The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-04-26
MONDAY, APRIL 30, 1869.
sENA TOR SPRAGUE.

GEKA TOH CI hdU ODs
or the unhappy consequences OF putting sIlaI'
man In a large place, Senator Sprague B
f,Io.,.f,,I example. His mental calibre Is not
,-rcst hat when he exercised the functions of the
Subosnatorial office of Rhode Island, where the
members of the Assembly always go to their
own homes to dine the distance from the Capt.
to, thereto being 30 Insignificant, Senator
Spraguc's deficiencies we're not discovered. When
be arose in the morning he had only to put aside
the curtains of his dresslng-room windows
to enable him to take in at q glance the
entire country over which he presided
He had therefore not much to govern, and it
is not too much to say that he governed that
little indifferently well 1t was the old story
over again, and ending with the same moral of
the frog who wanted TO be an OK, or of the gen
teman from Tennessee who, thinking that as
he had made a respectable tailor and alderman,
he would also make not bad President. In
this way the misguided people of Rhode Island
sent the printer of calicoes warranted to wdslr
to the United States Senate They fancied he
would measurably represent the interests OF the
little State over the destinies of which they once
allowed him to preside as Governor; and now
they see their mistake, and with sachcloth
about their loins and ashes on their heads
theg bewail the error of their selec-
tion of Senator for they find that Mr.
Sprague, instead of attending 10 the inte-
rests of bis handful of constituents, is maligning
in not choice terms, the noblest and worthiest OF
their citizens; that he has brought upon himself
the deserved contempt of the nation by the
cOarsenees, incoherency, and indecency of his
assaults upon private character; that he is
shielding himself behind the privileges OF the
Seostorsbip to make charges and publish libels
upon better men than himself, which he would
not dare to make or utter outside of his Office
that he has set Sprague up as the one honest
man in his whole State, and the only reliable
manufacturer of calicoes that will not run in
washing; that, instead of legislating diligently,
lnteuigently, and with dignity upon the affairs
OF the nation, he has simply dragged before the
people his own petty spites, wrongs, and troa-
b,es, and advertised them freely in the C0iJres-
si0aot Globe at the Governments expense.
There is unfortunately for the nation, rival
inauufactory of printed cOttons in little Rhode
Island. which is carried on by certain Nessrs.
Brown Sc Ives. These are as Mordecai sitting at
his gate and by the use of all the undignihed.
indecent and unsenatoral epithets known to
this jobber in politics and Calico he attempts 10
drive his Mordecai away. But in his rage and
weakness, like o man fighting after his sight has
gone, he strikes madly and blindly at everybody
and everything. He hits foul, weak blows at
his constituents, at the Senate, at lawyers, at
the President, at generals, at his colleague, ut
the public morals, and most blndly and viru-
lently at Brown Il Ives, those rival makers OF
cotton prints. If anything consistent can pos
sibIy be evolved out of the depths and ntrca-
cies of his speeches, it is only that Sprague's Is
the only true, warranted-to-wash calico; that
great is Sprague and Sprague is his prophet.
Has this unfortunate person no friends; VIII
nobody step forward to save him from himself!
Cannot the beautiful and gifted Mrs. Sprague,
who in New York attempted to carry the Demo-
cratic Convention of July for her father, and
who came near doing it, too, cannot she take this
irrePressible Senator from Rhode Island in hand,
and see to it that he washes more of his soiled
linen In the nations sight? 1t was the old
fashioned notion of our tathers-no Later ago than
that-tO attach some honor to the Senatorial
officej and though they sometimes filled il with
weak or incompetent men, they very seldom
indeed allowed it to be occupied by one who dis
graced Che nation by the foulness OF his ISLANDERS
and the coarseness of his personal venem. In
fact, only generation or two before our fathers,
time, there were ducking stools up there in New
England for the punishment of public scolds and
termageats, which, if they existed now, would
be bad for the Senator from Rhode Island when
he returned home.
Not only the State which sends her represen-
tatiye to the Senate, but the country itself, has
Alright to expect such one shall az the very
least regard the common decencies of life in his
official speech and conduct; that he shall speak
and act SO as not to bring contempt upon the
body of which he is member, or 10 bring into
disrepute and cast ridicule upon the whole
nation. The people care nothing about
Senator Sprague's private quarrels and
they are as capable of deciding
whether he is the only honest man in the Senate
as he is, and will determine the question quite
independently of anything he may say But
they viii not believe in his honesty the sooner
because he alleges all the rest are thieves" or
''puppy-dogs," and such like epithets. His
calicoes will, however, still be bought just as
freely as Brown g. Ives, provided they loiu wash,
and are sold as cheap; and we respectfully sug-
gest to this dealer In cottons, that neither the
Senate chamber or the Congressional Globe is
the proper places In which 10 advertise his own
goods or to cast discredit upon his rivals.
ENGLAND AND CUBA.