The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-07 00:00:00

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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, OCT. 7, 1863.

Day by day, almost, we are getting news now from
the American seat of war. Day by day,fresh intel-
ligence has been dropping in upon us from the scene
of the last fighting, and this by means of rapidly
succeeding arrivals, each vessel being but little
more than twenty-four hours after its immediate
predecessor. The Etna—the latest of these arrivals
from New York, the steamer in question having
reached Queenstown but this very morning at
cockcrow—brings information it will be seen by our
telegrams down to the 26th inclusive ly. From these
additional particulars, it cannot but be more than
ever apparent that the defeat of ROSENCItANZ,
on the 20th ult. was unmistakeably disastrous in
its character. The New York journals talk
still confidently enough about the conflict of
the preceding day, that is of the 19th ult., as of a
drawn battle, and as nothing worse than a drawn
battle. But there is no attempt made by anyone,
even by the most lying of the systematic apologists
of the North, to gloss over the serious and alarming
character of the defeat suffered by General ROSEN-
eftANZ on the morrow—that is, in the great battle
fought on the 20th near Chattanooga. The scene
of the actual conflict is just immediately upon the
state boundary—dividing, as by a line drawn across
the map with a ruler,Tennessee from North Georgia.
Nearly upon this boundary line, immediately
to the west of Chattanooga, the River Tennessee
winds at a sharp angle round the spur of Stringer's
Ridge. The mountain range, so called, branches off
at that same sharp angle (waterede at its base by
th
the winding Tennessee) to
the north-west— nto hrnorth-east and to
the point where that forked ridge
it
meets trending southwards until
nearly rests
upon the boundary line aforesaid, i mediately to
the west of Chattanooga, Chattanomoga itself, and
of courae the winding river to the north of it, to-
gether with the diverging range of Stringer's
Ridge on the other side of that river—all lie in
Tennessee. It is directly to the south of them
all that lies the boundary line separating
Southern Tennessee from Northern Georgia. And
here, directly below that line, trending
slightlya each
of them to the south-west, one behind another,
almost parallel in their relative positions, are three
distinct ridges or elevations of land close together.
Nearest to Tennessee, in, fact running direct from
Chattanooga in a south-westerly direction into
Georgia, is Lookaut Mountain. Nest to that is
Mission Ridg:e—while on the other aide of West
Chickamar,ga River, is the last of these three ridges,
namely, that of Pigeon Mountain. Between
this serried cluster of parallel, or all but parallel,
rt&ees, and a much larger ridge than any of them,
celled Taylor's Ridge, further to the north in
Georgia, there extends a valley watered by several
streams, this valley having in the middle of it, at
file distance of about thirty-five miles from Chatta-
b'nega, the town of Lafayette. At the upper, or
northern extremity of Mission Ridge, about five
miles from Chattanooga on the road to Lafayette,
stands
another and smaller town, called Rossville.
Adva •
Ros Advancing southwards from Chattanooga, General
Eliot:LA.llz on the 16th ultimo reached Rossville,
beyond t"lit:halting on the
advanced still southwards ten miles
Rossville, then at that point
17th at a distance of twenty miles
On the 18th his pickets had pushed forward so
much further to thesouth
pu freodni Lafayette,
for
that they, there and then,
drove in the Confederate guard immediately in
front of Lafayette. spa e
13. b however, things
began to look rather ugl thy
for the' Federals under
110 SEN (JUN Z —their opponents advancing turn,
then, against them, and s, advancing in
not only flO2l
the direction of Lafayette, bet pouring
upon their front aed upon their flank,
rdown at oncelor,
s
Ridge and from Pigeon Mountain. 7
k m Taylor's
a y
as the
Northern papers may about the battle of th
being only a drawn battle—there is the datnn•: 19thege
that by the evening of the 19th the Federala
had
been driven far northwards towards Rossville.
On
the 20th came the bloodiest fight of all, ROSENCRANZ
being signally defeated on the road towards Chatta-
nooga, losing fifty cannon and from 10,000 to 12,000
men in killed, wounded, and prisoners. His
defeated troops were wholly disorganised,
were completely routed in many parts of the
field, the mass of Federais at the close of the battle
Since then it
flying in the utmost confusion.

appears that not only ROSENCRANZ but BURNSIDE
also, who was known to have been hastening to the
assistance of his brother-in-arms, had been placed
in a position of the most imminent jeopardy. Our
next accounts will inform us whether from this
perilous position they have either of them been able
to escape.

The news which we get from Lancashire becomes

every week more encouraging. The most sanguine
could not have hoped that the dark cloud of distress
would have altogether rolled away, but it has
lightened as much as we could reasonably expect.
The recipients of relief are every day diminishing
in number, and, what is still more satisfactory, that
diminution is owing not to decreased population,

emigration, or similar causes, but to the gradual
revival of the old trade. At the usual weekly meet-
ing of the Executive Committee held on Monday at
the Manchester Town Hall, under the presidency

of the Earl ofintelligence
was communicated ethegrraettiufyrninsg forth
the month
DERBY,ha that "the
,
ending the 26th of September last, show continued
increase in the amount of employment in the mills,
and manufactories in the cotton districts. It like-
wise appeared from the monthly report of the
honorary secretary that the total amount of per-
sons relieved in September was 184,625 against
456,786 in last January. We were, however,
already aware that the number of paupers had
considerably decreased since the opening of the
year, and there is, therefore, more ground for
satisfaction in the gradual increase or work which
has steadily taken place since the turn of the
summer. The statistics of the numbers in work
full time, short time, and out of work altogether
in the last weeks of July, August, and Septem-
ber, show us an increase of more than 30,000 in the
full time, and a decrease in those out of work
of nearly 18,000. Such facts as these speak for
themselves, and are especially reassuring during the
autumnal months. We can look forward with less
anxiety to the coming winter with these cheering
auspices. The report further tells us that of these
hands working on short time a much larger propor-
tion than formerly are now working more than
three days. The reduction in the number of reci-
pients of relief during the last month has been con-
siderable,l4,773 being no longer in receipt of relief
from the local committees, while the number of
those wholly or partially dependent on the guar-
dians is lessened by 5,963. Mr. FARNALL, in con-
firming the satisfactory report, pointed out that the

pauperism of the last week in September was less

by 27,557 than that of the corresponding week in
last year. Such statistics as these tend to reassure
the nation, and stimulate the benevolent to fresh

efforts to carry the suffering country through the

storm. But it must not be imagined, though the
danger has diminished in its urgency, that the need
for he!p is past or the day of trouble over. On the
contrary, under the present improved circumstances;
there are still more than 160,000 persons entirely
out of work, and more than 100,000 working short
time. When we attempt to give vitality to these
lifeless figures, to bring actually before our minds
a faint shadow of the want and wretchedness which
these words convey, we shall be appalled at the

prospect. The most strenuous and unremitting
labours of official relief and voluntary assistance, the

most ready and liberal help from the nation at
large, cannot prevent these sufferers from feeling
cold and hunger, want of food and want of clothes,
want of work and want of fire, through no fault of
their own. The stores of the most prudent are long

since exhausted, the courage of the stoutest-hearted
must have oftentimes flagged ere this ; yet we hear
of no outbreaks, no riot or loud-voiced discontent.
The men and women of Llneashire have borne the
trial nobly, in a spirit well befitting the mighty
race from which they spring. They ar3 now, thank
GOD, animated by fresh hope, and may reasonably

look to better and happier times, when the whir-
ring mills shall be no longer silent, and the
willing hand shall no more seek for work in vain.
It would ill become us now to relax our efforts when

the &nand upon us is no longer so great, though
equally pressing in its urgency. If Lancashire were
to ask in vain now, it would be as though we carried
a man from a shipwreck to drop him in the breakers,
making all our previous risk and exertion fruitless
by our ill-timed precipitancy. One very simple
and practical mode of relief there is which is within

the reach of most of us, and it is one especially
asked for by those best acquainted with the needs
of the people. The increasing cold of the weather,
and the employment of large numbers of men upon
outdoor work during the winter, render gifts of
clothing one of the most acceptable forms which
benevolence can take, and, in fact, so much is this
want felt that, on the motion of Sir J. K. SHUTTLE-
WORTH, seconded by Colonel WILSON PATTEN, the
following minute was adopted by the committee :
‘, That, having regard to the fact that in certain very
populous districts the distress continues intense, it
is desirable that a supply of clothing should be ob-
tained for those districts by general donations ; and
further, considering the number of factory operatives
likely to be employed on out-door labour under the
Public Works Act during the winter, this com-
mittee invite donations of suitable clothing for them
and for their wives and families." There is no fear
Fthat
NtAhLeLreicnefnotrmed t
ie meeting
legislationl will b e useless, for Mr.
be had
from the Poor Law Board that
morethana learnedmilijon
of money had already been applied for under the
Public Works Act. Part of this had been directed
to the estate of Lord EDWARD HOWARD, thereby
producing a considerable differanee in the number
of recipients of relief at Glossop. Altogether the
prospects in the North are most satisfactory, and
the bountiful harvest will help still further to im-
prove the condition of the poor. The gloomy prog-
nostications which some persons indulged in are
thus happily likely to prove entirely incorrect,
while those calculations founded on reason and
experience, which foretold the certain revival of so
large and important a trade, seem about to be fully
realised.

garding
The recent disclosures re •
waken horror in
are well calculated to a Bethnal-green
the
fatal
in
of all who peruse its details, Five
ch.
family have died recently from one
foul air, fceted water, atal effects of
and other ' •
1
Thorold-square consists of twenty-two
within these wretched walls h similar
houses, and
hundred and
fifty people are crowded together, 1
It •8 seventy
years ego since it was built. It appeared three ho causes.
n
from the
evidence of a witness, who was examined
at the
the
in-
quiry,
that he had lived in the square for last
thirteen years, and that during that peri •
od there
had often been a deficit of water for eighteen
months together ; and during the hottest time of
the present summer there was none to be had for
three weeks at a stretch. The disastrous results
that ensued will be best seen from the fact that in
the twenty-two houses no fewer than twenty chil-
dren had been attacked, and twelve had died.
Surely this speaks for itself of the exceeding scan-
tiness of the arrangements that were made regard-
ing the aanitary condition of these places. Mr.
GAy Beni
or surgeon of the Great Northern Hospi-
tal, made a post_ .
ortem examination of one of the
children, and na
gave it as his opinion, expressed with-
out hesitation, that the "child
disease, owing in
all Probability to u e drinking of 1

impure water, and from the want of sanitory mea-
sures in the house and its vicinity." This is enough
of itself to prove without doubt that great blame is
attributable to those whose duty it was to see to
those important things, and nothing can excuse
such wilful neglect of the vital interests of those
confined to such narrow limits. It is bad
enough to live in such crowded confines,
without being subjected to the fearful in-
conveniences and the poisonous vapours that
were endured by these wretched victims. These
unhappy inmates must have undergone dreadful
sufferings during the great heat of this summer,
• and it is frightful to contemplate what the poor
children went through before death mercifully ter-
, minated their troubles. It appears that when the
inhabitants complained to the rent collector they
were only laughed at for their pains, and he asserted
that it was all right. In consequence of the com-
plaints that were made the brokers were put in to
some families, and this created the greatest confu-
sion, as no previous notice had been given. This
was barbarous conduct, and those who authorised it
took advantage of the poverty of their lodgers to
continue unredressed the grievances that would not
for a moment have been tolerated in richer parishes,
or with more independent tenants. It has come to
something if the poor of London are to die of
disease, and see their children droop and perish,
because they dare not make any complaint. An-
other attempt was made to benefit their miserable
condition by some of the inhabitants, who memo-
rialised, last August, the Medical Department of
the Pricy Council-office, but they reaped no good by
this motion. The red-tapism of official existence
must be preserved intact, though all the inhabitants
of a city should be the sufferers, instead of a few
isolated witnesses. Thus, for answer, was sent the
information that the complainants had applied to
the wrong quarter, and that the complaint should
have been addressed to the vestry of the parish.
Then the distracted sufferers applied to the Home
Secretary, who regretted that he had no power to
interfere, and recommended them to appeal to a
justice of the peace, and the justices in petty ses-
sions could make inquiry as to the validity of the
complaints. Before all this rigmarole bad
been gone into, death, who waits for n°
leave from official guardians of the public safety'
had appeared upon the scene, and thus the inquiry
of the coroner had made public the sad details.
Now, it must appear to all who attentively stud,'
the subject that these arbitrary rules arid regula-
tions are very mach to be deplored; they militate
against all remedy to the nuisance. Only those
who are quite independent of the vestry, and the
rent collector, and all the parish authorities put
together, can face the evil, and insist on having some
remedy applied. It is far otherwise with the
poor,
crushed down by an accumulated load of misery,
harassed by conflicting claims, with hungry children
crying for bread, and with work slack, and perhaps
failing for a time altogether. How shall the poor
man find time, money, or strength to make the
necessary complicated arrangements, and to
dare
the wrath of his offended landlord. The poor shall
never cease out of the land, we are informed in
Scripture, but it behoves all lawmakers and rulers
so to fashion their schemes that the poor should be
protected--should be allowed, at least, to
live in
freedom and to die at a natural time. Of coarse,
now that the affair is public, inquiries are to be in-
stituted, and doubtless some salutary alterations
will be made. But let no one concerned in them
presume to take credit to themselves for the im-
provement. Before they stirred in the
affair, the
poor little victims had been offered up on the shrine
of conventionalism. For the credit of our country
let not such a sacrifice be called for again.
Better
break through a dozen rules and absurd
forms than
that one child should perish in a disgraceful manner
to suit the greed of some parties, the culpable
neglect
of others, and the general inattention that charac-
terises too many of those who have the care of tee
dwellings of the poor. The mortality in
Bethnal-
green should long be a warning to all those who
are in any way concerned in the transaction.

COTTON fifty years ago was almost unknown,
and no more wool and flax were worked than there
was absolute need for; whereas now the annual value of
our cotton manufactures exceeds £70,000,000, while the
trade in woollen goods and yarn is worth 14,000,00), and
0 that in flax can be hardly less. In 1841 we imported 364,00
1 e
number was 630,000, and, in 1856, 1,100,000, producing
quarters of seed for the manufacture of oil, in 1851 th
144,000 tons of cake and 56,000 of oil. In 1835 the weight
of manufactured paper was 70,000000 pounds ; in 1845 it
was 124,000,000; in 1855 it stood ,at 167,000,000; in
it had risen to 218,000,000; and in six years it is estimated
that it will reach 300,000,000. 1859
CURIOSITIES OF PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY IN THE
lONIAN ISLES : as recently described
by Professor
Ansted
Wands receive drainage without apparent outlet. These
.—Several valleys and circular depressions in those
abound in Corfu, Santa Maura, and Cephalonia. They oc-
cur also in Zante, rendering the islands less healthy than
they would otherwise be. They are, beyond doubt, results
of the peculiarly cracked and open condition of the lime-
stone rock of which the whole of the islands may be said to
be made up. There are also in these islands various in
flowing currents of sea water. Very .
clearly connected with
the same condition of the rock is the curious phenomena
presented near the town of Argostoli, the capital of Cepha-
lonia. The town is on a low steep of cracked and cavernous
limestone, a foot or two above the highest ordinary level of
the sea, on one shore of a small creek,
separated by a higher
ridge of similar limestone from the Gulf of Argostoli.
There is hardly more than a few inches perceptible tide in
this part of the Mediterranean, and even in this creek the
rise, though multiplied, is small. At four places close to
the town there are small inlets or cracks, a few feet wide,
entering some hundred yards into the land, and terminating
in broken, rocky, cavernous spaces. Instead of the ordinary
phenomena of the fresh water running over the land to the
sea, we have here the reversed phenomena of the sea com-
ing in by these crevices, running for some distance over the
land, and finally entering and becoming lost in the earth.
It is n)thing unusual in limestone countries to find water
disappearing in the earth; but it is certainly exceptional
that this should be sea-water, and that it should continue
permanently.

THE GHOST AND OUR, COMING PANTOMIMES.—
The new Ghost, remarks the London _Review, per-
vades the British drama. In the metropolis and large
towns the spectre of the green-room has a hard fight to
wage with the rival spectres of the music-halls and the
lecture-room. But he is the "star" of provincial theatres.
Dramas are written in his honour. The " play of Hamlet
with the part of Hamlet left out" is a respectable old joke,
which has served its turn. The modern manager may leave
out not only Hamlet but Ophelia, King, Queen, Polonius,
and the grave-diggers, so thet the Ghost be left. A civil
engineer and a Polytechnic lecturer have given a new di-
rection to our dramatic literature. Dramas are written for
their spectres. At present these looking-glass ghosts keep
very disreputable company. They are mixed up with mid-
night assassins. Their revelations are of poisoned goblets
and knives. They have a churchyard air about them, and
vanish with the cock-crow. But familiarity breeds con-
tempt, and there are not wanting signs that the new patent
ghost will speedily descend into the regions of comedy and
farce. Our modern burlesque writers are not endowed
with extraordinary bumps of veneration, and they are
already sharpening their pens with the intent of making
capital out of him and " seeing what he is made of." The
Christmas pantomimes will be sure to have him. The least
imaginative urchin may already speculate on the boisterous
fun which will greet his appearance. He will rise at the
graceful wave of harlequin's wand. The conscience-
stricken Clownwill behold the apparL ion at first with trem-
bling knees and face distorted by terror, and then take the
maddest somersaults to avoid him. It is Pantaloon's des-
tiny to be buffeted and upset, but the Ghost threatens him
with such unequalled distress of body and mind that his
salary ought to stand on a new looting from the first night
of the Christmas pantomime.
'hYPOGRAPHICjL j CURIOSITY. -- The Popular
Science _Review, for October, gives a whole page of
the Times newspaper, printed in perfectly legible type, size
41 by inches. When it is considered that a
page of the
Limes contains no less than sixty thousand letters, the re-
duction into this space becomes very interesting. It is
printed from stone by photo-lithography and is accom-
paleied by an article on the subject, written by W. Crooks,
F.R.S. Published by Robert Hardwicke, 192, Piceadily.
AN " OPERETTA. WITHOUT WORDS," in the man-
ner of Mendelssohn's "songs without words," has been
written by Ferdinand Miler) Colcsc composer,