The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-09 00:00:00

heart is a zeal that is animated by the hope of profit
rather than by the military ardour that converts
farmers, clerks, mechanics, shopmen, and labourers
into heroes. And so well is this understood in Wash-
ington (somewhat late in the day) that fir. Lincoln,
though goaded by the revolutionary cabal which
surrounds him to proclaim a second conscription, in
which every draughted man shall be compelled to
serve personally, without privilege of exemption,
has serious thoughts of abandoning the conscription
altogether as a proved failure, and resorting once
again to the voluntary system with high bounties
and short periods of service. He is publicly urged
to proclaim a levy en masse of young men for three
months, and to offer them the same amount of bounty
which is now offered for three years. He is promised
that if he will do so he can raise at least half a mil-
lion of soldiers, and make an end of the rebellion in
one gulp. So magnificent a bonus of £lOO sterling,
cash down, besides pay and rations, making the in-
come of an American private soldier at the rate of
something like £5OO per annum, would doubtless
attract a large force to the standards of the Repub-
lic ; and there is no knowing that the Government
will not bo so dazzled by such a " big job" as ulti-
mately to resort to in default of any better mode of
recruitment. Whether the three months' work re-
quired of such costly " bullocks" would suffice for
the job is a question that Mr. Lincoln and Mr.
Seward would no doubt continue to answer in the
affirmative as long as 30 of the 90 days remained
unexpired. After that time they might possibly find
reason to change their opinion and to debate, as
anxiously as they do now, the means of raising still
another army, or of inducing the remnant of the old
one to hold on for a fresh term at as extravagant a
rate of bribery.

Much curiosity is excited to know what can pos-
sibly have brought seven Russian war ships into
the harbour of New York at this particular moment.
To-day these unusual, but to the Americans most
welcome visitors, have been received with salvoes of
artillery from the Fort on Governor's Island, the
guns on the Battery, and the British, French, and
Federal war-ships in the Bay ; and the munici-
pality has invited the officers to a grand banquet at
the Metropolitan Hotel. Has Mr. Cassius M. Clay
—bungling and indiscreet as ho was, and is—been
dexterous enough to negotiate a treaty of alliance,
offensive and defensive, between the Russian and the
Federal Governments ? Is the visit of the Russian
fleet alike an earnest of the new entente cordiale and
a warning to the French Emperor of the danger of
his Mexican policy, and of any attempted recogni-
tion of the Southern Confederacy ? Or is the visit
simply a tribute of respect to the greatness of "our
unparalleled country," not unmingied with a natu-
ral desire to witness some of " our illimitable re-
sources," to examine our "invincible iron clads,"
that will some day or other—Deo tolerate—sweep
the arrogant navy of Great Britain off the seas,
and our Parrott and Dahlgren guns of long range,
compared with which any of the stupid old guns
that British genius and skill are able to construct are
little better than bows and arrows ? Such are some
of the questions that the War Christians are asking,
and to which no one can give any satisfactory
reply. Whatever be the objects of their visit
to these waters, the Russians will have an en-
thusiastic reception from all classes. Though Mr.
Charles Sumner is of a different opinion, and con-
siders Switzerland to be about the only friend which
the Federal Government has in the world, it suits
the leading politicians of both parties to represent
the Czar as a better friend to America than any
other Power in Europe, and to speak of a future
day, when the one will dominate the Old World and
the other the New,and share our terrestrial globe be-
tween them, barely granting a niggardly permission
to such a Power as England to continue to exist,
and to crawl with befitting humility under their
huge legs. The present aspect of the Mexican ques •
sion, and the reasoning in M. Chevalier's pamphlet,
which is believed to be wholly inspired by the Em-
peror Napoleon, that the recognition of the Southern
Confederacy by the new Emperor of Mexico, and
consequently by France, is a question of time only,
1 and that time a very short one, have created no little
anxiety, lest Mr. Lincoln should, in spite of his
prudent desire to have but one war on his hands,
j find himself unexpectedly engaged in two. Russian
sympathy in such a case—for no one expects the
sympathy of Great Britain—would count for some-
thing; and for this reaeon, if for no other, every
nerve will be strained to impress the Russian offi-
cers favourably, and give them such a reception as
will make every one of them, on his return to his
own country, a missionary to preach goodwill to
America, and sing the praises of its power and
greatness. The question of a war with France ex-
cites very different feelings from that of a war with
Great Britain. In American estimation France can
seldom,do wrong—Great Britain as seldom do right.
Even the report that the British Foreign Secretary
has resolved to stop the iroeclacis building in the
Mersey from putting. to sea until the courts of law
have had an opportunity of deciding whether they are
or are not intended for the Confederates is received
with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders, and the
jubilant assertion that England is " afraid." Not
so with France. Fear is never attributed in that
quarter, or any motive less noble than that of an
ambition a little too daring and unreasonable. The
evidence is clear on every side that the Northern
people are not prepared for a war with France.
Mercantile men might object to a war with England,
while the bulk of the population, rowdy and non-
rowdy, would rejoice at it; butaws
irtehgFnearrdasthe ethiemre-
policy and unpopularity of a war
is no difference of opinion. The mercantile and
labouring classes are as one on that point
0;
naindd Demo-
crats agree with Republicans that it w _
ex-
ceedingly undesirable.
But, although the political and military prospects
of the North are tant soil peu less bright than they
were two months ago, the "shoddy" and the " cod-
fish" aristocracy, the "nouveaux riches," and the
speculators and contractors who wax opulent on the
limitless issues of greenbacks, see no shadow on the
horizon. To them all things are permeated with the
purple glow of prosperity. They laugh and sing;
they dance and rejoice ; they dine and wine as of
old. Nor are they so selfish as to keep all the good
things of the world to themselves. They are duly
mindful of their wives and daughters, and may be,
if they possess neither of those aids to happiness,
of their sweethearts, whom they bedizen in finery
of an extravagance that might mnke even Cleopatra,
were she alive and in the mood for arithmetic, take
out her tablets and reckon up the cost. The hotels
of New York were never known to be so full of
and English
n
visitors. The sea-side vacation is at an end, and no
city in America offers a tithe of the attractions to
1 people who have much money and know not what
to do with it as New York. In addition to
this
class,
jewellery
f rd
dry ds h w
farm
andl
near,
commercialmpolis is ju
st
and ,
g whoseuosot
n oea tvao
ea b
c kgse
aeof
French
yn
tehxahtanthstised,fiock into Newo etr York to replenish ; so
and brilliant as London in May or Paris at any time.
Yesterday commenced what calledisall
the
fashionable
the "Fall
Season i n
and Yankee
French"
modistes
dressmakers opened
froma a a
London exhi-
bittheir
to
them establishments
the
latest
importationsrecei ve visito ra
"elicate subject
It'oarissp.
speak h?
ehr,. es
ma ni nEd nognl i sthhme dor a Scotch-
manand
of the taste (or want of taste) exhibited as
rule by American ladies in their dress, he woulda ba
e
virulently denounced as a malicious and ignorant
barbarian by the whole American press. For this
reason it may be advisable for me to allow the New
York papers to describe the vagaries of the female
portion of the "shoddy aristocracy," rather than by
any deserl
-P
tion of my own to incur the wrath and
be pelted with the
"Billingsgate" of the Tribune
an ournals. From reports in the
d other kindred t
papers of this morning it appears that a bonnet fit
is ot to be had under 25 e., a
fora lady to wear n
der 100 dols. ; that adol dress
superior article not un
Of white silk costs 200 dols., and cannot be worn
until an additional expenditure of 100 dols.
.has been
incurred upon the trimmings ;
at 500 dols., but that a very rec
sired, cannot be purchase
" Mon ~
abundant, that a shawl is cheap
herdic one, if de-
d under 1,000 dole.
eY, says the New York - ,
• Times "is very
and the most costly fabrics .
garments find and richest
the readiestsale. The question among
the fair Purchase is
' what is in the ,
cat
not so much what
money, mercb° at taste, but what costs the most
""te accustomed to tho WY-like