The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-02-15

and admiration" The alarm excited by the
red Oossacks of the Guard was dispelled by
wonder at the superb array of Prussian cav
airy and light horse, Austrian grensdiers,
Russian and Prussian footguards, Russian
cuirassiers aud artillery, together with the
splendidly uniformed household troops, and
by eager and almost disgraoeful curiosity
to get glimpse of the sovereigns, par
ticulaIly of the Emperor Alexander. SavRry
relates that at this matchless re view
there were to be seen ladies, and even
ladies of rank, who so far forgot the respect
due to themselves rs to give themselves
up to the most shameful deliriam. They
threw themselves over the circle of horses
which surrounded the Emperor of Russia.
More than one of the English officers who
took part in the procession testify that they
"had fair Parisian, sometimes en- cT0upe, at
others on the pummel of their saddles, at the
Place Louis XIV" It is not likely that auy
Partisan ladies will awaken jealousy on
the part of the Empress Augusta by
similar ridiculous manifestations towards
the Emperor William. It remains to
be seen whether the Emperor of Ger
many will emulate the delicacy and mag
nanimity which the Emperor Alexander
evinced in his proclsmstions to the Parisians
and the French people. Exulting-not with
out reason-that single and alone he is to
reap the fruit of the unparalleled victories of
the German army by entering Paris no less
triumphantly than the allied sovereigns en-
tered it after victories won by the combined
armies of Europe, Emperor William might
well afford to be even more generous now
toward the French than the Emperor of Rus
sia was in 1914. The Emperor of Germany
would thus deserve the gratitude of the
French and win the applause of the world.
RECONSTRUCTION IN MISSISSIPPI.
Prom the NJ y. Times
Governor Alcorn's annual message to the
Legislature of Mississippi, now in session,
may not be entirely novel among kindred
documents but it is, at all events, so re-
markable that we may fairly congratulate the
State on having SO intelligent and faithful
Chief Magistrate. Governor Alcorn remarks
that ''the actual work of reconstruction began
| from the moment at which the laws of the
last session of the Legislature took practical
! effect and that, in the midst of this doing
and undoing, the Federal census was taken
In order, therefore, to ascertain the condi-
| ton of things-or, as he calls it, the ruin"
| at the time of the new departure, he en-
ployed the recess in making elaborate in
| quiry into the social and economical facts of
the State, both with the aid of the census
and by circulars specially addressed to county
| officers. The result is the message, which
consists substantially of statistical tables and
| comments sub Joined.
The first table, for instance, is called the
| agricultural census, and embraces six coun-
ties on the middle belt between the Missis-
sippi river and Alabama, combining as the
Governor says, ''all our physical and our
social peculiarities-bottom-l land and upland
ridge and prairie, negro country, white coun-
try, and mixed country" 1t embraces the
area of improved and unimproved land, the
value of farm and farm implements, the
| quantity of the various products, number
of live stock, as contrasted in the census
of 1860 and that of 1870. Every item but
two shows decrease, ranging from eleven
| to ninety eight per cent Molasses and oats
alone show an increase. On this Governor
Alcorn remarks, that the falling off in
cotton production sixty-three per cent coin
cides almost exactly with the dimin-
ished value of agricultural implements
(sixty-one per cent }, suggesting relation
of cause and effect. Indian corn, too, and
swine have declined in the same ratio,
| (sixty-fve per cent? Other condolences
probably remain to be pointed out. From
the gain in oats it would be too much to
infer an increase in horses, and, in fact,
in comparison with other stock, they show
the heaviest reduction-forty-n nine per cent.
| The chivalry here come in for neat rap
| from the Governor, who trusts that this re-
duction is sin the appliances ofidleness rather
than of labor" and adds that if it really
means San advance of certain indolent eques-
TRANS to the honorable condition of what
John Stuart Mill terms bread winners +" it
will prove "a very decided gain to both the
dismounted horsemen and to the PROSTATE
| State"
This language, it must be remembered is
from one who, as he admits further on in
the message, was once q slave-owner. Gov
ernor Alcorn does more, however, than ridi-
cule the typical Southerner on horseback.
He is full of illusions, by no means compli-
mentary, to the sold regime, and nearly half
his message is devoted to the vindication of
the character and conduct of the blacks
sometimes directly, usually in comparison
with the whites. "a material survey" like
that afforded by the first table, does not, he
says, "present any such proof that we are
working out of ruin, as that presented by
moral survey" and his inquiries into the
capacity of the colored people for we'll
ordered freedom" have deepened his convic-
tions that reconstruction in Mississippi ''goes
forward to the sure consummation of moral
and material triumph"
The illegal relation of the sexes under
slavery was changed by the new Constitution
of the State into legal one, and thereafter
marriage licenses began to be issued, as in
the case of whites. The white and colored
population of thirty-one counties in 1860 was
lS9,645 and 239, $50, respectively. In 1865
there were 270S licenses issued to the whites,
and only 504 to the blacks; in 1866, 1929 to
the former, against 3679 to the latter; and
since that year the blacks have surpassed the
| whites both in the whole number of mar
riages, and (since 1869 in the per-
centage to the total population. Do the
freed people raise their children as carefully
as they were raised in slavery? Here, as
| might ha auDDoSed the censua of 1854 is of