whilst he is yet a growing man? Senator Sprague would also make the Government a kind of “Grand Lama”--a huge autocrat doing business for himself, just like Astor, Vanderbilt and Stewart. He would have him loan money; also, make him liable to sue and be sued. To be sure, this would extinguish all millionaire upstarts. So far so good; but would it not also add fresh fuel to the fires of corruption? What is the whisky ring but a set of dishonest officials, acting in the name of the Government, covering their plunder with the garments of Uncle Sam? Instead of diminishing the power to rob the people, Senator Sprague advocates an additional supply of the grand army officials. The flock of to-day may be compared to a cloud of locusts. “No!” say our legislators. Only a lunatic attempts to extinguish a fire by throwing on more fuel. A good government should be like the azure vault of heaven, resting on all alike, protecting the poor man in his cabin, the rich man in his palace, if he has honestly acquired his wealth. It should fall upon the honorable citizen like a web woven by fairy fingers; upon the criminal, whether powerful or weak, like the lariat flung by the unerring hand of the Indian hunter of the pampas. Senator Sprague and the workingmen who endorse him propose to take from the Government this most holy inheritance bequeathed us by our Revolutionary ancestors, baptized anew by the precious blood of three hundred thousand lives, and set it up in all the great cities of the Union, as the golden calf was set up in the wilderness, and the people, instead of being told to bow the knee, are advised to borrow. How will this help the poor man who has no security to give; or is the great national broker expected to lend without any security at all? No one disputes the fact that a great harassing debt annoys the people. It might have been much less. With sorrow we remember the millions that were flung into the sea by the incompetency of the late Navy Department; but with this folly our creditors have nothing to do. It is for us to say that we will pay to the last farthing. Shall we allow speculators in the name of Uncle Sam to use the people’s money and take the risk of being benefited in the end? Never! No, never! It is proven beyond a doubt that if the tax on whisky and tobacco could be honestly collected and turned over to the Treasury Department it would liquidate every penny of the interest of the public debt; other taxes would then gradually consume the principal. But if we are in haste, as we ought to be, to pay our debts, let the noble women of this country say, “No more of our gold shall drift seaward to bring us back jewels, silks, and knick-knacks.” Let the graceful, elegant wife of Senator Sprague be content with a wardrobe which vies in costliness with that of an European princess. Thirty silk walking dresses, all made to fit the same exquisite image, were within hearing of the workingmen’s serenade.