that the Republicans made the greatest efforts, whilst the Democrats were not at all organized. The Prohibitionists only have reason to be proud, for they have increased their vote 150 per cent., and that in spite of the fact that Blaine promised them everything that is good and beautiful, and that the Republicans of Maine, in all time past, have been good temperance men. The Prohibitionists will be far more zealous in the next Presidential election there than they were two years ago, and will draw off far more votes from the Republicans than they will obtain through Irish accessions.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Dem.).

It turns out that there were but a few thousands of the dissatisfied extremists, and that, as usual, the solidarity of Republicanism and prohibition remained unshaken and mustered a majority large enough to put Blaine well forward as the candidate for the combination of 1888. It encourages the prohibitionists everywhere to cling to the Republican party as a good enough Prohibition party for State or National purposes, and as their only hope in politics. It also encourages the Republicans of such prohibition States as Kansas and Iowa to cling to prohibition, and to again insist on the nomination of Blaine as the only Republican who can come any way near getting the full Prohibition vote in spite of St. John and Neal Dow. Thus is Logan practically shelved and Blaine once more put in a position to bestow the Republican nomination on whom he pleases, if unable to grab it himself. Whether he will get it, or give it to Sherman of Ohio, or Allison of Iowa, is to be determined by the bargains and complications yet to grow out of his struggle. Henceforward it will be amusing to watch Logan fighting him and the other aspirants courting the Maine man, anxious to inherit his convention vote yet fearing that it may be strong enough to nominate him. Perhaps it was this situation of affairs the Maine Democrats hoped for. They were unusually quiet in this contest. It was said they were sullen and inert because they resented the failure of the President to "turn the rascals out." But if the Maine election had shelved Blaine, the Democrats everywhere would have felt that they had lessened their own chances by thus unloading the other party.

Cincinnati Post (Ind.).

MR. BLAINE threw the event of his personal campaign for the Presidential nomination in 1888 into the issue of this fight in Maine. He entered the campaign with a full understanding that a Republican defeat in Maine this fall would put an eternal quietus on all his hopes for a Presidential nomination. Now that the Republicans of the Pine Tree State have been brilliantly successful it must be conceded by all that Blaine is to-day the Republican choice for the Presidency by so overwhelming a majority that the nomination, if made to-day, would be scarcely more than a formal ratification. While the Republicans have scored a brilliant success in Maine against unusual opposition, the fact must not by any means be overlooked that the Prohibs of that State have at least trebled and probably quadrupled their vote of two years ago, which was that of a Presidential year, and it is therefore taken as a fair measure of the full party strength. This triple increase in the voting strength of the Prohibs in two years presents a familiar but always interesting and instructive problem in geometric progression. If the voting strength of the Prohibs in Maine trebles in two years, and is to-day in round numbers 3,000 votes, what will its strength be six years from now? The answer is a sum nearly equal to the total poll of the State.

Galveston News (Dem.).

MR. BLAINE is a great politician, and others may study his methods, but they are not original, and probably he has in a very simple manner copied the characteristic methods of politicians who went before. His strength is in an unblushing confidence that old and transparent arts will still serve the purpose for which they are intended. The people will want to be flattered, to be promised prosperity, good crops and good trade, and to hear their political opponents roundly denounced. Though tainted with fraud, he came within an ace of being elected President, and there is not a citizen of the United States who knows anything of national politics who does not know that Mr. Blaine is seeking to have the Republican nomination enthusiastically hurled at his devoted head. But he does not solicit the nomina

tion, because the man who solicits anything is very likely to arouse desires to deny it to him, because anxiety is a sign of weakness; and because assurance shows confidence, and confidence is an indication, sometimes, of strength, though not invariably of knowledge. Mr. Blaine's political maneuvers ought to go far to explode the remarkable confidence which the people have in political professions, so transparent are his pretenses.

Washington Critic (Ind.).

"MR. BLAINE is very much elated at the result of the election in Maine," said one of his staunchest supporters, "and in a letter received by me this morning he acknowledges the receipt of a congratulatory telegram as to the outcome of Monday. Nothing will prevent the Maine statesman from going before the nominating convention in 1888, and I believe he will be stronger than ever. There is no question that he can command the undivided labor vote, this fact having been demonstrated in Monday's contest. Of course it is problematical as to the balance of the country, but in the next campaign, as in the one that preceded it, the battleground will be New York State. From the best sources I have it that Mr. Blaine, whether nominated or not, will make a most active canvass in the Empire State for the benefit of the party of which he is a foremost leader."

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The election in Maine, it is true, indicates that Blaine is still the favorite in his own State, tariff and all, but it practically amounts to little more than an offset to the verdict rendered against him in Vermont. There ought to be, by good rights, some new men and new issues developed between now and the national convention of 1888.

Chicago News (Ind.).

THE cold figures of the returns are as blighting to Mr. Blaine's hopes for 1888 as were the fateful 1,149 which told in 1884, that he had then lost all in losing New York. He has deliberately and even ostentatiously invited the result of this State election as a criterion of his strength; and to the end that it should be a sweeping victory-not for the Republican candidates, whose election was a foregone conclusion under any circumstances he has vigorously participated in the campaign himself and invited assistance from every available quarter. It may be noted, parenthetically, that the failure of this invited assistance to respond is not the least significant feature of the whole affair. Logan, Sherman and Evarts, who were especially solicited, were conspicuous by their absence, and of all the other eminent speakers announced only Senator Allison, of Iowa, and John D Long, of Massachusetts, responded. The dispatch from his own home, announcing that while "both the Republican and the Democratic vote show a falling off from that cast in 1884, yet the Republicans have suffered far more than the Democrats," ought to sound the knell of the Blaine candidacy.

Chicago Tribune (Rep.).

FROM the perusal of a piece of expert blackguardism one may form some sort of an idea as to what sort of a person a professional blackguard is. From the perusal of the following piece of mugwumpism one may form some sort of an idea of what a political Mugwump is. It has come at last, as might have been expected, and here it is:

That marriage of Blaine's son to a Roman Catholic girl by a Catholic priest will do much to kill off his father's national reputation in the convention of 1888. It is nearly time, at any rate, that the Blaine family should cease to masquerade as a Protestant family.

What has Mr. Blaine's religion or politics to do with the secret marriage of his son-a boy of 18 years of age? And why should Mr. Plaine's family be dragged into the controversy? As between blackguardism and mugwumpism the former would appear to be the more reasonable and infinitely the more respectable.

Detroit Free Press (Dem.).

THE entire Maine campaign was conducted, so far as the Republicans were concerned, in the interests of Blaine's reappearance as a Presidential candidate. They knew from the start that the State could be carried without any serious effort. They had a safe if not large plurality in spite of prohibition hostility. But a safe plurality was not sufficient for Blaine. Something had to be done to show his strength-not to the Democracy, but to the Republicans in other States, and notably in Illinois and Ohio. That something was not done. The Republicans have carried Maine, but they have not so carried it as to advance Blaine's prospects a hair's breadth. On the contrary, his prospects are distinctly worse now than they were before the election. The discussion as to the Maine result may, therefore, be safely left to the Blaine Republicans and the Republicans who have other candidates in grooming for the race of 1888.

Der Cincinnati Volks-Freund (Dem.).

[Translated for PUBLIC OPINION.]

THE Republican majority, as compared with that of 1884, has been considerably reduced. This involves naturally a portentious defeat for Blaine, who considered the affair as a personal struggle, and employed every expedient to assist the Republicans to a brilliant success. The election returns prove that Mr. Blaine is pretty well "played-out," and his Presidential star is rapidly setting more rapidly, indeed, than was assumed before the elections in Vermont and Maine. If it be considered that in the latter State the Democrats made no canvass, and did not give themselves the slightest trouble to effect an organization, that, moreover, the Prohibitionists did not aim at a poll which they believe themselves capable of recording, Blaine's fiasco is still more radical and complete.

The Anzeiger des Westens (Dem.).

[Translated for PUBLIC OPINION.]

THE victory of the Republicans in Maine strengthens Blaine's prospects of being nominated as the Republican Presidential candidate in the year 1888, or at least of being in a position to prescribe who shall be the candidate. The increase of the "out and out" Prohibition vote under Neal Dow, it is true, is very considerable in itself, but not great enough to wreck Blaine's chances as a compromise candidate of the moderate Prohibitionists and the anti-Prohibition Republicans.