American Senators can occasionally play the fool, like American Congressmen.
Senator Blair, from New Hamp- shire, in the debate on a Bill ordering three new war-ships, resisted, moving that, as an alternative, the President should be directed to request Great Britain to withdraw from her American possessions, dismantle her fortifications, and recall her Navy. Senator Hale asked him if he were serious, to which Senator Blair replied that he was quite serious and had read his Bible, whiCh Senator Hale apparently had not done. Senator Hale, however, retorted that he had read it, and hoped for the Millennium, but did not expect it to arrive just now, upon which Senator Blair remarked that most Members of the British Parliament believed in arbitration, and that if asked, Great Britain would comply with the request. The Senate disagreed with him by 33 to 18, and one would like to know the opinions of those eighteen. Did they vote in order to carry on the joke, or did they really believe that the altruistic chatter of the hour would bear any serious test P One would fancy they were pretty well accustomed to such talk at home, and understood what it meant. American burglars do not think it at all safe to steal American Quakers' spoons, yet American Quakers, we imagine, all profess the doctrine of non-resistance. The incident was only comic, but it does not encourage. Rnglishmen to sanction many more Alabama' arbitrations.
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