The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-02-13

company with two soldiers rode alone
through hundreds of miles of bleak
and snow-clad prairie to send us the tidings.
When the English made war upon Abyssinia
he joined Lord Napier, went through the cam
paign and sent US the first news
of the fall of Magdala. He visited
Persia and the sites Of Ninevah and
Babylon for the HERALD, and his success,
his zeal, his genius, his courage, fitted him for
the mission in search of Livingstone.
Whether he is alive or dead we point to his
work with pride. The representative journal
have hitherto done. We are in hopes the
work Mr.. Stanley set out to do will be done by
him and that he is alive to report 1t. But II
he has fallen we shall pay his memory all
honor and send others to carry the flag which
Death has taken from his hands.
Tho New York Charter-The Middle Mt
Albany.
The charter prepared by the Committee of
Seventy is to be discussed in the Assembly to-
day, and ex-Mayor Havemeyer has called
upon every member of the committee to hurry
up to Albany to be present at the debate. Mr..
Havemeyer evidently imagines that the pres
ence of seventy highly respectable citizens in
the lobby will have such an overwhelming in
fuence upon the members as to induce them to
pass the charter in its original shape without
delay. We fear that such arguments as he
and his friends will be prepared to use will not
be found effective at the State Capitol. The
reformers with whom the famous Seventy-or
as many of them as are still unprovided
with ofice-will come in contact up
the river are accustomed to seek
more solid reasons for their votes
than the eloquence of those gentlemen can
supply. But, whatever may be the effect of
the outward pressure sought to be applied to
the Legislature by ex-Mayor Havemeyer, we
should like that gentleman to inform us
whether he regards the appearance of the
Committee of Seventy in the character of
Albany lobbyists as calculated to have a.
beneficial influence upon the Legislature and
the public. Of course he will urge that the
intentions of these highly respectable theorists
are pure, that they are working for what they
believe to be the public good, that they use
only legitimate means-that is to say, reason
ing and argument-to carry their point. This,
however, is the plea advanced by all the no.
torious lobby hacks at the State capital.
The Father Of the Lobby, the venerable
Thurlow Weed, used to cloak his operations
years ago under a similar pretence and he
and his partners in the printing jobbery to-day
assert the purity of their motives when they
pay out ten thousand dollars to notorious
lobbyist to get haul of one hundred and
eighty thousand dollars or Whereabouts out of
the Supply bill, and bribe Clerks of the Sem
ate and Assembly with percentage on all the
work they can crowd into their hands. Tweed
had the same excuse when he bought up re-
publican members to vote for his own charter,
and MIR. Havemeyer will not find fellow
lobbyist in Albany to-day who will not assure
him that he also is working for the public
good.
The Committee of Seventy have been heard
before the legislative committees, and their
work is now before the House for its action.
If we had any faith in the honesty aud integ-
rity Of the present Legislature, which we have
not, we should advise them to deal with the
Septuagent charter just the same as they
would with suggestions coming from any other
respectable citizens-to adopt what may be
found good and practical in its provisions and
to reject all that is bad. 1t is their duty to
give New York fundamental law under
which the city government can be honestly
and efficiently administered for the next
fifteen or twenty years, and if there
were seventy hundred highly respectable
lobbyists at their heels they should
not suffer themselves to be coerced
or cajoled into making any new experiments
on city containing over a million of people,
Rip Van Wrinkle, just awaking from his sleep,
would scarcely have been looked upon by his
fellow townsmen as good authority in draft
ing village ordinances, and the visionary
schemes of German dreamers might more
safely be put to a practical test in some little
IL
the metropolis of the United States. The
minority representation theory that underlies
the charter Of the Seventy has, it is true, been
on before; but it is not the less
an experiment now, and the only one practi-
cal fact which appears undeniable is that, as
arranged by the committees charter
1t would offer more efficient and
liberal aid to corrupt bargains and
combinations than could be found
in all the laws ever concocted by the
Tammany Ring. 1t does not seem probable at
this time that any charter, framed with single
regard to the public good, will be enacted by
the present Legislature, but New York should
at least be protected against this cumbrous
experiment. If a job is to be made out Of our