New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-12-10


wise and popular thing in throwing open many OF
the regular lectures to the public on the payment
of a moderate fee The understanding is that OUT
siders are to be admitted unless the professors OBJ
ject So far from Directing, it is to be presumed
that they will consider it high compliment TO
themselves if others than the regular students
desire to receive instruction from them.
Speaker Crisp has big job in making up his
committees and satisfying all the demands made
upon him. But that task will not be circum-
stance to the work of keeping the House in order
when the Democratic majority of lao settle down
to what they will call business.
Now. what is the use of David B. HIPS worry
ing himself about making the next Legislature
Democratic? 1t is commonly supposed that he
wants to pave the way for the election Of Demo-
cratic Senator in view of his own Presidential
aspirations But just suppose for moment
Suppose that Hill should get the Democratic nomi-
nation next year. Suppose, too, that by some
chance, now so remote as to be inappreciable, he
should be elected President. In that event, would
there be any necessity for him to resign his Senator
ship Not the slightest. In fact he could much
more easily be at once President and Senator than.
az at present, Senator and Governor, since his
now he must, to be faithful to his double trust
be in both Washington and Albany at the same
time. Oh, no; he need not vex his soul in the
least over the complexion of the Legislature Of
1892.
The verdict of the Coroner's jury in the case
of Stratton, the faster, who recently starved
himself to death in dime museum is none too
severe. Such exhibitions should indeed, be re-
garded as demoralizing and criminal" and it
would be we'll if the suggestion of the physicians
whose opinion is thus officially recorded were
carried out, and they were prohibited by law. OF
all the morbid attractions" that dime museums
offer, probably none exercises more positively
baneful influence the frequenters Of such places
than these deliberate wagers of life itself New
York has had too many Of them, and it is to
he hoped that this latest self-murder will be the
last.
There is a ray Of consolaton-even for the Mug
wump contingent-in the fact that Speaker Crisp
has better temper than would-be Speaker Mills;
at all events, he has a better grip OH it.
The English naval experts are eXuting, IL seems,
over evidence Of Yankee laundering and misca-
culation shown in the construction OF the cruiser
Philadelphia This is amusing. That ship was
built from English designs, which were purchased
by the Department of the Navy in Secretary
Whitney's time II there are serious blunders in
weights and balances shown in that vessel, these
are English, not American, miscalculations. The
European experts may have succeeded in working
Off some of their own bad designing upon the un-
srspccting Yankee, but they can hardly afford to
laugh over it. The only serious mistake made in
the construction Of the new navy was the pur-
chase of foreign designs. American naval archi-
tccts can hold their ground against Europe, and
there never was any valid reason for discrediting
their ability designers of original force and
practical ability,
Mayor Chaplin participating in a Democratic
caucus at Washington and industriously drawing
two salaries from Nation and city il q sorry
type of municipal reformer Yet the Mugwump has
always admired and voted for him as an ideally
good and pure type of civic virtue.
The English sparrow is not an unalloyed bless
ing: there be those who affirm that he is an I'M
mitigated nuisance; but there is grave doubt Of
the wisdom of the law which took effect in
Illinois on December l giving bounty of two
cents for every sparrow's head The slaughter is
going on by the wholesale The educational effect
of such legislation cannot be anything but bad
If the destruction of the sparrow is desirable or
necessary, the work ought to be gone about IN u
different way. Somebody must have been mapping
when that law went through the Legislature
There is much significance in the recent letter
of Mr.. c. p Huntington, replying to correspondent
in Texas who offered for his examination certain
railroad franchises in that State said TO be
valuable Experience in operating railroads under
Texan restrictions prompts him TO decline even TO
! consider the building OF any additional lines
there. The people of Texas. and of the other
States that have followed her example, are likely
to find out before long that the results of hostile
railroad legislation strike in more than one di-
rcction. They will fnd u out when they the
work of extending railroad communication brought
to standstill by the indsposition of capital 10
seek an investment where "a proper control over
its property is denied it, Texas has vast terri.
tory still undeveloped, and needs many hundred
miles of railroad to make its great resources SER
viceable. The agitators of the Farmers Alliance
school, having induced the Legislature to treat
the railroads though they were devouring ogres
may meet henceforth with increasing difficulty in
showing where the net advantages Of their policy
come in A few such concrete instances as Mr..
Huntington has just given of the refusal OF
capital to step in where practical conlscation
awaits 1t, may bring the people OF the State to
realize that while they may he getting even
with their ogre sf railroad monopoly In one way.
they are injssiag themselves snd the prospects
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