The prospects of General Garfield, the Republican can- didate for
the Presidency of the United States, have greatly improved during the week. The autumn elections have been held in five States, and 28 Republicans and 14 Democrats have been sent up for vacant seats in Congress, against 20 Republicans and 22 Democrats previously sitting there. This is a considerable gain, it has been made in Democratic States, and it is noticed that in Indiana, considered a doubtful State, the total poll is the heaviest ever known, the general increase being twenty-five per cent. This means that the people are keenly interested, and is attributed, in the Times' telegram, to the efforts of the Pro- tectionists, who have been exciting the villages. It is more probable, however, that it is due to the suspicions caused by the alliance of the Greenbackers with the Democrats, which rouses the commercial interests to energetic action. A great body of evidence besides these elections indicates that the West is getting over the " soft-money " craze, which never gets fair hold when men are prosperous, though the freeholders are still puzzled by the statement that the " dollar of our fathers " ought not to be legal tender. Bimetallism, however, perplexes better instructed men than the farmers of the American West.
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