The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1877-04-04

ms you go" policy by efficient restrictions on
the power Of the municipalities to create
debts, and. to crown all, putting city taxes
and expenditures in control of Board OF
Finance to be elected by the taxpayers.
These are the essential features Of the plan
of the Municipal Commission. While
approving these. while regarding them as
paramount. we favor the passage of every
bill now pending in the Legislature which
aims to anticipate these reforms. The So
called Omnibus BILL" which has passed the
Senate and is about to be taken up by the
Assembly, is of this character. If passed it
will give as the advantage of several of the
best features of the plan of the Municipal
Commission two years in advance Of its
possible ratification by the people, and
of the extension Of its benefits to all
the cities of the State John Kelly and
Tammany Hall oppose the Omnibus bill"
for the same reasons which impelled
Tweed and his confederates in the old Tam
many Ring to push the charter of 1870-our
present charter, ubstantially-through the
Legislature by wholesale bribery. The
present Assembly cannot do the city better
service than the passage of the so-called
Omnibus charter" Mr.. Fish, who is to be
its leading champion in the Assembly, de-
serves the cordial support of all our citizens.
War in Europe and Trade in
America.
Europe still agitates the great doubt
whether the peace will be preserved by the
protocol just signed; and the burden OF
opinion certainly is that it will not. 1t will
be remembered that even the speculation
that the protocol would operate peacefully
was based upon the theory that Turkey would
be we'll inclined toward its purposes. If Tur-
key did not regard favorably the assumption
of the protocol that she would disarm; if
she did not favor now the reforms she so
fercely opposed last January; if she did
not make peace with Montenegro-in any Of
these contingencies Russia would not de-
mobilize her army and if she did not
demobilize the protocol would become mere
waste paper But now comes the news of
the view taken in Turkey of the
protocol. The Ottoman statesmen re-
gard its assumptions and pretences
as On infringement upon the dignity OF their
government. They intend to reply and
protest; and this does not encourage the
prospect of peace which, indeed. was never
brilliant In fact. the probability of war
deepens with the energy of the endeavors to
make peace. because the elements of the
situation are irreconcilable. With the early
summer will be seen drain toward
Europe from this country of all
the supplies needed by nations at
war. Already the TURKS have drawn
heavily on our shops for arms and ammuni-
ton, and the Russian armies are in great
part armed with guns Of American manu-
tacture. But the waste of war will give the
tide Of regular supplies an enormous force.
The demand for breadstuffs, preserved
meat, whiskey, clothing, as we'll as the reg
ular supply of ammunition, will fill the
pockets of our farmers with money and set
our mills and workshops in motion.
Tweed's story
On another page will be found o de-
tailed chronicle of that occurrence so
startling in its time-the escape Of Tweed,
with the minute recital of his movements
from the moment he left his house in Fifth
avenue on that December night until his
final return to Ludlow street prison. Few
stories of actual life TEEN with SO many ele-
ments of romantic interest. 1t is pecu-
liarly American feature Of the story that
his escape was s'done on contract" he did
not touch the details personally, but merely
put himself into the hands of men who had
contracted to effect his escape and put him
in place of safety beyond the reach of the
authorities. 1t must be acknowledged,
moreover, that, unlike great deal of con-
tract work, this job was thoroughly well
occurred while the case was in their hands.
None would have occurred, perhaps, if
they had not been prematurely dispensed
with. No romantic pictures of the operation
of the criminal classes give precise parallel
TO the quiet, intelligent, methodical, well
conceived steps of these contractors who sim
ply put Tweed on the Jersey side, behind
Weehawken, and kept him quiet there for
three months, when the scent was cold and
the hunt had lost it's spirit, and then
as quietly slipped him down the bay in
a schooner. All the clumsy escape from
Florida to Cuba and thence to Spain was
managed by Tweed himself, and the men
who put him over the North River would
have done all that very differently. But the
document with which the story closes is the
part of greatest present interest for the pub
lie. This is letter from Tweed to Charles
O'Conor, which proposes an uncondi-
tional surrender Tweed therein pro-
poses to give up at once and for
ever the battle he has hitherto waged
partly on his own account, partly on ac-
count of others; to give up to Justice all he
has and to tell her all he knows; to make o