Of the many charges against ex-Secretary...

Of the many charges against ex-Secretary Soper, and there are no excuses to be offered for him, the worst is that he followed tlie practices that had been carried on by the republicans lor thirty years. The Hudson Gazette can be relied upon to come to the front every year about holiday time, and to stay there during the coming year. The Gazette's Christmas number was sixteen pages, on handsome paper. On Saturday, Senator Plumb, of Kaïisas, died at Washington, from a stroke of apoplexy whieh was brought on by overwork, and there was removed from tliis august body one of the fairest and hardest working members of the republican majority. Senator Plumb antagonized the obnoxious force bill in the last congress, and did much toward defeating this unjust measure of the republican party. The Detroit Tribune has endeavored to make great politieal capital out of the Soper escapade. It bas taken special pains to make all sorts of groundless charges against the administration and all connected with it, and against many prominent democrats throughout the state who are not connected with the administration. None have escaped its spleen, but as is usual in snch cases when left to run their course, the Tribune overstepped its bounds and found itself in a net. Keferring to wbat they claimed was the -manner of L. E. Rowley's obtaining ■the appointmentof deputy secretary of state, the Tribune spoke of D. J. Campau, Hou. O. M. Barnes, Hon. Richard Montgomery and severa! other prominent democrats in most disparaging ternas, and made charges of a drnnken carousal which this unreliable paper claimed these gentlemen had participated in, with Messrs. Soper, Rowley and others. This statement appeared in the Tribune on Saturday, and the managers of the paper supposed that it would be passed by unheeded as have many of tbeir malicious aud unreliable "items" of politieal news. But in this they bad gone too f ar and the iiik was not dry on the issue of the Tribune before the attorney of D. J. Campan appeared on the scène and demanded an immediate and public retraction of what bad been said. Mr. iScripps, already having a libel suit on trial on the News end of the c'ombination, and not relishing the idea, decided that an apology was the best way out of the scrape. The retraction was an humble one, clear and concise, and to show how meek a republican can be when his pocketbook is in danger, wc give the following which appeared in the Tribune just twenty-four hours after the original liad been given to the public: AN APOLOGY DUE AND JIADE. The Tribune yesterday morning republished from the columns of the Grand Kapids Press an article concerning the Soper scandal and certain alleged influences which led to the appointment of L. E. Rowley as deputy secretary of state, whieh it takes the earliesfc occasion to now disayow, and for which it promptly apologizes both to its own readers and to those reputable gentlemen of the state whose names were mentioned in that article. The matter in question was inadvertently published in careless violation of established rules in this office, and the Tribune unhesitatingly expresses its regret at the unfortunate occurrence. Messrs. D. .T. Campan, O. M. Barnes, Bichard Montgomeiy and Frank L. Dodge are too well known in Michigan as upright citizens and honorable gentlemen to be injured by the screed of the Grand Bapids paper referred to, and no one of these gentlemen bas communicated witli the Tribune concerning it. But this apology for its reproduction in these columns is due to the Tribune itself, which intends to make no statement in its columns unfavorable to the character of any good citizen, of whatever politieal party. The Press article, so f ar as it relates to the gentlemen named above, is undoubtedly false, and the Tribune unreservedly and frankly apologizes for the accident by which the oiïensive article got into its own columns. Even in the apology the poor Tribune, as unreliable as ever, tries to convey the impression that the apology is made of its own f ree will and accord, but 'tis safe to say that the talk of Mr. Otto Kirchner, the attorney for Mr. Campau, and the fear of a libel suit had much more to do with the printing of the apology than the conscio'usness that it had done a wrong.