The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-11 00:00:00

THERMOMETER.

This morning
This day at Two o'clock

Barometer-30.06.
Wind—S.-W. ; light, and fine.

~~~

Suit

LONDON, TUESDAY, AUGUST 11, 1863.

Later news from America, intelligence bringing
the narrative of the war down to the beginning of
this current month of August, shows the main
army of the Confederates, under LEE, to be situ-
ated between Culpepper and Gordonsville. There
the attitude assumed by him is said to be purely
defensive. But—simultaneously with the receipt
of this fragmentary intimation as to the Confede-
rate Commander-in-Chief—we learn in other words
that the Federal Commander-in-Chief is begin-
ning to evidenco anything but the confidence
of a conqueror. The recent movements of his army,
it is said, under date August 1, New York, will be
followed by its former inactivity ! An account
certainly not without, its significance. More par-
ticularly when together with it comes the intima-
tion that Kentucky has been invaded by the
Southerns! General BURNSIDE, in making these
latest warlike tidings known, through a prcclama-
tion that, as a matter of course, speaks of the Con-
federates as " the rebels," General BURNSIDE
we say in making public this new and daring
invasion of Kentucky by the rebels pronounces
the enterprise to have been undertaken with the
intention of overawing the judges, intimidating the
voters, and forcing the election of disloyal candi-
dates at the election of the ensuing 3d of Septem-
ber. As the instant consequence of this same in-
vasion of Kentucky martial law had been declared
throughout that State. " Military commanders,"
said the General, " will aid the State autho-
rities to support the laws and the purity of
suffrage. The judges present at the polls will be
held strictly responsible that no disloyal person
bo allowed to vote, and to this end military power
will give them its utmost support." Summing up
the relative positions of the confronting main
armies in a single announcement, one of the NeW
York papers says, sententiously,that the Army of the
Potomac is again upon the Rappahanock,
-MADE is there somewhere in the immediate vici-
nity of Falmouth. LEE confronting him, upon the
defensive, but prepared for any emergency, we may
be certain of that, if only by reason of his admirably
planned and deliberately conducted retreat—LEE
confronting his old antagonist at a point situated at
a mutually respectful distance,and already indicated
with sufficient distinctness as one midway between
Culpepper and Gordonsville. So situated, the
armies, it was expected on the Ist instant at New
York, could not in reasonable probability but
very soon indeed come again into collision.
An engagement —it would be difficult to
say a decisive engagement and even if
we could say it, by whom would such an
intimation as that be credited ?—an engagement of
some kind, decisive or indecisive, was, when these
last advices left, per the City of London, pretty
confidently expected to take place soon :no
longer, of course, upon the Potomac, but
once more upon the Rappahannock. While such
was the situation of affairs still between Washing-
ton and Richmond, between the main armies of the
Federals and Confederates, the siege of Charleston
was yet persisted in. The Northerns were said to
be moving upon Mobile, to have recently captured
Brasbear City, to have begun a series of successes
over the Confederates both in Kentucky and in
Tennessee! How veraciously sail to have done
and to be doing all this, we shall learn through
our next jumble of fragmentary intelligence.

The weekly meeting of the Central Executive
Relief Committee which took place at Manchester
yesterday already testifies the truth of the warnings
that have been lately uttered respecting the condi-
tion of the distressed districts. From Mr. FAR-
NALL's report it appears that the tide has again
turned, and that in the 27 unions receiving paro-
chial relief there has been an increase of 1,299 ap-
plicants. The principal increase is at Ashton•under-
1411e, Oldham, Rochdale, and Blackburn, besides
many smaller places. Still there are other districts
in which a
mall diminution is perceptible, and the
total decrease since December is 126,048. It is
highly satisfactory to find that there are as yet no
signs of the supplies being stopped by the frugality
or indifference of the
public, nearly fourteen hun-
dred pounds having been received during the week.
After the usual grants bad boon made the gentle-
men who had assembled nnder
the able presidency
of Lord DERBY had a diseußco
on the Public
Works Bill, just passed by the
Houses of Parlia-
Ment, and the probable effect of some of its clauses
on the employment of factory operatives.
Lord EGERTON expressed some
anxiety to
know whether in granting money to boards
of guardians, the Government would make any
condition respecting the rate of wages; whether
the rule would be to give "a fair day+, wage
for a fair day's work," or only such a sum as
would keep body and soul together. "Ur. FAR.
NALL, in answer to the noble lord's observations,
real eased that the bill was throughout pertness
&Ise, and not compulsory. It did not compel the
local authorities to employ factory operatives at
all, nor did it stipulate that any particular rate
of wages should be kept to. Mr. FARNALL
proceeded to say, from his own extensive experi-
ence in the matter, that he believed payment
would be made upon measurement of th© work
done, so that es.ch man would receive the same
rate of wages as au independent labourer would
do. According to Mr. FARNALL'S statement there
le every prospect of the bill being of great prac-
tical utility, for it seems probable that ail the
districts will avail themselves of the powers it
confers, and that a very large earn of money will
be raised in order to sat the unsenplo3 LeZory
hands to work. The guardian.: 1.. e the geed

sense t e see that as they are bound to support
a great proportion of these persons in one form
or are ether, it is better by the expenditure
of a la rger sum to secure a permanent good, to carry
out w eeks which will be highly conducive to the
health, comfort, and convenience of the inhabi
tants e f their towns, and which will remain when
the troubles of the present time have long been
numbered with the past. The deplorable effects of
long-c =tinned idleness are too well known not to
enter into their consideration. On the one hand,
the noun employed will have the honest satisfaction
that they are doing fair work for the money they
get, and feel themselves once more on their old in-
dependent footing ; on the other, they and their
families are left at the pauper level, to suffer all its
depressing effects on the mind and body, and its
demoralising influence morally. It was observed
by several of the members of the committee yester-
day that it was most important that the distinction
should be preserved between the men employed
public works and the recipients of parish
'relief.
There is likely to be some confusion on the on
subject
unless this is plainly understood and imptresasdedmuitpteodn
the men at the outset. Mr. FARNAL
the necessity of presereing the clistitnhcattioitn,waenudldsahide
that he had everywhere stated
-.
necessary that the men employed on
guonpaurbdliiacnweoarnkds
should be struck off the list of the
relief committees, anldebe
aretreated glad
this as
question in de-
pendent labourers. v
has been brought to the surface before the work
begins, as half its good effects would be lost if
the employment were taken as a mere charitable
pretence. One very satisfactory fact was elicited in
course of the discussion. It will be remembered
that, when the matter was debated in Parliament,
the proposed employment of factory hands on out-
door works was objected to on the ground that the
change in their mode of working would be most
prejudicial to their health. It was argued, with
some show of reason, that men accustomed to the
hot, dry air of factories would suffer greatly from
the sudden transmission to cold, damp out-door
work and exposure to the weather, and that rheu-
matism and a host of kindred evils would
ensue. It seems, however, from Lord EGERTON'S
testimony, that such is not the case. He had re-
cently, he told the meeting, visited a number of the
Stockport operatives whom he had employed in
out-door work during the whole winter, and he
was quite astonished at the improvement in their
looks. They appeared to be better and stronger in
every way, and they assured him that they were up
to any kind of work. It is surely better to supply
the healthy aE d able-bodied men with out-door work
here, to fill up the vacuum, than to depart them
across the seas to lands where they will probably
have to undertake still rougher and more laborious
tasks, and will grieve for the old home scenes while
England is missing their labour. The struggle
cannot be of much longer duration. Fortunately
we are not dependent on the fluctuations of the
American war. The numerous sources which are
open to us in our own dominions, and which we
have so long neglected, will very shortly come to
our aid. By refusing to avail ourselves of the
means which Providence has placed in our hands,
we have, in a measure, brought this burden upon
our people, but they have borne it nobly and well;
and, with the hopes gathering round the opening
of another year, who would despair, even though
we learn that the time of trial is not yet past ?

Mr. GILBERT, the Secretary of the Society for the
Relief of Distress, has published a very interesting
parouhlet on the " Condition of the Wives and
Families of Married Convicts, with Suggestions for
its Amelioration." There is no class of society more
to be pitied than these unfortunate persons, whose
means of subsistence are taken from them, and who
are exposed alternately to cruel privations and sad
temptations. Mr. GILBERT is in a position to know
accurately the circumstances of the case as regards
many of these hapless individuals, and the details
he puts before us tend to prove that it is necessary
speedily to adopt some remedial measure. The
troubles, the crimes, and the expenses attending
the present plans all call for a speedy remedy. Mr.
GILBERT prefaces his remarks by stating that he
has seen, while acting as secretary to the society,
"such abject misery" among the families of the
convicts that he is emboldened to make the effort
to be of service to them, although so much has
already been written and said on the subject of our
convict system. He states that it must be con
sidered that, however great the crime of the married
convict, he has still been the support of his family,
and, to a certain extent, provided for them, and
when he is taken away his family have to endure a
punishment as severe as his own, and often as dis-
honourable. His wife and children must then work
for themselves, but who will employ the wife and
child of a convicted thif f. If the woman applies to
the parish, they get rid of her by telling her to
come to the House. Not wishing to be separated
from her children, she refuses, and attempts to sup-
port herself and them. In this painful position
great sufferings await them. It has been found
that the mortality among
the children of married
convicts is greater than among the poorest of the
honest poor, even under the most unfavourable cir-
cumstances. If driven to despair, the wife at last
enters the House with her children, they remain
fixtures, for no one will employ them, and
they are " a continued expense to the
ratepayers and a misery to themselves.'
The number of wives and children obtaining parish
relief is very considerable. A few instances are
given of the different parishes in London. At St.
George, Southwark, there are 57 women and 134
children; at St. Mary, Islington, 98 women and
201 children. It is truly said that the cost of the
married convict is enormous on the public purse.
Each above the value of his labour is, on the average,
twenty-nine pounds a-year, and while the whole
or part of the expense of maintaining his family is
cast on the poor-rate, it is forcibly urged that, "on
the score of economy alone, some vast reformation is
required in our present system of convict manage-
ment." Still sadder are the details concerning those
children whose parents have brought them up in
crime. In some cases where the mother is a de-
praved woman, she has been known to pursue her
children from place to place, until she at last has
got them turned out into the streets and driven as
it were to crime. It is here mentioned that the
children of the married convicts in the Australian
colonies are rarely thieves. The chief cause is said
to be that they can more readily obtain work. Sir
NVILLIAm
A'BECKLTT, late Supreme Judge of
Victoria, gave it
as his opinion that he
never knew the
convict turn out a thief,
may obtain employment, and
Eon of a transported
for in Australia all boys
tioa to the child's b the primary tempta-
dishonest—privation—
is wanti ecoming
ng. The plan Proposed by Mr. GILBERT
is a good one so far as it goes, though doubtless
there would be found many difficulties in the way
of carrying it out. He advises the establishment of
a community, where, to use his own words, ,4 the
means of employment should be abundant, and in-
dustry compulsive during the whole period of his
s-nteece ; where idleness should be eunished as a
ch•izne; viLlere it still t. purchase in.
tlxicatieg think; and whcle aid alic;il4- 7L ,-f,:

reformed, shall be difficult to find." Of course
this must be done abroad, and Mr. GILBERT
mentions the Australian colonies as a suitable place
for a reformatory settlement for married convicts.
The northern portion of Western Australia is a very
suitable place, it is mentioned ;
and, as up to tt e
present time there is not an acre of ground inhabited
by a white man, it cannot be likely to offend the
a penal settlement
tn hwaobui
lt
da n
bt se oa ft t
lye d
dine sy. ,
Australian settlers by making
amongtf oarn c
Constantinople. There are
i e nfs
rt
oat
mnh ce eLm,
sure to be plenty of obstacles interposed in the
0. tnhdFeo
ursoemtt tol et mh een'.
carrying oat of this or any similar plan, but the
facts here adduced speak for themselves, and call
aloud for redress. The present system is
unfair and cruel to the women and children, while
it really imposes a heavy burden on the State.
It is not in accordance with the principles of poli-
fitaibtctlaiylugfer cot ombnaotwmsayon ,
want,
many : a
anndd nde
iebsi
children
andserer do
e no
occasioned
it
iuol seemnd
e perish
byright
y wa:
want,
et : oor :-
grow up to become thieves or dissolute characters.
Those who do not agree with Mr. GILBERT'S sug-
gestion will nevertheless accord their recognition of
the necessity of some means being devised to remedy
this evil, and to ameliorate the condition of those
who seem set apart by the rules of society to become
thieves nolens volens. To take these outcasts at
home to a country where employment is certain,
I old associations removed, and a new life put before
them, is surely
a safe means of remedy, and one
that, though not certain to succeed, may in all
human probability do so. Mr. GILBERT has a right
to speak, for he has seen the miserable results and
pernicious consequences of the present system, and
therefore he has essayed to find a remedy for the
glaring evils that are so constantly brought under
his notice. It is highly requisite that the Legisla-
ture should do something about this anomalous
condition of so many women and children. At
present the seeds of vice are sown broadcast among
the community, and nothing but evil consequences
ensue therefrom. It cannot be impossible to pre-
vent all this misery, crime, and death, end no diffi.-
cultios that are in the way should be allowed to be
insuperable.

The Late Marshal Oudinot.

Almost immediately after the death of the late
Marshal Oudinot, Duc de Reggio, was announced
in the journals of Europe, our chief contemporary
put forth a very extraordinary statement in regard
to that illustrious soldier. According to this re
markable statement of the 2imes, it was asserted

quite confidently that the Dec de Reggio deplored
up to the moment of his death, as (it was said also)
he had in point fact for some years previously, the
work of restoration accomplished by him at. Rome
in 1849. The announcement of these as the dying
opinions of Marshal Oudinot, was acnmpanied,
however, by a point blank declaration that the
deceased had breathed his last after having refused
all the consolations of religion.
In distinct and positive contradiction to each and
all of these most singular, and (as will be immedi-
ately apparent) these wholly unjustifiable state-
ments, we are authorised by the Family of Marshal
Oudinot to pronounce the assertions thus set forth
by the limes in respect to that distinguished sol-
dier, to be utterly without one particle of foundation.
This emphatic contradiction we hasten, therefore,
to publish in the plainest terms possible, and, in the
interests of truth, we are desirous that it should be
at once frankly accepted as a contradiction com-
plete and unreserved.
As we write this, there is now lying open before
us an affecting communication, penned as recently
as the 9th of this present month of August, by the
nearest surviving relative of the deceased Marshal,
namely, his own eldest son, the present Duo de
Reggio. And it is upon no less an authority than this,
that we herewith declare to be utterly groundless
the declaration that Marshal Oudinot either re-
gretted his feat of arms in 1849, or that he expired
but a little more than a month since, after having
refused to receive the consolations of religion.
While enabling us to
give this explicit denial to
each of those statements, the present Duke de
Reggio, in the course of the letter already referred
to, as lying before us while we are writing, remarks in
regard to the deceased, that there is not one of those
who have approached him since 1849, who will not
revolt from assertions so entirely contrary to truth.
" My excellent father," says the n3w Duc de Reggio,
" was happy and proud of the services he had
rendered to the church. This he avowed every
day. Every successive year he wrote to the
Sovereign Pontiff, He associated himself in heart,
in spirit, in words,
with the vivacity one might
almost say of youth, with the efforts adventured
upon in France and elsewhere far the defence of the
rights and of the authority of the apostolic see"—
and so forth.

[Mon excellent pare etait heureux et fier des services
qu'il avail rendus i l'Eglise ; et it le disait chaque jour;
it
l'ecrivait chaque annee au Souverrin Pontife s'associait
de cosur, d'esprit, de paroles,avec ute vivacite toute juvenile,
aux efforts tenter en France et an cure pour la defense des
droits et de l'autorite du Siege Appstolique, Sc.]
In signal corroboration, however, of these all-
sufficient assertions of Marshal Oudinot's son, the
present Due de Reggio, therecome tons simultane-
ously with the letter froti which the above
passage is transcribed, documentary evidences, of
themselves quite unanawerible. An interesting
report in the weekly journal, the Correspondence
de Home, under date,.Saturlay, the 29th of July,
gives, in all its details, a description of the funeral
ceremonies performed, by order of the Sovereign
Pontiff', on the previous day—that is, the 18th ult.
—in the Church of Santa Andre della Valle, for the
repose of the soul of the deceased Marshal Victor
Oudinot,
Due de Reggio. According to the
narrative in the Correspondence de Borne, this
solemn funeral service was
performed with all
imaginable pomp and ceremony It commenced at
10 o'clock in the morning' His Holiness was
represented by his Excellency Monsignor Pam,
seated upon the right hand of the choir, together
with Mgr. de Merode, Mgr. Talbot, and Mgr. Ne-
grotto, Cammerteri Segratti, and officials of the
Pontiff's anti-chamber. Near these prelates was
plac©d the Prince do Viano, Commandant of the
Noble Guard, as well as the superior officers of the
said guard, and those also of the picturesque Swiss
Guard. To the left was his Excellency the Senator
of Rome, surrounded by a crowd of officials,
there assembled together to pay the last tribute of
respect to the departed noble—who, it should be
remarked, by the way, was not only a French peer
and a marshal of the empire, but a Roman
Patrician as well. Oudinot's name having been
formally incribed, as a mark of peculiar honour,
upon the Golden Book, sacred to the names of the
patricians of the Eternal City. Near the fore-
going also were his Excellency the Commander-
in-Chief of the Army of Occupation, together with
a brilliant staff
—besides the General of Brigade
Micheler, the Pontifical Generals Kalbermatteu,
Braschi, Zappi, and many other officers of both

armies.
Monsignor Marinelli, Bishop of Porphyre and
Sacristan of his Holiness, officiated pontifically at
the high mass, and at the close of it gave the solemn
asperging at the catafalque. Other particulars,
indicative of the unusual character of the solemni-
ties, solemnities,
be it remembered, ordered
lengthen out the description
by the Pope),
beyond the limits here afforded by our columns,
this afternoon, for quotation. We pass by the
rest of these particulars, therefore, reluctantly, con-
tenting ourselves with giving here but one additional
piece of documentary evidence, one, however, that
must be accepted as, of itself, perfectly conclusive in
reference to the opinions and sentiments cherished
up to the last moment of his existence by Victor
gsh letter, te being no
by his Holiness, other than the sub-
joined addressed
Marshal Oudinot, Due de Reggio. The document
herewith i
at
ffh
epeut
ibnli
as recently as the 29th ult., to the deceased Mar-
ahal's
:sol and successor, the present Duo de
Reggio