The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-14 00:00:00

TILE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY sV ENING, SEPFEMBEE 14, 1863,

police handed him to the Provo:,..t-Marshal to avoid
the penaliies of disobeying a legally issued writ of
habeas corpus; the Provoq-Marshal sent him to
Fort Ifafayette for the same purpose; and General
Caihy, foreseeing difficulty in the matter, got rid
of his inconvenient prisoner by sending him to the
" Tombs," the Old Bailey of New York. The head
jliler or superintendent of that establishment
having been served with the writ of habeas corpus,
produced the body of the over-ardent friend of every
man's right to reface to be a voldier ; and ho was
ultimately ordered to find bail in the sum of 1,000
dols. to answer the charge of treasonable resistance
to the Conscription Act. It now remains to be seen
what decision a jury will pronounce upon the case.

miscreants who aro ever found ready on such ocet?.sions to
profit by the misfortunes of their fellow creatures. if the
cflbrte of the authorities, seconded by those of the police
and the troops, were of little avail in arresting. the pro tress
of the conflagration, it is but just to say th,:t from the com-
mencement it attained such an ascendancy as all human
efforts seemed impotent to resiet."

Acclimatisation Society of Great Britain.

A special meeting of the Council was held at the office, 3,
Duke-street, Adelphi, on Wednesday last, at 3 o'clock,
Present—Messrs. W. Hawkins, J. Stone, P. Francis, J,
Bush, J. Crockford, P. Buckland, and James Lowe. Air,
Hawkins presided.

The minutes of the previous meting having. been read
and confirmed, Mr. Francis read the following memoran-
dum :

Memorandum of Propositions, &c., with respect to the Pis,

c:cultural Establishment.
Having already made a definite proposition to the society
in writing in respect to the above, and been asked to set
down the probable cost and its results, I proceed to do so.
The cost of the shed, cistern, apparatus, &c., will be, I
estimate, about £lOO. There will be also about LlO required
for nets, &c , for the purpose of taken fish.
The rate for water will be £lO a year. An attendant will
ho required. In the first instance, I would propose to engage
the man only for four months, if I can obtain him upon
such terms, leaviag it optional with the society whether at
the end of that time they think their prospects fair enough
to continue him on. I would propose that his wages be 255.
a week.

The chief difficulty which I have is in estimating what the
certain
travelling expenses of the man will amount to when ho is out
collecting ova. Besides his own expenses there are keepers
and t a
i assistants If
graylinghadd
ovarel
toy a
n amount t o
of feeand fe
ed.
trout,
obtain, I could, from the experience of others, give some
approximation to the sum required, because I know exactly
how far off the men would have to go, and there is compa-
ratively little difficulty in obtaining the ova—the fish being
more plentiful, and the streams they are found in amalier
and easier to net ; but with the salmon ova the task is much
more difficult. We might be able to get some in Wales,
hut, should heavy floods occur there, we might have to send
to Scotland, or even Ireland. With good fortune and a
good season we might get what we require perhaps for £7O
or £BO ; with a bad one, it might cost double the sum.
Having no data to go upon, I do not see how I can give a
nearer result. I can only say that whatever funds are en-
trusted to my care will be dispensed with a duo regard to
economy, and that if the society have any doubt of this, it
would be better that they should decline my offer. I offer
them my terms, I offer them a site, and I offer them a con-
siderable and valuable connection ; and if upon this they
consent to accept my offer, they must be content to trust
me to a certain extent. They should remember that my
reputation is even more concerned in the success of the
scheme than theirs. lam induced to make these remarks
because one of the members at the last council asked what
control the society was to have in this matter. In the first
place I would point out that the society hold the purse, and
therefore have the strongest possible control in that way ;
and they have, I suppose, the power of severing our con-
nection at any time if it seems desirable to them to do so.
I would advise, however, that in order that they may be
kept au fait to what is going on, Mr. Buckland be made
a visiting inspector of the branch, and be requested to re-
port monthly to the cannel what progress is made in it. I
should, however, wish it to be most clearly understood that
I would object to any interference with any internal ar-
rangement which I might make for the carrying out of the
operations. As a set-off to the above expenses I may state
that I have some 46 promises of subscriptions, 43 of which
are reliable names which may be safely counted upon ; the
other three I cannot speak so confidently upon, although
they have promised me their support, and I have little
doubt when I can see them I chat! obtain it. Amongst
these subscriptions are three life members at £lO 10s, and
ono donation of £5 ss, in addition to subscriptions. Thus
the first year's receipts, as far as we have them down as yet,
will stand :

Three life member; and one donation £36 15 0
Forty annual subscriptions

£7B 15 0
Addcd to this, Lord Walsingham has promised to increase
his subscription.

This is the result of ono month's canvassing amongst my
own friends and acquaintance. The public has as yet hardly
been touched, and this during the month from mid-August
to mid-September, when almost everybody interested in this
subject is away shooting, strikes rue as a very satisfactory
result. I make no doubt but when the subject begins to
be stirred and talked of, the list will be at least doubled.
The above money will almost meet the first outlay for plant,
&e. The annual subscriptions, however, will, it must be
remembered, remain after the first year to help to meet the
current expenses. The prices at which the ova will be sold
to the subscribers will be set upon a sliding
scale, so as to
cover all expenses, whatever they may be, that the society
may incur. For example, let us suppose that we obtain
100,000 ova (which is a very small quantity be it observed),
we calculate the entire expenses of the establishment and
sell ova so as to leave 25 or 30 per cent. profit. The value
of such ova in the market would be about £3 or £6 a thou-
sand; fry was worth £lO a:thousand. Now at £2 per thou-
sand the ova would realise £'2oo; at X.; 10s, £250; at £3,
£3OO, and soon ;and anything
under £3 would be very rea
sonable. With respect to the profit, and any share I might
have in it, a question was asked at the last council as to the
profits, and I then afforded an explains ion which I hero re-
peat. The question arose thus. When first the plan was
talked of, Mr. Lowe, in talking over the terms, See., pro-
posed that I should get up the establishment and carry it
out for the society, and that whatever profit arose front the
sale of the ova should be (livid, d between the society and
myself. I presume that he imagined the arrangement a
reasonable one, in consideration of my giving the site, time,
and connection,
discussed, the following
Sea. But it appeared to me that the matter
would be rather experimental for the first year; I therefore
preferred waiving the point for that first year, and leaving
premises at
it for subsequent consideration.
rcipeuosTii
onr
The
de
resolution
imthooanatbt
I think I have hero explained, as far as I am able, every
(such apparatus to
wteeharashe
explained.av ibeenng questionede
c been
unanimously
fully
re-
agreed to :
ii That Mr. Francis's memorandum be received, and
that he bo authorised to erect a building and apparatus for
Twickenham,
fecundating
n hatching
expense
nos.htcxoeve ova
o d
I.lng.
£loo,hiB
£lO for the' first year for the
Upon the
apparatus, and £lO for the nets on
terms mentioned in his memorandum
remain the property of tihtuodsotehiaetty3)..;ir.anld,rathncaitsh; ebebefuaurt,thheor-
rised to engage a man to assist in such Operations for a
expenses as to him, Mr. Ilawkins,
them as to the amount of
period of 16 weeks, at a salary of 2os. per week; and that
he be authorised to spend
behalf
fy
of;of Ntvhaete
sr
otcoietthye;
authorised to incur such
oaufddiMarr.enßoueshofnolpaiynsioenelufiotriagnd proper; and that, in case
such expenses, the matter bo referred to the council for
decision,"
Mr. Francis announced that the increase of funds which
he had already obtained for the society on account of the
projected piscicultural branch amounted already to between
£7O and £BO. This was only tee result of a public meeting
held at a period of the year whoa most of the gentlemen
interested in sporting were out of. town. Ile had no doubt
the society were
Iny
ithatmuch
co
hr
vigorously
gfu
rs thee4a.teprrp.6i
ss
ee
ci cuutletdu, r etlh opense amr aot
umnt
ofo of the
would be
A letter was read from LordWalsinghatn,
h h
secul o would "be glad to increase his subscription to the society,
if, as has been proposed, they stating that
d turn their attention
to pisciculture;'' and the secretaries were directed to reply
to his lordship, thanking him for his offer, and intimating
that, inasmuch as the experiment was somewhat perilous
to
l the
further pecuniary aid
which his smallicr funds
thankfully received, gratefully acknowledg—ed,
mifld isp of the society,
might be disposed to render would beety, any
and prudently
expended.

Cvllision on the Glasgow and South-western
Railway,

On the night of Thursday a collision occurred between
two heavily-laden luggage
trains at Mauchline station,
whereby one man was killed and several others had a nar-
row escape. The railway between Kilmarnock and Anthill-
leek station is at intervals on a slight incline, and between
these two stations two engines are generally employed for
trains which on other parts of the line require but one. On
the night mentioned a train, consisting of above 30 trucks,
passed along, and on corning to Auehinleck stopped to take
on more trucks. There were two guards with this train,
one of whom was on ono of the engines and the other in the
van at the end of the train. The termer uncoupled some of
the waggons to admit the; e to be taken on, and it was the
duty of the latter to put on the break at his end of the
train. There is reason to believe, however, that he was
asleep, and on the couplings being loosened the latter part
of the train commenced to run dawn the incline. It ran,
gathering velocity as it went, for about four miles, and was
nearing Mauchline station, when it was met by another
tiaiu drawn by two engines. A collision occurred, and the
van of the runaway was smashed to atoms, the guard,
whose name was Woods, being crushed to death. The first
engine of Cm second train was thrown on its side, the
nearest waggons of the other train being thrown over
it. The drivers and firemen of the engines escaped by
springing off at the moment the collision took place. Ono
of the latter, however, in jumping off, was struck by a fly-
ing splinter and thrown hick on the tender. He was not
injured. The guard, it is said, resided in Carlisle, and had
been at Paisley at his father's funeral, and it is probable
might have had little rest for some time, and been unable '
to resist the temptation to sleep. Besides the van, the
engine is injured, and eight or nine of the trucks and their
contents are very much damaged. The traffic was stopped
till morning, when the rubbish was removed. The railway
at the place is being relaid, and the traffic is done on the
single line system. It is providential that the second train
had reduced its speed to about four miles an hour. If it
had been moving at ordinary speed it is HWY the results
would kftyo been more terriblvo

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

__--.9..---.

SAT-MID/1- REVIEW.--The origi a of after dinner speak-
ing is beet in the mists of antiquity. Perhaps it may be
traced to the habits of cur Teutonic forefathers, recorded
by Tacitus, who are said to have debated every sulject
both under beery and under sober influences, After a
merry bouquet, they probably took a cheerful view of
things. The morrow's indigestion and headache, of
course, suggested an opposite estimate, and between the
two the right decision Was bit. Our post-prandial deli-
berations follow the old type very naturally. At every
banquet the prevailing thought is, what jolly good fellows
the guests all are. Down to the stnalle,t parish dinner,
the diners celebrate their own virtues and the surpassing
corporate excellences which they represent. The rector is
the ablest, the churchwardens are the most conscientious,
the bell-ringers the most skilful of their species. The uni-
versal contentment which a good dinner and good digestion
spread over the company accounts for the rosy light in which
they view themselves arid all human things. At the annual
Sheffield Cutlers' Feast, every provision is made for carry-
ing out to the utmost the genial character of an English
banquet. Politics arc rigidly excluded; but it seems to be
generally understood that this rule is to be taken as a stimu-
lant to the ingenuity of those political celebrities who attend
the dinner for the express purpose of sailing close•hauled to
the wind, and venturing as nearly as possible on the one
prohibited topic. This adds a little spice of excitement to
what would otherwise be a very dull business ; and on the
last occasion of this periodical ceremony Sir Charles Wood
and:Mr. Roebuck entered thoroughly, under Mr. Dunn's
experienced guidance, into what is understood to be the
spirit of the affair. They did not talk party politics, but
they talked and were expected to talk about politics. The
picture which the artists drew was in the best after-dinner
fashion. Tho whole thing took the form of a panegyric.
Pericles in Hallamshi re poured forth a glowing eulogy on
the happiness and exceptional glories of Athena the Blessed,
Rule Britannia was sung in duo ferm, and with all the
variations which a skilled and experienced rhetoric could
introduce into the leading theme. The nations, none so
blessed as we, only exhibit various forms either of unsuc-
cessful imitation or of failure, tho very contrast of which
redounds to our supremacy. France is very happy and
flourishing, but she lacks the one thing needful—which,
by the bye, oho does not seem to think needful at all. As
to Austria, she is going through a birth-pang which may,
after all, end in a miscarriage, while we are surrounded by
a thriving family of adult institutions, and all of them suc-
cesses. Russia—but why mention a country in which trial
by jury, civil and religious liberty, and Lord Somers are,
at the best, matters of distant hope? If we cross the At-
lantic, what do we see but the most dreadful of fraternal
discords, a worse than civil war, of which the atrocities are
daily on the increase ? But when we look at home, there
are the Elysian Fields ; there are the Fortunate Islands ;
we aro the blameless Ethiopians with whom Zeus and
the Gods feast all day long, and specially feast with the
Master Cutler at Sheffield in Hallamshire. And as it is
with our external, so is it with our internal rela-
tions. We are living in halcyon days. An unbroken
peace and unruffiel calm broods over the Pacific sea of
England. Our life is in the political Doldrums. It matters
not who is in or who is out ; political leaders all do the very
best for the country, from the purest of motives, and, at least
for the last 30 years, with the same uniformity of intention
and success. To be sure, it was a pure Whig, one of the
select few that have had all but an unbroken monopoly of
power for those very 30 years, who now comes forward to
chronicle his OWLI and his party's Government in these
roseate periods of congratulation. Perhaps Lord Derby
could show us the other side of the tapestry, and exhibit the
broken threads, and disjointed stitches, and confused pat-
terns of the Whig loom. But assuming Sir Chas. Wood's
picture to be the true one, what does it amount to ? Fur all
practical purposes—and the soft talk had a practical pur-
pose—it went to show that, as it does not much matter who
holds the reins of Government, and as we have attained
that perfect peace and harmony in which any change would
most likely be for the worse, it is, all things considered, best
to leave well alone, and to let the Whigs remain in Down-
ing-street. For his part, he would promise that the past
should be a guarantee for the future ; and as Parliament
had, with immense applause, done nothing last year, so
they would be quite ready to do nothing to the end of time.
This was certainly a congenial theme for the Indian Minis-
ter ; and nobody was found to contest the value of Sir
Charles Wood's experimental knowledge of the art of let-
ting well alone. Tho evils of innovation could not be
treated by a more skilful master in the science of political
quietism. If there is a Molinism in politics, Sir Charles
Wood has a claim to be its most skilled expositor.
EXAMINER.—When Filch, in the " Beggar's Opera, ex-
presses his fear of being cut off in the flower of his youth,
and his consequent thoughts of taking up and going to sea,
Mrs. Peachura advises, " You should go to Hockley-in-the
Hole, and to Marybone, child, to leern valour; those are the
schools that have bred so many brave men." And in these
words the respectable Mrs. Peachum exhausted all the
arguments for prize fighting. Tho ring is said to be the
school la which brave men are bred, manly habits taught by
example, and when we see all the virtues attributed to it,
we have only to wonder how the national character survived
the period of its disgrace and abeyance. For about 20 years
prize fighting was given up, not, we arc sorry to confess, in
consequence of any improvement in feeling, but in conse-
quence of the rogueries, to which the name of crosses was
given, which destroyed all confidence in the reality of the
conflicts, it having been settled beforehand which man was
to win. All this is now forgotten, and the ring starts again
with a new score, and its old favour. The quarter in which
that favour lies is specially remarkable. Amongst the edu-
cated and refined may bo found, here and there, apologists,
admirers, and approvers of prize fighting, but to a man the
low classes delight in it, and the lower you go the more
prevalent and ardent is the taste. The thing may, indeed,
be represented in a diagram. The basis of a pyramid is the
taste of the dregs of the community, blackguards, ruffians,
and thieves, all for the ring; and with every grade of ascent
from this foundation, the thing narrowing and tapering,
mounts up to the point where it ceases. Out of a thousand
of the dregs of the town taken at random, not ono will be
found who would not joyfully walk barefooted to a prize
fight. Out of a thousand of the educated and refined class
shall we set down 10 per cent, as approvers ? We think such
an estimate excessive. Bat we have this certain datum, that
the lower the nature and habits the more decided the taste
for the ring. Every blackguard loves it, every ruffian, every
thief. Theyare all initiated in the mysteries. They have the
anatomy of every professed bruiser, and are critical on their
methods of attack and defence. Itis the talk of theginshop,the
ale house, the beer shop of every haunt of the low and the
vicious. In clubs and good society not a word is ever heard
about it, for though in those places the ring has its friends
here and there, they know better than to divulge, much
less are they disposed to parade their peculiar taste. What
a curious company must have bean that in the Paddington
night train, especially despatched fur a breach of the law.
The pyramid was then reversed, the majority of the upper
stratum, the minority of the lowest. But between the fine
gentleman in the first-class carriage, and the rough or pick-
pocket holding on to the door, what a bond of sympathy I
the same pleasure, the same pursuit; the man of dirt and
rags and the man of professed nicety and refinement looking
forward with equal zest to the same treat. The gentleman
has the taste of the blackguard, and the blackguard has the
taste of the gentleman. That is the thing in common be-
tween them, under the unreal distinctions of broad cloth
and shoddy. Disputes about taste are proverbially idle,
but surely some suspicion of the correctness of a taste should
be raised by the stamp of its possessors. The affinity be-
tween no ring and blackguardism and vulgarity should
make repulsion fur the classes who would hold themselves
clear of those reproaches. Yet men who would ba ashamed
to confess the possession of anything else in common with
cesterwongers, roughs, and pickpockets, will avow their
share in the taste of seeing two men pound each other to
jelly, What the worst take to with the greatest zest, they,
the patrons of the ring, take to without seeing how it
classes them morally and intellectually. What infallibly
attracts the bad of every sort, attracts them also, arguing
something in common where there ought to be nothing.
Old and trite is the saying, that a man is known by his
associates, and the character of his pleasures is in like man-
ner unerringly marked by the companionship of his plea•
sures. If they herd him with all the worst, the lowest, the
idle, the profligate, the criminal, the thing must be foul in
its nature to have attraction for such natures. Some of a
better order and respectable character, it is true, affect ;
but the test of the thing is its favour with all the low and

bad, and-a
blackguard or thief not an admirer of the
prizo ring is not to bo found.

LoNDON REVIEW.—Our daily papers are becoming very
ghastly reading, and are going far beyond the most sensa-
tional of sensation novels and dramas in the strangeness of
the incidents they disclose and the stories they suggest. A
horrible atmosphere of secret death surrounds us, and cases
of infanticide that can never be traced to their perpetrators
are getting as common as fatal accidents from crinoline.
Every day we read of the discovery of some unfortunate
infant's body. In parcels dropped about the streets,—in
out-houses and gardens,—chance is constantly bringing to
light the shrivelled remains of children that have certainly
not always met with a natural death. A man is t Wing in
an idle mood on the grass of a marshy island between the
River Lea and Bow Creek. He sees a cloud of blue bottles
buzzing round a hillock of weeds; brushes them aside,
parts the rank vegetation, and draws a parcel from a hole
that has been scooped out of the earth to the depth of about
a foot. if the man has any doubt as to the contents of that
parcel, some dogs that aro ratting in that oozy waste have
none; for they come crowding hungrily about the spot.
An examination reveals the body of a famale infant, with
evident marks of foul play; but the coroner's jury can do
nothing more than return an open verdict. The thing is
perpetually happening, and the open verdict in cases of
infanticide is becoming an institution. It has been reserved
for Whitechapel, however, to surpass all other stories of the
like kind with which the public have recently been shocked.
Few would have expected to find a secret and unhallowed
Golgotha in a church. Burial within the walls of sacred
edifices was until recently a too common practice ; but at
_ _

at any rate it was openly and legally carried on. No one
would have regarded a church as a probable place of deposit
for bodies smuggled there in an improper way, and some of
which are not without a swpicion of murder. Least of all

could way cogregotim haw imagined that hiE4 AboYo their