Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1858-02-23

ocean carrying trade that, for the exigencies of
modern commerce, steam is more profitable
than sails-we were fast coming to outstrip
England in doing the carrying trade of the
world With the demonstration of that prob
lem, however, We began to fall virtually be-
hind our great rival. Her Government in
stsntiy bent all its vast resources to recover
the ground lost by her ship owners in the pre-
vious quarter Of a century in which our re-
markables strides in that connection were made
Thus England established tat an aggregate
expense to her treasury Of some s., OO0, 900 per
annum) numerous lines of English mail steam
ers, running wherever the interests of her gen.
eral commerce required that she should keep
up prompt and swift and certain mail commu-
nications. Her subsidies were much more
wisely arranged than ours. Thus, they were
none Of them based on the special-favors sys-
tenn, but were nearly all Of them comparatively
moderate in the payments they involved, and
were given out only where the exigencies of her
general commerce made them necessary to its
future. Under the encouragement incident to
her ocean mail-steamer system, added to the
greater cheapness of steamship building in
England, she has already come to leave US far
in the background in the matter of the naviga
ton of the ocean by steam and it has become
a very interesting problem whether the United
States design abandoning all pretence Of rival
ing her hereafter in that description of com
mercial navigation.
Public attention at the North is just now be-
ing directed to the subject with great interest;
nsomuch as most of the original ocean mail
steamer contracts Of our Government are about
to expire by limitation, and that Of the Collins
line has been virtually abandoned on account
of some difficulty between the accounting Of
fcers of the Government and the agent of the
ships whereby the former withhold a large
amount of money claimed by the latter as be-
ing due to the company under the law. Not
having looked into the subject, we do not feel
at liberty to pronounce an opinion as to the
merits of the difficulty to which we refer.
Nevertheless, for the honor of our land, we
greatly regret the intention of abandoning
their originally so successful enterprise; be-
cause it strikes US as an acknowledgment of
our national incompetency to compete with
England on the ocean; the changes in the
methods and modes Of navigation wrought by
enterprise and science combined, in the last
quarter of century, having demonstrated
past persdventure that any nation that would
compete for commercial supremacy there, must
resort to steam in place of sails, as she is doing
We do not feel competent to advise Congress
on such subject. Nevertheless, it is at Leaf /
incumbent on us to say that it behooves the
National Legislature to give this matter its
earnest attention. If it be within the scope Of
its legitimate authority, and can De done with
out injury to other American interests, it is
certainly the duty of Congress to devise some
system of laws with reference to, steam on the
ocean, which will prevent the gradual with
drawal of American capital from the carrying
trade, threatened as We explained above. That
cannot take phase without incalculable injury
to many other American interests the repre-
sentatives of not few of which are at this time
apparently hostile to the idea that it behooves
the General Government to interfere directly
or indirectly to ward off the dreaded catastro-
phe which We explain above.
TIE EPIDEMIc.-Quiet people at distance
will please comprehend that in Washington
just now, tie dueling epidemic is raging, and
further, that the sufferers under its ravages
are none of them gentlemen who may right
fully claim the Federal Metropolis as their
residence. We make this latter explanation,
because when quiet folks at distance roll ND
their eyes in utter establishment at the bel
ligerent turn personal affairs have suddenly
taken here, they may comprehend that our
own good-tempered fellow citizens are not in
volved in any Of the emeutes which seem to bid
fair to secure for Washington reputation in
the dueling line somewhat similar to that of
New Orleans twenty five years ago. Somehow
or other, singular moral epidemics will rage
everywhere at times, as physical ones do Thus,
we have here not unfrequently epidemics of ru-
mors OF attempts to come the giraffe over the
treasury, followed by epidemics Of investiga-
ting committees Then we have epidemics of
political ultraisms which set all the Washing
ton world by the ears for it is essentially
political community. Anon comes along a
dancing epidemic, and everybody around us :,
young and old, 60 mad to greater or less de,
gree over the waltz, quadrille, schottische, 81
les Lanc'erS. Then too, we have our period
ical epidemic Of fire riots participated in for
the most part by amateurs from Baltimore and
other cities north Of US, rs our police records
show, though serving to earn for the Federal
Metropolis not little of the wonderful reputa-
tation the proneness of moral epidemics to rage
here has already secured for it. This being
the season Of Lent, gayety has necessarily
ceased for time, and mems minds have taken
a savage turn This is to be regretted, inso-
much as it is far better for the interest of 90
ciety that the public's safety valve should be
l0aa faI in fha baa 10, ~.
danger Of numerous explosions through the
mouths of pistols, rifles, and double barreled
shot guns.
CONFIRMED.-The recent confirms ton of the
Hon. John l.. Robinson to be again the United
States Marshal for the northern district of In
diana is matter of general Democratic con.
graduation. Mr.. r. served for some years in
Congress, where he earned the reputation of
being not only man Of leading Evolutionary
powers, but that of sound Democrat, ALWAYS
ready and efficient in the cause of his political
principles. Subsequently his career as a mb