The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

TIMES.—The arrival by the same mail of the text
of two President's Messages, both addressed to
Senates and Houses of Representatives, is an illus-
tration of the political condition of the American
Republic more striking than the report of any
battle won or lost. Fighting indicates a power of
resistance or attack, but the appearance of the two
Messages side by side, both equally formal, is the
visible proof that behind the Southern Secession
there is a political organization as complete as that
of the North itself. The opening the Session of a
Legislature is a peaceful ceremony; but when done
in duplicate, as in the present case, it may bear a
very different meaning. A convulsion of the old
political system has thrown off a second and hostile
body. lestead of the one planet of the West, ob-
servers have now to watch the movements of a
double star and make a twofold series of calcu-
lations. The message of the Northern President is
brief when compared with former specimens of that
annual document. The points it touches are
numerous enough, but they are shortly dealt with.
The time is too busy for diffuseness, and topics are
dismissed in a single paragraph of a few lines which
formerly would heve been found capable of indefi-
nite expansion. Little is said of the relations of the
North with the European Powers, and in the tone
employed there is no echo of the bitter feeling to-
wards England that has found expression so often
in journals and in party speeches. Mr. Lincoln
pastes very rapidly over the questions connected with
the construction in England of the vessels the South
has employed es cruisers, but his allusion, brief as
it is exaggerates the facts. He says,—" Her
Majesty's Government, as was justly expected,
have exercised their authority to prevent the de-
parture of new hostile expeditions from British
ports." An empty hull, without armament or
crew, is misaescribed as an " expedition." The
difficulty in all the cases complained of has been
that nothing in the fittings of the ships indicated
their destination with legal certainty. The vessels
were on the open sea liable to capture by the North
when the Southerners converted them into ships of
war and made them capable of doing mischief. We
are still unable to comprehend how the skill and
enterprise of the North has been so paralysed that,
possessing 588 ships of war afloat or in course of
construction, it did not enforce for its own protec-
tion a stricter "police of the ocean." With half
the number of war vessels on the Northern Navy
List the Government could station one ship on every
ten miles of the coast blockade. If the North has
wasted its real strength in building or chartering
whole fleets of vessels unfit to keep the sea, it must
visit the failure on its own Government: A year
ago Mr. Seward was reproaching all Europe because
it could not receive his exceedingly cheerful views
of the war as correct estimates of the position of
the country. Mr. Lincoln goes back to the same
period, and describing the position of affairs at the
time, intimates that the European opinion of his
difficulties was nearer the truth than that of his
Foreign Secretary. When Congress had assembled
last December, he says, the war had iested nearly
20 months. The result of many conflicts by land
and sea had been " varying." Though the limits
of the revolt had been practically narrowed, yet
" the tone of public feeling and of opinion, at home
and abroad, was not satisfactory." The
elections indicated the domestic " uneasiness" causedopular
by political division. The kindest words coming
from Europe " were uttered in accents of pity that
we " were too blind to surrender a hopeless cause."
The commerce of the North was suffering greatly
from a few armed vessels, which constitute the
whole Southern navy. There was even a prospect
that the Northern blockade should be raised by
foreign intervention. These difficulties Mr. Lincoln
does not now disguise, but a year ago Europe was
frequently rebuked and accused of for per-
ceiving and pointing them out. Substantially, the
President contends that the North has been success
ful during the past year ; but ho abstains from going
into the particular incidents of that success. the
recent operations at Chattanooga are not directly
mentioned. There is no allusion whatever to
the Army of the Potomac. No military commander
is named by the chief of the Northern Republic.
The omission may be according to official precedent,
but bearing in mind the immense sacrifices the
American people has made the Messege contains a
very cord and inadequate appreciation of them. Mr.
Lincoln's proclamation of pardon and amnesty to
those citizens of the Southetn States w.ha may be
disposed to abandon the revolt we have already
considered. The text of the document adds to the
number of classes who will be excepted from any
terms of reconciliation. Tne door is shut against alt
who have any influence in or over the Confederacy.
Toe proclamation differs from the usual form in
which an amnesty is proclaimed, in that it gives no
time of grace, and contains no date after which the
offer of pardon will be forfeited. The Southerners
therefore can lose none of its advantages by trying
the chances of war for a few months longer. The
suggestion that one-tenth of the population of a
State may, if assisted by a Federal army, construct
a local Government, and come into the Union with
it, is neutralised by the " condition precedent"—the
Northern army must possess the State before the
tenth fraction of the people can vote. This posses-
sion is the exact point which war, as Mr. Lincoln
intimates, must decide. The proposal that a tenth
of the inhabitants, plus the Northern army, shall
bind the whole of the citizens is a singular illustra-
tion of the principle that the will of the majority
constitutes the only legal governing power. The
Message of the Southern President is in style and
language much superior to that of his Northern rival.
He is also more generous in acknowledging the ser•
vices of his military commanders. Mr. Davis goes
at length into the history of the war during the year,
which Mr. Lincoln appears to avoid. He begins
by noticing the Southern reverses at Vicksburg and
Port Hudson, of which he admits the importance;
but be does full justice to the efforts that have
saved Charleston from capture an continued such
en effective resistance to the Northern arms in Vir-
ginia. He speaks in a tone of disappointment as to
the relations of the Confederacy with Europe. lie
expected, probably that the sympathy feit for the
weaker party in a life and death struggle would by
this time have taken the more effective shape of ac-
tion. The South has doubted, we fear, whether
England could be neutral if she wished, and to find
that even the cotton famine is not to us an over-
whelming national calamity has been a disappoint-
ment at Richmond. Of the civil war itself Mr.
Davis speaks without despondency, but yet with a
degree of feeling creditable to his humanity. Th•
absence of any sentiment of the kind tram Mr.
Lincoln's Message ref ders it one of the most cold •
blooded political documents ever published.
POST.—The responsibility of providing for the
future is inculcated commonly enough as a duty to
individuals in their private capacities ; but it is a
precept taken less frequently to heart than it might
be with advantage as a measure of precaution to
nations. Nevertheless, it would be easy to show
that the precept applies with equal force to the one
case as to the other; and if the community o a D.'.
lion manifest in a lesser degree than individuals the
need of considering what may be the resources of a
hereafter, this c.in only cries) from the selfishness
inseparable from humanity. Subsequent to the
last meeting of the British Association, when Sir
Wm. Armstrong first gave utterance to a fact enun-
ciated long before his time, relative to the compa-
rative exhaustion of available coat, the public mind
has been rather more disposed than before to take
cognisance of certain phases of national futurity
that may be or may not be equal in resources
to those commanded at present, according as the
sources of productive force—for so we may deno-
minate them —may or may not be kept up to their
existing level. Speculations relative to the period
of coal exhaustion seem to have taken less firm
possession of the public mind than speculations re-
lative to the exhaustion of elements of agricultural
fertility. This is so far inconsistent that, whereas
—no efficient substitute for pit coal being known,
and the need for using this material being impera-
tive—the world must go on remorselessly towards
the issue of coal exhaustion whether he will or not
—in respect of the second case, chemists tell us,and
the truth of their assurance has been amply demon-
strated, that agricultural nations have the power at
option of maintaining the needful balance indefi-
nitely ; and that if, at any period, manure should
run short, and comparative barrenness of the soil
ensue, such a result could only happen from a
squandering of the elements and materials of fer-
tility, by unadvised measures, for periods long eent4'
cedent. Granting absolutely, as Baron
!Cie are
himself could grant, that some time
benceland, the
not called upon to say
when—every its dejeetti
population of which aesiduously cb`Zze i fertile,
and other offal into the sea.
but for the importation of a
ed nevertheless how
thus casts away, we are conviiv-
ould be to effect any
i!n:eclicisu_tivalent to what it
fish habits in resoect of
that,f.posterity must
utterly futile the attempt
onwthhyislelt)llt
_sauffer. fats generate on is
ofiallt-trtirg::at our British ~,+.,,rdit,es
immediate alteration
their sewage economy,.
of any. future generation in this
ntdestoB !go
sstnioer;
not unselfish enough to y to heart very seriously
For a long time to come, as
wtoiV
choentgirmae
eat British sewage commi •
achieved success when
tmphraeetst matter.
interests
p o
channel the sewage matters over which they have bodily conveyed by
tulate themselves on having
extends into the sea.
mattersirer e thatne e nearest
their available
control
Now, it is concerning these
sewage
es
We are about to make some
to the degree of their applic-
ability to
agricultural purposes. We are not dis-
posed to enter
upon any violent controversy, the
tnlreespecialiy at this .estve season of the year; and
violent controversy would iis*urf.dAy be raised by

any expression of opinion concerning the utility or
the inutility of liquid sewage. The dictum, how-
ever, may be safely laid down, without fear of con-
tradiction from any quarter, that the deject a of a town
if flooded with water and passed along through a
sewer to a reservoir some distance away, represents
a very different material, chentically speaking, to
what it was originally, even though the weather be
eold. It is in summer and autumn, however, that
the mutation effected upon it wi2l be most complete.
Fermentation will have set in, and before the
expiration of many hours the original nitrogenous
constituents—unquestionably the most vOluable that
a manure can possess—will have absolutely evapo-
rated. This result is one that we say is au deniable
and will not be demurred to by the members of any
party in the debate now pending relative to the
'utilisation of sewage liquids ; and being so, certain
grave questions of public interest cannot fail to, be
suggested. In the first place, we would deux‘nd
whether much of the discrepancy that now exists
relative to the utility or inutility of liquid sewage'
matter in an agricultural sense Indy not be referable;
to the variation in length of transit before utilisa-
tion, to which the sewage fluid, the subject of testi-
mony, may have been exposed. To cite a hypothett•
cal, but at the same time fairly illustrative example,
the liquid sewage of London would present one
chemical composition at Barking-creek and awother
at every intermediate part of its course between the
source and final deliverance. We are disposed to
fancy that much of the discrepancy to which We
advert would disappear under this way of looking at
the circumstances. Another, and it may be a still
more important, question is the following :—IG
which we grant to be the case, there is a present
necessity for diluting the natural valuable elements
of manures, can this practice—once forced upon us
by our habits and our education ; one moreover 10
which so large a measure of ite.mediate comfort is
due—can it be reconciled with some treatment that
shall have the effect of obviating those fermentive
changes to which the evolution of ammonia and
other nitrogenous matter is attributable. Theoreti-
cally, it should be possible to temper the sewers with
some material more appropriate than the line now
commonly used, which must needs exert the chemi-
cal effect of liberating ammonia under ordinary cir-
cumstances. As for the salts of potash and sods'
they of course must be lost, or at least must present
themselves under all the disadvantages of extreme
dilution.

COUNTRY MARKETS.

--As

LEEDS—TUESDAY.
The trade to-day has been very slow, the business passing'
in wheat being quite of a retail character, at about the rates
of this day week. The same remarks apply to all Muds °I
spring corn.

MARKET HARBOROUGH—TUESDAY.
White wheat, 41s to 465; red, 38s to 42s per 36 stone.
Malting barley at 33s to 36s per qr. ; grinding, 29s to 32,1
per 30 at. Oats, old, 26s to 30s; new, 218 to 25s per au
at. ; beans, 34s to 40s per qr.

LIVE RP 0 L —TUESDAY.
There was a fair attendance of the trade at market
day, but the business done was quite of a holiday charactto'
f•
Wheat and flour met with a moderate retail demand at we
rates of last Tuesday. Oats and oatmeal met a slow bale'
and barely supported former prices. In bath)* and Pe at
there was a moderate inquiry. Beane mey be quoted at it
decline of 6d per qt. Indian corn neglected, although las"
week's prices were made.

SHEFFIELD—TUESDAY.
f 0
There was a moderate business doing in all kinds

grain, with little variation in former prices.
Red wheat, per load of 3 imperial bushels...lss Od to 17s 01
White ...17s Od to 13s o
New red
New white ~
Beans
Yeas, per qr
Grindint, barley, per qr 411
055
sss
060
ddd
ttt
000
411
477 ; 00
Malting ditto, .....
Oats
Flour, Is sd, is 7d, and is 8d per 33211:24455: I°°°%dddd. oo:
ass:2 sss
16:44

CORK—TUESDAY.
The following were the quotations this morning :^-14,,c!
wheat, 8s Od to 8s 101; white, 8s Od to 9s Bd, barley,
6d to 88 Od ; oats, 4s 10d to 6s 2d ; black do., 43 4d IQ
58 31.

DUBLIN—TUESDAY.
O. d. s. d.
Wheat, white 24 0 to 26 6
Do., red 2l 6 to 24 0
Do., new 0 to 0
Barley
Oats
Do., black — 0 to 0

s
Oatmeal lO 0. to 1.3%
0
Beans.. . 0 to
Bere —o to 0
--- 9
Rapeseed 0 to
Bakers' flour
Indian corn

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