When an evil attains this extent, he is a poor citizen, a poor cowardly dallier with opinions, whatever his fighting mark may be, who can make up his mind to calmly acquiesce in establishing its permanence, or to stiffly oppose every movement and every suggestion tending in the least towards its abrogation. * * * * * In the present number of the CONTINENTAL will be found an article on General LYON, in which reference is made to the generally credited assertion, that the deceased hero was not reinforced as he desired during the campaign in Missouri. This is one of the questions which time alone will properly answer. In accordance with the principles involved in _audi alteram partem_, we give on this subject the following abridgment of a portion of General FREMONT'S defense, published in the New York _Tribune_ of March 6:-- Lyon's and Prentiss's troops were nearly all three months men, whose term of enlistment was about expiring. Arms and money were wanted, but men offered in abundance. The three months men had not been paid. The Home Guards were willing to remain in the service, but their families were destitute. Gen. Fremont wrote to the President, stating his difficulties, and informing him that he should peremptorily order the United States Treasurer there to pay over to his paymaster-general the money in his possession, sending a force at the same time to take the money. He received no reply, and assumed that his purpose was approved. Five days after he arrived at St. Louis he went to Cairo, taking three thousand eight hundred men for its reinforcement. He says that Springfield was a week's march, and before he could have reached it, Cairo would have been taken by the rebels, and perhaps St. Louis. He returned to St. Louis on the 4th of August, having in the meantime ordered two regiments to the relief of Gen. Lyon, and set himself to work at St. Louis to provide further reinforcements for him; but he claims that Lyon's defeat can not be charged to his administration, and quotes from a letter from General Lyon, dated on the 9th of August, expressing the belief that he would be compelled to retire; also, from a letter written by Lyon's adjutant general, in which he says 'General Fremont was not inattentive to the situation of General Lyon's column.' * * * * * A daily cotemporary, in an onslaught on Emancipation, contains the following:-- Delaware has recently had a proposition before the legislature to abolish the scarcely more than nominal slavery still existing in it; but the legislature adjourned without even listening to it, though it contemplated full pecuniary compensation.