Year: 1868




withdrew from the Presidents counsel on the
impeachment because the administration de-
clined to send down ship Of war to put GER
tain Baltimore clients Of said Black in pos
session Of an outlying guano island, from
which they had been forcibly elected by
the government of Dominica, and that the
special reason for Mr.. Blacks course in
consequence OF this refusal was this that
as his clients had carried up their case to
Congress he could not be expected, as their
attorney, to prejudice their cause before either
house by appearing before the Senate in the
Presidents defence. Certainly not, when his
fee on the impeachment would be only afew
paltry thousands, while his contingent interest
in this guano island is set down at a million.


1t has been said, also, in reference to Mr..
Stewards recognition of the claim of Dominica,
that it involved the turning over Of said guano
to new company and a New York company,
including Thurlow Weed as an active or
silent partner; and as Mr.. Seward and Mr..
Weed, since the supposed discovery of the
dead body of Morgan, the recanting free
mason, thirty odd years ago, have stood in their
relations to each other as Robinson Crusoe and
his good man Friday, and as Mr.. Weeds sub
sequent career as king of the lobby justified
the report touching this guano controversy,
of this remarkable case. Another thing
in the way of . guano reminiscence, too,
operated strongly to confirm this impress
sion. Some years ago Mr.. Thurlow Weed
was seen, one pleasant summer day,
strolling along the shore of the Jersey high
lands just below Sandy Hook. To the ques-
tions put to the third party, ''What brings
Thurlow Weed down here? what job is up in
Jersey?" this was the reply why, don't
you knowa You see that long shanty under
the hill there. That is guano factory. They
make guano there. They take the mari out Of
that hill, and they take these shoals of oily
fish called mossbunkers out of the bay, and
they grind and mix and ferment them together,
and they make q first rate guano by the pro-
CESS That guano is what brings Thurlow
Weed down here. He is in the speculation" I"
But Mr. Weed, nevertheless, stoutly denies that
he has any interest in this Alta Vela guano,
and we will take him at his word for the present.
He probably had enough of guano in that
Jersey manufacturing experiment. About o
year ago another experiment was tried with
those Sandy Hook mossbunkers. An old
steamship was anchored in the bay, and for
many days there was q great smoke issuing
from 1t, and smell as if those on board were
melting out the blubber of hundred barrel
whale. It was said they were trying out or
frying out the oil of the mossbunkers, and
were making good thing of it. But the old
ship was missing one morning, and then the
facts appeared that it was confscated, and
that oil this smoke and smell of fish oil had
been used only to disguise whiskey distillery
whiskey. Had any person told us then that
Mr.. Thurlow Weed was one Of this whiskey
company we should, perhaps, on the spur Of
the moment have believed him, bearing
in mind simply the fact of Mr. Weeds re-
markable faculty of scenting out and getting
into almost every ''good spec" in the market.


How it has happened that he is not in this
New York company working this Alta Vela
g,iano under the claim of Dominica to the island,
recognized by Mr.. Seward, we cannot un-
derstand. If we knew no better, with all his
perquisites and pickings from the Albany
lobby and the Washington lobby and our
corporation rings, in free wool statistics, army
jobs, whiskey, steamboats,, rowing war com
missions to Europe, corporation jobs and what
not we might conclude that Mr.. Weed had
made up his mind that he has made enough.
But we do know better, and we dare say that
there Is truth in the report that, after getting
all that he could out of Andy Johnson, the un-
grateful Weed has cast him aside like an ex-
hausted orange and is turning his face to ''Old
Ben Wade as the rising sun; that the acile ''old
man" Of the lobby is engineering to get Senator
Morgan into the Treasury Department under
President Wade, so as to secure thereby the
dispcnsation of the spoils of the New York
Custom House. We must protest against this
movement, however, and insist that the New
York member Of the Cabinet under "Old Ben
shall be the indefatigable Greeley, and that,
considering his great efforts at reform In the
matter of mileage and the franking privilege,
and "such small deer, he shall be Postmaster
General. And why? Because Weed ought to
stand back and Greeley ought to have a
chance and because his savings in mileage,
franking, &C., as Postmaster General, may give
us lift, though not much, towards the liquida-
tion Of the national debt.


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HOFFMAN ON LOCAL EXPENSES. Baron
Won Holman is trying the effect Of his clo-
quence and his well trained mustache on the
voters of Connecticut. In a speech at Stam-