The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-19 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Tiams:—Leying aside all party aspects, the war
in America, looked upon simply as a war, ought to
put human nature in this 19th century to shame. It
is not even war on modern civilised dimensions; it
is war upon a barbaric scale. It is ancient war re-
vived. Its carnage, its devastations, its famines, its
pestilences are barbaric. Its battlefields are upon
an old plan, in which the slaughter is out of all pro-
portion with the strategy. The engines of war are
modern, but the angel of destruction which fires
them is the same desiroving angel which laid low
Assyrian, Chaldean, and Persian armies. Milton has
given us a picture of ancient war conducted with
modern instruments, and he has boldly introduced
the thunders of field guns into the very earliest
fights on record. This war combines the newest
military inventions with the oldest type of horror
and destruction. If any one was not satisfied of this
from former descriptions he might have been from
the results of the battle of Gettysburg, as just now
more fully and accurately reported. We call it the
battle, because it was to all intents and purposes
one battle. We have there in one battle 40,000
killed and wounded—i. e., a whole army put hors
de combat. 01 these 10,000 are killed on the spot.
Fancy such a solid mass of slaughter to be the work
of one battle. Ten thousand dead bodies on one
field ! Is it a scene of a civilised, mercantile, cotton-
growing, cotton-spinning age,—an age which boasts
Itself. a peaceful age, an age which has discarded
the pride of the soldier for the triumphs of the social
improver, and adopted " Exhibitions" as its victo-
ries ? Or is it a scene of the age of Atari° or Attila ?
We need not take our readers through the inter
minable rows of the hospital. It is impossible for
any one to readso what the effect of the sight of
thousands of gashed and disabled men is, unless he
does actually see it. Indeed, all these accounts are
mere words to many, without the aid either of the
eye or of a vivid imagination. Reason, however,
must come to the rescue if imagination fails, for it
is nothing less than a duty for people to endeavour
to enter into these facts, and take in the dreadful
amount of human misery which is comprised in
these scenes. It is a revolting idea that these
frightful events should be taking place, and that
they should pass over us without creating even
the sense of a contrast—the contrast of our
situation with that of these unfortunate cousins
of ours. Here we are in this island of ours,
—we never look on war; we do not know
what war is as a spectacle. We are at war, indeed,
sometimes—we make war, but we never see it—we
do not catch a glimpse of it—we are never tcuched
by the faintest stir of its most distant skirts. Our
troops know what war is, but wo only know it by
our pockets being a little lighter than usual. We
pay for war, but we keep our creditor at a distance,
and send him his money by check. What a differ-
ence it would make if war made his appearance
among us, not in the shape of a Chancellor of the
Exchequer's budget, but in propriti personi i! How
would his rugged visage horrify us! Cannot we
guess how we should feel at passing through "the
lines," at 2arcbing sight of a battery on the brow of
the next hill, at meeting files of troops and trains of
artillery and military baggage as we went to pay
our visit of business to the next fawn, or our call of
condolence upon some mourning relation ?
.At the
first sight of a sentinel pacing on some hitherto
tranquil rural path our whole image of comfortable,
secure, ploughing and sowing England would crum-
ble
into fragments, and we should feel ourselves in
another country. We should feel that a tie had
broken, and that we had lost the England of our
birth. Can we fancy the rails tore up between
Slough and Reading, or between Rugby and Lei-
cester, or between 50 other couples of towns? Can
we raise an image of bridges, which had. spanned
the Thames or the Trent or the Avon hem time
immemorial, blown up, of telegraph wires cut, and
of the communication both of persons and news
changed from its present likeness to a law of nature
to the irregularity of chance and luck ? If we can,
we can see what a very extraordinary England that
England would be, and how difficult to recognise
under its altered look and circumstances. Or can we
picture to ourselves what the news of a battle would
he, fought at Maidenhead or Dorking, on Salisbury
Plain, or on the Hog's Back, and how strange the
very announcement would sound to our ears, as if a
law of nature had been broken in the fact of an en-
gagement between two armies having really taken
place on English soil ? If we can, then we may feel
how striking is the contrast between the situation
of the Americans and of ourselves, and what the
miseries and horrors are from which we are hitherto
preserved. In parts of the United States the popula-
lation is being literally fed on " rations." Between
Vicksburg and Jackson " the country is completely
devastated." No subsistence of any kind remains,
Every growing crop was destroyed where possible.
Wheat was burnt in the barn and stack, wherever
found. All subsistence was brought offor destroyed.
Live stock was used or brought away everywhere.
Thousands are applying for food to sustain life.
Gen. Grant is opposed to all opening of trade for
the present. Iles experience has been that trade
retarded military operations." The Battle of Gettys-
burg does indeed appear to have presented some of
the grandest scenes of the horribly sublime kind
that have been seen in any war, Our Correspon-
dent, describing the charge of the Confederates uu
the Cemetery Hill, held by the Federal centre,
etriles '.l should have fancied that no such scene
had ever before reached mortal eye or ear. A thick
canopy of smoke, constantly rent by bright, dart-
ing flashes of flame, cast its dense pall over the
struggling, bleeding thousands who toiled and died
in its centre, while out of the opaque gloom, tU)
though from the bowels of the earth, one deep, pro-
longed, bellowing roar never ceased to issue.
rhrough the deepening twilight, and on far into
the night, the fierce struggle continued, until in
the gloom the dazzling paraoolas of flame, bursting
into sparkling jets and coruscations, as the shells
cracked and exploded, matio a ghats' iy pyrotechnic
display." The first day, however, was exceeded by
the second. "The thundering roar of all the accu-
mulated battles ever fought upon earth, rolled into
one volume, could hardly have rent the skies with
fiercer or snore unearthly resonance and din. Far
back into the mountains the reverberations rolling
from hillside to hillside startled strange and un-

• 1.0
musical .
echoes. Vast cumuli of cloud, such as
Would have shrouded 10,000 Homeric goddesses._

• . fluted over tho , ; horses, the suffering
and tortured ministers of man's fury and wrath, lay
thickly dead or horribly mutilated upon the ground;
cozst4„:;tly from out of toe white pail of vapour

issued Rounded and mangled men, and rumours
that this or that General was killed, that this or
that regiment was reduced to a corporal's
guard, traceable to no authentic source, neither
believed ,nor disbelieved: by the listeners, rose,
as it were, out of the ground." Such is war,
and, with this before them, there is unquestionably
an appetite for fighting which the continuance of
war produces. There can be no doubt, according
to mir correspondent, that it was "the cry for im-
mediate battle" which impelled General IA e to the
attlck of the Federal position at Gettysburg that
ended so disastrously for the Confederates. "A cry
for immediate battle, louder and more peremptory
than ever ascended from the Highlanders of Clever-
house or Montrose, swelled the gale—timid and
hesitating counsels were impatiently discarded,
end, as it appeared to me, the mature end cautious
wisdom of General Lee had no choice but to fleet
with the current." In the thick of the fire General
Longstreet was obliged to silence the cheering of
his men, and from the very "ambulances, bearing
their ghastly loads of wounded mete to the rear,"
there issued the loudest hurrahs as General Lee
passed. -War certainly does bring out a class of
fine qualities in hum an nature, and brings them out
in a way in which no ocher life can. Unfortunately
in the great mess it produces a counterbalance.
The very man who is a hero on the field is a brute
when the battle is over. He is insolent, arrogant,
and selfish, and his government is a curse to the
soil he has won. And that is the curse under
which a large part of the United States now groans.
There is a flash of heroism while the storm of the
battle lasts, but the steady temptations of every-
day life in a hostile country sap a moral foundation
which was never strong, and make the soldier too
often a grasping tyrant. Unfortunately America
now feels his iron grasp, and it may be long before
she is released from it.
POST,—We have little doubt that there Will be as
many projects as princes at the Frankfort Confer
ence. The Emperor of Austria leads off the dance;
but there will be many ready to figure in it be-
sides Francis Joseph. But we may for the
moment content ourselves with the Austrian propo-
sitions. They form an indication of the direction
which the attention of the Conference will first
take. The dispute of the different German news
papers in regard to the precise detail of them is not
important. All we require at present is theirgeneral
tenor, and on that point there is a pretty general
agreement. The Emperor of Austria's proposals
appear to concern—first, the organisation of the
Federal Diet; and, secondly, its powers. We must
acknowledge that they seem to point very much in
the direction of a re-establishment of the old Ger-
manic Empire. They form, in effect, the machinery
of the old Imperial Diet, to a great extent at least,
with the artificial substitution of a Directory for an
Emperor. The Executive is to consist of a Direc-
tory, to be formed, according to one account, of five
representatives, and, according to another account,
of seven. Austria, Prussia, and Bavaria are to be
represented singly and severally. The minor Ger-
man Powers are then to elect either two or four
representatives to act conjointly with the Austrian,
Prussian, and Bavarian delegates. Such is the
proposition of the Emperor Francis Joseph for the
constitution of the Federal Executive. We next
come to the legislative part of it. There are to be
two Chambers, according to this proposition. The
Upper House is to be a Chamber of Princes, an
aristocracy limited to that rank. Whether they also
are to be representative, or to embrace the whole
number of their order, does not directly appear;
but the absence of a limitation of number incifties
us to the supposition that this aristocratical element
is to coincide with the total number of Princes
throughout the Confederation. We then turn to
the Lower House. These ere to be professed dele-
gates. It is not proposed that they should be
directly chosen by ordinary constituencies; but
they are to be chosen by the different Diets of the
different States of the Confederation. This regula-
tion would, it is obvious, involve some difficulty in
regard to such States as have not at present repre-
sentative legislative assemblies. But at the same
time it would tend no doubt to operate as a whole-
some premium upon constitutional government
throughout the Confederation, inasmuch as the ab•
sauce of it in any one State would diminish the
voice and importance of that State in the Federal
Assembly. This Lower House of the Federal As-
sembiy is to be composed of representatives from
both Houses in each of the State Diets. Thus the
Lower House in each State Diet is to elect two-
thirds, and the Upper House one-third, of the aggre-
gate of the Federal Assembly. The Lower House of
the Federal Assembly would therefore be, on this pro-
posal, of a highly composite character, as well as
very indirectly elected. It -would comprise both
the popular and senatorial element in each German-
State-constitution; and even the popular element
would be chosen, not by the usual constituencies,
but by representatives already chosen by such con-
stituencies. As it is not proposed to render the
designed Federal Assembly for Germany a highly
popular body, we do not know that there is any
sound objection to raising this broad interval between
its members and the action of public opinion in Ger-
many. But the disproportion between the popula-
tions of the leading States and the comparative num-
ber of representatives whom their respective Parlia-
ments are to send to Frankfort is rather marked. It
is said that Austria and Prussia are together to send
one half the members of the Lower House of Fede-
ral Assembly to Frankfort, and that the minor
States are to send the other half. Now, Austria and
Prussia, reckoning, of course, only the Germanic
territory of either, present a proportion of fully
three-fifths of the population of Germany, we might
almost say two-thirds. There are fully 25,C00,000
Germans in these two States against under 15,000,000
in the minor States. At first sight this would look
like remarkable moderation on the part of Austria.
But it is a moderation in which Prussia would have
to join, for the German population of Prussia is
fully as large as the German population of Austria.
To say the truth, the proposal seems to be so designed
that that Power which promises to possess the
greatest influence with the -minor States shall,
through them, rule the Confederation. We need
hardly observe that, as matters at present stand, that
Power is Austria. We must confess that we look
with greater distrust to the operation, or rather to
the feasibility of the laws which are here put for-
ward to govern the powers of this Federal Assembly.
As to the proposed power of determining a general
right of domicile, we see every ground to applaud it.
Few practical matters of German law have been
beset with greater intricacy, from their very variety,
then the law of domicile. But when we come to
the question of a " general press law," which the
Emperor of Austria proposes, we have at once an
infrineement on the municipal rights of sovereign
States, which a jealous and powerful State such as
Prussia is certain to resent. We readily concur in
a general law of domicile, because it was a matter

of international concern, and even of international
law ; and it is one, therefore, on which all States
nay be expected to agree and to consent to a cona-

mon compact and arrangement. Of course, if a

general press law could be passed and be submitted
to in practice, there would be every occasion to re-
joice at it, though an infraction of the sovereign
rights of single States. The objection is that
powerful States era likely to resist the infraction,
and possibly to resist the whole measure, on the
ground of its inroad on their domestic sovereignty.
The same, too, must be said of the scheme of a set
of supreme Federal tribunals, that is to do away
with the judicial sovereignty of single States—and
yet more, to do away also with the Sovereign's pre-
rogative of clemency and mercy in criminal cases.
Ot course, if all the States approximated in power,
it would be practicable to substitute for the exist-
ing Confederation of States a Federal State, Ench
as the Helvetic Republic, or what the United Pro-
virnes used to be. But we gravely doubt whether,
if the present King of Prussia will not submit even
to a Prussian Legislature, any King of Prussia
would submit to a German Legislature controlling
his own internal eovereignty. And we venture to
entertain some doubt whether even an Emperor of
Austria would either, if the machinery of the pro-
posed Federal constitution were not to promise him
a substantial indemnification in the shape of Ger-

man supremacy.
HERALD.—As if the love of enterprise were only
another name for the equally restless love of noto-
riety or fame, M. Jules Gerard, the lion slayer, is
just as busy in chronicling the achievements
which remind us of his model Hercules, as in per-
forming them. The labours which carried the con-
queror of the Nemean lion from the Pillars of Her-
cake to the Mountains of the Moon seem to have

tempted M.Gerard into an even wider search of fame;
and the last of our news consists of a couple of

letters, addressed to the Duke of Wellington and
M. H. Claudet, from points near the western coast

of Central Africa. Ho is purposing, he tells us, to
make his way by Tinabuctoo to his former haunts in

A'geria,anCtillOvvs himself twelve months for the

adventurous journey, and writes under a confidence
of success which has a better foundation in the well-

known courage and self.possession of the traveller
than in the character of the country which he pro.
poses to traverse. There are a great many hazards
against our having a Gerard es a gift from nature,
and still more that we should have him safe and
sound for the conveniences of a London summer

season after going through so long a series of pe.riki;
and as we hoar of the drawing-room hero of two

great countries risking among remote savages so
precious a life for the satisfaction of a travelling
whim, it is hard not to fear that the nulla restigis
retronsum may stand between this new visit to the
arida matrix leonum aid the return we shall be glad
to welcome as Ile senBs.tion of a stason. In the
meantime we receive from him a pan and ink sketch
of tip first African Elng he 12%e 14:1 ill hie travels.

' It is our old friend the King of Dahomey who ob-
tains this advantage from the hand of the French
lion-hunter, and we are pained to find that the
.Gallic view is even less favourable to Dahomeau
Royalty than our own. It requires a very modest
amount of Conservatism to be restrained from cater-
ing a caveat against the contemptuous standnoint
from which M. Gerard looks down upon a King.
Evidently he is no fit person to edit the " Court Cir-
cular," it Dahomey should betake itself to one. He
describes his Majesty as well built, with a head
like a bulldog, illustrated by an expression of
mixed cunning and cruelty. The divinity that cloth
hedge in a king demanded surely a more courteous
detail of the facts. We are told that his black Ma-
jesty retains his fanaticism for old traditions and
customs;snguincoiti;usepsechtials;
his old love for slave-dealing
and a
and his mural
in keeping
with his physical conformation, is by no
means the better for being seen close. This is what
the painters would call hard, matter-of-fact, dry,
physcal handling of a subject. It shows how little
of the genuine feeling of loyalty exists in modern
Frenchmen, and sets us thinking what the country-
men of M. Gerard would have thought of a sketch
in the same style of a Louis XIV. or a Louis Napo-
leon. The biting cynicism of the Frenchman actu-
ally luxuriates when it brings into play the singu-
lar accessories by which the Eine- endeavours to
give effect to his court grandeur. The palace is com-
posed of huts, and the two columns which help to
make the gateway to it are so many chaplets formed
by human heads. M. Gerard was assisted to a very
lively comprehension of the power of his Majesty
by the exposition of a pool of blood two yards in
width between chaplet and chaplet. The J.)aho-
mean ideas on taste seem equally primitive and
original on other matters. The music which deaf-
ened the Frenchman delighted his Majesty, and the
distaste of the polite Frenchman is all the more
extraordinary that the Ministers of State and the
members of the blood royal shared in grotesque
dances and joined in playing an African pantomime
in his honour, to the accompaniment of 4. the most
infernal" noise. A royal procession got up in hon-
our of the French visitor did not win a more fav-
ourable acceptance. A thousand women, some
carrying bottles of water on their head, others car-
rying a brass foot-bath consecrated for the reception
of the blood of human victims, others baskets full of
human skulls, others the drum of death, varied by
processienistsbearingimagescf St. Lawrence and the
King, with certain old carriages and Bath chairs, the
King himself bearing the emblem of Christ on his
breast, forreed what is called " the spectacle of the
royal wealth." The scene was not precisely the sort
of thing which the ceremonial of'' Le Grand Monar-
que" would have provided to astound the imagina-
tion of a traveller from foreign parts. But then it
was his taste, which was of course the taste of -his
kingdom ; and why should not the rule "Dc
Gustibus" be as appliable to a king or kingdom in
Africa as to a king or kingdom in Europe, where it
is less needed ? M. Gerard is too polite a French-
man not to have had a word for tne King's Amazon
army. They are twelve thousand strong, he tells
us, and " matiecuvre with the precision of a flock of
sheep." But it their movements are somewhat wild,.
their courage is beyond dispute, and they have
helped their Sovereign to some important acquisi-
tions of territory. The Mahee territory has been
his Savoy, and, thanks to them, the King of
Dahomey now reigns over a population of a quarter
of a million. Let us add, to cover a multitude of
sins and to supply a defect of M. Gerard, that ha
reigns over one of the best-cultivated and the richest
agricultural countries on the whole continent of
Africa. He may black his face with coal and
dance in mad revelry with his soldiers at one of his
country's feasts—but then heencourages agriculture,
and farms are met even in the far interior, where
our civilisation has rarely been ever heard of, that
would do honour to many a country in Europe.

COUNTRY MARKETS.

------ -

LEEDS-TUESDAY.I

New wheat is in good supply to-day, and, though offered
at 3s to 4s per qr lower, meets only a partial sale. Other
articles not materially altered.

LIVERPOOL-TUESDAY.

At our market to-day there was a small attendance of
country millers, and wheat experienced a fair business at
a reduction of ld to 2d per cental on the week. Indian
corn was less pressed, and the reduction of 3d per quarter
en Friday was fully recovered. Barley and peas fully as
dear. Oats and oatmeal neglected, and nominally without
change in prices. Beans dull. Flour a moderate sale, and
3d to Gd per brl decline.