The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-01-21


to dispute its pretensions The recognized |
leaders of the Fenian organization identified
themselves with Tsmmany, and applauded
the munihcence which awarded tn ousands
stolen from the taxpayers to give ecldt to the
coming demonstration. The fitness of the
thing admitted Of no dispute. 1t was emil
nently proper that n partifan combination,
deriving its main strength from the Irish
vote, should pander to that vote by furnish
ing money for a demonstration of this kind
Had Mr.. Tweed offered his Fifth avenue
mansion for their accommodation, or Mr.
Hall his green coat for Burke, and horses for
the rest there would have been no occasion
for surprise.
But Republican managers discovered that
a magnificent opportunity was before them.
The Irish vote loomed up as something which,
by a stroke of strategy they might grasp.
They thought they had but to secure the
Cuba's passep gers to obtain a mastery over
the entire population of the city. Never be-
fore had such a chance occurred. Tammanys
power might be challenged in its own house
hold The gods whom Tweed has wOrshipped
and by whose favor he reigns, might be in
duced to smile upon Murphy. And then all
would be serene The Irish vote would be-
come part of the Custom House goods and
chattels, and at the next election New York
would roll up eighty thousand majority.
There was genius in the conception. Luckily,
too, the means were at hand for carrying it
into execution. The immediate result is the
fierce conflict now in progress for the smiles
of the fortunate exiles. We hope they will
survive the ordeal. 1t would be shocking if
a group of poor fellows, who have just
escaped from foreign dungeons, should be
killed with kindness in this Irish city of New
York.
In the nature of things, Tammany might
be expected to crawl in the cutters for the
furtherance of its ends. If our glorious Cor
poration, rich in spoils, had chartered tug
boat, filed its hold with champagne and
boned turkeys at the taxpayers expense,
and accompanied the Tammany boat as
vouchers for its responsibility, there would
have been no wonder expressed But when
a revenue cutter, with United States flag,
and United States officers, was pressed
into the service in behalf of the ingenious
scheme for capturing the Irish vote and
making it Republican, men rubbed their
eyes to make sure that there was no mistake
There was no mistake about it. vessel
representing Federal authority undertook to
run race with Tammanys boat United
States officials condescended to play second
fiddle to Tweed, and to drag the national flag
through dirty water in hopeless contest with
the Tammany crew. Imagine the blarney,
the paltry trickery, the unmanly stopping to
conquer, which marked the whole affair.
Imagine the button-holing, the winking and
whispering, the vile fattery and the vier
falsehood, which are going on on both sides.
And then let any candid man say whether the
display is or is not one of which Americans
have cause to be proud.
What is the occasion of all this noise?
Who are these liberated prisoners, that party
leaders must go crazy in the effort to secure
them? In what do they differ from the hun
dreds of emigrants who land at Castle Gar
NV xuan Nhn n
! as seen now, was extravagant enough, but
| at least, Kossuth had some claims to public
! consideration. There was some reason in the
welcome extended to men like Meagher and
Mitchell, for they were representative men,
educated, able, and personally influential.
Even the reception of Stephens was not unin-
| telligible, for enianism was the creation of his
mind. But, with one or two exceptions, the
men whom Mr.. Gladstone has now sent over
are neither better nor worse than thousands
| who were here before them. We have exied
patriots from Poland, Hungary, Germany,
and elsewhere, but who ever heard of Tweed
and custom-house employees running q race
to catch them They came unnoticed un-
honored, and earn their bread quietly Does
the mere fact that O'Donovan Rossa and his
companions have been convicts in British
prisons make them heroes and martyrs? If
they deserve to be canonizeda for having
been the victims of British law in the Fenian
cause, what recompense is in store for the
heroic ONeiIl, or the Fenians captured in
Canada?
OF course Mr.. Gladstone will now realize
the folly of his temporizing policy. 1t was
right that the Fenian prisoners should be re-
leased, but their release, to convey moral,
should have been unconditional. By COM
pellipg them to come to the United States as
a condition of liberty, Mr.. Gladstone rem
dered the act imperative in Ireland, while he
converted the ex-convicts into martyrs and
exiles His laundering in this case is akin 10
his whole Irish policy. That has been a sue
cession of blHnders, the general effect OF
which is seen in the present condition of Ire
land, the unabated disaffection of its people,
and the cowardly fear which impelled him to
drive across the sea handful of ordinary
Irisbmen, utterly destitute of influence il
their native land.
HISTORY FOR SOUTHERN CHILDREN
From the NJ Y. Tribune.
Two Southern teachers, one the principa
of a high school at Alexandria, Va, thu
other occupying a similar position in Louis
vile, have prepared volume of 500 pages
which they pronounce to be ''the first schoo
history of the United States ever published
by Southerners." From a third and revised
edition of this work, printed by a firm il
Baltimore, we purpose selecting few speci
mems, to show how the men upon whom the
serious duty of educating Southern youth ha!
devolved are doing their part to prevent the
healing of the wounds of war, and keep tht
two sections OF the country hostile for al
} time to come. The authors set forth in thei
preface that Gin all the school histories
, hitherto published events have been pre-
sented from Northern standpoint, and con
sequently the South has been sometimes ne
, elected and more freuuentlV tlVmisrepresented