The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1875-02-24
A Hope Or General Grants Nesigas.
ton.

least to hope, that at no distant day, perhaps
on the 4th of March, General Grant will
crafty the people of the United States by
leaving the Presidency.
There has lately sailed from San Francisco
for an island group in the Pacific, in United
States man-of-war, an intimate friend and
favorite of the President, one A. B. Stein
berger. He goes on q mysterious mission to
the Samoan Archipelago, of which, less than
year ago, he brought to the White House
description as glowing as that which the
poets used to give us of the tabled Isle of
Atlantis.
These islands are clad in the freshest and
most enduring verdure Their shores are
outrageous with the majestic cocoanut palm.
Their steep mountain sides bear the nutmeg
of spurious kind, to be sure, he remarks,
but that does not matter for tho project we
are about to hint at. Their forests, according
to Mr.. Steinberger, harbor that celebrated
bird the do-do, well known to be the primor-
dial type, as Darwin would say, of which Jim
Fisk, Shepherd, Casey, Williams, Kellogg and
others of the best known friends of His Ex-
cellency are but varieties, or sports, to use
the language of men of science. Finally, and
to conclude an over-long catalogue of charms,
all the inhabitants of these isles are pious,
and most of them are Methodists.
In what follows we wish to be understood
as speaking not by authority or from infor-
nation received from General Grant himself.
His Excellency, as everybody knows, is
reticent person, not given to bruiting his de-
signs abroad. He fails, even, sometimes to
consult his Cabinet before he acts He, no
doubt, intended that his friend Steinberger
should sail as secretly as he intends to follow
him. But in these days it is difficult for even
the most astute men to conceal their designs
from a vigiiant and unsleeping press. Nor
was the good Steinbergers mystery difficult
to penetrate He gables, unfortunately and
thus we know that he sailed in company not
only of momentous purpose but of field
howitzer, a quantity of small arms and am
munition and, so far as we ore informed, un-
limited powers to form government suitable
to the habits and wishes of the illustrious and
interesting colonists who are to follow him.
He possesses, besides, we have reason to be-
lieve, a supply of flannel aghtgowns and
colonels commission. At least he has made
himself known as Colonel Steinberger.
Fortunate man His promotion is likely to
be as rapid as that of Colonel Fred Grant.
Let us hope that his military career may be
as free from danger.
By this time we suspect, the design Of
General Grant is understood as well by our
quick-witted readers as by ourselves.
Happy man! We already see him, tho
cares OF an ungrateful South and dis
respectful North flung aside, the Continent
traversed in luxurious Pullman car, career
ing across the deep blue waters of the Pacific
to grasp his island kingdom. We see him
landing on the outrageous beach at Pango
Pango and wiping the perspiration from his
brow as he receives the adulation aud the
gifts of the chiefs of Samoa, who will crawl
down from their mountain Businesses on their
hands and knees to welcome their great sover-
eign. We imagine him closing the audience
with the noble words, ''Let us have piece
and thereupon taking the whole of the islands
into his royal possession. We fancy him as
he rests at eventide in the royal hammock or
disports himself in the milkwarm surf, happy
in tine consciousness that henceforth neither
nm impairment and meddling Congress nor an
injudicious, not to say malevolent, press can
trouble him and that he may at last carry out
unobstructed, the great plans of government
which he has pondered in the past.
What pleasant and useful days he will spend
in directing the employment" of the cocoa
nut, the poi plant-a kind of rhubarb, we
suppose, of which patent medicine might be
made-and the spurious nutmeg" by the
traffic in which he might expect to pay any
national debt which he may create He will
be able to send General Babcock to Fiji and
Rorotonga to conclude treaties of annexa-
ton without fear of q Sumner to defeat his
well chosen designs. He will allure the Aus
tralian steamers to his royal port of Pango
Pango by the promise of a subsidy which
shall not subsidize them. He would be sure
to reform the civil service Of Samoa, and it,
unhappily, he should find that there, as here,
generally the support which this reform re-
ceives is from those who give it their support
only to find fault when the rules are apparently
departed FROM" he will naturally declare
such recalcitrant faultfnders banditti and
hand them over to be eaten by the truly loyal,
with whom they will on that occasion, let us
hope, agree.
Well, we shall not part with General Grant
without regret. We have not always been
able to agree with him; but on the whole we
can honestly say that no one has been more
anxious for his success and good fame than
the HERALD. We have been
To his faults little blind,
And to his virtues ever kind.
or words to that effect. And as we have not
failed to give him good advice in every emer-
gency OF his Presidential career, so now, at
its conclusion, when, as we hope, he is about,
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