Year: 1874

obliged to assure the audience and partici-
pants in the Safe Conspiracy case that it Is q
solemn affair Several matters have been re-
garded as jokes in this trial that ordinary
people would never have seen in that light,
although some of the facetious items were
sent as official kilograms, and the Government
paid for their transmission. Connected with
the jocular exploits was the frequent forging
of Col. Whitley's signature; the employees in
the Secret Service Bureau vying with each
other in performing this successfully at least,
such is the testimony.


On our second page will be found details
of the movement for Revenue Reform in
which our merchants are so deeply interested.
All branches of importing business are repre-
sented in this undertaking. The grievances
under which our mercantile classes have so
long labored will be presented before the
next Congress in an ineligible and systema-
tized form. The object of this movement is
not to reduce the revenue, but to simplify
and equalize the methods by which it is
collected and Congress will have the Oppor-
tunity of learning from the merchants them
selves what are their needs and desires.
The relations of the State to the medical
profession present a subject of acknowledged
difficulty. DR.. Stephen Smiths paper on this
subject, delivered before the Public Health
Association yesterday, serves to point
out the Importance of the questions
involved. We all admit the need
of standard of education among
medical men, and it is obvious that the laws
should suppress ignorance and quackery when
assuming the guse of the profession. But
while doctors disagree and men of learning
denounce each others systems. the State must
hesitate about comforting exclusive sanction
upon any school of medicine or any body of
professors.


THE TRIBUNE, in the course of an article
under date of Aug. 80, 1878, entitled "The
Brooklyn Rings Method" in speaking of
the defalcation IN the City Treasury as con-
nectei with the affairs of the Brooklyn Trust
Company, made grave accusations against
Judge Alexander McCue, among which was
that of compounding felony. Judge
McCue deemed it due to his vindication
from such charges to commence an action
against The TRIBUNE for libel, founded upon
that article. Subsequent investigations have
convinced us that these charges, although based
upon information at the time believed trust
worthy, were mistaken and unjust. Judge
McCue disclaims any purpose of pecunlary gain
from his action, desiring only to secure by
it exOneratiOn from all imputatiOns upon his
integrity and honor contained in such article.
The TRIBUNE recognizes the justice of that
object, and, acting upon the principle of fair


ness by which it processes to be governed, is
ever ready to repair any injury uncon-
sciously inflicted upon citizen through mis-
takes inseparably incident to the manage
ment of a large daily journal. Having
been convinced of the injustice done Judge
McCue in its article. THE TRIBUNE cheerfully
exonerates him from the dlshOnoring imputa-
tions it contained, and regrets that it was led
into an unintentiOnal wrong by their pub
LEGATION.


The rapid transit talk is revived, and
before the Legislature meets again we shall
have it in full blast Full blast seems to
be the appropriate phrase, since it al
ways ends in wind. Up to this time
rapid transit has gone through the
Legislature more slowly than a heavy-aden
Third Avenue car ever plowed through an
eighteen-inch snOw-storm from the City Hall
to Harlem. But it differs from that slow
transit in this, that the Third Avenue
cars do finally get somewhere There are
two or three difficulties which encounter
nearly all rapid transit schemes, and which
nobody has yet found a way to obviate.
The first, and most serious, is that
capitalists do not believe in any scheme
yet devised. They think the road cannot
be made to pay, and they do not propose to
build it out of patriotism. Another obstruction
almost equally effective is that there are heavy
interests of capital opposed to rapid transit.
The Central authorities do not want anybody
else to take the passengers from their depot
down town. The Third Avenue Railroad pre-
fers to monopolize as far as it can the travel
on its route. To less extent the same is
true of the main West Side lines.
Whenever there is a fair chance for some
promising rapid transit scheme, these vested
interests propose schemes of their own, which
are only useful to kill off the Others Then
practical men hold aloof from any route
which the Legislature is willing to grant,
because they stand in fear Of the succeeding
Legislatures granting better one to the next
applicant. The objective point of all
applicants is Broadway. Nobody wants
to build line on Second Avenue
while there is chance for one on Fourth
Nobody wants to build one Fourth
Avenue if next Winter Broadway is to be
thrown open to rival. We hope these diff
culties may not for ever prove fatal, but we
fail to see much that is encouraging in the
rapid transit schemes and talk elsewhere re-
ported this morning.