The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-26
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
Editorial Opinions Of the Leading Journals
upon Current opics-Compile Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.
CUBA OR SAN DoMINGoP ?

tion Of that islan d can oppose the acquisi-
ton of San Domingo. No one can fail to see
that the latter is only step toward the for
mer, aud that meanwhile it secures at a
cheaper rate many if not all of the advan-
tages promised by the other. Let us con-
sider Cuba might cost us war in which,
though we should undoubtedly acquire that
island, our commerce would inevitably be
attacked by privateers as 1t was during the
Rebellion, and inevitably with the same
results The expense of the war could not
be less than hundreds of millions, while San
Domingo is offered to us without war and
for million and half of money.
Cuba has a population of one million five
hundred Thousand, of whom about half are
white, and one-ifth of these of Spanish birth,
the latter nearly all males, and bitterly hos
tile to the creoles as we'll as to annexation
of the blacks, two-thirds are slaves. Among
these various populations a civil war now
RACES almost unparalleled in barbarity on
both sides. In San Domingo the population
does not exceed a hundred thousand, more
than two-thirds of whom are either black or
colored In the one case we should have to
deal with the mixed races, and might find espe-
cial difficulty with those of Latin origin, as we'll
as with those who would then be recently
emancipated slaves in the other case, we find
a single race of colored men accustomed to
freedom, and anxious to be received by US.
The various and numerous populations of
Cuba would constitute a new and difficult
problem for our statesmen to solve, and
doubtless complicate our politics. the few
thousand voters whom San Domingo would
bring into the Union would be lost in the
overwhelming majority of natives of the
United States who would rush to the island
when once firmly established government
and free trade invited the influx of immigra-
tion.
Then, too, Cuba offers us no such harbor
as Samana. That of Havana, although fine,
is not comparable in any respect to the fa-
nous port in San Domingo. The one is not
more than three or four miles across in any
direction; the other is thirty miles deep and
ten miles wide; while in location Samana is
infinitely preferable for the purposes of the
United States. Vessels bound for Central
America, the Caribbean sea, Venezuela, Co
lombia, or the Isthmus, would be obliged to
deviate nearly a thousand miles from their
course, to coal or repair at Havana, while
Samana is directly on their road.
The question is, whether to secure all these
great advantages proffered by San Domingo,
at a nominal expense, and with the certainty
of no serious disadvantages afterwards to set
them off, or to incur the risk of q war and all
its attendant evils and expenses and subse-
quently train of political complications, in
order to obtain possession of territory
which has not been offered us, and large
portion of whose inhabitants are known to be
intensely opposed to annexation. Cuba may,
and doubtless will, eventually come to us, but
she is not now ripe for this, nor are we ready
to receive her. San Domingo is knocking at
our door, and every distant or possible advan-
tage promised by the possession of the one is
almost certain to accrue Immediately from
the acquisition of the other.
THE STOMACH AND WOMAN'S RIGHTS.
FrVns the NJ Y. Tribune.
Out from the wide, wetering chaos of fog
wherewith in these later months the talking
woman has enveloped the world, there now
and then streams ray of wisdom as tremu-
lous and radiant as the morning beam of
Cassiopia. These occasional irradlations give
us pause, and we sit down and mediate with
the light upon our brows. For light is ever
welcome, and when it comes from an uneX-
pected source it comes with borrowed grace
which bewilders while it enchants us. Sun
beams have erewhile been sought from GU
cumbers; they weren't found. Wisdom has
been entreated from the lips of the talking
woman, and not entirely in vain. And
when in limited quantities, and
at irregular and ftful intervals, the
same has been drawn out, it seems moro pre-
cious than other wisdom. TO expect it from
the talking woman, as an average fruitage or
product, would be as unwise as to expect
peaches from myrtles, or logic from nightin-
gales; and for women to repine at the decree
that they shall be graceful rather than gran
eloquent, lovely rather than logical, would
be as futile as for the myrtle to bewail its
sterihty, or the nightingale to deplore its in
ability to sing i'll sylogsms. Still, some of
them do repine. Their white hands spurn
the distaff, and seek to brandish the spear.
1t is weary work to desire, not achieve; to
hunger and not be fed-and when such
ardent aspirations exist there must be some
hidden power of realizing them. We have
been puzzled to see how women were going
practically to accomplish all their aims and
plant themselves i'll the high seats of the
worlds business-push out etfete and obso-
lete Chief Justices and Bishops and grey
Senators, and SCARED Field Marshals, and
themselves assume the woolsack and the
mitre, and the toga, and the truncheon. But
Mrs. Robert Dale Owen in a recent address
drops hint which, if wisely followed, may
turn over to them the substance OF power,
even if they are magnanimous enough
to leave its shadow with those whom they
have subjugated. Her scheme is TO conquer
by cookery. AS the old statuary mingled
grief with his bronze, she would mingle
gentle guile with her jellies, soft seduction
with her sweetmeats, aud persuasion with her
pies. If we are to be subjugated and sit
supine and stricken at femenine feet, as
Hercules sat at the feet of Ompbale, we pre-
fer being conquered in that way Sweet are
the allurements of the entr6e, potent the per-
suasons of potage, and there is more peril
to mans authority in the cup which cheers
but not inebriates than in the speech which
cheers not while it exasperates Mrs