Dangerous persons.
Recently there has been on exhibition, on Broad street, near the depot, several rifled cannon of large callbre, marked for the batteries on the Potomac. Among the spectator, we are informed, were persons having special passports to go North via Fortress Monroe; and it may be reasonable to suppose that these persons, some of them being undoubtedly inimical to our cause, communicated the facts of their observation to the Lincoln Government immediately upon their arrival in Washington; and this may be the solution of the sailing and escape of the Pensacola the other day. The ship might have been lost if she had tarried until these formidable guns had been placed in battery. It is thus that anything like an interchange of or courtesies with the Northern enemy works altogether for the benefit of the latter. The Yankees can beat us at bargains. It is believed by many that every apparent success they have hitherto gained, may be traced to the advantages they have reaped from information derived in this manner. On our side, while we act altogether on the defensive, intelligence of this character, so derived, can be of no value to us whatever.Why will not our Government adopt a passport system to obviate these evils? The public safety demands it. A bureau for this purpose is as essential, at this moment, as any bureau of the Government, and a great deal more so than some of them which seem to effect no particle of good for the public welfare.
No doubt Col. Jones, if authorized by the Government to act, would institute a system such as the exigencies demand. During his residence in Europe, we understand, he investigated the system there in operation, and while a modified plan would, probably, be best adapted to this country — such a plan as his experience in the passport office would suggest to his mind — there is every reason to believe that the public safety, and the public interests, would be subserved by the prompt action of the Government.
