Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1858-01-27
WASHINGTON NEWS AND GOSSIP.

Mt which the Continental press level the shafts
of their satire most pertinaciously just now.
His American temperance-society notions, are
evidently most distasteful to those in whose
society he necessarily passes most Of his
time-the court of the King of Prussia. He
speaks only the English, and according to Ger
man and French papers, all his intercourse with
those who cannot, or Ito provoke him) will not
converse with him in his own tongue is through
an interpreter-an inexpressible bore He gave
adejemner a la fourchette not long since, a hand-
some and costly entertainment, so far as the
eatables were concerned, without single bot
tie of wine on the table-a thing before unheard
of previously anywhere in Europe in diplo-
matte society. Whereupon, the press rated
him severely, for being q boor They hold that
it was excessive bad manners on his part, to as
sumo to dictate that his guests should not drink,
wine being one Of the courtesies of such enter
tainments throughout Europe, almost since the
first vintage. The press declare that they find
no fault with his declension of the use of even
light wines-but with his assumption of the
right to forbid its use by his guests on such an
occasion. The truth is, the worthy Governor
was educated in q school of manners quite DIFF
ferent from that which has prevailed for centu-
ries among well-bred people in Europe-in the
New England school, as transplanted to our
North West. According to that school, it is
every mans right to supervise and direct the
manners and morals of everybody else. In the
North West, that is essayed sometimes even
more uncourteous than generally in New Eng
land.
The truth is, in this matter the worthy Gov
ernor is simply attending to Bunkum-con-
sulting the tastes and ideas of propriety of his
people in Indiana, with which it is of more i'm
portance that he shall square the record of even
his dinner parties in Europe than with the tastes
and manners and customs of his guests on such
occasions. Though it strikes us that in this
matter Gov. W. is running the Bunkum prin-
ciple into the ground, it can do no harm to
our national interest in Prussia, insomuch as
we have no question whatever in issue at this
time at Berlin He is a man of great energy and
usually abiding brains, and in the real business
of diplomacy would prove himself full match
for any one connected with the Prussian Foreign
Office, doubtless. We regret that he is not
likely to have an opportunity to wipe out the
unfortunate impressions his .'westernisms" ap-
pear to have made, by graphing with some i'm
portant international question. Should such
an opportunity occur, however, it will be found
that the real man in him which will then at
once deveope itself, will soon efface the impress
sions of his manners and social ideas referred
to above
The Continental press also make sport of his
daily visits to the markets of Berlin in search
of provisions for his household, in their estima.
ton an intolerable vulgarism in one occupying
his position. Thus it seems they are anxious
for opportunities to criticise him invidiously
However, he can surely stand their badnage
after having stood that of the opposition press
at home about the hydraulc-ram story-the
sheer invention of some incorrigible wag-with
which he was so numerically badgered for
year or more.
The MILK IN THE Cocoa NUr.-We have
frequently taken occasion to intimate in
credulity relative to the truth of many of
the charges of official corruption floating
round in the columns of the wonder monger-
ing press-our experience having taught us
that they are too often but the carnations
of the spite of disappointed professional
spectators upon the treasury of the United
states, or of parties seeking revenge for
the failure of their black -mailing schemes.
Thus, we have no idea that the " very pretty
muses. as they stand" which the House is now
gravely investigating through special commit
tees, under circumstances which must impress
the distant public with the notion that Con-
gress and its officers are collectively much
worse men than they are really, will amount
to anything substantial. They have served.
so far, we apprehend, only to bring the national
Legislature unJustly into disrepute. Their re-
suit may possibly be the exposure of bad mo.
tives on the part of parties through whose mis-
representations of the acts of others the House
has been compelled, in the belief that its own
honor required to be indicated in that wav. to
order more or less of its hitherto unexamnled
number OF Misunderstanding committees. If
ef1ectlDg this object, the policy of raising them
Will have been good one; as it will satisfy the
country of the improper anin,ms at the bottom
OF most of such indiscriminate charges against
the integrity of Congress and others in official
life.
While we are on this subject we may not in
appropriately add that the news of the raising
OF the Fort Snelling-s sale investigating commit
tee, on reaching Minnesota, gave rise to publ.
cations in the journals of ST. Paul, which look
as though that boot will, after all, be even
tually found to be % on the other Leg
We quote the announcement that Congress
has ordered the investigation in question, which
we find in the St. Paul Adrertiser of the 10th
inst.-as follows
The FORT SMELLING CASE UP.-On the 4th
inst In the House Of Representatives at Wash
ington, committee Of i've was ordered to be
appointed to investigate the facts connected with
the sale OF the Fort Smelling Reservation with
power 10 send for persons and papers On the
nh; TINS committee was appointed. IL consists
OF Messrs. Burnett and Morris of Illinois. and
Faulkner, Merrill and Petit
rms movement was instituted by Mr. Robert
smith, OF Illinois, who made an Intellectual at.
tempt TO get hold Of this tract himself. Mr..
smith Is known as a greedy speculator of the
corInorant type, who has already possessed him
SELF OF large tracts Of land in and about Mime.
apoiis, and was one Of those who formed a com
b1natlon for the purchase of these lands, similar
to that formed at Fort Ripley last fall
IL was TO defeat the maneuvres of Mr. Smith
and his fellow conspirators, that the Commits
sloners decided upon private sale az the only
PROTECTING 10 int Of A.