Year: 1879

In reading the report of the proceedings OF
the Potter Committee published in THE TRIB-
UNE this morning the unsophisticated private
citizen who is not :" inside politics" will be
likely to rub his eyes in wonder, and ask what has
happened to the moral universe since last week.
For it was the general understanding that this
Committee had come together for the pur-
pose of investigating the circumstances con-
nected with the sending of certain cipher
telegrams between No. Is Gramercy Park
and the Capitals of Florida and South Caro-
lima. That was the particular business
which had been pressed upon the Com
mittee for the past three months by the
voice of the whole country. That was the
particular business for which the Committee
are supposed to have asked and obtained an
appropriation and the better to perform
it the members seem to have been supplied
with the ciDhers in question and The TRlB-
UNEs TRANSACTIONS. But by some devious
road, so pulling that one cannot recall its
dark windings without a painful effort
of memory, the Committee have travelled
clear out Of sight of the Moses and Denmark
cipher and 10, here they are landed in the
middle of Indiana, interrOgating Mr.. Tyner
about matter which has no more to do with
the case on trial than the Colorado beetle has
with the diferential calculus.


1t is queer situation. The Committee be-
Gan by allowing an officer of the telegraph
company to repeat from recollection his YER
sion and understanding of a few half
disguised dispatches which passed through
his hands two years ago, and which related
to persons and transactions not connected
in any way with the subject of Investigation.
The greater part of yesterday was consumed
in the pursuit of this gossip. 1t so hap
pened that the kilograms in question
had been preserved. The writer produced
and deciphered them. No ono can tell
what stain of suspicion might not have
been fastened upon the Assistant Post
master-General by the random recOl-
lections of a telegraph clerk if the original
documents had not been forthcoming; but
after the full and frank account of
the affair which Judge Tyner gave
Yesterday this abortive scandal will only
be remembered in the same category
with the lies of Anderson and Webber,
the romances of st. Martin, the forged Sher-
man letter, the heavy frivolities of Mrs. jerks
and heaven knows what other products of the
Potter Committee which have been "bursted
"hke a puff bali and blown away in dust"


If the Democratic members of the court of
inquiry had given voice yesterday to Their in
most emotions at the collapse of the Tyner
Chandler affair." every one of them would per-
haps have used the words of Sir Joseph POr
ter, X. {. Is.


INV pain and my distress,


fiud it Is not easy TO express;


NJ amaZpmeDt, surprlSe,


You may learn from the expression Of my eyes"


But they recovered themselves, and one of
them terminated his comrades by suggesting
that Mr.. Brady ought to be punished for his
remote share in divulging the contents of
private kilograms. That was a juicy proposal.
considering how the days work originated
1t was not received with much acclaim but
perhaps the Democratic party will yet rise to
the proud privilege of vindicatng all the
men who tried to buy the Presidency, and
punishng all those who detected and de-
nouncAl fla etitna