The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-05-26
TOWN AND COUNTRY,
From The Pap Mau Garetts.

IL D6COu1eb increasingly 6Nlueub budS buOuR
many civilized nations there will be in the
future distinction of class even more i'm
portant than the old difference between gentle
and simple or between rich and poor-the
distinction between town and country. Like
many other things English, we have recog-
nized it without becoming more than half
conscious of it; the political suffrage in our
towns differs wholly from the political suffrage
in the counties, and the method of admins
tration, however it may work practically, is
as different in principle as freedom from des-
potism. If Mr.. Goschen proposed county
financial boards are established, they will be
the first distinct example of the invasion of the
country in England by the principles of the
towns. The terrible contest going on round
Paris, whatever were the intentions of those
who began it, has resolved itself into strug-
gle between town and country, and proceeds
upon the denial by one side of the political
doctrine which the French were supposed to
have founded on the one political sentiment
retained by them amid the wreck of their in
stitutions-the passion for compact national
unity. The American phenomena which
point in the same direction are not so we'll
known in this country, and yet it would not
be too much to say that the single city of
New York is at this moment threatening to
falsify every one of the principles which
underlie American institutions.
The early eulogists of American democracy
were accustomed to assert that the United
States had a sufficient security against the
dangers which had elsewhere proved fatal to
experiments of the same kind in the univer-
sal extension of local government. The Sc
cret of the political success of the Americans,
said De Tocqueville, was the complete organi-
zation of the township. All large circum-
scriptions-the United States, the several
States the counties-were only multiplica
tions of the township, and whatever was dis
f1af l1f, IScff
of the collected townships. If this account
of the American system had remained true,
that system would now be great example of
the predominance of the country over the
towns. We do not say that the exact con-
trary of this has actually occurred, but it is
the fact that numbers of intelligent Americans
have persuaded themselves it is on the point
of occurring. They declare that influences,
beginning in the city of New York, are
threatening to spread themselves over the
whole of the country. There are few Eng
lishmen who have not heard of the present
administration of the Erie Railway as a per-
manent swindle; but very few have as yet
recognized that the seizure of this great
undertaking by its present directors was both
in itself and in its consequences one of the
most extraordinary events of our day, and
one worthy even of diverting attention from
the stupendous drama which has been en-
acted since last July on the European conti-
nent. The history of the Erie transactions
began in the occupation of board-room by
hired mob in the pay of the spectators whose
names have become almost famous through
their association with these occurrences
The invasion of the offices of the North
western Railway Company by a crowd
of fast stock -jobbers accustomed to
'bonnet" strangers on the Exchange
would be very scandalous
event in England; but the powers which
would at once rouse themselves to punish or
put an end to it would act so effectually as
very shortly to leave nothing remaining but
the memory of a scandal But the invaders
of Erie held their ground as confidently and
as securely as Partisan mob which in ordi-
nary times has occupied the Tuileries and the
Legislative Chamber. They obtained the com-
mand of the receipts brought in by the traffic,
and they appear to have possessed themselves
of a still more important power in the facili-
ties which the ostensible direction of the
company afforded them of issuing fresh stock
of kind which, however discredited in the
market, has always retained some speculative
value. 1t is admitted on all sides that it is
the command thus secured over many mil
lions of dollars which has enabled them to
defy every attack made on them in the
interests of civil Justice. They had to fear
the civil tribunals; with us, it would not have
taken week to dispossess them under an in
junction of the Court of Chancery. But it is
openly stated that they have bought over the
two Judges who exercise more immediate
jurisdiction over the scene of their violence
and fraud They had to fear the powerful
municipal corporation of New York, which
has the police at its command. But it is
scarcely denied that the principal members of
the corporation are now sharing in the plum
der of the railway company. After all pre-
cautions had been taken they had to fear the
Legislature. We need not hesitate to say
Parliament in this country would have post
poned everything else to the suppression of
this public outrage. But the Erie spectators
have bribed a ma jority of members of the
State Legislature of New York, which has
actually passed a measure to give colors of
legality to the seizure of the railway, and de-
clines to repeal it, And now it is publicly
affirmed that the Erie directors, the man
ayers of the New York corporation, and the
leaders of the parliamentary majority have
combined for further operations that the re-
ceipts of the railway traffic and the pro-
ceeds of local taxation, under measure now
before the Legislature, are to be fused, and a
vast fund thus formed for corruption which
will ultimately extend much beyond the limits
of the State of New York.
Although meeting has recently been held
in New York to give expression to the public
indignation which is said to be felt some
where, the language of most Americans on
the subject is that of humorous despair. The
excuses which they sometimes offer do not
appear to us greatly to the point. They allege
that New York is not fair sample of the
United States, since it is in the main an Irish
city. The retort is better than the argument,
for the Irishmen in New York do not, after
all form quite third of the population; and