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[[Column 1 SLIP-CUT ARTICLE]] CORRESPONDENCE. PHILADELPHIA CORRESPONDENCE Municipal Corruption-All the Result of Radicalism-Grant and his Satraps-What the Radical, Puritanical Party has Done-Mischief Dire Follows in its Wake-R. R. Monopolies - "Hard Times"-The Centennial. ete., ete. To-morrow, the 16th, our city election for municipal officers takes place. and while there is a general disposition to ignore party lines, in order to rid the corporation of the Ring vampires who have bankrupted our city, the love of party power and party ascendency is so deep rooted in the Republican leaders, that they cannot for the soul of them, go fairly into the needed reform. The negro-phites are growling desperate all around. Seeing that the scepter is about departing from them they are in their last extremity trying to suspend the writ of habeas-corpus, under the pretext of banditti in Lousiana and Arkansas, but really for the purpose of intimidating voters in the general election, so that their lease of power and plunder may be perpetuated. Such an enactment by the Republican Congress, with such a President as Grant, and such satraps as Phil. Sheridan and Gen. Burnsides would inevitably raise up a spirit of indignation, remonstrance and bloodshed, if it was attempted to be put into operation, as would only have its parallel in the French Revolution. The Rhode Island Senator, Burnside, just elected to that high calling, is the satrap who wanted President Lincoln to allow him to proclaim marital law in Ohio, so that he might have Valandingham court-martialed and shot. Really, this puritanical party has filled the mission of demoralization and ruin, both North and South. It has freed the negro and enslaved the poor white people. That is, it has not lifted up the negro a jot. but it has brought the poorer class of whites down to the level of the negro. It is a common remark in this city, that "things are coming to a crisis." With the misrule of Radicalism and salvaging of subsistence by the railroad monopolies, it will not at all be wonderful if your great western gigantic Grange movement would in its progress proclaim the "Year of Jubilee," and this give this greatly endowed country a fresh start. The "bloated bond-holders," as Thad Stevens termed them, must ere long do what the Commoner termers "disgorge," because the people are beginning to find where the hard times come from, Consolidate, as England did when her wars had bankrupted her treasury. She consolidated her 8 and 6 per cents, into 3 percent. consuls. That would be an easy way for our Government to make ends meet-better than to tax tea and coffee, and to add 30 per cent. more to our grog. A still better way would be to take the lesson of our revolutionary patriots, and wipe the war debt out altogether by letting the "bloadted bond-holders" down easy in an annual reduction of 20 per cent. on the principal and interest. At all events, we of the East look with great hope to the patriotism of the West, where the strength of Empire mainly rests. One thing all intelligent men hereabout rest assured of: it is that a great change will come over us within the next two years. The South, with its commanding influence in the next Congress, will not be slow in the movement towards free trade, supported as it naturally will be by the agricultural West. We are not willing that three great railroad monopolies shall rob the western agriculturalist, and tax the eastern workman to a degree that will, if it has not already, establish the distinction of plebian and partrician, by their avaricious system of freights and forestallings. Too long the people have "wept, bewailing that falsehood's dagger tyrants wield, but freedom is our sword and shield, and all their arts are unavailing," Business is almost at a stand-still here, and "hard times" has taken the place of "how do you do?" in the common salutation. All this time God is blessing our country with bountiful crops, while "man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn." Our Centennial is to be the "cure all." It is to fill our pockets full of rocks, that is to say-the rich man's pockets- the poor man's full of chips, and his heart full of glory, for the honor of living in the hundredth year of our independence, to glory in the taxes that are this day heavier than were the taxes that inspired the Revolution of 1776. CENTENNIAL. EVENING BULLETIN The "Philadelphia Evening Bulletin" is published daily, Sundays excepted, at THE BULLETIN BUILDING, 607 Chestnut Street. The "Evening Bulletin" is served by carriers, at Eight Dollars per annum, payable at the Office, or Eighteen Cents per week, payable to the carriers; Mail Subscriptions, postage free, Eight Dollars per annum. PEACOCK, FETHERSTON & CO. Monday, May 24, 1875. BALLOON METEOROLOGY. The Zenith Catastrophe...Perturbation of our Atmosphere...Views of the Aeronaut Professor Wise. Professor John Wise, the aeronaut, writes to us as follows: "The ascension made on Friday last with Mr. O. Schneck's 'St. Charles Balloon,' in which I was accompanied by Chas. C. Cresson, the same person who accompanied me last October, in the 'Franklin' balloon, which ascended from the rood of the building at the corner of Market and Thirteenth streets, was purely for scientific purposes. We started off under a meridian sun, and in three minutes rose 5,000 feet. Notwithstanding this velocity of ascent, the motion in itself was imperceptible, so smoothly did the balloon cleave the air. The transition so suddenly from the solid earth to the fields of cloud-land was sufficient to awaken all the dormant sensibilities of the soul. While my companion was descanting upon the beauty of real estate homesteads dotting the county all around beneath us, I called his attention, or rather the balloon did. to another consideration. The sun having full play upon the air vessel and expanding its gas, caused the carburetted hydrogen to pour down upon us a cloud od death, although we were twelve feet below the muzzle of the balloon. "'Now, Mr. Cresson,' I remarked, 'this makes it plain to you how the Zenith party in France the other day had two of their comrades smothered in a hydrogenated atmosphere. You are already suffering, I see, and I am not very comfortable myself; my pulse is off on the double-quick, and you are getting pale, so I will put a stop to this part of our experimentation by opening the valve.'" "We had now attained an altitude of 7,500 feet. Had the muzzle of the balloon been close on our heads, as was the case in the Zenith balloon, we could not have lived many minutes in such an asphyxiated atmosphere. The throwing overboard of an eighty-pound weight gas-bag by one of the Zenith party, done, no doubt, under a confused mental action, brought about by the inhalation of a noxious gas, explains the cause of the disaster. The rarified condition of the atmosphere at an altitude of 30,000 feet will not cause death of itself. Green, the notes English aeronaut, went up to that height without injury, though he used a bag of pure air to inhale from. "The atmosphere was much pertubated on Friday. At five and six thousand feet up it was fluctuating to and fro, and I am more convinced than ever that we are yet to find a solution of our remarkable seasons from outside pressure upon our earth's elastic shell of air, a pressure from planetary perturbations in conjunctions, quadratures and appositions. Were it not for outside interferences our seasons would necessarily have to be the same from year to year, assuming that the earth is regular in its motions and in its conditions of temperature as to equatorial heat and polar cold. Our planet is subject to direct pressure from Venus and Mars, and they in turn from Mercury and Jupiter. The photosphere is as subject to disturbances by pressure as is our atmosphere, and while the cosmogony is a ferentiations of evolution through motion. Future experiments will be especially directed to that line of investigation. "While we were suspended over the northern part of our built-up city the scene underneath us was peculiarly lively under the noonday sun. Everything shone out in radiant beauty, shimmering in the profusion of spangles and jewels. "The transparency of the Delaware was very marked as we stood almost, if not quite, still over it for some minutes, and until a gentle, spasmodic puff of air sent us over the sandy plains of Jersey." BALLOON ASCENSION. A new Method of Spreading the Gospel. Tomorrow morning, if the weather proves favorable, Prof. Wise will make a balloon ascension from the Hippodrome grounds, at Broad and Norris streets. He will be accompanied by a scientific gentleman, who will take a couple of thousand tracts with him, and distribute them broadcast. The trip is made for the purpose of making scientific observations, which will prove of great benefit. The ascension will take place about 11 o'clock. LEDGER AND TRANSCRIPT. Philadelphia, Tuesday, July 6, 1875. BALLOON ASCENSIONS. Three balloon ascensions took place at Promontory Rock, near Girard avenue bridge, at half-past five o'clock, the presence of a very large concourse of people, gathered not only on the ground in the immediate vicinity, but also on the bridge, and in such numbers that it was with great difficulty that a passage over the bridge could be forced. Owing to the lack of a proper railing or fence about the balloons, the throng pressed on them to such an extent that the ascent was hurried, and, when made finally, was done with great difficulty. Miss Lizzie Ihling, niece of John Wise, ascended in the "Republic," and was soon followed by John Wise and Son in the "Commonwealth," and John Wise, Jr., grandson of John Wise, in the "Quaker City." The "Republic" ascended to considerable height, and passed off in a northerly direction. When directly over Township line and Summit streets, the balloon was seen to flatten and to descend rapidly. The "Commonwealth" balloon, navigated by Mrs. Ihling, neice of Prof. Wise, rapidly ascended until it attained an altitude of about 7000 feet. It was then over the Smallpox Hospital on the turnpike beyond the Punch Bowl. The spectators saw it falling rapidly, with every appearance of a collapse, and there was every reason to believe that a disaster had befallen the fair navigator. It appears from the account of Mr. Conrad, on whose farm the balloon descended, that he saw the rapid descent, and was satisfied that something was wrong. The car swayed fearfully from side to side, sometimes seeming to be above the canvas; then the air would seem to support it and check its downward progress. Finally it fell in his open field, and the basket and balloon rolled over and over, entangling his cow in a snarl of ropes and network. Mr. Conrad and others ran to the scene and extricated Mrs. Ihling, who was insensible from a bruise on the left side of her head. She was carried to the house of Mr. John Mayne, and bathed with cold water, and after fifteen or twenty minutes revived. She was naturally much bewildered, and inquired where she was and what had happened. After a couple of hours she had recovered sufficiently to be brought to her residence in this city. Her injuries are not serious.. This was Mrs. Ihling's first trip by herself in a balloon, and the second she had ever taken, the first being with Mr. John Wise, from Forty-second and Market streets, last summer. Mr. Wise had provided her balloon with an "exploding cord," by which she could rend the balloon from top to bottom and let out the gas at once, in case she should be necessitated to land in a high wind. It is a valuable adjunct in experienced hands. Mrs. Ihling explains that when she got to the altitude of 7000 feet her ears began to pain her, and she desired to descend to a lower height. The overflow of the gas had been so great that she thought it would presently do so of its own accord, and as it did not she pulled the valve cord to let out some of the gas. Her belief is that it was entangled with the exploding cord, and thus her balloon was immediately exploded. The rapid descent caused the basket to sway violently and she placed herself at bottom of the basket, and recollects nothing after that. She did this instead of following the advice of her uncle, who had instructed her to hold to the concentrating ring, in which case the basket and ballast would have broken the fall; but the great motion of basket decided her upon the course above mentioned. John Wise, Jr., son of Mr. Charles Wise, and grandson of Mr. John Wise, is a youth of 14 years. His first ascension was about four years ago, but during the past two years he has made many ascensions by himself. He is a bright youth, and has lately been admitted into the High School. He ascended to a great height, and landed on the Blue Grass road. between Bustleton and Holmesburg, making the trip safely. He was sent off under the supervision of his father, Mr. Charles Wise. The balloon of Mr. John Wise, Sr., which also contained Mr. Schneck, rose majestically and went in the direction of the others, northeast, and when over Nicetown, descended, Mr. Wise alighting, and Mr. Schneck, who owned the balloon, reascending. No tidings of the descent have, at this writing, reached the office. The "Commonwealth" and "Quaker City" followed the same general course, at no very great height from the ground, and came down safely. DISPLAY OF FIREWORKS.
