The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-20 00:00:00

SOCIETY A 7 WASHING 7 ON.

• The Washington correspondent of the Ledger
says that very few Foreigh Ministers were present
' at the opening of Congress. The French and Eng-
' lish Ministers were both absent. We see nothing
wonderful in this. Congress has become such a
1 contemptible body that even a minister from Liberia
' or Hayti might afford to despise it. Foreign Minis-
ters have become so disgusted with the ignorance,
vulgarity, and buffoonery in official circles at
• Washington that they have many of them re-
' moved to New York, so that they may avoid the
necessity of making mere visits of courtesy to
the White House and to Cabinet officials. They
only encounter our President and Cabinet when they
are compelled to—when actual business requires
them to do so. By residing at New York they
escape the necessity of attending the state dinners
at the White House, and this, during the Adminis-
tration, must be a great relief to any well-bred man,
and our own people ought to be thankful that so
few foreign representatives are present on such oc-
sions to observe the disgraceful caricaturing of good
breeding and the ludicrous attempts at style and
gentility on the part of those who, for the present,
misrepresent the American people. The change in
Washington society is remarked by all visitors to
that city. But few well-bred people, and but few,
honest people, are now to be found there. In place
of such we now see lank, lantern-jawed New Eng-
landers, many of them of a poor, parson-like aspect,
in faded black, soiled linen, and once white chokers,
with blue cotton umbrellas and cheap oilcloth sat-
chels, half filled with crackers and cheese. These
gentlemen are chiefly applicants for chaplainships
in the army, They wear a very sanctimonious air,
rub their hands unctuously together (When they are
not engaged with the cotton umbrellas and the oil-
cloth satchels), roll up their eyes piously, and comb
their hair to the back of their ears. A set of meaner
bigots and more profound ignoramuses could not be
found on the face of the earth. Another large class
of people now in Washington are the contractors
and contract seekers—shoddyites and swindlers ge-
nerally, who are too well known to need descrip-
tion at our hands. Then we have Abolition emis-
saries and apostles of every variety, who are in
Washington to urge extreme emancipation measures
and to pick up whatever plunder they can. These
men are generally the friends and associates of the
Abolition members of Congress, and are of a eimi-
lar grade in the social, moral, and intellectual scale.
Add to these the correspondents of the Abolition
press, small pebbles, and such wretches as Forney,
who do the obsequious for their bread and batter,
and you have a tolerable idea of the chief elements
of Washington society at present, so far as the
male sex is concerned. The females present are of
course the
wives and daughters of these, and of
"'il* are their fit companions. The sharp-nosed,
sharp-vo'ced daughtersof New England ruling
and
spirits at present. They spell cow k-e-o-w,
Pronounce
in such terms
tell," &c., and inv'aria
they had to
If, in the society of a thisFo
these ladies would, of
each and every article
as,, accordingly,x and express wonder
_ Now, I want to know." "Du
of their
that article of clothing.
pay
for bIY ask their neighbours what
dried apples and maplecsronetgal
come from, and how much
tt:eMar:el:lister and his lady,
dress ;, how much
aisk them the cost of
Worth • where they
wages their Kings,

Queens, and Emperors received. Is it any wonder
that Foreign Ministers did not attend the opening
of Congress—that they refuse to reside at Washing-
ton at this time P—Philadelphia Evening Journal.

SOUTHERN CLAIMS TO ENGLISH
SYMPATHY.

(From the New York tribune.)

Years ago, when the text of Punch was read, not
tolerated for the sake of its illustrations, there ap-
peared among the latter a large cut by Richard
Doyle, entitled, if we remember aright, " The
Smartest Nation in all Creation." It represented a
villsnous-faced Yankee lolling in a rocking-chair, a
slave-whip and revolver held carelessly in each hand
the long, ungainly legs sprawling over a fallen bust
of Washington, while in the upward curling smoke
of the cigar inserted in the evil mouth were deline-
ated sundry little vignettEs illustrative of our as-
sumed national characteristics. Therein one saw
slave whippings and hangings, duels with muskets
and bowie-knives, Lynch law, filibusteriEm and re-
pudiation, and similar agreeable subjects, all of them
presenting a tolerably comprehensive picture of the
European estimate of the ugly side of American in-
stitutions. As Punch now, in his national caiacity
of puppet, is doing his worst and meanest to incite
hatred and contempt, not of the American body
politic, but of that half of it still faithful to its Go-
vernment and laws, we would commend to the Bri-
tish public and to Europe the following proposition.
That all or nearly all cf American characteristics,
legislation, and proclivities, reprobated in the eyes
of the world are intrinsically Southern—appertain-
ing to or originating in the rebellion,: section of our
nationality ; for the success of which British sympa-
thies are now so perversely enlisted. Without ex-
pecting to do more than merely suggest some of
these, we shall put them on record as appropriate
subjects for British contemplation.
First, as to characteristics: The popular pictorial
representation of American nationality in Europe
is a tall, thin, long-haired man, of cadaverous coun-
tenance, with cunning, deep-set eyes, and strongly
marked features,
" A good deal like a vulture in the face I"

attired in an unfashionable suit of clothes, including
short pantaloons, a wide-brimed straw hat, clumsy
boots and a revolver or bowie-knife. This individual
is supposed to chew tobacco unceasingly, to expec-
torate fluently, to ignore social decencies and pro-
prieties, to be prone to use the murderous weapons
which he habitually carries upon small provocation
—to be, in short, vulgar, brutal, violent and aggres-
sive. Where was this ideal studied from ? Is there
anything like it in New York, in Pennsylvania, in
New England ? Assuredly not. But every one of
these particulars (except, perhaps the revolver--
that would be above his means) applies to the
Georgia " cracker" or the " up-country " South
Carolinian. Our correspondents described whole
military companies composed of such material pour-
ing into Charleston on the evacuation of Fort
.Moultrie for Sumter by Major Anderson, burning
to assault the latter and avenge the " insult" to their
" sovereign" States. And, despite the Richmond
correspondent of the London Times, of such men is
the main bulk of the rebel army composed. The
" Yankee" of European caricature can hardly be
considered an exaggeration of the lower phase of
Southern character, and belongs essentially to it.
Unconsciously and most unjustifiably he is accepted
abroad as the type of our nationality, not as the
miserable abortion that has grown up within its
shadow.

Secondly, as concerns legislation : Here we shall
find the South the persistent enemy of Liberty, of
Constitutionalism, end of Great Britain: the con-
sistent advocate of aggression, filibusterism, and
war. A very few data will suffice to prove this.
It was Southern politicians who affected the acqui-
sition of Louisiana, turning the Anti-Slavery Re-
public of Washington, Adams, and Hamilton into a
republic of freemen governed by slaveholders, by
passing a bill which, in the words of Jefferson, then
president, "was destined to annul the constitution Of
his country, and indefinitely to extend an institution
upon which he bad himself sought to place theseal of
death twenty years before." His consent, as that of
the people,' was solicited, and in part gained, on the
grounds that the proposed purchase would damage
En gland, the favourite of Federalism, while drawing
us closer to France. It was the South that, in pur-
suance of its unvaryibg policy of the extension of the
area of slavery, secured the admission of Missouri
as a Slave State, the passage of the famous " com-
promise" (which it subsequently abrogated for iden-
tical reasons), and contrived the annexing of Texas,
thereby extending its accursed institution over avast
tract of country that had previously abolished it,

To effect this and overcome the repugnance of the
North, Southern politicians proclaimed that Eng-
land had secret designs upon Texas, and that the
embryo State, rebuffed by her natural friends, would
inevitably throw herself into the arms of" perfidious
Albion" if not accepted by us. It was the South
that instigated the war upon Mexico, resulting in
the acquisition of more territory, for the same bad
object, but imperfectly attained, in consequence of
the gold discoveries of California inducing its ad-
mission as a free State, which the South bitterly op-
posed until the compromise measures of 1850 gave
her more than an equivalent. It was the South that
abolished the Missouri compromise and carried
blood and fire, and banners bearing the inscription
of "'Ciod and Slavery" into Kansas. It was the
South that coveted Cuba, Nicaragua, the West
Indies ; that organised filibustering expeditions
under Lopez and Walker ; that indorsed the infa-

mous Cubnn manifesto, justifying the stealing of that
island, in case Spain demurred at parting with it for
a stated price. It was the South that proposed to
reopen and legalise the slave trade. It was in
Southern seaports that free coloured seamen, British
subjects, were subject to be whipped and imprisoned
for going ashore, an instance of which was only
frustrated at Norfolk, Virginia, as late as February,
1857, by the British consul, Mr. G. P. R. James,
paying costs under protest. It was the South that
invented repudiation ; that has chosen an arch-re-
pudiator for its first President. It is the South

which has upon all occasions traded in and pandered
to the anti-English feelings of our adopted Irish
citizens, avowing itself a war party and its policy
as aggressive and hostile toward Great Britain. If
these be recommendations to her good-will, here are
surely enough of them