The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-30 00:00:00

blackguardism and villany of the metropolis took
part in them. It was an insurrection without plans
or leaders, or any concerted modes of c tion, a
spontaneous ebullition of disgust and i ignation.
Stripped of all extraneous coesideratio 1.4. with full
allowance for and condemnation of the atrocities
committed by wretches who would be unworthy to
wield a musket in the field in any honourable strafe,
it means nothing less than that the working classes
and a large majority of the people of New York are
opposed to the further prosecution of the war, and
to the forcible emancipation by the North of the
slaves of the South. The extension of the riots into
New England is a further warning that the " war
Christians" for which that polemical corner of the
land is notorious have lost their hold upon the minds
of the fighting part of the people; and that if the
South cannot be conquered by volunteers it must
remain unconquered, inasmuch as the conscriptable
part of the community will rather fight its own
Government in support of the principle of pereonal
freedom than take up arms against Southern rebels
upon compulsion.
The atrocities committed agains',. the negroes,—
thousanCs of whom have fled the city and encamped
in the woods in Long Island and elsewhere, many
of them armed, and determined to resist further out-
rage to the death,—are the saddest episodes of the
struggle. They may help to prove to those English-
man who still believe with Mr. Bright that the
Northern people are sincere and pious Abolitionists,
and that they love the negro in a Christian as well
as a philosophic spirit, how wrong they have been,
and how wrong, also, Mr. Lincoln and his Aboli-
tionist supporters have been, in calculating that they
would gain strength in the prosecution of the war
in proportion as they took measures for the eman-
cipation of the slaves. The policy of emancipation
has proved the weakness, and not the strength, of
the Administration. It has rendered the final sepa-
ration of North and South a fixed fact, which not
all the military successes of a thousand Northern
generals will be able to overturn.

Wall-street, which is supposed, rightly or wrongly,
to be the index of the national feeling, does not
appear to have taken the riots into any very serious
consideration. Wall-street does not shine as a poli-
tician. Wall-street is so credulous as to believe
every mendacious war bulletin that Mr. Stanton
pleases to circulate. Wall-street is an optimist and
thinks that everything is for the best. Wall-street
is of opinion that General Meade has achieved a
signal triumph, and that the retreat of General Lee's
army has become a rout, or as Mr. Stanton spells it
a "route." Wall-street maintains that the sur-
render of Vicksburg and Port Hudson has secured
for all time to come the free navigation of the
Mississippi, and that nothing which the hostile
population on its long line of 2,000 miles can do can
seal it up again. Wall-street insists that General
Meade has only to march against Richmond to cap-
ture it by a coup de main; that the rebellion is driven
to bay in Georgia and South Carolina; and that
Charleston, Mobile, and Savannah are as doomed
as Vicksburg and Port Hudson. Wall-street, more-
over, is clearly agreed that the mob in New York is
only a mob of thieves, which ought to be and will
be extirpated; and that the happy day is near at
hand when peace and plenty will again smile on the
land, and an angelic reconciliation between North
and South make of the United States the greatest,
grandest, noblest, most irresistible Government on
the face of the earths Last of all, it has the most
thorough confidence in Mr. Chase, by means of
whose beneficent legerdemain its frequenters have
made larger fortunes in two years of war than they
were previously able to make in twenty years of
peace. Under the operations of all these satisfac-
tor and fascinating convictions,—though civil war
was raging in the midst of them, and a vessel of
war lay broadside in the East River with its guns
pointing up the golden pavement where so many
millions of collars are daily lost and won, so as
to command its full length, and blow to destruc-
tion any fool-hardy mob that dare to invade
its sacred precincts, it has declared that greenbacks
were only 26 per cent. less valuable than gold, and
notified, moreover, by the mouth of its chief oracles,
that in a week from this time the difference between
the two measures of value shall be only 15 per cent.
to the disadvantage of paper. Perhaps, however,
it will be found that this is but a dream of happi-
ness, born of the dog days and of the dolce far-niente
that grows out of the vaponry atmosphere that
shrouds the city, as in the steam of a hot bath.
There is, however, this much to be said in explana-
tion of the anomaly. Nobody wants gold. The
Customs' dues can be paid in Treasury notes. The
trade with Europe is reduced to the lowest ebb.
The merchants restrict their orders within the nar-
rowest limits. The speculators in the price of the
precious metals find it more profitable to speculate
in the stocks of railway and transit companies, one
of which, the Mail Company, went up 60 per cent.
and down again 20 per cent. in less than a week.
Mr. Chase, too, takes especial care to give the pre-
mium:on gold a heavy blow whenever he can manage
it. He expedites its downward progress. When
he finds it falling he helps it to fall more rapidly
by offering the unwelcome commodity for sale in
amounts larger than commerce requires, so that not
only Wall-street, but the multitude beyond it may
exclaim " Great is the Union, but greater is Chase,
who knows how to preserve it, making us at the
same time richer in paper than we can ever expect
to be in gold."

The part taken in the riots by the Irish has
induced Mr. Hughes, the Catholic Archbishop
of New York, to exert his influence with the
people in favour of order and submission to the
laws. In a placard signed with his name, addressed
to " men who are now called in many of the
papers rioters," and altogether so singular in its
tone and phraseology as to suggest the suspicion
that it was a forgery, he summoned the people to
his residence,
promising to address them from the
balcony. A crowd of upwards of 5,000 persons re-
sponded to the call, The Evening Post newspaper,
in giving publicity to the document, implored the
police and military to be in attendance, as the
Archbishop's call le would draw together a crowd of
such miscreants, assassins, robbers, houseburners,
and thieves—such a congregation of vicious and
abandoned wretches as is not often got together."
Happily for the peace of the city, this incentive to
violence was not published until an hour after the
meeting had been held and dispersed, or the conse-
quences might have been serious. The Archbishop
appeared in his full sacerdotal robes, and, being
unable to stand for rheumatic pains in his limbs,
seated himself before addressing the crowd, taking
care to explain that physical infirmity, not disre-
spect, was the cause of the attitude so unusual in an
consequential, and seemed to betoken an intellect
orator. He spoke of the wrongs of Ireland, of
noble men being driven out of that green
and beautiful isle to make room for fat
bullocks ; said that a " man" was a higher 1
title than a " gentleman ; that
if New York
were invaded by Great Britain or any other
Power, the women of the city, with their ten-
der babes at their breasts would look to " men"
and not to " gentlemen" for protection ; that he felt
it. a disgrace that his countrymen should be called
rletters, and entreated them all to go quietly home,
and seek a remedy for all their grievances in the
ballot-box.
18 months hence, As, however, the ballot for a new Pre-
sident and a
into the programme only takes effect in
with
wiyaocairecurastances
of
aurnmaieeerse,ioafnd as the men to be draughted
butchery the Republic may be led to
in which they
even fifteen mouths
have
eonompetent Generals for a cause
highl:behieart, a full twelvemonths or
it is thatn day of peaceful re-
volution,l
well-meant recommeithrtaaibole that the Archbishop's
good toanthaine
may have fallen idly
I upon the ears of his flock
thanvery weak exhortations
canse of the public
to his pd
so
an
ces moreby
his harmv er
o p pmops iattiho
ins
etso.
country-
men and co-religionists,
the draught it is quite evident that he sy
Amid the many extraordinar •
the time, the sudden collapse of the reputation of
General Meade is not the least striking.
The
note
has sounded in Washington that he has served his
turn, and he will doubtless be thrown aside without
remorse. It was not enough that he should repulse
General Lee at Gettysburg. It was his duty, pre-
scribed for him by Mr. Stanton, that he should an-
nihilate the Confederate army—even though it were
impossible. Mr. Stanton, like the great Napoleon,