The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-07-25
CITY Politics and tho Police.

Ii ID tn0 season Wnen tue rural bnaoeS anu
the sunny sands, the cosey farm and the long
piazzas Of the seaside hotels invite to retire
ment. mixed drinks and political meditation.
Twaddle as people will of the intelligence, re-
Anement, culture aud activity of the cities,
instances are against them; for is not politics,
insomuch as it has humanity for its contents,
the finest and noblest OF sciences in proper
ton as manor woman either-is the finest
and noblest of material? And yet of this noble
science the cities have none, and know it only
in its coarser processes. In the cities they
put into operation the notions that have been
thought out under the trees or that have SIM
mered in the smoke of the clambake In
the cities they stuff the ballot box, they forge
vouchers, they build expensive court houses,
they repeat, they indulge, i'll short, all the
activities of politics that establish the rela-
tionship between governments and State
prisons; but the noble flights of the imagina-
ton in which the processes have their origin
can only reach the earth at Indian Harbor,
Lake Mahopac, Saratoga, Long Branch, or
the White Sulphur Springs in this generation
as they did at Coney Island, Rockaway and
Turtle Bay when there was Dicky Riker IN
the land, or at Communipaw, and up "the
Bowerie" in the days when. 'the fault OF the
Dutch was cheating too little and smoking too
much" 1t is not his fault, therefore, that
Grant goes to Long Branch. He goes because
of the pressure OF all-compelling late. 1t is
q very thin fiction, also, to put Tildens trip to
the account of boils. Both these great men
are called upon to govern, and to govern one
must be able to digest political concep-
tions; and the cities desoate us with
political dyspepsia, and the fine con-
nections of political science can only
be seen away from the dust and noise and
turmoil OF town, and in the calmness, retire
ment, placidity and sobriety OF the seaside
air or the breezy upland levels. And now is
the time when the political brain incubates
its bakers dozen of ideas at every chosen re-
treat to prepare for the terribly Growing and
cackling and political pot-pies of the fall.
Already we are in a fair way to reap
some OF the results, Formerly we used to
have them only in October and November
but formerly we had green corn in the middle
of July and now you can get it by the 1st of
June. Formerly we had strawberries in
strawberry time, but now you can find them
IN Santa Claus luggage, if you care to. Prog
ress, railroads. steamboats, and the discovery
that the sunshine is as warm in Florida at
Christmas as it is in Communipaw in May
have helped US here, and it seems that an
analogous spirit of enterprise has invaded
the political world and now plunges its rare
fancies on the market at this early season.
Sammy Tilden's FIRST happy inspiration when
he reached Long Branch was that he would
seize the occasion to take look into the
HERALD, a paper of which he has heard
great deal. 1t seems possible that this i'm
portant act may have momentous conse-
quences in city politics, for Sammy got hold
of copy of the paper in which was reported
the proceedings of the day previous in the
police investigation. 1t appears that the
Governor had known before that there was
police here, but the exact limit of his knowl-
edge in regard to it he could scarcely
define himself; but he was natu-
rally startled by the disclosures made
in that copy of the report, and
between the interest it excited and his boils
he passed an uneasy, perhaps sleepless night
Another days HERALD and another was called
for, and still the story grew worse, till at last
the Governor, like the famous boy under the
apple tree, resolved that something must be
done. By process of elaborate ratiocina-
ton he reached the point that he was of all
men the one most called upon to do it.
From that point to the fact of a conference
with Mayor Wickham, like the journey from
the sublime to the ridiculous, is but a step;
and if the clairvoyants are well informed
there was o conference. And here we must
take occasion to do justice to an injured man.
Byron paid tribute to gallant soldier the
more earnestly "partly because he did his
sire some wrong" More practical we accord
our need to the Mayor because we did wrong,
not to his sire-whom we never knew-but to
the stupendous keenness of his perceptions
We advised him to go to London, for in fact
we thought he was not needed here, and
would be out of harms way there; but he
saw farther than we did, and stayed at home.
He evidently had reasoned out that Tilden
would walk into his Office some day, and that
it would be important for him 10 be there
and he was there. Now what did they talk
about, those twop Silk stockings, the boat
race, the Centennial, the rife match, Tweed,
OConor and the Court of Appeals, the p. r.
and Morrissey? Not word of any of these
important topics They talked about the po-
lice, and Sammy entertained the very remark
able opinion that the Police Commissioners
had something to do with it. This staggered
Wickham, whose methods of reasoning are
not very direct But after an argument,
Wickham yielded this point. In the 4ow and
drift of conversation between great men
everything comes up sooner or later, and thus
was cast out from one side or another the fine
train of political logic, that if police is re-
Daliaa Go-a..I.