The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-17 00:00:00

ME SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, DECEVIBEIV-717,_ 1862.

the new Sovereign by Universal Suffrage. The Demos
had with one ac,:tordattt voice to name the Basilens !
And the Greek Peopl© have named him—the ple-
biscite is completed—the multitude have freely
asserted their choice by Universal Suffrage—and
the one name that has come forth from the election
(topping all other names !) is the name of—
ALFRED !

In the capital alone, out of 10,000 votes, 9,800 have
been in favour of his Royal Highness. The decision
arrived at is all but unanimous. It would hardly
be an exaggeration to assert that it is unanimous.
Were we Greeks we would say the same. The very
opposition of the Foreign Powers to the candidature
of the English Prince is nothing less than an out-
rage to Greek independence. ALFRED, and none
but ALFRED, should be our Sovereign. It has
risen into a point of honour, and with resolution the
Greeks we may be certain can yet, if they will,
carry their point.

LAT Esr NEWS.

PARIS, DEC. 17.
The liloniteur of this morning publishes the fol-
lowing latest intelligence from Mexico
" The state of health of the troops is generally
good. The only sickness prevailing arises from
fevers, the gravity of which diminishes every day.

" Communication between Vera Cruz and Orizaba
is becoming more easy. Twelve days, however, are
still necessary to perform the journey. The want
of means of transport has prevented the commence-
ment of operations. This state of things has been
modified by the despatch of 1,200 mules and 280
carts from New York to Vera Cruz on the 14th of
November last.

" Before entering Jalapa General Berthier's van-
guard defeated a corps of Mexican lancers; 4,000
national guards immediately dispersed. The enemy
lost 15 killed, 35 wounded, 50 saddle horses taken,
and 10 killed. The road was strewed with arms
thrown away by the fugitives.

" The French troops lost two killed and five

wounded."

MR. MASON JONES'S LECTURE ON

CUR.RAN.

(From the Neap York Daily Tribune.)

The night was bad, but the audience was good.
The hall will hold a great number when it is filled,
and that number was there to fill it. There was a

liberal proportion of ladies. The Milesian element
was on hand. For the Irishman, in exile or in a
foreign land without the exile, is stirred when there
is a word about the great wrongs or the great men
of his country—and the word well said draws his
tears or his laughter. Promptly at eight Mr. Jones
came on the stand. Mr. Jones has rather a light
figure, and an intelligent countenance.
Mr. Mason Jones began without any parade or
flourish and in very good taste to handle his sub-
ject matter. He was judicious in his criticism.
He appeared to apprehend Irish history, the his-
tory of his own country, in a liberal spirit ; with
truth, but without bitterness. His business he
appeared to think was with the wathetics of litera-
ture, as is included in a popular discourse, and least
with the acrid fierceness of one deploring the
wrongs of Ireland. He appeared to understand
perfectly the differences and relative merits of Irish
oratory ; and gave an admirable description of the
now defunct flowery style—defunct except in the
mouths of some tenth-rate haranguers. He carried
his audience with him. The learned, the polite, and
the people not so learned whose hearts leapt toward
the " ould country" applauded. Curran was a
witty fellow—and a comedian—and a joker—and
there are some good say ingsand doings of his in his

witty, comic, and joking line preserved—but un-
happily very few—and these clever illustrations of
the joyous side of his character, excited peals of
laughter. We saw many a fat side shake—and
many an Irishman delighting in such glowing
illustrations of Irish wit.
Mr. Mason Jones, like a good lecturer—and be
it remembered he has no manuscript, but speaks
on the platform without notes, and with rare
fluency—considered that the best way to show-
ing the oratory of Curran was not by multiply-
ing adjectives of praise about it, but in giving
some quotations of these forensic successes. Seve-
ral were recited, where Curran was defending
oppressed Irishmen. The perorations of these all
drew forth liberal applause ; for all feel indig-
nant here that Irishmen should ever have been
oppressed or denied the rights inscribed on the
Republican banner of 1856 and 1860, " free
speech, free soil, free men." All applauded these
sentiments of Curran so brilliantly and truthfully
expressed.

Mr. Mason Jones has been but a few Jays in this
country. He comes from serving under Garibaldi,
and lecturing on the Italian war, and his other sub-
jects, in Great Britain. He has—eheu !--much to
learn. He has not been apprised that the American
Tract Society—a purely divine, godly institution
—only sold to Slavery ono bright 4th of July—
emasculated British Authors in its publications,
when they said aught against man-stealing. Ah,
Mr. Mason Jones, you have much to learn ! You
have not yet found out how the whole population
of your countrymen here, almost to a man, have
been so abused and deceived by corrupt politicians,
some of them felons in the eye of the law, that
were Daniel O'Connell to come to life and to speak
the gospel of freedom among them, he would be
pelted with rotten eggs.
Mr. Mason J ones's education on American affairs
not being completed, and as he has not learned that
the democracy of this country as symbolised by its
flag means all Stripes and no Stars—no heavenly
beams of hope and liberty, and glory and beauty for
man—but the deepest damnations of slavery, he
committed a blunder in not imitating the A. T. S.
as above, and cutting out an extract of Curran de-
fending the liberty of Irishmen, that might apply
to the liberty of Americans. Accordingly with de-
licious naivete he quoted that eminent passage of
the Irish orator, which says that no matter what
sun may have burnished the skin of the exile, the
instant he touches the sacred soil of Britain, he
stands redeemed, regenerated, disenthralled, by
the genius of universal emancipation.
Here the muse of lecture history must take
breath.

Imagine an evening party all propriety, polite-
ness and good humour, suddenly startled by the
apparition of a mad bull coming, horns and hoof,
froth and tail, through the folding doors ! The
instant the word Emancipation" was heard, up
rose some 200 malcontents. Hissing, swearing,
bullying and all sorts of insults followed. The
men who respected liberty themselves were happily
in the majority. A number of people hmried out
of the room—ladies looking pale and anxious, lest
the fight should begin before they were out of the
hall. No police was on hand. Mr. Mason Jones
behaved as Garibaldi would under the fire of the
Pope's troops. He stood his ground. He hurled
beck hot words by saying that it was not the first
time he had been hissed—(hisses, stamps, shouts and
exits)—that he had been hissed on the platform in
England for the side he took in favour of the Ame-
rican Union and its freedom. (Hisses, roars, shouts,
stampings, &c.) He proudly hoped the time would
soon come when the American flag would not float
over a single slave, or record a single crime against
human liberty. (Hissing, threatening. G— d—
him, why does he come here to teach us ? D—his
lecture. Don't let him go on—Stop him—Crush
him, &c.) Mr. Jones, amid all this stood undis-
mayed, and after various interruptions,
The storm was calmed, and he concluded a very
interesting lecture, very fluently recited, without
the drawback or frigidity of reading or referring
to MSS

GAROTTE ROBBERIES AT BRADFORD.—Sever al
highway and garotte robberies have been reported at the
Bradford police-station within the last few days. We men •
tioned one of them on Monday; Mr. Geo. Webster, wool-
stapler, having been robbed by a woman and several men,
in Harris-street, on Friday night. The same night Mr.
Geo. Middlebrook, inland revenue officer, was accosted by a
woman in the narrow passage from the Albion Hotel to the
Royal Oak, Kirkgate, and at the same moment three men
pounced upon him, one seizing him and grasping him by
the throat, while the rest held him firmly against the wall
and robbed him of his watch, value £6. Bradford winter
fair has brought into the town a large number of strange
thieves of both sexes. A considerable number have been
committed to the House of Correction as rogues and vaga-
bonds. On Monday two young men, named Joseph and
Isaac Smith, brothers, of Atherton, near Bradford, were
charged with having, on Tuesday night, robbed Mr. Joshua
Jennings, of Thornton, farmer, of £25. Mr. Jennings had
been to Bradford fair, and had disposed of some cattle. Ho
was robbed of his money going home, and charged the
prisoners with having robbed him immediately on leaving
the Hope and Anchor, Allerton. It appeared, however,
after a long inquiry, that Mr. Jennings was in liquor at the
time, and had given different accounts as to the robbery.
The magistrates consequently discharged the prisoners,—
Leeds Mercury,

John Hastie, late secretary to the Doncaster
Benefit Building Society has been committed for trial at
York assizes, for extensive frauds on the society,

MR. COBDEN A 7 MIDHURS7.

MIDHURST, TUESDAY.
A meeting was held t liFtlhurst, this afternoon,
for the purpose of hearing an address from ?Jr.
Cobder, M.P., on the distress in Lancashire. There
was a very numerous attendance. Mr. T. A. Davis

occupied the chair, and, having briefly explained
the object of the meeting, introduced
Mr. COBDEN, who characterised the distress in the
manufacturing districts as a national calamity. He
had very recently visited Lancashire, and was,there-
fore, able to speak from experience of the extent
and nature of that calamity. He was strongly
of opinion that the people of the north and south
did not properly understand each other, and NA here
there was ignorance there always existed unfounded
prejudice. The importance of our cotton manufac-
tures, amounting as they did to one-third of the en-
tire exports of the country, could not be overrated.
During the last 60 years, owing to those manufac-
tures being principally carried on in the county of
Lancaster, the population of that county had
increased from 673,000 to 2,428,000 in 1861, the
increase having been about 20 per cent. in each
decennial period, though it had been rather smaller
during the last 20 years than in the 20 years
immediately preceding. He thought that that

'act in some measure accounted for the low rate of

the poor rates which existed in the county, and
which seemed to be a subject that had somewhat
puzzled the Rev. Mr_ Kingsley, who, in his letter
to the Times, had shown an amount of ignorance
with regard to the condition of the county of Lan-
caster which was really surprising. He thought,
however, that Mr. Kingsley had dated his letter
from a very appropriate place when he dated it
from one of the provinces of the Heptarchy. With
regard to the manufacturers-themselves, as a class,
he thought they were undeserving of the censure
which had been bestowed upon them in some quar-
ters. He was acquainted with no part of the world
(and he had travelled much in civilised countries)
in which men possessing the vast capital
and wealth of the cotton spinners lived
with the same simplicity and frugality,
and spent so little of their earnings in
their own personal expenses. The hon. gentle-
man highly eulogised the character of the mill-
owners, most of whom, he stated, had risen from the
lower ranks of life, and he contended that it was to
their diligence, frugality, and ingenuity that this
country was indebted for the growth of that vast in-
dustry. We had passed beyond comparison any-
thing that ever existed in the history of the world,
and the industry of which the whole country ought
to be proud, owed nothing to monopoly of any kind,
but had always taken its stand upon the principle
of fair and open competition. When he was in
Paris arranging the details of the Treaty of Com-
merce, he had necessarily to make himself ac-
quainted with all the processes of all the manufac-
tures in the world, and the cost of production
and profit which prevailed in the different branches
of industry. Some of the most experienced men
connected with the cotton trade went over to Paris
to assist him. They made their calculations as to the
rate of profit in the cotton trade during the last 15
years, and the result was that they found the average
rate for the whole period had not amounted to so
much as was generally considered to be the fair and
natural profit attached to different kinds of busi-
nesses. But there was this peculiarity connected
with the cotton trade, that it -had its constant
vicissitudes. A manufacturer would probably
have bis three years of prosperous business,
and then probably he would have a year
of most unprofitable business. He had fre-
quently been asked whether if there had been
no cotton panic this convulsion would not have hap-
pened. He believed that there had been extensive
speculation on the part of the merchants trading in
India and China. There would, no doubt have been
a revolution in prices consequent on the glut of goods
which would have led to severe losses, and perhaps
have been attended in some cases with ruin. But
he did not believe that it would have had the effect
of throwing the working classes of Lancashire out
of employment. The present distress came from
the sudden stoppage of tho supply of that which
alone made all the fixed capital of Lancashire of
any value. It had arisen in consequence of the
civil war in America. lie was not going
to enter on that question as a politician ;
but with respect to intervention he himself
did not believe that any good whatever would arise
from our intervention even by advice and remon-
strance. There was an old Spanish proverb that
a fool knew more about his own house than a wise
man did about the house of his neighbour, and if
people refrained from interfering with the affairs of
their neighbours, they would have very much more
time to attend to their own. This alone would he say,
that having travelled twit: through America at an
interval of 24 years, he was thoroughly convinced
that slavery was at the bottom of the present war,
and that was the opinion of every one through North
and South, Republican or Democratic. Every one of
them admitted that slavery and slavery alone was
at the bottom of the whole question. It was fre-
quently asked why did England draw so great a
portion of its supply of cotton from a country where
that cotton was grown by slaves ? If he were asked
whether that could be avoided, he would say that
he thought it could not. Many people asked why
we don't put a prohibitory duty on American cot-
ton ? In such a case they would have ruined their
own manufacturers; for, unless they could have got
all the world to have agreed with them that no slave
produce should be bought, they would have offered
a premium to other people to set up as rival manu-
facturers.