The Sun.
London, England, 1869-05-14 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 14 1E69.

lIIISCELLANEOus NEWS.

STATE OF =LAND.
Quite a panic seems to prevail as to the state
of Ireland. Lord Stanley said
.the sense of insecurity
there was never greater than at present. That,
though open to question, was bad enough. But in
being repeated over again, it has been transposed
into a very different thing. The state of Ireland,
say the alarmists, was never worse than at
present. This is simply absurd. The sym-
pathy of the people with crime, the amount of crime,
and the general unquietness are alarming enough.
But they have existed in much greater proportion in
days that are past. Sanguine people thought the
disestablishment of the Church would immediately
put an end to bad feelings which have existed more
or less for centuries. Sanguine people are generally
the most frightened and now they are scared by the
non-fulfilment of ill-grounded hopes. Yet it they
will only turn to the statistics of crime for the last
thirty years they will find a marked improvement.
As the Dublin correspondent of the Times
puts it :
"What would be thought now if a return were fur-
nished to the Government by the Lord-Lieutenant of the
county of Tipperary stating that 556 murders had been
perpetrated within two years and live mouths?
That was a great increase compared with former
years. It was regarded as highly satisfactory that
in 1831 and 1832 the total number of homicides in
Ireland did not exceed 458. If such figures appeared
in our annual calendar now they would indicate a
terrible increase of crime. Let the aggregate number of
crimes committed in 1835, 1836, and subsequent years, as
appearing in returns furnished to Parliament, be compared
with the catalogue of the last assizes, and it will he seen
how vast an improvement has been effected in the moral
condition of the country. Scarcely a county was then
exempt from murders and agrarian outrages of various
kinds ; they are now confined almost exclusively to
two counties. Tranquillity is now the general rule ;_ it
was then the rare exception. Contrast the calendar for
Tipperary at the last assizes, unsatisfactory as it was in
some respects, and manifesting an increase of crime, with
that for March 1837. At the last March Assizes there
was one charge of murder ; in March 1837 the cases
numbered 44."

Still the present state of things is opposed to
prosperity, and, if possible, must be altered. It may,
if measures be not taken, spread and become more
serious. The budget of news for to-day, for
instance, is by no means reassuring. We are told
that two men named Murray have been arrested on
suspicion of being accomplices in the murder of
Mr. Anketell. Informations were sworn against
them by a Mrs. Brown, who lodged in their house.
She was hooted and threatened by a crowd in Mul-
lingar, and the police have been obliged to remove
her and her husband to Dublin for safety. The
next item is of another attempted assassina-
tion. A mau named Brady, agent of Dr.
Fitzpatrick, is stated to have been fired at near
Virginia, county Cavan. Two persons were
with him, who reported the occurrence. He was
found lying insensible on the road, but is expected
to recover. Then there is the item of stealing a
revolver. Three men have been arrested on a charge
of forcibly taking a revolver from Professor O'Leary,
of Queen's College, Cork, on Sunday evening. There
is a story of the arrest of a Ribandman.

TUE NEW MAYOR OF CORK.

The ➢layor of Cork has indeed resigned, and
there seem to be no signs that he will be re-elected.
The candidate of the ultra:Liberals is to be named by
Mr. O'Sullivan ; and as he will hardly put himself in
nomination, the danger of his reappearance is
averted. The Fenians, by advertisement, call on the
populace to insist upon the town council giving
O'Sullivan the choice of his successor, and by this
means secure the election of a mayor who will carry
out his policy and vindicate his acts.

Deng: a, biliectitt ft in.roiTed teo Inticii Work. llealul
Alford, of Canterbury, Stanley, of Westminster, and
Close, of Carlisle, spoke, and the general result was
that they declined to accept the archiepiscopal sug-
gestion that reforms were desirable. Thereupon the
Archbishop proposed that a committee should be
appointed to meet at Lambeth Palace to-morrow
(Friday). The committee appointed consisted of the
Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the
Deans of Canterbury, York, St. Paul's, and
Westminster, and it was afterwards arranged
that any of the deans who might be in town and dis-
posed to attend the meeting should be considered as
belonging to the committee. It was stated at the
meeting that a scheme for suppressing two canonries
in each cathedral fur educational purposes or the
increase of small livings has been resolved upon by
Mr. Gladstone's Government. The proposition made
by some leading Churchmen a short time ago was
that the revenues thus obtained should be devoted
to increasing the number of bishops.

DEBATE ON APPOINTMENT TO OFFICE

(Prom the Anglo -American Timm)

Perhaps the last debate in Congress was on Se-
nator Carpenter's resolution calling on the heads of
departments to furnish to the Senate, on the firs
day of the next session of Congress, the names, age.
and compensation of the clerks, employes, and in-
' ferior officers; from what States respectively they
were appointed ; how long they have held office.
and at what places they resided in the States from
which they were respectively appointed ; and on
whose recommendation they were appointed. It war
urged in support that the distribution was unfair,
some States getting a lion's share, while others were
overlooked ; that the number of employes should
be diminished, and the pay of those who remained
increased. Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, held in his band
la Blue-book containing the information condensed
the Senator sought in a more diffuse form, giving
the names, salaries, and other information regard:
ing the 45,000 office-holders, 99 of whom out of
every hundred were appointed on verbal recom-
mendations of influential friends. Mr. Sumner
answered Mr. Abbott's proposition to distribute
posts as far as practicable according to representa-
tion and population, who had stigmatised the undue
proportion to certain States as unjust and injurious,
Sumner pointing his remarks with a striking illus-
tration. The Executive was bound to take the best
qualified ; these were not spread geographically,
and the President had no more right to nominate
them from certain States than he had to choose
generals on such a principle. If he had correctly
read history the army before Vicksburg was com-
manded by three Ohio generals, viz., Grant, Sher-
man, and M'Pherson ; and if that State furnished
the three generals who there so well upheld the
honour of the country, why should not the same
State supply three eminent civil servants? The dis-
cussion brought out the radical defect in the exist-
ing mode of filling offices, and the necessity for the
reform proposed by Mr. Jenckes of Rhode Island.
Mr. Trumbull regarded the system of removal from
and appointment to office, as one of the greatest of
evils, calculated to sap the very foundations of the
Government. The experience of thelast six or eight
weeks admonished all that something should be
done to effect a reform. A great change had taken
place, and Senators and Representatives had be-
come mere solicitors. Time was when members of
Cong
triaenis
rsdi i.t3dor nopottirtoccheiairrsne.gt ah,rreoi
appointment
pnepdowti.
alol
set
malln.ehtneetn-
or
they
hoc
elneyrrs
kwosfoaut
nll the
sign the papers of applicants. He now gave
Sno toe het er
hnotice
otlhaa
oattr
ot
dh
oe
cnoeax t
bill,
s iaonnd, fr
gnobody else
passage,
ss ag e , did,to
o
housemak e i
tt ag
op e
to
oa 1 t
h eff offence a r fortn
i nat s ibo
tri
nogf
oemem ffish ee r.
Mr. Fessenden evidently thought the Senator from
Illinois hard on those attending in ante-rooms to
solicit appointments for their constituents. Senators
who refused would‘Nporueljdudice their future, for re-
presentatives
constituents
oweonutlsd do ,
what
unfavourably
teod ,
themand
contrast these exertions, and endeavour to promote
the one at the expense of the other. It was a melan-
choly truth that they were mere agents to get office
for their constituents, and as matters stood they
must look out for these offices. As to hanging about in
InnTobteh, risintgyetnhtalet
yearstn ecanhgaotilnihebereerNifacasonindos ull:lhtreaadsthttihiojecg,iy-r
ttoohwoe• r:a
though
eos ecgsb
complained of as having grown up lately was com-
mon at that time. But the most extraordinary state-
tnialeenotthwears
dmayadtehebyp7orsidCototmt eseroont,isovismomsaeibdody"
or
—Only
fa
foreign mission, and one of the Senators had great
trouble to convince the Committee on Foreign
Affairs that he was an improper person to be con-
firmed, and it now turned out he was a constitu-
tional drunkard. The man was good enough in
other respects, but not fit for the place at all.
Neither of the Senators from Pennsylvania would
have recommended him for the position. Some
time ago, within thelast few days, a man from Penn-
sylvania was nominated for a Consulate, without
consulting either of the Senators. It turns out that
be was a constitutional thief, and his name on the
preceding day was wthdrawn." The custom was
for applicants to send in their cards to Senators,
who, in the ante-room, rather than waste time in
argument signed their papers. Need it surprise
that the Executive make mistakes when Senators
insist upon applic tilts from their Etates working
through them, while such is all the trouble they take
to ascertain fitness. Several errors have occurred,
and in every instance the objectionable persons
were found to be recommended by the whole dele-
gation from the State. Special Commissioner
Wells asserts that $75,000,000 of the revenue is
annually stolen by the functionaries thus appointed,
and a good authority calculates that $25,000,000
will, during the next fiscal year, be added to this
sum, owing to the change from the old to the new
hands. Nor will Congress be able, in the end, to
keep all the patronage, for powerful interlopers are
appearing on the stage. Nearly all the great jour-
nals were represented by their leading men during
the scramble, and the editor of the Evening Post,
the Tribune, or the Times speaks with a tremendous
power at his back ; one, indeed, which the Presi-
dent, or the Secretary, cannot help seeing behind
the individual. Why were these gentlemen in
Washington, and what business had they to be dis-
cussing the merits of candidates with the Executive
and the Senate, and putting their fingers into the
very pie from which they ought most carefully to
have abstained? Let the public become convinced
that editors, that is, the public censors, *are -them-
selves personally interested in the appointments,
and their criticisms will have no weight. How is
it at this moment that the American press write so
forcibly and openly in denunciation of corruption,
yet with so little effect?

THE EXPLANATION OF SENATOR ROSS.
Senator Ross made a long statement when the
Chamber met on the 20th April, regarding his in-
terview with General Grant, as reported in the
newspa'pers, which he termed grossly incorrect and
slanderous, being spread with a view to injure him
throughout the country, particularly in Kansas.
He (Ross) sought the interview, and was astonished
and pained to learn from the President that he
considered it to be presumptive evidence of a
Johnson-man, that the office had been held for the
preceding eighteen mouths. This condemned half
the officials, though earnest and intelligent Radi-
cals. In one instance a gallant soldier eminently
qualified for the post bad been displaced by a man
who had never left his fireside during the war, and
was a pro-slavery sympathizer during the Kansas
Border.disturbanecs. The Senator continued these
instances, sketching a lamentable picture of the
reward of those brave fellows whose only fault it
was to have accepted a favour from him, their friend
and fellow-soldier. (Our readers must remember
that Mr. Ross was one of the seven " recreants"
who voted against Impeachment.) It redounds to
Andrew Johnson's honour that they, though Re-
publicans, were appointed, and it would not tell
well for a Republican President, himself a soldier,
if from personal pique or to gratify the animosity
of others he ostracised them. As for himself for
twenty years it had been his pleasure, but not his
profit, to belong to the advanced corps of Radical
Republicans. No man endured such revilings and
maledictions as he in his efforts to secure Grant's
nomination. He had hoped all from this election,
and although this belief was shaken it was not de-
stroyed. " A combination of my colleagues from
Kansas in Congress has been formed to drive me
from political life, because I have dared to defy the
dictation of party when I be'ieved that other oh-
jeets than the country's goo.l were sought to be
subserved thereby ; and I fear the President has
been deceived into giving that combination his
powerful aid. Hence the sweeping and unjust re-
movals from office of ° id' - chiefly Republicans,
and soldiers, threateneds oirel irrelnovals accom-
p!ished merely because they are my friends, and as an
im portantpart of that party machinery which is being
used for my destruction. I neither court nor shun
that contest." In the interview he had with the
President no word inconsistent with the —strictest
rules of propriety and decorum had been uttered by
either. Mr. Pomeroy, his colleague, saw nothing
to complain of or to censure in the President or in

the Administration, the removals referred to being
those of office-holders who had run on the Demo-
cratic ticket last year, and ought therefore on Re-
publican victory to be discharged.