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Some of the party decided to confine their explorations to dry land for the rest of the season, but on the 28th of July the Miranda with the others made a fresh start for South Greenland. After an unsuccessful attempt to reach Frederikshaab, the expedition brought up at Sukkertoppen, where several days were spent agreeably. In endeavoring to proceed to Disco the Miranda ran upon a reef and seriously injured her bottom. By great good luck the American fishing schooner Rigel of Gloucester was finally communicated with and induced to give up her voyage, take the party on board, and accompany the unseaworthy steamer to a port of repair. For this service the sum of $4,000 was agreed upon, being a fare of about $53 per head. On the 21st of August the two vessels left Greenland. Two days later the steamer was abandoned in a sinking condition, and with her loss the legal claim of the rescuing fishermen for remuneration also vanished. On the 5th of September the party were landed in North Sydney by Capt. Dixon, who seems to have done all that man could do for his unfortunate passengers. The owners of the Miranda stood on their legal rights and declined to pay the salvage, but contributed $250 to a subscription which was made by the party, the total amounting to about half the original contract. Mr. Walsh states:

"This little volume has been issued in the hope that the profits arising from its sale may at least amount to a fair portion of the balance morally, if not legally, due to the Captain and the crew of the Rigel."

The party divided at North Sydney, a portion of them leaving Halifax for New York on the steamer Portia, and, as if their previous adventures were not enough, off Cuttyhunk in a fog the Portia ran down and sank the schooner Dora French, by which four lives were lost.

Fourteen of the party, including Professors Brewer of Yale and G. F. Wright of Oberlin, have contributed to the book, which is profusely illustrated. While rather a record of adventure than a contribution to geography, Mr. Walsh's narrative is lively and interesting, and many of the pictures are excellent. In an Arctic library the book's chief use will be to point the very obvious moral implied in the inscription said to have adorned a sawmill, "Don't monkey with the buzz saw."

and though unsuccessful, it is doubtful if suc cess in the peculiar task assigned him was possible for any one. The spring of 1864 found him close to the Virginia boundary, and he was recalled to Lee's army in the general concentration of forces preliminary to the great campaigns which were to end the war.

In this long and arduous service Longstreet established a reputation for impetuous courage, united with cool-headed composure and tacti cal judgment on the field, second to none. His capacity to command as general-in-chief of a large army was not tested fully, and no discussion is more useless than that which deals with the probable success in independent commands of men whose work has been subordinate. When peace came, he established himself as a cotton-factor in New Orleans, and, for a time, business success seemed likely to compensate him for the loss of his military position. In 1867, however, he declared in favor of Southern acceptance of the logical results of the war, including the political enfranchisement of the freedmen. This was followed by ostracism on the part of his old friends, which quickly caused his business ruin. His conscientiousness was proved by the fact that, both then and since, he showed no political aspirations, nor has he sought to make profit by his change of party associations. The modest office of Surveyor of Customs was bestowed upon him by Gen. Grant unasked, moved by his personal generosity.

To the political enmities thus engendered, Gen. Longstreet attributes the attacks upon his military fame which have since been made by officers who served with him in the Confederate army; and the circumstances seem to justify him in doing so. The form of these attacks, however, has generally been that of depreciation. No one has ventured to deny his lion-like courage, his power to discipline his troops and to infuse his own invincible energy into them, or his devotion to the cause he was almost the last to despair of. But they say he was slow in the beginnings of action, that he was stubborn in sticking to his own ideas, and that thus he thwarted his chief and was the proximate cause of disaster on notable occasions, especially at the battle of Gettysburg. While, therefore, General Longstreet's memoirs cover the whole period of his military career, we find, as we might expect, that his vindication from aspersion becomes the most stimulating part of his book. As to the battle of Seven Pines in front of Richmond, his chief critic was General G. W. Smith, who succeeded to the Confederate command in the interval between the disabling of General Johnston and the appointment of Lee to the vacant place. Longstreet, who commanded the right wing, not only narrates fully the progress of the battle from his standpoint, and argues for the intelligent generalship with which the plans of the General-in-chief were carried out on the right, but he uses his old aggressive tactics, and turns the tables on his critic by asserting that it was the feeble and timid conduct of the left, where Smith commanded in person, that prevented a decisive success for

From Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of the Civil War in America. By James Longstreet, Lieutenant General Confederate Army. Illustrated. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. 8vo, pp. xxii, 690. FEW if any corps commanders on either side in our civil war had so long or so continuous field service as Gen. Longstreet. He was commandant of a brigade in the first battle of Bull Run, and more than half of all who surrendered with Lee at Appomattox were under his orders. With Stonewall Jackson he shared the honor of being Lee's principal subordinate, and for energy in field fighting he was brilliantly conspicuous throughout the war. He served continuously with the Army of Northern Virginia | the Confederate arms. except when sent to reinforce Bragg prior to the battle of Chickamauga, and in that sanguinary engagement he commanded the left wing of the Confederate army, whose fortune it was to break and roll back Rosecrans's right. The winter campaign in East Tennessee against Burnside, in which Knoxville was besieged, was made by Longstreet with a small army detached from Bragg. This was Longstreet's only service as an independent commander;

As to Gettysburg, the dispute hinges upon the orders for the second day, when, it is asserted, Lee commanded an attack at sunrise by Longstreet, who did not make it till afternoon. Longstreet peremptorily denies that such an order was issued, asserts that Lee knew that the troops could not possibly reach the field and attack at any such hour, gives evidence that the contingency on which Lee ordered any attack did not occur till late in the fore

noon, and that Lee personally and by his staff controlled the preliminary movements, which extended far beyond the time at which it was pretended the attack was to be made. Events on other parts of the field are made to throw light upon and to support his case. His principal critics here have been Gens. Early, Pendleton, and Fitzhugh Lee.

In the West he condemns the generalship of Bragg at and after Chickamauga, and especially the separation of his own troops from Bragg's army when Grant was preparing for the aggressive campaign of Missionary Ridge. The forces with him, he asserts, were too few for a quick and successful coup de main against Burnside, yet so many as to imperil by their absence the position of the main army, and so gave to Grant double chances of victory.

As the criticisms upon Longstreet impugn the value of his services to his chief, it was natural that he should give the evidence of Lee's confidence in him as a soldier and his trust in him as a faithful comrade and friend. The frank and free correspondence between them seems to establish this beyond reasonable controversy. It is not too much to say that Lee had fullest faith in Longstreet's ability and character. He listened to his subordinate's suggestions with respect, and continuously intrusted to him large responsibilities in the execution of his plans. When Longstreet had been separated from the Virginia army, Lee welcomed him back to his old place with a cordiality which left no room to doubt the confidence between them. At Appomattox itself Lee delayed his own consent to consider the necessity of surrender till Longstreet was convinced that the last hope was gone.

The memoir is a work without which the literature of the war would be incomplete. The personal views of so prominent a character are part of the evidence which cannot be spared. The revelations of his own character are a great help in judging of every event in which he had a part. His methods of action and of thought, his canons of military judg. ment, his influence upon officers and men, are all worthy of careful study, because his prominent position made them all factors in the results of the campaigns in which he fought. It is impossible within the limits of this notice to examine all the evidence which the official records contain, and to attempt to judge adequately the controversies between Longstreet and his critics. That will be the work of historians in the future. But it is safe to say that no investigator will fail to reckon the memoir among the most important sources of information on which the history of the Confederacy must be built.

It is evident that Longstreet has not availed himself of literary help as much as in some former papers of his which have been published. His book is not as smooth in style as those papers, but it gains as a personal presentation of himself. His very mannerisms are characteristic and smack of the camp. Blunt, careless, sometimes even egotistic, be "says his say" with a kind of defiant earnestness which commands attention and rouses sympathy. The references in footnotes to the official records are made under the name of Rebellion Record,' which is somewhat mis. leading, since there is a well-known and luminous private publication with that name, and the author's intention is to refer to the 'Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies,' published by the Government.

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NEW YORK, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1896.

The Week.

THE final vote in the House on the freecoinage issue on Friday was considerably larger than in committee of the whole on the previous day-305 on both sides, as against 270-but equally disastrous to the silverites, who fell considerably short of polling one-third, only 90 out of 305. An analysis of the vote shows how deceptive is the apparent strength of free coinage in the Senate as an index of popular sentiment. The nine States in the Rocky Mountain region and on the Pacific Slope -Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, California, Oregon, and Washington-were solid for free coinage in the Senate save for one nay vote from Oregon; and those nine States have onefifth of all the Senators. The same nine States were solid on the same side in the House on Friday, but they have altogether only one-twentieth of the Representatives. The utter hopelessness of the silver cause is demonstrated by the fact that the great States east of the Rocky Mountains and north of the Ohio and Potomac, which dominate the popular branch, are already overwhelmingly against it, and growing more pronounced against it in each Congress. Even in the Senate the changes already assured will deprive the silverites of their present narrow majority after the 4th of March, 1897.

it, that threatens our security." That
notion shuts off one method of end-
ing the dispute. What is the alterna-
tive? Arbitration, says Davis. But sup-
pose the arbitrators should give away
the very same territory that Venezuela
offered to give without arbitration. It
is still the giving of the territory, and
not the method of giving, that threatens
our security. So there is logically no way
of settling the question. After you have
once introduced the Monroe Doctrine
where it does not belong, then in order to
reach any solution whatever you must go
back to the beginning and reexamine your
premises. You pitchforked it in and now
you must pitchfork it out. It is gratify-
ing to learn, however, from the author of
the Davis resolution that there will be no

war.

Congress cannot stop to debate about going to war, but it can spend days in denouncing attempts to save money and put an end to governmental abuses. The agricultural appropriation bill is making slow progress in the House on account of the mad rush of speakers who want to expose Secretary Morton for cutting down their supplies of seeds. Things have reached such a pass that, as one indignant member said, he had but fifteen grape cuttings and twenty-five strawberry plants to distribute among 216,000 constituents. Can the Government long continue or conventions be packed under such a system? The only remedy was pointed out by Mr. Livingston of Georgia. Get a Secretary with the people that plough all the week, "in touch with the people "-above all, then unhitch their mule and ride him ten miles on Saturday night to get their mail in which they find a few papers of Government seeds, and cry out, "I am a citizen of a great country, and I am not forgotten, though never so humble!" There is no answering this, but the trouble is that Mr. Livingston and his kind have so many other awkward and expensive ways of reminding the plain people that they are citizens of a great country. A little while ago he was having us declare war with England for this purpose; and for the same end he says we must build the Nicaragua Canal, spend millions on a navy, and debase the currency. If seeds alone would do it, we might not object; but the entire process of making us citizens of a other. Mr. Olney and the President great country is certain to be so ruinous

Senator Davis of Minnesota has made his speech in favor of the Davis resolution reported by the committee on foreign relations. This resolution has fallen so dead in the country at large that few people now remember its existence. Mr. Davis has drawn attention to the reasons for its early demise and speedy interment. The resolution, of course, had its rise and its very raison d'être in the Venezuelan boundary dispute. But as this dispute was over a question of fact, viz., Where did a certain boundary run? and did not necessarily involve the acquisition of new territory by a European Power, still less the introduction of a European system on this continent, the Monroe Doctrine was not concerned in the matter one way or the

lugged it in, however. In order to leave themselves a line of retreat, they said that if Venezuela and Great Britain should come to an agreement as to the boundary, of course we should have nothing to say against it. "What's that?" exclaims Davis. "Beg your pardon; that gives away Monroe completely. Venezuela must not be allowed to cede her territory. It is the getting of the territory, and not the method of getting

that we had better draw the line firmly
even at worthless and expensive seeds.

The movement for a treaty of arbitration with Great Britain is gaining ground rapidly, and many newspapers which were hot for war on the subject of Venezuela a few weeks ago, are now urging the negotiation of such a treaty. One of the advantages of arbitration, which has

not received the attention it deserves, is that it would largely dispense with the need of fleets and fortifications. The only object of battle-ships and heavy guns is fighting. The object of arbitration is to avoid fighting. Fighting is expensive, while arbitration is cheap. It may be assumed that a treaty of arbitration with England would enable us to dispense with 90 per cent. of the forts and fleets that the Jingoes are calling for, because none of them ever talk of war with any other country. We never hear any speeches from Lodge or Frye about war with France or Germany or Russia. If the Jingoes were deprived of the chance of war with England, they would be reduced to silence or compelled to address themselves to the arts of peace. A chance occasion might arise two or three times in a century for trouble with second or third-rate Powers like Spain or Chili, but these would not serve as a basis for a permanent Jingo party, or for extensive seacoast defences and a corresponding increase in the reguJar army. We are glad to learn that a conference of the friends of arbitration is soon to be held at Washington city, at which the various branch societies will be represented and the work of organization laid out on a large scale.

The Evening Post has taken some pains to procure a history of the Vene

zuelan concess ons to American citizens which have cut some figure in the boundary dispute with British Guiana. We are glad to be able to say that at no period in the history of the Manoa Company, or of its successor, the Orinoco Company, so far as these researches go, has the existence of American interests in Venezuela had any influence with our Government in the premises, or any bearing in the dispute. On the contrary, it appears that when Mr. Olney's attention was attracted to those interests by a rather loudsounding newspaper interview or letter of one of the Manoans, he took pains to let the Government of Venezuela know that such interests could in no way affect the treatment of the boundary question by us. The late Secretary Gresham, we have reason to believe, went a little further and warned certain persons in official life not to connect themselves privately with matters in which the Government might be that our Government was entirely clear of publicly concerned. While it appears influence or bias on this score, it is equally plain that the Venezuelan authorities expected to enlist political influence in this country by grants of land with indefinite boundaries, and that the grantees, construing "the limits of British Guiana " to suit themselves, entered upon the disputed territory; that when the British au thorities warned them off, Gen. Guzman

Blanco complained of this act as an assumption of British authority over the territory in question, in violation of the agreement to consider it neutral ground, and ignored completely the fact that the concessionaries had first invaded it and were acting under Venezuelan authority; that Blanco was himself a stockholder of the Manoa Company; that when he found out in 1886 that the Manoans were without influence at Washington, the land grant was cancelled and given to George Turnbull; and that Mr. Turnbull went to work to develop the property or some portion of it, Affairs ran on in this way until last June, when the Turnbull concession was revoked and that of the Manoa Company revived. It was then turned over to a Wisconsin corporation called the Orinoco Company, in which Mr. Donald Grant of Faribault, Minnesota, was the most important partner. The stock of the new company was fixed at $25,000,000, but, aside from this rather imposing capitalization and one or two journeys to Venezuela by the new proprietors, nothing of much interest has been done. It is said that the Government of Venezuela agrees that, in case the disputed territory goes eventually to British Guiana, it will grant territory of equal extent and value to the concessionaries, but in view of the frequent revolutions in that country such a promise cannot be considered a very safe one for the investment of money.

One of the pending proposals of the Senate is to kill all the seals on the Pribyloff Islands, to save them, from the pelagic sealers-evidently a reminiscence of the famous policy of the beasts which "committed suicide to save themselves from slaughter." The seals are, however, not to be saved in this way without an attempt to get Great Britain to agree to more stringent regulations. It is difficult to see what Great Britain can do, how ever, in view of the fact that we have found out, since the Bering Sea arbitration, that a large proportion of the early sealers who made the trouble were Americans. Will not these wicked Americans continue their operations no matter what Great Britain can say or do? We fear they will, and therefore the seals must go. We shall be only too thankful if they go without causing war. We were very near saving these interesting beasts by a slaughter of men which would have beaten that of the pelagic villains hollow in numbers and atrocity.

We are now within four months of the Republican national convention, and the choice of delegates has already begun,

snap" conventions having been held in some Congressional districts of New York, Pennsylvania, and two or three Southern States. The time has therefore arrived when the political arithmeticians begin to construct tables of the probable totals for the various candidates, and the outlook is

really becoming sufficiently clear to justify an opinion as to the probable outcome. The most striking feature of the situation is the strength of McKinley, particularly in the West. The Chicago Tribune and some other leading Republican newspapers in that section have made canvasses in several important States which seem to leave no doubt that the Ohio candidate has, at present, more support than all his rivals together. In Indiana he seems likely to secure two-thirds of the delegation; in Illinois, 98 out of 151 editors of Republican organs throughout the State, including the country weeklies, which usually reflect correctly local sentiment, are for him against the field; in Wisconsin, out of 53 well-known Republicans in different parts of the State questioned by the Mi!waukee Sentinel, 34 are for McKinley, as against 10 for other candidates and 9 who express no preference; in Michigan, Republican editors in 34 counties report him first choice in 22; in Missouri out of 57 Republican editors 51 favor him. A curious and somewhat unexpected feature of the canvass is the fact that McKinley is stronger in the agricultural States of the West than in the manufacturing States of the East. This is due in part, of course, to the facts that New England has a candidate in Reed, and that the New York and Pennsylvania delegations are going to St. Louis nominally for Morton and Quay respectively; but even as second choice the Ohio aspirant is less of a favorite in the East than might have been expected.

McKinley's prominence as the representative of a high tariff gives him a tremendous advantage over his rivals in "the sinews of war." Since slavery was abolished, and a small class of rich planters in the South ceased to have an immense pecuniary interest in the control of the Government, we have never seen a time when so much capital saw its own advantage in the election to the Presidency of one man as the protected interests have to-day in the elevation of McKinley. His managers consequently can spend money with profusion in all of the many ways that contribute to the control of caucuses and conventions, and to the holding in line of delegates at St. Louis. This last is a matter of great importance as regards delegates from the South, who oftentimes can be bought more than once. In any such contest the representative of the protected interests is pretty sure to come out ahead. Already the Reed men complain that some of the delegates from Louisiana whom ex-Gov. Kellogg supposed that he had "fixed" for the Speaker, are out for McKinley. The latter has still another advantage over his rivals in the fact that he is now out of office, and can be "all things to all men," without being compelled to make choice between claimants for the privileges that the Speaker of the House dispenses, or to vote either for or against the silverites, as the Iowa Senator had to do the other

day, or to decide whether he will stand with the boss or with the people, as the Governor of New York will soon be required to do. As regards silver especially, this helps McKinley in the silver States, which have delegates enough to be worth considering.

There is no question whatever of the truth and accuracy of the Tribune's statement of Platt's Greater New York plans. No other scheme of political rascality ever planned against the people of this city equals this. Lauterbach was so delighted with it when Platt unfolded it to him that he could not keep still about it, but at once told the Republican Boys of it. It means political places and plunder to an extent never dreamed of before, and for that reason not only the Republican politicians of this city, but those of all parts of the State, will be in favor of it. This is the danger which confronts the city. Platt's power over the Legislature is absolute. He holds up before all the Republican members and politicians from the rural districts the prospect of rule by Republican commissions of the great cities of New York and Brooklyn for an indefinite period, and they cannot resist its attraction.

Then he proposes to create, with his liquor-tax bill, a State machine with with "places" for hundreds of men, control of the vast liquor interests of the whole State, and with the large cities taxed for the benefit of the rural sections. In the presence of all this gain for the rural sections, the "hayseed" legislator does not "stand dumb," but becomes vociferous with enthusiasm for Platt.

It must be realized by all opponents of Platt's designs that he is by far the most powerful boss this State has ever seen. Tammany bosses have had merely local power. They have had no strength behind them outside this city. Platt has the State behind him, with a large Republican majority, for it is in the rural sections that his machine is most powerful.

For the first time now he has full control of the city machine, and his control of the Legislature is making it possible for him to plunder the cities for the benefit of the country. There has been much talk about Republican opposition to him in Brooklyn, but it is suspected that he has been able to overcome this during the past week. In fact, a boss with such a magnificent programme of plunder as he is unfolding is invincible in his own party. No politician can hold out long before so dazzling a vision. If the programme is to be carried out, if all the plunder is to be gathered into the hands of the boss for distribution, the first thought of every practical politician is not to be "left" when the distribution begins. It behooves all inhabitants of the two cities who do not wish to have their power to govern themselves filched from them, to wake up to the danger

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