The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1876-02-17
President erants .Happx Family"

chickens in the same spacious glass cage and
exhibit them to the public as living together IN
the loneliness of perfect peace and affection
ate harmony Our ancient friend Hsop, VINO
endowed his animals with the gift Of speech
and made them convey so many beautiful les
sons of wisdom would have needed the gift OF
prophecy, in addition to his significant
shrewdness to have invented so nice fable
as that by which Mr.. Barnum prefgured,
twenty years in advance, the state
! of things which exists to-day in
the official family of President Grant.
Foxes and chickens, dogs and cats, snakes
and birds are not commonly deemed the
fttest company for exhibiting the amenities
| of social intercourse, and even Mr.. Barnum,
since he has come to wear the dignity of His
Honor the Mayor of Bridgeport, might
hesitate to make up municipal din
ner party with such an odd selec-
! ton of contraries as he put into
his spacious glass cage and named ''the
Happy Family" That amusing feat of his,
when he was a mere Snowman, and had not
yet risen to the dignity of Mayor, had the
blended truth and satire of an Esopic fable.
1t was prophetic as well as ingenious and
his countrymen may at last realize the moral
in the spectacle Of the human Happy Fam
lily" Just now ON exhibition at the national
capital. We never quite understood the art
by which the great Snowman made his natur-
ally discordant family so harmonious, but
we presume he surfeited his ravenous ami
| L. 49, bar
salaries and perquisites will equally ex-
| plain the phenomenal harmony at Washing
ton is point on which we do not feel called
upon to express an opinion.
| But we are not permitted to doubt that it
is very Happy Family which now exists
in the Cabinet, because so many assuring
| dispatches to that effect are sent to our con-
temporaries. Everything is lovely between
Secretary Bristow and the President, be-
tween the Attorney General and District
Attorney Dyer, between General Babcock
and the prosecuting officers, between Mr.
Pierrepont and the Treasury Department
and between the head of the Department of
Justice and the district attorneys to whom
he sent his extraordinary circular of caution
and warning Barnums Happy Family"
never at any stage of its exhibition,
presented more affecting model of
the mild and forbearing Christian
virtues How cordially these ami
able animals in the glass cage at
Washington must love one another To be
sure, they sometimes bristle up their fur and
show their teeth, but we are bound to under
stand that it is done in mere sport and play
fitness. The unceremonious dismissal of
Mr.. Henderson was, of course, meant as
an act of courtesy and appreciation
to encourage Secretary Bristow in
his prosecutions. Mr.. Pierrepont's warning
to the district attorneys, and its implied
menace against witnesses who turned States
evidence and testified against their accom-
plices was equally intended to aid
Mr. Bristow in bringing the boss thieves
to justice. OF course the Secretary
of the Treasury takes all such demon
strations as marks of applause and as
shining proof that the President does not
wish him to spare General Babcock or any
other person whom his zeal and energy have
forced into position which is more dramatic
than agreeable
Attorney General Pierrepont gives an au-
thentic proof of his evenness of temper and
unruflled serenity in the interesting de-
spatch which we print this morning. We are
sorry that our eminent and respected
fellow citizen cannot say or at
least does not say, that the Presi-
dent was not consulted in relation
to that strange circular which has evoked
such a chorus of indignant comments in all
parts of the country. As the sole purpose
of the despatch is to relieve the President of
responsibility, that purpose would have been
more effectually accomplished if the truth
had permitted Mr.. Pierrepont to assert that
the President was not consulted and
never saw the circular until after it
was sent. The Attorney General does not
venture to say this and inasmuch as the ex-
/ culpation of the President would have been
! complete if he could have said it it is safe
to conclude that the truth did not warrant
such an assertion. Mr.. Pierrepont says
| he assumes" the sole responsibility.
| We accept his statement as a proof
of his loyalty to his official chief.
Had his judgment been overruled in
such a matter it would have been
his clear duty to resign, and his assumption
Of the ''sole responsibility" for the joint act
of himself and the President saves him
from that necessity. Besides the i'm
piled confession that the President
was consulted the despatch of the
Attorney General throws light on
another point. He asserts that the letter to
the district attorneys was meant to be
confidential and that it was exposed by
\ gross improperly" We are surprised that
the Attorney General did not perceive. in
the haste and zeal Of his denial, in what an
unpopulnr light this nvownl nnts the TRIMS