The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-10 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

already an actor in the events which he may here-
after mould to his imperious will; but, the standing
army being granted, its master will appear in due
course, and then the liberty of Federal America will
be a tale that is told, a sound that is hushed, a dream
and legend of the irrevocable past. Wz,ie the Ame-
rican people half as jealous of their constitutional
rights as the British people from whom they bor-
rowed the ideas and principles on which these rights
were founded, they would even now at the eleventh
hour, ask themselves whither this wicked and unne-
cessary war was leading them, and whether it was
to be tolerated that men with arms in their hands
should assemble in public meetings to debate poli-
tical questions and the conduct either of the Go-
vernment or the constitutional Opposition. One of
the very worst of the many ugly features in the
present aspect of affairs in the North is the discus-
sion of such affairs by the soldiery—not among
each other in their tents and by the camp fire—for
such discussions will take place while men are men
and feel any interest in the cause which leads them

(From the Times Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, March 27.

The politieal optimists are still in the ascendant.
The credulcus public shuts its eyes, opens its mouth,
and awaits the plum which it thinks the Govern-
ment will drop between its teeth as a reward for its
general good behaviour and patient expectancy.
Wall-street for the first time for many months is
sanguine that the Union will be restored. It believes
that South is starved out, and must surrender be-
fore many weeks. Furthermore it believes that the
Polish Revolution has so completely engrossed the
attention and so seriously endangered the peace of

Europe as to render it unlikely that the Emperor of

_ -
the French will recognise the South or concern

himself any further in the American quarrel. And

last of all it affects to believe that American liberty
will come out unscathed in a single feather of its
snow-white wings from the fiery ordeal of the war,
and that the large debt incurred will be cheerfully
paid by an invigorated, happy, and prosperous peo-
ple. Credulous Wall-street ! Sanguine brokers !
Innocent bankers ! Guileless merchants ! What
will they say or do if no great victory rewards the
Federal arms,—if the war drags out its slow length
as indecisively as ever—if, when the weeks and the
months pass, the South, having found corn and pork
enough to fight upon, scorns to yield, refuses co-
partnership with Yankees, and manifests a power of
resistance, intensified by every incident and hour of
the struggle ? judging from their present undue ela-
tion of mind, they will run to the other extreme. A
fit of despondency, longer lived than their fit of joy,
will take possession of them. Gold, the barometer of
their fears, will mark 70 or 80. Mr. Chase will be de •
posed from his high place in their affections, and his
five-twenties, now such favourites, will go begging
for purchasers. Mr. Lincoln will be vehemently
called upon to change his Administration; and all
that is now rosy-tinted as morn in their imagina-
tions will be black as night. The present confidence
of all classes of the public amounts to a hallucina-
tion. It is founded upon nothing—except upon the
hope that famine will complete the work which the
fleets and armies of the North have been unable to
accomplish ; and upon the calculation that not even
a victory by land or sea is necessary to give the re-
bellion the coup de grace. The Government may
possibly be in possession of information which tends
to support this sanguine view of the immediate
future, but nothing is known to the public that can
justify it. Tne Confederate newspapers speak of
scarcity at Richmond, Mobile, and Charleston, but
not of famine. They betray no despondency, and

to the battle—but by organised assemblages and
deliberate speech making, intended either to control
or to support the Government. And worse even

than these meetings is the public approbation with
which they are received. The Tribune of Wednes-
day last devotes a whole page to reports of military
meetings at Newport News, Aqaia Creek, Belle
Plains, and Falmouth in Virginia, Fernandina in
Florida, Camp Reno in Louisiana, and other places,
at all of which the soldiers usurped a function
which did not and ought not to belong to them.
At a public meeting of the officers and privates of
the 100th Pennsylvanian Regiment, known as the
Roundheads, held at Newport News ou the 14th
inst., the lieutenant-colonel in the chair, a series of
political resolutions were unanimously adopted,
first by shouldering arms in token of approval, and
afterwards by acclamation. One of the resolutions
designated all who desired peace as " mean, cow-
ardly abettors of treason." Another affirmed that
the assembled soldiers "spurned with contempt
every proposition of Northern Copperheads for
compromise." A third declared that these people
(the Copperheads) and other sympathisers with
the rebellion, " gave aid and comfort to

; the enemy, disheartened the army by a show of
distraction and division in the loyal States,
and that they were, in fact, traitors, and merited
and should suffer the traitor's doom ;" while a
fourth warned the Peace Democracy "that persist-
ence in their evil courses would bring to their
own doors those horrors of civil war which were
" now only known at the South." A similar meet-
ing of the 111th Pennsylvanian Regiment was held
at Aquia Creek on the 11th. The resolutions having
been drawn up by the colonel, assisted by a major,
a lieutenant, and the chaplain, were read to the sol-
diers, drawn up on parade for the purpose, and car-
ried amid deafening cheers. They declared unalter-
able attachment to the Union; pronounced peace to
be impossible, except by the unqualified submission
or the subj agation of the South; and denounced the
" black-hearted traitors" of the North, who were
worse than the "black-hearted miscreants" of the
South, inasmuch as they lacked the courage which
the latter possessed. One of these meetinge, held
in Louisiana, was avowedly convened for the pur-
pose of acting upon the public sentiment in Connec-
ticut, with the view of controlling the election of
Governor. The address to the people of Connecti-
cut, which was adopted, called upon them to be as
brave by their firesides as the Connecticut soldiers
were on the battlefield, and to exert all their influ-
ence against the Democratic and Peace candidate
and in favour of the Republican and War candidate

are in all respects as defiant and as confident as
ever, while the movements of the Southern armies

in Kentucky and Tennessee show a vigour and

activity that are far more suggestive of approach-
ing victory than of defeat.
The objects of the Loyal and National Union
Leagues that have been organised so suddenly
throughout the North are at length avowed by their
promoters. They are nominally to strengthen the
hands of the President and the Administration in
the prosecution of the war, but really to strengthen
the hands of the Republican party in their hold of
power and patronage, and to take all necessary mea-
sures for controlling the Presidential election of
1864. The Union Leagues have as yet no candi-
date. Mr. Lincoln will be endured as long as his
term lasts, but will not be proposed for re-election.
In the meanwhile the organisation of the party
will be so extended and completed as to confront
the Democrats at every election, local or general,
where a victory may be won. Among other
important cities where it has been deemed
expedient to establish a " League" is Washington.
It does not appear from the published reports that
any speaker of great note or character was present
at the inauguration ; or even that the Government
which it was intended to support was represented
ut the meeting. The principal orator was a person
commonly called Jim Lane, the representative of
Kansas in the Senate of the United States. Mr.
Lane was well known in the days when the " Bor-
der ruffianism of Kansas was the staple subject of
the denunciations of the Republican party, and
when a Border ruffian was supposed to be a Pro-
slavery Democrat, whose peculiar business it was
to prevent free discussion by the agency of the re-
volver and the bowie-knife. Mr. Lane is not a Pro-
slavery Democrat, but an anti-slavery Republican,
—and the fiercest of all the "Exterminators" who
have arisen during the war to throw odium on the
form of Government that could produce such politi-
cians as he is and make Senators of them. A few of
the salient points of his speech will show the ideas
he entertains of liberty, and the manner in whichhe
would enforce them. "It is a disgrace to the country
and the Government," he said, " that a sympathiser
with treason, whether male or female, should be
permitted to rest his or her foot on the soil of the
district of Columbia. I would purify the soil of them
by sword and fire. (Cheers.) In Kansas, where I live,
a Copperhead is not allowed to remain in the State.
If he does not leave when he is ordered to leave, we
shoot him down." (Loud applause, and cries of
e That's the way !") " I am informed by the Go-
vernor of our State that no longer ago than last
Saturday a Copperhead who refused to leave the
State in the morning was found before night
with two bullet holes through his body. (Cries
of " Good, good!") It had been said that we
ought not to use the negroes. So far as I am
concerned, I would rather that every rebel should
be sent to hell by a negro than a white man. (Great
laughter and loud applause.) I would like to live
long enough to see every white man now in South
Carolina in hell, and the negroes occupying his
territory. (Cheers.) All this may sound to you
very wicked— (cries of No, not at all !)—but no
place on the face of the earth ought to be desecrated
by a traitor. I bid you God speed in clearing out
sympathisers with treason in the district of Colum-
bia. It would not wound my feelings any day to
find the dead bodies of rebel sympathisers pierced
with bullet holes in every street and alley of the
city of Washington. (Vociferous applause.) I
would regret the loss of the powder and lead.
(Laughter.) It would be cheaper and better to hang
them, and Save the ropes. Yes, hang them ! and
let them dangle until their stinking bodies rot, de-
compose, and fall to the ground piece by piece."
(Enthusiastic applause.) The published reports do
not state what sort of an audience it was which
greeted this disgusting brutality with approval.
Possibly the audience was largely composed of the
thieves by whom Washington is infested, who came
to listen, in the exercise of their vocation, with the
double hope of amusement from the mouth of a
kindred rowdy, and of a stroke of business to be
done in the pockets of any army contractors or
suttlers who might have been attracted by curiosity
to the gathering. Certainly they could not have
been intelligent, honourable, or decent men, or such
blackgnardism, if uttered in their hearing, would
have been hooted down after the first mouthful.
Senator Lane's affection for ballets may be explained
by an incident of his early life in Kansas, when he
deliberately shot a neighbour for presuming to drink
or draw water out of a well on his property. Row
he escaped the gallows for that offence is only to to
accounted for on the supposition that there was no
law in Kansas at the time, and that every man was
judge, Wyman, and executioner in his own cause.
Perhaps the consciousness that he not only deserved
the gallows, bit the warmer doom to which he would
consign every in white man in South Carolina, may
have rendered him familiar with the idea of the rope
and the gibbet, and lent that fervency and point to
his oratory which so charmed the ears of his
audience. But if elections are to be conducted
under the auspices of such " Border ruffianism" as
this man preaches, a military dictatorship cannot
e some too soon to save the country from anarchy.
And there are many symptoms that this military
dict'bforshiP is not so remote a contingency as the
easy uublic supposes. In whatever way the war
may tt trminate, it is clear that the Federal Govern•
went w -111 be compelled to maintain a large standing
srmy,wirkth army must either find occupation in a
imeign war or in the subjugation of the people. The
military machine is already constructed, and only
await& the advent of the hardy
engineer who shall
drive it over the
liberties of the country. That en-
gineer may be
as yet a boy at school, feeding his
young} imagination with the
battles and victories; ar bloody pabulum of
il
elikaY bee full grown man,

for the office of Governor. If these things be done
in the green wood what shall be done in the dry ?
There can be little doubt that these meetings, from
the suddenness with which they have been called,
and from the fact that they have broken out
simultaneously in Virginia, Louisiana, and the West,
have been instigated by the Government. The sol-
diers themselves would not originate them. But it
is a dangerous game to play. The army may be in
the humour at present to support the Government
by its voice as well as by its weapons; but if Mr.
Lincoln and Mr. Seward do not see the imminent
peril of employing it as a political instrument
to denounce vengeance against political foes,
they are greater imbeciles than their enemies
allege. The day may come when the soldiers,
having been taught to express their poli-
tical sentiments in camp, may express sentiments
not at all in accordance with those held by the men
who are now in power, and when they may give
effect to their strong words by stronger deeds, and
perhaps march upon Washington instead of march-
ing upon the " rebels," and make a clean sweep of
what they may have learnt to consider, rightfully
or wrongfully, the imbecility, the dishonesty, or the
treason of the present occupants of office. As the
President's reading is said to be confined to "Joe
Miller's Jests," "../Esop's Fables," and the New York
Herald, be may not be acquainted with the legend
of " Frankenstein ;'' but it would be well, perhaps,
if some one in his confidence—Mr. Horace Greeley,
for instance—would read to him the suggestive
story of the man who made the monster, and what
became of him. He and Mr. Seward have also
made a monster. Let them beware of the creature

as soon as it ccaseito be a machine and presumes to
think and act for itself. To teach the individual

soldier to think is no crime, bat to teach an army
to think en masse is treason to liberty.

Two Young Ladies Committed for Theft.

On Tuesday an extraordinary charge was heard
by the Dover magistrates, in which the prisoners
were Eliza Harriet Cook and Marian Cook, the
daughters of a deceased Wesleyan minister. The
charge was that of unlawfully dealing with and re-
ceiving change for four £5 notes at the Bank of
England, on the 18th March, the said notes having
been abstracted from a drawer in Capt. Chadwick's
room at the military quarters, Western Heights,
after seven o'clock in the evening of the 17th. The
defendants were fashionably attired, and the crowded
audience included the principal inhabitants of
the locality, and many officers of the Royal Artillery,
83d, and 59th Regiments. Mr. Ritchie, a clerk
in the issue department of the Bank of England,
proved that he gave gold for four £5 notes num-
bered respectively (S.R.) 54,149, (S.X.) 27,418 (T. 8.)
006,207, and (T. 8.) 006,208, to two females, both in
dark dresses and wearing bonnets, the younger one
giving the name of " Mary Browne," and writing
" Dover" on one of the notes, and the cashier at the
London and County Bank, Dover, identified the
notes as those he had paid to Capt. Chadwick, 59th
Regiment, on a cheque drawn by the Paymaster of
the 59th Regiment. Capt. Chadwick said that these
notes, along with £4 in gold, were on March 14
placed by him in a cashbox, which cashbox again
wee put, along with other valuables, in one of the
drawers of a small chest of drawers in his quarters
at the Western Heights, Dover. Next morning the
door of the room was open and the cashbox was
missed, but the valuables were left; and on the 19th
some papers, amongst which was his commission,
which had been in the box, were refurned to him
by post. The key of the room was placed under
the mat at the door—a circumstance of which only
he and his servant were aware. Capt. Chadwick
admitted having seen the young women at his bar-
racks about a twelvemonth ago, and that he had
seen other young women there, but none for some
time. There were none in his room to his know-
ledge on the night in question. Some other evi-
dence was given to identify the prisoners as those
who had cashed the notes. Mr. Starey, a clerk in
the Bank of England, whose desk was next to Mr.
Ritchie's, recognised the eldest defendant as one of
the two females who had presented the notes. The
defence was reserved, and the prisoners were com
mitted for trial ; the bench consenting to accept
bail—each party in £5O, and two sureties in a simi-
lar amount.

[ArrrEnramlENT.l—Twofold extraordinary cure effected
by Holloway's Pills and Ointment.—Mr. J. Webb, boot
and shoemaker, Chapel-street, Cahircevin, Ireland, writes,
under date January 18th, 1863, that he had been afflicted
17 years with a most dreadful asthmatic cough and short-
ness of breath, and latterly was subject to benumbed sen-
sations in his limbs, attended with heavy drowsy feelings,
which threatened an apopletic fit, In alarm he consulted
the most skilful of the profession within many miles of his
residence without avail, and fruitlessly used every means
recommended by his friends,ltill he heard of the repute of
Holloway's Pills, and resolved, with death staring him in
the face, to give them a trial. They immediately relieved,
and ultimately cured him,

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY -EVENING, APRIL 10, 1863

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.

HOME CIRCUIT,--KINGSTON, April 9,

(Before Lord Chief Justice Cockburn and a Special Jury.)

PAGET V. BIRKBECK.
This was an action to recover damages from the defendant
for having ridden over the land of the plaintiff, while hunt-
ing, and damaging his crops ; and the declaration also
alleged that he had sustained damage by reason of the de-
fendant having turned out great quantities of rabbits upon
his land, and by his keeping a large number of pheasants.
The defendant, by his pleas, denied, generally, having com-
mitted any of the trespasses charged by the plaintiff; and
also " leave and licence," as it is termed.

Sergeant Sh.e and Mr. Patchett were for the plaintiff;
Mr. Bovill, Q.C., Mr. Hawkins, Q.C., and Sir G. Honey-
man were counsel for the defendt+nt.

The plaintiff in this action is a farmer, occupying a farm
called South Pork Farm, at Bletchingley, and although he
is a Yorkshireman he did not seem to have that love for
horse flesh and for the sports of the field generally attributed
to the inhabitants of that county, but, on the contrary, there
appeared to be no doubt that he was a determined enemy
of fox hunting. The defendant is an active supporter of the
Surrey hunt, and rides very frequently with the Surrey
foxhounds and the Barstow hounds; and the action was
brought to recover damages partly for the injuries occa-
sioned by him and other gentlemen riding over the plaintiff's
land, and also for the injury occasioned by the game during
the period when he had the right of shooting over the
plaintiff's farm. It appeared the plaintiff used to let the
right of shooting over his farm, and originally he did so to
a gentleman named Arkcoll, who resided at Maidstone, but
he gave up his right to two gentlemen named Coles and
Strange, and they let it to the present defendant, and from
this time serious differences seemed to have taken place be-
tween him and the plaintiff, chiefly on account of his in-
sisting to ride over the farm, and the hounds being brought
to draw his covers. Upon one occasion it seemed that the
plaintiff stopped one of the gentlemen who was follow-
ing the hounds, and blows were struck, and he knocked
this gentleman off his horse. After this the plaintiff sum-
moned the person who had been assaulted, and the case
stood over ; and it appeared that on the sth of Jan., 1861,
ho was invited to dine at the Greyhound, at Croydon, with
the defendant, Mr. Mortimer, the master of the foxhounds,
and several other gentlemen who took an interest in the
hunt, for the purpose of settling the summons ; and, accord-
ing to his statement, he was plied with wine and made
drank, and while in that condition he signed some agree-
ment, which it appeared he was afterwards desirous to re-
pudiate. Although the damage done by hunting was inci-
dentally introduced into the case, the principal ground of
injury that appeared to be relied upon by the plaintiff was
that alleged to have been occasioned by game, especially by
rabbits and pheasants, it being alleged that the keepers of
the defendant had turned down large quantities of rabbits
upon the land, and that a very large quantity of pheasants
had been hatched by hens ; and that those had, together,
occasioned the damage of which the plaintiff complained.
The plaintiff in his evidence spoke to the above facts, and
also to the damage he alleged he had sustained, and he ap-
peared to estimate the injury at rather an excessive amount.
He represented that upon some of his fields he had upon
occasions grown as much as five quarters of wheat to an
acre; and he alleged that owing to the ravages committed
by the rabbits and the pheasants during the year 1861 his
crops had been almost entirely destroyed. He also spoke to
the defendant having admitted to him upon one occasion
that he had ordered a number of rabbits to be turned down
upon the farm.
Mr. Bovill subjected the plaintiff to a very severe cross-
examination, in the course of which he stated that he only
paid ten shillings an acre for the rent of his land, and the
defendant paid him two shillings an acre for the right of
shooting. He admitted that the land was a very wet,
cold clay soil, and that in wet seasons a considerable por •
tion of it was covered with water. It appeared that there
had been proceedings in Chancery arising cut of
the agreement that had been made by the plain-
tiff, and that he made an affidavit that he was drunk at the
time he made the agreement, but, notwithstanding this, a
decree had been made against him, and he was compelled
to carry out the agreement. It also appeared that he had
sworn during the Chancery proceedings, that he was so
drunk that he was compelled to sleep at Croydon on the
night of the dinner, and he admitted that this was not true,
and that in point of fact, he went home to his own residence,
and that, as he said, he found himself in his own bed on
the following day. In addition to this, it appeared that on
his affidavit made in the course of the Chancery proceed-
iags he alleged that the defendant had employed persons to
fasten up pheasants and rabbits in positions where the
labourers of the plaintiff would pass, in order that they
might be induced to take them up, and that he then insti-
tuted legal proceedings against them.
Mr. Bovill pressed the plaintiff to give the name of any
one of his labourers with respect to whom he alleged such
a proceeding as the one he referred to had taken place, but
he declined to do so. _ _ _

• -----
The Lord Chief Justice interposed, and said he should
- -

insist upon the question being answered. It was a most scan-
dalous imputation to cast upon any one, to say that he had
tempted another to commit an offence for the purpose of
putting the law in force against him, and if there was any
truth in the charge the plaintiff ought to state the name of

the person who was so treated.
The plaintiff looked very confused, and then, after con-
siderable hesitation, said he was afraid to speak the truth,
as if he did there were a dozen witnesses there who would
contradict him.
The Lord Chief Justice told him that it was ridiculous to
make such an excuse as this, and he again insisted upon the
question being answered, and he said that if he had told a
lie, the best thing he could do was to admit it at once.
The plaintiff still would not answer the question, but be-
came deadly pale, and appeared as though he would have
fallen.
The jury interposed, and ir quired whether they might
not stop the case at this point, as they considered it un-
necessary to proceed further with the inquiry.
The Lord Chief Justice said that without some answer
being given to the positive evidence of the plaintiff as to
the damage, he thought they would hardly be justified in
giving a verdict, and the trial consequently proceeded.
Mr. Bovill, without addressing the jury, called the de-
fendant and several other gentlemen as witnesses; and the
effect of their evidence went to show that the plaintiff was
perfectly sober when he made the agreement referred to,
and that at that time he consented to take £8 in full satis-
faction for all the injury that had been done to his crops by
the hounds going over the farm. It was also proved that he
expressed his satisfaction at Mr. Birkbeck having taken his
shooting, and said he thought he was the right man, and he
should do all in his power to give him sport. With regard
to the plea of leave and licence, it was distinctly proved
that the plaintiff had repeatedly said that the defendant
might turn down any quantity of rabbits he pleased ; and,
in fact, upon every point of importance the evidence of the
plaintiff was flatly contradicted by unimpeachable testi-
mony.
The Lord Chief Justice having briefly summed up,
The jury immediately returned a verdict for the de-
fendant.
This case concluded the business of the Home Circuit.

Extraordinary Charge of Child Murder.

On Wednesday evening Mr. John Humphreys,
Middlesex coroner, held an inquiry at the Prince
Regent Tavern, Regent's-road, Mile-end, respect-
ing the death of the illegitimate child of Mrs.
Harriett Pinks. The facts of the case were pecu
liar. About 18 months ago the husband of Mrs.
Pinks was killed, along with several other men, by
being blown up in a fearful explosion at Messrs.
Braddart's factory, in Rotherhithe. Large subscrip-
tions were raised for the widows of the sufferers,
and Mrs. Pinks, who had five children, received
within twelve months sums amounting to £lOO.
She was drunken and dissipated, according to the
statement of Mr. Berkett, the relieving officer, and
others, and about three months ago she absconded,
leaving her children to the care of the parish. On
the 28th of March she sent a little girl for a Mrs.
Smith, of 99, St. Dunstan's-road, who found her
lying on a mattress on the floor of a room at 6, St.
Thomas's-road, Mile-end, in an insensible condition.
She had, Mrs. smith said, given birth to a female
child, which was lying
dead on the floor. Mrs.
Smith admitted that she placed an umbilical liga-
ture on the child, but she positively affirmed that it
was not then alive. She got no assistance for the
almost dying mother for two days, but on the 30th
of March she sent the parish doctor to her.
Mr. Stephenson said that he found the woman in
a most wretchedly poor state. The child died from
suffocation, the mouth and nose being livid from
pressure. It was just possible that deceased might
not have had entirely
separate existence when it
died, but it had fully
fully breathed, and was a fine
healthy child.

The Rev. Mr. Wilson, incumbent of Trinity
Church, Rot herlaithe, said that he gave Mrs. Pinks
£75 withi❑ the last 10 months.
The Jury returned a verdict, "That deceased Wilb
found dead from suffocation on the floor of a certain
room, but whether it had a separate existence there
was not sufficent evidence to prove ;" and the jurors
added that the conduct of Mrs. Smith, i❑ leaving
the mother for two days without proper aid, was
inhuman and disgraceful.

A NEW DISEASE,--A new disease has lately ap-
peared in the Potomac army. It is called dry gangrene.
The feet seem to decay, and, if not taken quite early, death
ensues. It is supposed the disease comes from keeping the
boots on week after week, as the soldiers are very apt to do
when they have only shelter tents and no fires,—..llissouri
Democrat.