The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-31 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 31, HEE.

Tho Oil Regions of Pennsylvania.

(From the Correspondent of the Times.)
PITIIOLE CREEK, OCt. 12.

The road by which this most curious place is
gained from Cherry Run through Rouseville and
Plummer, and then through the woods to the head
of this Creek, is in its way as interesting, and in
another way, as pointing out the great lottery and
chance of oil wells, even more instructive than that
from Oil City. Before leaving the Tar and Blood
Farm, our party of 16 in number, English and Ame-
ricans, made a long inspection of the wells in the
neighbourhood. Some were doing fairly, some were
doing ill, and the majority were doing nothing at
all, so that the almost inevitable conclusion forced
upon the mind was that for the present, at least,
Cherry Run is pretty well played out. Much of this
enforced idleness of the wells is ascribed to the dread-
ful floods last May, which drowned out scores of
them ; much, also, to the undoubted rush for this
place ; but even after allowing the widest margin to
both these causes, they are altogether insufficient to
account for the almost complete desertion of this
once famous district. The plain fact is that other
regions are considered to pay better, and that, in
short, Cherry Run has for the present seen its best
days. Of this, however, I shall have to speak more
fully hereafter, in pointing out the glorious uncer-
tainty that more or less attends all oil-well opera-
tions, large or small. From the Tar Farm the Creek
was forded, and inspection made of the Storey
Farm, the celebrated Hyde and Egbert Farms, the
Dalzell Farm, &c., seeingas we went along the great
wells, Maple Shade, Jersey, and Coquette, which
were among the first to drive people lima about oil
in this country. The yield of all these has fallen off
to a mere tithe of what it was at first. Close by the
Coquette well was one which had just been struck,
which it was stated was flowing at the rate of 350
barrels a day, and which evidently was doing
over 200. From this point out there was
the same continuance of rough wild coun-
try, the track being seamed about in all direc-
tions with mud-holes, felled trees, and brawling
greasy brooks, across which the most primitive and
dangerous bridges were formed by the simple expe-
dient of felling trees across them. Here and there
were little groups of wells not yet deserted by For-
tune, which were pumping busily, and all their log-
house shanties round about teemed with life and
activity. These, however, were the exceptions, and
the open empty huts, abandoned tools, and idle
machinery, overgrown with grass, told their own
tales in language which could not be mistaken. As
the heat of the day was nearly intolerable, and there
was still a long ride to go, a halt was called in the
shade of the forest, at a place called Sulphur Springs.
Here in the wilderness the inevitable derrick stood,
of course, but the well sunk here never yielded any-
thing but sulphur water, which gushes up now inces-
santly at a temperature little above freezing point,
and so strongly impregn'ated with sulphur as to taste
like liquid brimstone. Its medicinal virtues are said
to be very great—a fact which one is willing to con-
cede on tasting its intense nastiness. No cattle,
however, will touch it, no matter what their thirst.
From Sulphur Springs the track is a mere rough
bridle path through the forest, and any one who
knows the silent, monotonous gloom of the Ameri-
can backwoods scenery can guess how dreary such a
route must be. No sound of a bird, no sight of a
living thing ; nothing but the huge trees and thick
underwood, the latter here and there opening out
into patches of coarse rank grass and weeds as high
as the saddle ; then a clearing, with its group of
idle or busy derricks, as the case may be ; then
another interval of forest, mud-holes, brooks, and
dreadful bridges, when the path suddenly emerges
into light, and, after passing the Humboldt Farm,
where the great stills of one of the largest oil refiners
in the States are at work night and day, winds up
a hill, from which a view over Plummer Valley and
Plummer Town can be gained.

Plummer is one of the " dreadful examples" of
the uncertainty of oil wells. Its natural position,
above Cherry Run, its geographical and geological
formation, all pointed it out as likely to be one of
the best of paying regions in Pennsylvania. Oil was
found over all its brooks and under its stones; the
air smelt strongly of gas, and brine Wm said to b©
abundant between its strata of sandstone. Plummer,
therefore, at once became the Promised Land of
Oildom. Its acres of uncleared forest sold at fabu-
lous prices, a town was built, hundreds of derricks
were erected, hundreds of wells put down in all
directions, millions and millions of dollars spent
lavishly, and the result was absolutely nil. Not a
" red cent," as they say here, was obtained in re-
turn for all this enormous expenditure of capital and
industry. Of all the wells sunk, not a single one
found as much oil as would have greased its ma-
chinery. Here in the valley the derricks are as
thick as trees, as new and unstained by oil as the
day they were first erected. Here all the agencies
and offices are closed, all the machinery idle, all the
huge vats as clean and as empty as when the coopers
finished them. Plummer is not much talked of here.
Its mention, in fact, is avoided by general consent,
as its very name is not unnaturally thought to exer-
cise a depressing influence on would-be oil specula-
tors. It would not be bad policy if those having
authority in these regions went to work and cut down
all those warning derricks of Plummer, which stand
so white and clean and bare, like tombstones in me-
mory of capital gone beyond all recall. For the rest,
Plummer itself is what one might expect under such
adverse circumstances. Originally intended only as a
temporary abiding place, even this crude conception
failed of fulfilment like its oil wells, and thus there
are only a couple or so of tolerable wooden hotels,
and two or three hundred intolerable log houses.
Nevertheless, for a village of such recent growth,
Plummer is considered here as "quite a place."
Out of this embryo township the path gets if pos-
sible worse than ever, and teams going back to Pit-
hole laden with coals and produce, or teams coming
from Pithole laden with oil, begin to straggle over
the face of the country, converging here and there
in some favourite pass where horsemen and waggons
flounder, struggle, and splash alike in muddy hope-
lessness for half a mile or so. it is painful to see
how horses are treated here, and the more noticeable
from the considerate and unvarying gentleness with
which Americans through the States generally ma-
nage their cattle. But what they have to endure in
the mud is as nothing to what they suffer on the cor-
duroy road over the hills to Pithole. " A corduroy
road" means a passage through a forest where no
road can be made, and the natural difficulties of
which are aggravated by felling trees across the route.
I have, however, seen corduroy roads both in Ame-
rica and Western Canada, where fair progress could
be made by horse or light waggon, but that which
leads to Pithole is execrable even beyond the limits
of the roughest backwoods travelling. It is a mere
disjointed litter of branches and trees, amid which,
though partially concealed, rises a stubble of sharp
brushwood points, against which the horse inces-
santly stumbles, cutting his feet to pieces, and if he
passes from a stumble into a fall, it is ten to one he
stakes himself or rider, perhaps both. A mile or so
of such a route leads out at last upon the crest of a
lofty hill, looking down into a very steep wooded
valley, both sides of which are roughly cleared to
make room for a large wooden town, which, partly
painted white or green, partly in its raw shingle or
log-hut state, straggles far and wide—stables, houses,
hotels, stores, and shanties, building or built, in all
directions. This is Pithole City, which, in the begin-
ning of April was an uncleared wood, belonging to
an overworked, underpaid Pennsylvanian farmer.
Now it has from 8,000 to 10,000 inhabitants, and
is likely, if things go well, to contain double that
number before a twelvemonth more. Everything
here is so utterly unlike what we of the Old IVorld
have been accustomed to see that it is difficult to
give a description that can resemble the place, and
quite impossible to institute a comparison that will
parallel it. It is at once a town fully occupied
though only half-built, a town which is the great
centre of the great oil trade, a town littered over a
forest amid ragged stumps of pines and girt about
with a perfect sea of deep tenacious mud. Yet, un-
like Oil City, there are no derricks here—all that is
in the Creek below. The muddy channels, too,
which make the streets are at least wide and spacious,
whereas the miserable lanes of Oildom are often as
deep as they are wide. Pithole, in fact, is like no-

thing but itself, even in Potrolia, where all is
strange. Splashing down the hill to the first street,
one gets perfectly confounded by the din of saws
and hammers, for everything is being built, or,
having been built in a hurry some month or six
weeks ago, is already in process of much needed re-
pair. One one side is a little row of important
agencies and offices of companies, where the rate of
prices makes Wall-street vibrate, though they are
hardly to be distinguished from the hovels where
accommodation is announced for man and beast,
and nothing offered which is fit for either. Then
come long rows of really good three-storied frame
houses, some with their white piazzas runninground
each floor, some painted, others in the rough plain
deal ; then a new street, the lower floors of the houses
in which are being occupied, furnished, and provi-
sionedwhile the upper ones are beingnailedtogether.
Here on one side is a large rough timber building
belonging to an equestrian circus, with a gaudy
banner announcing that its first benefit was given
towards the funds in aid of the Pithole Church;
then a long straggling hotel, which is let and crowd-
edly occupied at one end while the other is being
put together, and where each room as soon as it is
half finished pays its cost in a week. Then, as the
houses get more important, come the stores, the
contents of which, as in Oil City, may be known
by what is littered outside. Here the majority,
whether teamers or oil princes, buy no new
clothes while those they have can hold to-
gether. When either does " rag out," as it is
called, he undresses and redresses in the store, and
throws the discarded habiliments, which he does not
longer want, in the mud of the side-walk before it.
If any comparison could be made between this
place and what Europeans have seen, it might pos-
sibly be found in the interior of one of our interna-
tional exhibitions two nights or so before the time
of opening, when everything is, of course, unfinished
when masons, engineers, and carpenters are atwork,
doing badly in a hurry what should have been done
well long before, and when amid the clang of iron
and the never-ending din of hammers, saws, and
planes, a perfect flood of lost packages keeps arriv-
ing, and the cases are broken up in the mud outside
the building, while inside the other cases are being
nailed together to exhibit them. Such, in a general
way, is Pithole now. Its sidewalks of rough timber,
raised above the mud, are crowded with cases—
provisions, groceries, wines, furniture, crockery, all
laid about waiting for the hotels, boarding-houses,
eating-houses, &c., to be finished before they can be
taken in, and in front of each and all lies a danger-
ous debris among the mud ; old packing frames,
broken ware, timber, bottles, ends of beams studded
with broken nails, huge stones, submerged plank-
ways, now and then felled trees, and crowds of tired
worn-out horses tied to posts and planks or moored
to stones—anywhere, in fact, where the hurried,
jaded traveller can leave his steed with a hope of
finding it again. Such a scene as this—such a wide
spread, well laid out, mixed town of contradictions,
where a fine store is jostled by a dirty stable or
still dirtier lodging-house, where the telegraph
posts, quite as abundant here and rather more
necessary than derricks, are represented by pine-
trees cut short in the middle of the mud—that is
to say, the road—any one can imagine. He has
only to people it with the muddiest of populations
crowding the channels, with overladen teams crowd-
ing the side-walks, with muddy men who congregate
about with note-books in their hands copying down
returns of wells, prices of stocks, and amounts for
which interests are to be sold, &c., and then he will
have Pithole City before him—a city which is still
in the hands of the carpenter and joiner—a city
which has nearly 10,000 people trying to make it
habitable, but as yet in vain. There arc, neverthe-
less, two good hotels here—that is to say, houses
which are awfully overcrowded, but where at least
the fare is abundant and wholesome, the sleeping
accommodation both dry and clean, which is saying
quite as much as a traveller need desire anywhere,
and much more than any could fairly expect to find
in these backwood cities. For the benefit of any
future travellers, I may say that these hotels are the
Morey Farm and Chase-house. It is true that the
beds and pillows of each are popularly and very
naturally supposed to be stuffed with "basswood
feathers "—that is to say, with the chips of the
hardest timber to be found about here. Yet it is
astonishing how soft even " bass-wood feathers "
become to those who have had hard riding, or rather
climbing, through these wild tracks, and who reach
the Morey Farm at night after, it may be, ten, or
12 hours in the saddle, without food or rest.

Such a rough peculiar scene as I have attempted
to describe is common to both sides of this very
steep and picturesque valley, the "regions " or the
territory, as here the oil land is indifferently called,
lying between the two. A very steep decline leads
down to these huge wells, about 150 in num-
ber, from most of which the oil is flowing, from
some only gas, which comes with a roar like steam
from a waste-pipe, and which fills - the air with a
sickening miasma that half poisons those who inhale
it for the first few times. All along the way down
the hills men are felling trees and surveying the
half-cleaned ground, mapping it off by marks
upon the pines or white sticks in the ground, show-
ing the boundaries of acre or half-acre lots which
have been let upon the Rooker, Holinden, or
Morey Farms, the great prizes in this district now.
Lower down the valley the road gets muddier and
more greasy, till everything becomes of the con-
sistency of thick green paint, amid which are crowds
of teams, some laden, some empty, but all struggling
down to cross the run, some with loads, some to
reach wells where the flow exceeds the means of
transit; and where, amid oaths, directions, com-
mands, and entreaties, the word is passed from team
to team that the road to such and such a well is
blocked with waggons, when they turn aside and
begin toiling through the oily woods in search of
roads to otherventures less frequented but equally in
want of teams. On the morning when I first visited
the Creek two full waggons had broken down in the
centre of thelnarrow ford, overturning an empty one
and thus effectually stopping the chief route which
gave access to the wells on either side. The confu-
sion then was something almost maddening, as each
in turn issued contradictory directions, which few
attended to, or only so far followed as to makethings
worse, if possible. Such a hopeless entanglement as
then took place amid the mud and oily brushwood
was rare to witness even in the rushes for new wells.
Men in the brook, up to their waists in water, were
trying to extricate the teams ; men in the tracks, up
to their waists in mud, were trying to back their
empty waggons out overstumps and brushwood ; on
all sides men were rolling barrels full of oil from the
overcharged wells ; there were hideous shouts and
alarms raised now and then as trees were felled and
came with a thundering crash to the ground, and
when the confusion was at its height and a heavy
blast was exploded an appalling rumour of fire was
spread about—a rumour almost as dreadful to hear at
Pithole Creek as in a powder magazine. And all this
was going on amid incessant cries and oaths, sultry
weather and heavy rain, an escape of gas from the
wells and the earth that filled the air and made
trees, derricks, hills, men, and horses all alike
flicker and ripple in the atmosphere like some wild,
unsteady phantasmagoria. It is rather a signifi-
cant fact that nothing tended so much to relieve
this confusion as the false alarm adroitly spread
that the great well to which all the teams were
' pressing had " gi'n out" and no more oil was to be
had from there. Such a statement did not seem to
excite the slightest surprise, and every one took it
as a matter of course that that which had yielded
fullest was most likely to dry up soonest, and the
great mass of waggons turned off to other ventures.
Tsis ruse relieved the rush upon the ford, and, by
breaking up the waggons which stopped the way,
the circulation of the traffic was at last restored.
When this had been effected our party were enabled
to advance, and we soon found ourselves amid a
huge series of oily wooden vats, each capable of
holding 2,000 barrels, and which stood in great
black rows running out from the derricks two and
two together, and all joined up at the base by three
inch iron pipes communicating from one pair of
vats to the other. This was the Grant well, one of
the largest on the Creek. A long ladder between
the last couple of wooden tanks gave access to a
staging, where a view could be had of the iron pipe
which led; from the well to the vats. From this the
' petroleum was flowing in intermittent gushes with

a force as if propelled by a powerful engine. The
thick dark rush came in regular pulsations in a great
roaring stream of gas and oil, lasting about fifteen
seconds, when for about five seconds' interval it
only gurgled a volume of fetid gas almost as white
and dense as steam. A careful timing of the inter-
vals of rush and comparative stoppage showed not
a second's variation between either, the well yield-
ing steadily about 1,500 barrels per day—that is to
say, in the 24 hours. Half of the yield of this fine
property is paid to the United States' well, close at
hand, as a royalty for the permission to sink it on
their territory. This United States' well is close by
the Grant well, within 100 feet or so, yet, as is
always the case, they essentially differ both in the
quality of their oil and in the intermittent nature
of their flow. The United States' pipe pours oil
into its tanks with immense force for about 30
seconds, and then has a 30 seconds pause, during
which it only pours forth gas of the most terribly
inflammable nature. So bad is this vapour even for
Pithole that the tanks of this well are covered with
huge wooden lids, each having a wooden spire-
shaped chimney from its centre to take off the gas
as high as possible. Yet, in spite of the horrible
danger that fire threatens, one can scarcely say that
much precaution is taken here against it. I have
spent many hours in great powder magazines, yet,
on the whole, I would rather pass a month in them
than a day by the great wells in Pithole, which are
simply as dangerous as any powder stores without
one of their precautions. It is true that at every
hand's turn one meets the warning notice, " No
smoking," " Beware of smoking," " Smokers will be
lynched," &c. Yet, in spite of everything, smoking
does go on on the sly, when teamsters and others
can slip into the brushwood and furtively light their
pipes, even though, like miners who do the same in
fiery pits, they know that they do so at the risk of
their own lives and those of all around them. As an
instance, when we visited the United States well, a
man in charge asked us to give up all lucifers and
fusees before going up to the flow-pipe. The demand
was conscientiously complied with, and the collection
from a large party made a pretty good handful,
which vas taken and thrown into the stream out-
side, but so carelessly thrown that nearly one-half
alighted on the little wooden bridge across it. The
very first group that passed over this bridge trod
among the matches, setting them on fire, and there
was a rush :and a scurry to hustle them into the
stream. Since I was first here a fortnight ago the
tanks of the Grant well have taken fire. They did
not explode, but burnt out fiercely, burning down
17 derricks, a lot of oily trees around, exploding
gas here and there, and generally doing damage to
the amount of £25,000 in a couple of hours. This
accident happily took place in the night, when the
wood was not crowded, nor the teams about.
From the States' well we passed to the Sherman
well, to No. 110, No. 54, No. 71, and many
others. All have the same character of intermittent
flow. All without exception flowed at different
intervals. Not any two, no matter how close toge-
ther, gave exactly the same quality of oil. In some
it was half brine, half oil, in some equal gas and oil,
in some a little oil and a great deal of gas, and vice
versa. Some flowed at half-hour intervals, some at
three, some at 12 ; some flowed only three hours a
day, and for the next 21 hours gave off their gas.
Some flowed only three days a week, but all, no
matter what the length of interval during which the
supply stopped, could be depended on to a second
of time to resume it—that is to say, if it ever began
flowing again. Some wells here have never yielded
oil at all, but are pouring out gas in deadly profu-
sion. Every one knows that this escape of power is
lessening the chance of the productiveness of all
wells far and near it. But here every one is for
himself, and the owners of gas wells have to be
bought off, and thus, as a rule, make as much money
as any of the others. Few, on a first visit, can bear
the deadly miasma of the gas without temporary ill-
ness. Yet this first intolerable nausea, which is a
compound of seasickness and high fever, never lasts
beyond the first three or four days, and after that
people not only withstand it, but actually get to
like it as having an exhilarating effect upon their
spirits. Not only do they like the smell, but the
taste, and the men employed day and night in filling
the barrels from the bottom of the tanks take from
two to three wine glass doses of crude petroleum a
day, as an absolute specific against chills, cold, or
ague. I cannot appeal to my own experience,
never having tried the remedy ; but at least
the experience of the people of America for the
last 50 years has shown that petroleum oil applied
externally cures rheumatism, and certainly the state-
ments of those here who work, live, and sleep in
wet, and whose only medicine is a little crude petro-
leum, would seem to prove that it has some medi-
cinal virtues of a high character. Labour never
stops at Pithole during the night. The wells are
flowing, and those that are not may burst out at
any minute. Time also is precious, and drilling for
new wells, seaming out old ones, melting the paraffin
wax away from the tubes of those that have got
clogged, goes on without variation, morning, noon,
and night. As darkness falls the iron pipes which
give off the gas above the derricks are lit at their
summits one after another with a dull exploding
boom ; heavy sheets of flame leap roaring and
glaring about, and by the light of these, among the
woods, men work as easily as at midday. Then the
scene is wonderful in its wild, rough picturesqueness,
—so wonderful in its curious effects of light and
shade as to defy description. It is as if ironworks,
coal mines, blast furnaces, and huge gasworks were
suddenly scattered pellmell along a deep ravine of
an American forest; great masses of pines lit to
their very summits by the intense glare, with
gloomy avenues of trees so dense that no light pene-
trates ; men working at the wells, always filling
barrels and rolling them away to meet the morn-
ing's demands; men surveying, men notching trees,
men cutting them down or building derricks ; and
beyond all, at either side on the hills above the
Creek, there seems a flickering illumination going
on, as, amid an incessant tap, tap of hammers, the
carpenters keep at work nailing the houses of Pit-
hole City together, or trying to build its timber
side-walks so as to make the town not only habit-
able but passable.

BREVET BRIGADIER GENERAL HORACE T.
SANDERS.—Brevot Brigadier-General Horace T. Sanders,
of Racine, Wis., expired in the city of Washington on the
Bth instant, of pulmonary consumption. General Sanders
was for many years preceding the war among the promi-
nent lawyers of Wisconsin, and abandoned a good practice
to enter the service in 1861. By extraordinary effort his
regiment, the Nineteenth Wisconsin Infantry, was raised,
clothed, armed, and equipped, and mustered into the ser-
vice April 19, 1862, and ordered to tho Army of the Poto-
mac. Since then its history is that of the Grand Anny in
its advances against Richmond. General Sanders' health
broke down to such an extent as to unfit him for field
service nearly two years ago ; but his ability as a lawyer
rendered him invaluable on military commissions and
courts-martial. An injury received in one cf our attacks
on Drury's Bluff still further incapacitated him for labor,
but failed to drive him from the service. He was subse-
quently appointed provost-marshal of Norfolk, and ac-
quitted himself in that trying position to the satisfaction
of all whose opinions were entitled to consideration. He
was finally mustered out of service with the non-veteran
portion of his regiment at the expiration of their three
years' term of service, and breveted a brigadier-general
from that date. Finding himself too feeble to resume the
practice of his profession he wont to Washington one
week ago to ask some appointment from the Government
he had literally sacrificed his life to defend, but succumbed
to disease before his hopes were realised. General Sanders
was an able lawyer, a warm friend, and a true patriot.
Secretary Stanton has ordered the remains to be sent to
Wisconsin at Government expense, in charge of an officer
to bo designated by General Augur.—New York Herald.

James Nisbet, one of the editors of the San Fran-
cisco Bulletin, was among the sufferers by the wreck of
the Brother Jonathan on the Pacific coast, last month.
The body of the old man was found floating in, i.e ocean,
seven miles from land. When it was taken ashore and
examined there was found in the deceased's vest pocket a
will which was written after the ship struck the fatal rock.
Contemplating calmly the terrible scenes about him, and
calculating his chances for life, he had the cool courage to
make such a disposition of his property as would be most
beneficial to those who would he left behind him. The
old man writing a will, amid the howling of the tempest
that was lashing the ocean into foaming billows, and sur-
rounded by drowning men, women, and children wailing
out their agony to the pitiless winds and the raging sea,
presents a heroic picture.
_ _

Ex-Governor Horton, of Texas, died at Mata-
gorda on theist of September.
Major-General Hooker was lately married to Miss
Groesbeck at Cincinnati.
Governor Oglesby, of Illinois, has issued an ad-
dress to the Governors of the different States and Terri-
tories, to bo submitted by them to the Legislatures and
people of their States, asking more active and efficient co-
operation in the matter of raising funds for the Lincoln
monument.

......,
Jefferson Davis was removed on the 2d inst.,
under a strong guard, from his casemate prison to the
quarters assigned him in Carroll Hall.

Dean Stanley on Lord Palmerston.

The Very Rev. Dean Stanley preached the ser-
mon at the afternoon service at Westminster Abbey
on Sunday. There was a crowded congregation.
The Dean took the text from the epistle of the
day. Ephes. v. 15—" See then ye walk circum-
spectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time,
because the days are evil. Wherefore, be ye not
unwise, but understanding what the will of the
Lord is." That, said the preacher, is what they
were called upon to do that day, to understand what
is the especial will of God in the homage paid to the
illustrious dead. Every great man whose ashes re-
posed beneath that roof was so honoured for a dis-
tinct and special reason. As each lofty peak in a
mountain country is illuminated by the setting sun
With a different colour, so with distinguished minds
—in the sunset of life they all showed distinct hues.
The preacher said he would leave out of considera-
tion altogether questions of party connected with
the late Prime Minister, and confine himself to the
simple question, what was . the special intention
of God as manifested in the conduct and career of
Lord Palmerston. Of all political chiefs it might
be said of him that he accomplished the greatest re-
sults by the lowliest and most ordinary means. It
was that which made his life so full of rich lessons—
lessons cf industry, of application, and of patience
in the pursuit of great ends. This was the fruitful
lesson which the life of the illustrious departed held
up to the edification of the young men of this gene-
ration—a lesson of plodding, persevering diligence.
Not by oratory, but by geniality, good humour, con-
stancy of friendship, and all the lesser graces, but not
the less graces, did Lord Palmerston succeed. The rev.
preacher apostrophised those who poisoned discus-
sion with bitterness, and who pushed views to the
extreme, giving no quarter and no indulgence to
their opponents, and reminded them that a soft word
turneth away wrath. He held out to them the
example of Lord Palmerston, who never harboured
ill-feeling after the fiercest strife of politics. From
a youth of comparative obscurity, and through
many shiftings and- changes of mature life, there
came to him a brighter and serener day in his octo-
genarian age. Nor let them shut out the encourage-
ment which this was calculated to give to others by
saying that it was the result of an extraordinary
good constitution. The illustrious chief did his duty
simply, and left the consequences to God. He
said on one occasion that he could never com-
prehend the anxieties of responsibility ; that he
took every pains to do well what he had to do,
and thus his spirit was delivered from all
anxiety. What was the thought that from
first to last guided his policy ? An unfail-
ing trust and belief in the power and greatness
and in the future of England. He was an
Englishman above all things ; and for that it was
that his name was known throughout the world.
This was the thought which on that occasion pressed
most upon them, even to the exclusion of those
higher considerations of a future life, which he
would not now advert to. In presence of that still
open vault it was the first duty of the preacher to
ask what it was they owed to their country. Let
them consider England, and what was its origin,
its fusion of hostile races, its history, its constitu-
tion, wrought out amidst so many struggles, its
freedom of conscience and of speech, and the sober
religious kindness which prevailed amongst us—let
them consider these, for they were some of the
things that went to mac up the idea of England.
The maintenance of that England, its future and its
progress, depended altogether upon the spirit and
conduct of its individual citizens. And to be a
citizen of England in its best sense was the highest
position which their late political chief could
conceive. It was a position to be proud of ;
but it brought with it its duties. Standing
in the gloom around the grave of that illustrious
man, they could not but feel that they were on a
turning point of the nation's history whence the
springs of political and national life would flow in
another direction. The oldest cf now living states-
men, compared with the deceased, belong to a
newer age ; but, after all, it is public opinion which
directs. In England public opinion is moulded by
every one who has a will and conscience of his own,
and on all and each of them it depended whether
that public opinion should be depressing or elevat-
ing, just or unjust, Christian or unchristian; and
thus the characters of our public men were inspired
by the whole nation. Still a single resolute mind,
a single pure spirit, a single voice praying con-
stantly on behalf of justice and mercy and freedom
had wrought great and beneficial results. In
conclusion, the very reverend preacher called upon
his hearers in the presence of the open grave
of the great departed, to forget those things
which, he said, are behind you. Forget in him
who is gone all that was of the earth earthy,
and reach forward in his character to all
that is immortal, the kindness, the perseverance, the
freedom from party spirit, the self-devotion which
are still before each one of us. Forget, too, in the
past and present generation, all that is behind the
best spirit of our age, all that is behind the true
spirit of the Gospel, all that is behind the require-
ments of the most Christian conscience, and reach
forward, one and all, towards those great things
which we may trust are still before us—the great
problems which our age may solve, the great facts
which our nation alone may accomplish, the great
doctrines of our common faith ; that we may have
the opportunity of grasping with a firmer hold all
that may effect a reconciliation of things old with
thingenew, of things common with things strange, of
class with class, man with man, nation with nation,
church with church, and all with God. This is the
high calling of England, of Engish statesmen, of
every English citizen, of the 10th century. This is
the will of God.

The very rev. preacher was listened to with deep
attention throughout a discourse of which the pre-
ceding is necessarily only a brief outline.

Secretary lel‘Culloch on the Currency.

Secretary M'Culloch has made a speech at Fort Wayne,
Indiana, on the paper currency question. He said :
"Ho was not ono of those who seem to repudiate coin
as a measure of value, and to make a secured paper cur-
rency the standard. On the contrary, he belonged to that
class of persons who, regarding an exclusive metallic cur-
rency as an impracticable thing among enterprising and
commercial people, nevertheless look upon an irredeemable
currency ns an evil which circumstances may for a time
render a necessity, but which is never to be sustained as a
policy. By common consent of nations gold and silver
are the only true measures of value. They are the neces-
sary regulators of trade. He favoured a well-secured con-
vertible paper currency. No other can to any extent be
a proper substitute for coin. It is not expected there shall
be a dollar in coin in reserve for every dollar in paper in
circulation. This is not necessary for all ordinary home
transactions. Paper currency is sufficient, but there are
constantly occurring periods when the balance between
countries, and in the United States between its different
sections, must be settled in coin. These balances are in-
significant in amount in comparison with the transactions
out of which they arise ; and when a vicious system of
credit does not too long postpone settlements they are
arranged without disturbing the movements of coin.
Whenever specie is needed for the purpose, or for any
other purpose, the paper currency of the country should
be convertible into it, and a circulation not so convertible
will not be, and ought not to be, tolerated by the people.
The present inconvertible currency of the United States
was a necessity of war; but now that the war has ceased,
and the Government ought not to be a borrower, this cur-
rency should be brought up to a specie standard, and he
saw no way of doing it but by withdrawing a portion of it
from circulation. He had no faith in a prosperity which
was the effect of a depreciated currency, nor could he see
any safe path to tread but that which leads to specie pay-
ment. The extreme high prices now prevailing indicated
that the business of the country is in an unhealthy con-
dition. We are measuring values by a false standard.
We have a circulating medium altogether larger than is
needed for legitimate business. The excess is used in
speculations. The United States to-day is the best market
in the world for foreigners to sell in, and among the
poorest to buy. The consequence is, Europe is selling us
more than she buys of us, including our securities,
which ought not to go abroad, and there is a debt rolling
up against us that must be settled, in part at least, with
coin. The longer the inflation continues the more difficult
will it be for us to get back to the specie payment, to
which we must return sooner or later. If Congress shall,
early in the approaching session, authorise the funding of
the legal tenders, and the work of reduction is commenced
and carefully and prudently carried on, we shall reach it,
probably, without serious embarrassment to legitimate
business. If not, we shall have a period of seductive pros-
perity, resulting in wide-spread bankruptcy and disaster.
He spoke of the evil tendencies of the present inflation on
the public morals, converting the business of the country
into gambling, and seriously diminishing the labor of the
country. Men were apparently getting rich, while mo-
rality languished, and the produetive industry of the
country was being demolished. Ito was hopeful that by
wise legislation we should escape financial collapse, and
that the currency might bo brought to a specific standard
without those financial troubles which have in all coun-
tries followed protracted and expensive wars."

The Fenian Council have issued a circular calling
a Congress of the whole order to meet at Philadelphia on
the 16th inst.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—In the opinion- of many the position and
prospects of the Government are not at the present
moment fit subjects for criticism in a newspaper ad-
vocating Liberal opinions, and sincerely anxious to
promote the cause of progress and enlightenment
throughout these kingdoms. In the first place, an
appeal is made ad misericordiam. The case, it is
said, is certainly a very awkward one, but then it is
nobody's fault. Had the Government of Lord Pal-
merston been dissolved by a vote of the House of
Commons, nothing can be more legitimate than cri-
ticisms on its structure and speculations on its pro-
spects. But the Government has been put an end to
by the inevitable calamity of the death of the Prime
Minister. Lord Russell has succeeded to the first
place by seniority, being just as much older than
his immediate junior in the Government as Lord
Palmerston was older than he. The thing is as much
a matter of course as that the Major succeeds to the
command of the regiment in action when the colonel
is killed. Lord Russell is not responsible for the
Government which he finds, and which he is bound
to carry on as he finds it, and it is ungenerous to be
hypercritical upon a state of things which, however
unfortunate, is yet nobody's fault. Others are in-
clined to admit that the state of things is exceed-
ingly unsatisfactory; nay, thatitis of that kind which
is wont to forerun a serious disaster. But what, they
say, is the use of pointing out these mischiefs ? Why
not leave them to be discovered by adversaries ?
And why disclose the fact that things are not as we
could wish them with regard to a matter of the first
importance in party politics—the construction of
that body to which we must look for leadership and
direction as well as for the administration of the
public affairs of a vast empire ? We do not believe
that the existence of so important a thing as a Go-
vernment can ever be a question of mere etiquette.
Lord Russell is Premier to all intents and purposes;
as Premier he is responsible for the construction of
his Government, for its ability to face Parliament,
and for its power to carry on the different depart-
ments of the State with vigour and success. If this
be not done the blame will fall upon him, and not
upon the untoward circumstances which have
placed him where he is. He has, besides, in his
hand the interests and destinies of a great party ;
he succeeds to a very rich inheritance. Lord Pal-
merston has bequeathed to him a nation contented
at home, at peace abroad, and free from any serious
complications and embarrassments, except the
American claim for compensation, which seems to
have been made against us rather for the purpose
of being recorded than of being pressed. Upon
him devolves the responsibility of continuing this
state of things, and he cannot shift it off himself
upon any set of men or any conjuncture of circum-
stances. The proper way to look at the present
Government is to regard it, like any other instru-
ment, with reference to the work it has to do and
the power which it possesses of accomplishing it.
We only repeat the general opinion of those who
have written on the subject when we say that its
structure does not do justice to the preponderating
influence which the House of Commons claims and
has established for itself in the councils of the
nation. The same complaint was made, and with
great justice, during the lifetime of Lord Palmerston.
It was felt to be a great practical evil, as we have
frequently pointed out, that the Ministers under
whose direction twenty-five millions of public money
were annually expended—the Secretary at War and
the First Lord of the Admiralty—were not present
in the House of Commons; and the same observa-
tion was made with regard to the Secretary for
Foreign Affairs. There was, however, it must be
said, great compensation in the presence of Lord
Palmerston. He had the direction as Prime
Minister of every Department of the State,
and was always ready to give information
and answer questions. As far as foreign affairs
went, his presence was more valuable than that
of the Secretary of State himself. He had
twenty years' experience of the Foreign-office, and
spoke on the subject with a knowledge and autho-
rity which nobody in the House could rival for a
moment. By his death the presence of both these
offices was really lost to the House of Commons.
Nor was this all ; Lord Palmerston had not only
been Foreign Minister for twenty years : he had been
for twenty years Secretary at War, and possessed a
practical knowledge of the subject second to that of
no one in Parliament. All this is lost to the house
on his death, without saying anything of the in-
fluence of his great age, his historic name, his un-
bounded personal popularity, his tact, and his expe-
rience ; for all these losses the House of Commons
receives no compensation whatever. We are not
now speaking of the loss of Lord Palmerston as the
head of a party, but simply of the loss sustained by
the Government in the House of Commons. It is
really incalculably great. To suppose that Govern-
ment can be carried on by the same persons with-
out Lord Palmerston in the House of Commons as
with him is really like believing that a watch will
go as well without a mainspring as with it. We
wish to say nothing of those gentlemen who, with
good abilities, excellent intentions, and fair success,
either as heads of departments or as Under-Secre-
taries, hate carried on their business in the House
of Commons. We only wish to point out that a
task which was by no means too light for them
while they had the help of Lord Palmerston must
be utterly beyond their strength when that help is
withdrawn. We cannot help thinking it is better
to look to these things at' once, instead of waiting
till practical experience has shown the truth of what
everybody knows and everybody anticipates. It is
also to be remarked that the old complaint which
was so strongly made against the Whig Government
of 1846 bids fair to renew itself. The Govern-
ment without Lord Palmerston, and with the
addition of Lord Clarendon, is assuming once more
the air of an arrangement by which place and
power are distributed among a few great families.
Mr. Gladstone is the striking exception ; but Mr.
Gladstone is declared too young for the irst place,
and almost every other member of the Cabinet can
trace his position to some other influence beyond
his personal merits and abilities. These things are
naturally regarded with dislike by the House of
Commons—a dislike not removed by the allotment
of a few, a very few minor offices, whether in the
Cabinet or out of it, to persons unconnected with a
particular section of the aristocracy. Our present
rulers are bad nurserymen ; they have planted out
no young trees, and when the old ones fall there
will be none to replace them. The official expe-
rience which has been gained by nearly thirty years
of office is concentrated in an incredibly small
number of hands, and as the Ministry dies out the
Whig party is in great danger of finding itself very
much in the same position as in 1831—not without
ability and good intention, but almost without
official experience. The Government thus unfor-
tunately constituted has before it the tremendous
difficulty of taking some decisive course with regard
to Reform. The question can no longer be kept
open or trifled with as in the last Parliament ; some
resolution must be taken, and upon that resolution
the Government must be constructed. We are not
offering an opinion as to what that resolution should
be, but merely pointing out the expediency of its
being at once taken and announced. Whatever the
decision may be, when it is once come to it will be
quite possible for the present Government to find
strength from one wing or other of the party. Till
it is come to the task of recruiting is simply hope-
less. There is nothing for it but to meet Parlia-
ment with the prospect of not being able to carry
the business on through the Session, and then to
try the most dangerous and difficult of all party
manoeuvres—the attempt to reconstruct a shattered,
disunited, and disheartened party in the face of an
inspirited and perhaps successful Opposition. It is
because me do not wish to see these things happen,
and because we think if things are suffered to go on
as they do now these things are pretty certain to
happen, that we raise our warning voice while it is
yet time. It is easy to strengthen the crew while
the vessel is yet in port, but the operation comes
too late on the open ocean, in the face of a heavy
gale, or of a victorious enemy.
POST.—Lord Russell's A.dministration will pos-
sess the advantage of a three months' preparation
before the assembling of Parliament. The interval
will supply, to a certain extent, a test of what it is
really worth ; and the departments whose activity
will meanwhile be most conspicuous are fortunately
those in which more confidence is reposed than in
any others. It will devolve on Lord Clarendon to
conduct those delicate negotiations which are still
pending both with America and with some European
States ; and Mr. Gladstone will be occupied with
the preparation of another of those budgets which
seem to have been designed for the last six years to
fascinate the more impressionable of our economists
at home. Under the guidance of the former the
Foreign-office is hardly likely to go far wrong ; and
indeed the substitution of Lord Clarendon for Lord
Russell in that department is the only consolation
to be found under the heavy blow that both the
Government and the nation have sustained. More-
ever, there is reason to hope that it will now be more
than ever the desire of the disciples of Lord Pal-
merston to yield an implicit following to his policy.
Mr. Gladstone at the same time will, it is to be
assumed, pursue the financial principles that have
already brought him so many votaries. The three
months now following are commonly a period of
great administrative activity; and if Lord Russell
and his colleagues avail themselves of this opportu-
nity with the prudence which certainly ought to be
presumed from their experience, it is possible
that they may be able to meet Parliament with
more sympathy and support in the heart of the
nation than probably at this moment exists. We
confess we entertain less apprehension for Lord
Russell's ability to keep his Cabinet together

than we have as to his success in retaining
the confidence of the new House of Commons.
Our contemporaries have been very free in pre-
dicting Cabinet divisions, and the breaking up of
the Ministry through the formation of different
parties. No doubt Lord Russell will elicit a much
less willing discipline and subordination among his
colleagues than Lord Palmerston did. But it seems
to be forgotten that the element of coalition has
pretty nearly died out from the Ministry. The
Cabinet of Lord Palmerston, it is quite true, was
formed in 1859, like that of Lord Aberdeen in 1853,
on the basis of a fusion of parties. But during the
last six years the Peelite party, as it was once
termed, has so fallen away that there are only two
disciples of the late Sir Robert Peel to be found in
the Administration. The Duke of Newcastle and
Lord Herbert are no more ; and one or two subor-
dinate members of Government, who formerly clung
to that party, have also withdrawn. Lord Canning,
again, though not latterly a Minister at home, has
been also lost to the Peel school. At this moment
only Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Cardwell remain ; and
even the latter was supposed to have abjured Peelism
before the present Cabinet was formed. It follows,
therefore, that Lord Russell's Ministry is pretty
nearly a homogeneous Whig Government. Even the
Lord Chancellor, though he served in the Coalition
Cabinet of 1853 was Lord Melbourne's Solicitor-
General ; and Mr. Milner Gibson was a member of
Lord Russell's pure Whig Ministry of 1846. This
state of things presents a curious commentary on the
prediction, so common fifteen years ago, that the
Whigs were a declining faction, and the Peelites an
ascending national party. The Whigs, on the con-
trary, have fairly worn the Peelites down, though
they have sustained quite as heavylosses from morta-
lity as thelatter. They have lately lost by death Lord
Palmerston, Lord Lansdowne, and Sir G. Lewis ;
while Lord Grey, their most eloquent advocate in the
House of Lords, has deliberately abandoned them.
We point out these circumstances, not in evi-
dence of any intrinsic advantage to the Govern-
ment, but simply to indicate that, if the Government
is to break down through a want of internal cohesion,
as is just now being predicted, the result will be a
very singular one indeed. Its almost purely Whig
character is, externally speaking, a source of great
disadvantage and weakness. Year after year the
Whigs, as such, appear to exert less influence over
the general mass of the Liberal majority in the
House of Commons. It is obvious that the Cabinet
requires a stronger and broader representation in
that house than it now has. Lord Palmerston's
influence and popularity served to conceal the inroad
which had been made on the original strength of the
Treasury bench in the Commons. Now the losses
that have been sustained there reveal themselves in
all their reality. The difficulty of making up for
them in any way is a great aggravation of all this.
Where, in truth, is the Government to obtain fresh
strength ? If we look for it in Mr. Horsman or Mr.
Lowe, two of the ablest debaters in the Liberal
ranks, we must at once be prepared to break with
the Radicals on the whole question of Parliamentary
Reform. Lord Russell and Mr. Gladstone are
surely not prepared to do this. Mr. Horsman and
Mr. Lowe have declared as emphatically against
Reform as the Duke of Wellington did in 1830.
They would not only bring no tail with them, but
would insure the secession of Mr. Bright and his
friends. The list of the new House of Commons
may be searched in vain for any name that would
add much to the rhetorical or administrative strength
of the Government while it would also bring them
fresh support in a division.