The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMEs.—If our readers would like to contemplate
a pleasant picture of happiness and prosperity, we
recommend them to the speeches of Sir Charles
Wood and Mr. Roebuck at the Sheffield Cutlers'
Feast. It was certainly a happy regulation which
prevented the speakers from referring to party poli-
tics, and led them to reflections on the general state
of the country. Drawn off by this means from par-
ticular grievances, and compelled to contemplate the
general features of our condition, every one was
carried away into expressions of enthusiastic con-
tentment. The dullness, if not inactivity, of the
late Session of Parliament seemed only an argument
that there was very little to do; that the interests
and institutions of the country had been placed by
the exertions of the last few years in such a healthy
and natural condition that they merely required to
be left free to their unfettered development ; and
that Ministers of both parties were now so equally
able and energetic that it did not much matter
which party was in power. And when Sir Charles
Wood was led on to reflect that this comparative
equality In successive Administrations arose from
their being all more or less controlled by the supe-
rior power of public opinion, " aided and enlight-
ened," and—we must add—expressed by the press,
he found it impossible, in the face of the prosperity
he was witnessing, to view the new power with any
jealousy. It was in itself a subject for congratulie
tion that the Secretary of State for India should be
able to speak in terms of satisfaction and hope of
the prospects of that hitherto unmanageable, or un-
managed, dependency. The gloom which had fallen
on " the sister country" was the only piece of
shadow in the picture. Wherever else our eyes were
directed, at home or in our vast dependency, nothing
but prosperity and contentment met the view of the
speaker. Nor can it be said that there was anything
exaggerated in the brightness of the picture. The
Master Cutler, we are sure, gave his guests a very
good dinner, and they were, no doubt, the more
disposed to take a bright view of things in general
by their own sense of internal satisfaction. But the
dinner did not disturb their mental digestion, and
their reflections were perfectly sober. It is as true,
as it is gratifying, that the trade of the country as a
whole was never more prosperous ; that we have
solved the most (Moult problems of government
at home, and are fast solving them in In-lia. To
illustrate and demonstrate the argument it was
only necessary for Mr. Roebuck to compare our
condition with that of almost any other country
in the world. Mr. Roebuck's admiration for the
Emperor Napoleon did not prevent his pointing out
the absence of freedom in France. The Germans
are still Struggling to effect a unity in their Father-
land which we have lone ago attained. Austria
"is in the very throes of establishing a Constitu-
tion," while we have enjoyed an equable and a
strong one for more than a century and a half.
Prussia is still suffering from the caprices and ob-
stinacy of Divine right, a malady which we passed
through safely a hundred and fifty years ag-). Rus-
sia, bleeding with a great revolution, and America,
torn to pieces with civil war, and breaking up in
anarchy, despotism, and blood, completed the dark
background, and loft the eye resting in relieved
contentment on the quiet and brightness of the
immediate and present foreground. We live, indeed,
it sometimes seems, in a sort of "happy isle," far
from the confusion, the clamour, and the darkness
of the Old and New Worlds. But, though it is wise
and useful occasionally to encourage our exertions
and enhance our contentment by these pleasant re-
flections, they ought to be balanced by a caution.
It will not do to talk or think as if the happiness of
this country had come by fate or chance, or as if
prosperity were tied to our chariot-wheels. We are
blessed, indeed, with almost every physical as with
every moral and intellectual advantage which can
give the means of wealth and insure the attainment
of happiness. But, though we are less liable to
the dangers which threaten other people's pros-
perity, we are not secure from them. We cannot
depend on our commerce being always self-support-
ing, our manufactures always vigorous, or our lands
always productive, We do not refer to any prospect
of failure in our trade or of blight in the produc-
tions of the earth. The operations of nature are
uniform on the whole. There is the same balance
in the productions of the earth which philosophers
are constantly tracing in the amount of force
always in play, in the fall of rain, the change of
seasons, and the apparent confusion of the atmos-
phere. Now that our trade is free to adapt itself to
the varying operations of nature, we need have no
fear but that a deficiency in one direction will
always be balanced sooner or later by a correspond-
ing increase in another. If no artificial disturbances
interfered with the ordinary play of natural causes
we might give ourselves up to the healthy work
and the enthusiastic enjoyment of the present, care-
less of the future and unconcerned for our own or
our children's safety.
HERALD.—Mr. Seward has attempted to enlist
the sympathies of Europe on the side of the
Northern States in the American civil war. He
undertakes to convince our statesmen that the
North has gained such great advantages over its
enemy during the past year that it will be impos-
sible for the South to continue the strife much
longer. We may therefore look forward at some
distant period to a reconstruction of the Union and
a settled state of things. Peace in America is
understood to be the wish of Europe, which has
suffered much, and may suffer much yet, from this
deplorable war. If we wish to hasten this peace we
have only to refuse our sympathy and withdraw
our support from the South. If we leave the two
sections of the late Union alone, they will speedily
contrive, says Mr. Seward,
to " arrange their
domestic controversies," Now we need n t pause
to argue that this presumption that the Northa'e is
able to subdue the South is founded on falsel pre-
mises, or at all events on insufficient data. v e need
not point out what mustco bueotbviousto every one,
a conquest that supposing such possible, the recon-
struetion of the Union on its old base does not
necessarily follow, All this has been so often
' reiterated that we will say no more about it just at
present. What we would ask is this—What right.
has this Secretary to assume that the Governments
of Europe are so deaf to every claim of justice and
morality as to measure all national quarrels by the
rule of their private interests, or to give their
countenance only to the successful side ? If we
believe the South to be in the right ; if, from the
commencement of the struggle, we have sympathised
with the South, can our judgment be altered by the
issue of a hundred battles, or our sympathy be sup-
posed to wane with the declining fortunes of the
cause ? We wish for peace it is true ; but we
loathe the very thought of the peace which Mr.
Seward anticipates. To exterminate the Southern
men, to ruin the southern commerce, to make a
desert of the Southern land, this would be doubt-
less to make an end of the war. Kind words do but
little for a people in such extremity, but if any sym-
pathy of ours could avert such a catastrophe, it is
not to be supposed that we should refuse it. We
wish all success to the South, and confusion to its
enemies—the triumph of a people that is doing
battle for tho rights which it inherits from its

brave encestore, the overthrow of a reckless fac-
tion that would trample on those rights and abro- I
gate the liberties of America. Tois is the only
issue of the war that honest and generous men in
France and England can anticipate without alarm.
Mr. Seward will never peremade them to desire any
other. The apologist of Mr. Lincoln would reply
to all that is said about the rights of the case by
affirming that the Southern movement was a rebel-
lion against constituted authority which it behoved
the Government of the United States to repress by
all the means in its power. Disdaining, however,
to discuss this question, as being irrevalent just
now, he makes au appeal to the interests of France
and England, which he thinks should induce them
to look for the success of the North as the only
prospect of peace. On this ground, too, we are
ready to meet him. It is curious that a pamphlet
has appeared in Paris almost at the moment of the
publication of his letter, which gives the coup de
grace to his argument as fir as France is concerned.
brochure on " France, Mexico, and the Confe-
derate States," although it bears no name, is be-
lieved to express the views of the French Court.
The title of the pamphlet points out the line which
it takes. Fiance has made a great conquest in
Mexico, and wishes to establish a durable empire in
the lately distracted southern part of the North
American Continent. Had there never been any
civil war in the States this conquest would, in all
probability, not have been completed without an
armed interference on the part of the American
Government. The reconstruction of the Union,
could it ever take place, would leave the Northern
Government at liberty to carry out its views in
Mexico, and those views are notoriously opposed to
the domination of any European Power. The silly
boast of a former American President is actually
held to be a state maxim at Washington. The so
called " Monroe doctrine" denies the right of any
European Government to acquire territory in
America, and is of course opposed, to a French or
Austrian empire in a country which Americans
have long regarded as their peculiar prey. The
Northerners, as might have been expected,
have fulminated a variety of useless anathe-
mas against the French conquerors and the pro-
ciamation of the Mexican Empire. So long as
the South forms a barrier between them and Mexico
they have no mere power to interfere in the politics
of that country than in those of New Zealand.
Meanwhile the South, for reasons which it is not
d!fficult to understand, is disposed to hail the French
conquest, and to give a warm welcome to the sol-
diers with whom it would willingly establish
still closer relations. Their position in Mexico,
and their common feeling of antagonism towards the
North as far as regards affairs in America, give the
French an additional motive foesympathising with
the South. Even before the Mexican conquest
seemed probable the French Government had been
strongly disposed to recognition and even to an
alliance with the South. This disposition is now
so far strengthened that the civil war between the
States seems likely ere long to enter into a new
phase, and to receive a solution somewhat different
from that so confidently predicted by Mr. Lincoln's
Secretary of State. The writer of the pamphlet to
which we have alluded urges the immediate recog-
nition of the Confederate States by France. An
active alliance with the South is more than hinted
at. The other European States will follow the ex-
ample of France. The American question must
then be " thoroughly settled." "The Northern
States will no longer persevere in a hopeless
struggle, and the war navy of France is an argu-
ment which, if need be, would effectually support
the work of her diplomacy." The Great Powers
of Europe have too long been the listless spectators
of this deplorable civil contest. We be'ieve, and
we think most men in France and England agree
with us, that the time has now come when they
have a right to make their voice heard in the settle-
ment of American affairs. It will do much credit
to the sagacity of the Emperor of the French if it
should appear that he is alive to the advantage of
being the first to do the right thing—the first to
claim the friendship and alliance of a people that
will have abundant opportunity to prove its gratitude
We shall regret that our own country was not the
foremost in the expression of a generous regard for a
people that far more than its Northern foe is allied
to us in blood and feeling. It cannot be denied that
our interests pointed all in that direction, In the
South is a supply of what we want—a market for
what we sell. The South would pour its cotton into
our ports, and receive our manufactures without
pro, ibitary tariffs. England and the South are
:nude to be mutually assistant, mutually dependent.
There is nothing but jealousy and ill-blood between
us and the North, while the South, for all our cold
treatment, looks upon us as friends and brethren.
We have thrown away a magnificent opportunity,
and spurned an alliance which would have been so
great a gain on both sides. If the Emperor Napo-
leon should step in to accept this alliance, and avail
himself of all the privileges to which the first corner
has the best claim, we cannot possibly find hull(
with him, as we have only ourselves to blame for it.
POST.—Of reports presented by order to either of
the departments of Government, and circulated in
the form of blue books, or other State printed papers,
few have been impressed with features of so much
general interest as those affecting the conditions of
public health. This is a matter that touches the self-
interest of everybody. It is one in respect of which
the statement may be confidently made that the
more we study it the more do we become enthralled.
Fear and hope, the two most powerful human influ-
ences, become awakened; fear of violating conditions
proclaimed by experience as necessary in the ma-
jority of cases to health preservation, and hope that
by heeding admonitions, and, acting in accordance
with their promptings, we may escape the evils
which adoption of the opposite course might have
probably induced. Apart from the intrinsic popu-
larity of this class of subjects, however, much of the
public appreciation they have secured is due to
the well-reasoned and concise manner in which
the health officer, Mr. Simon, has year after year
drawn up his sanitary bulletins. The last of these
documents, just issued for the use of the Privy
Council, possesses even more interest than most of
those antecedent, because of the prominence it gives
to the result of eating diseased animal food. The
facts stated are not new ; in which, indeed, consists
much of their value. Physiologists have long been
cognisant of them ; indeed, the professional revela-
tions made relative to that section of them which
concerns the development and dissemination of
entozoa, or internal parasites, must be numbered
amongst the most interesting, as well as the best
attested, in the entire range of comparative anatomy
and physiology. The public interest of Mr. Simon's
attestation consists in this : Quitting domains
strictly professional, he brings the topic of entozoic
development practically home to each and every
one of us. To epitomise the subject in a few words,
the case stands thus; Life and death are not condi-
tions so obviously distinct as people are wont to
imagine. The Abyssinian, as Bruce, the traveller,
recorded long ago, procures a rump-steak in a dis-
gusting and—humanity considered—a most repre-
hensible fashion. With a sharp knife he cuts out
a steak from the living animal, and eats it raw.
As to the sentiment of the thing there can be only
one opinion—the custom, is horribly repulsive. But
—sentiment apart and the objection of cruelty dis-
posed of—is there any other objection to the Abys-
sinian custom ? Yes ; nature revolted vindicates
her decencies. The Abyssinian steak, dead so to
speak quoad bovine life, holds nevertheless, if not
always, yet in many cases, living germs so exceed-
ingly small that not even the microscope could
reveal them. Ingested, however, they reveal their
presence soon enough—tapeworm being the conse-
quence. No known people on the face of the earth
are so affected as the Abyssinians with this deadly
parasite, so that were it not for the circumstance that
every efficient remedy, koufsoo, grows in Abyssinia,
and is plentifully used, it seems as though the
whole race of Abyssinians would be swept away.
Pursuing the topic, it is well known to physiolo-
gists that animated germs of size inconceivable
small may be present in thousands of cases when at
little suspect them. They may find their way into
the system through water drunk and fruit and
salads eaten rag ; but animal food is the vehicle of
ingestion in which they are chiefly to be appre-
hended. It is a peculiarity of certain of these ani-
mated germs that in some cases they assume one
form of entozoic development, in others another ;
the resuA partly depending on the species of animal
that has ingested them, and partly on the specific
organism in which they may have found their final
lodgment. Thus a microscopic threadworm, known
as the trichina spiralis, infests the muscular or
fleshy parts of animals ; and, according to the
authority of Mr. Gamgee, quoted by Mr. Simon, it
hes been discovered quite recently that the presence
of this worm may bring the muscular flesh of swine
into such a state that a small portion eaten raw will
suffice to destroy life. The same authority—Mr.
Garrigee—expresses his belief that there are between
forty and fifty thousand measly pigs in Ireland,
most of which come to Great Britain for consump-
tion ; and his impression is, that for every measly
pig in the hingdom there is at least one human
being afflicted with tape-worm. The general facts
to which the specific observations just noticed refer
are, we repeat, not new ; hence their greater signi-
ficance. They admonish each and every one of ns
to aid in whatever way may be possible the giving
effect to the supervision of officers of public health.
To sum up the main facts known as the laws of
entozoic presence and development, it seems, firstly,
kaendr.vhere, every-
Ntvhhaet
rteh;e
hnuotx ithatou noxious
igue
animals
msnimilasymba er
y afflicted with
certain characteristic diseases they attain their
maximum; that sufficient application of culinary
heat wilt certainly destroy them ; but so many fil-
th° sufheieney of heat is
stances occur in which

:i~a~c~+:~is~

neither applied nor applicabli?, a 8 to tilatetla;,.y
lessen the confidence which might be placed in this
preventive; that finally, sentiment apart, mere
considerations of health regarded, known forms of
food in which these germs abound should be shunned
as being so much poison. Here at this point We
might expatiate on the grouse disease, always
accompanied as it is, most probably mused, by
p'rasatic entozoa—tape-worms, in point of fact.
e 'ive stated enough, however, for the occasion.
Every one concerned—and who is not ?—may apply
the facts mentioned to his own particular case.

COUNTRY MARKETS.


LIVERPOOL-FRIDAy.

At this da's market there was a quick sale for good red
American wheat, which closed fully 2d to 3d per cents'
dearer than the extreme rates of Tuesday. White wheat
unaltered in value. New oats arrive slowly ; old were more
saleable. Barley, beans, and peas all brought full prices•
Indian corn in good request. Flour quiet.