The Sun.
London, England, 1869-07-06 00:00:00

ACTION AGAINST A BILL BROKER.

In the Court of Exchequer on Monday the case of "Foster
T. Foster" was tried. The plaintiff, George Alavoine
Foster, was formerly a sworn broker and a mem-
ber of the Stock Exchange. The defendant was
George . Foster, a bill broker. They were not rela-
tives. Early in 1867 the defendant came to the plaintiff,
and :eked him to open on his behalf a "bear account for a
fall" on the Stock Exchange. Ile produced a cheque for
£lO,OOO worth of foreign stock and bank shares, and his bank
book to show that he had ample means to meet his engage-
ments, and gave him the names of several relations and friends
as a proof of his respectability. The plaintiff consented to
open the account, and by the end of May the transaction
amounted to nearly £lOO,OOO, upon which, in consequence of a
rise in the market, there was a loss of £9,000. On the 31st
the defendant called upon the plaintiff, and told him that•he
was unable to meet his engagements, and that he (the
plaintiff) must write a letter to the committee of the Stock
Exchange, stating that plaintiff must be declared a defaulter.
At the same time he told the plaintiff that his own friends
would assist him with advances, and that he would ultimately
pay the plaintiff. The defendant dictated the letter, and it
was duly forwarded to the Stock Exchange. Af Let wards
the plaintiff was made a bankrupt, and it was discovered
that his hooki had been abstracted from an iron safe, of
which he had allowed the defendant to have a key. The
defendant denied having got them, but they were found
in his possession. Proceedings had been taken against
the defendant for perjury, and he was now out of the
country. The plaintiff sought to recover £9OO for com-
mission, and £4,000 for money advanced to the defen-
dant. Until he met his engagements in the Stock Exchange
he could not, of course, recover from the defendant the
amounts for which he had rendered himself liable. Dur-
ing the examination in chief of the plaintiff the parties
agreed to the withdrawal of a juror, subject to a pinta
arrangement.

OF WHAT PARTY IS THE "NATION?"
(From. the Ant;lo-American
The New York Nation tells the story of a Mr.
JACKSON, a lawyer formerly in good practice in a
Western State, who entered the army in 1861,
fought through the war, constantly in front, and
returned with broken health to find his business
gone and his brain so affected that for two years he
was kept in a lunatic asylum. Emerging in 1866,
some admiring friends obtained for him a post in
the Auditor's Bureau, wherein his extraordinary
ability in examination of claims secured his rapid
promotion. In April, 1869, on Mr. BOUTWELL'S
advent, he was peremptorily dismissed because he
" had been appointed under JOHNSON and endorsed
by Democrats, and was intimate with Judge WOOD-
WARD (of Pennsylvania) and Mr C. DENISON." But
Mr. STETSON announced to the third auditor that
Mr. JACKSON'S services were of such a character and
so indispensable in the bureau that his departure
would paralyse its business; he was therefore re-
tained, while two young men were placed with him to
learn the work, and the sight is now on view at Wash-

ington, says the Nation, of this war-worn, broken-
down soldier fitting these two men to oust him from
his post. The Nation comments in its two following
notes of the Week with great severity on the fore-
going, the truth of which it has taken much pains
to ascertain ; blaming Mr. BOUTWELL, who it pro-
nounces to be " a remarkably good specimen" of
what it evidently considers a remarkably bad class.
It objected to his appointment because he was " a
thorough-bred politician of the old school. . . .
After thirty years of caucus, wires, and stump, a
man could not be a real administrative reformer.
The stuff of a reformer has gone out of him. Fi-
delity' and claims' have entered into the very mar-
row of his bones." The correspondent of the New
York Tribune attacks the Nation in his letter, from
London, of June 5, asserting among other charges
that it is not a Republican journal. Mr. SMALLEY
alleges that the general ignorance on American affairs
in England enables the enemies of the Republican
party and the cause it has upheld for eight years, to
make people believe that the Nation is a Republican
journal. We are rather inclined to think that Mr.
SMALLEY is now right, in his assertion that the Na-
tion is not Republican, for there is internal evi-
dence that it is not, at least on all points, iu har-
mony with that party. It is indisputable that it
formerly was a Radical organ, for it was founded to
uphold the cause of the negro, one of the great issues
whereon the Republican party was formed. But
what happened in England when the Whigs gained
the objects they strove for is happening on Radical
success in the Republic; its issues being attained, the
parties assimilate and have to re-form on others.
The Tories merge into the Conservatives in Eng-
land, the Whigs into the Liberals, and for want of
definite questions fight the battle of slow versus
rapid progress. In America there are great and
direct issaes to be contended for, affecting every
man individually, and consequently of prodigious
importance to the nation collectively, and it is
around the standard erected for them that parties
must hereafter rally. Mr. SMALLEY calls the Nation
"a paper written by a Hale clique of discontented
doctrinaires for each other's reading," and he
sneers at ascribing to it a weight which he
declares to be purely imaginary. lie insinuates
that the English press is deceived, and the more
readily because it suits it to assume that the
Nation does speak the seetiments of many Ame-
ricans. It is, however, the fact, that English editors
judge the piper by the matter they find therein,
and not by the opinions of this or that person.
They allude to it as of the highest class intellectually,
even While condemning it, as did the Saturday Re-
view, for never being able to discuss an English
subject without displaying a blind and hysterical
hatred of England. But while accepting it on its
merits they do not pretend to judge of its circulation
or of its influence in its own country, of which they
can knoW little or nothing. Still it cannot but be
amusing to compare what the leading English Tory
weekly paper says, with what the correspondent of the
leading American Republican paper says when dis-
cussing the Nation; tbeonc writiugof frinatio adin-
like to England and the other of " the squeals of
delight" with which these very Tory journals seize
upon its injurious continents, on its country in ge-
neral, and on the Republican party in particular;
and this is not a bad instance of the difficulty ex-
perienced in endeavouring impartially and without
bias to discuss Anglo-American questions. But our
object here is to inquire--of what political stripe is
the Nation ? for, though not Democratic, we inc'ine
to the belief that it is not now Republic in, and that
Mr. SMALLEY is justified in repudiating it as an
organ of his party. What seems to have had most
effect in swinging the Nation round was the ap-
pointment of Mr. BOUTWELL to the Secretaryship of
the Treasury ; and it is worth while to seek the
cause, for whether written by a little clique of doc-
trinaires or not, the paper is unquestionably con-
ducted with the honest intention of benefiting the
country. Judging alone by the internal evidence
it furnishes, for we know nothing of it beyond its
weekly issue, we would say that it earnestly de-
sires to break down the system on which offices
in the United States are at present distributed,
and to inaugurate the Civil Service Reform,
whose most conspicuous advocate is Mr. JENCK ES,
of Rhode Island. It strenuously upheld GRANT
for President during the election campaign, under
the belief that he would accomplish this Hercu-
lean task, and it appears to have, deeply grieved
over what it considers his conspicuous failure. In
an article of its issue on June 10 it discusses this
subject in a tone of which our readers may judge
by the following extract :
" It is safe to say that when we were discesing Mr.
JENCKES'S bill last winter, nobody had the remotest idea
of the startling illustration of the value of the measure
which the incoming of GRANT'S Administration would
afford. Few people —few of Lis supporters certainly—
were prepared for the clean sweep' which he has made,
and fewer still had an adequate idea of what a clean sweep
means in these days, when the Government employes are
numbered by tens of thousands. We knew what rotation
in
office
meant under PoLx. and BUCHANAN, but we did
not know, till wo saw it, what it meant since the war
covered the land with a swarm of functionaries. More-
over, even those of us who Lad anticipated extensive
changes amongst the officers of the Government had not
pictured to themselves the possibility of the vacancies
being filled by means of Congressional and other recom-
mendations,' in the old style— that is, of every office iu the
gift of the Government being offered to the competition
of between two and three hundred thousand of the least
afins
reputable portion of the community—that portion, in short,
which in the country, of all, in whichan ho
least difficulty making a livelihood, had failedhonest man n
in ,n
gettingfinds
any place for which character and skill or industry were
essential requisites."
In its number of June 17 it tells the story with
which we commenced this article, and in its first
leader discusses the decline of the Republican party,
which it asserts to have been losing its hold on the
popular affection since 1865. Nothing but the " ob-
stinacy and stupidity of the South, and ANDREW
JOHNSON'S folly" enabled it successfully to carry our
Reconstruction, a measure in itself sure to damage
the reputation of any party. It has had to collect
and -disburse enormous sums for eight years with-
.
out ,adequate machinery, and, in consequence, to
shoulder the responsibility of great abuses, while
receiving into its ranks a prodigious number of
knaves and adventurers, whose plundering and
peculation added to its burden. These, together
with the weariness which comes over the public of
any party long in power, would have led to its de-
feat in. the last Presidential election had not the
folly of the opposition and the energetic action of
the Chicago Convention postponed the evil day.
Ilad the Republicans discarded GRANT, and the
Democrats accepted GaAs:.:, the former party would
have gone to pieces, and even as it was, if the elec-
tive machinery had admitted of a direct popular
vote, GRANT we uld have barely escaped defeat.
We may judge from this that the Nation has very ,
little hearty Republicanism in it, and we direct
attention to the-- change, bec tuse it is'' a per-
ceptible straw on the cut rent of pub:ic opinion to
show the turning of the tide. The Nation is
nothing if not original ; and it is nothing if origi-
nal, unless its ideas are deeply considered and
matured. The mass of journal~ are eddied about
round and round, morn following than making
Public opinion, taking the -tone from the few really
original organs. As one of these few the opinions
of the Nation are importao, whether or not those