The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1876-05-29

caring only for sensation. The other day we
read copies Of series of dispatches between
Mr.. Robson and Mr.. Cattell about the
most trivial transporting furni-
ture." meeting Mrs. Robson on the
arrival Of the train" and 50 on.
Those dispatches were innocent, had
no connection with the inquiry and
should never have been furnished
to the press. The members Of the
House Naval Investigating Committee de-
serve the severest censure for having given
them out. Now, when we think Of all the
illness that has passed over telegraph
Tine for years going before the same commit
tee, we cannot view the possible consequences
without apprehension. We think the time
has come for every gentleman in the House
to protest against the prostitution of the
powers of the House to prurient and morbid
tastes.
good deal may be pardoned to the spirit
reform destroy every vestige of manly and
chivalrous spirit The printing Of the Fitz-
hugh letter would never have been regarded
rs fair blow in politics except among
generation of degraded politicians. The
printing Of the letters of Mr.. Blaine about
business investments, which have no mean
ing in political point of view, belongs to
the same category. These domestic de-
spatches of Robson and Cattell have no
business in print. And now that hundred
thousand dispatches are going before the
House to be sorted and fingered and arranged
by correspondents, the time has come for the
gentlemen of the House. without distinction
of party, to interfere and see that there is no
repetition of what has panied every high
minded democrat and republican.
Tho Thefts Mt the Naval Academy.
If the peculating cadets at the Naval
Academy had lived under the much admired
Spartan regime their offences would have
been visited more severely than being
allowed to send in their designations and re-
tire to their homes. But the Spartan law
looked on being discovered in theft as the
only heinous thing about it, While nowadays
the stealing is the crime. We have advanced
that moral step which makes conscience
the detective, and the machinery that
brings punishment becomes secondary, as
it is capricious in its workings. Honor is
the chivalric equivalent of honesty, and we
have humbly believed that it was at the bot
tom Of all that was taught the young gentle
men at Annapolis who are educated at the
country's expense for the naval service. We
are far from thinking that the nine pecula-
tors who found their way SO easily out of the
theft of the Baltimore stocking mans goods
represent the moral level of the ca
diets, but as other robberies are named
and limited at it would seem that
there is something lacking in the system
which permits growth SO dangerous to the
young men and to the service they are in
tended to enter. This service stands second
to none in the world for honor and all the
manly virtues, md any symptom of its being
lowered in the future should be anxiously
watched and its cause extirpated relent-
lessly We are willing to make much allow
ance for the aptitude that boys have for get
ting into 'scrapes;" but dishonesty is not
one of the things to be SO lightly treated At
the age the cadets enter the Academy
they are past the time when larcenies may
be overlooked as ''eccentricities of child
hood" We once heard of loutish young
man who appealed to his Professor for par
don for some school offence on the ground
that ''boys will be boys" to which the Don
drily replied, 'And never anything
else, sir, if You cali yourself boy"
If cadets are not capable of distin-
gushing what honesty is and applying
it rigidly to their acts they should be sent
about their business irrespective of sin-
fuence." We look, therefore, to the authori-
ties at the Academy for clearer and frmer
incubation of what honor-demands of those
committed to their charge, SO that o proper
proud spirit may prevail there, which will
make the commission of such crimes ex-
tremely rare and the stay of q young Grim
inal in their midst impossible.
The Sermons Yesterday.