The Sun.
London, England, 1863-05-15 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, May 1.

General Joseph Hooker—the man who, accord-
ing to his own report of himself, never made a mis-
take in war—whose military judgment i 9 as in fel
lible as the theological interpretation of the sacee,-
sors of St. Peter—who could have taken the Confe-
derate capital when :\I'Do well, Al‘Ciellan, Pope, and
Burnside all miserably failed, and who on his own
showing is the greatest warrior the world has ever
seen—has crossed the Rappahannock on the way to
Richmond. If he arrives there in any other charac-
ter than that of a prisoner of war, the world will be
compelled to admit that his proud self-assertion was
but the self-knowledge of genius, and that the
Federal Government has at last found a captain
worthy of the more than Herculean task which
that Government has to perform. But if he be foiled
by superior skill or bravery—defeated by the ele-
ments, or fatally impeded by unforeseen accidents
and contingencies—or if, at the most, he achieve to
greater results than a drawn battle, leaving the
possession of Richmond as remote and forlorn a
hope as it has been at any time within last
twelvemonth—the world will in like manner be
compelled to admit that his courage was but rash-
ness, his criticism of others but presumptuous
folly, and his faith in himself but arrogance and
conceit of the most stupendous and offensive cha-
racter. A few days will show the stuff he is made
of. If he capture Richmond he will make himself
the greatest man in America. If he fail, the best
fate his friends can wish for him will be a soldier's
death at the head of his army on the field of battle.
The conduct of the War Department in prohibit-
ing the transmission by telegraph of any information
whatever respecting the movements of the army is
severely commented upon. It is known that Gen.
Hooker has crossed the river, and more than sus-
pected that a great battle has either been fought or
is at this moment in progress ; but the Government
would not so much as permit the mere fact of his ad-
vance to be telegraphed to Halifax yesterday to
meet the Arabia at that port. Nothing can be more
imbecile than such conduct. At the most it only
succeds in keeping Europe and America in ignor-
ance for two or three days, though it is suggested
by those amiable cynics whose maxim it is, " if you
do not know the truth of a thing you ought to
believe the worst," that the information is only
withheld from the public to enable a few friendly
speculators in Europe and America to make money
on the Stock Exchange by knowledge privately
communicated to them. Certainly no wise Govern-
ment would act in this manner, whatever be the
motives which animate it. In this instance the
public do believe the worst. They think that if
there were good news it would be speedily promul-
gated, and that whether the news be good or bad it
is jobbed in Wall-street by people in the secret.
Yesterday being the Fast day appointed by Mr.
Lincoln for observance throughout all the States
still pertaining to the Union, the people of this city
fasted and humbled themselves in the manner usual
in modern times, both in Protestant and Roman
Catholic countries, by shutting up their shops,
stoles, warehouses, and offices, and devoting them-
selves to recreation and hospitality. The churches
were but moderately filled with devotees ; the Aboli-
tionist clergy for once refrained from cursing their
Southern enemies and advocating their extermina-
tion ; the streets swarmed with pleasure seekers ;
the beautiful Central Park, bursting out into the
full loveliness of early spring, was crowded with
equipages, as well as with equestrians and pedes-
trians; the ladies gushed out in a magnificence of
attire only seen in the drawing rooms and ballrooms
of other countries, but which in this it seems to be
considered good taste to display in the public
thoroughfares ; the theatres were crammed to suffo-
cation, and the lagerbier saloons and all the other
drinking places with which this money-making, im-
pulsive, and rejoicing capital abounds concentrated
into the space of one evening the ordinary business
of a week. Thus did New York humble itself before
the Almighty,in compliance with the wish expressed
in Mr. Lincoln's proclamation. Thus did one por-
tion of the pious American people confess, in the
words of the President, " their sins and transgres-
sions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that
genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon;"
and thus did they " recognise the sublime truth an-
nounced in the Holy Scriptures, and proved by all
history, that those nations only are blessed whose
God is the Lord." Perhaps among the Puri
tans of Ne w England the day was observed in a
manner more in accordance with the repentant
humility that ought to have filled the hearts of a
Christian population, if the Fast were not intended
for a Feast ; but certainly throughout this city, as
fur as outward show was concerned, the occasion
was one of undisguished merriment and sensual
gratification. The old pride that Mr. Lincoln re•
buked in the proclamation by which the Fast was
appointed seemed as rampant as ever. " We have
forgotten God," said the President; " we have for-
gotten the gracious hand which preserved us in
peace, and multiplied, enriched, and strengthened
us, and have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness
of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced
by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.
Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become
too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming
and preserving grace—too proud to pray to the
God who made us." Had Mr. Lincoln written these
words after a stroll incognita through the streets of
New York yesterday and last night, he would have
truly described the spirit of his people, and perhaps,
being a philosopher, might have found reason to
believe that the Fast was a farce, end that New
York, which thrives so vigorously upon a war ex-
penditure, is not likely to feel the contrition which
he recommends until the misery of war has been
brought to its own door, and the horrors inflicted by
its fleets and armies on the cities of the South shall
become matters of personal experience to the gay,
busy, and thoughtless crowd which has grown or
is growing rich on the misery of the nation.
For the last three days the " returning brave" of
the Army of the Potomac, so urgently needed on the
battlefields of Virginia, have run riot in the streets
of this city. The 7th and Bth Regiments of New
York Volunteers, mostly, if not entirely, composed
of Germans, and forming part of the too notorious
command of General Blenker, arrived on Tuesday,
having completed their term of service, and posi-
tively refused to renew it, whatever inducements of
indulgence and bounty money might be offered to
them. They were received with shouts of welcome
by the Teutonic population and all the floating crowds
of the city. They expressed great dissatisfaction at
the slight put upon them by the War Department,
which deprived them of their arms before they were
permitted to leave Washington. The Nett) York
Times states that this act on the part of the autho-
rities " was mean and discreditable; one of those
stupid and uncccountable blunders which no roan of
sense ever falls into, and which proves its instiga-
tors to be ignorant of human nature and reckless of
the soldiers' feelings." Had the New York
Times
recollected that these were the heroes whose rob-
beries of cow yards and hen roasts, insults to womem
and wanton destruction of property scindalieed the
whole country a few months ago, and compelled the
Government, for the sake of public decency, to de-
prive
of his command the General who permitted
if he did not encuurage them, it might have saved
its ire fur a nobler purpose. Anyone who saw those
same heroes in the" Bowery" and contiguous streets
in the evening, reeling about in a state of furious
drunkenness, would have Praised instead of blamed
the prescience of the Government that
minimised
their powers of mischief, and sent them home with-
out firearms Yesterday Several other detachments

of Irish and Americans arrived, who were received
with the same exuberant welcome from the people.
It is expected that within a firtnight no fewer than
38 New York regiments will have returned—men
inured to war, whom Gen. Hooker and the Govern•
mere can ill spare, hut who obstinately refuse to re-
enlit under commanders in whom they have ll°
confidence and for a cause which they have ceased
to approve.
A number of the strong-minded young women and
Ted spinsters, together with a sprinkling of the
ftmale doctors, lecturers, and preachers for whom
New England is famous, have formed themselves
into a "Loyal Le%gue," the objects of which are to
discourage shopping at millinery, mercery, and
other establishments, the proprietors of which do
not thoroughly approve the war and Mr. Lincoln's
policy ; and to cease all social intercourse with gen-
tlemen and ladies who so far sympathise with the
Southern people as to think that eight millions of
them ought not to be exterminated for the sake of
giving immediate and unconditional freedom to four
millions of negroes. It is probable that the real
gentlemen and ladies of New England will not
grieve overmuch at exclusion from the tea-tables of
such vulgar Xantippes, and equally possible that
the prosperous traders of the cities of New England
may not suffer much pecuniary loss for want of the
custom of people who are probably as poor in purse
as they are in charity. The movement is of no fur-
ther importance than to show how much more
odious a civil war is than any other, and what an
evil influence it exercises upon the minds of that
gentle sex whose privilege it is, and whose pleasure
it should be, to allay violent and bloodthirsty pas-
sions rather than excite them. Another kind of

" league," formed by the women of New England,
deserves as much praise as this deserves reproba-
tion. Having heard that the soldiers in camp are
liable to scurvy and other cutaneous diseases, for
want of an adequate supply of fresh vegetables, and
especially of onions, some kind-hearted rather than
strong-minded women have formed themselves into
an " Onion League," the main objects of which are
to promote the growth of onions, and to forward
them free of charge for the use of the soldiers in all
the armies of the Republic. Such patriotism may
be homely, but it is true. Better the humblest
sister of an " Onion League" than a whole wilder-
ness of female ranters like Miss Dickenson; for
the same reason that one Florence Night-
ingale in the hospitals of the Crimea recommends
herself more heartily to the love and good-
will of all mankind than 50 regiments of viragoes,
unsexed, unnatural, and consequently disagreeable.
Frederick Douglass, the negro orator, and beyond
all comparison the most able man of his colour in
America, lectured in Dr. Cheever's church, on Wed-
nesday, to a large audience, of whom three-fourths
were whites, on the " Present and Future Prospects
of the Coloured Race" in this country. He took
high ground on behalf of his people, and asserted
that nothing but civil and political equality, and
the full enjoyment of all the rights, privileges, and
immunities of any other portion of the community
would satisfy the negro race either during or after
the war. He said nothing about social equality,
being a man of too much good sense to moot the
point among a people whose whole course of public
and private life is a protest against it whenever it
becomes a question of a man or woman with the
smallest portion of black blood in his or her veins.
Ho said it had been charged that the negro in a
state of freedom would die out, like the red race,
before the onward progress of the white man ; " but
he opined if slavery had failed to kill him, ho would
not be exterminated by liberty." Herein Mr.
Douglass mistook both the fact and the argument.
It is asserted and proved that in the free North,
principally from climatic and partly from social
causes, the annual number of negro births is ex-
ceeded by the number of deaths ; and that, con-
sequently, the race is surely, though it may be
slowly, in process of extinotion. It is not asserted
that either in a state of slavery or of freedom
in the South—where the climate is highly con-
genial to their increase—the negroes would die out.
The idea is that they would be driven out, or exter-
minated as the red men have been, if there were no
means of cempelling them to labour upon the soil.
This idea is not only entertained by the Southern
slave-Owners, but by the President of the United
States, who sees no hope for free negroes anywhere
within the boundaries of the late United States, and
thinks the best thing that can be done for the whole
black population is to transport it back to its native
Africa, or drive it down into Central America. Mr.
Douglass may be excused for thinking differently,
but it is not the negroes, but the white men, who
will decide the great question of the destiny of
these people, so useful in the South—so hated, des-
pised, and oppressed in the West and the North.
So difficult is the question that even the Govern-
ment of Mr. Lincoln, which has declared itself in
favour of the freedom of the race, has unexpectedly
found itself acting the part of the slave-owner,
without those guarantees for kind treatment which
the personal relations of the master to his slave
inspire and perpetuate. Adjutant-General Themes
in Louisiana, finding himself encumbered with too
many negroes, who had freed themselves by the
simple expedient of running away from their mas-
ters, has issued an official order, proposing that the
plantations of rebels seized under the Confiscation
Act shall be leased out to substantial farmers for
the benefit of the Government, and that the Govern-
ment shall supply the lessees with compulsory negro
labour, to be paid for at a certain daily rate. In
other words, he proposes to re-establish " involun-
tary servitude"—the polite Southern euphemism
for slavery—paying a money wage instead of a
wage in kind, as was the Southern custom ; and with
this difference to the disadvantage of the negro that
when he is unable to work he shall no longer be en-
titled to receive any pay. The Tribune, whom none
will accuse of hostility to the Government, or to
any of its agents employed in the difficult task of
giving freedom and sustenance to the slave, de-
nounces the project as nothing but slavery under
a new guise. " Under such a system," it says, " it
is inevitable that the estates will be leased by
speculators, and no amount of care or superinten-
dence by the Government commissioners will be able
to protect the negroes from oppression, cruel treat-
ment, and overwork. Except that punishment by
the lash is forbidden, they will be if possible worse
old
off than on the same plantations under their old
of
masters and in undisguised slavery.
beyond a certain point in his exact o
slaves had the inducement of self in.te:oTehatoendoewatbtuosegso.
eh to supervision
learn
on
the
The lessee is freed from
the terms of his contract, vs
a n ihaiuctehihmi ser etsootureatlcipnoitf; eahinni dsgysinterest is to get all possible
thanwork a i
n year,
the bsibsoorntl
:in:erupt:haus
la-
bourers. Idle stipulations, impossible of enforce-
ment,speculator
such as most of these lessees are likely to be. -What-
will not fetter :n°B9
ever the contract says about humane treatment will
be operative just so far as directmu
and
compulsion make it so, and no further."
its eyes to some
The Northern public has yet
negro question. The war is opening
of the dangers which ignorant philosophers and
malignant philanthropists have so rashly encoun-
tered ; and the negro himself is learning, especially
in the North, that whatever may become of the war
in other respects no good is likely to result to his
unfortunate race—placed between the upper mill
stone of slavery and the nether millstone of free
Pauperism and social degradation.
It may be remembered that the military authori-
ties of Indiana arrested Judge Constable of Illinois,
on the judgment seat, on the charge of having ille-
gally set at liberty some persons brought before
him accused of desertion. Judge Constable, hav-
ing been detained in prison for nearly a month,
succeeded in bringing his case before the Supe-
rior Court of his native State, by whom he wee
ordered to be immediately discharged from
custody. Judge Constable has no redress for the ,

A crowded meeting of the inhabitants of South-
wark was held last evening at Taylor's Deposi-
tory, St. George's-road, for the purpose of petition •
ing Parliament in favour of the independence of
Poland. Mr. John Locke, M.P., one of the
borough members, presided, and was supported
by Mr. P. Ihnnessy, M.P., Sir 11,,nry Hoare, Pro-
CeEsor iiirkb(clr, Dr. Rendle, and tn,st of the
vestrymen and parochial officers. Durir.f.; t;:,
proceedings Prince Czartoryski, Prince Ladis-
lens, General Count Zunoisky, and several
Polish gentlemen, just arrived from Parie, came
upon the platform, and were most enthusiastically

cheered.
The CHAIRMAN expressed the pleasure he felt at
seeing so numerous a meeting of his constituents.
He considered it was the duty of all Englishmen to
support the gallant Poles, and he trusted the people
of England would not rest satisfied with the Go-
vernment until they had compelled Russia to observe
the solemn engagements she had entered into re-
specting Poland, by peaceable means if possible ;
but if not, by all other available means.
Capt. ROGERS moved, and Dr, RENDLE seconded,
the first resolution, declaratory of the right of the
Poles to resist by force of arms the violation of their
just claims by the Russian Government. He thought
diplomacy would never work out the independence
of Poland.
Mr. HENNESSY, M.P., in supporting the resolu-
tion, said he was heartily sick of expressing idle
sympathy with Poland. He desired to see some
practical means taken to help the Poles in their
gallant and gigantic struggle. Diplomacy would
never do this. While they were talking and writ-
ing the Poles were fighting ; and until England and
France were prepared if necessary to send a fleet
into the Baltic and an army to Warsaw, he was
afraid no good would be done. He believed that if
Russia saw the Western Powers were in earnest on
this point, she would, but not till then, withdraw
her unholy grasp from Poland. He looked upon the
Russian notes as so much dust thrown in the eyes
of France and England, and he firmly believed that
the French Emperor was prepared actively to in-
terpose on behalf of Poland—with England if she
would ; if not, without her. (Loud cheers.)
The resolution was carried by acclamation.
Sir IT. HOARE moved the second resolution, call-
ing upon the English Government to acknowledge
the independence of Poland, and support that
independence, if necessary, by force of arms. He
entirely agreed with the spirit of the resolutions.
Mr. SAZELL, a vestryman, seconded the resolution,
which was supported by Mr. Conolly, Professor
Birkbeck, Mr. E. Beales, and other gentlemen, and
carried amidst loud cheers.
A petition to both Houses of Parliament, embody-
ing the principles of the above resolutionssted, was then t
adopted, and the meeting, which manife a mos
warlike spirit, concluded with a vote of thanks to the
chairman.

Alarming Scene at the Royal Pavilion,
Brighton,

On "Wednesday night this building was the
scene of consternation rarely equalled in intensity.
It appears that a crowded audience had assem-
bled in the Music Hall to hear Collins' troupe
of Christy's Minstrels. As soon as the doors
were opened an escape of gas was perceptible. 'ihe
large chandelier of the room was lit up, and none
of the others appeared to be "turned on there-
fore the increase of the peculiar smell common to
gas escapes created a good deal of anxiety amongst
those present. However, people came trooping in
every minute, and only a very few cautious ones
again retired. As the time for the commencement
of the performarce approached, the atmosphere of
the room began to get quite oppressive, and the
waiting audience felt somewhat alarmed. The
officials were hunting about the room seeking to
discover the escape ; but still the seats were kept
and the number of seatholders increased. Just be-
fore eight o'clock a voice was heard from one side
of the room calling that the escape was there. Isa
a few seconds more the crack of a lucifer match was
heard, and a light was seen to be passed along the
wall, about seven or eight feet from the floor. In-
stantly a great batch of flame burst forth, accom-
panied by a report like the discharge of a piece of
ordnance. In another instant a second explosion
of the same kind took place, further along and
higher up the wall, a third and lesser one followed
in the same diagonal track towards the roof, and
then came an explosion far louder and more violent
than those proceeding. This took placo in a
downercornr
of the roof just under the dome, and sent
mass of plaster, woodwork, and broken glass on to
the portion of the room immediately beneath.
Fortunately the heavier portion fell in the space
fronting the platform, and therefore no one was
struck down. Dense volumes of smoke and dust
however poured forth into the room, and either
obscured or extinguished the lights in the large
crystal centre chandelier. The side of the room on
which the explosions took place is next to the lawn,
to which access is given by lofty windows open-
ing to the floor. These ware draped with
damask curtains which caught fire after'
the explosions and added to the terror of the
crowd. The effects of this terror bailie all descrip-
tion. At the first explosion shrieks and cries broke
forth, and a general rush was made towards the
single door by which the audience bad entered.
This was quickly blocked up, and lamentable results
would have ensued had not some persons had the
ber
presence of mind to open the lawn window acry
to the people to escape that way. A large
did so dash out of the room, heedless of
the
dumberGlthers
threatened from fire and farther explosions.
escaped by the platform door, minutes
all were got out. Then men
abundance, thepolice
ing; Water was at band ina (
The buildingne needed
eii
as'
guish the flames, which jeopardsiesed the entire build-
e
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restored to its original state of intricate decoration,
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A&.
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either
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swoons.
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amount
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been caused
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Connectionisfsoarifdootto-lh.Nivgaah:

Full benefit of reduced duty obtained by pur-
chasing norniman's pure Tea; very choice at 38. 4d. and
4s. "High Standard "at 45. 4d. (formerly 4s. Bd.), is the
strongest and most delicious imported. Agents in every
town supply it in packets.
:To Vim EUROPE.—On the evening of the 22d
ult. the trustees of Plymouth Church Society held
a special meeting, at which the perceptible effect of con-
stant hard work upon the pastor (Rev. Henry Ward
Beecher) was the subject of disoussion. After some littit!
conversational &bate, it was moved and carried
ouinfl,ur
mously that Mr. Beecher be granted levy© of absnensoc:
during
months from the Ist of June, and that hisd sh;Pstho society.
a trip to, in, and from Europe be clef?
the first time of
cl:c
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