The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-02 00:00:00

MYDDLE TON HALL.

Last evening Mr and Mrs Hermann Vezin reappeared
amongst their admirers in Islington, to which locality they
have been strangers since the termination of the Phelps
management of Sadler's Wells Theatre. The talented artistes
gave a miscellaneous entertainment, consisting of readings
and recitations from English, Scotch, and Germanpoetry, and
although comparatively new to such a performance, the
experiment has been attended with so much success that it
is more than likely they will be induced to repeat it. The
programme consisted of selections from Westland Maraton's
comedy "Donna Diana," "Hamlet," "As You Like It,"
The Charge of the Light Brigade," &cello's " Elfin
King," Sir E. B. Lytton's translation of Schiller's " Diver,"
Hood's "Domestic Asides," Little Jim," by Farmer,
"After the Chase," by James Albery, " The Raven" and
" Bells," by Edgar Allan Poe, &o, Mrs Vezin was ex-
tremely happy in " Little Jim," and poor Tom Hood's piece,
whist the deeper feelings were touched by her animated
telling recitation of the charge of the "Light Brigade."
Vazin's elocution was faultless, and the selections that
fell to his share were all given with the greatest taste and
feeling. The hall was extremely well attended, and wo have
to congratulate Mr and Mt s Vezin on the pleasure of their
united efforts, produced against a very numerous attend-
ance and appreciating audience.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE,—This Day,

BRIGHTON RACES—Tms DAY.
(BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.)
BRISTOL PLATE.

The Tyke
Jane Shoro
Eight ran.
BIENNIAL STAKES.

Fille de I'Air
Peon 9

TEE f ill/IL WAR IN AMERICA,

(From the limes' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, July 19.
Tne long-expected proclamation of the President
orc.lering a ntlw draught appeared yesterday. It

was thottght that he would not have asked for more
than .300.,000, but he has called for 500,000. No-
body, I wever, is much surprised. It is as easy to
say a r zillion as half a million, and quite as difficult
is the present temper of the American people to
raise the smaller as the larger number. To call

spirits from the vasty deep is one thing. To get
them to C 011143 is another. Nothing is easier for Mr.

Lincoln than to say he must have new and immense
armies, but to draw them out of the, vasty deep of
the American people is a feat beyond the power of
the magician. It is likely, however, that between

this time and the day of the Presidential election

about a third of the number (say 150,000 men) may
be got together by the system of high bounties
aided by the great flood of immigration ; and that,
contented with this addition to the armies in the
held—which will be duly represented as much
la rger than it is—the Administration will discover
ab undant reasons for not enforcing the conscription
in Any city or township where it might breed dis-

content and rebellion.
It appears from a tabular statement, published
this morning, that since April, 1861, when Mr. Lin.
coin modestly called for '75,000 men to reduce the
South to obedience, he has on successive occasions
called :for upwards of 1,800,000 men, exclusive of
49'7,000 militiamen to protect the borders. At pre-
sent it is a very large estimate which places the
Federal armies at more than 600,000 men. If any
one could suppose that the several calls were filled,
and the 1,600,000 men actually enrolled and sent to
b attic, there would remain the enormous number of
1,200,000 to be accounted for as having been slain,
laieled, disabled, or taken prisoners, or as having
s ;rued out their stipulated time or deserted. No
(Inc knows, or ever will know, the number of the
sllin ; but when it is remembered how bloody were
all the battles of M'Clellan and his successors
d ovn to General Grant, and that Grant himself

s lost 100,000 men since he crossed the Rspidan
mark than nine weeks ago, one-half of whom were

killed, it can scarcely be considered an exaggerated
computation to put down a quarter of a million
among the dead, but, perhaps, unburied victims of

the war. The number of the maimed who have
lost arms and legs in the pursuit of victory is as

415:mit to arrive at as that of the slain unless a

i;pecial census were taken ; but any one who walks
the streets of New York may observe a sufficient

n timber of these mutilated heroes to justify him in
ti le belief that, if New York be in this respect a

fa it specimen of the other cities of the North and

AV est, there is as large a number of wounded men
as of dead ones to be placed to the debit side of the

struggle. If Governor Seymour, for instance, would
bat undertake to bring these living " braves" togea
,„ and pass their ghastly legions in review, there
is no open space within the limits of the city which
woutd contain them, and he would have to summon
them to meet in the flats of New Jersey, if he would
afford to his countrymen and to the world ao new
but so suggestive a spectacle of the horrors of war,
Bat, taking the killed, the wounded, and the dis-
abled as at least amounting to half a million, there
would remain still 700,000 men to be accounted for
as prisoners, deserters, and volunteers who have
served their time. If there be such a number in
existence, it is to them, to the emigrants, and to the
.negroes that Mr. Lincoln will have to look for the
all million of new victims which his ruthless policy
rt quires. The working classes are notoriously indis-
eed to the fight. The traders and farmers have
hat I enough of it. The peace party is daily gather-
ing strength, and a 'victory achieved by the South,
instead cf firing the heart of the North, and fan-
ning np the flickering and fading flame of the once
ardent enthusiasm of the people, would, there
is every reason to believe, have the contrary effect,
and predispose to peace many thousands and tens
of thousands whose original opinions on the justice
and necessity of the war have begun to waver.
Nor is the question of money less critical than that
of men. General Sherman's troops, whether their
numbers be 60,000 or 100,000, have not received a
cent of pay since the 31st of December, 1863. The
Government is in arreer to them for upwards of six
months an a half. Mr. Fessenden has been unable
to borrow 50,000,000 of greenbacks from the banks
of New York—mainly because the banks do not
p05ec.33 20,000,000 among them of that particular
variety of the currency, and be is not authorised by
law to accept or put into circulation 50,000,000 of
the notes of the State banks. Without further loans
and farther issues of leghl tender notes, already so
depreciated that the paper dollar is worth but 35c.
in coin, the Federal Government cannot provide the
means for the payment of its existing armies. It is
under such circumstances that Mr. Lincoln demands
more men. If he raise them, he must also raise
money to pay them, and, in default of taxes and of
leans, nothing is left for him but a paper currency,
very likely in view of events as well as of its own
indepondeace to fall in value until it becomes about
as worthless as the Continental money of the Ame-
rican Re-volution, or the French assignats, about 500
of which were necessary to purchase a cup of coffee,
People are asking whether Mr. Lincoln will not
now order the release of Howard, the forger, who
showed him, somewhat prematurely, the paths in
which he ought to walk. The false proclamation
said the campaign of Grant was a failure, called for
a levy of 40,000 men, and appointed a day of fast-
ing, humiliation, and prayer. Mr. Lincoln has not
only arrived at Howard's mark, but overstepped it
by 100,000 men ; confessing by his acts, if not by
his words, that Grant's failure is as great as
Howard, with prophetic impudence, represented
it to be; and that fasting and prayer are more ap-
propriate to the circumstances than rejoicings and
thanksgiving. 'Whatever be done with Howard, he
has shown himself to be a " smart" man, and, as
this is a country where " smartness," irrespective
of honesty, is always held in esteem, he will un-
doubtedly come out of Fort Lafayette a more con-
siderable personage than when he entered it.
Grant seems to be at a complete, and Sherman at
a quasi, standstill. The " raiders," if such they
were, and no more—who desolated large tracts of
Maryland, and were so near taking Washington, or
to have lost it by a hair's breadth of accident—have
retired with their booty no one knows whither. The
comfortable Government at the capital, believing
all danger to be over, has sent back the few militia-
men that rushed to arms at its call for the defence
of the border, and is once again slumbering in se-
curity, apparently without the slightest idea that
the raid may be but the first rain drop of a storm
and that L2o—and a deluge—maybe ready to
fall when the clouds are heavyenougb. But if the
battle lingers the war of words goes on—and
foolish Generals talk when they should be silent.
The only Northern commanders who have won
great battles are M'Clellan and Grant. And these
two, among all the soldiers who one after the other
have been intrusted with high command, are as yet
the only two who know how to hold their tongues.
Their talent for silence is as great as their genius
for war. MiClellan only became an orator after he
had ceased to be employed in the field; and Grant
has never yet made a speech. The talking and
writing Generals, such as Butler, Schenck, Wallace,
Banks, Burnside, Pope, Hooker, and Sherman, have
all proved to be military failures, with the single
oy,:ception of the last, who has still the victory to
achieve which will take him out of the category.
Thee :orals ars all more or less clever with the
tom`
,nd the pen, bat they are none of theta dis-
crc,h ouneh to keep their own counsel—a kind
of Lion in the leaders of armies which
i be called the better part of their
m ti
Thu, General Sherman has found
yak
singular epistle to his sabor-
tiea
.rbridge, commanding in the
din
mi
ctry d:striet of is:entucky. In this document he
mi
tiers that ga2ril.:),s in Kentucky shall be "treated
as if they were wild beasts," and hunted and shot
down remorselessly. He reminds Gen. Burbridge
that before starting on his campaign into Georgia
he foresaw that this kind of peraon would become
v troublesome," and asked Mr Bramleth, the
-eel of the State, to ergauise in every county
and trustworthy bend, commanded by the
eho should at one dash arrest every man

ther

a Go

Ql3t.4re.

eaV(''J

vri,

neral 811

in the community who was dangerous to it"—t. e.,
whom the sheriff supposed to be dangerous. The
sheriff and his trustworthy band were a.se to arrest
every fellow hanging about the towns, vi loges, and
cross-roads who had no honest callin;. The Go-
vernor, however, did not see fit to t the advice,
thinking, no doubt, as Gen. Sherman conjectures,
" that this sweeping exhibition of power seemed
rather arbitrary." Therefore Gen. Sherman, whose
sole business just now should be to fight Gen. John.
ston, has seen fit to take the matter out of the Go-
ernor's hands, and make an end in Kentucky not
only of the guerillas by shooting and hanging, but
of all persons, male or female, who have harboured
or encouraged such unrecognised soldiers. The
punishment of such sympathisers with rebellion is
to be transportation by batches of 300 or 400 from
the " fair garden of Kentucky," their native home.
They are to be seat down the Mississippi in avessel
bearing the Federal flag, and thus to run the gaunt-
let of their friends, the yet uncaptured and unhung
guerillas who molest the banks of that river. If
they escape death and arrive safely at New Orleans,
they are to be put on board a sailing ship and trans-
ported to a land, which the General does not name,
" where they may if they please found a slave
colony, and take their slaves along with them."
The General, well aware that so extraordinary a
proceeding will require justification in the eyes of
the world, finds it ready to his hands, where tyrants
have ever found it in all ages. "My own defence,"
he says, " was and is that the civil authorities in
Kentucky would do this ; but if they will not or
cannot, we' must, for it must be done." And who
are "we 7" The General answers the inquiry in
another and, beyond doubt, the most remark.
able portion of his letter. "The fact is," he
says, "in our country personal liberty has been so
well secured that public safety is lost sight of in
our laws and institutions. We are thrown back 100
years in civilisation, laws, and everything else, and
will go straight to anarchy and the devil, if some-
body won't arrest our downward progress. We, the
military, must do it." Herein the indiscreet Gene-
ral confesses too much. Under the Constitution,
and the system of State rights, personal liberty was
secured; and public safety—i.e., the safety of the
Central Government, was so little endangered that
the founders of American liberty lost sight of it in
the laws and institutions which they formed. As all
the difficulty which has plunged the country into
this fearful war arose out of an intermeddling with
the rights of the States—and an attempt, unhappily
successful, to maximize instead of to minimize the
power and authority of the Central Government, the
true remedy for the evils which afflict the land and
threaten the anarchy which the General foresees
would seem to lie in a return to the principles of the
Constitution. This, however, is not what General
Sherman and the governing party desire. Under
the plea of necessity and the danger to the public
safety, they have abrogated the Constitution, in-
creased the power of the Administration, and helped
to produce anarchy, in order to take advantage of
it to erect a despotism on the ruins of liberty.
" We, the military, will do it," says the man of the
shoulder straps. There can be no doubt of the
willingness, even if he had not blurted it out so
bluntly.
But a wiser General than Sherman has spoken, a
General who is fortunately not in command of an
army, but reduced to the less dangerous station of
civil governor of a province. General Banks, at a
meeting of the Bar of New Orleans on the 7cla inst.,
took occasion to say "that the settlement of the
difficulties between :North and South must proceed
from the moral power of the country, which was
something greater and more efficacious than the
sword." He coupled this sensible admission with
a melancholy, if not with a humiliating, one—that
it was the first duty of the people to make such
sacrifices on the field of battle as success might
demand. This moans that both parties are too proud
to yield to moral reasons, while a chance is left for
conquest, and that only when one or the other, or
both, are exhausted by their unavailing bloodshed,
the moral power, so much greater and more effica-
cious then the sword, will have a chance to prevail
among a people who claim to be the moat highly-
educated and religious in the world. Perhaps,
however, General Banks is of opinion that if the
South will not yield to the North, or the North to
the South, and that they must, therefore, continue
fighting out of mere pride, tali exhaustion ensue,
the " moral power" of Christendom might at t his or
some not very remote day be employed to counsel
therm to lay down their arms, and debate the terms
of compromise and peace by means of a general
convention of all the States in the mode provided by
the Constitution ? If such be really his belief, he
is a much wiser man than Mr. Lincoln, or any
member of his Cabinet.

The Board of Trade and the Railways,

The Board of Trade has issued the following
circular:

" Whitehall, July 30,