The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-25 00:00:00

Federal Government with ships—vohief; ,
they would have done, had it given O m ir.prite;=
—then -we should have heard mwnr,
Cobden. They have found a better 'a ualogretr 45 47
is, a customer whose wants arc greater, and-w,
uetctaumnn tty o,
allowcannot get what he wants elsewhere, FundCobden feels at once a sudden impulse of peace and
humanity, and
no callsupontamtphei
erßngritishwitGhovetrhnea
m
great principle of nonintervention. Mr. Cob-
den's
oietnxi
osetnursaena cuedf,o enormous
othernoar mi Io
wu:f gex'
material owr stohfoouwf taarr,amtsownonra
ammunition nword
of
the
Northern States will of course be that such is the,
usage, and that a regular trade in these at tidies need
have nothing to dowitdhiffianyl with ships. On a
precisely occasion tpartieuhr war. There
is, however, the
ar
starve
ootflat now sub judiec Mr.
Jt fferson alleged a want per
ship fect
e ct
eFh.c tis sinformation.
rnim p
°Government
interfering runs
considerableids a
risk in seizing or
ly
building or preparing for Ben
Tf r the Eta peror Caiswe
he Enlistment Act has
s. armingobr T other
Potentate. a
t
ayth EC
e
far be meantr
Potentate.'
a ninter-
pretedd to apply only to ships actual).
out for immedi to set vice in war; and the
A!exaut re, it is said, has not 3et acivanced so far.
If we cannot, stop guns and powder, there must tie
the setae difficulty in stopping a ship, which
out guns and powder will be perfectly harmless..
Fhe whole nation, escept the etroeg Federalists,
will agree with Mr. Cobden in the impropriety and
impolicy of taking a side beyond the inevitable
partisanship of sentiment and talk. England is
most undoubtedly interested in the principle at
stake. She has the largest commerce in the world,
and is therefore the most obnoxious to any irregular
and piratical attack issuing froth professedly neutral
ports. But no good is done by denouncing partisan-
ship in the spirit of a partisan, and selecting for
special reprobation the particular assistance which
happens to be more necessary to one belligerent
than the other. Mr. Cobden wishes to serve truth,
justice, and peace; he wishes also to serve his
country ; he wishes still more to serve the Federal
cause. In the interest of all three causes we beg
to suggest to him an inquiry in which he may be
most usefully employed, but which may befits even
his acuteness and penetration. How is it that, with
all the resources of the Federal Government at his
command, Commodore Wilkes, who has exhibited
so much daring and skill against our ships, is per-
fectly powerless, if not idle, against the Alabama ?
DAILY NEWS —The Court of Queen's Bench on
Wednesday last decided that a child under ten
years of ago is a "person." The judgment was not
arrived at without the gravest doubt and hesitation,
and it was to the scrupulous conscience of the
Judges a matter of avowed satisfaction, that if they
were in error there were two other courts before
which the same ouestion could still be tried. The
sum at stake upon the determination was indeed
not large. It amounted in the case before the court
to no more than sixpence. But although de mini-
mis non curat lex, is a well known brocard of law-
yers, yet in the eye of the law a legal principle is
never a trifling matter. In the present instance
the doubt arose out of an Act of Parliament—an
Act in the passing of which the Legislature took a
more than ordinary, because personal interest. It
Was in fact the Cab Act, passed half a dozen years
ago under the auspices of the late Mr. Fitzroy, and
inaugurated by a strike of the cabs in the metro-
polis, which reached even to the Palace-yard rank,
and reduced hon. members to the necessity for
several nights of making their way home on foot.
But, besides that immediate inconvenience, this
famous statute made, by the ingenuity of its
obscurity, provision for a successive crop of dis-
putes between the public and their masters, the
cabdrivers. It is one of these disputes that has
just attained to the highest judicial interpretation.
The Act directs that in computing the fares due,
when more than two persons are carried, two chil-
dren under ten years of age shall count as one per-
, son. But how when there is only one child? The
Act being silent on this case, the public argued
that as two children only amounted to one person,
a single child could not amount to the same, since
that would involve the mathematically absurd pro-
position that one is equal to two. 'The cabbies, on
the other hand, contended that humanity could not
be annihilated by implication, and that, therefore,
though two children might by Act of Parliament
be reduced to the value of one, yet that a sentient
being, by every system of philosophy, was en-
titled to be called " a person" when no enactment
expressly affirmed the contrary. Between these
opposite deductions from mathematics and from
philosophy the Police Magistrates were placed in a
dilemma. They naturally decided in different
ways, and for some years it has depended on the
locality in which the cab was discharged whether
the extra sixpence was held due or not. At last
the Queen's Bench has been appealed to, and has,
as we have seen, left the matter almost as open to
' litigation as it found it. Its own opinion favours
the philosophical view, that even one child is " a
person," but it recommends that other courts should
be called on to review a decision the soundness of
which it openly doubts, Here is, indeed, a quarrel
in a straw Can any one compute how many hun-
dreds of pounds, in costs, in waste of time, in dis-
traction of mind, have been spent in bringing to u no
decision this question of sixpence? Perhaps some
one will suggest that none but fools would care to
debate it, and that it signifies little how fools spend
their money and time. But this species of folly,
which breaks out in refusing to submit to an illegal
exaction, however trifling in arnoun', is very potent
in our nglish blood, end has done great things in
the history of the English nation. Hampden's re-
fusal to pay the 20s. of ship-money assessed upon
his lards was the folly which hastened on the issues
of the Great Rebellion. The American refusal to
pay Is. on the pound duty on tea was the folly
which founded the United States. Parliament has
renounced all care for great questions of State, for
important. Reforms, or constitutional improvements.
It has ample leisure to devote itself, if so inclined,
to the small amendments of which our code stands
so grievously in need. The energy it showed in
discussing the Poaching Bill shows that it can
work if it chooses. We humbly beg, then, that it
would condescend to look over its work for the last
few years, and explain a little more clearly what it
meant by several of its provisions. It will gain by
the process not only instruction but credit, and it
will achieve the satisfaction, one which has not
often of late fallen within its experience, of know-
ing that it has been of some real service to the
State.

STATE OF TRADE.

NIS PA PE,It

"the
moafrtk:::::ieg
..-----
MANCHESTER, April 24.—Since Tuesday the
yarn-market has been extremely dull, but spinners
have declined to take a fraction less in price that
they would have done on that day. To-day the
feeling has been a more cheerful one, and some few
orders have been given out at the extreme prices of
Tuesday. The yarn-market closes quiet but ex-
tremely firm. In cloth there is less firtnnesa_ness
for buyers, ueyYeue ri lst hf, a anctdh anda
rthis
le
Charles-
ton, .
in yarn, and thia is partly attributed tojaatele k
report
prices i t h -
in the Liverpool cotton-market.
from Liverpool says
easier
The Nova Sc • '
have
echbaenenge,p"rbacutticparzilyvate te.leg
Scotian is
causes some hesitation here.
and there is naturally a desire to
, which is regarded by
wait till the
nrof her adrices has been established. These
causes, with
i
g a very
the uneasiness arising out of the pol'-
ttroeenripo,orted with further nevr
more serious effect upon
teteioncilmsteiort withcuihastiiinonidneern
business,a s aA ssmuemriicna
market. The cloth marlietthheas grave aspect
and have apparently a
throughout thecloth
b been
e n getting than t hgeu
iyarnete
week, and'
though prices are nomi-
nallyunchanged,
or
at lutist without quotable
change, it is felt that buyers might get on at more
favourable rates. B
to operate,
however, seem indisposed
for thoughindiay keep up a rather active in-
quiryother markets the g oode B.For the home trade and
been
at . demand is quite as flit as it has
1 any time during the last fortnight.

x-- - -
TRAORDINARY DISCOVERY OF ANCIENT RE-
MAINS IN BRIDGE STREET, BLACKFRIARS.—YeS
taday, and for the past few days, a number of workmeno
under the superintendence of Mr. Stephens, of the City of
London Gas Company, have been engaged laying down a
new 24 inch main, from the factory to pass through Bridge.
street, Cannon-street, and Tower•street, in order to meet
the incteasel &maul for gas, in the eastern part of the
distrie', near Whitechapel. In the course of excavating
the roadway for the above purpose, in Bridge-street, the
men came upon an extraordinary mass of stone, iron, and
other substances, appwenily having been subjected to the
action of fire, which Mr. Stephens at once had carefully
rem:Ned. From the position in which these remains were
found it is believed they must have belongrd to some large,of
and ancient structu-e, which sood upon the banks
the Old Fleet, and a deal of interest has been manifested in

eDnsequeLee.
[ADvEwrismilixT.]--liolloway's Ointment and Pills.—
I tadisput able remedies for old wour.ds and sores. If t sed ac-
cording to directions given with them, there is no wound,
ulcerous sore, or bad breast, however obstinate or long
standing, but will yield to their treating and curative pro-
perties. Numbers of persons who have been patients in
several of the large hospitals, and under the care of eminent
urgeons, without deriving the slightest benefit, have been
thoroughly cured by Holloway's ointment and pills. For
glandular swellings, scurvy, tumours, and diseases o titan
he
skin, there is no medicine that can be used with so go •
effect. In fact, in the worst forms of disease, dependent
upon the condition of the blood, these medicines ere kw

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