The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-10 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TlMES.—Yesterday a remarkable trial came to an
end by the conviction of the men charged with forg-
ing Bank-notes with paper stolen from the mills
where alone it is manufactured. There is nothing
strange about the crime except the success of the
prisoners in overcoming the chief difficulty which
lies in the way of such enterprises. That a knot
of men, more or less in the habitual practice of
fraud, should forge a few £6 and £lO notes, and
victimise unsuspicious tradesmen, is no new thing,
but the anxiety which prevailed a few months ago
was justified by a circumstance peculiar and alarm-
ing. A kind of panic was caused by the announce-
ment that a quantity of paper used in the manu-
facture of Bank-notes had been stolen from the
mills at Laverstoke, in Hampshire, which for a
great number of years have exclusively supplied the
Bank of England. The well known qualities of
this paper have always been looked upon as the best
safeguard against forgery. Its texture and strength,
with the watermark and other peculiarities, have
hitherto been inimitable by the most clever fabrica-
tors. The mills were founded so long ago as 1720,
and during the whole of this period the Messrs.
Portal from generation to generation have been
manufacturing paper for the Bank of England,
And this has been done with such skill that, ac-
cording to the statement of Sir F. Kelly on the pre-
sent trial, during the century and a half which has
nearly elapsed not one sheet of note paper has ever
been successfully imitated. Bat the security which
has been caused by this long exemption from fraud
seems to have induced too much confidence. Crime
in these days is practised with a skill which requires
ever increasing watchfulness to meet it. The pre-
cautions taken at the Laverstoke Mills, though no
doubt sufficient to prevent any novice or blunderer
from becoming possessed of the paper, were no ob-
stacle to a man trained to a knowledge of the pro-
cess, and watching his opportunity day after day.
Hence the comparative ease with which the wit-
ness, Henry Brown, who appeared as Queen's
evidence at the trial, was able to abstract quanti-
ties of the paper. This young man was tampered
with by the prisoner Burnett, who, no doubt, was
on the look-out for such an instrument. Brown,
according to his own account, at first refused, but
after his scruples had been removed he set to work
to steal the paper, and succeeded without much diffi-
culty. He first took three sheets, enough for six
notes, and then five sheets of £lO-note paper, then
10 sheets of " fifties," and then larger and larger
quantities,—enough to manufacture an immense
sum of false money. This is the most important
part of the whole business, inasmuch as it shows
that the machinery for preventing fraud by the
workpeople at the mills is not thoroughly efficient,
and that in the interest of the public it must be re-
vised. But it certainly is not a matter of wander
that a manufacturer should be occasionally the vic-
tim of a fraud of this kind, when we consider the
facilities cf wrong-doing possessed by the persons
employed, and the skill of which they are masters.
Toe prisoner Brewer, who was accused, but ac-
quitted, of stealing part of the paper and deliver-
ieg it to Brown to be given to Burnett, was a man
of position in the mills, as possessed of no mean
talents and ingenuity. He had a share in inventing
a machine for impressing the watermark on bank-
note paper, which machine had been patented by
his brother, who was then and is now employed in
the works. When the paper was in their pnisses-
sion the forgers set about forging the notes, and
in this a man named Griffiths was employed, who,
if his own account of himself be true, must be an
eminent character in the criminal ranks, and one
whose detection is no small benefit to society.
When the police broke into his plane of operations
they found a printing press and 21 forged Bank of
England notes without date or signature. On a ,
bed in the room were 20 forged £lO-notes finished
and £25 forged £5-notes. "Mother plates" and
copper. plates for making the watermark were also
discovered, The proprietor of these extensive works
made a clean breast to the police. He said he had
some more plates in a field, and this on searching
was found to be the case; and he confessed that
" he had been engaged in printing forged notes
since 1846; that he had printed the whole of the
forged notes on the Bank of England for the last
17 years, that he had printed on genuine paper
stolen from the mill 180 £5 notes and twenty £lO
notes for a person named Buncher, and twenty £5
notes for another person." Such were the experi-
enced and professional rogues whose machinations
have caused such alarm in the trading community.
Happily, they have been brought to justice. Brewer
is acquitted, but Buncher and Griffiths are found
guilty by the jury, and Burnett pleaded guilty at
the first. Great credit is due to the police for their
energy and skill in bringing the whole to light ;
and it is now to be hoped that, with new precau-
tions at the mills and at the Bank, such frauds will
be made impossible for the future.

HERALD.—Although no credit can be given to
the stories told by some of our French contempora-
ries of conversations between Herr Von Bismarck
Schonhausen and Count Karolyi, the Austrian Am-
bassador at Berlin, or between Count Rechberg and
Baron Werther, the Prussian Minister at Vienna—
the venue is laid indifferently in either city—in
which Austria is emphatically warned that unless
she ceases to sustain the smaller states of Germany
against Prussia, and at once withdraws the little
project of Federal reform she is now pushing
through the Diet, the Prussian Government will
recall its representative at Frankfort, declare the
Confederation at an end, and occupy, " without so
much as saying, by your leave," Hanover and Hesse,
there can be doubt that the two great German
Powers are on as bad terms as are consistent with
the maintenance of diplomatic relations. Friendly
they never have been since the great Frederick
robbed Maria Theresa of Silesia. From that time
they have been rivals for the preponderance in, or,
as the stock phrase has it, for the hegemony of
Germany. Since 1815 the Federal Diet has been
the scene of their contests, and nearly every time
that the quarrel has risen beyond its ordinary state
of distrust, dislike, and polite hostility, it has been
upon some question connected with the application
of the power of the Confederation or the interpre-
tation and reform of its constitution. It is so now.
The inconveniences of the Federal system have
proved so great that every state acknowledges some-
thing must be done, and for the last two or three
years the ministers of the second-rate states have
been engaged, with the concurrence of Austria, in
elaborating projects for reform, all recognising
more or less the popular demand, but all, of course,
repudiating that leadership which Prussia claims.
Meanwhile, Prussian statesmen being quite sure
that they can never carry such a proposition as they
want in the Diet, have formulated a policy of their
own for Prussia, in the shape of the establishment
within the Bund of a smaller confederation, grouped
around Prussia herself, by mutual agreements, ac-
cording to which the Sovereigns of these states are
to resign the care of governing to Prussia, and to be
in return secured their positions. Prussia now d
dares, or rather Herr Von Bismarck-Schonhausen
is believed to have declared, that if the delegate plan
is persisted in the Confederation
his
a ;::eo
al at t edde,l
iagnhdt
better, and who
must be considered at an end, to t
of the Danes,wbo wish for nothing
to n
support Prussiag
will instruct their representative
in the hope of getting
rid of a compact which has
.. s
been a stone round theirt
tk in ce the day it was
formed.
This is the pre ex nee
of the quarrel. The
success of Austria in procuring the ton-ratification
of the commercial treaty with France is another
very sore point with Prussia, and there are at least
half a dozen other matters upon which two powers
fighting for influence in Germany can easily quar-
rel. The question is, will anything very serious come
of it ? That depends entirely upon Prussia. It is
Prussia who is now seeking for grounds of quarrel,
who is fretting, awl fuming, and threatening. Aus-
tria keeps within her right, and, although she means
to maintain her own, certainly has no desire to
come to blows. That is more than can be said of
Prussia, although she has as much real interest as
Austria to keep the peace. In provoking a war for
unity of Germany she would probably postpone it for
another hundred years. But Herr Von Bismarck
Schonhausen hates Austria, and the necessities of
his position point to a war with her as the sure way
to the conquest of his opponents at home. Hu re-

lies upon the traditional hatred of Austria felt by
the Prussians, and he has more reason in his reli-
ance than we could wish. We cannot feel quite sure
that the House of Deputies would be proof against
the temptation of crushing Austria and uniting
Germany under Prussian sway. There are 801120
who would say, " Let us seize the opportunity, we
can secure our liberties afterwards." Still we do
not think it probable that the Prussian constitu-
tionalists would fall into the trap, nor do we think
Herr Von Bismarck Schonhauseu will go at all
beyond threatening. In such a war he would as-
suredly have no ally among the Sovereigns of
Germany, and still less would he have that alliance
with the peoples upon whom, in the days of Aus-
trian absolutism and Prussian semi-constitutional-
ism, ho might have relied. Austtia is not yet
popular in Germany. Its active politicians are so
enamoured of their project of a united Germany, to
the SUCCESS of which the excision of Austria is essen-
tial, that they will see no good in her; but, if they.
love Austria little, they like the present Prussian
system less, and they certainly will give no hid to a
power which wantonly devastates the Fatherland
with war only to impose upon it a system far more
illiberal than that which now prevails. There will
bo a great many despatches between Austria and
expensive preparation, but no
Prussia, and possibly
fighting.

POST.—it is one of the principal disadvantages
attendant on the system of government adopted in
the United States of America that almost every offi-
cial appointment is made to depend on political or
party influence,and is of comparatively short duration
Democracies have a horror of granting offices for
life, being fearful of making the recipients indepen.
dent of their control. Eternal change is considered
by the Democrat to be absolutely essential to the
preservation of due equilibrium between all classes
in the Republic. Hence no one, from the Chief
Magistrate down to the postman, holds office during
life, or even during good behaviour. The President
remains in office only four years, the members of
the House of Representatives are elected biennially,
and althougn the judges of the Supreme Court are,
like our own, removable only by impeachment or
petition of the Legislature, still the judges of the
several States are, many of them, elective and ap-
pointed but for limited periods. The minor officials
in the State receive their nomination from the par-
ticular party winch happens to be in power, and
with that party they stand or fall. It is needless
to observe that it would have been impossible to
have devised a system more actively conducing to
j ,bbery than the one we have noticed. Long before
the present war broke out, and when the American
Constitution was submitted to no unusual strain,
the corruption and the trickery which distinguished
the operation of its administrative system were so
public and notorious that the American people
ceased to be ashamed of them, and even brought
themselves to believe that they were inseparable
from a sound political system. It is easy to under-
stand, when hostilities began, and when it was found
necessary to increase twenty-fold the administrative
staff of the State, how, under such a system, the
candidates for appointments were selected. A few
facts became public shortly after the commencement
of the war which gave the American nation an
inkling of what might be expected in the way ofjob-
bery and peculation if the contest was prolonged ;
bat we believe that the revelations which have now
been made, and those for which we must wait until
the termination of the war, will exhibit an amount
of fraud and corruption in the management of the
finances of the State which will be unexampled in
the history of republican or monarchical govern.
ments. As the result of a secret investigation, which
during the past two months has been instituted into
the state of the public accounts, it has been dis-
covered that great frauds have been committed
upon the Government. In the city of New York
alone no less than half of a gross sum of one mil-
lion six hundred thousand dollars, which was paid.
on account of the army, was paid fraudulently.
This appears to refer to one series of transactions
alone, and proves that peculation can be so fear-
lessly and so successfully carried on in one of the
first commercial cities in the world, that the Go-
vernment can be cheated out of 50 per cent. of its
disbursements, It is said that at least a thousand
persons have been impli, ated in these transactions,
including some of t e principal merchants and
brokers in New Y rk. What may be the extent of
the frauds ;n other departments of the
State we do not know, but there can be little doubt
that they have been equally extensive. The out-
break of the war was the signal to every sharp-
witted merchant and contractor to do a smart
thing" if he could. Thu contracts were notoriously
sold to the highest bidder, with the significant
drawback that the purchase-money went not into
the coffers of the State, but into the pockets of the
public officer who had the patronage of the appoint-
ment. It will not be difficult for those who are even
slightly conversant with the system of public con-
tracts to conjecture how contracts thus bargained
for were subsequently fulfilled. We recollect
shortly after the war began, and when the Govern-
ment were straining every nerve to arm their troops,
hearing of a fraud having been committed which.
for audacity was perhaps unrivalled. The Govern-
ment had purchased a large qunntity of firm-arms,
the greater portion of which they were obliged to
condemn as useless. The condemned guns and pis-
tols were sold at a merely nominal price to a pur-
chaser who tendered for them, and were imme-
diately afterwards transported by the latter to the
camp of Gen. Banks, in Kentucky, and sold at the
regulati an price to that officer, who eagerly snatched
at an opportunity of arming his troops. We forget
contractor
,
how many thousand dollars the smart'netted by this trausaotion, but subsequently, when
the fraud was discovered, he was allowed to go
unpunished. It is worthy of notice that whilst
Forts Lafayette and Warren were filled to over-
flowing with political prisoners, in no single instance
has the Federal Government inflicted punishment
on a fraudulent contractor. The consequences are
such as might have been expected. Peculation has
become a recognised calling; and the broker or con-
tractor who cannot swindle the state to the extent
of one dollar out of every two which are paid to
him does not understand his business. The vice has
extended so far now that it would almost savour of
injustice to punish those who have only imitated
their neighbours in doing acts at which the Govern-
ment connived. The Government may, and
titr
to be hoped will, reform their administrative system,
but little benefit can accrue from punishing
e t coen.
h%
which they have taught the great maw) e
munity to regard with leniency. eefesnerice:

_ -
increasing oases in Lancashire. Yeast
A cheap and simple remedy for typhus fever has
ingproper ties are said to b
been suggested, which we tract may be found effi-
cacious among the
iwahtbeneldifeja:f t hose who cannot . small quantity infused
:pnodonitafwre:idniviinfY
went might enable them to resisto minutes restored a patient
bthtaeindespurffiesesiinengt
influence:
e-
of long-continued scarcity. The experiment is at any rate
worth trying.

VALUE OP NEGROES u
IN GEORGIA.—I witnesed
a sale
of negroes a few days since at Thomasville,
Georgia, the result of which I feel induced to give you, be-
lieving it will receive a space in the columns of your valu-
able paper, and hoping at the same time that the issue
which ccntains it may by chance fall into the hands of the
Yankees, in order to illustrate the confidence which tha
planters of Southern Georgia, at least, have in the institu-
tion of slavery, notwithstanding their (the Federals) mer-
cenary threats of total emancipation, &c.:-1. A man,
black, 25 years old, 1,930 dole; 2, a man, ditto, 60 years
old, 1,500 ; 3, a boy, ditto, 15 years old, 1,650 dole ; 4, a boy
ditto, 11 years old, 1,400 doll ; 5, a boy, ditto, 10 years old,
1,250 dole ; 6, a boy, yellow, 14 years old, 1,700 dole ; 7, a
boy, ditto, 12 years old, 1,300 dole; 8, a boy, ditto, 8
years old, 1,300 dole ; a boy ditto, 18 years
old (carpenter), 3,000 dole; 10, a woman, black,
22 years old, 1,500 dole ; 11, a woman, ditto, 24 years old,
1,450 doll ; 12, a woman, ditto, 20 years, and two children,
2,900 dole ; 13, a woman, ditto, 22 years old, and one child,
2,150 dole; 14, a woman, ditto, 20 years oil, and one child,
2,350 dole ; 15, a woman, yellow, ditto, 24 years old, and tw
children, 2,950 dole; 16, a woman, ditto, 37 years old, 1,050
dols:;17, a woman, ditto, seamstress and house servant,
2,976 dole ; average per capita, 1,411. This negro property,
belonging to Mr. D. L. Miller, was sold, in accordance with
is wish,public outcry, he being in the service of his
country. It have heard of several sales far exceeding this
in this section of Georgia, by executors, administrators, &0.1
for the purpose of distribution, and think the foregoing sale
a sufficient " nut" for the black republicans to
00174 Telegraph.