Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-03-30 00:00:00

AMERICAN AFFAIRS.

FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.
THE CONGRESS : EXTRA SESSION : UNSATISFACTORY
RESULTS OF THE LABOURS OF CONGRESS :
MORTIFICATION OF THE PRESIDENT : THE CUBA
PROJECT AS DISTANT AS EVER. NEW ERA OF
FILIBUSTERING. NECESSITY OF A NEW SESSION
OF CONGRESS TO SUPPLY OMMISSIONS AND
FAILURES. THE NEW YORK POLICE : SCANDALOUS
DISCLOSURES OF CORRUPTION. THE PURCHASE
OF MOUNT VERNON : EXTRAORDINARY EFFORTS
TO EFFECT IT. THE " LOBBY " CORRUPTIONS AT
ALBANY. THE 66 SICKLES TRAGEDY : " MORBID
SYMPATHY WITH ITS HERO: A TRUE BILL OF
MURDER AGAINST HIM. EXCUSES OF CERTAIN
OF THE RELIGIOUS PAPERS. SPIRITUALISM :

REVELATIONS OF ITS PERNICIOUS EFFECTS.

The administration at Washington have deter-
mined to call an extra-session, of Congress. It has
been found, as it was supposed would be the case,
to be an indispensable necessity, principally on
account of the Post Office Department, which the
wretched party squabbles of the House have left so
shamefully unprovided. for. The deficiency of more
than four millions of dollars which will accrue by
the end of next June, must be met, unless the
whole postal service is to be thrown into confusion, ;
if not given up altogether.' It is a most discreditable
state of affairs, and shows what a reckless body of
men the majority of Congress is composed of. They
knew well the dead lock. into which they would throw
that important branch of the public service, and the
perplexity and annoyance they would occasion the
President. But they appear to have cared for none
of these things. The Post Office, you are aware, is
a costly public department. Unlike yours, its reve-
nue falls very far short of its expenditure, as its
necessities, calculated to the end of June, so forci-
bly show. The time for the.extra-session is not yet
fixed ; but it is expected to be in August. Other
matters will have to occupy its attention, besides the
Post Office ; it may not, therefore, be so short an
affair as was at first supposed.
The brief extra session of the Senate,—if its sitting
for three or four days longer than the term of
Congress deserves such a designation,—has resulted
in nothing of any great moment. Its principal
business was the confirmation of two or three un-
important bills which had found their way through
the House, amid great confusion, at the last. It is
said the President is much mortified at the result of
the sessional proceedings altogether. Some of his
" best laid schemes " have, through their misdoin,
evidently gone, as the Scotch say, " a-gley." His
dashing scheme of the annexation of Cuba, favour-
ably, not to say frantically, though it was affected
to be received, has come to nothing. Words, words,
plenty of words there have been,—plenty of bluster,
—plenty of threat. But is it one whit nearer of
accomplishment ? On the contrary, it is, if anything,
farther off than ever; for the spirit of cupidity, and,
in some quarters, even of freebooting, it has excited,
has not only put the Powers of Europe on
their guard, but has alarmed the sober-minded
and the just of the American people themselves.
The mischievous effect, at home, of having aroused
that covetous spirit, is the inauguration, or something
very like it, of a new era of filibusterism. " There
are already signs," I see it stated, " in various
quarters, that the filibuster spirit, which has been
for some time on the ebb in this country, and which
for a year past has been at slackwater point, is on
the turn, and we may soon expect to see it set in
with a strong flood,' --the plausible pretext for
which is " the failure of Congress to confer upon
the President the power necessary to carry out the
policy which he initiated for the suppression of
filibusterism and the support of an American policy
in the defence of our citizens and our national
interests on the one side, and on the other the efforts
of the European Powers to establish in power in
Mexico and Central America the anti-liberal party,
under a political influence adverse to us,"—but the
real cause of which is, there having been excited
covetous desires by the incitements to acquisition, or
annexation, which the President himself so injudi-
ciously employed.
But to return, for a moment, to the short-comings
of the late session of Congress. What are we to
think of it, when we find even organs of the Govern-
ment declaring that, " to the great relief of the
country, it ended its miserable existence on the 4th
instant," leaving " a most formidable budget of
legislative omissions, failures, deficiencies and
unfinished business to the new Congress, which may
thus be called together some months in advance of
the first Monday in December next ?" That is to
say, that a new Congress may have to be convened,
expressly to do what the late Congress has
refused, or at any rate failed to do ! The
public journals of the day enumerate the divers
urgent affairs to which the President's Message so
earnestly directed attention, such as, touching
foreign matters, a temporary military occupation of
the northern provinces of Mexico ; authority to the
Executive to employ the army and navy, if neces-
sary, in behalf of the peace and neutrality of the
Isthmus transits of Central America : and a special
appropriation to enable the President to enter into
active negotiations for the purchase of the island of
Cuba ; and, concerning domestic affairs, a general
bankrupt law, including corporations ; a recommen-
dation in favour of some positive legislation in
behalf of a railroad from the Mississippi valley to
the Pacific Ocean ; and an appeal for the relief of an
exhausted treasury, through a modification of the
tariff, embracing such specific duties as would afford
some encouraging incidental protection to our home
manufactures, while increasing the treasury receipts
from the foreign imports thus assessed. " Such," it
is observed, " were the bold, practical, expedient,
and popular recommendations of the last annual
Message of Mr. Buchanan. And what has this
Thirty-fifth democratic Congress left upon the record
in response to these leading recommendations ?
Nothing—literally nothing. The Cuba question, the
affairs of Mexico and Central America, the bankrupt
question, and the demands of a rapidly increasing
public debt, and of an empty treasury, remain sub-
stantially untouched by Congress. The last act of
the session was the authority given to Mr. Cobb to
re-issue twenty millions of treasury notes, or, in other
words, to go upon tick for twenty millions more, to
make up the deficiencies in his current receipts
through the ensuing fiscal year." And why this,
as it is but too aptly called, "imposing schedule of
Congressional omissions and failures," this " budget
of blunders ?" The only, or, at any rate, the
principal reason why, is that " the several Presi-
dential cliques and factions of the two Houses,"
have been fighting in defence of their party and
personal interests, instead of doing their duty as the
people's "senate and representatives in Congress
assembled."
Te descend from Federal to State affairs is not, on
the present occasion, to enjoy the opportunity of
describing any more satisfactory state of things.
The city of New York is indignant at certain
" scandalous developments," as they are styled, of
the character and condition of its "Metropolitan
Police," an institution which was fastened upon it by
the State Legislature some two years ago. A
Committee of the Senate has been occupied in
investigating the case ; and the testimony they have
obtained upon the spot, and which is now published,
—and a copy of which I have before me, and

thus can judge for myself,—is only too truly spoken
of by the city press, when it is stated of it, " we
will venture to say that a more disgraceful record of
corruption, inefficiency and general misconduct, has
rarely, if ever, been presented to the public." And
it appears that the witnesses from whom the facts
were elicited were not parties hostile to the force or
the system, but for the most part officers, clerks,
doorkeepers, and messengers attached to the police ;-
so that, it is observed, " they cannot be
suspected of. exaggeration in the statements
they have made under oath." Some of the
details of the evidence are perfectly astounding.
It was shown, for instance, "that many members of
the force are men of the worst character, some of
them being well-known thieves and rowdies, who,
before their appointment as conservators of the
public peace and the lives and property of our
citizens, had made acquaintance with the cells of
the station houses and prisons for gross violation of
the ldws. Drunkenness and rowdyism have been
proved to exist in many of the station houses ;
captains of police as well as the men, it is sworn, are
frequent visitors to houses of ill-fame, and that, too,
in the uniform of the force ; the most infamous
conduct, hardly fit to he mentioned, has been prac-
tised with prostitutes in the police stations ; and
one witness, himself an officer, testifies that this
class, when arrested for disorderly conduct, are
treated with more favour than ony other prisoners ;
in many instances, while poor houseless people,
seeking lodging in the station houses, are put into
miserable cells, prostitutes arrested on some charge
are treated to superior accommodations in the rooms
of the officers, and receive especial favour at their
hands." Then instances of the gravest corruption
among the Commissioners are sworn to ; for ex-
ample, in such cases as the horses of the mounted
police being kept in livery stables owned by
a. brother of one of the Commissioners 3 the
carriages used by the Commissioners hired from
a member of the force ; and, from the evidence
adduced on this point, it appears that these car-
riages have been occasionally used by the family
of one of the Commissioners for their own private
pleasure. Superintendents, clerks, men at large
—all, or many of them, appear to have had " fine
times of it," luxuriating all the while in salaries of
the highest class ; " plenty of money and little to
do," being the order of the day. Well may it be
said, as I see it is, that " while such a state of things
exists in the police system it is no wonder that life
and property are unprotected, or that the standard
of morals should 'be low iu the metropolis. What
can be expected of a body so utterly degraded,
vicious and corrupt, as the police of this city is re-
presented,to be by the sworn statements of so many
of its own members P" Such a state of affairs, under
republican institutions, where the people, it is boasted,
are " the source of all power," may in England have
been taught impossible. But I state the case as it really
is, and I do think it ought to have some effect in
checking the yearnings of the English people after
a purely democratic system of rule and governance,
whether national or municipal.
You are aware, no doubt, of the various devices
that have been had recourse to, for the purpose of
realising the sum of money requisite for the purchase
of Washington's residence of Mount Vernon, on the
Potomac, in Virginia, and where the mortal remains
of the " Father of his Country " lie entombed. It is,
you may remember, a ladies' project ; and their
intention, I believe, is to enclose the house and the
tomb, which adjoins it, in a glass case, after the
construction of the Crystal Palace, and to ensure their
preservation as they now stand. No one has done
so much as the Hon. Edward Everett, formerly, you
know, the American Minister in England, by
lecturing in behalf of the fund. • It is stated that
the sum total received and paid over by Mr. Everett
to the treasurer of the fund now amounts to sixty
thousand eight hundred and ninety-three dollars,
eighty-one cents. I understand that about a
thousand dollars more, accruing from the delivery
of his " Washington," is outstanding, but will shortly
be received and paid over by Mr. Everett. So that
there is no doubt now about the speedy accomplish-
. of their object.

The " Lobby" investigations at Albany have con-
tinued to disclose a variety of corruptions in the
passage of Bills, by means of the bargains effected
with members of the State Legislature, by those
agents who ply their avocations in the lobbies of the
Houses. One of the grossest jobs brought to light
appears to have been in connection with the Albany
Bridge Bill, to secure the passage of which, it is said,
as large a sum as 50,000 dols. was spent.
The " Sickles Tragedy," as the papers are now
calling it, has not yet quite ceased in its excitement.
The chief actor in it—the murderer himself—is
become one of the most notable men, one of the
foremost heroes of the day. " Mr. Sickles," says an
account before me, " continues to receive visitors in
the guard-room of the county jail. Crowds attend
upon him daily. His mails are enormous, and he
writes a great many letters. He is cool and collected,
looking exceedingly well, and dressed with his usual
precisio:a and taste. No complaints escape him, and
though he converses freely with his friends, he gives
way to no levity. His beautiful little girl, Laura,
visits him daily." So that all horror of what he has
done is eclipsed by the prurient interest which a
morbid and mischievous sympathy is producing con-
cerning him. A letter in one of the newspapers,
from a visitor to him, says,—" When he showed me
some of the extracts from the Philadelphia papers
which had been enclosed to him by some anonymous
friend, he said, 4 I have the satisfaction to know that
nearly every religious paper that has spoken of me
has approved the step which I have been compelled
to take." This is a very melancholy circumstance of
the excitement,—the excuse which " nearly every
religious paper" has made for him as a murderer.
Here is one of their recorded opinions : it is
that of a journal in the interest of the Presby-
terians, I believe, at New York, called the
Observer,—" The Christian judgment is, that a
scoundrel died like a dog by the hand of a murderer.
There is no need of mincing the matter, or writing
long columns to determine which was the most
guilty. The wretch deserved God's wrath and curse,
and has it. It was not the right of man, even of a
wronged and ruined man, to inflict the judgment.
But it came swift, terrible, and true. Its lesson will
be wholesome." Now this, as a religious opinion, is
very pernicious ; for although it does acknowledge
that he ought not to have done the deed of vengeance
and of blood, yet it suggests an exoneration which
religion can never sanction. Besides, there is no
doubt, I believe, that he was not in a condition to
" cast the first stone "in such a transaction. The
Grand Jury at Washington have just found a bill of
indictment for murder against Sickles ; and there is
understood to be a strong disposition to indict Butter-
worth, who was standing by when the murder was
committed, as an accessory before the fact. The
Grand Jury are said to have had a warm discussion
on the subject, but their final determination was not
known when the last accounts came away. It is
believed that Butterworth was well aware of Sickles's
intention to shoot Key when he kept the latter in
conversation in the street until Sickles came up to
him, and drew forth his revolver ; and even then,
you will remember, he did not interfere to prevent the
murder. There is a stronger feeling against Butter-
worth than against Sickles, on the ground that he
had not the latter's provocation, and that he acted
treacherously to his friend Key, in leading him, as
it were, to the slaughter.
There are a great many demoralising and defiling
influences in American society to be dispelled, or at
least neutralised, before the morals of the class of
life to which those parties belong, can become such
as to preclude these tragic occurrences in the domestic
circle. " Spiritualism," and " Socialism," have done
an incalculable amount of mischief. A popular pro-
fessor of the firstnamed of these most dangerous delu-
sions, one Dr. Hatch, having come to his senses, has pub-
lished a letter in which he makes shocking revelations
about the secret immorality of spiritualism, and the
dangerous tendency of the system as regards the
domestic and social relations, more particularly in
reference to the institution of marriage. According
to the testimony of this person, so thoroughly
initiated as he was in the diabolical device, and who
has been behind the scenes and witnessed what he
describes, the " free-love" system, so long patronised
and encouraged in New York, has developed itself
to full maturity in the spiritualist circles, and is
bringing forth its appropriate fruit. Can one won-
der, then, at the prevalence of adultery ?