The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-26 00:00:00

has become, what Mr. Lincoln said in 1861 that it
would become, if the Southern people were wholly
in earnest—not a mere blunder on the part of the
North, but a positive crime. But the Americans
are not to be comprehended. They do not under-
stand themselves, and do not admit that any one
else can ; so it may happen that all these indica-
tions are uncertain, and that the accident of a day
may again render the North as warlike as it was
three years ago before it had tasted the bitterness
or paid any portion of the penalty of strife.
However this may be, the present symptoms are,
if there be not speedily some sort of compromise
with the South, some little return towards reason
after the furious paroxysm of madness which has
possessed the governing party for the last three
years, that the old question of State rights, the
discussion of which in the matter of slavery pro.
yoked the war, will break out in another form
and lead to a conflict of powers- ,serious enough of
be entitled to the name of a new rebellion. Governor
Seymour, as will have been noticed in his proclama-
tion for calling out the militia, adheres to the prin-
ciple of the sovereignty of the State as equal within
its own sphere to that of the sovereignty of the
Union, and foreshadows the day when it may be ne-
cessary to vindicate it by force of arms. The great
case which is to test whether the courts of law and
the people are of the opinion of the Governor, that
of the State and people of New York against Gene.
ral Dix and his military subordinates, came on for
argument before Judge Russell on Saturday. It
was urged on behalf of General Dix that having
acted under the express orders of the President in
arresting the editors of the World and Journal of
Commerce, and in suspending the publication of
those journals, he ought to be discharged from
custody. inasmuch as the President is not only ex
officio Commander-in-Chief of the Federal army. but
that he had been specially empowered by Act of Con •
gresa to take such measures for the public 'safety in
time of war as he should deem expedient. It was
contended, on the other hand, on behalf of the State
of New York, that the Act of Congress in question
is null and void, as being contrary to the Federal con-
stitution—that it conferred and could confer no such
special authority as that alleged; that the State of
New York is in profound peace and tranquillity, and
therefore exempt from the operation of martial law ;
that the constitution of the State especially pro-
vided against the imprisonment of any citizen with-
out legal process; and against any restriction of the
liberty of the press; and furthermore, that if it be.
comes the duty of the President in the interest of
the public safety to abrogate temporarily the ordi-
nary jurisdiction of the Courts, it is no less his duty
to proclaim the fact before ; that be had not done so in
this instance, and that for all these reasons the de-
fendants were guilty of the charge laid against
them and liable to the punishment in that case pro-
vided. The judge, fally impressed with the vast
importance of the issue, tcok time for consideration
and adjourned the further hearing till the Ist of
August, allowing General Dix and his co-defendants
to be at liberty in the meanwhile on parole. The
case is full of peril if Mr Lincoln be as obstinate as
his letter to General Dix would imply; and may
lead to complications unpleasant at any time, but
especially dangerous at an hour like this, when the
near approach of the Presidential election is letting
loose a flood of passions, in addition to these pro-
duced by the war, and calling into controversy every
one of the principles by which the American Rev°.
'mien was justified, and on which the Union itself
was founded.

Mr Fessenden arrived in New York on Sunday
to coneult with the leading bankers and men of
busieess on the aspects of the money market, the
financial condition of the Government, and the
means to be adopted to bring down the premium on
gold and maintain the credit of the country. He
yesterday met them by appointment, and listened
attentively for several hours to such advice and
hints as they had to give him, and such ex-
positions of the state of affairs as they chose
to make ; but said not a word in reply
which could afford the acutest among them the
least clue to his own opinions and intentions. He
had another long interview with the same gentle-
men to-day, and made an equally good listener as
he did the day before. Having heard all they had
to say he made a speech to them of an hour's dura-
tion, avowing his disinclination to announce any
definite line of financial policy at a time of such
public peril as this, and asking for a loan of fifty
millions of dollars, to be repaid by the lst of
September. It was understood from his speech
that he will not imitate the example of Mr Chase in
favouring the erection of new national banks, and in
endeavouring to concentrate in their hands all the
financial affairs of the country to the detriment of
the State banks, N 5 hich at the outbreak of the war
vied with each other in sustaining the credit of the
Government. It was also understood that in addi-
tion to the loan of fifty millions, which if he procure
it, will only pay the expenses of the war for about a
fortnight, he will come upon the market for a loan of
two or three hundred millions on the best available
terms, sled that if this second loan succeed according
to his wishes he will print offno more greenbacks--
at least for the present. The Republican journals
favour the popular loan, and will call upon the Go-
vernment to offer it to the people in small sums, so
as to enlist the greatest possible numbers of the
working classes, the farmers, the shopkeepers, and
the poorer order of provincial people in the sta•
bility of the Government. The Tribune sees salva-
tion in this course alone and argues that if the
people do not adequately support the Secretary in
this emergency " the war must stop, and the Go-
vernment go down." It was supposed that the in-
vasion of Maryland and the danger of the Federal
capital would have sent up gold to a premium of
200 per cent, to-day, but it has not reached a higher
point than 176, being arrested in its upward ten-
Oncy, it is though; by a rumour which is not likely
to be well founded, that General Grant had captured
Petersburg. There are, however, so many rumours
afloat—some of them absurd, some contradictory,
and some so utterly impossible to be true, that the
one helps to neutralise the other, and to keep specu-
lation somewhat less rampant than it might be—
if no more and no less than the truth were stated,
however unpleasant the truth might happen to be.

JULY 13.
As anticipated, the rumour of the capture of
Petersburg turns out to be false. Nothing is known
positively this morning of the events that have hap-
pened to the north of the defences of Washington
since Monday evening, when a battle was still raging.
It is not known who commands at Washington on
the part of the Federals, though it is supposed to be
Gen. Augur, while it is surmised rather than known
that Gen. Early, and not Lee, commands the Con-
federates. Telegraphic communication with Wash-
ington continues suspended, and the only news that
reaches this city comes from Philadelphia, tainted
more or less by its Federal or Confederate parentage.
To give a tithe of the rumours in circulation would
but perplex and confuse the European reader, and I
therefore refrain from repeating them. Grant, it is
asserted, will not abandon the attempt upon Rich-
mond via Petersburg ; and the loyal people are
told to expect a movement in that direction which
will fully make amends for all that the Confe-
derates may do, or attempt to do, in Maryland and
the district of Columbia.

FATAL AFFRAY BETWEEN SOLDIERS.—At the
Aldershot petty sessions yesterday, before Capt. Newcome
and a full bench of magistrates, George Barlow, private of
the 75th Regiment, was charged with killing and slaying
Thomas Hutchins, a private of the same regiment, on the
previous f3aturday evening. It appeared from the evidence
that the deceased had been drinking with the prisoner and
some other soldier at the Royal Duke public-house, near
the north camp, when some words ensued between them,
and the prisoner struck the deceased with his fist behind the
ear, which caused him to fall over some rails, and he did not
again speak or breathe. The prisoner, when taken into
custody, admitted the charge.: He was committed for trial.
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excating pains of

THE MAIN DRAINAGE WORKS,

Yesterday what may be termed the annual visit of in-
spection to mark the yearly progress in the execution of
this stupendous undertaking was made by the chairman
and members of the Board of Works, a number of members
of the House of Commons, the Sheriffs, many of the Alder-
men and chief officials of the City, with some of our leading
engineers interested in noting the gradual completion of one
of the greatest, and certainly one of the most important,
engineering works of modern times. Mr Bazalgette, the
engineer to the Board, the gentleman to whose scientific
skill all the plans both for our new main drainage and our
Thames Embankment are due, was, to the regret of all, un-
fortunately prevented by official duties before a Lords' com-
mittee from being present on this occasion. The party
numbered between 500 and 600 strong, and were conveyed
by two steamboats, which started from Hungerford early
in the morning, calling at the various piers down to Wool-
wich for those whose time or business made it more conve-
nient to embark later and lower down the river. The visit
was entirely confined to the northern and southern main
outfall sewers, with their reservoirs, for we are glad to say
the main drainage intercepting sewers are now nearly com-
pleted, and as they extend over the whole of the metrepoli-
tain area, and are 82 miles in length, any other way of in-
specting the works was out of the question.

The whole system of the new intercepting plan of main
drainage may be explained in a very few words. Before
the Board of Works arose our efforts in the way of drainage
were confined to the extremely simple expedient of running
all drains into the Thames; in fact, of making the river
our great wain sewer, and how admirably our efforts suc-
ceeded the smell of the Thames in hot weather soon
showed. Bad, however, as this system of drainage was,
there was one thing even worse, which was the method
of effecting it. The first drains and sewers made were
in the old districts of the metropolis—that is,
those districts which lay more or less close to the
river on each side, and therefore the lowest in point of ele-
vation of any in the city. It was hard to drain these parts
at all, and it had to be done by taking the sewers so very
much lower that it was only at dead low water they could
empty themselves. As London grew, every year added
enormously to the extent and danger of the evil till
scarcely any sewers could empty but at dead low tide, when
the water in the river was at its minimum, and when the
returning flood swept all the naueous " flotsam and jet-
sam" back into the heart of the metropolis and kept it
churning backwards and forwards for another six hours in
the open air. What effect this at last produced we all
know, though what no knows is why it did not bring a pes-
tilence long ago. It is enough, however, to say that the
evil was so severely felt, and the danger so pressing, that
the " intercepting" scheme of main drainage was at last
adopted, is now, we are glad to say, nearly half executed,
and will before this time twelvemonth be entirely com •
pleted, with the exception of the small length to be laid in
the Thames Embankment. The intercepting plan, as its
name implies, consisting in cutting three great main drains
on both sides of the river, and which, instead of running
due north and south Eke the present system, run from west
to east. These great main lines intercept and cut off all the
existing lines of drains from the river, carrying their con-
tents away down to below Barking-creek and Erith
Marshes, where they are poured into gigantic reservoirs
and afterwards, when deodorised, turned into the river at
high tide, and swept away by the ebb almost to sea. Thus,
the sewage is not only turned out free of smell, but turned
out into a body of water nearly 30 times as great as that
into which it used to be poured, and, instead or sickening
the air at our very doors, becomes lost in the volume of
water which rolls down between the marshes on each side
of the river to far below Gravesend.

On the north side of the Thames, the intercepting
sewers are divided, as we have said, into three distinct
lines, two of which, called respectively the high and
middle level sewers, unite at and pass over the river
Lea; and the third, the low level, after passing through
the Thames Embankment, will eventually join them at the
proposed pumping station at Abbey Mills. Three parallel
sewers, called the northern outfalirsewer, each 9 feet by 9
feet, are constructed as one work in a concrete embankment,
and are carried by aquet:ucts over rivers, roads, and rail-
ways, to the Barking reservoir.

On the south side of the Thames there are three lines of
intercepting sewers, which are also known as the high level,
the middle level, and the low level, and these converge to
one point at Deptford pumping station, where the sewage
from the low level is lifted into the upper level sewers, and
their united stream flows thence deep under Greenwich and
Woolwich, through one outfall sewer, 11 feet in diameter,
to the Crossness reservoir and pumping station in Erith
Marshes. Three-fourths of London north of the Thames
are, however, elevated so far above the river that the sewage
can be conveyed by its own gravitation to the level of high
water at Barking, and this is why the sewers are carried in
an embankment at such a height above the level of the
marshes, and no pumping station is needed at the outfall.
But on the south side the levels aro so low that this cannot
be done, and therefore the outfall sewer is under ground,
and a pumping station is placed at its outlet to raise the
sewage into the reservoir.
The high, middle level, and outfall sewers on both sides
of the Thames are now, with the exception of a few very
minor connections and works, completed. The low level
sewer on the south side will be finished this year, but the
short piece of the northern low level sewer cannot be com-
pleted until the Thames embankment is finished. About
one-third of the metropolitan sewage is nowintercepted and
discharged at the outfalls, and there can be little doubt that
but for this the river would have been much more offensive
this dry season than it has yet been.
The areas drained by the three levels on the north side
are as follows :

Sire Miles.
The Northern High Level takes the drainage ot
Hackney, Hernerton, Stoke Newington, Stain.
ford-hill, Hornsey, Holloway, Kentish-town,
Hampstead, Highgate, and other localities, the
total area of which is *.• • • 94
The Middle Level takes the drainage of Bow,
Mile-end, Bethnal-green, Shoreditch, Kings-
land, Islington, part of the City, Clerkenwell,
Holborn, Oxford-street, and from Bayswater to
Kensal-green, and other localities, the total area
of which is
The Low Level takes the drainage of Poplar, Lime-
house, Shadwell, Radcliffe, part of the city of
London, Westminster, Pimlico, Chelsea, Bremp-
ton, Fulham, Hammersmith, and adjoining lo-
calities, the tonal area bciug

Total 5O!
The northern outfall reservoir is situated at the point
where Barking-creek falls into the Thames, a little east of
Woolwich, and 11¢ miles below London-bridge. This im-
mense work was entirely constructed by Mr Geo. Furness,
under the superintendence of Mr Edmund Cooper, the resi-
dent engineer. The contract price for this great under-
ground hall of waters was £164,000. It covers an area of
about 10 acres, and is capable of containing 6,243,000 cubic
feet, or 39,000,000 gallons. Its depth is about 17 feet, and it
is divided into four compartments. Three of these compart-
ments have already been filled with sewage, hut the fourth
was yesterday lighted up for inspection. This was the point
which the visitors inspected first, for none were inclined to
linger on the broad plateau of earth which covers the three
other reservoirs now in use, and from the ventilating
shafts leading into which the most nauseous stench came
pouring out in such abundance as to make the visi-
tors almost fancy they were back on the metro-
politan part of the Thames in summer. They were,
therefore, glad enough to descend into the reservoir which
had not been used, and which was open for inspection and
lighted up. Itreally presented a wonderful sight. In height
and in the general position of its brick columns and the
spring of its arches it was not unlike the crypt beneath
Guildhall, but the daylight was excluded, and its vast
area was only indicated by little rows of coloured lamps,
which marked the outline of the columns and curve of the
arches, and which, twinkling away in the long, dark,
silent distance till they became minute points of fire and
nothing more, gave to the whole dim interior an aspect
which was at once novel and solemn in the highest degree.
Here and there were little blue points, where the shafts
which communicated with the upper air let in a ghastly
mockery of daylight, but beyond these, which seemed few
and far between, amid the gloom there was nothing but the
coloured lamps and endless vistas of arches, from amid
which voices and echoes of feet come in a forlorn murmur.
The Hall of Eblis seemed for once realised in this prosaic
age, or, as the footsteps of the visitors strayed far and wide
into the silence, called up before the imagination the pic-
ture of such a trans-Lethean Vauxhall as Pluto might reign
over. A long time was spent in inspecting this wonderful
interior, the gloomy beauty of which it is difficult to de-
scribe. In a few weeks it will be used as a reservoir, and
can never again be seen with comfort and never again be
entered at all. When the visitors had at last found their
way to the little nebulas of fire which the stars and devices
in lamps at the end of the reservoir proved to be, Mr Cooper
got on a platform and answered questions as to the nature
and difficulty of the work, how the foundations often had
to be carried as low as 2811, how the penstocks or sluicegates
would let the sewage in at one end and out into the river
at the other. He explained how culverts had been made
leading far out from the reservoir, almost into the bed of the
river, which could be opened at any time when the deposit
from the sewage became more than six or eight inches deep,
the reservoir filled and then emptied so as to flush tho de-
posited filth away down the river. The opinions of the
most eminent chemists set little or no value on the much
diluted sewers which finds its way into these reservoirs as
manure. But we should be inclined to think there could be
no second opinion as to the value of the soft black deposit
which set'les from the sewage, and for which arrangements
have been made to flash it into the Thames. From the
beautifully paved floor of this reservoir it could be collected
with ease by horse sweeping machines, and its value for
agricultural purposes might, one, would think, at least be
worth a trial. Before the deep excavations for this reservoir
were made the marches were protected from inundation by
the formation in the river of a coffer-dam, a portion of
which still remains to protect the river bank. There are
16 openings in the side of the outfall sewers through which
the sewage flows into the reservoirs, as regulated by the
penstocks ; and underneath them are 16 openings, also re-
gulated by penstocks for the outflow of the sewage into the
rive: at the time prescribed. The discharge culverts into
the river are visible only at the time of low water—they
.tre nine in number, and in front of them is a stone-paved