The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-07-28
Phrsical amusement and CnItnre.


Whether the great physical contest with
the Rebellion has awakened our people to the
consciousness that after all moral truths are
feeble unless sustained by muscular support,
or whether the lectures of ths Psychologists in
favor of developing bone and brawn as well as
brain are having their effect, certainly the
American people are undergoing q wholesome
reform in the matter of athletic sports and
physical enjoyments. The baseball tourna-
ments, the growing popularity of yachting,
and the importance attached to the regattas,
and the introduction of races and other sports
at our agricultural fairs annually held in
every county in our great farming States, all
indicate a notable revival of the physical,
which we cannot help acknowledging, though
we may not explain it. little reflection,
we think, will satisfy the reader, who
might at first dissent from the view, that
this is no casual incident, but universal
tidal movement of the people in favor
of higher development of our physical
life and culture. American life, in the earlier
stages Of cur history, was a very serious
affair. Whatever residuum of vigor was left
unexhausted by labor was deemed to be
wholly due to intellectual and spiritual cul-
ture; and even these were strictly utilitarian,
not esthetic, the main object of education
being to deliver its pcssessor from the bond
age of bodily toll and the end of religion
being that 'peace'' and "rest' which form the
natural horizon of hope to a race of struggling
laborers. Minds thus absorbed in contending
with the stern realities of this world, and the
most profound problems of the next, were
more anxious to cruelty the flesh than to de-
velop it, and would have regarded the terms
muscular Christianity as an irreverent
attempt to establish league between God and
Belial. Then, as now, very many fell into
the sluiceways of appetite and passion, and were
dragged down to perditlon. But the new
doctrine that the appetites and passions are of
divine origin, and when properly studied aud
understood are among the guides to right and
pure living, though it had been propounded by
few, was righteously misinterpreted and ab
horred by the mass of good men and women
Amusement, when it ceased to be either useful,
laborions, or religious, when it was not in some
way connected With apple-paring, corn-husk-
ing building stone fences, raising barns, har-
vesting, getting married. or sending the Gospel
into foreign lands, was sinful, or, at the very
least, waste of time. That human and animal
strength which could find so much useful de-
velopment in labor should be wasted in racing,
boxing, wrestling, walking, skating, or cricket,
or ball-playing, or quoits, swimming,
hunting, or pleasure-riding, was proof of the
continued power of the devices Of the evil one.
The fine arts, music, painting poetry, fiction,
architecture, the DRAMA were shorn of
the liberty of art, robbed of their free
dom, grace, and beauty, and made to
serve as handmaids in the kitchen of
use and profit. Music must be confined to
the discordant execution of style of hymns
1t is of considerable public consequences that
this controversy should be settled; but the
laws OF Congress and the action of the Trea-
sury Department are such hotca-pOtch of
contradictions and absurdties, that much can
be plausibly said for either side. If it were
private controversy between two individuals,
it would inevitably go into court Of law. II
is a disgrace to the Republican party to have
got the subject into such muddle by their
ambiguous, blundering legislation; the more
so as the Government cannot be sued and the
| question brought to a judicial test. The
| Worid'S opinion on the subject is we'll known.
| We have seen no reason to change it, and it
is not changed, but Congress alone can inter-
| pret the law; and as the Congress which must
| pay the debt will be different one from that
which contracted it, the decision will be really
made by the people in electing members of
that body. AS things now look, the
| popular verdict will be in favor of pay
ing the principal of the fve-twenties in
paper money; that Interpretation of the law
having constantly gained new adherents in
both political parties, until they form large
majority of one and considerable portien of
| the other. Even if the next Congress should
be Republican, it will not dare to pay the five
twenties in gold. AS this Congress burst not
| pass Srnator Edmunds' resolution, although
the Republicans have four-ffths of both
| Houses, there is no likelihood that any subSe-
| quent Congress will adopt his Interpretation of
the law, after the other has made so much
| progress. We incline to think that the five
| twenty bonds will never be paid, but ex-
changed for other bonds on whose meaning
there will rest no uncertainty. The doubts
which the present controversy has occasioned,
and which really arise out of the blundering
ambiguity of the laws, will make the holders
of the fve.twenty bonds willing to exchange
them for bonds bearing lower rate of interest
but unmistakably payable in gold.
Although the proposal of our correspondent
has seeming air of equity, it is not really
| equitable. If the bonds are due in gold, there
is no equity in paying their present gold
value, the depression in the price being partly
| due to the doubts which have been thrown
upon this point. If they are payable in
| greenbacks, they ought nevertheless to be
above par, for they are drawing nearly nine
per cent. interest when money is we'll invested
at five or six. 1t is the gold interest which
keeps them above par, the price of the bonds
depending upon calculation of probabilities
as to how long the Government will let them
run after the expiration of the five years.
| Surely, the Government is not bound to make
| good speculative calculations respecting the
use it will make of its liberty to redeem the
bonds between the fifth and the twentieth
| year.