New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1861-01-26
uSNtacMsshssY pR EoauraoNs.
4 dispatch fssn washington 10 d Northern pal

Aqfspatch fg5m w ashingt ION to q Northern paper
says:
So thoroughly satisfied are the military seshori,
ties OF the Government that an attempt will be
made upon the Treasury and other valuable Govern
ment departments in the District or or before the
4th OF March, that military guard has been placed
in them, and o strict watch Will be kept upon
tho thieves who have so long plun6ered the Gov
erRuient of its treasure. The Interior Department
is strongly fortified. There are two million dollars
worth Of bonds remaining there, Notwithstanding
tne demonstration recently made upon that branch
OF the Government.
We would like to know what sense there is in
placing military guardn and keeping ' strict
watch's over 4 Treasury long ago bankrupt and
2exhausted2 We would like to know what's the
use of locking the door after the horse is stolen,
| or of making a show Of protecting the Public
| Treasury when there is not dollar left in the
Public Treasury to protect?
Everybody will recolleet that the Treasury was
50 full i few years ago, during Gen. Pierce's Ad.
ministration, that they really did not know what
| to do with the money. Mr.. Guthrie, then secre-
| tary of that Department tried to keep the money
from accommodating too fast by buying up the Gov
eminent bonds before they were due. Congress
| authorized extravagant expenditures, and scat
tered the public money with free hand and with
profuse lberality but it all would not do Finally,
the House of Representatives passed bill dis
1 tributing some Of the public money among the
States, but the bill, fortunately, failed in the
Senate,
When the present Administration went into
| poWer the nation was almost free of debt, and
had a clear cash capital of twenty or thirty mil
| lions to start with. This was used up in short
| order and the Government then commenced bor-
rowing and has been borrowing ever since, and
| & kiting, with Treasury notes. To make believe
| that everything was all right, the Old Public
4 Functionary in the midst of the extravaganza and
population going on, wrote patriotic and vel
yety letter to the Fort Duquesne celebrationsts-
the same, we believe, in which he affectionately
appropriated to himself the title of o. P. F.-de-
/ precating the use of money in elections, and
preaching economy and honesty with a holy unc-
ton that was pleasing and gratifying to observe.
| The practices Of the Administration, it was true,
1 did not at all square with the Q. P. Els profess
| sions but then much was 10 be pardoned to a
| man of sentiment, who talked SO smoothly and
4 WE'LL even if there were a little French milliner
behind the political screen.
4 And now, when the money is all gone, and the
/ credit Of the Treasury at low ebb and the Union
/ breaking up and going to pieces, like ship
i stranded upon rocky beach, we are told that a
] military guard is to protect the Treasury to keep
off raids upon it, and prevent it from being pill
LACED. Who wants to pillage it? Who wishes to
make a foray upon an institution, in the vaults of
/ which not a solitary "mcpus Y is glitterings To
assert that there is any arrangement on combine
ton to plumber the Treasury now, would be about
| as ridiculous as Mrs hfcawbers vehement de-
| claration, whenever greatly affected, that she
a never would desert Mr.. MicaNper never, never
when. no one had ever suspected that ex-
| eellent woman Of any such purpose.
/ The Interior Department, too, we are told, is
strongly fortifed;n because stthere are two mil
lions Of dollars worth Of bonds remaining there.
i The business of the Interior Department is mainly
/ conducted in the basement of the Patent Office in
suits of suhterranean, gloomy, il-yentilated rooms
and the ordinary Notifications consist Of old wo-
4 men, who sit at the doors and vend apples and
j pea nuts TO the clerks passing in and out. These
Notifications are sufficient for ordinary occasions
for no one approaches them who can avoid it
Bnt we see no use in fortifying a building which
i holds only two millions of dollars worth of bonds
seeing that there is no money to pay the bonds
i WITH nor viii the Abolition Administration of Lin
i coin be able to raise any, after the South, upor
4 which the Federal Government has so long preyed
shall have repudiated the old partnership
Il 1t is said that Lincoln has declared to his friend
that when he gets to be President he will "rul
the machine as he finds it'i-that is, he will ad
minister on whatever effects of the late Union tht
4 Old Public Funetionary may leave him. we wisl
him good time in doing it. When the Govern
ment is SO low down in resources that there is no
4 only no money, but military guard has to be de
tailed to protect two millions Of dollars of unsafe
able bonds, we think it about time the affairs o
| ,1d 6ry1 hn my, au6 fhn
i closed.