Daily American organ., 1856-04-22
Blackguardism.

The Washington Union OF this date con-
tains the following editorial paragraph, to wit:
"a Louisville Know Nothing organ says that
one Of the members Of the Wing convention held
in Lexington the 18th instant, applied, but was
refused admission into the Know-Nothing party,
because of his bad moral character" From re-
cent disclosures il would seem that in the meri-
dian of Washington city Sam is not so particular
about the moral character of his followers"
Such language from the lesser luminary of
the administration in this city, from which it's
larger coadutor copies this contemplate allu-
sion to the arrest of three or four burglars was
to be expected; it was entirely characteristic,
bat that the Washington Union newspaper,
formerly under the control of the venerable
Richie, who was high-toned gentleman, and
which paper still assumes to be the represen-
tative Of national administration, would be
most remarkable upon the hypothesis, that
either the representative or its constituency
had any claim to decency or to the respect Of
the country. 1t is true, there has been no
thing in the recent course of that journal which
coSttasidft coSttasd il to anyiexemption from the universal
fallen, unless indeed, its it, gsssser lesser brother had
weakness entitled it to such exemption sana
we had not expected to find in its columns a
repetition of blockguardism copied from its
lesser coadjutor.
| But we must take things as we find them,
and deal with contemporaries according to the
manifestations of character exhibited in their
own columns If there be any wit in the par
agraph above copied, it was 6orroaoed by the
Washington Union from its Black mail coad-
jutor, who was the first to make the contempt
ible and Infamous allusion to the circumstance,
that some of the burglars recently arrested had
voted on former occasions with the American
party. We took occasion, in adverting to that
allusion, to give our views of the responsibility
which attaches to party, for the conduct of
its members; and we presume our Black-mai
contemporary was content with our views on
that question, as he has been silent on that
subject since that time and we are Of the opin-
ion that the larger representative of the ad-
ministration would have done better if it had
copied the silence of its lesser brother, rather
than have copied his alusion. The point made
by our Black-mail contemporary, and now
copied by the Washington Union, in all its
length and breadth, is this: that tho Anaeri-
can party has bad men within its ranks in
the city Of Washington.
Were we inclined to dispose of this question
in few words, by an argumentum ad honi-
mes, we think it would be quite easy to do SO,
and involve no one in censure save those with
whom this contest has arisen--but as we do
not choose on this occasion to be personal, we
shall resort to some statistics to show uhat
class Of men constitute the majority in our
penitentiaries.
By table, published in the compendium of
| the seventh census, it will be found, that, the
4 number of natives and foreigners convicted of
crimes in 1850 in all the different States was
Natives $4,000
| Foreigners $4,000
And yet the total population stood as follows ::
Natives 2l,oal 500
Foreigners 2,240,535
so that of the natives, only in every 1,619
was convicted of crime, and of the foreigners,
in every 154 was thus convicted The rela-
tive proportion of native-born to foreign-born
criminals is thus shown to be one native to ten
foreigners, and If we estimate that only one
half of the native-born convicts were anti
Americans in politics, and the other half were
Americans in politics, it would follow that
there were tpenty anti Americans to one
american" convicted of criminal offences in
! one year
We would hardly err in our estimates if We
were now to assume, that for one member of
the American party, who is convicted of
criminal offence, there are at least thirty anti
Americans annually convicted and If we en-
brace all soho ought to be punished for levying
blackmail---for oUercharging the government
for work, and for various descriptions of off
cial and unofficial stealing we doubt not the
proportion would be more than .Jifty anti-
Americans to one American
With these statistics before them, we sub
init to our contemporaries, the greater and the
lesser representatives of this administration, in
this city, that the allusion by them to the po-
litical complexion Of two or three, or more
burglars who have been arrested here within
the last few days, did not evince good taste,
nor exhibit any great degree ofpolitical shrewd-
ness. The term at the bead of our present
article most aptly expresses the character of
their efforts to be witty at the expense of the
American party in Washington.
National Water Works.
We are much mortified to learn that many
honorable members ofCongress took up pre-
judice against the appropriation, asked in the
Senate amendment to the Deficiency bill, to
carry on the important work Of bringing water