Litchfield enquirer., 1877-07-19

Company will scarcely pay three quarters of its indebtedness.
 One result of this affair Is to throw great doubt on the value of our standing commissions. The work done by the Special Commlasion was in reality the work that should have been done by In- surance Commissioner Stedman; and as if to prove that Connecticut has no mo- nopoly of worthless commissions, Con- missioner Rhodes, of Massachusetts, who came down recently to examine for him. self into the affairs of the Charter Oak, went home and reported very favorably | on it's condition.
 The newspaper war is substantially over. The Post abandons the Charter l Oak, at last, and President Wiggin has sued the Courant for $lOO.000 damages for the following spicy remark:
 ''By the side of Furber and his instru- ment Wiggin the Northampton bank rob- bers are gentlemen and saints
 In pamphlet of eight pages Albert Wadhams Esq, of Goshen, presents the unfortunate case of the bondholders of the New York and Oswego Midland rall- road. A railroad authorized under that name by the legislature of New York was very naturally supposed to run from the city of New York to Lake Ontario. Un- fortunately it strikes the New Jersey line "A miles away from New York City, and there it stops. The officers of the compa- ny fnrthered the deception by advertise meats. announcing that their road "ex- tends from New York City in line near ly straight to the city of Oswego, on Lake Ontario, distance of 400 miles," MT. Wadhams considers the State of New York liable for the loss that has oc- cured to bondholders from the act of it's legislature in chartering an organization under a false name. Perhaps there may be moral responsibility, but the chance Of legal redress in that quarter is pretty small. Whether the officers and agents who made the false representations in ad vertisements are personally liable is a very different matter. In England per sons issuing false statements have been held to very strict personal liability; in America the officers and agents of great corporations can generally cheat the pub lie with impunity.
 We shall not cry very bitterly if the Democrats do try the Louisiana Return ing Board for the periuries they no doubt committed. Still the trials would be es- sentially political; the accused would probably be brought before packed juries and the vindictiveness of their prosecu- tion would arouse public sympathy in their favor at the North, where now no one holds them in very high esteem. A political trial before fairly selected jury is farce; before packed jury, an atroc- ity. Let anpone who wishes to exam inc into the true character of such pro- ceedings read the history of the last years of Charles II The Popish Plot, the Rye House Plot, and the rest of the ''plots' of those evil times were the pretexts for a series of judicial murders, perpetrated first by one party then by the other.
 The university of London continues to grant women medical degrees in spite of the opposition of men doctors. In the meantime the girl students do splendidly. A Mss Watson took the highest prize in applied mathematics and mechanics, and Prof. Clifford declares hers the finest mathematical mind he has met with in a pupil of either sex. Prof Huxley's daugh. ter took the first prize in art: another vo.--1 ,--J .CoeIved the prize for art arlat' omy; and still another carried off schol- arship ill jurisprudence.