The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-06 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, JULY 6, 1863

pertment at Washington to prevent the depreda- 1
tions of the Florida and Alabama and their now
numerous consorts—one of which, the Tacony, or
Florida No. 2, captured the Liverpool emigrant ship
the Isaac Webb, on her way to New Y irk, and only
about 75 miles distant—Governor Seymour, of New
York, should take the matter in hand. Governor
Seymour has lately determined, without reference
to the President's forthcoming conscription, to re-
organise the New York State Militia to its full
complement of 120,000 men, a very respectable
army; and it is argued, as he is Commander-in-
Chief of the naval as well as the military forces of
the commonwealth, that he ought in this capacity
to supplement the action of the weak Central Go-
vernment, and protect the citizens of the State of
New York at Bea as well as on shore. Why, it is
asked, should he not call upon patriotic capitalists
to lend or fit out for hies a squadron of fast
steamers to pursue the formidable war-ships of the
S:aahern Confederacy, and by capturing them free
the commerce of the city from frightful loss of ships
and gooth, as well as from enormous sea risks,
amounting to a❑ insurance of 10 and 20, and in the
CaS3 of the Californian traders of 25 and even 30
per cent. ? These are suggestive hints, presaging
the time—that may come, and that will come, in the
estimation of many who believe they can see much
further into futurity than their neighbours—when
the great State of New York will set up for herself
and try to recover the trade of the independent
South, by a new secession from Abolitionist New
England, Protectionist Peunsylvannia, and the agri-
cultural North-West. At a very early period of
the strife, and before the assault upon Fort Sumter
, had driven the Northern people beside themselves
with vindictive passion at the outrage upon their
flag, the erection of New York into a free city, after
the model of Hambarg, Lubeck, and Bremen, was
openly debated, and found many supporters.
Governor Seymout's action with respect to the
Militia, and the recommendation that ho should
make himself forthwith a great naval as well as
military potentate, look as if the idea of separation
were not considered entirely illusory in the contin-
gency of Southern success; and that in the day of
the debacle New York, the Empire State, may per-
: haps find it advisable to look to herself for the shap-
ing of her own destiny.
_ _ _

While General Banks, at Port Hudson, has been
endeavouring to prove to the world how bravely
negro soldiers will fight, and how obediently they
will suffer themselves to be slaughtered at the
command of their superior officer, Colonel Mont-
gomery, late of Kansas, has undertaken to prove
—what was not needed—that negroes when their
blood is inflamed, and their passion aroused by
bad example, will commit all the worst horrors
that ever disgraced the practice of war. Intend-
ing to excite the negro slaves of Georgia to in-
surrection against their masters, or at the very least
to run off as many thousands of them as he
could lay hands on for service in the Federal army,
Colonel Montgomery placed his black troops on
board of several transports on the 11th inst. and
sailed up the Altamaha river to the town of Darien.
All the inhabitants, including the slaves, fled at his
approach, and when he entered the place scarcely a
straggler was left. The correspondent of the Herald
states, " that the town was burnt, which was some
consolation to the War Party ;" while the Savannah
News, not finding any consolation in the act, describes
it, on the authority of a correspondent whose whole
property perished in the conflagration, in terms that
will be anything but consoling to those numerous
good men among the Northern people who believe
that war has its decencies and humanities as well as
its duties, and who do not wish their cause to be
disgraced in the eyes of the civilised world by bar-
barons and needless atrocities, whether committed
by black men or by white. The negroes burnt the
churches, the chapels, the market-house, the bank,
the court-house, the gaol, and all the public and
private dwellings in the town, having previously
smeared the wooden houses with turpentine to in-
crease the rapidity of the conflagration, and rifled
the shops and stores of wine, spirits, clothing,
jewelry, and everything they needed. They even
went so far as to shoot the cattle in the streets in
wantonness and destruction, and did not retire until
nothing was left of Darien but a heap of smoulder-
ing ruins. "The Confederates," says-the Express of
to-night, " heap coals of fire upon our heads by not
acting in a similar manner in Pennsylvania. In-
deed, they might relieve us from shame, if they
would only burn up a town or two, and thus take
the'blushes off our cheeks." The Abolitionist jour-
nals say nothing on the subject, and one of them last
night, in narrating the brilliant deeds of Colonel
Montgomery, prudently omitted all mention of the
burning of Darien, contenting itself with the simple
announcement of the capture. It would be well for
their credit, however, if they would join their de-
nunciations to those of the rest of the people against
this diabolical mode of warfare, which not only con-
signs to infamy its leaders and instigators, but will
array against the Federal Administration an amount
of obloquy that no government can endure and live.
Another clergyman, and he by far the most dig-
nified and powerful in America, has declared himself
in favour of peace. Archbishop Hughes, who took
especial pains a few weeks ago to impress upon the
minds of a youthful auditory the fact that a small
republic, with liberty, was better than a large re-
public without it, has gone still further in the ex-
pression of those sober second thoughts on the war
which are fast recommending themselves to the in-
terest as well as to the conscience of the American
people. At the dedication on Sunday last of the
New Roman Catholic church of St. Theresa, in this
city, after a touching discourse on the purely reli-
gious aspects of the ceremonial in which ho bore the
most conspicuous part, he touched in few but preg-
nant sentenzes on the awful question of the war.
" Speaking for the Roman Catholics, he would say
that they had no hand nor part in bringing about
the condition of affairs which now distracts and
afflicts the land." • • • " Let us," he continued,
,4 pray to God to have mercy upon the people of this
country, and by some means, devised in His great
wisdom, bring about an amicable termination of the
struggle. That was a legitimate prayer. As to that
there would, no doubt, be prayers upon both sides of
the line. Differences of opinion must exist with
and-
regard to the accomplishment of it, but he was in
a happy termination of the present diffi-
thoug
favour
o vi
division of hit should be attended by the
u
even
great people." The Archbishop is a
c ,e'
prudent man, and on the few occasions
cwahuetniouhs
he
touches
sentiment
leads thehis people. The Irish Roman
Catholics have sent many thousands of their youth
to perish onthe bloody,aeuedn
more as yetre fruitlessernell y
sacrificedba t tle-
fie where they have b
by therashness and stupidity of commanding officers
than by the sword of the enemy, relentless as that has
been ; and if any body of
citizens have a right de-
rived from their efforts in the war to speak of
their desire for peace, it belongs to
tic thempa
and to the
Archbishop *heir faith, The positron
taken by
n
the Archbishop, and i
which he follows most of
the Irish members of the Democratic party to which
he belongs, and •
in which he
remainder, is the same
large section—perhaps as yet
assumed .
will
Wood—Peace, even at the cost of Disunion. A
city of Albany, and not in
having its head-quarters in
the majority of the
Democratic party, •
York,ency—tall4;ewless
byPZsri.blFY elerandantdhoe
the
as the Albany Reg
vision
of they are in. favour of peace,
and loudly proclaim that th
but not at the expense
logical a n d
ground, known
In this respect they are but in, accordr Wendell
with the Union.
In
Lin-
colnhmr.nion
and G
ndelolfPthheilitlipes.
and Miss AnnGen. Hooker,
Dickinson, with
with Gen. Butler and the
Rev. Mr. Beecher, and with the whole
publican party, except the gentlemen who have
large war contracts, and cannot in a country such as
this, if they could in any other, be expected to allow
the Christian and tho patriot that may be latent in
their nature to get the better of the trader and the
" smart" man of business. All these, from Mr. Lin-
coln down to Mr. Beecher and Mr. Tilton, are men
of peace, but peace only to be acquired by the subju-
gation of the South. Archbishop Hughes, Mr. Fer-
nando Wood, and the working classes of New York
are peace men of another kind. They love peace for
its own sweet self. They are sick of the war and
all that belongs to it. The poorer classes more espe-
ciay 3uff,;r grievous ills from it, and expect to suf-
fer in a still higher degree, if it be not immediately

brought to a close. They have fought and bled for
it; given the lives of fathers, sous, brothers, and
husbands for it, and arc not disposed to make any
further sacrifices of treasure, time, blood, or exer-
tion in its support. They once believed that the
South was merely mutinoue, and could be reduced
to order and discipline in the " ninety days" of
Mr. Seward and by the 75,000 men of Mr. Lin-
coln. They have awakened to a different and
a sadder conclusion, and have learnt to admire the
Southern and to despise the Northern A;:ministra-
tion, in proportion as the war advanced ; and are
convinced that the South not only will, but ought
to be recognised as an independent Power. Such
is the present opinion of the great majority of the
Irish Roman Catholic population, basing himself
upon which Archbishop Hughes has had the cou•
rage to delare himself in favour of a Disunion Peace,
if no other ha practicable. To this complexion the
whole Democratic party must come at last, Many
of its leaders—in addition to Mr. Fernando Wood
and Mr. Benjamin Wocd, who loudly proclaims this
doctrine in his paper—are already sensible that it
is no more possible to restore the Union than it is
to restore the empire of Charlemagne, or the domi-
nion of Powhattan ; but, being more concerned for
the future predominacy of the Democratic party,
and its share of the " honours and plunder'' of office,
than for the immediate welfare of the country, hesi-
tate to take any step which might give increased
popularity to their rivals the Republicans. Their
notion is that whichever of the two parties makes
peace will be politically ruined for a quarter of a
century. They do not wish to remain out of office for
so long a period. They see that peace is the one thing
needful, and if the Republicans could be persuaded
or compelled to make it upom humiliating terms,
they would only be too glad to accept the peace and
to use the humiliarions that prepared and accom-
panied it as the means of a long exclusion of their
rivals from power. The Democratic party, taken as
a whole, is too cunning and too sordid to be very pa-
triotic, except in great extremity, and relies too much
upon the innate depravity of human nature as one of
the great fulcra of Government to place itself very
much in advance of public opinion, or that which it
believes to represent it. The day may come, how-
ever, and that much sooner than it anticipates, when
the public peril will he so imminent under the worse
than imbecile mismanagement of the present Admi-
nistration, as to compel it to think less of party and
more of duty than seems at present to its mind, and
to declare itself a ready follower in that path where
Mr. Fernando Wood and Archbishop Hughes and
nearly the whole of the working classes have pre-
ceded it.

SUMMER ASSIZES.

SOUTH WALES CIRCUIT.
(Before ,Baron Wilde.)
THE FISH GUARD MURDER,
Lydia Williams was charged with tho wilful murder o
her husband, Dan Williams, at the parish of Llanunda.
Mr. Henry Allen and Mr. Owen prosecuted ; Mr. Thos,
Allen defended the prisoner.
Various witnesses said they had seen the deceased in
good health as late as the 11th and 12th of April last.
Elizabeth Bowen saw him about six o'clock on the day
he was taken ill—he then appeared to be well. She saw
him on the following day in the evening, about four o'clock
—ho was then very ill. He came to her house, and raid he
had pains about him he never had before in his stomach.
She saw him again on the following Tuesday, when he
complained of the pain in his stomach, and said his throat
and tongue felt very hot. At another time he was vomit-
ing. About nine days later he was very ill, and in great
pain. He complained of pain like a cramp. Before his ill-
ness his limbs were weak from rheumatism, but he was
well in body.
Cross-examined Deceased had two sisters, who did
not live with him, but one attendedhim before he died. This
sister and the wife were not friendly. Witness and the
wife had at one time not been on good terms. Deceased
PM in the habit of taking too much physic, including boiled
herbs, which were usually simmering in a saucepan on the
hob. The herb he use was called " bog bean."
Elizabeth Davies, on being sworn, said she lived next
door to deceased, whom she saw on Sunday, the 17th of
April, at six o'clock. He complained he was very weak.
Saw him again the following Tuesday or Wednesday inbed
very ill and vomiting. He said he thought he should "die.
Mary Williams, daughter of the deceased, remembered
her father being taken ill on the Sunday. She was ill her-
self that day. After the Sunday she frequently saw him
vomit, generally every day after his meals. He vomited
after the meals which witness prepared, but his wife
usually, but not always, filled the bowls. When witness
took his food to him herself de ceased never vomited. Pri-
soner left the house a fortnight after he was token ill, end
did not return. Witness saw prisoner pour out a small quan-
tity of gin for her father into a blue basin, and take a white
powder out of some paper and put in the basin. Her father
did not drink it.
Eleanor Williams, sister to the deceased, said she prepared
the food after the wife left, and he was not sick after taking
it. She found a powder on the top of the press% She gave
it to Dr. Wathan.
Mr. Moses Griffiths, justice of the peace for the county,
deposed that he visited the deceased on the 20th of May,
with Superintendent Jones, and a policeman named Evans.
Jones took down the statement of the deceased :
" On Sunday, the 12th of April last, after I had partaken
of my dinner, prepared by my wife, Lydia, I became very
sick, and vomited very violently and threw up blood; and
each time I partook of food prepared by my wife I became
sick and vomited violently up to dinner time on the 23d of
April, after which time my daughter prepared my food,
through the interference and suggestion of my sister Eleanor,
since which time I have not vomited. I saw my wife take
something out of a paper, which I believe she took from her
pocket, and put it in my food twice of three times, and I
votnitee each time. She was standing by the window in my
bedroom the first time, and in the other room afterwards.
The first time I became sick and vomited. I had partaken
of broth, prepared and given to me by Lydia for my dinner.
The sensation 1 felt at the time was a burning in my
stomach ; my throat was dry, shrunk up, and burning ; my
tongue much swollen; my lips swollen and cracked; the
skin on my body dry, withered, and pealing off. I make
this declaration, believing that I am now dying, and will
not recover."
Mr. W. D. Wathan, of Fishguard, surgeon, deposed that
he was called in to see the deceased on the 28th of April.
He described the symptoms presented by the deceased.
There was inflammation and numbness of the limbs, and
various other appearances which led him to form a decided
opinion as to the cause of his death; he believed he died
from the effects of an irritant poison. Bog beans act as a
tonic, and are very harmless. The package given him by
Eleanor Williams contained oxalic acid.
Dr. J. D. Brown, of Haverfordwest, deposed that he, in
company with the last witness, made a post mortem exami
nation of the deceased. He appeared to have died from
heart symptoms, and the nervous system seemed to be
exhausted. He could not say what caused the inflamma-
ion.

Mr. William Herapath, analytical chemist, of Bristol,
deposed to receiving a jar containing portions of the hates,.
tines from Superintendent Jones. He tested its contents
for poison, and found none. There was inflammation in all
parts of the intestines sent to him. He had seen cases
where inflammation proceeding from natural causes had
caused death. Any heavy irritant poison would produce
these effects. Neither in his reading nor experience had
he ever known poison to be found after 1C days. He bad
received some powders from Superintendent Jones. One
of them was oxalic acid ; the other consisted of oatmeal and
and white arsenic. It contained 27 grains of arsenious
acid and 63 of vegetable meal. Three grains of acid had
been known to cause death, but it usually required more.
Arsenic acts on the nerves where it has been administered
in small quantities, and the sufferers die from secondary
causes. In his experience he had never known so long a
time as had elapsed in this case before death ensued.
Mary Williams deposed that she was a servant living
at Trelleys. She saw the prisoner, she could not say on
what day, and prisoner asked witness for something to kill
mice. Witness replied she had nothing.
Hannah Nicoloa, on being sworn, said she saw the pri-
soner at her house on the Sunday. She heard of Dan Wil-
liams being taken ill that week. The prisoner asked her
for something to kill mice, and she gave her some poison.
She had an equal quantity lett, which she gave to the po-
lice.
lary Jenkins deposed that she knew the prisoner, who
heradmsaosmteert,i2Dinrg. Otowkeinll, Trelleys,rats.
Aftdr Aftdr a deliberation of more than half an hour the jury
osfheh
and as
verdict of guilty of the in tent but not of the
returned a
called
kaeti twheitnheos7ssief

murder.
sentenced the prisoner
etwro,aplsaetncehaelalregsrekerdvitowtutihdthee
forHliifseL. ordship
a havingoi l
fn orTd holunn
Oct. 3,
3eFleaBnn6:2ls
cf
oWori
nge
eeradkissas Sicozenri uet
powerain
further of a
chargedttor ne y,
with intent to defraud. The prisoner was
in
attorney
manotherrL aw ,icu
r
et
with
intent oes afpptheteeoriedndedfircfaetumrdeinhte
Allen for the defence. vsp'riothseucuttterininng,
aandpomwre:
T.
mlpt
raopvzreendt from the
Commissionersevidence
wast khatetpht in a b
seale ooy withfthe threeilford
locks, two of the keys of which were kept by the prisoner,
and the third by the chairman, consequently the box could
never be opened by the clerk, except in the presence of the
chairman. Both Szlumper and the chairman had two sets
of keys duplicates, there being six keys for the three locks.

All the keys much resembled each other in appeirance, but
each pair of keys would only open their own lock.
The Rev. Mr. Leach, rector of Hubberstone, and chair-
man to the Milford Improvement Commissioners, de posed
that he remembered an application made to him for his key
of the safe containing the seal, which Szlumper required
for the purpose of affixing to a lease. After this had been
done the prisoner borrowed the key from witness on pretence
of cleaning all the locks, and a day or two afterwards re-
turned a key which was not the same as that lent to him.
No authority was given the prisoner from the board to exe-
cute a power of attorney. The commissioners had £244
stock, at 3 per cent., in the Bank of England. The witness
was not aware that the prisoner had ever accounted to the
commissioners for the 1.244 after he received it.
Messrs. Roberts, T. J. Lewis, G. P. Lewis, Richards,
Gould, Thomas, Davies, Williams, Vehnert, and Durant,
all commissioners, corroborated the evidence as to the pri-
soner having nevef received any authority from the board
to execute the deed.
The power of attorney authorising the selling out of the
stock was produced, also letters written by Szlumper in the
name of the board to Messrs. Cancellers, brokers, of London,
inquiring as to the formalities necessary in order to sell out
stock, and receipts in hie handwriting for half•notes received
from Messrs. Cancellers.

The jury found the prisoner guilty.
Ther© were two other indictments for forgery against
him, but Mr, Lascelles offered no evidence thereon.
His Lordship suspended his decision till Friday morning,
when he sentenced the prisoner to four years' penal servi-
tude.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

SATURDAY RRVIENV.—We are deeply sorry to
hear of a proposed scheme for commemorating the
merits of Sir George Corne,wall Lewis by the erec-
tion of a " bust and tablet ' in Westminster Abbey.
It is said that the plan has secured the approbation
of the Dean, but it is to be hoped that either the
Dean or those who have undertaken the manage-
ment of the Memorial may be induced to think bet-
ter of it before the mischief is irrevocably done. We
need hardly explain that, in thus saying, we are not
actuated by any disrespect to Sir G. Lewis. It is,
on the other hand, the very honour which we bear
to the memory of that illustrious scholar and states-
man which makes us even more anxious than we

should be in another case to save his name from
being made an excuse for inflicting another dis-
figurement on the noblest church in England. If
the two feelings could possibly clash, we might say
that, much as we respect Sir G. Lewis, we respect
Westminster Abbey still more; but there is really
no need of any such collision. It is alike in the in-
terest of the memory of a great man and of the pre-
servation of a magnificent building that we plead
against reverence for the one being perverted to the
mutilation of the other. A simi▪ lar blow was once
threatened by way of commemorating Mr. Hallam.
That blow was happily averted; so there is, per-
haps, hope that some means may be found for doing
honour to one of the greatest English scholars with-
out inflicting further damage on the work of the
greatest of English kings. The true doctrine of
monuments and memorials is a very simple one, and
one which we have done our best to set forth on
other occasions.A monument is simply a man's
tomb. It must, therefore, be i▪ n a church, church-
yard, or other cemetery, and it cannot properly fol-
low more than two or three types, in har-
mony with both the religious and the archi-
tectural character of the place. A memorial be set
may be of any kind, and mayany
place where it is thought good, and it is subject to no
restrictions beyond the general laws of art and
good taste. The monument is something purely
ecclesiastical; the memorial may be ecclesiastical
or secular, just as may happen. A memorial may
be indoors or oat of doors; it may assume the form
of bust, statue, cross, picture, anything that is most
liked. And it may be set up in any place whatso-
ever, while a monument is absurd in any place save
the place where the man is buried. It is perfectly
right to commemorate Sir George Lewis by a
strictly ecclesiastical monument i
n the church where
he is buried. It is equally right to commemorate
him by a mere memorial—a statue, picture, or
I whatever is liked best—in any fitting place either
in London or Oxford. But it would be foolish to
set up a strictly ecclesiastical monument of Sir G.
Lewis in Westminster Abbey, because he is not
buried in Westminster Abbey. It would be equally
foolish to set up any other sort of memorial for him
there, because Westminster Abbey is—what some
people seem to forget--a church, and a church isno
place for memorials of any but the ecclesiastical
kind. It is especially foolish to set up a tablet and
bust in Westminster Abbey, because such tablet and
bust will certainly be incongruous with the archi-
tecture of the building, and can hardly fail to in-
volve the destruction or concealment of some portion
of the original work. For all these reasons, the
proposed scheme for commemorating Sir G. Lewis
is one which we trust will never be carried into
effect.

SPECTATOR.—Mr. Roebuck on Tuesday night
paid an unexpected compliment to his countrymen.
He announced—and by acts, not words—his belief
that the national character is greatly changed. That
insular self-esteem, that haughty impatience of in-
terference from abroad, that ignorant inability
to bear with foreign dictation, of which fo-
reigners used so bitterly to complain, has, he
conceives, departed. The Englishman has be-
come a cosmopolitan, and, like most neophytes,
betrays the novelty of his convictions by their un-
bounded ardour. He is ready to welcome the
foreigner not only as a brother but as a bosom
friend • to learn from him not only how to act but
even how to behave ; not merely how to treat his
neighbours but how to guide the proceedings of the
family circle. These are lessons the meekest of men
are seldom willing to receive, yet Mr. Roebuck
obviously believes that his fellow citizens here, after
centuries of stiff neckedness, attained even to this
height of Christian humility. At least, that is the
only theory upon which we can explain the auda-
city with which he conveyed to the House of Com-
mons a rebuke addressed by the Emperor of the
French through him to the Government of Great
Britain. Mr. Roebuck, it appears, had heard that
the Emperor had changed his mind on the subject
of the recognition of the South, and, taking "his
Mejesty" to be the natural dictator of English po-
licy, went across to ask him the question with as
little scruple evidently as he might address an in-
terpellation to the Under Secretary for Foreign
Affairs. The Emperor, with that maganimity which
has in it so mach either of Christianity or contempt,
spoke as frankly as if Mr. Roebuck had never de-
nounced, as ho did in Sheffield, the "perjured lips
which polluted the Queen's cheek." " I said, 'Your
cannot do
that, and I will tell you why. Some months ago I
it'
Ids t YHmea BY; o pmpaekde mae ,foarnmd formal
said,
application
,Nor
Ito Eng-
land:did make a formal application to England, and
Et
o n
mg imy ambassador
ca
gdmo
bts sent
and was shown
mmyr.dessepwaatcrhd,stohAanmdes,rica. That de-
spatchasnsttador at Washington, and it came back
to me, and I feel that I was ill treated by such con-
duct. (Hear, hear, and sensation.) I cannot
subject myself to the danger of similar
treatment; but I will do everything short
of it—l will give you full liberty to state
to the English House of Commons that this is
my wish, and to state that I am determined in all
things to act with England, and more than this,
that I wish to act with her as regards America."
The intent of that sentence is clear. The Emperor,
if M. Roebuck reports him truly, thinks himself
betrayed by the British Government, and appeals
from his betrayer to the House of Commons. So
earnest is he in the matter that he does not even
respect ordinary forms of international courtesy.
Instead of inserting his complaint in a despatch,and
then suffering that despatch to ooze out through
an " officious" print, he selects a special envoy, that
envoy an Englishman, that Englishman a Radical
representative notorious for his anti-Napoleonic
speeches, and bids him carry a verbal reproof of the
Government of Great Britain into the British Par-
liament. Tbat reproof, moreover, is made formal
by his consent to its publication, and couched in the
form of a charge of treachery against a Government
with which, adds his Majesty, " I am determined
in all things to act." No incident could be better
calculated to expose the mischief of a practice now
becoming too prevalent, that of members of the
Lower House turning themselves at their own dis-
cretion into volunteer ambassadors.
LONDON REVIEW.—Mr. Roebuck, arriving at
the Tuileries with his umbrella, and " hoping he
don't intrude," will be a spectacle of which Shef-
field may well be proud. Whenever there is a
difficulty this busy gentleman repairs straight to
the scene of action, and sends in his card. The
lamented Mr. Edwin James once upon a time—as
we all must well remember—adopted this admirable
expedient when the Italian question was attracting
universal notice. He took upon him the high
mission of representing the Maylebone Beadle
and the Parish Pumps of Old England
at the court of General Garibaldi. Armed
with credentials from himself, he conversed
freely with the General, and wrote an
account of his conversation to the Times. Mr. Roe-
buck flies at higher game, though he is equally con-
versational and equally communicative about his
conversation ; and the Sheffield Foreign Affairs
Committee have the satisfaction of knowing that
their member only accredits himself to crowned
heads. There will soon be no palace in Europe
that does not know the sight of Mr. Roebuck's
umbrella.eya:Honhe
itnhoant
hFer adno ce es , n ao
tn
Ind
ewa
ne
to look in upon Prussia, Russia, and America. Mrs.
Candour, in the
hfaaniveilynowia•
way—he has
rasss
supposing
alsoop ooksleiondogk looked in on Austria in a
"School for Scandal," had not a
more successful way of arriving just in the nick of

intrigue and conversation. Francis Joseph and the
Archdukes may wall have been astonished at their
visitor three years ago, when he presented himself
with the firm intention of taking up the rege-
neration of Austria as a personal matter. An an-
cient Briton in his war paint could not have been a
more astonishing arrival at Vienna. The experi-
ment, however, seems to have had so pleasing an
effect upon his fortunes and his character that he
has tried it again. Attired, like Godiva, in nothing
but his native modesty, he saddles his favourite
animal and rides, with Mr. Lindsay for his hand-
maid, into the middle of the haunts of Tyranny.

The monarch of France and Mr. Roebuck hive thus

met at last. Coesar has encountered with impunity
the gaze of Brutus, and Brutus has returned to
humble life a mollified and mitigated patriot, his
face glowing with the delight of having conversed
with one more Emperor. Mr. Roebuck went to
the Imperial Palace a bitter-blowing East wind ;
he has come back all South-east and South. The

sour grapes of Sheffield have been ripened by the
sun of Fontainebleau. Mr. Roebuck has frequently
received merited castigation, both in the House of
Commons and elsewhere, but he has seldom received
a better dressing than he got from the bitter tongue

of Mr. Bright. —Mr. Bright pointed out, with truth
and plainness, that Mr. Roebuck is hardly the man to
play the British Paul Pry to Imperial personages,still
less to represent the French Emperor in the House of
Commons. The manner in which he chose, two

years ago, to speak of Napoleon 111. makes it ludi-
crous in the extreme for him to assume the charac-

.er of Ambassador Extraordinary from that monarch

:o the English Legislature. Nor do we want an
)ffieial of the kind. All the notes of private inter-

views that Mr. Roebuck has taken are thrown away

It is highly inconvenient that the attention of the
house should be taken up with tittle tattle to which
it is undignified to listen, and which it would be
still more undignified for the Commons of this coun-
try to regard. What Mr. Roebuck chooses to do on
the American question somebody may do upon the
subject of Turkey, or the lonian Islands, or the dis-
tress in Lancashire. If the private wishes of Napo-
leon 111. are indeed to be perpetually dragged into
the deliberations of Parliament, let Baron Gros have
a seat below the bar, accompanied with the privi-
lege of stating succinctly to the house, before each
division, what the French Emperor is likely to think
of it. The Imperial will may thus at all events flow
to us in a responsible and accredited channel, not
filter down to us through half a dozen peri )atetic

gossips, who are neither fitted for the pait of Impe-
rial parrots by their accuracy of memory or their dis-
cretion. If this be objected, let Mr. Nassau Senior
be sent round every summer in an official capicity ;
and let a committee of the house sit upon his note
book when he comes home. It is needless to observe

that the Baahi•bazonk diplomacy which Mr. Roe
buck and the Liverpool merchants have endeavoured

to bring into fashion increases infinitely the diffi-
culty of all regular and official authorities. When
every Briton who pleases is his own ambassador,
Lord Russell will have an uneasy time of it. All
this is quite unconstitutional and out of place. What
Napoleon 111. wishes the House of Commons to be
told, he can always ask Ministers to tell them. So
long as we have a Government at all, it will be
better for his Imperial Majesty to confine his confi-
dence within recognised bounds, or he must not be
surprised if they are treated both with neglect and
indifference. The less Parliament hears of the pri-
vate wishes of Emperors and Queens and Princes,
the better it will discharge its duty to the constitu-
encies that returned it.

EXAMINER.—Mr.Bright never made a more canes
and impressive speech than that of Tuesday last in
opposition to the recognition of Confederate inde-
pendence. He carried with him the complete at-
tention of the house, and secured for his eloquence,
at least, the admiration of his bitterest political op-
ponent. But the just hatred of slavery led in his
fervid mind to the use of some bad argument. Take,
for example, what he said on the subject of cotton
supply, for which some zealous abolitionist must
have been furnishing him with fabricated statistics.
Trusting to these he comes to conclusions in direct
contradiction to the entire history of our cotton
manufacture. Every one had believed that the
greatness of our manufacture was owing to the
capacity of the Southern States of America to pro-
duce a cheap and good raw material. Seventy years
ago, before the culture of cotton was introduced in
America, the value of our woollen manufactures
greatly exceeded that of cotton, and when, on the im-
portation of American cotton, Mr. Pitt told that the
cotton would in time exceed in value our great na-
tional staple, he would not believe it possible. But
our exports of cotton goods have exceeded those of
woollen at least fivefold, all the result of the pro-
ducing capacity of the Southern States of Anglo-
Saxon America. Mr. Bright is stone-blind to all
this, and his charge against the slaveholders of the
South is, that they have failed to produce it in the
requisite quantity and cheapness. These are shortly
the facts. Before the cultivation of the cotton plant
was introduced into America, and especially before
it was pushed into the valleys of the Mississippi
and Alabama, and when our main supply was de-
rived from the West Indies, the price of a pound of
cotton ranged from two shillings to half-a-crown.
For some years before the breaking out of the pre
sent civil war the Southern Americans, favoured oy
a superior fertility of soil, adaptation of climate, na-
tural facility of transport, and skill in production,
had brought the pound of cotton down to one-
fourth part of the first named price, and one-fifth
part of the latter, yet Mr. Bright is not
satisfied, and blames them for not doing more. By
war the American supply has in a great measure
been withdrawn, and the price of cotton has risen
to something very like what it was 70 years ago.
For the last two years India, Egypt, Brazil, and
other countries have had enhanced prices, a bounty
equal to from 200 to 300 on every pound of cotton
they can bring to market, but they have miserably
failed to supply the place of the southern American
States.
WEEKLY DISPATCH.—We have another publica-
tion of a quarter's revenue and another boast of
prosperity. Now we own to a superstition against
this self-glorification ; it is generally the symptom
of that kind of security that leads to errors and
eeralds reverses. We see nothing in the returns to
show that, in spite of the Lancashire distress, Great
Britain is not holding its own ; for that we are
grateful. To make what we can of the figures be-
fore us, we find that the increase for the factitious
year is £998,072, a very pleasant balance in itself,
but utterly counteracted by the equally patent- fact
that the " Miscellaneous" is larger than in the for-
mer year by £1,025,517. If the readers of the
Dispatch required to be told that this " Miscellane-
ous is no revenue at all, but either repayment of
advances or of debts, and therefore so much con-
sumption of capital, or accrues from the sale of
stores and bad bargains at a frightful sacrifice, we
have on many occasions taken care to give them the
information. However, the Excise has declined in
the course of the year no less than £1,373,000; on
the quarter, £481,000 ; and we believe that this is
occasioned mainly by remissions of taxation calcu-
lated upon, and partly by credit given for malt-
tax, the partial return to a system which Mr.
Gladstone had broken in upon by a very stringent
exaction of prompt payment. So when the
Customs, Stamps, Taxes, Property-tax, Post-office,
and Crown Lands, give us an increase on the
year of £1,345,555, and on the quarter of
£486,500, we are quite content to believe in a real
elasticity, and grateful to consider the permanent,
solid resources of the country capable of meeting the
shock of an almost unexampled misfortune without
crumbling under the blow. A somewhat kindred
topic is the attempt to decimalise our weights and
measures, to adopt a French scientific standard as
our meter, and to put ourselves in accord with the
continent by reckoning in tens from that point.
Now, as a matter of theory, quite apart from practice,
this would, doubtless, be very desirable. We do not
greatly admire the objection that begins by admit-
ting—" it it were to be done afresh, it would be
right to do it," but in this case it is undoubted'y
applicable. It is altogether a matter of convenience
as to reckoning. We might, undoubtedly, facilitate
our dealings with foreign nations by adopting their
weights and measures; but for one large transac-
tion well worth the careful calculation of a compe-
tent man, which we enter into with foreigners, there
are about a million small dealings between our-
selves, entered into by mere habit by those who
have scarcely the power of making a new reckoning.
We should say, therefore, to Mr. Cobden and the
parties who mooted the question in the House of
Commons on Wednesday, and who gained a ma-
jority against Mr. Milner Gibson, affirming their
principle, Go very gently. It is easy to do serious
and wide-spread injustice by any precipitation.
CIVIL SERVICE GAZETTE.—Just on the eve of the
publication of the Report of the Royal Commission
on Penal Servitude, and when all the subjects
connected with his department were about to
receive the fullest consideration by the legis-
lature and the public, Sir Joshua Jebb, in
apparent possession of his usual health and mental
vigour, has by a most sudden dispensation of Pro-
vidence been " removed from the evil to come." The
awful and distressing circumstances of his death
would of themselves disincline those who were ar-
rayed against him on public questions from any
unnecessary criticisms, and for ourselves we can
sincerely say that even if it had been impossible for
him so far to modify his very tenaciously held opi-
nions as to have become useful in building up a new
convict system in this country, we should certainly
have devoutly wished that the most influential and
pertinacious opponent of reform in convict adminis-
tration had vacated his official seat by any other
moans than those sadly impressive ones which at-
tended his departure. Putting Sir Joshua Jebb's
motives at the very best, and acknowledging that