New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-02-21

entire country would stand on end. The mind
shrinks from contemplating the tremendous
consequences that so many people nave ii'siue
of them as they go about and mingle Wild the
world in the ordinary walks of life. 1t VIII DE
remembered that there was something like
this state of things during the great BROOKLYN
trial. There were two or three persons
more or less connected with that DUST
ness who were not only rcputed 10 De, Out
solemnly gave it out themselves that they
were. loaded to the muzzle with facts OF all de-
grees of importance, and especially " bottom
"facts,n which, if they ever should go OIL,
would blow I'D the whole Christian Church.
And these people, like the old-fashioned car
penter who, with his hands Outstrctched
in front of him, went through the crowd cry
ing, Don't touch me-Fve got the measure
"of doorway here" went up and down
among us, saying ito everybody: 1T won't
ado for them to ask me many questions
off they do, shall expose everything.
There was an intense public anxiety to
see these persons touched of. They were
not only touched, they were JOstled
and crowded, experimental on with slow
matches and exposed to white heat; but
neither friction nor percussion nor force
pump nor fervcnt heat ever got out OF them
a bottom fact of any consequence, or had any
effect other than to make them shudder all the
more when they thought of what might hap
pen If they should tell all they knew.
But the present state of things is worse than
that. We have now reached that pass that
the holders of the bottom facts relating to the
Presidential election of 1876 are in the ma
iority-a very large majority. There are not
probably at this date 200 English speaking
people in the country who do not carry IN
one way or another the essential secrets
of the Electoral Count. A large major
ity of our voting population are at
this very moment actively engaged in shud-
dering, not mt what other people know,
but at what they know themselves, upon this
stupendous subject. The shver has become
SO universal that it is not easy to distinguish
it from maarlal chills and we shall not be
surprised to learn presently that the first
question propoundcd by physician to
n patient with the shakes" Is: do
"you know anything about the Commission
cor the Count or the Returning Board,
cor the Visiting statesmen or the bargain
cor the fraud or Hewitt or Watterson or
chandler, or Stanley Matthews, or Pelton or
"Cronin, or anybody else in active politics 7"
And if he says Yes, the doctor will pick up
his saddlebags and say, He's got something
lin him that quinine won't reach; some OF the
"bottom facts of the late Presidential cleo
"tion; there's a good deal of it 'round you
"can't do anything for it except let it run it
"self out" And it is true that no cOntagion,
physical, moral or political, ever spread so
rapidly as this. The secrets Of the Presidential
election are like Daniel Wcbster's notes
"everybody's got em." And the remarkable
thing is how well everybody keeps them. Once
in a while some person gets very mad
because he can't find anybody patriotic
enough to sit up nights with him saw
ing the country, and he says: If this
"peOple is not uncommon careful how 1t con-
"ducts itself, I'll just stand up on candle
"box and tell all / know" Mr.. VIM. E.
Chandler waved the country to silence the
other day from the neiehborhood OF the W hlte
Mountains, and said impressively that he was
about to let loose the secrets that had been
damned up in him. But the politicians
said he did not let out damned secret,
and the general impression was that If he
had been damned up before his disclosures he
was damned up and down afterward. Then
there was Mr.. Hewitt: he got very much
excited on the floor of Congress the other
day, and said that sooner than suffer the
sings aud arrows of outrageous fortune,
or bear the proud mans cOntumely and
the pangs of despised love, he would give
them some unwritten history that would
Al. ri AM tbny al
him to 90 On-as they always do under such
clrcumstances-he related some anecdotes
which were so far from being unwritten that
when he sat down an unpleasant member
began reading them out of a printed book.
So he did not light up the pages OF history
with anything like lurid glare. And
now Henry Watterson takes up the strain, and
afteI dismissng Hewitt as a blundercr who
lost the Presidencylfor Tilden, gives us plainly
to understand that the very bottom facts are
in his exclusive possession. and that after
everybody else has told all that anybody else
knows, he can tell things that he knows that
nobody knows.
And 80 the thing goes on. The people of
this country are becoming so saturated with
these mysteries, and so impressed with the
Importance Oh hcepihH 'heh sccieJ lh"t 'heio
il danger all other interests may be neglected
in this absorbing passion. 1t Is quite clear that
there are bottom facts in the matter of the most
vital Importance. They are frequently so re-
ferred to by persons who are holding on to them
hard for the same reason that the darkey held
on to the tail of the bull in the middle of ten
acre lot-because it's dangerous to let go. But
there are so many people in possession of the
secrets of the election of 1876, and so
few of us who do not pretend to know
them, that it really seems as though they
might be publicly divulged without doing much
harm. We, therefore, hope that steps will
&