The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-13 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, July 31.
The conscription is to be enforced in the city as
well as throughout the State of New York. In New

Jersey the Governor has made an attempt to render
it unnecessary by resorting to the old system of
voluntary enlistments and high bounties—but his
success is problematical. In New York the system
has been twice tried, the last time unsuccessfully,
and is even now in operation without perceptible
results. And as the Government has actually put the
whole machinery of the law into motion throughout
the New England States, it is compelled, by regard
for its own dignity, not to be, or seem to be, turned
from its purpose in the principal city of the Union
by the dictation of the mob. Consequently, it is ex.
petted, after g futile attempt on the part of the State

authorities to raise the quota required under the Act,
that the draught will be ordered to recommence.

The Republican prints loudly proclaim the fact, and
urge upon the Government the utmost rigour as
well as vigour in carrying out the law. Apprehen-

sive or disturbance, or, as many affirm, anxious to

provoke it, the Administration has sent either three
or four gunboats to the North and East rivers, so as,
in case of need, to command any of the lateral streets

of the city in which disturbances may break out;
and poured into the. neighbourhood all the Federal
troops it can spare from other service. The emigrants
from the Old World, who in continually increasing
numbers arrive in the New, no sooner land at Castle

Garden than they see before them all the means,

appliances, and paraphernalia of war. The green-
sward of the Battery, where Castle Garden stands,

is covered with the white tents of the soldiery

There are 12 pieces of artillery on the ground ; the
lean, scraggy steeds of a whole regiment of cavalry
are tethered to a rope, ready for immediate service;
and two regiments of infantry bivouac on the
square. Should Charleston ever be occupied by a
Federal force, it will scarcely present an appear-
ance more like that of a captured city than that
which the lower part of New York presents at this
moment. The sentinels pace to an fro, and allow
no one to penetrate their lines, turning the nursery
maids and children and the usual stream of pedes-
trians out of their precincts, with a brutal insolence
of speech and demeanour that bespeaks the rowdy

" rowdyism" in.
class from which they sprang—a

tensified and aggravated by their war training,
and that does not promise, in case of collision be-
tween troops and people, any such fraternisation
of the military with the insurgents as the world has
so often seen in the street revolutions of Paris and
other European cities. The design of the Admi-
nistration to override local authority is glaring.
Disappointed in Gen. Wood, who was too honest,
and in General Harvey Brown, who was too indis-

creet to play into its hands, it will doubtless find
some strong and unscrupulous military tyrant who
will take advantage of the first symptoms of riot or
insurrection to declare the city under martial law.

The object is openly avowed by all the " shoddy"
contractors, negrophilists, war " Christians,"
doctrinaires, emancipationists, and zealots who
usually support the Government. The favourite
candidate for the office is General Butler. And as
it is highly probable, if he should accept it, that he
will irreparably ruin his present fair prospects for
the Presidency, Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Stanton, and all
the other Presidential candidates in the Cabinet,
may not only see no objections to his appointment,
but may gladly give him the chance to serve their
Purposes, and damage his own reputation by one
and the same process.
Persons whose houses, shops, and other property
were destroyed during the late riots have sent in

claims of compensation to the amount of 451,266 dols.,
ear
ciovmalpeanrte,datwtihtehpgreosledn,ttdoepabreocuitatl7o,ooo sterling.on of greenbacks
But the list is far from complete. The negro claims
have not been investigated ; and the stage and om-
nibus companies whose traffic was stopped for four
days intend to demand compensation for the whole
amount of the earnings which they did not receive,
in consequence, as they allege, of the failure of the
municipal authorities to keep the peace. The claim,
it appears, will be resisted for the reason that, it

allowed, the fashionable jewellers, haberdashers,
and other retail traders of Broadway, who were
compelled during the same interval to close their
establishments, might, with as good a plea of equity,
demand compensation for their lost custom. The
operations of the draught, when resumed, will have
to be carried on in booths or hustings in the open air,
it having been found impossible to hire premises for
the purpose in any part of the town; so fearful are
property-holders and occupants that new scenes of
incendiarism and pillage will be the result of any
attempt to make men soldiers against their will.
The conseription—en,foreed or unenforced—
threatens to be the test question of the war. If un-
enforced, Mr. Lincoln and his party will be defeated
in the field for want of soldiers, and in the Council
for want of that popular support without which no
Government can live, least of all a Government
that expires like the Parliaments of England by the
operation of the law that brought it into being. If
enforced, the chances are that it will provoke civil
strife in all the States where the Democratic party
is in the majority, and that it will be so extensively
evaded in the States where the Republicans are in
the ascendant as to become virtually a nullity. In
New England, where it has not been contested with
violence es in New York
prudent andand the North-Weet, the
"canny" People seem to have discovered
that there are other and better means of avoiding
unpalatable military service than by taking up arms
in the streets, plundering shops, burning down
orphan asylums, and hanging inoffensive negroes.
Persuasion being better than force in their estima-
tion, they have resolved to persuade the medical
gentlemen of their villages,
towns, and cities to tes-
tify to their physical incapacity
to perform military
duty. According to a Connecticut journal, the
Hartford Times, the exemptions by surgeon's cer-
tificate of draughted men since the commencement
of the draught in New England amount to the
enormous proportion of 73 per cent. The amount
of fee given for this service is variously estimated.
If a man be very poor—and the surgeon also—a
glass of whisky is sufficient honorarium to offer and
accept. But as a general rule the price varies with
the worldly circumstances of the person "who will
not be a soldier," and ranges from 1 to 20 dols. The
would-be exempt is stripped, and if the surgeon finds
a greenback between the man's toes, under his arm-
pit, behind his ear, between his teeth, or elsewhere,
the matter becomes as clear to his capacity as it was
previously to that of him who does not wish to risk
his life for his country, and the business is settled to
the mutual satisfaction of doctor and patient. But
the dishonesty does not answer its purpose, the
Government having resolved to treat all such cer-
tificates as of no avail, and to admit of no exemp-
tions but such as are signed by its own appointed
army surgeons. The figures prove, nevertheless,
how little real heart there is in the war, even in
In one of the municipal districts of
New England.
the city of Boston, out of 1,135 conscripts submitted
to examination last week, 937 were exempted,
either on the ground of
foreign citizenship, phyei-
or error in the enrolling lists, which
cal incapacity,
included boys under 18 and men over 45 years of
age. Another batch of 70 paid 300 dols. each as
provided substitutes ; and
the exemption fine ; 108
exemption, and too poor to
ten, being too strong for
were compelled to do duty, pay for substitutes, or
suffer the penalty decreed against desertion. Nor
do these numbers, unfavourable as they appear to
the Government ia iLs hour of need, convey the
whole extent of the evil. A regular business of
"substitution" has been organised throughout New