The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-07 00:00:00

The Price of Gold.

The quotation of gold at Paris is about 1/ per mill° pm., and
the short exchange on London is 25.221 per £1 sterling. On
comparing these rates with the English Mint price of .C 3
178. 10/d. per ounce for standard gold, it appear that gold is
nearly 1-10th per cent, dearer in London than in Paris.
By advices from Hamburg the price of gold is 428 per mark
and the short exchange on London is 13.5/ per £1 sterling.
atandard gold at the English Mint price is, therefore, about
4-10ths per cent. dearer in Hamburg than in London.
The course of exchange at New York on London for bills at
60 days' sight is 1631 to 164 per cent., and the premium on
gold is 491 percent. At these rates there is very little profit
on the importation of gold from the United States.

INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERS.—The weekly
meetings of this institution will be resumed on Tuesday
evening next, the 10th inst., at 8 p.m., when the following
paper will be read—" Description of Lighthouses lately
erected in the Red Sea," by Mr. W. Parkes, M.lnst.C.E.
TIIE ACHBISHOPRIC OF DUBLIN.—We have
great pleasure in announcing that the Archbishopric
of. Dublin has not only been offered to the Dean of
WestmiriQtar (as stated in this morning's Times),
for in these days when :Bishoprices are really de-
clined, that does not convey any very definite assurance
on the matter, but that he yesterday accepted the re-
sponsible office. While his loss at Westminster will be great,
English Churchmen will unfeignedly rejoice at his exal-
tation to a more responsible office; and wo augur great
things for the futureof the Irish Church from the appointment
of a Primate of such sound Churchmanship, great learning,
courteous manners, and zeal tempered withh .% discretion.
position to
pDart.hly'roefnhehisviffeitenelt varrnsym -
thankful to know has
winilltrheecedi
which he is called, but which we areß 11.
may
brother b es
Churchmenusurd that
he
fallen into such good hands.—John u
SIGNIFICANT DEMONSTRATIONS ON Guy
FAWKES' DAY.--Yesterday was the anniversary
of the celebrated attempt of the notorious Guy Fawkes and
his desperate
friends to blow up the constitution in the per-
sons of the Lords and Commons of England. The morn-
ing was wet, and that circumstance somewhat interfered
with the demonstrations which are ordinarily made on the
sth of November. The persons, however, who had prepared
Guys were not to be thwarted, and a considerable number
of them of largo dimensions were paraded through the
streets. The Pope, who used to be the person most in re-
quest at these exhibitions, seemed to be entirely forgotten
yesterday. The Emperor of Russia might be seen every-
where, in some cases flourishing a tremendous knout, in
others with his foot on the necks of some queer-looking
persons, supposed to bo Poles, but who were much more
like very peer Africans. The American struggle naturally
suggested some of the Guys—the sympathisers with the
North exhibiting various phases of slavery, while those
whose views were favourable to the South paraded Mr.
President Lincoln in all sorts of vicious shapes. Cardinal
Wiseman was exhibited on a truck, near the Houses of
Parliament and the courts of law, early in the morning, but
his eminence appeared to have lost the unpopularity which
at one time attached to his name, and the effigy failed to
produce a sensation even of the feeblest kind. There were
of course many minor exhibitions, having no political, reli-
gious, or any other significance.
FECUNDITY OF FISIL—AII fishes are immensely
fecund; indeed there is nothing in the animal world
that can in this respect be compared with them, except per-
haps a queen bee, which has fifty or sixty thousand young
each season, or the white ant, which produces eggs at the
I ate of fifty per minute, and goes on laying for a period of
unknown duration I When we state that the cod-fish yieltuel
its eggs in millions, and that so small a fish as a herrciingv°_:
five or six ounces is provided with thirty-five thousano3:„
it will be seen at once th..-t the multiplying powers of
con-
sequent kinds of fish are immense. But the drain on flahrlriefs
_nd.
sequent on the habitat of these animals, is of egos . Pl'oro
ing magnitude. Millions upon millions of the that
e to life
laid by the cod or the herring in the sea never come
i g power
at all, manyof them from the want of the.fru
Then, again,
and others from being devoured by enemata;•to
be ripened,
of those eggs that are so fortunate as
per
cent. of the
it is pretty certain that fully nine five
old. Were
young fish perish before they arollfe:
and but half of tha
only half of the eggs to come to
so overflow with animal
young fish to live, the sea woulde
m impossible for a boat to
life, that it would soon
move in its waters. But
mention
a sight; and when
sists of billions of ,
all
occupied byb7can never hope to realise sue
that a herring shoal eon
,eb ° and takes up a space double that
fish,
parks of London, and gives no impedi-
ment
, th,tahe r readers will see the magnitude
to navigation,
, because from the
what has been imagined',
andthe • of
destruction of
quantity required for
food life from natural causes,. .
food by roan, or
the breeding supply is kept down to a per
not very far from the pointof
eentago that is . extermina-
Hence the urgent necessity for
fish culture as a
=net to the natural supplies.—Traser's Magazine.
WHO WASTIIE INVENTOR OF LUCIFER MATCHES ?
__A Question for Notes and .
Queries.—The man
who invented lucifer matches Was doubtless one of the
greatest benefactors to huniau,,i
It What labour was lost,
what tempers were tried, what nuckles were made sore in
the hundred thousand households of England, every morn-
ing, as Betty the h
—'llacinaid, with flint and steel, endea-
voured to strike a light on the damp tender I—what a minor
misery of life was abolished by the immortal genius who
schemed, and made, and struck a light with, the first Con-
greve ! The invention might have been a very small one,
but how stupendous its results appear, multiplied by the
daily convenience it affords to the entire population I Pro-
metheus stole fire from heaven only to animate one man.
The inventor of the lucifer match calls into life one of the
tour elements to do our bidding in our domestic and indus-
trial homes every day, and yet even his name is unknown
to the public.--Once a Week.

BARELY CREDIBLE !—(" Why can't you leave it
alone?")—It is said the Government Nvill make another
effort next session to induce Parliament to agree to the
Purchase of the International Exhibition 13uilding for the

nation,

(From the Special Correspondent of the Tunes.)
NEW YORK, Oct. 23,
We have been for the whole week on the eve of
momentous events, but are left at the end with mere
fears—or hopes. The armies of the Potomac have
been going through all the figures of a regular
quadrille. Gen. Lee's army, or a part of it, drove
Meade up to the defences of Washington, but has
now fallen back towards its former base of opera-
tions at Lynchburg. Lee's forces are said to be be-
yond the Rappahannock, probably concentrated
near Culpepper. The advance of the Federala is
posted at Warrenton. Gen. Meade was at Wash-
ington on Thursday, in consultation with the Pre-
eidept, by whom he was, in all probability, urged to
push on vigorously on the offensive.
The aim of General Lee in his forward movement
is clear to no man, It was apparently not to offer
battle, nor to obtain provisions. By the mere
feint of a flank attack, he :rove Meade from his
position, and so effected his retreat as to break up
about 20 miles of the Alexandria and Grange Rail-
way, thus materially widening the distance between
him and his adversary. This was, perhaps, the only
object he had in view—to steal a march on the
enemy, so as to have leisure to lead or to send part
of his forces against Burnside, who was advancing
upon West Virginia, and had pushed his vanguard,
it was said, as far as Abingdon.
We have no news whatever of warlike operations
either at Chattanooga or Charleston. Gen. Rosen-
cranz is laid on the shelf; not, it would seem, with-
out sufficient reasons. It was whispered at Cincin-
nati, immediately upon the affair at Chickamauga,
that Rosencraz had in that battle performed neither
the duty of a commander nor of a soldier. The
charge is now loudly repeated, and gains credit. I
need not repeat all that is said to his disparagement.
The man had to contend with political and even re■
ligious antipathies. '‘ Se asked the Catholic
churches at Cincinnati to say masses for the success
of his army." There was no great harm in that,
surely, though a fuss is made about it. Rosencranz is
of German extraction, sprung from a Jewish
family who embraced Catholicism, and brought
into the Church of their choice all the zeal of new
converts. The General's brother is Bishopof Cincin-
nati, and it was natural that the layman should
throw a good job in the way of his clerical relative.
The General's real offence, more probably, was dis-
regard of orders from Washington—either by going
beyond Chattanooga against such orders, or by ad-
vancing more cautiously than seemed desirable to the
"wiseacres of the War Department," That the autho-
rities at Washington, with the President at their
head, are always ready to find fault with the slow-
ness of their commanding officers is a fact not to
be disputed. When in the killing heat of last July
someone suggested that Meade's inaction was per-
haps owing to the exhausting influence of the I
season, Mr. Lincoln answered rather tartly, "If
our troops are hot in Virginia, we are burning here
at Washington"—burning that is, with impatience.
Rosencranz, and his subordinates, M'Cook and
Crittenden, are not the only generals likely to fall
victims to the displeasure of the central Govern- 1
ment. Gen. Meade himself is said to have ten-
dered his resignation, and Generals Sedgewiek and
Sickles are already boldly named as his probable
successors. At Charleston, also, if we may believe 1
public rumour, Admiral Dahlgren is about to be re- I
moved from the command of the fleet, where, it is :
asserted, he will be superseded by Captain Thomas I
Turner, of the Ironsides. The man wanted in that 1

place, however, in the opinion of some persons here,
is " our fire-proof salamander, Admiral Farragut."
With all these changes contemplated or accom-
plished the public are mightily pleased, and there

is no limit to the splendid successes that are gene-
rally anticipated. The Western army, under Gen.
Grant, is described, with the proverbial Yankee
love of superlatives, as the " biggest host ever as-
sembled in one theatre of war by any one Govern-
ment in modern times." It combines the forces
hitherto led into the field by Grant himself, on the
Mississippi, with the Chattanooga army now pass-
ing from the hands of Rosencranz into those of
Gen. Thomas, with that of Gen. Burnside on the
border between East Tennessee and West Virginia,
and the flying column under Gen. Hooker, now at
Stevenson, on the south-west, on the Alabama fron-
tier. All these troops, exceeding 200,000 com-
batants, may at a given time be brought to bear
upon Bragg's army on the defiles of Georgia. If
Meade or his expected successor on the ono side,
and Grant with all his auxiliaries on the other, do
not " wind up this eventful month of October with
some stunning decisive victory" the lovers of the
Union cause will be grievously disappointed.
However " stunning," it is difficult to conceive
how any battle can be decisive in this wearisome
American contest. These Northern people have an
overweening conceit of the resources of their coun-
try. " The Europeans," they say, "talk of America
as if it was only a country ; they forget that we are
a,continent, a world. What are the puny efforts
that could be put forth even by such Powers as
Prance and England compared with the energies of
a new country, to whom the loss of half a million
of men or the outlay of 2,000 million of dollars are
as a few drops of blood taken from the veins
of a Young giant ? The last census shows an in-
crease in wealth between 1850 and 1860 of 128 per
eenta the increase of population being only 35 per
cent. The might of the nation, as represented by
wealth, is inexhaustible, and we defy any man to
show °a this, the third ear of a most wasteful war,
any
symptom Of decline either in the splendour of
our cities or in th
The Anaericane
prosperity of our land."
seems to forget, however, that the
argument tells boths
Ways, If the Union is not a
country but a
con:lii
il ethe Confederacy is in its
turn not a territorylt,.'u less than half a world.
Their vastness of spicotpertoesents an insurmountable
barrier against (facien
Grant had seven league bilocr'est- Unless General
etta, how could he turn
even the most" stunning',
vioorY—were he to gain
it—to any available purpose ,
Will the whole of
this "eventful month of October
",Wilt even the
whole fall of the year—enable him only to march
through the lands he has undertaken to subdue
Whatever may be the vicissitudeu of •
campaign, there are not many here lishe,n,t'atteais ye
themar's
r -
selves that it will bring us nearer to she end
of the
war; and if war is to be prolonged, they
are not
easy as to th 3 means of filling up the ranks 0r the
fast-thinning army. The President's proclamation
for a levy of 300,000 men has not wrought the
most favourable impression. though great efforts are
made to give it the most cheerful response. To
carry on a war, we are told, L°ln2n and money are
required ;" but the people here had brought them-
selves to think, not perhaps without some show of
reason, that, to a great extent, " money makes men,
and men make money." The State, they said, which
commands the means to arm a certain number of

mercenaries has it also in its power to use these
• and
hired men in the impressment of new recruits;
when 'an army is once on foot it can be turned into
an instrument equally efficient in plundering the
enemy or in grinning the people. The strength of
a nation may be indifferently gathered together by
free enlistormt, or by forcible conscription. It may
be held, as in England, that the law has under no
circumstances any control over the person of the
subject, and it may be established, as in France, or
more consistently in Prussia, that every citizen is
vitally interested in the defence of the country—
liable, therefore, to compulsory military service,
whether at regularly appointed periods, or on any
extraordinary emergency. The government of the
United States seemed to
think that the two methods
could be usefully /nixed up and alternated. When
the first rush of real volunteers, impelled by
patriotism, began to slacken they opened a huge
shop for the purchase of hirelings, and when the
mercenary market was also exhausted they resorted
to the draught, which Was only
a clumsy attempt to
make money by men, as it Put the screw on the
citizen, and called for "his money or his life,"
allowing to the recruits the power to buy them..
selves of, of which they were by n,
weans loth to
avail themselves.

.____
There is nothing to be added a t 0 further move-
meats of the armies. The destruction e
accomplished
the Orange
vedeoertopilished so
t.rmy of
wrillthree
weeks or a month to come. General Lee
and Alexandria Railway has been
thoroughly that it is expected the
the Potomac will not be able to advan:,
bably avail himself of this respite either to marchpro.
against Burnside or to send reinforcements B to
Bragg. _

The draught as it was contrived Yielded f om
9,000,000 dols. to 10,000,000 dols.; but not from
Was it an egregious failure in itself, so far as the
" making of men" was concerned, but it convinced
the most stubborn in the Government of the utter

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA, hoplessness of such an expedient hereafter. Hence
it is that the President falls back upon the old plan,
and "calls on the Governors of the diffiren • States
to raise and have enlisted 300,000 men." It is
hardly possible to believe that the proclamation was
issued in good earnest. The raisin; of volunteers,
or to call things by their proper name, bounty men,
was never discontinued since the first outbreak of
the war. It was never carried on with greater
alacrity than during the pangs and throes of that
barren conscription; and we know that in the State
of New York, for instance, "the volunteer enrolment
yielded 50 per cent. more than all the machinery of
the draught!' If the tempting bait of 302 dols. for
raw recruits and 402 dcls. for veterans could be of
any avail towards repleting the army, surely the
bills stuck up outside the shop windows in all the
cities of the East and West, the huge flags
waving
all across Broadway, bearing spirited pictures of
charging cavalry, squadrons and thundering
ofun war,derin oughtgbat-
teries, and all the pomp and pageantry
at all times to have kept the supply on a par with
the demand, but men are not to be had on any large
scale at any of the bounty rates hitherto offered, and
it is upon this conviction that the Board of Super-
visors of the city of New York propose an outlay of
2,000,000 dole., with a view to add 300 dais. to the
GOVeVaMeRt bounty—thus raising the price of sol-
diers to 602 dols. and even 702 dols. per head It
may be questioned whether even thi
istt he
g thatrd
liberality will be found efficient, ad
may be considered expedient. The soldier's pay was
fixed at 13 dole. a month at the outbreak of the war,
i.e., at a time at which that sum had the real value
of 13 dols. in gold, but that same sum at the present
day only represents 6 dols. 50c. real value, and labour
of the lowest description commands at least 30 dols.
monthly wages throughout the country. Even with
700 dollars enlistment money the soldier's trade
is almost the poorest business a man can betake him-
self to. It is dog's work for native Americans, nor
is it clear to what extent it may continue to be at-
tractive in the eyes of foreign immigrants. The
draught in Vermont only yielded 72 conscripts and
800 substitutes : all of these latter were aliens,
most French Canadians. Of the foreign adven-
turers already acquainted with the country the most
part will be as shy of the flags as the natives them-
selves. The hopes of the recruiting officers must
needs rest on the new arrivals, and of these many
thousands can hardly come in on so short a notice.
To raise 300,000 men in two months, with the pre-
sent abundance of work and high wages, would seem
hardly practicable; and on the sth of January the
President's remedy will come into operation : " If
any State shall fail to raise the quota assigned to it,
a draught for the deficiency shall be made." A
draught, however, so long as the clause of the 300
dols. redemption be maintained, will yield money,
and not men ; and as to a bona fide conscription,
impartial, inexorable, on the Prussian principle, it
seems hardly credible that any Government would
venture on such a course in a country like this. It
takes no less than two generations to train even the
most orderly and best disciplined people to sub-
mit to the hateful yoke of a compulsory levy. In
Piedmont and Lombardy, where military service has
been organized on the present footing since the be-
ginning of the century, the yearly draught takes
place with all the regularity of clockwork ; but in
the late Roman provinces, in the Marches and
Umbria, and in the island of Sicily, which were
allowed exemption from military duties by the
Papal and Neapolitan Governments, the introduc-
tion of the hated levy has met with the most
Formidable difficulties, and every announcement

of a fresh conscription is the signal for the
rising of brigand bands throughout the country.
The experiment of the late draught in New York—
the 44 battalions engaged in the impressment of a

few hundred conscripts—ought to leave little hope
for a future attempt. The scheme failed even when
men had it in their power to compound with their
money for their blood ; but if Mr. Lincoln were to
come upon them for their real " pound of flesh" it
is doubtful whether any force could suffice to over-
awe this city—doubtful whether any army would
be equal to the task of enforcing the law through-
out the land.
All the proclamations in the world will never
make this recruiting of the army anything but an
affair of money. " The war," we are informed, "has
already lasted two years and six months, and in that
time we have accumulated a national debt amount-
ing to 2,000,000,000 dole." if soldiers are to to
bought at the rate of 600 to 700 dole., as the city of
New York- proposes, if a competition is to arise be-
tween the Federal Government and the municipal
and State authorities as to which shall bid the higher
for the purchase of food for powder, the debt at the
close of another year will probably exceed our
powers.of calculation. So long as there is no limit
to the production of " greenbacks," and so long as
" greenbaeks" represent at least half their nominal
value, the hook may be so baited as to get a bite
here and there. " Whoever takes my paper pockets
trash," says Mr. Chase, and the army may be satis-
fied to rest on as trashy a foundation as society is
content to bo based on; but the quality of the sol-
diers to be got for so high a bribe will hardly be
found to correspond with the quantity. Nay, the
higher the price a man sets upon his blood, the lower
the moral standard that led him to bargain for it.
In the meanwhile the well-tried difficu'ty the
Government meet in their enlistment of white men
urges them more and more recklessly to their
scheme of the enrolment of negroes. Slaves are being
bought in Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, West
Virginia, and Missouri. Loyal owners on parting
with their property receive 300 dole, indemnity,
and the slave is assured of his freedom on the ex-
piration of his term of service; the slaves of "dis-
loyal" masters are enlisted and emancipated at once,
without ransom. The scarcity of sailors for the
navy has induced Government to forward instruc-
tions to enlist "contrabands" for the fleet. The
free use of the blacks has, of course, the effect of
deterring the whites from the service; but Sambo
was, however innocent, the primary cause of all
this contest, and it is natural, and perhaps just, that
he should bear the brunt of the battle, with the
hope that he may, in some unforeseen manner, reap
the benefits of the victory.
The phenomenon of a self-styled free State rely-
ing for empire, or indeed for existence, on slaves
and mercenaries is by no means new in the world.
It was the policy of ancient Rome, the policy of
mediaeval Florence and of Venice. It will be a rare
lock for the United States if, unlike those States of
old, they learn in time that an army of hirelings,
White or black, may be a useful servant, but is apt
to become the most troublesome and dangerous of
masters.

Gene
his resignation
October 24.
ral Meade remains in command of the Army
of the pot()
veiled on ac. He went to Washington to tender
r
hlian to the President, bat the latter pre-
that Admi It2lo return to his post. The rumour
place at the al:lllaahlgren was to be removed from his
turns out tohbeta of the fleet at Charleston also
petted to arrive alltnfounded. The Admiral is ex-
whas published a letter fsafhington in a few days. He
General Gilmore, refut-
ing the idle reports of arra
d°.
two commanders. up
t:lreement between these
23d of last month the
most cordial good understandinge
existed between
them. . . . _

President Lincoln has bravely withstood the
pressure of the rabid Republicans of Missouri, and
refused to remove General Schofield from his com-
mand at their request or dictation. He is not satis-
fied that the Lawrence massacre can with any Jus-
tice be ascribed to any remissness or connivance on
the part of the military authorities, and cannot be-
lieve that Scholefield purposely withheld protection
from loyal people, and countenanced the violence of
the disloyal. He approves General Scholefield's
exertions to prevent a counter-raid into Mitisouri by
the Kansas boys as the only way of avoiding nudiscri-
rninate massacres.
The President has the approval of the Moderate