New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-08-06

Overtaken him, albeit with an unusually game
Leg The prisoner had lived so long with the
moose hanging over his head that he could be
pardOned for feeling cool and unconcerned to
the very end. 1t win be readily conceded that
an execution in which the doomed man pro-
tests his innocence to the last, and which
only comes after protracted delay and inter
minable quibbling, has very little punitive
force.
A correspondent, whose style is too dense for
extended quotation, misnterprets THE TRIB-
UNEs views respecting the Hartmann case after
this striking fashion: you are evidently
willing to close the doors of our establish-
"ment against the enemies of tyranny and the
" friends of national liberty the whole uni
=" verse over. If kOssuth were to come over
" here again you would eXtradite him as a
"personal favor to this that High Might
"ness" We have advocated nothing of the
sort. kossuth was revolutonst, but not an
assassin. He, in his day, and every other
political refugee in his, has had the privileges
OF a safe asylum in the United States. There
is no thought of interfering with exies who
have been bounded out of their own countries
by police or soldiery for upholding the rights
OF citizenship engaging in revolutionary
movements against tyrannical Governments.
But it may be only prudent to draw a
line somewhere between the political revO-
lutionist and the political assassin. Ex-
posed as we are to anarchical contagion from
every quarter of the world, it may be wise to
quarantine these professional murderers, and
to send them back where they acquired their
original faint of inhuman atrocity and tiendish
maignity.
That Gambetta has not lost his self-posses-
sion through his recent rebutfs in the Senate
and the Deputies is evident from his speech
at Tours. His references to the Senate are adj
mrable. He laments the failure of he Scru-
tin de Lste, but is not entrapped into hasty
denunciation of the upper house. He processes
to be a partisan of the double chamber sys-
tenn, having changed his views since the de-
bates of 1875, which preceded the adoption
of the present Constitution. This is a sensible
declaration, for it is undoubtedly true that the
Senate has been of signal use to the Republic
since it was organized. The system by which
its members are elected is needlessly complex
and he is amply justified by the intricaces of
the law in demanding its revision. That law
was originally devised by the Reactonary fac
tons of the National Assembly for the express
purpose of making the Senate stronghold of
conservatism from which they could never be
uIi'cn OUT L elr expectations were IoIeu !;
the Senate became Republican bulwark but
1t is not a true representative body. Gambetta
outlines the changes which he deems expedi-
ent and then rapidly fills out a programme of
progressive Republicanism, which is compre-
hensive enough to satisfy the advanced section
of the party. He advocates liberty of associa-
ton and even throws out vague hints of sys-
TENS of life, accident and crop insurance
which will be welcomed, albeit only half I'M
derstood, by French wOrkingmen. Perhaps the
best idea in a speech which is veined with
political sagacity of the highest order is his
plea for homogeneous party devoted to Lib
eralism He wants to fuse the parliamentary
groups into a compact party, which will sup
port ministry that will embody not its own
but the party policy. He is anxious, further
more, to bring the two Chambers closer to-
gether, so that there viii be unity of legsla-
ton as well as administration. How easily the
foremost man in French politics towers above
his rivals when the country is waiting for the
key-words of the electoral canvass