The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1858-09-11
BALTIMORE.
SATURDAY,, SEPTEMBER II 1858.

The New York Hrald discoursing in its own
peculiar way upon the manifold corruphons and
abuses that according to its account, have crept
into the administration of government in the State
and city of New York draws the following fatter-
inc picture of the practical working and present
tendencies of our political institutions. It says
1.-The public offices filled through a system of bully
ing, ulderhittng, brow beating and bribery. Men
are placed there who trade in power plumber
authority given only enrich them and the public
nothing but the undivided stock of band
of thieves. Fine houses wrung from their subordi
Mates fast horses gold watches and silver gobcts pre-
sented by their panderers and the greed for spoil possesses
in authority. 1t is alone the miserable and
inefficient Metropolitan Police and the Board Of HEALTH
that exhibit these evils Our city stnks with
lis own rottenness State organization is vaS
scheme of plumber from the canals downward and our
judiciary is destroyed by its all peryading poison.
The that bullied themselves into power in
our city and State are fast carrying into a position
where revolution will he only remedy. The censure
independent press only check now and they
are fast losing all fear of that"
We insert the above paragraph, not for the sake
of extracting from it that consolation which misery
is said to find in companionship, nor for the pur-
pose of showing, after the fashion of some of our
contemporaries, that Baltimore is a well-governed
city because New York is as badly governed,
or, perhaps, worse. From that sort of logic,
as we have often said before, we have long since
failed to obtain any solid satisfaction 1t is but
cold comfort that we can derive for our own sor-
rows from the spectacle of others woes We wish
rather to show by the example of our ncighbor that
bad as things are now, they may be worse and
that to arrest their downward progress we must re-
sort to timely action. The current Ct public affairs
never stands still. In New York. SAYS the Herald
it is fast setting towards point where revolution
will he the only remedy for evils that day by day are
growing more intolerable. How is il with our
selves? How runs the current of our social and
political life? Is the city of Baltimore better gov
erned than it ten years ago, or twenty, or
five? Are better and worthier men elevated to
Office; are the laws more faithfully and impartially
administered, and are the consequent blessings of
good government, peace and security happiness at
home, and good name abroad ours in greater
degree, at the present than at any former time?
Has the state of society improved within the past
two years? Are life and property more safe in
our streets, and are crimes against both of less
frequent occurrence? These are plain questions,
such as every man can answer for himself: they
are practical questions, such every man ought
to address TO himself 1t will not do under a
popular government like ours, for any man to be
indifferent to the course which public affairs are
taking, or to the progress which society is making
in one direction the other against such a
''mass of misgovernmcnt," says the Herald IN the
paragraph next following the one we have quoted.
''there is no defence except in the sense of right
''and the public virtue of the people, But how,
if that ''sense of right be dormant, and that
public virtue fail to manifest itself by any out
ward act or show of resistance to evil? Then. in
duhtably, sooner or LATER will he realized to the
letter that condition of social and political degrade
ton which we have described. If respectable
men cease to interest themselves in public affairs
and in the selection Of public officers if they suf
fer important elections to 90 by default; if they
prove so indifferent to the privileges and so re-
creant to the responsibilities of citizenship us to
permit incompetent and unworthy officials to be
returned without opposition to the places they
have dishonorcd, and the trusts they have abused;
If they shut their eyes and turn their backs upon
the spectacle Of political corruption that is placed
before them, and fail to apply the only corrective
that our institutions afford for the evils of msgov-
eminent; then may they rest assured that dav
will surely come when the decentralization of the
community shall be so complete the popular ''sense
''of right so far ohlcratcd, and F:publc virtue
SO nearly eXtinguiShcd that the peaceful remedy of
the ballot will prove wholly Intellectual ifnot posi-
lively lmpractlcable,-and when the polls shall be
actually closed against Them or if open, serve
only to record the feeble protest of the few against
the tyranny of the many. 1t will not do for men
10 console themselves with the hope that by-and-
bye things will look better, or with such shrcds
and patches of philosophy, as that at is a long
LANE that knows no turning" and that ''when
things grow to the worst, they must begin to
mend falling body was never yet known
to arrest IFS own descent, nor corruption to work
lis own cure. Only by the timely interposition
OF the people, and the active interference of the
better portion of the community in political affairs
can the catastrophe which is so Justly deprecated
by the Htrdid be elfectuplly averted. If we will
not act, then must abide the consequences of
our inaction, and had best learn to do so grace
fully and without complaining. If we postpone
action, we must remember that evil habits grow
by indulgence and through long liberation abuses
become prescriptve.