The Columbian

Forney on the Beggar's Bench.

The New Hampshire election has thrown the whole editorial corps of the Philadelphia Press into hysterics! The culprits feel that the hour of their doom is approaching and they tremble as other criminals do at the certain approach of justice. Listen to the wailing! We extract from the Press of the 16th:

Brave New Hampshire calls upon our public servants at Washington to halt in their mad career. Her voice, like a great bell sounding from some high tower on a wintry night, shouts forth the way to safety, and in so many words tells these gentlemen that that way is not theirs. We had hoped they would overlook the personal errors of Administration. We were mistaken. There must be a more magnanimous spirit in our public councils. Abandon the whole San Domingo scheme. There is no public opinion to support it. It is clouded with doubts. It has been followed by evil omens from the first. The temper of Congress is such as to insure its defeat. To persevere in it in the face of all these warnings, is to persevere in ruin. It would be a most gracious act to withdraw the project, and it would be crowned with the favor of the whole people. We plead in the interest of our great cause. Pennsylvania has no griefs. She never complained when her best and truest men—chief among the architects of the great victory of 1864—were set aside for confessed incapables. She has asked nothing of the President but a fair administration. But it would be folly to deny that the cause that wrought the mischief in New Hampshire are at work in her bosom, and will be succeeded by a like result unless they are remedied.

We plead therefore in no man's interest, in no spirit of retaliation for a great State ignored and neglected, when we ask General Grant to send the message of "Peace" to the great party that elected him. He has the power to do it. He declared in his inaugural that he would have no policy versus the popular will. We plead in the interests of our great party and its army of gallant advocates. Is it right that our young and deserving Republicans should be made victims on the altar of popular distrust? The candidates who were defeated in New Hampshire fell, not because they had supported the San Domingo policy and proscription but because the people feared their success would be so construed. Shall we add to these sacrifices in other States by a perseverance in this ill-starred policy? We pray that President Grant will reconsider the question in season. It is never too late to retreat from a mistake. It is never too late to do good.

But it is too late for Radical repentance! True, "while the lamp holds out to burn the vilest sinner may return," but in the case of the Radicals the lamp has gone out! There is no repentance for them—it is too late! Judgment is passed and the gates are open!