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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 69, 21 March 1874, Page 2

A New York journal, in reference to the recent corruption is high plices, eays : — "Let us he neatly admit the truth, and manfully apply the remedy. Tbe peril in our American life is diehonesty. Thiß products the lack of confidence which is the root of panics. . L lavery involved us in the flaues of a civil war. Better it should have burnt us to ashes thau we should survive to perish hereafter in corruptions. Tho urn is leas offensive lhan the putrescence of the gruve. Our very existence is at stake American life presents an anomalous spectacle. We are socially pure and commercially depraved. Men who are upright in their neighborhood, and admirable in their homes, will habitually, and knowingly, and systematically, do wrong in their business. Nay ! even churches, to draw crowds, and rent pews, and raise revenue, will resort, not only to sensationalism in choir and pulpit, but make earth blush and heaven weep over the tricks that are degrading, demoralising, and insulting to -all manlinesß and religion. Nor is the malady confined to men in distinguished position. It affects all classes of our Republic. The taictel streams on the summit percolate the entire mountain. Of all the sins of humanity bribery is perhaps the meanest. Most other crimes are possible to a transgressor. Here there muet be two parties to the guilt — the man who gives end the man who lakes. Both are debased. There may be daring in robbery and courage in murder. The peculiarity of bribery in its cowardice. It sneaks, it cringes, it hides, it winds, it twists, it wriggles, it skulks. It is not a lion roaring and rushing on its prey, but a serpent lurking in the grass to infuse its poision before crushing with its coils. A man who abuses his office, warps his judgment, and twists his conscience for a bribe, sells his soul by his act, and ever after lives expecting a higher bidder for himself; and heislikenitro-glycerine, dangerous to his purchaser.