Mexican Attacks on American Vessels Threaten War
Attacks on American vessels by parties of Mexicans, in the waters of the Rio Grande, threaten to lead to a war between Mexico and the United States. Affairs in France seem to be drifting into chaos. Thiers assumes the air of a dictator. Orleanists and Bonapartists are weaving all over the country a complicated web of intrigues in behalf of their respective parties. The Germans are threatening to send more troops into that country to avenge German murders in some parts of the country. The prospects for peace and prosperity there are, therefore, not very encouraging. There has been no time for many years when the moral sense of the community was so profoundly stirred as it is at present. A remarkable succession of startling crimes and disasters has arrested and shocked the public attention, until men have been compelled seriously to ask themselves whether these things are symptoms of moral rottenness throughout the body politic. The murder of Rogers in a prominent street, in broad daylight, and the escape of the assassins; the murders of Nathan and of Foster; the explosion of the “Westfield,” “Starbuck,” and “Ocean Wave”; the wreck of the “Lodona”; the railroad slaughter near Boston; and, finally, the sickening “trunk tragedy,” have followed each other so closely as to seem parts of an unbroken series. And, that no element of appalling impressiveness might be wanting, earthquakes and hurricanes and storms have added their part to this “summer of horrors.”