The Sun.
London, England, 1862-07-15 00:00:00

and his repulse, " one of the most decisive and
destructive of the whole war, the enemy being put
to complete rout, and the loss to the Federal forces
very light." Till three p.m., however, the most
vigorous efforts were made both by the men ashore
and the ships on the river to be ready for complete
evacuation of the White House ; when it was re-
ported there that the enemy had been driven
before them on the left, and that there were
cheers along the whole line. Yet this was
followed by more strenuous exertions than pre-
viously to get everything on board the ships. The
fight of Friday must have been very severe. Ac-
cording to the accounts of the wounded•who arrived
in the evening, the Confederates were always re-
pulsed by the retreating Federals, and with great
slaughter. By Saturday morning, the 28th, the
evacuation of the White House, the local base of
Federal operations against Richmond, was complete,
the Confederates were near at hand to find it
empty ; and M'CLELLAN had placed his whole army
on the St. James River, which certainly is a river
well adapted to bring him up his supplies, and to
facilitate the co-operation of his seventeen gun-
boats—the great instrument, hitherto, of Federal

successes.

Such is an epitome of the late battles up to the
Saturday, furnished us through the Editor, now
liberated, who was sent to prison just before
it was published, avowedly for having made too
free in mentioning his communications with the
PRESIDENT. We have thought it best to give our
readers the most favourable view of the affair.
Whether or not M'CLELLAN had really intended to
charge his front will not probably be easily ascer-
tained. The narrative of the occurrences is like a
close run alibi. The preparations for the evacu-
ation are so nearly simultaneous with the first
attacks, that it is not easy to say whether the Con-
federates, hearing of them, attacked in consequence,
or whether they were commenced because of the
Confederate attack. In the narrative of the Bal-
timore American the former is evidently the belief
of the writer—or, at least, the belief which he
was ordered to publish. If he be correct,
we shall soon hear of M'CLELLAN'S offensive move-
ments. He is now near the Fort Darling,
on the bluff on the St. James River, where the
sunken obstacles and the guns repulsed the Monitor
and other gunboats—he can assail it by land and
open to the gunboats a passage to Richmond itself;
if he meant mischief by the "strategy" of the tele-
gram, he will therefore soon show it. We shall
have practical proof that this change of position in;
front of an enemy, always a difficult feat—had an
object worthy of it. At the same time it will be his
confession of a strategical mistake in the position he
assumed at first.

While we write, fresh telegrams inform us that
the Confederates claim a splendid victory; twelve
thousand prisoners and stores for three months
being amongst its fruits. This, notwithstanding
the Federal's story, is quite as likely to be true as
theirs. If we cannot credit Federal accounts, their
own foolish and arbitrary censorship of the press,
and their own falsehoods, are the sole cause.

A casualty, almost we had said a calamity, that
might have befallen anyone, has within the last
few days, by ill luck happened to a personal friend
of Mr. COBDEN, M.P., of Mr. EGERTON, M.P.,
and of Mr. BROCKLEITURST, M.P. for Maccles-
field. The unfortunate gentleman who has been

the victim of this mischance is, it should be ob-
served at once, a well-known and thoroughly re-
spectable inhabitant of that very borough of which
Mr. BROCKLEHTIRST is the Parliamentary repre-
sentative. Although his name is duly mentioned
in the course of the police reports as that of a person
recently in charge under suspicion, there is no neces-
sity whatever, we conceive, for our repeating it here.
Placed at the bar yesterday before the worthy ma-
gistrate for Westminster, the gentleman turns out
to be a member of the Society of Friends ! It

appears, moreover, that he is a mercantile man, in
partnership with his father, a tradesman " in a
large way of business," down at Macclesfield.
When brought before the magistrate yesterday on
remand—the accused having been held to bail in

two sureties of £250 each—this thoroughly respect-
able and respected Quaker• tradesman is accompanied
into the police court by a cluster of personal friends,
among whom are three members of Parliament
already particularised. The case is then gone into

—the prisoner being represented by Mr. SLEIGH,
the eminent barrister—a solicitor on the part of the
family also being in attendance to watch the pro-
ceedings.

A detective employed (as such) at the Great
Exhibition building down at South Kensington, is
then the one only individual who steps forward
into the witness-box yesterday for the purpose
of giving evidence. If we pass over inten-
tionally (as we do) the name of the accused,
we will certainly not act thus by the witness
who has thus rashly brought the charge
against him. Detective CHOWNE, this is, Sergeant
of the E Division, No 5. And what may be the
charge brought against Mr. —, of Macclesfield,
Quaker, trader, friend of Mr. COBDEN, and other
well known M, P.'s—brought against him by

this same CHOWNE the over-zealous detective ?
Why, it is nothing less than the agreeable little
charge of having, on Tuesday,last, attempted to pick
a lady's pocket at the International Exhibition.
Under what circumstances ? We will now see.
Sergeant CHOWNE, of the E Division, No. 5, is in
the witness-box giving evidence. That evidence is
simply a repetition of what had been adduced upon
the former occasion—when the prisoner was first
brought before the magistrate. It is to the effect
that the accused was there on Tuesday last at the
Exhibition Building, "among some ladies who
were looking at the ice machine, and near which
were some machinery sent there by his brother,
who is a silk manufacturer at Macclesfield. While
there the officer saw him by the side of a female
I.ohose pocket, it was his impression, he was trying
to Pick. The officer, in consequence, took him into
custody and to the station, where a large sum of
money was found in his possession, with some lead
pencils, ace.), sow, without one word being
uttered in the
prisoner's behalf by the solicitor of
his family, by ilia
..wccouncil,
distinguished personal L.' by single one of his
a
lends there present in court
yesterday—it is no,
perfectly manifest from the
very nature of the evidence adduced by the police
officer who took this unfortunate gentleman into
been
brought
ought
custody on Tuesday last, that the
uranght before
never for one instant
i,her e to os hnaove
a magistrate.inculpatory evidence
-- of any
ole in one single against the accused, no inculpatory evidenp.
kind whatever discern] syllable
uttered by this officious deceive. If, in these lossof crinoline, the vague ``ialpro-
ssion" of some sus_
into
picious detective is to justify him in taktoingbe
custody any gentleman who may chance
in-
volved in a crowd of ladies and among a cloud of
petticoats—why anybody at all may
be marched off
at an instant's notice to the police station upon a
charge of picking pockets !

Ridiculous, however, though the charge was
in the instance we are referring to, utterly ridiculous
though it was in every one of its particulars—having
been formally brought forward, it had by necessity
to be gone into as formally yesterday in the police
court at Westminster. The family solicitor (Mr. j

SMYTH) was first heard—the prisoner's connset
(Mr. SLEIGH) spoke at some length afterwards-1
and one after another the principal friends of the
accused who were present were sworn and gave
evidence of the most conclusive kind as to his
high respectability. All that the ill-scLea.z.
man at the bar had done upon the occasion when Le
was taken into custody was, it appeared, to push
aside the hoops of a lady's crinoline in order that he
might (without inconveniencing her) obtain a bet-
ter view of his brother's machinery. And for this
chance movement —(a movement, who is there, that
has ever ridden in an omnibus, has not been com-
pelled to make, some time, if only to save the
knees from a smear of mud from the draggled
tails of these expansive petticoats ?) for this
chance movement Mr. —, of Macclesfield, is
(because of Sergeant CHOWNE'S
" impression")
coolly and cruelly charged with attempting to
pick a lady's pocket ! The accused being a wealthy
man, a member of the Society of Friends, a com-
mercial man of high repute, a gentleman personally
known to and respected by a crowd of people
themselves, some of them of the highest social dis-
tinction ! Not a tittle of evidence being brought
against him the while—beyond the vague
" impression" of this obtrusive and bungling detec-
tive ! No wonder that the magistrate is reported
to have observed when adjudicating upon the case,
6, that the prisoner could certainly have no object
in committing the offence imputed to him :" adding
deliberately to this, that "After hearing the evi-
dence of so many highly respectable witnesses, he
(the magistrate) must say that there could not be
the slightest suspicion against the accused, and
that in discharging him from that box he left the
court without a stain upon his character." One
thing we cannot, however, but regret that the
magistrate did not do when coming to this other-
wise most satisfactory conclusion. We regret
namely that he did not administer a severe and
deserved reprimand to the blundering detective who
had so very cleverly struck off from the hot press
at the Exhibition this anything 1: proof "im-
pression.' of the wholly imn gin ,r`
fectly innocent and inoffensiv: ,n.

a per-

American folly and Manchester improvidence
have placed Lancashire in a position which all will
agree justly claims the attention of the House of
Commons. The House would not do its duty to the
country if it separated without obtaining all the
information within its reach which bears on the
subject, and without being prepared to confer any
legislative powers, if such powers be needed, on
those who should be locally and administratively
responsible for meeting the difficulty. There is no
hope now, so far as mortal eyes can discover, of
Americans, North or South, abating, on the one
side their love of independence, on the other their
enormous ambition. They bear in their mutual
wrath pretty severe punishment themselves, and
rather seem to exult than otherwise that England
has to suffer also. The South contrasts, now,
favourably with the North in its temper. It is not
ambitious of more than that most reasonable
object—independence. It does not aspire to be a
vast domineering republic. It only asks to live
and to trade in quietness with its customers ; the
North, however, will not let it, but wants to reab-
sorb almost half a continent and to swell itself out
again to the boundaries marked out by MONROE
doctrines and manifest destiny.
But seeing all this we must seriously blame the
improvidence of the cotton manufacturers. What
they must now pay additionally, in poor-rates,
would probably have sufficed to cover all the cotton
districts of India with intelligent agents, who, by
offers of price, and by shewing the natives the in-
creased value of their cotton, if properly cleaned
and packed, might have secured for us a very dif-
ferent Indian supply, by this time. The numerous
communications on the subject of cotton supply all
come to this—lndia wants a fair price, but it wants
also the knowledge and direction which European
agency alone can give. Manchester would not
give it. She, almost haughtily, disclaimed having
anything to do with cotton growing—and the re-
sult is, she is likely to have very little to do with
cotton spinning and weaving. It is, indeed, of no
use to complain of the past now—that will not feed
the starving. Still there is yet time, if not to in-
crease the extent of tillage this year in India, to
see to its proper gathering, clearing, and convey-
ance to the ports. This may be yet done, and if
Manchester is not provident enough to see to that
at once, her merchant princes and manufacturers
will incur the gravest responsibility.

The measures suggested last night were two.
One to give powers to Boards of Guardians to con-
tract loans on the faith of the rates, to be repaid
in seven years. The other was to bring into
action old statutes by which parishes in great dis.
tress might extend their claim for help to other
parishes, to the hundred, and the county succes-
sively. The enormous wealth of Lancashire—its
annual value for rating being £8,000,000, one of its
hundreds being rated at £2,ooo,ooo—shows that
there could be no hardship in applying the old
law to this very peculiar case. The greatest hard-
ship is felt by the large number of rated tradesmen
whose incomes depended on the expenditure of the
operatives. They are likely in the present state of
things soon to need relief themselves, and yet they
are called on to pay high rates to the support of
others. Some exceptional legislation will be
needed on their behalf, for it would be economy

to excuse them from payment.
We could but be struck with the inconsistency
of what followed—the voting away of millions on
defence against invasion, which certainly is remote,
while the danger of starvation from millions is at
our doors. Fortifications, surely, do not press at
such a time as this. It really seems to us like jest-
ing with national distress to throw away money on
what can be, at least, as well done a year or two
hence, while our millions of operatives are begging
their bread ; and, as a consequence, our exchequer
must next year be a beggar also.

The distribution of the prizes competed for by
the National Rifle Association passed off yesterday
at the Crystal Palace, as a highly successful cere-
monial. It was presided over by H,R.H. the Duke
of CAMBRIDGE, whose star is certainly this year in
the ascendant. The veteran. Premier also took
part, as indeed well became him, in the proceed-
i►,gs—delivering, as is his wont upon such occa-
sions, a very h'ppy and telling speech, and receiving,
as is the case with him always at these times,
an ovation of the most enthusiastic character.
The hero of the day, however, or, better
still, let us give him his titlo at once as a rifle-
man,appearaaee
the hero of the year, was Mr. PIXLEY, of
the Victoria Rifles, the crack shot, the champion
shot of 1862 ; as Mr. Ross was the champion shot
of
.1860; and Mr. JoPLING of 1861. Upon the
" See the of Mr. PIXLEY to carry off the first
prize the band, a
obtained
Anthem on the conquering
a matter of course, struck up
High t:ltehe”rie,hero comes" —. quite as
and
inevitably
as it struck up the
i\nTaattuiernalelly
E. Commander-
of arrival.
ehi e
fo. of
Thehis
eßhoayma-1
pion lB6O (Mr.
carry Ross) if he failed to
at quy rate,
three other prizes—his father (Mr. g. Ross)