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GRAND JURY SECRECY.

Until the Twentieth Legislature passed the act to prohibit grand jurors, witnesses and others from revealing the secrets of the grand jury rooms there was no law to punish persons who divulged such secrets. The imperative necessity for the act is in the last section of it declared to be that there is no such law. And this is about as conclusive as any other reason ever advanced to justify secret inquests. If the members of the grand jury and witnesses who swear the preserve secrecy perjure themselves. and under the existing law defining perjury would escape conviction for the felonious act, the definition ought to be amended. The fact that the perjury relates to soemthing past or present as defined, and the penalties can not be imposed when the perjury or false statement relates to something in the future, shows the absurdity of requiring jurors, bailiffs and witnesses to swear secrecy. This oath is no more than a promise, and it is not perjury under the statutory definition to violate the promise. The law recently passed makes the violation a misdemeanor instead of a felony, as perjury ought to be. There ought to be severe penalties for divulging secrets, when pending an inquest the ends of justiceare subserved by secrecy, but after the lapse of time, and the reason in the particular case for secrecy no longer obtains, there is no benefit in further concealment. Further concealment encourages malicious, prosecutions or rather shields those who have endeavored to use the grand jury for venting their spleen upon their enemies.

THERE was no divisity hedging Kalakaua. When his army, composed of fifty men, went over to the revolutionists he gave up his poweras a king without a struggle. His people pointed a gun at him and he rolled off the throne before they could fire.

THE influence of the press is to be tested in Europe. The Russian papers object to the erection of Ferdinand to the Bulgarian throne, while the English, Ausrian and German papers endorse it. If the press has any influence there will be war. At this moment it looks as if it had the influence.

THE English are slow, but they know when they have enough, even of a good thing. The Wild West show, which was "all the go" in London a few days ago, has become a nuisance to London people who want it suppressed as a nuisance. About the only way Buffalo Bill can blow new life into his drooping concern is to again issue free passes to the royal family.

THE Philadelphia Brigade insists on paying the expenses of Mrs. Pickett and her son to the battlefield of Gettysburg. Pickett's Division intended to do this, but the Philadelphia Brigade interfered, claiming the lady and her son as its guests. Here is a good place for Foraker of Ohio to plaster an injunction.

IN an interview at Chicago, Roscoe Conkling said the rule of the politicians was, "The greatest good to the greatest number," that number being No. 1 , and then he went and gazed out of the window and thought how Blaine had once alluded to him as a turkey cock.

FERDINAND of Saxe-Coburg, may not be a great man mentally but in offering to get between England and Russia at this time he has shown and unparalleled courage. The probabilities are that he will never secure the Bulgarian throne, and if he should gain it, he would be removed from it to the graveyard in less than three months.

MR. HARPER, the wrecker of the Fidelity Bank and the young Napoleon of Cincinatti, has begun to complain that other persons were the case of his ruin. Ferd Ward did the same thing when he was pulled up with a snort jerk, but he is still polishing stove legs in a penitentiary. The young Napoleons are very large men, but when in trouble they show their youth by squealing.