Litchfield enquirer., 1879-06-26
A Hapless Pretender.

South African savages eXcites general com
 passion even among those who regret Bons
 partisan least. Yet who that has read muc
 of Pretenders can have anticipated happ
 career for the son of the second Emperor c
 the French!
 Exile is the worst possible school of patrie tism or of morals We all know what sort c fellow Charles II. returned from his wander ings, and what lives blasted with hope defer red the less lucky Stuart Pretenders led fo more than century. To them life was on long phantasm-a dream of fading royalty, a one after another of the lneal heirs of Cbarle the Martyr succeeded to the bare title o king, while line of stolid High Dutchmel reigned in reality. Once, indeed, and for
 few months only, Stuart Prince governed { fragment of his hereditary dominions. In tn memorable uprising of 1745 Charles Edwar' headed real army, fought real battles, wor real victories, and stood on the firm ground O real loyalty. Then followed ruin, swift pur suit, and the narowest possible escape iron capture. All rejoiced in that escape, yet iron l tory. He cumbered the earth, indeed, while more than generation of men passed away, g sham sovereign living 0ut to the dregs his un- real life of Pretendership; childess, disgraced in his drunkenness, disgraced in the adulteries | of his pretended queen.
 One fact only of his later, disgraced life re- calls vividly the time when he played the king in real noble and chivalrous manner We read that to the last he hoarded small stock of specie, ready for another trial of the fortune which had ended 30 disatrously at Culloden, and always expecting that call from his Brit ish subjects which was to open the way for another Stuart Restoration. How much kind CT fate would have been death in battle. or closed so honorably the dishonorable career of his royal ancestor {! Thus fate denied him a Stuart's sole chance of distinction: they could not live virtuousiy, nor re1gn wisely but they could mount the scaffold like kings.
 If the thrust of few Zulu spears has given this plucky young Bonaparte an early and hon. orable release from career of hopeless con- spiracy against the liberties of his country; real life elsewhere in exchange for an unre- al life here; why ought the world to mourn so boisterously? Why, too, is Eugene to be pitied above all the bereaved mothers of the passing week? Simply from the good -natured regret with which the world sees the complete defeat even of the most baneful ambition. Her case is indeed sad one; but the pang of disappointed lust of power is one that deserves no sympathy from the citizen of republic.
 The coming contest in California is one that involves good deal more than ordinary polit ical results. At the East, all its significance consists in its adding four Representatives to a national House very evenly divided already and in the indication the next election may afford regarding the probable political status of California in 1880. At home Tn California the next election has a much graver signif- canoe. It is to decide whether the new Con- stitution is to be carried into real effect by a legislature in sympathy with it's designs; or whether it is to remain dead letter, another | of those ''paper constitutions" which have so frequently disappointed the hopes of democra- cy in Europe. Neither of the old parties has that hold of the people in California which they still maintain in the Atlantic states. The great issue, there, is between those who favor and those who oppose the new Constitution. The corporations and the large property hold CTS are using the Republican organization, as they always have used it,.in the interest of the moneyed classes. The Democracy is weak and the great struggle is between the Consti. l tutionalists and the Republicans. Tho small farmers and the small tradesmen who form the backbone of the constitutional party are united | and confident of another victory like that which they won in the adoption of the Con- stitution. We hope they will be successful, not because we altogether approve of the ex- pertinent they are trying, but because we wish to see the experiment fairly tried
 The return of the French Assembly to Paris IS a necessary and natural result. It would hardly do for the party of the people to dis trust the chief city and the natural capital of the Republic. No doubt there is a risk. as of old that the mob of Paris may try to force the rep resentatives of all France to submit to their demands. The bloody overthrow of the Con- mune shows how little the rest of France is disposed to submit to any such dictation; and how heartily the army will execute the orders of the Assembly. Or the other hand, there is much advantage in having the metropolis of a country it's capital A small city, like our Washington, becomes overloaded with it's political strifes, and with it's accumulation of the most eager politicians of whole country into one small community. The whole atmos- phere of the place becomes one of morbid ex- citement; and, instead of center of political health the capital becomes center of political | disease. We believe that our present Congress, sitting in New York where the political tenn | pcrature would be constantly lowered by colls- ion with the weightier currents of general busi- ness, would have shown far less heat and far | greater wisdom.
 The success of Weston, not only in winning the champion belt as a long g-distance walker but in beating all previous records, is one oi the curious compensations that time once in { while brings about. The walking furor start ed with Weston. He did some wonderful full things, but he failed so often to do more wonderful things, that he had come to be gen orally considered failure if not downrighI fraud. Now he comes, again, to the front as the ''true prince," distancing all pretenders We need not go back to the early failures oi Alfred or of Robert the Bruce, for parallel cases in history. What were our forefathers thinking of the career of Washington just be fore Trenton -and Princetonp Where would Sherman have stood as general had the wal ended, as many think it might have ended. by a triumphant march on Richmond in the fal of '61? Who at that date would have pre- dicted for William W. Eaton six years ca reer of statesmanship, as leader of the maiori ty in the National Senate Indeed Time beats all the miracle workers. Mrs. Mix Der