New-York tribune., 1870-08-13

THE NOSE AND THUMB OF MR.. FISK, JR.
We have never thought that the position OF
the President of the u. S. A. was such a
sweet boon as to be much desired by any
body with reasonable funds in his pocket,
a roof over his head, and opportunities of use
fulness in private station. Looking back, 1t
seems to us that the lives of the Presidents
have not been what Mr.. Cosey would call
comfortable" The great and good George
Washington was so slandered that an equa-
nimity less than his would have been seriously
disturbed. John Adams was turned out at the
end of his first term, greatly to the wrath of
that volcanically irascible gentleman. For
eight years. the Federalsts stuck pins into Mr..
Jefferson. Then Mr.. Madison was treated in
the same way. Only Mr.. Monroe had com"
paratively quiet time of it. How the younger
Adams was maligned, and caricatured, and
lbeled, and finally Ousted by Gen. Jackson,
we need not relate. His successor was always
in hot water and always swearing and being
sworn at. Mr.. Van Buren experienced the fate
of Mr.. j. @. Adams. Gen. Harrison was hardly
President at all. John Tyler made miserable
muddle and mess of it; Ditto Polk; Ditto,
Fillmore, after Gen. Taylor had died in Office
Ditto, Pierce; Double ditto, Buchanan. Mr..
Lincoln must have found, during his admins
tratiOn, cause for the greatest anxiety which
could afflct and distract public man. Over
the scandal of Andy Johnson's Presidential
life. let us, with many bushes, draw vail.
And now, to crown all, Gen. Grant has been
so eminently unfortunate as to incur the per-
sonal wrath of James Fisk, jr.!
This we may well consider to be climax
and crusher. What was the hostility of JEFF
fersOn to Washington and Adams, of Nicholas
Biddle to Gen. Jackson, of half Senate to
Van Buren, of all the COnfederates to Mr..
Lincoln, compared with the ferocity of the
Monarch of Long Branch, as displayed when
His Monetary Majesty, James the Pecunious,
dressed "in velvet and duck" and sitting in
his chariot behind many horses, met poor Gen.
Grant at Long Branch aforesaid and, to prove
his deep detestation, "put his thumb to his
"nose ~ This is what the correspondent of a
Western paper says that the Junior Fisk did
"to show his malignity." 1t was not enough
that he should crush the President by his
superior equine glory; it was not enough that
the Emperor of Steamboats, should make the
President pay his passage like any other man
it was not enough that he should have a
whole regiment of retainers at his command,
every beggar and blackguard of them all
ready to cast contumely upon Gen. Grant
but he must, this dreadful Fisk, put his
thumb, upon meeting Gen. Grant, to his royal
nose. One is anxious to know what kind of a
nose it isis it sternly Roman, or delicatey
Greciani does it turn up or droOpi or is it
the kind of nose known as the bottle-nose
But whatever its shape. its length,
or shortness, whether it be aquline
or snub, it is, we suppose, nose
capable of being pulled, and quite likely
to be pulled under all the circumstances, though
such violence we deprecate. Gen. Jackson's
nose was tweaked, and Gen. Fisks nose may
be, though we hope not. 1t may be broken,
put out of joint, ignominiously fattened un-
gracefully turned from the center upon which
it is planted to the right or to the left 1t
may be 80 disarranged that in attempting to
follow it Mr. Fisk, jr, may be unable to walk
after rectilinear fashion. Ii may be so dam
aged Us to possess no longer the bower