The Sun.
London, England, 1870-01-26 00:00:00

(From the Anglo-American' Times.)
NEW YORK, Jan. 8.
There is a report that Mr. Bowen, of the Inde-
pendent, has purchased the Brooklyn Union, a Re-
publican daily, and that a Democratic ring has bough t
the Brooklyn Eagle, the latter selling for $300,000
and the former for $200,000 ; but a rumour at one
tune spread that both papers had been bought up
by the Mr. George Wilkes, of the Spirit of the
inzeg, applied to Justice Dowling for the arrest of
Messrs. Bruce and Simpson' proprietors of the '1 urf,
Field, and Farm, wherein he asserted a libel had
been published on his S. Louis correspondent.
After some demur the order was given, and Mr.
Bruce appeared on Thursday at the Tombs and
tendered bail for $l,OOO. Failures continue. Hugh
N. Camp and Co., sugar refiners, have.suspended
for a large sum, but there is much confidence felt
in the probity cf the partners, with whom, public
sympathy goes. ' The heavy fall in gold, together
with the decline in sugars, combined to bring about
the catastrophe. Messrs. Clark and IVest, an old
dry-goocis firm, have also succumbed. A trial for
false imprisonment may arise out of the unfortunate
mistake by which Mr. M. IL S. Hill, cashier of the
Farmer's and Drover's Bank, Westchester County,
was confined, in default of bail, under the charge
of appropriating from the bank $40,000. Recent
.disclosures connected with Mr. Oakley, cashier
of the Merchants' Bank, now induce the belief
that he was the defaulter, whereon Mr. Hill
was liberated, and threatens the Bank managers
with an action for damages. The Club affair be-
tween Mr. Bateman and Mr. Hiram Cranston it
:was at first feared might lead to serious results,
the danger has been averted through the agency
Of friends-. (tae-of Mr. Datemaa"..s. guests at the
dinner Mr. Cranston intercepted, was a Tribune
man, and the other General Butler's nephew; Mr.
Bateman is well known in theatrical circles. New
Year's-day broke flue, but closed with a violent
storm. • It rained all Sunday and helped to damp
the spiriti already depressed by New Year's-day
excesses. Although the list is considerable of crimes
and casualties, the day was not observed to the ex-
tent usual in New York. It was hoped that callers
would get nothing to drink ; but the old Knicker-
bocker custom is not so easily alrogated, as it in-
volves the reproach of inhospitality. Fisk received
in great state at the Opera House and had plenty
of visitors. That worthy is about to erect a $1,250
monument over the grave of Polly Albro, of
-Pownal, to whose tender care in childhood New
York owes the vigorous manhood of that railway
king. I learn also that his Majesty's father lives
with his half-brother, Frank Alger, at Maple Grove
Village, South Adams, Massachusetts. Among
those who had a jolly time on New Year's-day may.
be enumerated the prisoners in the Egyptian Tombs,
to the number of some 300, who had to listen to
addresses from clergymen of different denomina-
tions. They had to be fortified though with a
good dinner first. The work on the Post-office is
to be continued, as the sub-committee recommend
the additional $1,000,000 required, and the news
interests the large number of labourers thrown out
of employment when the work suddenly ceased. It
is not the fault of the peculators that it did not
stop before, and the committee have been picking
up some information as to the direction taken by
the money. Reports are rife about the Spanish
gunboats and Cuban affairs. The gunboats have
been going off and coming in ; blown here and
moored there ; suspicious crafts have been looking
after them, and one of them has just finished
by running into a Barbadoes schooner, which
is badly damaged, though No. 18 remained
uninjured. If the account of Admiral Poor
be true there are only 14,000 Spanish troops in
Cuba, but they, if the Junta is to be believed, do
no end of hanging and shooting, and swear that
they may be conquered, but shall never be sold.
They may, however, be drowned in Cuban blood,
for they really seem to be a ferocious banditti, and
their's I feel assured is no idle threat, that if driven
from the island they will leave it a mass of smok-
ing ruins. I can only hope they will have no op-
portunity of leaving, but may add something to
the Cuban ashes. The steamer Annie put into
Charleston, but orders have been sent to capture
her, and the Junta are in dread that she may
be taken like the Hornet before she gets away.
Mr. Beecher has male a good thing out of the late
sale of the reserved seats in Plymouth Church, when
he took good care to be pre,,eat, in or ler to judge
by the bids how each supporter appreciated him.
Mr. Bowen, of the Independent, took a $490 adver-

tisement for his paper, securing a conspicuous
placo, and Mr. Clafliu w3ut in for $lB5 for his dry.-
goods business. But the bast was carried off by
Mr. Gage at $615 premium, that is, this sum was
paid beyond the regular rent. Of course no spirited
auction would be perfect without James Fisk, jun.,
who invested in a pew on his own behalf, and
the sum altogether ran beyond the highest ever
before reached. The organization has been com-
pleted of the brokers' detectives, to be present at
business, for the investigation of fraudulent bonds
and stocks, and to look after the hall ways, and
the lobbying done by the light-fingered gentry and
swell-mobsmen, who are excellent lobbyists, but-
ton-holing a man and empyting his pockets while
he is trying to remember who he is talking to ;
leaving him in a dilemma until he puts his hands
into his pockets in despair when he finds out. Go-
vernor Hoffman's Message is the subject most
discussed, and it is quite touching to listen to
his virtuous sentiments. We have 11,698 schools
in this State, but how many prisons and
prisoners I know not, neither do I know whence
all the rascals come, perhaps your people in Europe
do ; but this I do know, that they swarm, settling
like a black myriad of flies over anything like
plunder. Our State debt of $34,848,000 is to be
paid off iu eight years, and the sentiments on the
payment in gold and on maintaining the honour of
the State is all that can be desired. The Governor
sees that repudiation is a gone coon, and he writes
with his eye to the next Presidential election. Had
he exerted himself in more effectually checking the
Legislature when engaged in handing over the pro-
perty of a great railroad like the Erie, which has
brought upon us such disrepute, it would have been
more to the purpose. He did allude to the
Erie ring, recommending the repeal of the law
whereby it has been made a misdemeanour for
"two or more persons to conspire to commit any
act injurious to trade or commerce," because it has
been a dead letter for forty years, except against
labourers. He also recommends that judges be de-
prived of the power of granting injunctions or of
appointing receivers in cases affecting corporations
on ex parte applications, or abolishing the writ of
injunction. He has a great deal more to say, how-
ever, about the Federal Government. He began on
the tariff, by protesting against the laws which
have virtually destroyed American shipping and in-
jured every class of industry, protesting, too, against
delay in their revision. He said—" Our present
tariff of duties on imports compels the many to pay
high prices for the benefit of a few. Although en-
acted during the great need of the Government, it
was, nevertheless, framed, not for the one great end
of giving the Federal Treasury the largest income,
but with the view of favouring certain special pri-
vate interests. No Government has a right to
tax except to obtain its necessary revenue.". Bear
with me when I ask you to insert this little re-
mark on the general finances ; how Governor Hoff-
man could have penned this sentence (for it is only
one), and made it so clear and telling, puzzles a
novice in writing like myself, " I protest against the
continuance of a financial policy which fails either to
strengthen the public credit, or diminish the people's
burdens, which keeps values uncertain and unsettled,
which baffles business foresight; which, while per-
mitting the sale of Government gold, leaves the
country subject to all the evils of an irredeemable
paper currency ' which threatens to withdraw from
the people what is now in use as money before pro-
viding a substitute; which, undefined in character
and variable in action, exposes the business of the
country constantly to the chance of disastrous
panics ; which seeks to exert a fluctuating con-
trol over the gold market, instead of making
steady progress towards permanent soundness in
financial condition ; which can suggest no method
of meeting the Legal Tender promises, except to
get them back from the people by a process of
contraction, both painful and dangerous; which
neglects to redeem the legal tender notes held every-
where among the people, yet with the proceeds of
excessive taxation purchases, at a premium, bonds
that the Government is under no ohligatian to ply
for nearly 15 years.; which saves a few millions an-
nually in interest on the bonds thus purchased, when
by raising the credit of the country to its proper
level, many millions more could be saved by the ne-
gotiation of a new loan at a lower rate of interest ;
which assumes that the rate of interest on our bonds
can be lowered at the sole will of the borrower, or
that capitalists who now hold bonds, paying six
per cent. interest in gold, can be persuaded I,x) ex-
change them voluntarily for bonds bearing only
four-and-a-half per cent. ; which, failing to devise
a permanent fuiancial systeni to which the Wei-