Wilmington daily commercial., 1875-12-24
FIRST EDITION.
PHILADELPHIA.
our sAruap LeTTER

| Inc recurrence OF Christmas makes it neces.
sary for your correspondent to forward his letter
| this week day earlier than usual II is to be
presumed that the perennial witcheiy of the
| tlme has long since come upon you. 1t has
come upon us, with no abatement of the ioyoue-
| hess OF the happiest and most prosperous years
There il n standing disposition to regard every
Christmas ns the most CHEEKY Of them ALL and
! will not go so far an 10 say that the spirit Of
this present festival il beyond that OF It's prede-
eessors, but it is certainly everything that is
bright and wholesome One important element
in the pleasure OF the tiine is the phenomenal
weather We are experiencing The temperature
is that OF April rather than of December men
go about in the middle Of tho day without over.
coats; windows are up everywhere. The Ether
| cal milduoss, the Poet talks about, has surely
seldom had stranger setting than
tliis abnormal resurrection in the dead
OF winter Pleasant 6s it s there iH a
| suspicion OF unhealthness about it. After Hi
afternoons walking in these warm winds the
shopper feels more wearied than from OK Xposure
to the bitterest weather. But the streets and
the stores offer spectacle on these afternoons
which city life haA not given for many day.
The crowds are something wonderful to behold
and the gayety ID infections. The holiday
business throughout, is better than it has been
for years.
The Congressional Centennial Excursion 20
fell as to be outside OF any timely comment here;
you have heard otherways OF its perfect success.
The sensation, this week, in the Centennial
line, was an unworthy one. ! refer to the
attempt of the New York World to make
subscriptions of Delaware ami of
the State of Connecticut had been expended in
what that paper termed a Congressional junket-
ing. or course nothing could be more untrue
than this. wrote you some time before the
full preparations We're published that the entire
expense would be betrayed by private aubscrip-
tion, aud this fact the World knew when it pub
lished it's false news. Even the list Of subscri-
bers to the reception fund was in its hands and
the attack is seen to have been thoroughly
mendacious ls not this feeling Of part of
the New York press towards the Centennial
sorry commentary upon national good fellow
ship? Must We ascribe it to sectional jeal
onsyY That seems contemptlbly little view,
but what elae can be reconciled
with the facts as they are known Hdrper's
Weekly only deigns at this late day to recognize
the American Worlds Fair. Until its current
number it has had not the slightest allusion to
the Exposition, for oil that its artists offer
ed here the best subject by long odds that could
occupy them at present. DO these Journals ex-
pect by such an exhibition of cold shoulder to
spoil the effect Of the great Fair Az intelligent
agents they can hardly expect that 20 We are
forced to admit that they merely cut of their
noses to spite their faces. Spite, indeed, appears
to be at the bottom of t all.
People are excited over the smart piece OF
bridge building done ty tho Pennsylvania Rail
road Co. on tho site of tho burned bridge at
Market street You will remember that Colonel
done by The fst & o January This was thought
to be an extrayagant promise, but instead OF Tie
work taking longer than tho time specified it
will be done some days within the limit. 1t is
expected that the bridge will be opened to car
riage and foot travel on Christmas Day, and
such rapidity OF construction has mover been
known in the country, except in military opera
tlons-where Of course nothing of tue elaborate
ness to be seen in the present work ls attempt
cd. II has to be said that the portion of the
structure intended for the Pennsylvania Rail
road will not be finished by the 25th but that is
only because the trestlework previously erected
answers the company's temporary purpose very
we'll, thus allowing the builders to give their full
energies to tho street portion of the BRIDGE
In marked contrast with this piece of work is
the hating construction Of the South Street
Bridge, which project has become sort Of re-
proach to the city. At last it seems that this
sllamefully neglected public Improvement ID lin
isled-nt oast it ia to be immediately turned
over to the city by the builders, though it il ul-
derstood that great many "ends' have yet to
be FINISHED oif'-a way of putting in That la
dies will appreciate. IL was "job' in It's ill.,
ception, was entrusted to contractors whose
means wore not equal to the work, and has been
marked through all its long career with slispi-
olona of trickeiy and fraud. But at last 1t is
done and M, despite tho shameful delays, it il
substantial piece of work, tthe most philosophi-
cal thing perhaps is to take it for what it ID, and
as far as possible to forget its melancholy hsto-
ry.
Bridge building brings mo to an allied topic
that of freight transportation, which from recent
action of some of the main forwarding compan-
ies has rather agitatod a numerous class of bus
mess men. An extraordinary reduction of
freights from the West to Philadelphia and Now
York is announced, resulting in decrease of no
less than two thirds of the former charges. The
combination effecting this change is made up of
the Pennsylyania, the New York Central and the
Erie roads, or course the reduction is but tenn
porary and results, as all such apparent free
will offerings to the public do from railway
complications and jealousies. The melting
cause in this instance was an attempt to divert
trade from the Grand Trunk roads. 1t may be
seriously doubted il such schemes, grateful as
they may be for the moment to shippers, are in
the real interests of Trade They demorallze
business, because merchants, uaed for time
to miraculously low rates, feel when an ordinary
schedule is resumed that they cannot afford the
advance, and SO order fewer goods shipped.
They forget that not long before they were pay
ing the same rates and did not think them ex-
orbtant. 1t ia said that from the very date
man receives dead head ticket to an enter
talnment he is lost to the Snowman as paying
patron and the matter in review stands i'll much
the same category. That the condition now
reached on the roads named is feverieh and un-
natural can be seen from the one fact that such
business is done for less than running expenses.
Railroads must pay their way precisely as the
humblest individual, and whenever we hear Of
arrangements for working below cost it is printa
facie evidence of all unnatural condition. At
present the freight rates to Chicago, St. Louis
and Cincinnati are said to be the lowest in rail
way history-but tho schedule may not hold for
a week.
Won Bulow the distinguished pianist has Civ
en- a series of concerts winch have delighted u
restricted class of conuoiseurs. but which have
scarcely succeeded in touching the popular
heart 1t may be said that the style OF music
PLAYED by Dr. Won Bulow s not of popular
sort, and this is true, but it is also the fact that
the same music given by a person of more ar
dent tenperament would have Il wider effect,
even upon people not thoroughly up in the
'grand style" To illustrate, / may instance
Rnbenstein as severe musician as Won Bulow,
and whose programmes did not widely differ
from those of the celebrated player now with
us. But although Rubenstein did not
cater to ignorant prejudice there ran,
none the ess, through all his performances
A feeling and sympathy which are somehow
missing in his contemporary. Rubenstein was
a poet, Won Bulow is professor. As player
merely, Won Bulow is wonderful !; the art seems
to have reached perfection at his hands but it
does not more us. The concerts were not suc-
cessful in a financial way it is, indeed, too
much TO expect to fill the huge Academy five
times in week with people cultured to take de-
light in the kind of music offered OIL the Won
Bulow programmes Even people WHO really
and intellIgently love music found the thing