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124  PEOPLE'S JOURNAL. 

satisfied unless they are being humbugged," as Barnum puts it. 

Now that the ballon did'nt go to Europe, nor even try to go, since it has become plain that they never intended that it should go, since it has been explained to the satisfaction of the public, that they violated all the instructions of the experienced balloon-builders in its construction, introduced into it flimsy and worthless material, exposed it so that it rotted into holes faster than it could be patched, and then loaded it down with useless and cumbrous paraphernalia, against the protests of Mr. Wise, its purposed navigator-the question arises, how will the project benefit the Graphic men, the Good-sells, who sold the public so good?

Though they are not out of pocket in cash, the reputation they have achieved is such as the harlot obtains, their advertisement answering for her paint.  It is decidedly too cheap to be good. Like the varnish on the worthless balloon, it is full of cracks, and the selfish and disingenuous motive shows through it. They have perverted a great scientific cause to a base use. They have made a farce of what should have been honorable experiment. They have defrauded the public, published lies, begat false expectations. The sober sense of the community scorns them for their duplicity. All interested in science lament the prostitution of a noble cause to the purposes of mountebanks and swindlers. The Graphic will hereafter be a synonym for stupendous frauds, good-sells, moon-hoaxes and patent humbugs in general. 

As to the other parties, Mr.Donaldson is happily beyond possibility of danger to his reputation by reason of the collapse. He is only an accomplished trapeze performer, who to the Goodsell project proved ornamental, but to any solid project, designed as an earnest test of upper-air currents, could but be a positive hindrance. Of a sensational and interfering nature, he baulked where he could not lead, and commanded where he should have obeyed. He alone seems to have had the ear of the Goodsells, and to have been privy to their original intention to perpetrate a great humbug. 

Prof. John Wise is the most unfortunate of all the participants in the great sell. It was his proposition to cross the Atlantic. He furnished the idea- an idea not new with him, but cherished for thirty years. He is no adventurer, but a true man of science; a little enthusiastic, perhaps, but experienced and conscientious, as far removed from sensation and humbug, as was Galileo or Morse. He honestly accepted the Graphic proposition, honestly gave his time to the development of the project, and through was ever ready to assist with his experience and his hand. Not knowing what was back of the offer, the old man was thankful for it. Not suspecting jugglery behind, the old man only looked ahead to a grand realization of his dream, to a fame which had long been withheld from him because of impecuniosity, to the establishment of law which was to him a faith, and which when established will add infinitely to the possibilities of humanity. His experience, among the busy notes of preparation, was scouted, as soon as he was sufficiently committed to the project to render honorable withdrawal impossible, his suggestions were regarded as interferences. He was not half sensational enough; was by far too practical and ingenuous. He was thrown overboard from the balloon days before it was varnished and placed on exhibition, days before it was inflated and proved to be only a "bag of gas."

Great must be his humiliation indeed at the use that has been made of his name and scientific attainments. But though he has been cruelly victimized, it is fortunate for him that his reputation cannot be impaired by the tricks of designing men. The good sense of every community will exonerate him from all complicity in the fraud, and scientists everywhere will sympathize with him in his disappointments and sustain him in his efforts to uphold his name and cause. 
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MASSACHUSETTS has passed through a political ordeal which will have a decidedly refining effect. In so doing, she has set an example to the other States which they can with profit follow. She has proved the possibility of one solid body of voters meeting another solid and antagonising body, without other disaster than a few useless speeches, the loss of a few days' work and a few dollars for the car-fare and hotel board. There was an angry ebullition of the political elements, which foreboded violent outburst, which in a community less practical, would have become historic by a train of riot and bloodshed; or, at best, would have left a trail of fuels, embitterments and spasm. But the paroxysm passed off in a sublime display of sheet-lightning concession. The tempest did not gather up its fury and hurl it in one damaging bolt among the masses. The portentous clouds met and kissed. Butler, who fought his case before the people with the desperation of a fillibuster,  had the good sense both to see that he was whipped in the nominating convention, and to gracefully retrieve misfortune by magnanimous surrender. Washburne could not but have felt that the act was an unexpected compliment to himself; and his interest in, if not his respect for his enemy, must have been increased. The moral of the Massachusetts fight for Governor is. that while political ferment is necessary for purification, it is possible for the heated masses to subside, without exhibitions of violence, and without other damage than that already mentioned."
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When Castelar became president of the Spanish Republic, we felt convinced that so far as oratorical display was concerned he would prove "the right man in the right place." But we were by no means assured that eloquence was ever an important ingredient in the formation of a Spanish republic. Nor were we any more fully assured that "mere talk" would serve to crush the hydra of the old monarchy, this last being more of a pre-requisite to Spanish peace than the establishment of a republic. But really we are disappointed in the man. He appears to have ceased talking and to have gone about the demolition of the old order of things and the organization of the forces which must become conspicuous in the new order of things, with a circumspection and masterly activity which will surprise even his warmest advocates. For once in a long time, the skies about Madrid are clear, however stormy and complicated things may be on the coasts, where the Carlists are most numerous and where they are encouraged by English shipments of arms and other munitions of war. But then we cannot predicate success upon these signs. Spanish programmes are so changeable as to prevent anything but wonder at what will turn up next. 
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THE moment a friend, or even a mere acquaintance is dead, how surely there starts up before us each instance of unkindness of which we may have been guilty towards him. In fact many and many an act or word, which, while he was in life, did not seem to us to be unkind at all, now "bites back" as if it were a serpent, and shows us what it really was.
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CHASTISE your passions that they may not chastise you. No one who is a lover of money, a lover of pleasure, or a lover of glory, is likewise a lover of mankind. Riches are not among the number of things that are good. It is not poverty that causes sorrow, but covetous desires. Deliver yourself from appetite, and you will be free. He who is discontented with things present and allotted, is unskilled in life.