ACCORDING TO THE MOST TRUSTWORTHY accounts there are about 4,000 men, willing and anxious to work, at present out of employment in Brooklyn. To the population of the city this number is hardly out of proportion, and illustrates the growing prosperity of the community as a whole. There has seemingly been no serious interruption of local manufactures, and as long as we avoid trouble in that quarter every reason exists for taking a cheerful view of the situation. Contrasted with the extremities of the miners in the Hocking Valley and the distress of laborers and operatives in some parts of Pennsylvania and New England the poor of Brooklyn are peculiarly fortunate. Enough distress exists, however, to enlist the sympathies and command the activities of charitably disposed persons whose circumstances enable them to contribute for the relief of the sufferers. The demands upon the charitable institutions have been unusually large, and may be expected to grow in the long and dreary weeks before us. Numerous as these institutions are they are in adequate to furnish the assistance required, and the poor will necessarily become dependent to a considerable extent upon individual contributions.

THE ALDERMEN HAVE PERMITTED the city to enter upon the new year without ordering the removal of the wretched monumental monstrosity of Cogswell which defaces the public square at the junction of Fulton street and Lafayette avenue. it is to be hoped that the incoming president of the Board, whether he be President Olena or some one else, will so constitute the Committee on Parks and Bridges, to whom the resolution providing for the removal of the statue has been referred, that they will give early attention to the hideous effigy. Among the other cities which have suffered a similar affliction is Boston, an image of Cogswell in zinc having been reared within the sacred precincts of Boston Common. Following the example of the Eagle the Herald, of that center of "culchaw," cries out against the offense to the offense tot he artistic taste of the community. It protests against burdening the people forever "by the philanthropic eccentricity of any individual," and insists that the "self respect of a community should dictate drawing the line at all gifts which are in violation of good taste," and objects to disfiguring the city "by public contributions that are offensive and ridiculous." "This," continues the Herald, "is what we have done in putting up the wretched and absurd fountain that has so recently been donated to us. We are not certain as to all the conditions under which this gift was accepted, but we should say that the city would suffer less by returning it and standing a suit for damages than continuing to keep it in its present conspicuous position. Indeed, the question of location would seem to rest largely in the hands of our municipal authorities. Later on some one may desire to present the city with a magnificent arch copied after some of those which adorn the City of Rome; but we should not consider that the individual who gave this gift had the right to say that it should be erected in the narrowest and most crowded part of Washington street. If we must keep the new fountain, let it at least be removed from its present position, and placed where it will not be a constant source of offense. There are isolated parts of the West Roxbury Park where it would be useful, and where its want of beauty might be conveniently screened by shrubbery; or, if it must remain on the Common, it could be secreted behind the gardener's house in the so called deer park. But in any event the fountain should be taken down and removed from its present location."

COLONEL STEGMAN, I am informed, left the Sheriff's office with less pecuniary profit than any occupant who has filled it in a dozen years. The late Thomas M. Riley was the most thrifty of our recent sheriffs.