in coin as presented after resumption; but he proposes no general funding measure as a preliminary to resumption. He has nothing explicit to say of the various plans for a reconvertible bond, but seems to hint that its chief danger would be the production of a rapid and excessive contraction; and it seems to be as a substitute for such a bond, and as less exposed to such dangers, that he suggests that Government might pay a small yearly interest on its legal tender notes, thus making them convertible into either currency or securities. We see no wisdom in this proposal; it is always a retrograde measure to unite in the same thing (or person) functions already separated between different things (or persons). None of these, however, meets the great practical objection to the resumption of specie payments, which has most weight with that Western constituency, for whose support Mr. Tilden is pleading. They dread resumption as changing still farther the value of the dollar to the disadvantage of the debtor class, a class greatly in the majority in all the less densely settled districts of our country. They have suffered terribly by the degree of appreciation already effected in our paper money, just as the creditor class suffered by its depreciation. Some of them, perhaps, want to see wholesale inflation, in order that they may be as well off as before contraction began; but most would be content to keep things as they are, with security for the future. On one platform, we may suggest, they might be ready even for resumption. They would not object to resumption if it meant the substitution of gold for paper at the present rate, i. e., the reduction of the gold dollar by something near one-tenth of its value. Nor would they, we are convinced, object in the least to an arrangement by which the interest of the bond-holders and of those who loaned money before the fall of the greenback, would be carefully guarded, and the fullest guarantee given that the United States should never again meddle with the sense of the word "dollar" by making any form of paper money a legal tender. And this would suit not only the western farmer who groans under a mortgage, but also the eastern business man, who needs to borrow money to carry on his factory or his store, and who is obliged to keep out of the money market, and all but stop his enterprises, because resumption may add ten per cent to the principal, when the interest he pays is nine per cent. and profits vary from six to twelve. And such a reduction would be exactly parallel to what has occurred in almost every country of Europe, viz.: the reduction of the gross value of the unit of money, without any attempt being either made or proposed to raise it again. Thus the English "pound" and the French livre were originally a pound weight of silver. THE campaign has been a dull one, in consequence partly of the heat and partly, we think, of the decline of party spirit among the people. The candidates, also, are not of the sort to furnish very much scope for either ridicule or abuse. If Mr. Blaine had succeeded at Cincinnati, the newspapers of one side at the least would have been busier than they are. Some Republican papers are trying to throw obloquy on Mr. Tilden by re-printing Mr. Greeley's "Letter to a Politician," in which the former was taken to task for signing a secret circular, addressed to the Democratic party managers of the country districts of the State, and apparently designed to elicit information which would enable the managers in the city to count in the Democratic candidates. Mr. Tilden promptly denied all responsibility for the circular, declaring that his name had been appended to it without his knowledge; and, as we understood at the time, Mr. Greeley accepted the denial as a matter of course, and implicitly retracted the charge. It's a waste of yeast to put it into dough that failed to rise the first time. A distinguished friend of Governor Tilden's takes us to task for the statement that Mr. Tilden continued to coöperate with the Tweed Ring "after its character was fully understood." He says "the fact is that Mr. Tilden was an avowed enemy of the Ring even before its character was fully understood. In a pamphlet published three years ago he fully explained his action in regard to those bandits. We here on the spot, who were intimately acquainted with the inner history of political movements, feel that it is a gross injustice to decry the conduct of one to whose vigilance, energy and acumen we are mainly indebted for the overthrow of an infernal domination." We can assure our correspondent that we have no interest in the matter but that the truth be known. What we said was, of course, the utterance of one who had no personal acquaintance with the inside of New York city politics. But we did think, and we have not yet changed our opinion, that in the estimate of the best men in America, the whole Democratic party of that city and State, and above all its representative men like Mr. Tilden, shared in the responsibility and the disgrace of Mr. Tweed's crimes, through their prolonged passivity in regard to him. As to any special share of blame due to Mr. Tilden, we based our state ment, not on the loose statements of partisan newspapers, but on what we have regarded as the most careful estimate of the whole subject accessible to the general reader, viz; the "Episode of Municipal Government" which ran through several numbers of The North American Review. The pamphlet to which our correspondent refers us seems to us much more effective as a Tu quoque to the Republicans of that state and city, than as a vindication of all that is defended in it. On several points its author makes distinct issues of fact with the writer we have referred to, especially in regard to the Rochester convention of 1870. But it does show that Mr. Tilden's hostility to the Tweed Ring, and its measures, did not begin at a later date, than did that of the Republican papers who generally get the credit of its overthrow. THE Constrained withdrawal of Mr. Orth's name, after his regular nomination by the Republican State Convention for Governor of Indiana, is one of the best of signs. Even the politicians are coming to understand that there are limits to the popular patience, and that men who, whether justly or unjustly, are believed to have used political influence for their personal aggrandizement, are not the "available" candidates for a sharply-contested election. The Republicans of Indiana might have found at South Bend a striking illustration of the popular temper in this regard. But by dint of taking no heed, they have to suffer from the disadvantage of an exchange of candidates before the most critical election of the year— the one which the politicians are beginning to regard as showing the set of the weather for November. A NEW YORK newspaper has been looking up the statistics of our municipal indebtedness as it stood last New Year's day, and it reaches some conclusions of interest to Philadelphia. Our city debt is put at $59,686,223, being ten per cent. of the valuation of property, and eighty-eight dollars per head of the population; while our taxation is twenty-one and a half per thousand. This makes us, in a comparison of property with indebtedness, freer from debt than Buffalo (18.02 per cent), Toledo (17.9), Brooklyn (15.55), St. Louis (10.77), New York (10.60, now 12.07), Baltimore (10.50), and Cincinnati (10.42); but deeper in debt than 'Pittsburgh (7.51), Boston (3.58), and San Francisco (1.32). The basis of calculation, however, is somewhat defective; for, besides the bonded debt given above, we have some ten millions of floating debt, which has probably its parallel in the sister cities. On the other hand there are very considerable assets to be reckoned on the credit side of the account, and the city's credit is so good that its bonds bear a high premium. But it is undeniable that the growth of municipal indebtedness since the war is one of the most unpromising features of our situation as a nation. The statistics in question show that the sixteen principal cities of the Union owed on New Year's day an aggregate of nearly three hundred and seventy millions, and to this New York has already added over sixteen millions. Her own debt (nearly one hundred and thirty-three millions, bearing $8,700,000 yearly interest) and that of Brooklyn (thirty-five millions), makes well on to half the total indebtedness of the great cities; and the ratio it bears to their wealth is disguised by the fictitious system of valuation practiced in those two cities. On the other hand the rapid diminution of New York commerce by the transfer of the Western dry goods trade to Western centres, and of the export grain trade to Philadelphia and Baltimore, makes the prospect of a speedy reduction of this vast burden a very distant one. Nothing but the rapid growth of her manufactures under our Protective system augurs well for the financial future of the city. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF THE NORTH WEST.1 WH HAT was the North-west in 1776? It was indeed a vast wilderness, yet not quite unexplored; for more than 130 years had already passed away since those pioneers of missions and 1 The works consulted in the preparation of this article are chiefly the following, viz: Bouquet's Expedition against the Ohio Indians: Walker's History of Athens county, Ohio; Clark's Campaign in the Illinois; Schweinitz Life of Zeisberger; Am. St. Papers, Public Lands; Documents relating to the colonial history of the State of New York; Hildreth's Pioneer History; Burnet's Notes on the North-west; Mrs. Sheldon's Early History of Michigan; Benton's abridgment of the Debates in Congress, and Ten Brook's American State Universities. The last named work has naturally been used more freely than any other, and even verbal coincidences with its statements have not been excluded. trade among Those vast copper fields on the upper lakes, unworked until about 30 years ago, were well-known to Allouez. Denonville, the governor of Canada, corresponded with the government of the mother country in regard to working them, as did also Sir William Johnson, a century later, with his government. Marquette reached Mackinaw in 1670, and established there the mission of St. Ignace, and this may be deemed the date of the settlement of the place, while Detroit was first settled in 1701, and is therefore nearly of the age of Philadelphia. In 1673 M. de Frontenac, then Governor of Canada, commissioned Louis Joliet to enter upon a voyage for the discovery of the supposed great river of the west into which the streams flowing westward must discharge their waters. Joliet associated with himself, Father Marquette, and in the same year they discovered the "Father of the Waters" and floated on his bosom from the mouth of the Wisconsin to that of the Illinois. A mission was established at Kaskaskia; it is not improbable that missions had been established before in Illinois and others followed both in Illinois and Indiana; in the latter State on the St. Joseph and the Wabash. The missions became centres for settlements by French colonists; for the government sought to establish a line of fortifications from Quebec to the gulf of Mexico. The plan is clear; it accounts, so far as the French government is concerned, for these settlements. In 1772, a little more than four years before the Declaration of Independence, David Zeisberger, the ablest and noblest of missionaries to the American Indians, having already served for twenty-eight |