Semi-Weekly Dispatch

Who, that is heartily devoted to the great cause of our country, is not prepared to applaud any policy looking towards the speedy and effectual suppression of this monstrous Rebellion? Who, that is really in earnest, in his profession of attachment to our holy cause, can maintain a studied reticence on the damning infamy of the authors of the Rebellion, and raise his voice in opposition to every safe measure of State policy? Who, in fine, can sympathise with rebels, and call himself a true friend of the Government and country? If the uprooting of Slavery will the more speedily end the war, and save the Union, God speed a universal emancipation! If an honorable adjustment of the Trent affair has averted a war at this time with Great Britain, which might have threatened the very existence of the Government, it has also settled forever a principle of maritime right for which we have ever contended. If those soi-distant loyalists profess such unbounded sympathy for rebels and their institution of Slavery, right-thinking men cannot hesitate to regard all their professions of loyalty only as the protecting shield of perjured traitors!

We have propounded a few questions, and have undertaken to answer them for our readers. TO them, as well as ourselves, they cannot fail to prove the basis of a very unpleasant theme; yet it is a subject upon which most of us have spent serious thought. When men, occupying positions in the army, and seats in both branches of Congress, and clerkships in the several Departments, bestow aid and comfort, directly or indirectly, to the enemy, the wonder is often expressed that the sternest justice is not meted out to such secret enemies of the Government. If in any investigation, partial evidence of guilt is only adduced, a dismissal of the case is followed by a continuance in office, and that everlasting bond of future good behavior, a renewal of their fealty to the Government. Soldiers, as well as civilians, have even thus been favored, while there was sufficient ground for grave charges against them, and it only required time for the development of the most conclusive proof of their guilt. Semi-traitors, infesting the Departments, are actually known, and good-natured conservatives and peace-men regard them with fatherly complacency. While the Army, Congress and the Departments, have within them these sympathisers with traitors, can we marvel that the President, Chiefs of Departments, and Chiefs in command of the Grand Army, look around them with distrust and embarrassment?

Since Southern sympathisers in Congress oppose every measure that they conceive hostile to Slavery, we cannot wonder that officers in the Army have employed men of their command in the degrading work of capturing fugitive slaves and restoring them to their rebel masters. Instead of "saving the Union by letting Slavery take care of itself," conservative Border State men and Southern sympathisers in Congress would reverse the proposition, by saving the institution of Slavery and letting the Union take care of itself! There are various ways, with such soulless men, of discovering their sympathy for the rebels, one of which is Vallandigham's fierce denunciation of the Administration for adjusting our difficulty with England, and thus sinking the hopes of Southern traitors, who meant with foreign aid to carry out their nefarious plan of breaking up the Government. Another involuntary discovery of this sympathy is the conduct of a certain brigadier in permitting a notorious rebel general and his army to escape, when they might have been captured. This Federal officer, doubtless, felt assured of approval and sympathy from the Vallandighams of the House! Even such disasters as Bull Run and Ball's Bluff, no one can doubt, have been subjects of private rejoicing among this class of pseudo-loyalists.

None need wonder at the embarrassment of the Government, environed as it is by influences so inimical to all safe and effective measures in the vigorous prosecution of the war. The inactivity which prevails along the various lines of operation might be attributed to the distrust which the Government may have for certain officers in the Army, and to the betrayal of important information to the enemy by those underlings who infest the Departments. The time, however, is approaching when such abuse of trust, confided to men in the Army and under the Government, will not only be thoroughly exposed but justly punished. Then, when the traitors of the rebel States shall have been at our mercy, and the Union re-established upon an enduring basis, will the labor of a day be accomplished in cleansing the Augean stable of its treasonable foulness, and placing true loyalists in positions held now by men who wink at treason, whom the President and Cabinet, overlooking their defection, generously continue in office.

The establishment, known as the "Lemnos Edge Tool Factory," of this place, has, we understand, changed hands. The new proprietors, embracing some four or five, or more, of the monied and business men of our town, it is said contemplate, in the course of time, not only to manufacture on an extensive scale all kinds of Edge Tools, but also Shovels, Spades, Forks, and other articles, which are made in the East, brought here by dealers all over the country and sold at a profit.

This is as it should be. With the facilities of machinery and water power, what is to interfere with the profitable manufacture, in Chambersburg, of such articles as we have named, that does not exist in the manufacturing towns of the Eastern States? We have many advantages, indeed, that are not possessed by them; the capital is here, but what we need most is enterprise, and we trust this new movement will result in the arousing of our town out of its Rip Van Winkle slumber.