Vanderbilt As A Philosopher

Lt the king of thu ruilway euibazk for Enrope and the prcss sfcraightvvay iKiiMH's his departurc uieans a combination by which the intereses of tho great corporations undcr his control art) to be bencfited. Let hini taka a trip towaid the setting sun and H ia conjeo tured his visit i an omen of such signiiicance that soiue important link is aeoded to complete hisnatwork of rails. But it turns out that his lato visit to the i'st was fur recreation and there was Jiot in his raind the remotost intention to gobblo up a railroad. In faot he says hj luis now moro than he can take care of. His visit was to seo tho great country that farnishes freight for his roads, and iuto whioh immigrants are pouring so rapidly. To these things he gave his time, and for the nonco discarded tho objfct of hij ambition. What he saw in his reflective and philosophical moiiiints ho eommunieated to a metropolitin newspapcr reporter, and the public Iris the benefit of his observations. His iinpressions of the Greafc West will be fuuud of exceeding interest. Said he to the scribe : " ft is a beautifu!,a roagnifieent country. Whcn I listened to the descriptions (riven by merchantsand others frorm the West, I thought they exaggerated ; but I found that the half had not been told. In Missouri and Kansas the wheat is fovcal inoles high and looks well, and the farmors Iji.vd put all their coin in, while at BuffUo we met ice, and in the coithern part of the state there was snow. When ivo look at the large farms of wheat and corn, extending for ücoroa of mihvs, the first impressiou is that there will not be railroads euough to earry the crops ; but the fact is that there aro three roads where only one of tliem pays. The great fear is that the West will ovprdo it. They have built too many roads out thfire, and many of these are bankrupt. There are a lot of people out West now buying up bankrupt roads because they can be b'ought cheap." Mr. Vanderbilt hero lays down Jfropositions wbich will be adinitted by all, save by those who are peouniarily interested in these brokon down and bankrnpt railroads. There is no question but there are too many railroads in the country. It has been statod by him that the business of tho country which ia now divided among the threo great trunk lines could all be done by any one of the lines, or by any two of them at the best. The era of speeulation which followed the close of tho war led millions of people to invest in all sorts of wild cat railroad schemes, and now that tho business of the country is settling down upon the old, solid, antebellum basis two-thirds of the railroads of the country are in a bankrupt condition. They have no reson d'etre and if they were wiped out and closed up the country would be tho better tbr it. In regard to the negro immigration into Kansas and Missouri, Mr. Vanderbilt said : "I did not visit the sections where the bouthern negroes have gono, but I heard a good deal said about them. This is not the kind of immigration that the West needs. Those men who go West to squat and refrain from work, or work two or three days and then sun them selves the rest of the week, are not wanted. The West requires imniigrants who will be ready to work, and who will be thnfty and saving of their money. Sueh men succeed there and are respected." r Here again Mr. Vanderbilt proves himself a philosopher. Already the aotion trom the oolored itnmigration has come and the deluded blacks who have gono west are finding that they have been allured to hardships never dreampt of and to starvation and misery. The West is no place for them and bitter experience is teaching them this truth. President Vanderbilt is a very different sort of a man fiom the Commodore, whö did on all topics of genera! interest, "a willful silence entertain," but in many respects he is an abler man. He freely unburdens himself to the public which ■we are prone to believe will be deeply grataful for the opportunity toshare his confidence. The action of the officials controlling the asylum at Flint remin ds ono of the Puritanical days of Kew England when people wcre burned at the stake for "re ligious bigotry." A half dozen Catholic ohildren, wanting to enjoy the religious privileges guaranteed by the oonstitution of the United S tatos were expelled by the powers that be. A breeze quickly aróse and a committee from Lansing began investigation. Before proceeding far, the error was disco vered and the children re-instated and guaranteed the privilege of worship as they may please. It is a disfrace to the State at lare that there should be allowed to reinain in that or any other publio institution any officer fanatical enough to attempt to coerce the inmatesinto anything contrary to their relieious belief. But, then, Michigan ia a Republican State, with' Bopublican Boards of Trustees, and tbe constitution of the State is entitled to no more respect at their hands thun the constitution of the United States is at the hands of the Kepublican minority at Washington. It has beou more than onoe remarked that there was more politics to the square inch in Ohio than in any other fitato in the union. Conventions of the three parties have been called, and the leaders are moving with great oaution. Sherman has an eye on tho gubernatorial nomination, hoping if elected to have the position prove a stepping stone to tho Presidential selection. To match him the friends of ïhurman are inducing hira to enter the raco, but he declines to give any oncouragement. It is intiraated that Thurman will not accept if Sherman is to be the republican candidato, as Hherman would so fully unite the nationul bank power and havo such a strong following that he does not believo he could make a winning race. It is further intimated that the effort induce Thiwman to run. is to kill off Ewing, of whose growing popularity Thurman's followers have become jealous. - Decoration day will be appropriately observed in Monroe