The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-24 00:00:00

Commence at 7.

!THEAT RE-R() VAL. HAY MARKET.
Lessee. Mr. J. B. Buckstone.
THIS EVENING, at Seven o'clock, will be performed
HR AMERICAN COUSIN. Asa Trenchard, Mr. Buck•
btone ; Lord Dundreary, Mr. Sothern.

After which, a new and original Extravaganza, entitled
RASSELAS, PRINCE OF ABYSSINIA ; or, The Happy
Valley. Rasselas, Miss Louise Keeley.
Concluding with OUR MARY ANNE.

THEATRE-ROYAL LYCEUM OPEN, under
the Sole Management of Mr. FECTITER.
THIS EVENING, Jan. 24, to commence with an Original
Sketch, entitled A SUDDEN ATTACK. Messrs. Shore,
Gardetz, H. Widdicomb, Miss Remade, and Mrs. Lee.
After which, at a Quarter to Eight, a New Romantic
Drama, in Three Acts, and Pralogue, entitled THE
DUKE'S MOTTO, by Paul Feval and John Brougham.
The principal character will be sustained by Mr. Fechter,
supported by_ Messrs. G. Vining, J. Brougham, H. Widdi-
°probe, W. M'lntyre, F. Charles, Garden, Raymond, H.
Butler, Dawson ; Misses Carlotta Leclercq, Kate Terry, E.
Lavenue, and Elaworthy.
Mr. Phelps and Mr. W. Montgomery are engaged, and will
shortly appear.
Doors open at half-past Six, performance to commence
at Seven. Private Boxes, £2 12s. -ed., and £2 2s. Places
registered. Stalls, Bs. 6d. ; Dress Circle, ss. ed.; upper.
Circle, 45. 6d. Prices at doors—Stalls, 6s. ; Dress Circle, ss. ,
Box-
LTpper Circle, 4s. ; Pit, 2s. ; Gallery, ls. No half-Prim
°Vice open daily from II till 5. The public a
take notice that no charge is made to the occupants of entreated to
boxes,
tte
uitnts i
all parts
box places, or stalls, either for playbills or for sate keep-
ing of hats and cloaks ; and that the attendants
of the Louse are forbidden to receive any
whateversActing-Manager, Mr. H.
Stage-Manager, Mr. G. Vining'.
Barnett.

ROYAL PRINCESS'S THEATRE.
Lease." and Manager, Mr Mufti.
THIS EVENING, LAW v. LOVE ; Miss M. Oliver.
Followed by ONE GOOD TURN DESERVES AN-
OTHER. Mr. R. Roxby and Miss Amy Sedgwick.
Alter which, the New Grand CHRISTMAS PANTOMIME,
RIQUET WITH THE TUFT ; or, Harlequin and Mother
Shipton." Mr. G. Belmore, Mr. C. Seyton, Misses Gray and
Hudspeth, Mr. Milano, Mr. R. Power, Miss A. Collinson, and
Sir. Halford.

NEW THEATRE-RO YAL,
Sole Proprietor and Manager, Mr. B. Webster.
THIS EVENING, THE IA I TLE TRE A SURE. Mr
Billington, Mr. R. Phillips, and Miss Marie Wilton.

After which, A TICKET OF LEAVE : Messrs. J. L.Toole,
P Bedford, and Mrs. Billington.

To conclude with " GEORGE DE BARNWELL :
or, Harlequin Folly in the Realms of Fancy." Miss Woolgar,
Miss K. Kelly, Miss Seaman ; Messrs. J. L. Toole, P. Bed-
ford, Stephenson, C. J. Smith. Harlequin, Mr. John Lauri;
Columbine, Miss Caroline Adams ; CLown, Mr. W. Hildyard ;
l'antaloon, Mr. J. Paulo. The celebrated Arthur. and
Vertrand.

Commence at 7.

The VMTIIEB—Sun Office, Jan. 24, 1863.

THERMOMETER.
Highest since Noon yesterday 49
Lowest during the night ..... ... 32
This day at Noon ... •
Barometer-29.73.
-wind. westerly; fresh, and variable, with fine weather.

HIGII WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THIS DAT.—Norning, sh. 18m.—Afternoon, sh. 38m,
To-monßow.-Morning, 511. 59m.—Afternoon, 6h. 17m,

41 ~t,„.",,,, i
.1 it 11,„.„,i117..,i,,,,,,,,.4.:.-,,e, ..,P",--k* -- .

~.-z-_-_.-----.
LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 24, 1863.

Gloomily as the old year closed for the Federals
still mere gloomily for them is the new year
opening. An enumeration of the principal events
marking the turn of the twelvemonths will better
than any syllable of comment indicate the fortunes
of the war between the fratricidal belligerents. Our
intelligence, last arrived, brings the narrative of
those events down to the 12th of this present month
of January. And from the momentary flashes of
the Telegram we learn the nature of the very latest
of the salient incidents—further particulars in re-
gard to which will come to us a little later on. As
to th• occurrences at Murfreesboro, we now know
for certain that on the last day of this last
year the Federals met with a signal dis-
comfiture at the hands of General BRAGG; and
if the victors withdrew afterwards (as they did) dur-
ing the night of the 3d inst., they did so distinctly as
victors ! Carrying away with them all the stores,
and, together with the stores, four thousand pri-
soners, five thousand stand of arms, and a quarter
of a hundred guns as evidences of their success.
Inste..td of retreating into Alabama, however, as it
was at first conjectured they would, the Confede-
rate force under BRAGG appear to have established
themselves on the Dut.l River (a tributary of the
Tennessee), at a point some score of miles to the
south-west of Murfreesboro. Shelbyville, in fact,
is understood to be the exact scene of the Confede-
rate General's whereabouts.

Beyond this partial advantage to the Confede-
rates —the safe withdrawal of all the stores and all
the trophies of the 31st December from Murfrees-
boro—what are not the successes:they have won, not
partially or in any way questionably, elsewhere ? The
Federals have been beaten back unmistakeably from
Vicksburg. The Confederates have simultaneously
achieved a victory by sea and by land at Texas. The
Southern triumph in Mississippi is unmistakeable.
And, as we have just seen, the opponent of General
BRAGG has been completely outwitted and out-
manoeuvred in Tennessee. As to the double ad-
vantage gained in the Gulf of Texas, an advantage
both ashore and afloat, that is, of all the events
recently brought to light, incomparably the
most important in its significance. That
the Federals could have been so entirely
" put down" at sea by the Confederates
was hardly a thing to be looked for. Yet the facts
reisated are beyond all dispute. They demonstrate
an advantage on the Southern side of the most
signal character. Five Confederate steamers,
unexpectedly dropping down the river, seize upon
what is familiarly known as the Gate of the Gulf-
State of Texas—while effecting this result, by a
coup de main, conveying destruction to the Federal
gunboat squadron, or scattering the remnants of it
in flight. In demonstration of the unmistakeable
completeness of the victory achieved, there remains
in the possesaion of the Confederates, when all is over,
a war-ship as famous', in her way, and hitherto,appa-
rently, far more seaworthy than the renowned but
unfortunate Monitor—which sunk, it may be remem-
bered very recently, at a sudden puff, or what sailors
call half a gale of wind, off Cape Hatteras_ "Harriet
Lane" is the vessel just captured from the Federals
by the Confederates. And the Harriet Lane will
probably, in giving an account of herself, in the
hereafter under her changed co.liours, say ditto, so
to speak, to the Alabama There she
o
remains,
e tn ai n s
however, in the possession of the Confederates.
There, in their possessiontoo, south
aton
Rouge, is the reclaimed city of Galveston. The
Federal flagship lies wrecked off shore in d ep water
—her larger fragments sunk to the bottom after an
explosion as destructive, in its way (though upon
a .smaller scale), as that of the l'Orient. The
remnants of the Noithern fleet found safety only,
it would seem, in fight to New Orleans. All this
m uitirne euecess on the side of the Confederates
being attributable to the dashing onslaught of their
five audacious war steamers armed with guns
worked among; ramparts of cotton bales. The
triumphs won by the South in effect have proved
in these last instances to be els various as they ore,
we repeat, beyond all dispute.

A journal, more eistinguished for smartness Of
style than for ?.oundaess of judgment, assures Ile
that the Ballot is but a superstition. An antiquiltA
superstition, it hardly ventures to say, seeing that

so large a majority of the Liberal candidates have to
make it one of their hustings articles of faith; nor
is it liked, on those occasions, if the candidate does
not give his " unfeigned assent and consent" to its
necessity. It is, however, a superstition, in the
sense that it is a merely inherited belief, or point
in the creed, is believed in without conscious reason
by constituents, and accepted by candidates as a
mere matter of form. Indeed, we are told respect-
ing the candidates, that their reason for consenting
so easily to vote for the Ballot, is the certainty that
their votes will never carry their ostensible object.
Of too many of the candidates we can easily believe
this. Why we should believe it of electors is not
so apparent. Many a candidate must be aware that
he has no title whatever on the ground of mental
and political qualifications to appeal to a constitu-
ency at all, and he may reasonably dread a system
which would deprive him of adventitious and irre-
velant influence, and throw him upon his merits
solely. It is not so clear that electors can, from
any but party motives, dislike the mode of
voting which leaves them every present advantage
untouched, and confers on them others, which can
be secured by no other known means.

For our part, if the demand for the .Ballot be
likened to a worship, we must think that, so far
from being a superstition, the electors well know
what they worship. But few of the respectable
electors have not, in some form, had to do with the
Ballot. It is employed in so many societies, social►
commercial, and literary—its essential principle is
so strictly, and properly, adhered to in courts mar-
tial, and even our jury and militia systems appeal
to its equivalent—that it is not easy to think of a
man's occupying the electoral status in society,
and being unacquainted with the simple and ra-
tional device which excludes unfair partiality, un-
due influence, and bribery. If superstition be cre-
dulous and unreasonable worship, we should say
that the elector who asks the candidate to vote for
the ballot is a man of easy faith, only because the
reason for his faith is so simple and obvious, that it
seems like a truism if put into express terms. To
the unsophisticated Liberal elector there is no
point in his Liberal creed which he less
takes on trust. On the duration of Parliaments,
on the extension of the Franchise, on the fairer ap-
portionment of Members, and the like, he may lean
a good deal on the opinion of others. In regard to
the Ballot, he trusts his personal observation and
knowledge. In hardly any town, city, or county
in Great Britain, can he have passed through many
elections, without having either personally felt the
need of the Ballot, or without having witnessed
with pain the humiliation, through the want of it,
of many of his brother electors.
Superstition often believes in the existence of
what is non-existent. But if the evils to remedy
which the Ballot is demanded, exist, like witchcraft
and sorcery, in imagination only, all we can say is,
that a long list of abortive Acts of Parliament, and
certain expensive Royal Commissions, are strong
evidences of superstition in quarters supposed to be
tolerably free from it; not to mention the facts de-
tailed to us by the confessors at St. Alban's, Glou-
cester, Wakefield, and other distinguished places.
Lord RussELL and good Mr. WALPOLE must have
been very superstitious men, when they combined
their skill to produce a " Corrupt Practices at
Elections Prevention Act." Unless, indeed, we
presume, from their expunging from the Act as
proposed the clauses most calculated to prevent such
practices, that the Act was mere political quackery,
and concocted to make a show of believing what they
did not believe. We admit, indeed, that it was
passed to make a show of preventing what they did
not wish to prevent ; but we take it as proof that
they could not deny the existence of the facts on
which it was based.

Another common mark of superstition is, faith in
fanciful means and remedies. Homeopathy, and
all the devices of medical quackery, charms, amu-
lets, and idle ceremonies to avert the wrath or pro-
cure the favour of Heaven, are every day illustra-
tions. Now, we may be told we expect too much
from the Ballot—that is quite possible, though we
doubt it. The advocates of the Ballot, like those
who have struggled for any of the social or political
reforms of late years, may easily, in theirhard fight
with the bitter defenders of existing abuses, exagge-
rate
the value of what they fight for. If, for instance,
any of the Liberal party have imagined that it
would place their party in undisputed possession of
power for an indefinite period, we have no such
thought. We believe there is quite as much con-
servatism as desire for progress in the English
mind, and that, too, amongst the humbler as
well as among the richer classes. Even the
Radicals of England are not destructives. Under
the Ballot each of the great parties would be as
liable as ever to disgust the electors who respec-
tively support them as they now are; and we may
add, would, have as mach opportunity to gain
their goodwill. The supporters of the
Ballot ought not to have, and generally, we
believe, have not any oblique purpose. Their
single object may be expressed in the short
sentence, sent over, we believe, originally from
that tabooed source of political instruction, Ame-
rica,—" The Ballot enables every man to do his
own voting."

Where is the superstition of believing that it does
this P We mean, of course, when the Ballot is a
bona fide one—when it is conducted, as it easily
may be, and is every day, in England itself, for
other than political matters—that no one can know
before, at the poll, or after it, any person's vote,
unless he himself discloses it. The t easonableness
of the Ballot, as the means of enabling each indivi-
dual to vote in freedom from unfair external influ-
ences, must be very obvious, when we find it in use
from almost the earliest periods of civilised political
freedom ; and when, it has been spontaneously
adopted by bodies and communities of the most diverse
character, for the one object of securing a free vote.
Resort to it, for this purpose, must really be either
an instinct of the race, or one of those first conclu-
-1
sions of reason which most resemble instinct. Many
of the private or public societies who have adopted
it cannot, in numberless cases, have learned it of
predecessors, yet it occurred to them as soon as the
circumstances required it. A few individuals,
uniting
agreef for
com-
bined for a common object, a
ornd protection,
citizens
their common
government
that the will of the majority shall decide disputed
questions. Warmth of feeling, personalcinnrflrunepntce
influences,
fear of giving offence, and sometimes
in-
ducements, are soon observed to influence some of
the voters, and to cause the majority of votes, not
to represent always the cool and unbiassed judgment
of the majority of persons. " Let each of us, then, so
give his vote that no extraneous influences can bias
it," is, under the circumstances, the first demand of
common sense; the idea of superstition in thG
matter is simply ludicrous.
If experience be appealed to, we really know of
none which does not prove that common sense was
right in resorting to the Ballot as the means to se-
cure a free vote. We are pointed to America—
well, there the mischief is all due to tho formerly
dominant party appealing to the ballot, and then 1
1
rejecting its decision, because it was against them.
That party was itself in power at the time the Bal-
lot was taken ; yet with all the immense patronage
pf the American Government, it eould not prevent

a fair Ballot. It rebelled, indeed, but it never de

nied the fairness of the Ballot. We are pointed
again to France—there, too, the Ballot has " enabled
every man to do his own voting." It is no fault of
the Ballot that the peasantry at the time of the
EMPEROR'S election were Napoleonists; it is no fault
of the Ballot that, now, the masses of the people are
favourable to an Emperor who has so cleverly con-
ciliated their good will; the Ballot is not answer-
able foi the measures taken by French Prefects to
deter opposition candidates from coming forward,
or to mislead the voters. The people, after all,
vote as they please. But the grand proof of the
efficiency of the Ballot is that, even in France, first-
rate opposition candidates can get a seat in the
Chamber in the teeth of the Minister of the Interior,
the Prefect, and all the influence of Government.
It may be safely tw3erted tiv t, with open voting,
not one opposition member would be returned. The
experience of all other countries, specially that of
our own Australian Colonies, is not denied to be in
favour of the reasonableness of the Ballot. To term
it a superstition, where it had been some time in
practice, would but expose a man to deserved con-
tempt. If there be superstition anywhere we should
say it is amongst those who oppose and dread the
Ballot. It is superstition to shrink from reason, and
this they do. The only alternative—and we fear
the true one—is that their fear is not superstition,
because it is a fear of losing what the Ballot would
certainly deprive them of—the power to bribe, inti-
midate, and coerce those who ought to be the free
and independent voters of Great Britain and Ireland.

We publish in another part of our impression an

account of the recent tyrannical proceedings of the

Russian Government in Warsaw, which can scarcely
fail to excite the reader's indignation. It is a re-

vital of the means adopted to carry out the recruit-
ing, by which Polish youths were to be forced
into the service of their country's oppressors.
As might be supposed the mere threat of such an
act aroused the deepest indignation among the
injured Poles, and had it not been for an

appeal judiciously circulated by those who have
the true welfare of their country at heart, there is
little doubt that it would have been the occasion of

a violent outbreak. It was addressed to those who

were likely to be the victims of this unjust con-
scription, and conjured them, for the sake of their
oppressed country, to submit quietly to this fresh
act of tyranny. It reminded them that, although
torn from the country they longed to serve, and

associated with her enemies, their life and actions
might still be of service to Poland. They might carry
with them their sentiments of freedom and indepen-
dence to diffuse them among the Russian soldiery.
These and similar exhortations produced the desired
effect, for although, as our correspondent informs
us, it were impossible to describe the lamentations,
and the gloom that hung over the city after the
forced conscription was carried into effect, no vio-
lent resistance was attempted. The manner in
which the recruiting was carried out could only be
attempted in a semi-barbarous country. At an
hour verging on midnight the streets were cleared

of stray passengers, every street being occupied by
the military, while strong patrols perambulated
the town, and cannon were pointed at each
extremity. When these preparations were com-

pieta, the superintendent of police, with

a military policeman and six soldiers, all armed,
approached the doomed houses, and knocked. No
sooner was the door unfastened than in they rushed
like a band of brigands, dragged from their beds

the victims of the conscription, and conveyed them
to the citadel. In some instances the young men
qualified for conscription had contrived to leave
Warsaw, and in these cases they seized on their
fathers or younger brothers as hostages. In one
instance a middle-aged man, the father of five chil-
-1 dren, was dragged off because his eldest son had

contrived to chide the police. No plea for exemp-
tion was admitted—age, sickness, the care of a
family, the support of a widowed mother, were dis
regarded alike. There was scarcely a house, we are
told, in which there was not one taken, and from
many five or six were carried off. We can fancy
the desolation of the city—the lamentations of the
bereaved mothers, wives, and children, the burning
resentment which smoulders in the hearts of the
captives. Forced into the ranks of their hated op-
pressors, torn from their homes, and, in many in-
stances, conscious of the distress and poverty of

,heir deserted families, it will be with little heart

that they will fight the battles of the CZAR. The
account given in the Monde of these tyrannical
proceedings coincides with all we have heard from
other sources. A complete razzia, we are told,
was made among the • officials of the railway
from Warsaw to Vienna, and the University
itself, notwithstanding the fine promises made to it,
was not spared, several young students being taken.
The numbers arrested amount, it is conjectured, to
several thousands, and when we remember that
these include tradesmen and workmen of all kinds,
we can have some faint idea of the injury inflicted
on the city in a commercial sense. Who can help
regretting that the youthful monarch who seemed
at first so willing to redeem the errors of his father,
and to whom so much praise is justly due for carrying
out the emancipation of the serfs, in the face
of his powerful nobility, should permit his reign to
be tarnished by such acts of cruel oppression.
Surely the teachings of history, and even the
experience of his own times, might convince him
that thrones built on tyranny rest on a hollow
foundation, and that the extent of his empire,
and the irresponsibility of his power, may not
suffice to save him from the fate of despots who
tempt too far the endurance of suffering humanity.

At a special meeting of the Nottingham Town
Council on Thursday, a resolution was adopted
appointing a committee to tako steps for the fittingaebra-
tion, in that town, of tho:occasion of the marriage of his
Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. The magistrates, it
was said, wero prepared to co-operate with the Town doun-
eil in the matter.

ST. THOMAS'S AND BETHLEM HOSPITALS.—When
St. Thomas's Hospital was required for railway
purposes the site was valued by Mr. Currey, the surveyor
to the governors, at £478,000 ; underthe award of the arbi-
trator only £290,000 was obtained for the property. On a
recent occasion the actual value of Bethlem was brought in
question, when the authorities appealed against their as-
sessment to the parish of St. George's, and valued them-
selves, or rather placed their then estimated value on their
own property, which result, by being made public, may serve
present purposes. Mr. Lee, their surveyor, then contended
that £l,BOO a year was the utmost rental as the grounds of his
valuation, which, if correct for rating purposes, is good for
bargain and sale. Mr. Paine, surveyor, who has acted for
the Home-office, under the sanction of the Poor-law Board,
ecc.,',on behalf of St. George's, contended for £4,200. The
award of the arbitrator was £3,728. Mr. Johnson, the
Governor of Bridewell and Bethlem, and Mr. Lee, his sur-
ve3 or, argued that Bethlem was almost worthless, because
at the present time ii, wa- " totally unfit for the purposes
and practice of a lunatic asylum under the altered and
almost reversed system of treatment of lunacy ;" therefore
£l,BOO a year was an ade (pate rent. Such being the case,
certainly 30 years' purchase, or 54,000, will approximate
towards the current value of the property in tee.
AMERICAN SYMPATHY WITH LANCASHIRE.—The
Y ethsfeGrredlclieYf from
tmh eNe ‘
sYork,hip Ii
withPe a°. crarrigvoedofa tfioLuirv, ' •Scr CI °
. , for r
fine dis-
tress
in Lancashire. The Hope, which is a nenew
gave
York vessel,
is commanded by Captain Hancock, who, we believe
his services free. She left Now on the 22d Decem.
and 987
tons guano,
the
relief fund. The vessel is
,
balelro,
flawdheinchwwithilllh,OelsOolbda,rareolds ofthe
flour,
proceedsunderstand, forwarded
consigned to
Messrs. Babcock and Co., of Liverpool, who undertake
unship the cargo, free of expense. The Hope was towed
wo
up the Mersey, free of charge, and all the customs and
harbour, dock, and other dues, will be dispensed with in
this and other similar eases: