All Sorts Of Pen-scratches

- Gerrit Sraith is after the public school system or "State schools" - the " Bible question " being tlie moving causo. He says : " The great disturbante which the questiou of the Bible in the schools is producing will never cease until either the government or the Bible is driven from the school. God grant thut the government be the vanquished paitv!" - We don't know that the Justiceship reminds Senator Conkling of' tlio fable of the fox and the sour grapes, but the hue and cry made by his friends about his declining it - in an advance of any kuown offer - has a decided squint in that direction. Well, if he ha9 declined more credit is due to the Senator than to the President. - Twelve years in the county jail and a fine of $12,550: that's the sentence Judge Davis gavo " Boss Tweed " on Saturday last ; but which other judges are being besought to stay pending a hearing in the Court of Appeals (or the intermedíate Suprome Court) on a writ of error. It is to be hoped that no judge will interfere. - The specie payment experiment of the government - that is the paying out silver coin in sums of $5 - has "pegged out," and now silver is only paid for the fractional parts of a dollar. - Don Piatt makes himself infamous by giving currency to forgotten hints and baseless insinuations that Andrew Johnson was a party to the assassination of President Lincoln. - " No great loss without sorae small gain," 8ays an exchange. Application: cheaper eoal to come from the stoppage of faetones in such numbers. - Congress is to meet next Monday. In TUE December number of Scribner's Monthly there is a long and able article on "The Resumption of Specie Payment," from which at this writing we desire to cali especial attention to the following extract : " We think the simple way for the government to provide means for resumption is that which it adopts for keeping faith with all creditors, and disoharging all obligations for which its immediate revenues are insufficient, i. e., by borrowmg in the markets ot the world gold sufficient to redeem its legal tenders as fast as presented, and to keep up a gold reserve in the Treasury vaults, which could at once defy and prevent all attempts of the bandits of Wall street to make raids upon it. This is simply, so far forth, exchanging a part of the debt which the government uow, in breach of its faith, forces on the people without interest, for one on which it pays interest, in order to discharge the former. This seems to us the true and safe way." There is but one other way for the government to aid in restoring specie payments, and that is by retiring its greonbacks from circulation as they are received for internal revenues. While the government deals out paper, neither the banks nor the people will do any better. But the mode we suggest is probably equivalent to the proposition of Prof. Atwater, as the greenbaoks being withdrawn the government would be required to pay its daily bilis in gold. Ex-President Woolsey is recognized as an international jurist of the very highest authority, and this is a single sentence from a recent letter from hiin touching the status of the Virginius : " If the Virginius, though sailing under the United States flag, was engaged in traffie prohibited by the law of nations, theu the United States Government cannot make the transaction any ground for war, or in fact, of coinplaiut." That the Virginius, was engaged in an illegal traffic is evident by her own conduct. Vessels engaged in lawful commerce do not seek out of-the-way ports, do not fear capture, do not throw their cargoes overboard. If ex-President WOOLSEY lu tlioorotioally oorroot our governuient has meager ground for raclarnation upon Spain. The New York Herald Washington dispatches make the Spanish authorities take the following positions touching the Virginius : 1. That the Virginius is not an American ship, as she was owned by Cubans and registered in the name of Patterson, residing in New York. 5. She bas forfeited even this false registry by subsequent sale to other parties. 3. That she has frequently sailed during the past two years uuder the flags of other countries. 4. That Gen. Kyan was not a citizen of the United States. 5. That the Virginius at the time of capture was engaged in an unlawful expedition against a friendly power.