Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1881-08-22
1ancastrr fntellaencer.
MONDAY EVENING, AUGUST %. 1881.

SSssSW0~$ AssS<>IS9 (ItlILs
MONDAY EVENING. AUGUST %. 1881.
The President.
There is nothing encouraging nor
consoling in the reports from Washing
ton of the presidents condition, and
everything to warrant the profoundest
public apprehension of fatal termina-
tiOn of his long sufferings. 1t is con-
fessed that no period of his illness has
been more critical than the present, and
that now after seven weeks his recovery is
quite as doubtful as ever. No spasmodic
bulletins of i cheerful character or en-
couraging tone will suddenly allay this
popular impression or give the public
mind restful idea about the nations
patient. The discovery that the physi-
clans have greatly erred in their appre-
citation of his recent condition is dis
turbing and calculated to make
the people discredit all reports
now reaching them. When the
recent unfavorable turn occurred it was
given out that the trouble was entirely
with the presidents stomach, that his
wound had healed nicely, and no trouble
need he feared from that source. Even
when the glandular Inflammation on his
neck appeared, the assurances given con-
corning the healing of the wound dissi-
pated fears that this outbreak might
have resulted from blood-poisoning, and
with the successful administration of
nutritive enemata it was confidently as
serted that the stomach would he restored,
and the patient kept in such condition
that the healing Of his wound would
progress satisfactorily.
Now there has been another serious re-
lapse and all the conditions of very
critical and dangerous state are mani
tested. In explanation of it DR.. Bliss
relates that the obstruction to the drain
age tube, four inches from the mouth of
the last incisiOn, which had been taken
as a sign of the healing of the wound to
that point, was, instead of this favorable
condition, only hinderance to COM
municatiOn with the deeper and un-
healed interior of the wound, where the
action of the injury was still going on,
the pus forming and being carried off
somewhere. With the removal from the
passage of large piece of cellular tissue
that had sloughed off and closed the
track of the ball to the drainage tube,
the latter was inserted to the depth of
twelve and half inches and the ball is
still beyond that. 1t is fea red that while
this drainage was Obstructed the secre-
tion of the pus in the wound induced
blood poisoning, of which the parotid
affection was symptom.
Be that as it may, the presidents con-
dition is undoubtedly very serious, and
after forty days it is thus described by a
Washington correspondent He is now
50 weak and helpless that he can scarcely
move limb. He can hardly talk above
a whisper and only then with an effort.
His wound is still unhealed in the por-
ton where it should he healed. The
track of the ball has been traced twelve
and a-half inches from the last incision
downward and forward, which is i dis
tance of fifteen and a-half inches from
where the ball entered the body, and yet
the location of the ball itself has not
been found"
1t is idle, in view of this picture, to
maintain that the president is not under
such an inability TO discharge the duties
of his office as the constitution cOntem-
plates when it provides that in this event
his duties shall dcvOlve upon some one
else. Nor is it to the point that it is
claimed, in the IntCricdn of Philadelphia
for instance, that there is not the
slightest evidence that Mr.. Garfield is at
this moment incapable of any duty which
his office at this moment imposes on
him." If such position were seriously
maintained it would he easy to show that
it is untenable, and that the very men
who assume to discharge the formal eX-
ecutive duties are not even permitted TO
see their chief nor to have any communi-
cation with him. But the World points
ont specifically that certain extradition
papers for the arrest Of an absconding
swindler, now under detention from a
Bow street commitment for 4 limited
time, are only perfect when accompa-
MED by warrant upon which is the Sig
nature of the president, and the prisoner
may be discharged througha lapse of the
time specified in the treaty for his deten-
tion, pending the arrival of such sigma
ture ut the home Office in London. Here
arises :: case the like of which may oc-
cur an, time, which shows that there is
an interregnum in the presidents office
such rs the law never intended should
exist, and such as should not continue.
A HARRISBURG correspondent writes
to the Times the astonishing information
that since the attempted assassination
oe tho ,,roSiIont fIo r,morOn M ri " In vo