The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-05-18

''the newspapers and politicians are opposed
to Grant, but the people are with him" the
Trombone says, eff the Colonel had reversed
bis proposition it would have been at least
accurate"-that is, he would have been as
near the mark had he said, "the newspapers
and politicians are with Grant, but the people
are opposed to him." With such things in
the green tree in New York, what shall we
have in the dry? Mr.. Fenton, perhaps, run
ming a little one-horse independent ticket
against General Grant for the Presidency,
and the Trombone Justify blowing for Fenton.
THE QUANDARY IN PHILADELPHIA.
From the N. Y. Tribune.
If an outsider might be permitted an anxi-
Gus inquiry, When does Philadelphia hope to
bring into the world those public buildings
The mountain has been SO long in labor that
even the sight of mouse would now be
grateful. Some years ago the city of brothers
who love each other (Ahern, Haggerty, ct al
discovered that it stood in need of a new
court house, prothonotary and clerks offices,
and Immediately began a fierce and bloody
internecine war as to the site. Since then New
York has covered acres of ground with edihces
that have grown grey and hoary with time
Cities have sprung up in the West and become
landmarks for pilgrims from all clmes, but
the battle of the calm Quakers still RACES with
undated violence, and the first stone of those
clerks Offices is yet to be laid. Curiously
enough, the difficulty in the way Of this city
(Which our readers will remember as an i'm
measurable flat of small brick houses is want
of room. The corporation is apparently not
able to purchase ground, and Is forced 20 use
one of the squares which fond and enthusi-
astic Pbiladelpbians are wont to invoke in
their domestic poems as the lungs of the city.
The question is, which lung will the city do
without? Property holders look with greedy
eyes upon the courthouse that is to be, and
summon all sorts of ghostly and malarious
influences to drive it from other neighbor-
hoods to their own.
The first proposal was to seize on Indepen-
| dence Square, so that when pilgrims from all
| parts of the country came up at the centen-
nal to look for the sacred ground on which
| the nation had its birth, they might find it
occupied with thieves and murderers in their
dock, begirt with their surrounding Gordon of
| political colleagues as policemen and counsel.
| Whether Penn himself, armored in his drab
! integrity from top to toe, rose and warned his
| degenerate descendants off the halo we'd
| ground with a countenance more in
| sorrow than in anger, whether the bid
| ding ran low in that neighborhood, we
know not, but the bill was lost in the
| Legislature. Washington Square was
haunted by the dead of a whole graveyard
under it, who rose and shook their grey
locks at the invading prothonotaries. Finally
Penn Square was decided upon, and the long
agony was over. The city breathed ain.
Trees fell, grass was rooted up, and the bit
of country became muddy lumber-yard,
when the enemy rallied and attacked the
Legislature with proposal that the grass be
resodded and the trees replanted, and that
the buildings should go on the nation s
birthplace, and Penn go finally to his own
place, wherever that might be. With the
weight of present Philadelphia justice upon
him he would not be likely to rise again.
| The cause was presented to the Legislature
by a committee, and that venerable body
waited with grave attention for the tinkle
of that peculiar eloquence to which
their convictions are always accessible. The
young reporter who acted as spokesman, with
the overweening confidence of impusive
youth, solicited their votes and offered them
with outstretched hands, in return-his own
most distinguished consideration. No other
consideration was limited at or whispered II
is needless to state that the Legislature be-
came instantly oblivous to the presence OF
the committee or the young man. The wal
still rages public buildings of gigantic pro-
portions daily 60 up and are demolished in
each mornings paper; the com batants scow
darkly at each other on the streets; but over
the squares no sound of the hammer is heard
AS erst in the grave of Alonzo the Brave, the
worms they creep in and the worms they
creep out.
What is to be done? Will no New Yorl
capitalist go to the relief of these distressed
brotherly lovers? When the Centennial does
arrive, and people from all nations lumber or
her back, will our neighbor have no prisoners
dock to which she can point with pride, ant
say, "Here Justice presides, quite blind
folded. Behold my thieves headquarters, thu
rendezvous of my favorite sons, where they
obtain both honor and renown"?