New-York tribune., 1876-06-14

| the Chicago pension farm. This time it is an
"elderly gentleman-a relative of the MarshaPs'--
and with what seems needless cruelty there is ex-
traced from him the testimony that he rendered no
service TO tho Government, but drew his pay with
astronomical periOdicty. Now, the transactions OF
this venerable person not phenomenal, but gen.
tiemcn who possess fertile snecures shrink from ex-
posing all ttle Inwardness Of their official methods
% the imperfect sympathies of q heartless world
This Chicago business is unsayory enough, but no
wrath should be treasured mp against the Elder
Campbell simply because he was barnacled upon the
Treasury by tho Marshal. When custom-houses
and pension agencies elsewhere are made use OF to
furnish supple, for the friends and relatives of the
party, the protests are few and fant Ihis
port has been decorated with deputy weighers
who had nothing to weigh, with deputy surveyors
who surveyed littlo besides the landscape and with
deputy collectors who only collected their salaries
and porqusites. The busy season is at hand-that
is the busy political season, and the heads of de-
partments who are nOminally engaged in collecting
import duties will find occupation in writing letters
to weighers and gaugers of purport as folows The
bearer of this note is valuable worker in his ward;
can't you find employment for him on yonr force y
Private secretaries like the late Mr.. Terwilliger who
has since acquired national reputation for proof
reading and the young man Phillips, with the cx-
aggcrated dome of thought and exceptional magniti-
ccDce Of costume have had large experience In cor
respondenco of this character or course the weigh
ers and CANCERS can find employment for tho olni-
nent citizens recommended; at least they
can add their names to the payroll and the eminent
citizens can expend their activities IN tho interest
of good government i'll such spheres as the Central
Committee may select Ii is conceded that divergent
opnOus are held by theorists and doctrnaires as to
the moraltes involved in these practices, but surely
the case OF Campbell senior ought not TO be
prejudiced because he entertans that estimate OF
the proper functions of the civil service which per-
vaics the entire body of workers in the field of
Ircdatory politics Who is Mr.. Campbell that he
should "antagonizew Harmony is what the party
needs, and your tide waiter pension agent Is the
last man ito be jarriug and dissonant thing amid
this general dance and minsresy."
The Rev DR.. Cofelt is pastor of the First Prcsby-
ierian Church of Philadelphia, and like many other
pa,;or, he has recently been in trouble 1t has been
discovered that like Sir Roger de Coverleys rector,
he has been in the habit Of preaching sermons not
his own For this mslemcanor-consdcr all
things il can hardly be called crime-the Rev. Dr.
Colfelt has been arraigned before his Prfsbytnry.
He acknowledged TO "a close correspondence be-
tween some portions, and in some instances very
large portions Of his deliveries and the dlscou of
others" He used the thoughts of Others with tho
competest liberty" 1t urged in his behalf that
all the poets from Chaucer To Longfellow were in
the habit of borrowing from their tuneful prede-
cessors. This, which is very true in sense and
far from true in another, did not save the Row DIR.
Colfelt from an admontion;" and he promised to
he more original in future. Possibly his congregation
may suffer for this but it will be their fault
they should have known when they well off.
In one respect tho Rev. Dr. Colfelt may consider
himself fortunate. lie might have died leaving a
great number~of his sermons; his representatives
might have printed them and then the post-mortem
fate of the Rev. Sydney Smith might have been
his. For this tacetous and benevolent pastor was
liberal borrower from the works OF eminent diyines
A. he forgot to leave memorandum of the fact, his
family published volume full of passages pilfered
from Barrow and from divers Others, thus furnishing
the evangelical reviewers with an excellent oppor-
tuni.y of saying sharp and savage things and paying
off old scores. We would by means intimate that
the practice of the Rev. Dr. COfelt is a common
among clergymen. We are satisfied that the ma
jority of them write their own sermons. This is all
the more to their credit because pulpit plagiarism
is hardly likely to be detected. the studies Of the
congregation seldom running in the direction of pull
pit literature.
Tie voyag. OF the Challenger, an exploring vessel
sent out by the British Government, has been ex-