The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-27 00:00:00

THERMOMETER.

This day at Two o'clock

Barometer-30.32.
Wind—S.-Bast ; light breeze, and fine,

..
.., v., -
'
..., , ..
Z
i -4, ,
t‘ - l'--4.72;=. lilt
):
. . ~ ,
~---- .4, --.

LONDON, FRIDAY, NOV. 27, 1863.

-~

One of the most astoundingly ironical, sarcastic,
satirical demonstrations the world has ever wit-
ness,A, yesterday took place in London, as well as
in many parts of America, and indeed of the world,
in obedience to the mandate of that very bewildering
person, Mr. ABRAHAM LINCOLN. The proclamation
appointing the last Thursday in the November of
1363, as the date selected for this strangely
projected demonstration was of a character so
wildly eccentric as to amount, we might almost
venture to say, to the blasphemous. It was a
proclamation issued in the name (notoriously
a misnomer, to begin with) of the PRESIDENT
of the United States, formally inviting his fellow-
citizens is every part of those same United States
(wherever they may be, say in nubibus), and also
those who are at sea, together with those who are
sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe
with all due solemnity the date before mentioned—
that is, yesterday, being the last Thursday
of this present month of November, as—what ?
" as A Day of Thanksgiving and Prayer to our
Beneficent Father who is in Heaven !'"Ehe
th'" wording of the sentence is quite after the
el°Tal, style and manner, of PRAISE-GOD-BARE-
BONya e
ZEAL-OF-THE-LAND BUSY, or, still more,
shall we
not say it (selecting this not inaptly re-
membered-a •
airman's name from MACAULAY'S His-
tory of 11,1„1.,"_
01)—still more after the fashion of—
TRIBULATION
WHOLESOME ! A solemnly ap-
pointed festival ,
t one
o_7hankagiving to the Divinity in
the midst of
hee. most hideously gigantic and
sanguinary, arid
hopeless, Civil Wars
upon record, certainly does
who is not a . appear to every
one
and a most
ite, a most fliga
rant table act of pro-
fanity. It seems to us,ln
less of an inaPi'itY, in its way,
as not one iota
_OBESPIERE'S
festival in the Reign of Terror tfohratian
Atya y recognising
the existence, of a GOD ►!
of Humiliation
would have been comprehensible. Bugg
e
The mere phrase Day of
-86
Thanksgiving ! te"°Els like
some horrible jibe or irony addressed to the majesty
upon a Volcano is as
nethinY
of Heaven ! Dancing
to it. It is like the aubszitution of garlands
and
holiday raiineut—in the midst of the burro,
of
a plague—for sackcloth and ashes. Never was a
rejoicing demonstration more noir vellously or more
painfully ma/apropos. It is like the assuming of
an air of gladness at a funeral. IC-11°Nving how
much there is of whimsicality, of ungainlY waggery
about that gawky, lantern- jawed President of
(as we will Brill continue to call them, for form's
sake, though the name, as we have said, has long
ceased to be otherwise than an extravagant mis
ncmer)—of the United States, one is almost reduced
to the necessity or believing that the appointment by
Mr. LINCOLN of this astounding Day of Thanks-
giving is nothing more nor less on his part than
a most cruel and a most impious practical joke !
Thanksgiving—fur hecatombs of slain ? for millions
I'Pon millions of dollars squindered ? for cities
laid waste by the demon of Civil War ? for

the
fattening of the free soil of America
with the multi lie 1 agonies
and the wasted lives,
W Vile Wood of the p
wounded and the decaying bodies
of the dead
an
of
south,
whether v
and buriedeth citizens, whether of North or
:vlera,s or Confederates, by
thousands upon thoun
in its magnitude as
to dbl, to a total an terrible
this time, beyond
It,e. ra.l.cli of computation 73' 13837
3
conscious, in truth,
was the American Minister at London, of the extra.
ordinary indecorumof the
whole
f
P"
reeding, that
his speech. yesterd4y via,
bi
throughout, that it Wi from firstr aNiugestic
Aqd, ceth
rtainly, now to last—
explanatory !
ADAMS has explained the inner meaningthat Mr.
Day of Thanksgiving, of this
sgivh„,
wonderfully profane 1" we eau.