The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-24 00:00:00

RACING .FIXTURES 'FUR 1865,

SEPTEMBEIL

Warwick 5
Cheadle
Totness and _Bridgetown 6
King's Lynn 6
Leicester 7
Dover 7
Hereford 7
Bridgewater
Doncaster

Brecon lB
RichniOnd
Canterbur:, l9
Hendon (W,•lsh Harp)
.21
Monm,,u• 2l
Ilaueli,s;(•r
Newmarket I st Oct 26
Walsall
Lanark

OCTO
Bedford
Caledonian Hunt and
Edinburgh . 4
Northallerton 5
Newmarket 2d Oct 9
Perth

Leek
West Drayton
Kelso
Newmarket Ho. AL
Worcester Autumn 3l

Ltncoln Autumn ... N0TE...... 2
Liverpool Autumn
.
Shrewsbury .....
............... 13

[BER.

Warwickshire and Leam-
ington Hunt

AQUATICS.

PLYMOpTILTyIviIIotTRTER,
Wednesday,
10 p.m.
Yesterday, the first day of the regatta, the racing was
unimportant, as the weather was very calm, and none of
the large yachts had arrived from Torquay. During the
night there was much rain, and all day there has been a
stiff breeze from the south-west, with heavy squalls occa-
sionally. In the afternoon a small boat in the Sound
carried away her mast, and the Royal Mail, a large boat,
put about
to assist her. In jibing, being under a press
of canvas, she capsized and went down. Mr. Frederick
Pridham, jun., solicitor, was picked up by a gig from
the Prussian corvette Nymphe, Captain llenk. Mr. C.
Whipple, jun., surgeon, Mr. Glyn, Mr. Courtney, and Mr.
Cheetham, of the Land Transport Corps, were conveyed on
board the Prussian gunboat Delphin, Captain Kuhn. The
boatman, John Burt, was rescued by an English schooner.
Mr. Cheetham died on board the gunboat ; the others have
been brought ashore.

The schooners' prizes—£2s and £lo—sailed for to-day,
were won by the Intrigue and the Gertrudo.

For the cup given by the Prince of Wales there is a dis-
pute between the cutters Vampire and Laura.
Pearse's prize was carried off by tho Vespa.
The cutter Pearl was first in the Mosquito fleet.
The winner of the cutters' prize for £6O is undecided.

REDUCTION IN THE PRICE OF GAS AT LIVERPOOL.
--The directors of the Liverpool United Gas Company
have determined to reduce the price of gas in the town to
3s. per 1,000 feet, and ix the suburbs to 3s. 4d.
FATAL COAL PIT ACCIDENT.--Early on Tuesday
morning a collier, named George R. Shaw, was crushed to
death in the Bramhill coal pit, at Clifton. Deceased was at
work, when a large quantity of stones and earth fell upon
him. He was dead before assistance could be rendered.

ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.—At the last sitting M.
Elie De Beaumont produced a letter from Professor
Zantedeschi, in which the latter vindicated his claith to
priority in starting the idea of the application of the elec-
tric telegraph to meteorology. It appears, from official
letters quoted by him, that he had proposed the organisa-
tion of meteorological observations along all the tele-
graphic lines of the Austrian monarchy as early as Oct.,
1849. M. De Paravey wrote to say that the execution
of certain works of .public utility had exercised an in-
jurious effect on the composition of the Eaux Bonnes
(Basses-Pyrenees), which now had lost all their baregino,
supposed bythe writer to be the active principle of these
springs. A letter was received from M. Emile Duchmine,
describing what he calls an "electric buoy" applicable to
many marine purposes. This buoy contains a little cylin-
der of coal, a small plate of zinc, and a bit of cork; this
combination, when thrown into the sea, will produce an
electric current sufficiently strong to make a bell
ring, whereby signals might be transmitted. Some time
ago a communication had been received from the Abbe
Delpy, announcing his intention of competing for the
Breo.nt prize on the plea of his having discovered a remedy
for impetigines, without saying what it was composed of,
only saying it was liquid sulphur. The Academy having
informed him that it would not take any notice whatever

of secret remedies, the Abbe now wrote to say that he did
not consider his remedy a secret ono, and that he would
divulge it, but only in case the Academy should judge it
worthy of a prize under the Breant will. After some dis-
cussion, the Academy resolved to maintain its rule.—A
paper by Dr. Koeberle on ovariotomy was presented by Dr.
Rayer. On this paper, which treated of the extirpation of
an immense tumour, weighing about 601 b., M. Thenard
remarked that he knew the lady of Strasburg who had un-
dergone this terrrible operation, and that six weeks after-
wards he was astonished to find her up and in perfect
health ; the practitioners who had been present at the ope-
ration had assured him that it was a case in which death
appeared inevitable.—Galignani.

How CRIME IS INVESTIGATED IN SCOTLAND.—The
first and most conspicuous defect is the want of pub-
licity. All the preliminary investigations, or, as they are
technically called, precognitions, are conducted with the
profound secrecy of the Inquisition. The examinations at
the instance of the .fiscal before the sheriff are secret, the
deliberations of the Crown counsel on the matters sub-
mitted to them are secret. If no trial ensues tho public do
not hear a word of the case. This practice may prevent the
exposure to obloquy of persons taken up on a false charge,
but, on the other hand, it gives the officials concerned a for-
midable degree of power—the power of improperly conceal-
big offences and circumstances which the rublic are en-
titled to know something about, and the discussion of which
would be in various ways useful. As an aggravation of
this privacy, the accused, or suspected person, on being
taken up, is not allowed the benefit of legal advice. He is
subjected to repeated examinations without the aid of a soli-
citor, or the comfort of public sympathy. lam not aware
that the authorities use their power oppressively. That

would be against the genius of the people ; and anything
like wanton tyranny would be surd to meet with public re-
probation. But a thing may be wrong in principle and in-
convenient in practice without being a downright atrocity.
Admitting, for the sake of argument, that fiscal; sheriffs,
and Crown counsel are alike discreet and scrupulous,
they undoubtedly wield a power which is contrary to
the principles of civil liberty. These blots on the
Scottish system are signally observable in the case of
inquests. There is no coroner's inquest—that is, no public
investigation as regards a sudden or suspicious death—in
Scotland. The town or county fiscal, acting as coroner, in-
stitutes a private inquiry, and the result is submitted to
Crown counsel for orders. In other words, all the deaths
occurring under suspicious or flagrantly criminal circum-
stances have to be reported to two or three gentlemen of
the law seated privately in an apartment in Edinburgh ;
and, as far as any one can understand, these said gentlemen
are authorised to do as they like. They may indulgently
consign the whole thing to oblivion, or they may bring it
above board, seemingly on their own responsibility, which
is a good deal like no responsibility at all. Would the
English, with their love of publicity and fair play, submit
to this lino of procedure ? Would they agree to allow the
entire preliminary investigation of homicide to be carried
on secretly by local authorities, and the final decision as to
whether there should be a trial or not to be also settled
secretly by a mysterious conclave—a kind of Star Chamber

—at Westminster ? I greatly mistake their character if
they would endure anything of the sort. The Scotch sys-
tem may be paternal, as some are pleased to call it, but it
has not the smack of the Anglo-Saxon freedom. It does
not seem logical to say that two processes directly the op-
posite of each other, and operating in the same country, can
both be right. If the plan of investigating charges of crime
in open court in England be right, the plan of making the
same species of investigations secretly in Scotland must be
wrong ; and vice versa. We of course all know how in-
consistencies and stupidities are tolerated, and even thought
respectable from long usage. One,however, fails to see why
with the universal jumble of interests and feelings in this
United Kingdom of ours, there should continue to be such
a diversity of legal institutes and customs in London and
Edinburgh. According to the Scottish procedure,
on inquests especially, the law officers of the
Crown 'do themselves less than justice. They ne-
cessarily are obliged to decide on the narrow
grounds presented by the papers transmitted to them,
instead of that wider ground which would be offered by a
public inquest, when all and sundry knowing anything
of the matter would ba able to como forward with their
evidence. The comparative value of publicity and secrecy
may be judged from certain cases reported in the news-
papers. A house in London takes fire, and two or three
unfortunate inmates are burnt to death. Immediately,
what with coroners' inquests, and examinations before ma-
gopnenotceos,urtt,helviwthhoalecrowd of reporters for the
community, as it were,
ig,risetsrsat
teaskinin
are taken into counsel. Every one has a scrap of evidence
bearing on the catastrophe hastens to give it; at all events,
the truth comes out somehow, and the ends of justice are
satisfactorily served. Mark the contrast. A house takes
fire (or tumbles doWn) in Edinburgh ; and there is 1.):.:J of
life at which all are horrified. But it is against rule to
make a public inquiry. The only information afforded is
that " an investigation is going on by the proper authori-
ties ;" with which gracious intimation people are bound
to be satisfied, and ten to one they never hear any more
about it.—Fortnightly Review.

The quotation of gold at Parts is about It per mille pm., I,nd
the short exchange on London is 2.•.22l per £1 sterling. On
comparing these rates with the English Mint price of £3
lis. 100. per ounce for standard gold, it appe.o s that gold is
nearly 2-itths per cent. dearer in London titan in Paris.

THE UNITED STATES.

(From the Times' Correspondent)

NEW YORK, Aug. 12.

What the Southern people are thinking and doing
and how they are living in the present crisis are
questions of grave moment to the Administration,
and it employs every means to accumulate informa-
tion concerning them. But it is not easy to ascer-
tain the actual state of public feeling in the South.
It is noticeable that the people begin to intermingle
more freely with each other ; rival Generals now
meet in a friendly way and discuss the war, and
persons from the South are always a little surprised
at the credulity with which they are greeted here.
The fault of a certain class in the North is that they
are asking too much of their conquered brethren.
They are impatient, forgetting Mr. Lincoln's say-
ing, You will sooner have the fowl by hatching
the egg than by smashing it." They expect the
South to kiss the rod with joy and thankfulness. It
is true that this demand is not generally made, but
it is raised every now and then by politicians who
cannot be satisfied unless everything is made as they
wish it in a single day. If Mr. Johnson were no
wiser than they the South might well abandon all
hope of the future. "We are willing to go back to
the Union and be true to it," they say, " but do
not require us to exult over our defeat. We cannot
rejoice with you that we have been conquered."
The Southern papers are, with scarcely an exception,
following the wise counsels of General Lee, and
urge the people to set about cultivating their lands
again as in the old time. The " poor whites" are
already beginning to find that the capacity for hard
work was not confined by Providence to the negro.
They discover that there are certain advantages
attending industry which they have hitherto been
in ignorance of, and now that they have found
out the proper use of their hands, it is to
be hoped they will never sink back into their
former shameless idleness and dependence. A
letter from Virginia which I have seen states that
white labour is likely to succeed there quite as well
as negro labour, and that when the " freedman"
finds that he can be dispensed with, and that if he
will eat he must work, he soon perceives the incor-
rectness of his present theory of freedom, which is,
of course, that he will not be called upon to do any
more work. There is not a planter now who does
not regret the struggle which he and his class made
for the preservation of slavery before the war broke
out. "We should have done better without i!;," it
is common to hear them or their friends say, "only
the abolitionists bullied us so much about it that we
could not give way." A Virginia paper remarks in
the same spirit, "All agree that slavery is gone.
There is scarcely a wish expressed to revive it, and
only a desire felt to make the best of the present
condition—adapt means to ends in the altered state
of our affairs." The negro would settle down into
his place soon enough if his meddling friends would
let him alone. Instead of so doing, they hold con-
ventions and invite the liberated slaves to express
their views. The other day Gen. Fisk collected a
number of them together at Nashville, and told them
he had given them the Bible and the bayonet, and
now he wanted to give them the ballot. " With
this swarm of bees," he added, " I think the negro
will be able to take care of himself." Under such
guides the negro has persuaded himself that he can
safely postpone work until he is admitted to the
suffrage. The difficulty of procuring labour is one
of the great difficulties of the South at this moment.
The country, so fearfully ravaged by Sherman's de-
stroying hosts, remains much as it did when he turned
his back upon it. Money and men are alike want-
ing in order to place it under cultivation again.
The attitude of the Southern people is, there-
fore, one of expectancy—they can do very little for
themselves until the North stretches out a hand
to help them. There is n 6 fact more sure than
that the very spirit of secession is utterly
quenched—quenched by dint of main force, no
doubt, but the result politically is the same. In
the odd language which men use here, even on the
gravest subjects, every Southern man of any sense
owns that his cause "is played out." I have had
shown to me letters which plainly reveal the miser-
able state of the country and the population.
Virginia is still a desert ; South Carolina
is without crops or food ; North Carolina is a
little better off, for Sherman's troops only took what
they wanted for use in passing through it ; in
Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee it is hoped that
the crops will prove sufficiently large to keep
the wants of the inhabitants supplied. Everywhere,
however—and this is a fact which may be taken
almost without exception—the families which were
formerly flourishing are in complete destitution.
The ladies of the North are making clothes, and in
some cases collecting subscriptions, for their unfor-
tunate sisters in the South. The North has lost
much of its best blood, but the South has lost that
and everything else beside. It is computed, upon
official returns, that from first to last there were in
the Southern army 1,124,000 men. Of these no
less than 660,000 are known to have been killed or
disabled, and over 400,000 more were sick, or are
counted as " missing," or deserted. The Northern
army had in it during the entire war about
3,000,000 men.

An important and laborious work will be pub-
lished in a few days by Mr. H. J. Raymond, a pro-
minent member of Congress,who stood high in the
confidence of the late President. It is a biography
of Mr. Lincoln, embracing a collection of all his
speeches and State papers, some of them being now
laid before the public for the first time. One of
the most curious chapters in it is that which con-
tains an account of the attempted negotiations for
peace brought about by Mr. Horace Greeley, and
concerning which there has always been a certain
mystery. In July last year Mr. Greeley wrote to
the President calling his attention to the circum-
stance that there were commissioners from the
South at Niagara prepared to enter into negotia-
tions for peace, and begging Mr. Lincoln " to
• submit overtures for pacification to the Southern
insurgents." In this letter Mr. Horace Greeley
spoke of the North as " our bleeding, bankrupt,
almost dying country," words which were so
extremely offensive to Mr. Lincoln that rather than
have them published he subsequently submitted to
many unjust accusations, based upon his alleged dis-
inclination to treat with the South. Mr. Greeley
also said in his letter, " Mr. President, I fear you
do not realise how intently the people desire
any peace consistent with the national integrity
and honour, and how joyously they would hail
its achievement and bless its authors." To this com-
munication Mr. Lincoln's reply was brief and cha-
racteristic. Ile said—" If you can find any person
anywhere professing to have any proposition of Jef-
ferson Davis, in writing, for
peace, embracing the
restoration of the Union and abandonment of
slavery, whatever else it embraces, say to him he
may come to me with you." Mr. Greeley answered
this by another letter, in Which he wrote that he
could not expect the Southern Commissioners to
show him their credentials. " Green as I may be,
I am not quite so verdant as to imagine anything
of the sort." And, in reply to another note to
much the same effect, Mr. Lincoln answered—
" I have just received yours of the 13th, and am
disappointed by it. I was not expecting you to
send me a letter, but to bring me a man or men."
Soon after this Mr. Greeley was authorised to go
to Niagara, and elicit from the Commissioners—
Clement C. Clay, Jacob Thompson, J. B. Hol-
combe, and G. N. Sanders—what powers had been
conferred upon them by Mr. Davis. It appears
that Mr. Greeley never once mentioned to them
the terms upon which alone the President could
treat with them—namely, the return of the South
to the Union and the abolition of slavery. The
Commissioners themselves confessed that they were
not officially accredited to enter into negotiations
with the Federal Government. The whole affair
proved a delusion; but Mr. Lincoln was taxed by a
large portion of the press and" the public with
having beer, guilty of tergiversation and faithless-
ness. " It is not easy now, any more than it was
then," remarks Mr. Raymond, " to reconcile Mr.
Greeley's action in this matter with fidelity to the
-Union cause, or with good faith to the Administration,
by which alone that cause was maintained." That
Mr.
brought
Lincoln felt keenly the justice of the charges
against him is evident from a letter he

wrote to Mr. Raymond ; Mr. Greeley's letters, and
his own answers, would have set him right with the
people, but in consequence of the objectionable
words quoted above, a reference to a possible in-
surrection in the North, and similar observations,
Mr. Lincoln would not consent to their publication.
Mr. Greeley yesterday replied to these representa-
tions of an affair which undoubtedly "did harm to
the Union cause," but he does not in any way
change their character.

RAILWAY AND OTHER COMPANIES.

GREAT EASTERN.

A general meeting of the East Anglian pro-
prietors in this company was held yesterday, at the
London Tavern, to elect a director to represent
them at the Great Eastern Board ; Mr. J. Goodson,
M.P., in the chair.
Mr. Owen, the secretary, having read the notice
convening the meeting,
The CHAIRMAN said the only business they had
was to elect a director in the place of Mr. L. Simp-
son, who retired by rotation, but, being eligible, had
offered himself for re-election. He (the chairman)
believed chat no one could more ably look after their
interests, and those of the Great Eastern, than Mr.
Simpson. They could not have a more able repre-
sentative, and he had great pleasure in proposing
that Mr. Simpson be re-elected a director of the
company.
The motion having been seconded, _ _

Mr. SHAW, a director and representative of the
East Anglian proprietors at the Great Eastern
Board, stated that he held proxies representing
nearly one-half of the stock of the East Anglian
proprietors in favour of the re-election of Mr,
Simpson.
The motion was carried unanimously.
Mr. SIMPSON stated that when he joined the
Board of the East Anglian Company 13 years ago,
their stock, which was now £3l in the market, was
then only £5, and the property was in a most un-
exampled state of depression. He felt very much
gratified at the handsomest manner in which- they
had re-elected him, and his best services should be
rendered to them.

The proceedings concluded with a vote of thanks
to the chairman for presiding.

NORTH-WESTERN.

The half-yearly meeting of this company, was
held at Leeds on Monday, Mr. H. Alcock in the
chair.

The report was taken as read.
The CHAIRMAN, in reply to a question, statedthat
the only sum the directors could make out clearly
to have been improperly appropriated by Mr.
Whelon, the late secretary of the company, had
been repaid by his executors, and the usual dividend
on the B stock would therefore be paid. The report
was adopted, and after some remarks as to a more
efficient system of auditing the accounts of the
company the meeting separated.