New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-08-31


politics as straw bidder"
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Every Dickens student Will remember that pow
erfu scene where Jonas Chuzzlewit, who had muir
dered one man to destroy, as he supposed, all
knowledge of his guilty secret, is suddenly con-
fronted with another whose very existence he had
overlooked and who knows all The wretched man
is overwhelmed with the thought of his utter
blindness and mbecility. He had girdled himself
about with perils, agonies of mind, innumerabie
| fears for this He had hidden his secret IN the
| wood pressed and stamped it down into the
bloody ground; and here it started up, when least
expected, miles upon miles away 1.-THE truth which
nothing would keep down and earth would not
hide" Who shall say that thoughts somewhat like
these did not the mind of the writer OF the Ia
nous dispatch TO Oregon when that shameful story
blazed out all over the landf While he doing
the thing, it must have seemed such an easy secret
to keep A little book scarcely bigger than cate
chism lying in drawer a shelf held the key;
the dispatch was in blind jargon which only the
discreet agent at the other of the line thousands
of miles away, could translate. The message
| slid through the darkness Of December
night, and left no more trace, one would
think than the wind. And yet the man who pored
over the composition of those dispatches had closed
to use another OF Dickenss similes-fOrty-ni
doors by which detection might come and did not
see the fiftieth standing wide open. This cipher
was an old one when the dispatches were obtained
they were published. and no sooner were they pub
lshed than they were translated. The whole coun-
try rang with it, 1t was the truth which nothing
would keep down and earth would not hide"
Two more lives have been lost in the surf at Coney
Island and lost under peculiarly distressing ercum-
s,.N Of
a multitude of spectators one sacrificing himself IN
a vain attempt to save the other. There seems
to have been no pretence of help from the
shore. and the wives and children of the
victims, waiting at one of the island hotels in
ignorance of what had happened, had not even the
poor consolation of recovering the bodies. This
dreadful accident is an impressive commentary
upon the remarks we made little while ago about
the shameful inadequacy of the precautions against
loss Of life at nearly all our bathing beaches.
Coney Island is visited every fine day during the
season by thousands of persons, but along that
whole stretch of miles of sand there is only one
boat outside the surf line, and that is main
tanned opposite q single hotel On the rest
of the island the bathers protected prac-
tcally only by their own discretion. Lines
which they can pass at will, and which they do
PASS constantly. are absurdly insufficient The
enormous patronage WHICH buo Va thoSO
bathing places obtain imposes upon them heavy
responsibility and we trust that indignant pub
lie will find some way TO make them sensible of 1t.
This business Of cipher dispatches is getting very
funny The very same key which unlocks what
MIR. Marble calls " my fifteen twenty cipher" III
dispatches from Florida TO Gramercy Park, also
tits and opens the solemn secrets of Thorax," tele-
graphed from New-Orleans 20 GramercY Park. OF
course the lofty -sOuled c1parcener who was cling
ing TO the ark and shechinah IN that quarter and
who is reputed 10 own No. 10, had no knowledge of
the secret business going there. 1t was all Mr..
Marble, of course. That man Marble. being wicked
coparcener, had loaned the same fifteen twenty
cipher" for his own dark schemes, to Spain, and TO
Russia aud TO Brazil, and TO Bolivia. and, IN fact
10 all the nations of the earth and some OF Its Cities
then temporarily putting up at No 10 Gramercy
Park. Mr.. TIlden kept a hotel on q large scale In
November and December, 1876, But he had no idea
what all these strangers were doingj perish the
thought He was too busy about the ark and
shechinah Of self-government
Mr. Joseph Jefferson shes TO arrange n special
theatrical performance for the benefit Of the plague
stricken cities of the South, and offers to play in it,
IL il can be given at once. He is Obliged to start on
Thursday for Chicago where he is to begin his dra-
matte season. 1t is to be hoped that Mr. Jehersons
benevolent scheme may be carried into practice,
principally, of course, for the sake OF the unfor-
tunate people whom he desires to help but also for
the sake of the New York public, which VIII expect
from his appearance raro qualification.