The Washington Union

FROM OUR BOSTON CORRESPONDENT

Parker House, July 29, 1858.

School celebrations have been the order of the day during the past week, and at some of them our dignitaries have found an opportunity to air their eloquence, and to sound their own praises. We read in Lempriere's Classical Dictionary, that Erostratus, desiring notoriety, was forced to fire the temple of Diana, at Ephesus. Our small potato demagogues are enabled to become famous without any difficulty, and many a beginning is made as a school-committee man, which leads the aspirant to a high and profitable place. In most instances, however, these "orators" are living examples of the evils attendant on our common school system of education, which neglects the solid foundations of knowledge and indulges in the modern vagaries of the time. Addled by this trash, diseased in mind and restless within themselves, they look upon the inhabitants of other sections of the country with a soured disposition, and denounce them in order to become "popular." Like Hamlet, it can be said of each one—

"Life

With him was plunder and regret—a maze

Of petty doubts and petty qualms—a round

Of self-elaborated misery."

The people of New Hampshire, who have of late years been deluded by these false prophets, and have forsaken "the faith of their fathers" to follow them, are just now enjoying the fruit of know-nothing black-republican legislation. Although a great to-do is made here because a negro admitted to State citizenship cannot enjoy the same privileges in every other State, (a most absurd construction of a clause in the constitution,) the New Hampshire legislature has passed a law excluding the citizens of other States from trafficking within her bounds. This edict declares that no person shall travel from town to town in that State, or from place to place in any town—on foot, or by any kind of public conveyance whatever, by land or water—carrying for sale or offering for sale any goods whatever, unless such person shall have been two years a citizen of the United States and of New Hampshire, and shall have resided one year in some town of New Hampshire. Of course the republicans of the legislature of New Hampshire have either forgotten, or do not now believe, that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." Such intolerance as is exhibited by the republicans and their know-nothing allies cannot long control the people, and we have cheering news from Maine that the political tide is fast turning. Men who opposed the election of Mr. Buchanan find that none of the evil results predicted have followed, and they see that they have been used to keep a horde of unqualified men in office. They also feel the necessity of sending gentlemen to Congress who have the will and the ability to maintain the interests and to assert the rights of the State, rather than frothy declaimers, who, Don Quixote-like, are eternally waging fruitless war against the wind-mill of Kansas. The election of the Hon. Bion Bradbury, from the sixth congressional district, may be set down as a "fixed fact," and the prospects of other democratic candidates are brightening. In this State, too, there is unquestionably a change of public sentiment, and the sober, second thought of the people is decidedly in favor of a return to national feeling, and a determination to recede from a fratricidal war upon the South, that incompetent men may enjoy office under the smoke of the combat. Well does the Post say that the fierce internecine wrangle now so actively going on among the small aspirants for congressional nominations attests to the fact of the popular disapprobation of the doings of our sectional representatives in Congress. Who defends Wilson's course against the admission of free Oregon? Is this the way, forsooth, to carry out the abolition allegations relative to "the slave power"—to work against the admission of such free States as Minnesota and Oregon? Who defends the ridiculous war bluster about England of both senator and representatives? Who stands up to say Massachusetts has in Congress that weight of intellect and character she can have and ought to have? Who says she has anything there but a crowd of Kansas-shriekers, who, instead of adding to her honors, are constantly inflicting on her disgrace. These are truths, and the candid and intelligent of all parties acknowledge them. The democratic party is constantly receiving recruits, and fortunately those who wished to keep it conveniently small have been made to give way to good and true men, who have the interest of the country—not their own aggrandizement—at heart. When the State convention assembles at Worcester, in September, it will be apparent that there have been many changes for the better, and that the democracy of Massachusetts is in a fair way to revolutionize the old Commonwealth. The arrogance of the Bee in assuming the control of the opposition, the distribution of offices, and the selection of candidates, is a great help to the democracy, as honest men cannot stand such a rule as that of the political harpies who control that know-nothing sheet. Among other "notions" imported by a cute Salem trader from Para, by a recent arrival, was an invoice of boa-constrictors, some of them thirty feet in length. Two of them either escaped or were stolen on the night after they were placed in the barn of their owner, and great was the consternation of the "witches." Not a matron or maiden in Salem, it is said, dared to promenade, especially in the vicinity of any shrubbery or lawn where there might be a "snake in the grass." The new gold-fever rages, and "Fraser-river widows" will soon be plenty. The wisdom which prompted the President to see that the rights of Americans going to this newly-discovered land of gold are protected is highly approved of. Hon. Arthur W. Austin, our popular collector, has a delightful rural home in the suburbs, where he has given ample evidence of his devotion to agricultural and horticultural pursuits. Among other curiosities in his well-stocked poultry yard is a pair of young swans, or cygnets, the first, it is said, ever raised in New England. The work on the new post office building progresses, and those who at first opposed the location now admit that it is central and accessible. A few old fogies will at first find it hard to go out of State street for their letters, but they will soon get used to the removal. The people generally are delighted with the change.

TREMONT.