OCR Text |
Show PIESSEPOKT AND BABCOCK. The St. Louis Timet of Monday publishes a long statement accusing Attorney General Pierrepont of conspiring con-spiring with the counsel for Babcock to bring about his acquittal. Tbe charges are very specifically made, and state that Pierrepont hypocritically hypocriti-cally obtained the full particulars and plan of the prosecution from Attorney Dyer, down to the full details of the evidence, the order of its presentation, presenta-tion, etc. All of this information the attorney general confided to Counsel Storrs with the knowledge and consent of the president, the private office of Pierrepont being the frequent rendezvous rendez-vous of the conspirators, which included in-cluded Porter and Babcock. When the plan of the prosecution was fully matured Storrs wad as familiar with it u Iver himself. Tbe latter is entirely en-tirely exonerated from blame, 03 he placed full confidence in the attorney general, and could not bring himself to believe that one of the chief ofheers of the government would viotato his oath of office and disregard his .duty. The statement attributes Pierrepont'a action to je.ilouay of Bristnw, who had entirely OYenhad-owed OYenhad-owed Pierrepont as the prosecutor of the whisky ring in the public eslima-tion. eslima-tion. The attorney general therefore joined the Grant faction, and hie efforts to save Babcock were inspired by the double purpose of propitiating Grant and weakening Bristow. It ia gaid that Col. Dyer and bis assistants aro fi'lly award of Pierrepont' treachery now. Thod tylh.it Bibcock was acquitted Dyer said publicly that he had contended against an element -which was hound at that time to defeat de-feat him. Ho declined to givo any : explanation. The article also accuses Pierrepont with maneuvering for tho removal ol Gen. Henderson, lato counsel fr,r the government. 1 TREASURY COLD AND KU MPTION. Thestatementof tbe secretary of the treasury that the total amount of available avail-able gold coin in the United States treasury w.u last week onlyalout $i:;,'J0,000 in-tead of $7,000,001) according to the recent monthly dubt statements, ha.s created great sur-i sur-i prise among the people, who gen-: gen-: orally aio not in a position to know ! tho elements which enter into the treasury statements. Many of the lead i nij newspapers have aI.;o expressed ex-pressed astcniMbnient in view of the secretary's explanation, which is that there is actually in the treasury the amount of r; -!;l coin mentioned in tho m.-itiily debt statements ; but against this gold exist various debt liabilities, suca as gold notes, gold coupons, called bonds and matured obligations, (besides greenbacks and fractional currency). If every one of these were at once presented for payment pay-ment thcro would still remain on hand upward of $13,000,000, besides the silver. Of course in practice such a demand upon the treasury is not likely to be made while tho government gov-ernment remains solvent; but the statement of a gold balance of $73,-000,000, $73,-000,000, when thcro is in reality only $13,000,000 of coin in the treasury is one which without explanation ia cah dilated to deceive persons unacquainted unacquaint-ed with the principles of keeping the treasury accounts. During a long period of the time when Bout-well Bout-well and Richardson were selling gold in Wall street, the treasury balances were reported at nearly $100,000,000, a large part of vhich ot" c.mrse consisted con-sisted of coin deposits representing government obligations. The treasury treas-ury gold balance has been decreasing for some time past. The drain of gold for European account and for tho payment of customs has made gold a scarco commodity, and this tendcn:y h:i3 evidently not been decreased de-creased by the specie resumption act, which is simply a bid for gold coin against the markets of the world. That act has been in force over thirteen- months, and the treasury reports an available balance in gold of something over thirteen millions. Supposing, says the Philadelphia Times, "there was no available gold in the treasury when the act passed, the rate of accumulation has been a million mil-lion a month; and at this rate it would require about twelve years to obtain the one hundred and fifty million, which is the smallest amount with which the cxperimentof resumption resump-tion could safely be commenced. But, in point of fact, it would take longer, for if the Sherman act, with its fixed day, were to remain in force, as a threat held over all busineis enterprise, the government revenues would so fall off that it would be found impossible to accumulate any gold in the treasury. Evidently we are not traveling the right way to reach the desired goal of specie payments, and must call a halt and proceed differently differ-ently if we arc ever to get there." |