President Arthur made a trip to Florida in April. This is the first journey of any extent he has made from Washington since his inauguration, and he is the first President who has visited the Southern States so long and so extensively since the war. * * * * * The trial of the Phœnix Park murderers, in Dublin, commenced April 9. The dynamite criminals in London will be tried before a jury, perhaps before these lines go out from the press, while in Washington the Star Route trial drags its length along as a trial to patience, and for the humiliation of every true American citizen. * * * * * The Committee on Public Education in the New York Legislature, led by Mr. Abel Goddard, made a report on a “Dime Novel Bill,” recently, in these words: “Any person who shall sell, loan, or give to any minor under sixteen years of age, any dime novel or book of fiction, without first obtaining the written consent of the parent or guardian of such minor, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by imprisonment or by a fine not to exceed fifty dollars.” Objection is made to this bill, that it is indefinite, in that it fails to explain what a dime novel is, and that we can not deal by legislation with the injurious influences of any form of literature. In reply, it may be said, there are more than forty thousand miles of railway in this country from which the sale of certain pernicious publications are excluded. Mr. Anthony Comstock and his co-laborers have been explaining for several years what the “dime novel” is, and how injurious it has been to boy and girl readers. This bill is a new ray of light on a dark subject. * * * * * Karl Marx, the father of modern socialism, has recently died. He was a former correspondent of the New York _Tribune_, and the author of “Capital.” He has been expelled from half the countries of Europe, and proscribed in nearly all of them. The fruit of the seeds he has sown can not now be told. * * * * *