The Century Company have issued the first number of "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War," written by generals on both sides and by other participants. It is proposed to issue this work in thirty-two parts-two each month-at 50 cents each. The parts will contain 96 pages each, and the whole will make four volumes.

The July number of Lippincott's Magazine will be largely a Southern one, with such names as Julia Magruder, Thomas Nelson Page, Robert Burns Wilson, Amelie Rives, &c., among its contributors. The prize essay on "Social Life at the University of Virginia" is contributed by John B. Minor, jr., an undergraduate.

Owen Meredith, the present Earl of Lytton, has of late years done little to add to the literary reputation gained by "Lucile," but he has lately completed a very delightful translation from the German of three tales by Karl Erdman Edler, whose writings have been so justly popular among his own people for the last twenty years.

Hon. David A. Wells will contribute to the July Popular Science Monthly the first of an important series of papers on "The Economic Disturbances Since 1873." Mr. Wells proposes to review the history of these disturbances, and to point out agencies to which such wide-reaching commercial depression may be properly attributed.

A new volume of the unpublished works of Victor Hugo is announced in Paris. It is entitled "Choses-Vue," and is in the nature of special reporting of notable events. It describes the funerals of Napoleon and Mlle. Mars, and the death of Balzac; and it contains personal articles on Thiers, Rochefort, Beranger, Talleyrand, and Lord Normanby.

Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth, whose prolific pen has produced a vast amount of fiction in the past 20 years, is making her annual visit to her old home in Georgetown, D. C. During the greater part of the year she resides at Yonkers, N. Y. Mrs. Southworth receives a large salary for devoting her entire time to the interests of the New York Ledger.

Mr. William Winter has written the poem which will be read at the unveiling of the monument dedicated to the Actors' Fund on June 6. Mr. George Edgar Montgomery has written a choral poem for the same occasion, to be sung under the direction of Mr. Jesse Williams by one hundred male voices chosen from the musical theaters of New York.

Mrs. John Sherwood's work, entitled "Manners and Social Usages," has been in great demand among American readers since its publication a few years ago, and has come to be regarded as the authority upon etiquette. Mrs. Sherwood has revised and enlarged the work by the addition of several chapters, and Harper & Brothers will publish the new edition this week.

General Sherman has written a letter to the editor of the Century, which will appear in the July number, wherein he commends the war papers, and expresses "entire satisfaction with the course of your magazine in collecting from the witnesses while living their personal testimony-every article of which I have read, in common with millions of our people."

Mrs. Mary L. Barr, whose Scotch dialect stories are becoming so much talked about, began her literary career in her fifty-fourth year. She was at that time left a widow with four children to support, and in taking stock of her resources found them to consist solely of her woman's wit and fifty cents in cash. She wrote because she must write to eat, and the public read because she wrote well.

The London Spectator frankly declares that American authors "are greater proficients than their English rivals" in the art of writing short stories. It claims that "no intelligent reader of the lighter American and English magazines, in which short stories are numerous, can fail to feel how much more original in theme and more artistic in treatment in such work" the American writers are.

Thomas Whittaker, of New York, publishes the "Recent Past, Viewed from a Southern Standpoint," by Bishop Wilmer, of Alabama. It is a book certain to attract attention. It is written by a man of positive convictions, and a Southern man, but it is no partisan work. In it the South may be considered as herself speaking. The book gives the other side of the great conflict and will attract wide attention.

"Here,"

Lord Beaconsfield, it is said, did not care for other novelists. said he on one occasion, pointing to an edition de luxe of "Romola," "is the gift from my gracious sovereign, and I am ashamed to confess thut I cannot read it." Mr. Gladstone's tastes are more catholic. He finds the reading of "David Copperfield" a holiday task. But he is, perhaps, more charmed by works which have a touch of old-world romance, like Mr. Shorthouse's "John Inglesant."

Mr. F. Saunders, of the Astor Library, has browsed among its books for nearly the third of a century-he is in every sense a book-worm. "Salad for the Solitary and Social," and "Pastime Papers," two delight

SUMMER TOURS.-Excursion tickets to Deer Park, Oakland, Mountain Lake park, and all the other famous Summer Resorts and Medicinal Springs in Maryland, Pennsylvania, the Virginias, and North Carolina, are now on sale at all principal stations along the line of the Baltimore and Ohio R. R. These tickets are valid for return passage until October 31st, and are good for stop-over privileges both going and returning. B. & O. Ticket Agents at minor stations will secure Excursion Tickets for passengers desiring to take trains at such stations, provided application is made a few days in advance.

ful books, are the fruit of his studies. They will remind older readers of Disraeli's Curiosities of Literature, though unlike them. They are full of curious and quaint learning, and are delightful companions to all lovers of "good books." They deserve their names "Salad" and "Pastime."

A copy of the original edition of "Childe Harold," Canto iv., with MS. notes, has just turned up in London. On the back of the title-page is the following penciled note: “This is the first time I have seen the volume since its publication. There are some errors in the printing and many in the pointing.-Byron." At the foot of the page is another note, also in Byron's handwriting: "Mr. J. Murray (the printer) is a careless blockhead, and forgets that in addressing the Deity a blunder may become a blasphemy.-Venice, September 23, 1818."-The Epoch.

The well-known Norwegian writer, Krogh, the author of the romance "Albertine," has been condemned to pay a fine of 400 kroner, on the ground that certain passages of that romance have been "incriminated as immoral." Nor is this all; the whole unsold remainder of the work on the publisher's shelves, amounting to 390 copies, has been confiscated by the police. It is possibly more surprising, but equally gratifying, to learn that a Paris jury has condemned M. Dubut de Leforest, on account of some obscene passages in his last novel, to two months' imprisonment and a fine of 1,000 francs.

An Englishman condemns Americanisms, calling attention to "rare meat," fleshy," "despatch," "homely," "dry goods store," janitor," "elevator," "points" (for "tips"), "mailing a letter," "depot," "candy," "calico," and "pie" (for "tarts"). These are all good and necessary words, quite as proper and correct as those which the English use for substitutes. The word "Americanism" will not scare any self-respecting citizen of this Republic, for we are too numerous and too well educated to yield to the dictation of an island that includes in itself more than a hundred dialects and varieties of patois.- Washington Post.

Mr. Will Carleton, whose humorous poem, "McFluffey's Canoe," is one of the features of this week's number of Harper's Weekly, is among the most industrious as well as the most successful of literary men. As a lecturer he is untiring, and his popularity upon the platform is unrivalled. He has recently been enlarging the scope of his efforts, and is contributing to the magazines and newspapers articles and letters in prose which attract wide attention. Meanwhile his muse is not inactive, and he is at work on a new volume of poems, while the wonderful demand for his volumes already published shows no sign of abatement.

Messrs. J. B. Lippincott Company announce that they have nearly ready an examination of the subject of spiritualism by the philosophical writer John Darby, generally understood to be Dr. James E. Garretson, well known as a surgical teacher and author. The work is entitled Nineteenth Century Sense: The Paradox of Spiritualism," and, considering Dr. Garretson's learning and ability, we doubt not it is a very thorough and comprehensive discussion of the subject, which will awaken considerable interest among thoughtful persons. We understand that the author's method is quite ingenious and original, and that, aiming as he does to reconcile the apparently unreconcilable, his conclusions will prove worthy of the careful consideration of both friends and opponents of the doctrines of spiritualism.

Arabella B. Buckley, author of that excellent book, "The Fairy-Land of Science," has come before the public again with a history of England for beginners. The author says that while giving as far as possible the chief facts required by students she has been "especially anxious" to present a vivid picture of the life, the difficulties, and the achievements of the English people, showing how their laws, their constitution, their trade, and their colonies have arisen. All this the author seems to have accomplished. Special pains have apparently been taken to secure accuracy and completeness in geographical and chronological details. The volume is furnished with colored maps and numerous charts and tables. The volume will serve an admirable purpose as an introduction to English history. It is published by Macmillan & Co.

The conferring of the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws upon Mr. George W. Childs by the Grant Memorial University of Tennessee has been greeted with approval throughout the country, particularly by his brother editors in Philadelphia. The Press declares that it would not be easy to name any one in Philadelphia by whom the active virtues of the upright and public-spirited citizen have been more diligently practiced than by Mr. Childs. The Evening Telegraph thinks that the Grant Memorial University has honored itself by honoring Mr. Childs. The Record says that Dr. Childs deserves all the titles by which appreciative men are accustomed to do honor to good men. The Evening Bulletin finds that the honor has seldom been conferred upon any citizen more deserving of being so complimented; and the Evening Call adds that no degree can supplant that which Mr. Childs has rightfully earned as the foremost citizen of the Republic.

INTENDING purchasers of POND'S EXTRACT cannot take too much precaution to prevent substitution. Some druggists, trading on the popularity of the great Family Remedy, attempt to palm off other preparations, unscrupulously asserting them to be "the same as," or "equal to," POND'S EXTRACT, indifferent to the decelt practiced upon any disappointment thereby caused to the purchaser, so long as larger profits accrue to themselves. Always insist on having POND'S EXTRACT. Take no other.

SOLD IN BOTTLES ONLY; NEVER BY MEASURE. Quality uniform, Prepared only by POND'S EXTRACT 00., New York and London. See our name on every wrapper and label.-Advt.

"AN INEXORABLE LAW OF THE HUMAN MIND."

St. Louis Republican (Dem.), June 18.

AS MEN pass the line between mature manhood and old age the natural tendency of the mind is to revert to the scenes and incidents of youth. The occurrences of middle life grow dim while the events which preceded it rise fresher and fresher in recollection and become more fixed and enduring in memory as the years pass. The present and the more recent past lose their importance and the mind dwells in the period of its greatest receptivity. Of this the generation which now "bears the burden and heat of the day" in the affairs of this country has just received a striking proof in the outburst of the feelings of the past generation, elicited by the incident of the flags-a strange anachronism in the bustling, prosperous, peaceful life of the present. For an instant it seemed that time had turned backward for a quarter of a century and that the passions which precipitated the carnage of civil war were still in their first heat and glow. Then it passes, and we see that it is not a development of the life of the present, but only old men's memories. Saddening at first, such incidents soon become merely pathetic. It is inevitable that as the men of Sixty-One grow older they will become more and more imbued with the old spirit-less and less susceptible of the influences of the new. It is an inexorable law of the human mind that it should lose its receptivity as the body loses its vigor and so return upon itself-living more in itself and receiving fewer impressions from the outside.

ADJUTANT-GENERAL DRUM.

New York Star (Dem.), June 19.

THE episode in which General Drum has figured so largely will, we fear, revive a question frequently agitated in the past, but never satisfactorily settled. We refer to the question of the necessity for the large and more or less brilliant galaxy of military talent collected together in the adjutant-general's department. Many persons have denied the necessity. Many have gone so far as to say that Mr. Tite Barnacle himself never guessed one-half of what those adjutant-generals know about the art of "how not to do it." And now the disclosure of General Drum's activity in the matter of returning flags that nobody had asked for and everybody had forgotten will perhaps renew the controversy. How very unfortunate-for the adjutant-generals-if it should appear that General Drum was goaded into this enterprise by sheer ennui; that, going to his office day after day, month after month, year after year, and finding there nothing to stir the pulseless puddle of his life, save, perhaps, a little gossip from the Army and Navy Cotilion Club, or a flutter of petticoats over some soft Washington assignment, he at last waxed desperate under the dull, down-bearing pressure of stagnation and plunged into the first temptation that presented itself. It would be unfortunate, we say, for the adjutant-generals seem to like the dreary waste of their department careers, and such a disclosure as we suggest might remind the country of the old maxim about mischief and idle hands.

"A MONUMENTAL BLUNDER."

Baltimore American (Rep.), June 20.

PERHAPS the whole history of American politics does not present a more unaccountable freak than President Cleveland's order about the captured flags. It is so very unique that it amounts to a real curiosity. There was not the slightest call for it; the action was solely and entirely gratuitous. The only possible result might have been a little cheap popularity in the South. It was one of those things for which there was not the slightest reason or excuse, and when the President found out what he had done he was compelled to back down, and to add to his retraction an acknowledgment that he had been careless, and had arrogated to himself powers which belonged exclusively to Congress. The whole matter was a monumental blunder, which not only damages the author but also injures the party to which he belongs. Nor is that all. The political effect that was expected in the South has not been forthcoming. Sentiment down that way, as reflected in the newspapers, does not ask for the return of the flags. The people don't want them. In a quiet way the papers acknowledge that the flags might better remain where they are, and there is a disposition to criticise the President for obtruding such an unnecessary row upon the country. Cleveland is catching it on all sides.

A WORD FROM SOUTH CAROLINA. Charleston News and Courier (Dem.), June 18. THE retention of the flags in their present place means one thing. Their return, as was intended, would have meant another thing. The widespread and passionate protest of official spokesmen of Federal veterans shows, too plainly to be mistaken, which meaning prevails as an active sentiment in their ranks, and, since it so prevails, it is well that the sentiment has found timely expression. The bare fact of the return of the flags, in the absence of the exalted motive implied by their transfer, would be a ceremonious fraud. Let them remain where they are, and where they certainly should remain under the circumstances. To paraphrase Commander Fairchild's fervid adjuration, May the hand be

paralyzed that would receive them as the tokens of a spirit of peace and union and good will, unless that spirit be sincere and widespread, if not universal. They were lost on the field of honor. Better that they shall never be returned than that they should come back to us dishonored as the emblems of a shallow falsehood, perpetrated in the name of a reunited country. The Grand Army claims the trophies of its valor. Let it keep them until it, too, can acknowledge that the Union, for which alone it professes to have fought, is something more than a name.

"AN INCIDENT OF A GENERAL POLICY."

Omaha Republican (Rep.), June 18.

THERE was nothing in the order of the President that should have occasioned astonishment. It was in perfect keeping with his course ever since he took the oath of office. Why should such an order surprise any one coming from the man who sneered at crippled Union soldiers; who interposed between a grateful people and the widows and orphans of the nation's dead; who turned thousands of Union soldiers out of office and put unrepentant rebels in their places; who permitted the American flag to be lowered as a token of respect to the vilest trator in the whole lot, "Jake" Thompson, the advocate of the importation of contagious diseases into the families of Federal soldiers, and of incendiarism into the Northern cities, but who failed to order it lowered on the death of an ex-VicePresident because he was a Republican, and therefore loyal to the country; who refused to attend the unveiling of a monument to the Union dead, and sent a letter of regret that he could not attend the dedication of a monument to a Confederate general; who went fishing on a day set apart by the nation to pay tribute to those who died in defense of the flag; and, finally, a President whose administration has been notable for nothing except a purpose to surrender to the South what it failed to gain by force. The order for the surrerder of the rebel flags was simply an incident of a general policy. But it was the last straw that broke the camel's back. That is why the Old Guard of the Republic rose up in arms, and why the loyal blood of the nation boiled.

"HE DIDN'T KNOW."

New York Sun (Dem.), June 21.

A SLIGHT reflection upon the past life of President Cleveland will dispose of any feeling of surprise that may have been excited by his order about the captured flags. Why should he have known of the universal and deep-seated sentiment that he so outraged? Up to the time that he became prominent he was singularly separated from all matters of public and general concern. When the war broke out he avoided taking part in it, and by sending a substitute was enabled to continue in the quiet and secluded sort of life that he preferred. Few people knew him, and consequently he knew and sympathized with few people. There is no reason for supposing that the crisis which convulsed the nation and wrought the popular mind to unprecedented tension ever added an extra beat to his pulse. The popular fears and passions had but very moderate interest for him, and it was from this obscurity and self-isolation that by a freak of fortune he was put into politics and rushed to the White House. Not being originally inspired with the peculiar national sentiment which was born of the war and has survived it, it is no wonder that he failed even to be conscious of its existence until the fact was forced upon him in such an emphatic manner that, although he did not share in the feeling, he was compelled to submit to its dictation.

"THE MATTER WILL NOT BE DROPPED NOW."
Boston Journal (Rep.), June 17.

BEFORE the order was issued Washington correspondents had called attention to the statute prohibiting such action as this order contemplated. The attention of officers of the War Department was called to this law, and its relevancy was denied and the order was issued. Thereupon there arose a cry of indignant protest from all parts of the North, and particularly the North west. This finally reached the President's ears and led him to examine the law and to discover that he had caused an order to be issued in violation of the public statutes. What sort of a performance could be more humiliating? Unfortunately for the Presi dent, his retreat will not lead him out of his predicament. He has put himself on record as desiring to do the thing which has caused such a general protest, and has caused the country to believe that he would have done it without inquiring about its lawfulness if he had not aroused such angry hostility to the scheme by his order. The matter will not be dropped now. The country will seek to know the inspiration and the motive of this order. It will want to know who asked to have the flags returned, and if it is assumed that there was no demand, what object had the President and his advisers in view in offering to return these mementos to the States?

THE THANKS OF LOYAL MILLIONS,

New York Tribune (Rep.), June 19.

WHAT a commentary it is on the election of 1884, that a free nation whose suppression of a slave-holders' rebellion is the grandest thing in

all its history, contrived to choose a President who does not know the difference between the flag of freedom and justice and the flag of treason and slavery! He does not even now, and, in his pitiful letter revoking the order given, intimates that it would have been right and praiseworthy and eminently patriotic to return the captured flags, if the law permitted, and even suggests that Congress may make it lawful to return them. Mementoes of as foul a crime as any in human history, proofs where they now rest that the crime met punishment, these flags he would send to be cherished as emblems of heroism by States which now profess to be loyal, there to teach the lesson that valor for treason's cause, devotion to slavery's cause, are worth the affection and honor of a new generation. That is the kind of President given to the nation by the "Holierthan-thou" voters of 1884. The thanks of loyal millions belong to him, as to Jefferson Davis, for many utterances showing the unchanged spirit of disloyalty.

"A TREMENDOUS ROW." Atlanta Constitution (Dem.), June 20.

IT IS said that the proposition to return the captured flags to the Southern States originated with Secretary Endicott, who was probably at no trouble to examine the law. The Secretary's suggestion was acquiesced in by the President, and the result has been a tremendous row on the part of certain Republican politicians who are anxious to capture the vote of the Grand Ariny of the Republic. The Constitution has taken a good deal of interest in this row, and it has observed that the biggest fuss is made by a few obscure blatherskites who are anxious to make political capital out of the incident. It is a singular fact that not one Republican who has achieved any degree of prominence has made any protest against the proposition to return the flags. The riot is confined to a chap named Fairchild, to J. B. Foraker, and to Murat Halstead. On the other hand, it is worthy of note that the South has not mingled its perspiration with the midsummer sweat that is oozing from the pores of the Republican blatherskites. As a matter of fact, the South is all serene and all solid. The flag episode is hardly worth talking about. There are no Confederate States, and nobody in the section where the Confederate States once existed is anxious for the return of the captured flags. On the contrary, there is a sneaking notion down here that the captured flags are where they belong, and where they ought to be. They belong to the nation, and, as the South is a definite part of the nation, it believes that the flags should be preserved in the national archives. One thing is certain: the mistake made by Secretary Endicott is not a political matter, and blatherskites like Fairchild and Halstead will discover that they cannot make political fuss out of it.

AN ALLEGED ISSUE OF '88.

Cincinnati Commercial Gazette (Rep.), June 20.

GROVER CLEVELAND is the personification of the spurious sympathies and hypocritical fraudulency of the combination; and he and his surroundings have given the country an object lesson by their conduct in respect to the rebel flags. Their recognition of the Confederate States, their studied phrases asserting the equality in political morals of the opposing sides in the war, and equal respect due the flags on both sides of the field, display the treacherous venom that still rankles in the Democratic party-South and North. The claim that we have a non-sectional Administration is an assertion that it is the duty of the people at large of the whole country to be submissive to the ruling caste in the South, to recognize the Solid South as entitled to guide the Government; to reproach the loyal men of the North as the anti-slavery men were reproached; to deprecate opposition to caste rule as sectionalism, and extend the domain of the actual criminals and incompetents of the rebellion over the United States. It is this precisely that the Administration means that the Democratic party stands for; and upon the issues thus presented the contest of 1888 is to be determined.

"JUST AS WELL AS IT IS."

Mobile Register (Dem.), June 18.

THE most charitable conclusion to come to in regard to Fairchild is that he is a fanatic as regards the war. His sole claim to public notice rests upon badges, camp-fires, banners, and flags. He is immersed in a sense of his own importance, and thinks the country is in danger of forgetting the doughty deeds of himself and comrades, many of whom confined their valor to bomb-proof positions, though Fairchild himself was in the field. We believe that if the law had been with the War Department the President would have adhered to his decision. But it is just as well as it is. The reception to R. E. Lee Camp, of Richmond, Va., in Boston, Mass., is another evidence of the fact that we are now one people. We have as much to do with the Government as anybody else. If we choose to we can rummage among the boxes in the War Department attic and take a look at those flags, and that is about as much as we can do anywhere else. So let Governor Foraker be comforted; let the great and only Tuttle cease to flap his ears; let the Most Eminent High Supreme Muckimuck Fairchild rest content that there is no danger of the country forgetting the bravery of Union soldiers.

"COWARDLY RAPSCALLIONS OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY." New Orleans States (Dem.), June 17.

THE fierce expressions used in the protests forwarded to the President show that the hatred of the North is as bitter as it was the day Lee surrendered at Appomattox, and Southerners, even those now in swaddling clothes, will be hated and denounced as traitors until some complication with a foreign power will compel the cowardly rapscallions of the Republican party to recognize the fact that the South is a part of this country and this Government, and will do far more than they to protect the flag about which they are always croaking. The idea of returning the Confederate flags originated with General Drum, of the War Department, and no request to return them came from the South. When the matter was submitted to and approved by Secretary Endicott the President orally consented to the arrangement, but in view of the lusty howls which the patriots of the North have sent up against the action of the War Department, he has issued an order to take no further steps in the matter, and that the final disposition of the flags is a question which should be submitted to Congress.

"THE HEARTS OF THE MASSES."

Savannah News (Dem.), June 18.

DOES it not seem as if there were "bloody-shirt" politics at the bottom of this Grand Army indignation and excitement? It certainly looks as if the Republican leaders and organs have stirred up the excitement over the proposition to distribute the flags with the hope of getting some fresh campaign material. If that were the purpose of the bitter speeches and resolutions it is doubtful if they meet with much success. The hearts of the people are not filled with hate and bitterness, and they are not likely to be influenced by sectional issues. It is worthy of notice that the Confederate veterans from Richmond were given a most enthusiastic reception at Boston on Thursday, and that the people of that city vied with each other in showing their kindly feeling for them within the shadow of Bunker Hil! monument. The small politicians may howl themselves hoarze, but the hearts of the masses will not respond to the doctrine of hate. The sentiments of Gordon will be applauded by thousands where those of Fairchild are applauded by one.

"SO FAR AS THE SOUTH IS CONCERNED."
Petersburg, Va., Index-Appeal (Dem.), June 20.

SO FAR as the South is concerned in the rumpus that has been raised about this matter, Governor Lee probably expresses its sentiments when he says:

The proposition to return the Southern battle-flags did not originate with Southern soldiers. While they would have accepted again their banners bathed in the blood of brave comrades, they recognize that flags captured in battle are the property of the victors, and were content to let them remain in their charge. Flags captured from Northern troops by Southern soldiers have been returned in some cases with ceremo. nies. The country should not again be agitated by pieces of bunting that mean nothing now. The South is part and parcel of the Union to day, and means to do her part toward increasing the prosperity and maintaining the peace of the Republic, whether the flags rot in Washington or are restored to their former custodians. If any man "hauls down the American flag shoot him on the spot," but don't let us get into trouble because another flag simply changes its resting place. It will not go into the hands of a standardbearer.

And thus, so far as the Southern States are involved, the case may be allowed to rest.

FOREIGN-AMERICAN COMMENT. New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung (Ind.), June 17.

[Translated for PUBLIC OPINION.]

of the bloody-shirt by revoking, upon more mature reflection on the subTHE President has again marred the enjoyment of Republican wavers ject, his verbal approval of the order of Adjutant-General Drum whereby the standards captured during the civil war and preserved in the War Department were to be restored to the regiments to which they belonged; and has declared that it is the prerogative of Congress to determine what shall be done with these banners, now packed away in the lumber room of the War Department. The affair, thanks to the thin-skinneding, in consequence of their pruriency to make political capital out of ness of certain former champions of the Union, or more properly speakquantity of dust; in point of fact, far more than in the eyes of all calm anything that recalls the civil war, has already stirred up a considerable and sensible people it really merited. Inasmuch as there are no rebel States, no rebel governments, and in fact no rebels themselves, there can be no question, strictly speaking, of a restoration of battle-flags to rebels. If it be desirable to preserve these flags, they may, after all, be useful for the souvenirs that attach to them, these may be stirred up as well preserved in Washington as anywhere else. In so far as they are here, or it matters not where, and in so far as the tendency of these souvenirs is mischievous, the question may be where they will do most harm. The Administration has decided, it appears from the letter of the President to the Secretary of War, to leave the matter where it stands, and with this decision there is an end to the whole rumpus. If political veterans of the stripe of a Fairchild or a Tuttle desire to parade themselves as having floored the President by coarse vituperation and abuse,

they need only give themselves the trouble to read the comments of respectable organs touching their asinine tirades, and they will discover that they have thoroughly disgraced themselves by the whole affair. The Administration may be reproached with having acted somewhat inconsiderately, but not in the sense of Republican bawlers, but in so far as the right of disposal of the standards referred to is questionable. At all events, the President has done the right thing, after a more mature consideration of the subject, in leaving that prerogative with Congress, and bas acted in a manly way in frankly admitting the precipitancy of his action and in making prompt atonement for it.

Courrier des Etats-Unis (Ind.), June 18.

[Translated for PUBLIC OPINION.]

ONE should not follow his first impulse, because it is good, says an old diplomatic adage. This is the only wrong Mr. Cleveland has committed in accepting a proposition submitted to him of restoring to the States of the South the flags taken from their troops during the secession war. It has been seen that the President has suspended the order at first given in the presence of the violent opposition that was aroused against this wise and generous act. He disavows nothing of the just sentiment which had dictated the measure, he yields to some of the contracted, squeamish, and bigoted judgments evoked in unison with those of ex-General Fairchild;, but the question of legality being raised, he has referred the decision to Congress, as was becoming in a man of prudence and conciliation such as have been shown to be characteristic traits of Mr. Cleveland. The whole affair, however great the rumpus that has been made about it, is only of mediocre importance. So little care was exercised in the preservation of these battle-flags that some of them were moth-eaten almost up to the staff in the garrets in which they had been deposited. Meanwhile, it so happened that from time to time some of the Northern States requested the Government to remit to them such of their own flags as had likewise been placed at the War Department or been recaptured by their troops from the Southerners. No similar request has ever been formulated by any Southern State. "Let us have peace!" says, in conclusion of an article on the subject, the Commercial Advertiser, paraphrasing the injunction of General Grant; and this, in fact, should be the final word in a polemic which has reached a diapason a great deal too high already. Las Novedades (Ind.), New York, June 17.

[Translated for PUBLIC OPINION.]

LESS than twenty-four hours has sufficed in the discussion of an act of national interest, which has excited in an extraordinary degree the public mind, to fully confirm what we have said in regard to the state of feeling in this country, in so far as it concerns the great war of secession. In fact, under the formidable clamor that was raised, Mr. Cleveland has signed an order revoking his anterior action, and the enemy's flags will remain in the possession of those who have so valiantly won them. Thus definitively ends a controversy that, for an instant, has strongly riveted the attention of the whole country. It is to be hoped that for the next twenty years we shall have no reiteration of the assurances of reconciliation except in the sermons of divines, the programmes of Democratic candidates, and the articles of those journals which, without being aware of it, have placed themselves in direct antagonism to the feelings of the people and the evidence of the facts. An edifying lesson for those who were deluded; but not for the South, where they knew already how far to rely upon the latter, and where they will not be surprised at this new and vigorous manifestation of the sentiments of love, amity, oblivion, &c., that animates the veterans of the North.

L'Eco d'Italia (Ind.), New York, June 18.

[Translated for PUBLIC OPINION. ]

WHO could have imagined that in this free land of America the essentially magnanimous and conciliatory order issued by President Cleveland to restore to the late Confederate States the standards captured during the secession war would have evoked such petty malevolence and such a flood of trivialities? But that which has excited even greater astonishment is the intelligence which reached us, in the small hours of the morning, that Mr. Cleveland had revoked his prior decision, extenuating his precipitate action with the plea that, having more maturely considered the question, he does not believe himself authorized to restore the flags without the consent of Congress. It may be so, Citizen Cleveland, but who will accept your reasons as honest? Republicans will say that by their clamor and protests they have forced you to discredit your own conclusions; the Democrats will affirm, in their turn, that you have shown yourself pusillanimous under the intimidation of your adversaries.

OPINIONS ON ALL SIDES. Washington Post (Dem.), June 19.

ON all hands it is obvious that the President's hasty decision made on the eve of starting for the Adirondacks was not merely a mistake but the most natural kind of a mistake. The excitement is subsiding, and will shortly vanish altogether, in spite of the partisan machinery which has been invoked to keep it alive and augment it. The charge that the President tried to "insult the Unionists and conciliate the rebels" is preposterous." Does the South need placating? Was Charles Sumner a copperhead and a rebel" when he sought to have the names of victories over rebels removed from the standards which represented the whole country?

Vicksburg Post (Dem.), June 17. PERHAPS, if the Government is averse to preserving in its own possession these bloody tokens of fratricidal war, it might be well to destroy them instead of retaining them for our grandchildren to gaze upon wonderingly. This is for the owners to say. But in any case one objection from the North should be enough to make us refuse to accept them, and if they were offered us by one consent it would be eminently wise and generous on our part to say to our present friends, once our enemies: "Since you do not care to keep them, neither do we; let them be destroyed."

Alexandria Va., Gazette (Dem.), June 21.

THE people who denounce the President for issuing the order for the return of the Southern flags to the men who bore them, do not like him any better for rescinding that order; and it is only natural that those who praise him for issuing it should dislike him for its revocation. He yielded to a partisan and sectional clamor that could hardly have been supported by the right-thinking men of the North, and that most assuredly would not have been sustained by the court if he had allowed the case to be decided by that tribunal. He has gained no friends in the North, but has lost many in the South.

Indianapolis News (Ind.), June 18.

THE fraudulent President of the United States has taken the back track on the rebelflag question.-Cincinnati Commercial Gazette.

Now, what's the matter with Cleveland's title? That sort of hydrophobic frothing doesn't strengthen any case. Drum and Endicott and Cleveland and whoever else advised the flag folly made a blunder, that is all, and Cleveland had the good sense to take the back track before the blunder became one of the sort that Talleyrand or Napoleon or somebody said was worse than a crime. There is no fraud about this or about his title.

Senator Sherman to Governor Foraker, June 20.

I AM delighted beyond expression at your patriotic stand on the proposed surrender of the rebel flags and your bold defiance of the President. His act was, in substance, a recognition of the success of the lost cause. How such an idea could enter the mind of any one I cannot imagine. I. have felt keenly the tendency of public opinion, especially in commercial cities, to yield everything, honor included, to the spirit of the rebellion. A halt has been called, and I am glad that you had the honor to take the first decisive step.

Milwaukee Wisconsin (Rep.), June 17.

THE practical effect of this incident of the flags will be to eliminate Cleveland as a factor in the Presidential contest of '88. He has digged his own grave. The people can tolerate wrong-headedness and even admire when sturdy manliness is back of it. But they despise lack of conscience, and even more despise moral weakness. That is why, by a common consent, Cleveland is destined to be, from this time on, virtually out of the Presidential race.

Philadelphia North American (Rep.), June 20.

THE proposed return of the tattered battle-flags of treason and rebellion may serve to arouse the American people from the dangerous slumber of indifferentism. We do not need trophies gathered by the Union armies to remind us of the crime of which those decaying rags are the fitting symbol. Better a thousand times that at the close of the war every captured flag had been heaped and the whole consumed with fire. It is not too late to do that now.

Springfield, Mass., Republican (Ind.), June 19.

THE politicians who have been so nearly "out of meat" are making all the use possible of this woodchuck episode. The fierce imprecations of General Fairchild, the too ardent actions and words of governors, and the heat of newspapers, all go to show that there are times and seasons for doing things. We have experienced a little cyclone of passion that the politicians will try to continue as long as may be. Business is business with them.

Indianapolis Journal (Rep.), June 18.

Ir these captured flags had been let alone they might have rotted in the War Department, and the old soldiers would never have thought of them. It was the voluntary, scandalous, and cowardly proposition of the Administration to send them back South that made the trouble. And because the old soldiers exclaimed against the outrage they are charged with "perpetuating the animosities of the war." A beautiful idea, truly. Topeka, Kansas, Capital (Rep.), June 18.

MR. CLEVELAND has dug his political grave. The North has no confidence in him. The people know that in his very heart lurks treason and disloyalty to the Government, and that he would stamp upon our nation a burning shame if he dared, while the South has no further confidence in him because he has deserted them just as they were preparing for the first rebel jollification since their cause went down at Appomattox.