New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1879-04-04

| il is understood, that If the amendment shoulO
he adopted at this time the pending Constl-
tutional amendment with respect to the canals
would fail. If all appeals in behalf of needed
reforms are to be needed the biennial sessions
amendment will never be made. The best
plan would seem to be to persevere with tie
change which promises the greatest total OF
good, and there can be no doubt that the
State would derive more benefit from the oc-
caSiOnal absence of the Legislature than IT
does now from its almost continual pres
ence
Goodness and supreme presence of mind on
the part of few women yesterday rescued
more than / 800 children in one of the public
schools from the terrible danger of panic.
To the principal and several of her assistants
is due the great credit of preventing what
might have been a dreadful calamity,
and it seems especially proper to call
attention to this fact, because some OF
the earlier reports of the affair asclibed
the safe deliyerance of the children to
the efforts of the police That this great
| throng of little ones was led safely out OF a
| burning building, without injury to one Oh
| them, or to any of the 800 others playing III
the sch0ol-yard. is an achievement upon which
Mrs. McCloSkey and her assistants may well
look back all their lives with pride and JOY.
The gratifying announcement is made that
the conference committees on AppOrtiOnment
have reached n unanimous agreement. The
| bill which they Will submit to the Legisla-
ture to-day, and which il is hoped will pass
both houses at once, gives three additional
AsSembymen and two additional Senators to
New-YOrk, and to Kings County three more
ASsemblymen and one more Senator. Under
this bill these two counties would elect thirty
! six Assemblymen out of 12S, and ten Senators
out of 81. This is not so much as the Dem
ocrats have claimed, and more than the Re
publicans have been disposed to cOncede, but
the unexpected prospect of an appOrtiOnment
bill which shall be reasonably satisfactory to
! both parties will cause many TO hope for the
success Of the measure. An amicable ADJUST
ment of a controversy which almost always
ends in legislative riot will be, of itself.
thing to be thankful for.
MIR. jackson S. Schultz complains that he
and the other members of their self-appOinted
committee about a Worlds Fair in New
York have been misunderstood as to their
desire to take possession of the Central
Park for it. They do not want to
put permanent structure there, he says
only TO confiscate a hundred acres or so at
the lower end of the park for the temporary
buildings. If the people of New-YOrk, he
mourniully adds, are not willing to give up
| this part of the Park for Exhibition,
we had better let the whole matter drop. If
this is the best Mr.. Schultz and the rest can
| suggest, they had better let the whole matter
drop. Nobody has very loudly called on
| them to go forward at all, and certainly
nobody his authorized them to think that
they would be permitted to so forward in
this direction. They are very philosophical
gentlemen, no doubt. but if their public spirit
can find no better outlet than this, it is just
as well for them to leave somebody else
take the lead. The people of New-YOrk are
substantially unanimous in insisting that their
Central Park shall not be despOied for the
purposes of q Worlds Fair.
| Slavery in Its worst phases never showed
more horrible abuses than those of the pres
! ent convict-labOr system in Georgia, which
| correspondent describes elsewhere. In civil
/ lied communities the design IN giving ont
/ cOuyict-abor by contract is that the prisoners
/ NAV contribute toward their own support at
| the same time that steady employment serves
| rs a wholesome discipline for mind and body.
| But in the North, at least, the State never
| attempts to convert the convict into n mere
moncv-making machine indeed, in this State
we have not yet fully arrived at the point of
making him support himself, and NewYork,
with NJ. Pilsbury's help, is now in the van
OF States on this question. In none, we ven
.I,Vf-y Tf flrs
civil authority toward the convict forgotten /;
the State never abandons its supervision OF
him. and everywhere in wcll-regulated COM
munites, North or South, there is some effort
to make the prisoner a better man when he
leaves the peuitentiaTy than when he enters
! IT, But in Georgia there Is no such supervi-
sion, no philanthrOpic work of any kind;
the conyicts are turned over TO contractors
as slaves, and as slaves so unfortunate "a not
! 10 have the protection which the Southern
negro once derived from his market value
! There was @ time when it cost thousand
dollars to kill II capable "nigger"; it costs
| nothing now, and when Georgia convict Is
killed by cruelty or exposure draft on the
| State fills his place. The deathrate is appall-
| ing; il has been fifteen times as great in one
OF these convict camps as in the Maryland Pen
itentiary. But the deathrate is not the worst
result of this shameful system; many Of those
who live are more to be pitied than those who
die, as our correspondence shows. The bes-
tahty and wickcdness of the whole system are
such that communities outside of the State of
| Georgia might well protest against it in the
name OF Christian civilization. And yet the
murder of Aston directed public attention to
the fact that % Senator of the United States
was at that time an owner of one Of these
convict leases.