Scandal In High Life

Senator Uonkling's name is badl; smirched by scandal. Hts actions at th federal capital havo boon moro tha once the topio of gossip tliat has founc its way into the press. Heretofore noth ing bearing the semblance of positivo ness has appeared, though dark hint have como to the surfaco from time t timo. The employmont of a practicall; dworced woman namcd Hayden of Por Byron, N. Y., as private secretary ha been the basis of many suspiciona. Hi efforts in behalf of Mrs. Kate Spragu in saving the Chuse hotuestead in Waal ington from salo for tuxcs, and the day and nights spent at this faseinating lady's house under cover of counsel, anc in the absence of hor husband, hav served to ignite tho gossiping sparks flying about the city. Rumor saidsome months ago Mrs. Conltling was about instituting proceediugs for divoroo and a New York papm was impelled to pub licly contradict the report. Anothor person, a music tonoher, cmployed in the family, is liuked with the scandal. Mr. Sprague became violent toward him and ordered him from the premises at the end of a loaded weapon. Both Mr. and Mrs. Sprague feel their fmancial downfall keenly. Before marrying the wealthy governor and senator, Miss Kate Chase was one of the belles of Washington mingling in the best society, the daughter of one of the most eminent among the theu extended numbor of statesmen. In the glitter of gauze and diamonds the blood of the intallectual Chases was minglcd with the blood of the wealthy Spragues. Btfore tho lapse of many years financial reverses overtook the supposed iwpreg nable Ehodo Island manufacturing house, changing tha future of one who thought her marriage brought to her feet the fioklo goddess of wealth. She and her husband went iuto obscurity as bankrnpts, to appear at this day under a cloud of scandal, heretoforo no larger than a man's hand but recently burst into national significance. In speaking of thia affiiir the New York World draws the following couclusions : It oannot fail to be usefal, to reflect what would have been said by our Republiean con temporarias liad this incident of watering-place life occurred at Biloxi or at the White Sulphnr Springs instead of Narragansett Pier, and had the parties to it been a Senator froni Mississippi and an ex-Governor of Louisiana, lot us say, insteacl of a Senator from New York and an ex-Governor of Rhode Island. If the Louisianiau had ordered the Mississippian out of his house and threatened to kill hirn if he found him there again, how many of our esteemed conternporaries would have seen in this action only the inevitable outoropping of the " plantation manners" engendered by slavery, and heard in the indignant accents of the excited ex-Governor "the old rebel yell!" We should certainly have heard that such a scandal could not possibly have come to a heiid between any two public men of the North. Now that it has so come to a head between two such public mtn, it may be well to consider whether it is not quite timo for us to drop the praotice of keeping one set of moral weights and social measurts for application to thu "ohivalry" of the South and another set for appKcation to the "statesmen " of the North. If such a scène as that which our dispatches relate had occurred in the house of a Southern ex-statesman, it would have been at once describod as a barbarous performance. It is not less indecent or less barbarous, is it, because it occurred in the house of a Northern ex-statesman, unless, indeed, we are to admit that the Standard of decency and civilization at the South is higher than it is in the North and that Southerners sin against clearer lightr1 Probably we are not prepared to inako this admission. The Maryland Demócrata denounce the Fraud of 1877 as " a crime agaiust a whole people." This is the truo view to take of it. It was the Ameiican propie - not merely Mr. Tilden, Mr. Hendricks, and the Demooratio party - against whom tlmt crime was plottcd and oxecuted. And it waa a crime not only against the Araericans of to-day but against their chüdreu and their children's children. Those who planned it, those who aided in carrying it out, those who benefited by it, should be held in everlasting infamy. It is painful to observe how the Republican press labor to extract cousolation from the Kentucky election. Because the majority is only 40,000, somewhat less than it was in tüe Presidential campaign of 1876 - not a fair comparison - our opponents affect tosee politicul hopes in the dim distance. The reserve forcé failed to como out for the reasou it was not needed. The new constitution, although largely carried, failed for want of a constitutioual majority of voters favoring it. The latest aspirant for pedestrian honors isFederrneyer, who imagines that bocause he trundled a wheelbarrow from San Francisco to New York in nine months, op thereabouts, he can now push H450 miles around tho sawdust track in six days. If he keops on as well as he began, he will travel vet a further distance ; but it is urisafe to wager that he will bo successful. And now is revived the girl life of Kate Sprague, when her father occupied the executive mansion at Columbus; the horse-whipping of a married man found under a lounge in the parlor, and how the beautiful girl committed other discreet acts that gave her a bad reputation and brought sorrow upon hor paren ts. In all his speeches in Maine, John Sherman failed to teil how, entering congress poor, on a salary of $5,000, he has made a millionaire of himself. The secret of money-making so successfully learned by John, would be pleasantly received by tho public. Senator Chandler is making speeches in Maine, following in the path of Sherman. At Chorryfield, he said the Greenback party in Michigan consisted of sorehoads, communists, laboi-unions and houost but foolish soft-money men. The Coukling-Sprague scandal to result probably in the breaking up of two households, thoroughly eclipses tho Jeff Davis, ond all other late like eruptions.