Year: 1878

The Next House OF Representatives.


In the present House Of Representatives
the democrats have 1856 and the republicans
1856 members, and there are two vacancies
by death-the seats Of Messrs. Leonard, Of
Louisiana, and Quinn, of New York. The
democrats have therefore nineteen actual
majority.


In the September election the republic
cans lost twelve seats, of which the demo-
Gratis gained six, the greenbackers five, and
in Vermont there was no election in one
district.


AS we 60 to press the very incomplete re-
turns show republican gains in several
States. In Connecticut they gain one seat,
in New York apparently at least four and
possibly six, in New Jersey one or perhaps
two, in Pennsylvania one or two, and in
Louisiana one. But. counting the dem
ocratic gains in september and October.
the republicans would have to gain
twenty-one districts in order to secure q
majority in the next House, and as in
South Carolina they will lose two seats it
seems now certain that the next House will
be democratic, but by q somewhat narrow
majority, and by counting the greenback
members on the democratic side.


The greenback party appears to have cut
q very small figure yesterday. Perhaps
these elections may teach the democratic
leaders little sense on tho currency ques-
ton. Between Senator Thurman's bolt for
initiation and the Tilden ciphers the demo-
Gratis are losing ground with the country.
"Mystery' and y Marriage Party.


How many sad stories like that from
Which Louis Riege lifted the curtain last
August down at Staten Island come to o
happy ending it would be hard to tell.
When the young man, having, as he
thought, identified the remains Of the
unfortunate victim of q crime that
now seems fairly fastened on another.
sat down to tell the Coroner's jury
the story Of his and q poor girls sin, Of
her condition, her disappearance and his
fruitless search for the living girl, no outlet
of hope for Ellen Murphy seemed possible.
Even when o frantic father just as pos
itively identified the remains as that Of his





tanned that the girl Louis Riege had
sought was still alive. Some pity there
must have been for the man whose
remorse had led him to stand thus self
pilloried in the public gaze beside
the phantom of the forlorn girl whose ruin
he took upon his head. There is something
weird and awful in the scene in Hawthorne's
''Scarlet Letter." where the clergyman. Ar
thur Dimmesdale, stands at early dawn upon
the scaffold with the branded woman and
her child by his side-the scaffold where
mother and babe had stood alone when
to stand there was punishment That pic
ture of yearning for atonement mixed
with selfish fear, and choosing such false,
fantastic expintion, furnishes. no doubt the
key to many bitter struggle in the human
breast. In his own way Louis Riege
experienced il. That he even dared ex-
posure so he might know the worst,
shows that the better part of human nature
in him won the victory. It is easy 70 be
shrewd and cynical about the deeds of
others easy to say now that Louis Riege
had better for his peace have held his
tongue but the fact that in his fear for
her he spoke out stands brightly to his
credit and makes more nearly full the meas
ure of his real atonement when she who
had been lost was found.


It was small bridal party that came be-
fore the minister on Sunday in the down.
town church; reporter alone handed o
bouquet to the bride |; but we may be per-
mitted to add our fluctuations to his flowers
and wish the married pair that happiness
which seemed so lately to have been lost to