The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1857-07-15

with moderate sales For stocks and prices another
column. Freights we're dull and engagements light at
unchanged rates
The City In a state ef Anarchy-The Causes
ard the Remedy.
Fer row nearly two weeks the principal bust
ness CT the newspapers of this city has been to
chronicle riots and disturbances of the peace all
of them serious and menacing in their general
aspect, and come of them resulting in q deplora-
bic loss Of life. This state of things is very dis
creditable to highly intelligent and prosperous
community like ours, and if it be allowed to con-
tinue, must operate more or LEES ipjuriously to
the business Of the city. 1t is rot OF all unlikely
that numbers Of country merchants and persons
intending to visit New York have been and may
be deferred from coming by the altered condition
of things, and that many of the families of our
own citizens who have gone into the country will
be incuced to remain there longer than they
otherwise would have done. Thus not only do
these daily disturbances of the peace briag sorrow
and wo to many domestic hearth but they
Disgrace the good name and injure the moral and
material interests of this great metropolis.
How is it that the character of the community
appears so suddenly to have become changed?
How is it that in a city remarkable for the re-
spect which its citizens have always entertained
for the law and its officers, there should have
been within the last few weeks so many violent
manifestations of disrespect for the law and
hatred of its officers? 1t is not to any sudden
revision of feeling on the part of our people in
reference to the necessity of Obeying and uphold
ing the laws that these disorders are to be at
tributed-nor are they justly to be ascribed, as
they have been by some partisan journals, to
Kcret underhand influence brought to bear upon
them by the officers of orr municipal govern
ment and the disbanded police. At bottom the
citizens of New York are, as a whole, as deeply
attached as they ever have been to the principle
Of obedience to and respect for the laws. That
sentimt Mt is too deeply implanted in this commu-
nifty to be go easily and suddenly uprooted;
ard if tomorrow the Metropolitan police
should be dsbanded as the Munich
pal police have been, the peace of the
city would be undisurbed; nor would it be ne
cessary to have nightly alarms beaten for the
military to march through the streets with fixed
The preservation of public tranquility might be
safely confded to the good citizens of New York
The riotous manifestations that we have 80
often had to record within the last fortnight are
directly traceable to two causes. One is the un-
wise, uncalled for and unconstitutional interfer-
government of this city; the other, the despotic
tendencies of those State officers to whom the
peace Of the city has been committed.
Since the occurrence of the Astor place riot
which itself was promptly quelled-there has not
been time in the history of this metropolis when
any incipient movement tending to riot or ge-
neral disturbance Of the peace could not be and
was not promptly crushed out Bitter party ami
mosities and violent feuds have at times menaced
public tranquillity-as, for instance, in the case
Of the homicide Of Poole two summers ago-but
in no instance since the Astor place riot has
the peace of the city been disturbed by riots
Our population OF 10000 il largely, If no. main
ly composed first of citizens from oil parts of the
United States, and then Of natives of the various
countries of Europe, who, flying from the dcspo-
tism Of the Old World, come here with the wild
est notions Of American liberty and democracy.
We have the Irish laboring classes, to whom law
has been ever synonymous with oppression; the
French red republicans, who would expunge all
laws, human and divine and the Germans,
deeply imbued with socialistic ideas, and cling
ing with Teutonc devotion To their language,
their kindred, and the traditions aud institutions
Of their fatherlard. II was no easy matter to
mould these apparently impracticable elements
into the fashion Of good, peaceable law abiding
American citizens; and yet the municipal gov
eminent and the police authorities Of our city
did that very thing They went the right way
about IT, and they succeeded. The Irish, with
only an occasional indulgence in a rev, just for
the love of the thing have hitherto proved them
selves industrious and peaceable citizens. The
French red republicans have kept their
peculiar notions Of government peut up,
letting them explode harmlessly once a
year in celebrating the anniversary of the
republic Of 1892. The Germans have kissed their
.fraueu, smoked their pipes, drank lager aud
Rhine wiDe enjoyed their Mq,fcts and the cele-
bration of their SongerJunds, and showed good
example of social and domestic enjoyment But
now the Irish riots in the Sixth ward and the
German in the Seventeenth show. with too sad re-
suits, that the system Of dealing with them has
been changed for the worse
The origin of all this trouble in our city is the
interference Of the State Legislature with our
municipal government The last Legislature was
largely black republican, the city largely demo
cratic. The Legislature, with the twofold object
of humiliating the city and increasing its own
strength therein, undertook to tinker up unpopu
lar laws A couple of years ago liquor law, 10
imitation of the Maine law, was passed with the
object Of wipipg out barrooms which were
supposed to be hot beds of democracy. Instead,
however Of the barrooms being wiped out, the