The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-25 00:00:00

CITY SEWERS COMMISSION,

A meeting of the Commissioners of Sewers of the city of
London was held at the Guildhall yesterday at 12 o'clock.
Deputy De Jersey presided.
After the disposal of some matters of minor iwportance,
Mr. J. DAW, the principal clerk to the commissioners, laid

before the Court three resolutions, Pawed at the meeting o
the Court of Common Council, on Thursday last, in refer.

ence to the carrying out of public improvements within the
City. That court agreed that it was of importance improve-
ments should be carried out by the opening of the thorcugh-
fare of Bluecoat -buildings, between King Edward-street

and Little Britain, and also the widening of the eastern end
of Newgate-street—and they further decided to contribute
towards the cost of carrying them out by the Commissioners

of Sewers. Another resolution was passed by which it was
referred to the Improvement Committee of the civil body t@
confer with the Commissioners of Sewers, with a view to
facilitate the widening and improving the thoroughfares of
the City.

The Improvement Committee of the Commission to. day
recommended, with reference to the improvement in Blue-

coat-buildings, that the premises required for the purpose
should be taken under the provisions of the Act of Parlia-
ment—and also that they should be empowered to confer
with the Improvement Committee of the Corporation in re-
spect of improvements it might be found expedient to carry
out in future.

The report was agreed to.
The Engineer to the Commission, Mr. W,Haywood, read
several communications he had received from Mr. Joseph
Cubitt, engiccer, submitting designs of the bridges for the
London, Chatham, and Dover Railway over Little Bridge-
strect, Union-cout t, and Now Earl-street. In two of these
eases the Court approved of the designs, but in respect of the
bridge over Union-court, it was stated that the design did
not quite conform to the arrangement come to between the
Commissioners and the railway company, and it was decided
that upon the original requirement being adhered to the
sanction of the Court to the erection should be given,

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC 301111,NALn,

see _
TimEs.—The details of the great ft'ettlee in Ame-
rica are calculated rather to enhance than ditaininh
the sensation with which the first telegrams were
received. There has been no exaggeration, no over-
strained deserintion of the conflicts or the carnage.
If, indeed, it vbe recollected tha's e=on the long
reports of furious fighting which we yesterday pub-
lished still leave two days of sanguinary action
unaccounted for, it must be allowed that war has
never come before us in a shape so appalling.
Peri:4ml the. Americans, may be proud of the pre-
eminence, but they hate certainly fought more
desperately, for a longer time, and with more
dreadful slaughter than any nation before them, It
would not be impossible to match the results of any
one day's battle with stories from the wars of the
Old 1r orld ; hut neoete we should think, in the
history of man, were live such tattlee es these com-
pressed into six successive days. It is hard to con-
ceive how nature could have supported the ex-
haustion and the strain. We have been told that
after a single day's hard fighting the lassitude and
reaction in even a victorious army are such that
any fresh force might snatch Its laurels from it ;
whereas here are two armies hotly engaged in the
work of slaughter from the morning of Thursday
till the night of Tuesday with scarcely the inter-
mission of an hour. On every day except Saturday
there was a pitched battle, contested with the
utmost fury; and even Saturday was devoted to
marching and fighting on the march. Nor were
these prodigious operations divided among
immense numbers brought into action by re-
lays. Neither army numbered apparently above
100,000 men, and of these every man seems
to have been engaged in every battle. Indeed,
we are expressly told that the Federal
" reserves" were brought up on the very first day.
The desperate ferocity of the fighting may be in-
ferred from the fact now reported that the slaughter
was produced without the aid of artillery. No rifled
guns or murderous shells did execution among
crowded masses. The great battle of Friday which
is said to have cost the Federals alone upwards of
10,000 men, was a hand-to-hand fight. The Con-
federates were posted in the well-known woods in
the vicinity of Ctiancellorsville, where Hooker once
received so bloody a repulse, and so dense was the
thicket that cannon could not come into play.
Regiment against regiment, and man against man,
the combatants fired and hacked at each other
in this tangled wilderness till night closed in ; and
an intercepted report from General Lee actually
tells us that, on this side, the heaviest loss was in
men killed outright, and that he had comparatively
few wounded, If this be a correct version of the
despatch, it gives a more impressive idea of the fury
of the conflict than any other of the incidents rca
ported. It is clear, indeed, that whatever may be
said of the composition of the Northern armies, and
of their inferiority in this respect to the patriot
legions of the South, they have fought in this
campaign with a valour as obstinate as that of
their enemies. No mere indifferent or disaffected
mercenaries could have been led from a battle
like that at Wilderness to three more such battles
at Spottsylvenia. Be the impulse what it may
the Federals are fighting in stern reality, and with
a spirit as resolute as that of their adversaries.
Except that General Lee more than once sur-
prised the Federals with a sudden attack in mass,
and that his positions were always occupied with
admirable skill, there appears to have been little
display of strategy. On Thursday Lee attacked,
and with a result which at one moment looked
very like success, On Friday Grant attacked, and
Lee repulsed him. On Sunday and Monday Grant
attacked again with no better result ; on Tuesday
Lee appears to have been once more the assailant.
But in all these battles there was more fighting than
manoeuvring, and more loss than result. Now that
the outlines of the earlier telegrams have been filled
up by detailed reports the contest appears even
more indecisive and the issue more obscure than
before. For the Confederates it may be said that
they have never actually lost a haute. On the first
day Lee only failed to inflict a complete defeat on
the advancing Federate. Ou the second day he him
self claimed the victory, and his enemies hardly
denied it. On the fourth and fifth days he repulsed
every attack, and held his position; while on the
sixth day he was strong enough and confident
enough to refuse his adversary the respite he de-
sired. As we are told, oa the authority of Secretary
Stanton himself, that Grant did not design to renew
the attack on Tuesday, whereas we know that the
fighting on that day was the most desperate of all,
it follows that the battle must have been provoked
by Lee, so that as the curtain falls on this first act
of the dreadful drama the Confederates are assuming
the offensive, and compelling the Northern General
to fight against his will. For the Federals it may be
fairly claimed that if they have not won a battle
they have twice gained some of the results of victory.
They sustained the attact of the Confederates on
the first day so successfully that they themselves
were able to become the assailants the day after,
and if they failed to dislodge the enemy from
his position they saw him voluntarily retire from
it after the fight was done. They attacked him
again at Spottsylvania in his third position, and
against those lines end defences their whole force
ries hitherto been hurled in vain. Yet, for all this,
Grant, though he cannot get on, has not been
compelled to fall back, and as he stands he is
actually twenty miles on the road to Richmond.
With valour and o.'stinacy so evenly balanced, it
may seem as if the isabh, would be decided by re-
sources and endurance. '1 qt, indeed, has always
e
been a favourite belief among to Northern people ;
but we see few signs of such a reset::- One of the
Federal reports of the second day's bat,`.le says that
in the Northern army men cried to eadht other,
" The rebels can't endure another such day, sa;d we
can." Bat the " rebels" did endure two more such
days, and after enduring them fell again upon their
antagonists, and forced them to give another battle.
Still the exhaustion on both sides must be terrible.
It is reasonable to conjecture that the Confederates,
receiving in position and behind defences the attacks
of the Federate, may have suffered less than their
enemies, but they have, perhaps, fewer troops in
reserve, All we know, however, of this question
is that, notwithstanding the smaller population of
the Southern States, their armies have never yet
bet thuud wanting in strength sufficient for the
eecasi,iv, Wherever a Federal force advanced,
whether in Virginia or in Texas, in Tennessee or in
Leuisiania, there a Confederate force equal to the
always been found. Alter all the
epriroeveuhrteeiteer has
5 of soth:.
hern exhaustion this result has
invariably been exPei:enced, and it is even more
manifest in this fourth yea: of the war than it was
in the first. We certainly wonder how six
millions (tan make such head eg,inst twenty mil-
lions, but the thing has been done We can no
more speculate on the " exhaustion" of the South
than on its submission or its repeatance.
It is remarkable that in all the battles of ti.is
Civil War the original estimate of the losses suf-
fered by the contending armies has been at least
verified. It was supposed at first that the Trans-
atlantic propensity to exaggeration might have
magnified these ominous figures, but the state-
ments were invariably confirmed, and when, there-
fore, we are told on the present occasion that
Grant, who opened the campaign on the morning of
the sth with 100,000 men, bad lost 40,000 of this
number by the night of the 10th, we cannot altos
gether refuse to believe the tale. 'We may, indeed,
ask ourselves what State or people could sus-
tain such warfare, but we have no right to discredit
the report. More directly, too, we may inquire in
what condition or with what forces he can expect
to appear before Richmond, even in the event of
his success, if this is the cost paid for the first two
stages of the journey, Yet we think it probable
that even the last furious onslaught of Lee on the
10th may not have deterred him from renewing the
attack on one of the following days. He has
stamped a new character on the tactics of the Fe-
derals. No other General would either have ad-
vanced upon Wilderness after the severe battle of
the sth, or followed up an almost victorious though
retiring enemy after the still harder fighting of the
6th. None but he, again, would have attacked his
adversary so resolutely on the Bth and 9th, or held
his ground so tenaciously in spite of failure. Under
his command the Army of the Potomac has achieved
in invading Virginia an amount of success never
achieved before, except in repelling invasion. The
Confederate forces were once arrested by M'Ciellan
and once by Meade, but that was when they thought
to carry war into Northern territory. Grant alone
has done more than this. He has advanced to-
wards Richmond. and though he has made but little
way, and has lost half his army. he has not been
driven back. 'Whether his position can be retained,
or his success improved, is a question which the
next mail will resolve for us.
HERALD.—Mr. Thomas Baring was somewhat
rash when he entered the list with Lord Robert
Cecil on the subject of the debate in the House of
Commons on the 13th inst. It cannot surprise any
one that he should have had the worst of the argu-
ment, He was so gently treated that he would, we
think, have done better if he had let it alone, and
allowed the question to drop. The recrimination
was so obvious, it was so ready on the lips of every
one who listened to Mr. Baring's attack on the
builders of the Georgia, it was put forward so
mildly, and by so polished an adversary, that the
edge of his weapon, though keen, was scarcely felt
to wound. It might seem to lookers.on that Mr.
Baring deserved rougher handling, that he might
been been morn pressed than he was. Here was
a member of Parliament, standing up solemnly in
his place in the House of Commons, as a man called
upon to discharge himself of a public duty, to de-
nounce British merchants who, by supplying the

1 Confederate States with 7 ship of war, had in effecL
country in a struggle in which we
.yinis.,..l the neutrality. of the Queen, and seriously
cot:rip:Utilised tu.: „
had professed to {re striejv impartial. And all the
tisne litati notoriotte to those se _`'o heard him speak-
ing, it was isinovert to every membee'
of the house,
that the firm to whieb this very member CY
Parlia-
ment belonged had been engaged in supin';ing
meinitsons, of war on a most enormous scale to the:
Federal Btat6e that they had taken a part in the
war by rendering what enecour they could to the
opposite side. We have endeatomed to be neutral in
this unhappy civil conflict. If the shipbuilder&
who have sent out the Alabama and (Jeorgia
have infringed this neutrality, so have' tho'
merchants who halo sent rifles and can eare
to the North. If the naval armaments have com-
mitted us to a hestile attitude towards the Federal
States, the land armaments have similarly involved.
us with the Confederate States, It is absurd, on OA
very face of it, that the known partisans of one 'sec-
tion o the Union should deliberately frame articles
of indictment against those who are suspected of
befriending the oppoeite side. If the house of Bering
has a right to send shipleeds of rifles to the North,
the builders on the Mersey, the Tyne, or tee Clyde,
have just as much right to sentl armed vessels to
the South. If it be objected that the supply al
arms to a belligerent is no infraction of international
law, it may be answered that the furnishing them
with armed ships is just as much in accordance with
the law of nations. It is our own municipal law that
is in question, our Foreign Enlistment Act, supple-
mented by the Queen's proclamation of neutrality.
Lord R. Cecil asked the house to consider the feel-
-1 lugs NNith which the Confederates must regard the
enormous reinforcements which have been conveyed
to the North by the English people through the
hands of Messrs. Baring and Co., in violation of
her Majesty'sproelamation of neutrality. Mr. Baring
was absent when the charge was made, and writes
next day to ask for an explanation of it, and a dis-
tinct reference to the terms of the proclamation re.
ferred to. Lord R. Cecil, in reply, quotes the pro-
clamation of May 13, 1861, which forbids the car-
rying of " officers, soldiers, dispatches, arms, mili-
tary stores, or materials, or any article or articles
considered and deemed to be contraband
of war, according to the law or modern usage
of nations, for the use or service of either of
the said contending parties." All persons so
offending are to be liable to certain penalties and
penal consequences. Lord R. Cecil also quotes the
uncontradicted statement of Mr. Laird in the House
of Commons on the 27th March, 1863. Mr Laird,
on reference to the bills of entry in the custom-
houses of London and Liverpool, found that there
had been " vast shipments of implements of war to
the Northern States." Among those who were en-
gaged in these transactions was " the celebrated
house of Baring and Co." Lord Robert presumes
that the word " carrying" in the Queen's proclamae
tion applies to those who employ others to carry or
abet them in carrying. Whether or no this inter-
pretation will hold in strict law we cannot pretend
to say, and it is really but of small importance. A
condiment tat is Fad for one bird is suited for
another bird. of the opposite sex. If the Messrs.
Baring did not absolutely " carry" the rifles to the
North, neither did the builders of the Alabama and
Georgia carry their ships to the South or to their
Southern owners. And yet Mr Baring attempts to
escape on this quibble. " Shipping documents," he
says, " were furnished to us to give effect to the
credit lodged in favour of the parties furnishing
these supplies, and to see that they were properly
forwarded to their destination." The Messrs.
Baring, then, did not carry these munitions of war,
all they did was to see that the rifles and guns were
" properly forwarded." We confess that the disc
tinction is too nice for our obtuse intellects. If it is
urged that certain things are done as a mere part of
the ordinary routine of business we can understand
the argument if we do not admit the excuse. It
might better [serve as en apology for those ship'
building firms whose sympathies were not otherwise
enlisted on either side, than for the bankers whose
credit is said to be extensively pledged to the eucess
of the Northern cause in the American quarrel. If
we admit the cogency of Mr. Baring's argument as.
to legality, it leaves him at the same time without
a case against the builders of the Alabama, the
Georgia, the Alexandra, or the steam rams. The
most that he can urge is, what must be allowed for
them, that, if violating the spirit, he has kept within
the letter of the law. The costly prosecutions in
stituted by the Government have proved futile; two'
of the bones of contention have now been purcbased
by the Admiralty, and added to the British fleet.
The steam rams of the Messrs. Laird are said to be
masterpieces ef the art of naval construction. Wa
trust that some day they will do es good service in
the cause of Great Britain as their iron sisters which
our friends across the Atlantic have built, and
launched, and carried so bravely into action with-.
ou% the a9sistance of European sympathisers. One
ram at Newbern has engaged and put to rout a
whole fleet of Federal gunboats. No ship that we
could have sent them could have done more than
this. We applaud the Confederates fur taking their
own part so well. We are precluded from hell ing
them ; we go on supplying the North, for the North
has powerful friends, it few in number. The friends
of the South may, perhaps, take comfort in the
thought the t, as the sequel of the late battles in li"ir-
ginia, some batteries of artillery, and some thousandg
of well made small arms of precision, have ere this
changed hands, and are doing good service on Oil
side which is not so happy as to bask in the Oa`
shine of the favour of the Messrs. Baring.

!ffi

1

THE WELLINGTON THREE SHILLING
DINNER, consisting of Soup, Fish, Made Dish,
Joint, Sweet, .kc., is served daily from 3 to 9 p.m , and on
Sundays from 5 to 8.30 p.m.
Private Rooms for large or small parties.

By order,
JOHN CATES, Manager.
The Wellington, St. James's-street.
Entrance, 180, Piccadilly.