Year: 1870




Free Love-A Very Pretty Cnarrel ms 1t
| Stands.


The New York Daily 7Snaos is to be congrat-


ulated upon its tilt with the organ that is for


everything free, from free niggers to free love,


excepting only free trade and free lager.


II is so clearly on the right side in this differ


ence--it is so evidently and palpably in SYM


pathy with the good sense and healthy opinion


OF society as against all the philosophical va


garies and radical moonshne of the day--that


the subject lends lively interest to its col


nmns. 1t was In dire need of such subject.


Its columns were dull they were stale and


fat, and If they were not also Improbable


there must be some great and general mistake


in the newspaper business. In the good days
Of Governor Raymond, also, the Times was oc-
casionaliy duh. Perhaps there was purpose


in it, People who are old fogies enough to
have read the 1dtt1er will remember that the
readers ofthat pleasant paper were requested
to believe that there was an especial purpose in
| view whenever the editor appeared particu-
larly dull; and the Times was always an old
fosy, even in its exuberant youth, and so likely
lived OH that thought. But then Raymond had
spurts He came out now and then with vig-
orous vitality. Here is just the difference b.
tween his paper and the remains of his paper.
Then the dulness was in the interval; recently
| il has been continuous and most intolerable.


So the discussion comes happily to the


Times, wakens it from the lethargy it had


fallen into and gives it all the vigor and force
| of good combative journal.


| All the row comes of the charge that
this, as the whole public knows, is one of
those simple matters of fact which so little
need especial perception for their discovery
that the dullest man may SEQ and say them.


1t is just the same as saying that the Tribune
is the organ OF protection and has the pig iron
| nightmare as common complaint. Just the
same as saying that it is nothing if not sta
tistical, or that Greeley bailed JEFF Davis,


or that the same Greeley is great


opponent of capital punishment, and in
court a day or two ago confessed that
he had lent his personal efforts to make
! more effective the prosecution that is trying to
| hang poor Mcfarland. Just the same, in fact,
as saying that Greeley is the most absurdly
inconsistent man on the face of the earth.
The tendencies of Tribune philosophy it was
always our especial province TO point out at
the time when that philosophy was dangerous,
because the public did not know Greeley SO
wei as it does now. We showed long ago TO
| what lamentabie consequences the isms OF
| which the Tribune was from tie beginning
| the advocate and organ must lead. We
showed that the philosopher who assails the
| restraints that such an institution as marriage
| impos IS, because these restraints seem to him
| oppressive to woman, would break down the
barrier that is woman's great refuge, safety


and security in society-and would make as
! great mistake as ii he sent his huckleberres


to the Farmers Club Cor prize pumpkins. or


tried to be Governor of the great State of New
York, with the assistance Of John Morrissey,


the prize fighter.


| 1t was, therefore, simply matter Of common
! knowledge that the Times stated when it said
that the Tribune was free love organ. The



sensibililies of the latter, aud this is natural
enough. None of these moonshny fellows
call their vagaries of thought by the same
names that other people call them. Nobody
sees his own conduct just as the world sees it.
Perhaps even Jack Reynolds thought he killed
poor old Townsend in chivalrous combat or
| self-defence The gamblers, pickpockets and
| pimps of Broadway call themselves sporting
men, There are two or three hundred ''eccen-


trio" men on Blackwells Island who believe


that all the world is insane and in q conspiracy
| to shut them-the only sane men-in dun


geons. So Greeley all his life has been labor
| ing under the delusion that he was fighting the
battles of the weak yainst the strong, and
| he has been forever riveting the chains that
| the strong hold the weak bound with. He
| has honestly believed that he was breaking
| down the barriers that stood in the way Of
the freedom of the people, and he was break
| ing down the barriers that society had built up
| from age to age as the protection of the people


against organized foes. He was never more
fagrantly caught in any stupendously mistaken


antics of this sort than in the free love vagares


to which he has given currency, and his con-


nection with which is now SO piquantiy ex-


posed by the old fogy, his neighbor. The


Times has caught this topic in happy vein,
| and il wise it will not let it rest.


| JERSEY JUSTICE. Jersey has an excel


lent record on the murder question. She does


hang murderers whenever she can catch them


and prove fair case against them. This is


excellent on her part in these days Of slipshod


philanthropy. But, then, Jersey has another


reputation beside that Of hanging murderers,


and this is that she cannot say her soul is her


own in the presence of any railroad company.


She will, in other words, positively punish crime
] losacr thara il rai ailroad in tho