The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1878-02-27
TERMS $500 PER ANNUM, IN ADVANCE

other by means OF hanG-carts loaded with
bags of silver five-franc pieces. But strange
to say, business is dull there and failures are
frequent, which is rather damaging to the
theory of the silver congressman, that univer-
sal prosperity reigns wherever silver is used
freely enough as money.
The dozen type foundries in the United
States will have "soft thing'' if Fernando
Woods tariff bill goes through as he has
prepared it. The duty on type Is made by
this bill from two to five times what it now
is, and would be simply prohibitory, and en-
aple the type founders in this country to
charge just what they please.
Tinkering the currency is always injurious.
1t is particularly so at time of general loss
and depression. When that tinkering takes
the form OF debasing the circulating money,
it is particularly pernicious. 1t Injuries the
employer, because it alarms him about his
investments. 1t Injuries society by creating
action and depression.-N. Y. Sun.
1t is no more honest to compare the Chris
tianity Of to-day with the religion of inqul-
sition, of witchcraft and of ecclesiasticsm,
than it is to compare Bob Ingersoll with Ju-
das Iscariot. We would not make that COM
parison, and by not making it we deal more
fairly by Col. Ingersoll than he deals by the
Christian gentlemen under whose teaching
aud practice the world grows better, super
stition fades, vice yields to discipline, and vir
tue asserts its strength. Utica Herald.
The history of the Hartford convention,
and OF the fall of the Federalists, goes far to
demonstrate the real attachment of the peo-
pie, both in and out of New England, to the
national government. When the Federalists
were its main supporters, they aourished;
when they were even suspected of seeking to
undermine it they perished from the face of
the earth. Their successors in power learned
the same lesson in 1860 and 1864, and have
not failed to profit by the instruction.-Sime-
on E. Bdtdooin in Ne,o Highlander.
Whatever becomes of the silver bill finally,
1t Is recorded beyond recall that the United
States, having deliberately ceased to coin sill
yer dollars when they were three per cent.
above par, and thus released its optional
standard, did, five years after, and when the
silver In dollar has gone down to less than
ninety-one cents, change its mind and enact
that said dollar should be full legal-tender for
all debts, public and private, and did by its
determination to initiate the currency and de-
base the standard, put an instant stop to the
refunding of the national debt at four per
cent.-Hartord Courant
A fresh story is told of Charles Francis
Adams, Jr. He was sitting at a table in
hotel dining room at the West, with Writ
Dexter of Chicago, whose grandfather was
eminent as great legal light in Massachu-
sets half a century ago. A casual sitter, in
conversation with Dexter, remarked cempli-
mentarily: ''Your grandfather was one of the
most eminent jurists of our country" At
which Mr.. Adams spoke up, forgetting that
other people than his own had grandfathers:
My grandfather was indeed eminent, but I
never heard before that he distinguished him
self as iurist." 81 was addressing the 9TH
er gentleman, sir'' was the quiet rejoinder.