free speech, free printing, free institutions, and free intercourse. The West sees in Europe, and especially in England, the best customer for its agricultural wealth; and even if the South should continue to be held in subjection by military despotism, and disabled from lending its political support to a revenue tariff, as opposed to a protective one, the West will be strong enough single-handed, at the approaching election, to bring the Free Trade question into the foreground, and help to decide the contest upon that, as one of many issues almost equally important.

The question of the debt-which, in the height of the war-fever, and amid the profuse and reckless expenditure of the Government, suddenly converting paupers into millionaires, and making thousands of influential but dishonest and corrupt persons rich at the public expense, was treated as a matter of no importance, and as at worst a mere flea-bite upon the rhinoceroshide of the great and wealthy American Republic-has within the last few months assumed a very irritating and ominous character. The Democratic politicians who four years ago asserted that repudiation of the debt would be the most popular plank in the party platform of 1868, were either laughed at as idle dreamers, or denounced as treasonable "copperheads;" but their jocular prediction has become seriously true; and the partial repudiation of the debt is a question that is earnestly debated in every part of the country, with the sole exception of the unhappy South, that sees before it, in the negro question, a more engrossing object of solicitude. The taxation necessary to pay the interest upon the debt is found to be no such "flea-bite" as was anticipated, but, on the contrary, a hundred leechpower, to suck the blood of everybody engaged in trade or agriculture. Few Americans, and none of any political note or importance,

have openly advocated the repudiation of the debt. The time is not ripe for that as yet, and possibly the time may never come for such a scandal to be perpetrated; but men of all parties and in very influential positions are strenuously endeavouring to cultivate public opinion to the extent of approving the liquidation of the five-twenty bonds by the issue of 500,000,000 of paper dollars, and thus escaping the annual payment of interest on that very large sum-no less than £100,000,000 sterling, if gold were at par with greenbacks. Many of the individual States which contracted debts in Europe prior to the Civil War, and, until that event, paid the interest in gold, thought it just though their creditors did not think so-to pay the interest in greenbacks. The new proposal as to the five-twenties savours of the same immorality. The interest on these bonds was stipulated to be paid in gold; but as no stipulation was made as to the mode, but only as to the time at which the United States might redeem them, it is held that when the five years expireas they will very shortly-the Federal Government has the option of redeeming them at that date, if it pleases. So far so good, if they were redeemed in gold. But the proposal is to redeem them in legal tender, or in greenbacks-a proposal which, if carried out by the creation of such a large amount of paper-money, would render the dollar the representative in Europe of little more than a shilling, and possibly of less. Mr Pendleton of Ohio, a leading Democratic politician, fathers the view, that the Federal Government has a perfect right to adopt this course, and urges it as a means of giving a great relief to the taxpayers of America, which it doubtless would be in one sense, though possibly not in another. General B. F. Butler, who is of the Radical party, joins the Democratic Mr Pendleton, on this question; and

a greater man, and more influential politician than either of them-no less a person than the redoubtable Thaddeus Stevens, the Robespierre or the Danton of the American Revolution-stands before the world as the original author of the project, though we are not aware that he has recently given utterance to his opinions on the subject. What he thinks, or thought, may be learned from the following discussion in the House of Representatives in June 1864, while the war was still raging. In reply to Mr Spalding of Ohio, who asked Mr Stevens-then, as now, the acknowledged leader both of the House and his partywhether in his judgment the principal of the 500,000,000 dollars of five-twenty bonds was payable in gold, Mr Stevens said

"It is just as clear as anything is clear that the interest is payable in gold, but the principal in lawful money.

"Mr Spalding. I ask the gentleman if he knows whether this is the opinion of the head of the Treasury Department?

I sup

Mr Stevens.-Well, sir, I have not consulted him. I know that a great many legal gentlemen of distinction agree with me in the opinion I express. pose I should bow to the opinion of the Secretary of the Treasury on the subject if I had it, and it was right, but I

have not.

Mr Pruyn.-I would like, with the permission of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, to ask the gentleman from Ohio (Mr Spalding) whether he has any information that the Secretary of the Treasury has decided that the principal of the five-twenty bonds was payable in gold?

Mr Spalding. If I may be permitted to reply to the gentleman from New York, I will say that I have this morning learned from the Secretary of the Treasury that, in his opinion, the principal of the five-twenty bonds is payable in gold.

Mr Stevens.-Then, sir, his opinion is entirely different from the law. These bonds are made payable in money by the express terms of the law, and if legal tender notes are money, then they are payable in that. But, sir, if both principal and interest are payable in gold, then the difficulties in which the

VOL. CII.-NO. DCXXV.

Government is becoming involved are all the more aggravated.

66 Mr Wilson.-Was not the statement made just now by the gentleman from Pennsylvania based upon the payment of these five-twenties in gold?

64

Mr Stevens.-Upon the payment of the interest in gold. There is no doubt that the interest is payable in gold.

"Mr Wilson.-I speak of the principal. I understood the gentleman to say dred million dollars of the public debt that there were now about eight hunpayable in gold.

"Mr Stevens.-No, sir; the interest is payable in gold. I say that no man who is a lawyer and I could not say the Secretary of the Treasury is not a lawyer-who will carefully read the law, sion than that the principal of these fivecan positively come to any other conclutwenty bonds is payable in currency. The law says expressly that the interest is payable in coin, and that the principal is payable in money. The difference in the terms employed is as distinct and definite as if it had been, in so many words, that one is payable in coin and the other in paper currency."

The Western States, that did most of the fighting during the war, are represented, in all the papers that reach Europe, as greatly excited on this question, and as strongly in favour of the payment

of the five-twenties in the mode indicated. The press of the Southern States very generally supports the proposal; none the less willingly, perhaps, because they see in it a partial adoption by the North of the principle of repudiation which was forced upon the Southern people at the point of the sword, and that they have a malicious pleasure in seeing the "engineer hoist with his own petard."

Reconstruction under military control; the burden of the debt; the enormous and universally prevalent corruption; the troublesome and hostile attitude assumed by the ignorant blacks under Radical guidance; the discontent of all persons engaged in trade; the pressure of the high tariff; the rottenness of the National Bank system introduced under Mr Chace's ad

2 U

ministration of the finances; and, lastly, the possibility of Mr Johnson's impeachment by Congress, and the equal possibility of his resistance, by force of arms, to any attempt at his deposition, pendente lite; all these together form a combination more ominous of civil strife than anything that occurred within the few months that preceded the election of a successor to Mr Buchanan in 1860. We have briefly indicated the dangers ahead, but incline to believe that the negro danger is the greatest of all. Hitherto the Irish were to a large extent enabled to hold the balance of power between rival parties, but the balance has been shifted into the hands of the blacks. Should the Republican ticket for President and Vice-President be elected by a small majority, and mainly by the aid of the black vote of the South, it is impossible not to foresee that the legality of the election will be disputed. At a local election in Louisiana the other day, it was discovered that the number of black votes registered on the electoral lists was greater than that of the whole black population of men, women, and children; that black men registered themselves under different names at different times; and that when the day of polling came, they did not remember the names they had assumed-or any other than their Christian names of Cæsar, Pompey, or Sambo, as the case might be. And this stupid as well as dishonest tampering with the sacred right conferred upon them -by bayonet thrust by their Northern allies, is represented as general in the ten Southern States, and as not unknown even in Tennessee. Hitherto, the presidential elections in America have been conducted with fairness, and, on the whole, with good temper and propriety; but if armed negroes are to

take possession of the polls in the South, and the Southern whites are either to be illegally or violently prevented from exercising the privilege which cannot be constitutionally denied them, the chances of a renewed civil war-or perhaps of a war of races-are only too imminent. A great and signal triumph of the Conservative party-so great and signal as to compel the Radicals to admit their defeat as unreservedly as the South has done-is a possibility that is daily growing stronger. The triumph of the Radicals presages war, that of the Conservatives means peace and conciliation, and a return either to the old Constitution or its replacement by a better.

but in the heart.

"The indissoluble link of union between the people of the several States in this Confederation," said John Quincy Adams, President, and son of a President, "exists, after all, not in the right, If the day should ever come-may Heaven avert it!when the affections of the people in these States shall be alienated from each other, when the fraternal feeling shall give way to cold indifference, or collisions of interest shall foster into hatred, the bonds of political associa tion will not long hold together parties of conciliated interests and friendly symno longer attracted by the magnetism pathies; and far better will it be for the people of the disunited States to part in friendship from each other, than to be held together by constraint. Then will be the time for reverting to the precedents which occurred at the formation form again a more perfect union by disand adoption of the Constitution, to solving that which could no longer bind, and to leave the separate parts to be united by the law of political gravitation to the centre."

Happy would it have been for all America if the North had been of this opinion in 1861. Happy will it be for them now if such sentiments shall animate the majority, on whichever side it shall declare itself.

A WEEK passed by, and Linda Tressel heard nothing of Ludovic, and began at last to hope that that terrible episode of the young man's visit to her might be allowed to be as though it had never been. A week passed by, during every day of which Linda had feared and had half expected to hear some question from her aunt which would nearly crush her to the ground. But no such question had been asked, and, for aught that Linda knew, no one but she and Ludovic were aware of the wonderful jump that had been made out of the boat on to the island. And during this week little, almost nothing, was said to her in reference to the courtship of Peter Steinmarc. Peter himself spoke never a word; and Madame Staubach had merely said, in reference to certain pipes of tobacco which were smoked by the townclerk in Madame Staubach's parlour, and which would heretofore have been smoked in the townclerk's own room, that it was well that Peter should learn to make himself at home with them. Linda

VOL. CII.-NO. DCXXVI.

had said nothing in reply, but had sworn inwardly that she would never make herself at home with Peter Steinmarc.

In spite of the pipes of tobacco, Linda was beginning to hope that she might even yet escape from her double peril, and, perhaps, was beginning to have hope even beyond that, when she was suddenly shaken in her security by words which were spoken to her by Fanny Heisse. "Linda," said Fanny, running over to the gate of Madame Staubach's house, very early on one bright summer morning, "Linda, it is to be to-morrow! And will you not come ?"

"No, dear; we never go out here: we are so sad and solemn that we know nothing of gaiety." "You need not be solemn unless you like it."

"I don't know but what I do like it, Fanny; I have become so used to it that I am as grave as an owl."

"That comes of having an old lover, Linda."

"I have not got an old lover," said Linda, petulantly.

2 x

"You have got a young one, at any rate."

"What do you mean, Fanny?" "What do I mean? Just what I say. You know very well what I mean. Who was it jumped over the river that Sunday morning, my dear? I know all about it." Then there came across Linda's face a look of extreme pain,-a look of anguish; and Fanny Heisse could see that her friend was greatly moved by what she had said. "You don't suppose that I shall tell any one," she added.

"I should not mind anything being told if all could be told," Linda.

"But he did come,-did he not?" Linda merely nodded her head. "Yes; I knew that he came when your aunt was at church, and Tetchen was out, and Herr Steinmarc was out. Is it not a pity that he should be such a ne'er-do-well?"

"Do you think that I am a ne'erdo-well, Fanny?"

"No indeed; but, Linda, I will tell you what I have always thought about young men. They are very nice, and all that; and when old croaking hunkses have told me that I should have nothing to say to them, I have always answered that I meant to have as much to say to them as possible; but it is like eating good things;-everybody likes eating good things, but one feels ashamed of doing it in secret."

This was a terrible blow to poor Linda. "But I don't like doing it," she answered. "It wasn't my fault. I did not bid him come."

"One never does bid them to come; I mean not till one has taken up with a fellow as a lover outright. Then you bid them, and sometimes they won't come for your bidding.'

"I would have given anything in the world to have prevented his doing what he did. I never mean to speak to him again,-if I can help it."

66 Oh, Linda !"

"I suppose you think I expected him, because I stayed at home alone."

"Well,-I did think that possibly you expected something."

"I would have gone to church with my aunt though my head was splitting had I thought that Herr Valcarm would have come here while she was away."

"Mind I have not blamed you. It is a great shame to give a girl an old lover like Peter Steinmarc, and ask her to marry him. I wouldn't have married Peter Steinmarc for all the uncles and all the aunts in creation; nor yet for father,though father would never have thought of such a thing. I think a girl should choose a lover for herself, though how she is to do so if she is to be kept moping at home always, I cannot tell. If I were treated as you are I think I should ask somebody to jump over the river to me."

"I have asked nobody. Fanny, how did you know it?" "A little bird saw him." "But, Fanny, do tell me."

66

But,

Max saw him get across the river with his own eyes." Max Bogen was the happy man who on the morrow was to make Fanny Heisse his wife.

"Heavens and earth!"

"But, Linda, you need not be afraid of Max. Of all men in the world he is the very last to tell tales."

"Fanny, if ever you whisper a word of this to any one, I will never speak to you again.' "Of course, I shall not whisper

it."

"I cannot explain to you all about it,-how it would ruin me. I think I should kill myself outright if my aunt were to know it; and yet I did nothing wrong. I would not encourage a man to come to me in that way for all the world; but I could not help his coming. I got myself into the kitchen; but when I found that he was in the house I thought it would be better