The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-31 00:00:00

falling off in the export of cotton. Had not the
French treaty made up a large portion of the fall-
ing off, the consequences must have been crushing.
_ _

It was, however, freely acknowledged that, oven
had there been no disturbing causes, the falling off
must have been very considerable. The prodigious
overmanufacturing of the preceding years had so
glutted every market that we must have diminished
our production this year, even had the cotton sup-
ply continued as usual.

The position of the cotton operatives must,
however, soon become very serious. The entire
consumption of raw material in Europe and
America is estimated at a million and a quarter
of bales—and of this more than half has been
supplied, hitherto by America—from time and a
half, indeed, to four millions. And we can only
make good the deficiency in the course of time.
Meantime, in England a population receiving four-
teen millions a year in wages, must be to a great
extent deprived of employment. Mr. MASSEY,
however, and the Government will note, that
anxiously as these business men looked forward to
the future, and strong as the temptation must be
for them to follow the course of French manufac-

tuners, and wish the Government to interfere and
break the blockade—there was not one of them but
expAsed himself asopposed to intervention. It was
firmly held that the Americans, however much

the fratricidal war was deplored, must be left to
fight out their own quarrels. We wonder whether,
when this report from the very heart of the cotton
trade reaches Ayerica, there will be magnanimity
enough to confess the injustice of charging England,
under the terrors of a cotton famine, as eager to
break their blockade—a blockade, too, self-con-
demned, being legally an insufficient one.
One of the principal speakers suggested, as a
feasible attempt towards a better state of things,
that—a year having passed away, and the results
appearing so hopeless, and being certainly so disas-
trous to American finance—Manchester should
send to America a calm, business-like view of the
present facts of the case, or, if preferred, a deputa-
tion. There was a considerable number of persons,
he thought, who had been afraid to speak out
hitherto, but who, after all that has occurred this
year, might be emboldened to take the
lead in affairs. No one wished to touch
American sensitiveness, but it was thought the
better class in America would not now be so over-
sensitive to the advice and expostulations of the
corresponding class in this country. We observe
that it seemed to be assumed by these men of busi-
ness that that] extravagance, debt, and taxation,
must half ruin the States after the war, unless
some termination were speedily found to the pre-
sent course, Mr. BAZLEY was not quite so de-
sponding as some of the speakers. He tells us that
Lord RUSSELL and the Emperor of the FRENCH are
already giving very judicious advice, that animosi-
ties would be eooled down, that ports would re-open
again, and that we might expect something like a
return to the peaceful commercial intercourse which
existed before the great convulsion. We presume
the Member for Manchester speaks what he knows.
If so, we shall probably soon hear some explana;
tions from Ministers in their places in Parliament.

After thirty-four days had been shamefully con-
sumed in it, the inquiry as to the sanity or in-
sanity of Mr, WINDHAM, of Fellbrigg Hall, in
the county of Norfolk, was at length brought to
a close yesterday. A jury of his countrymen,
with Sir GEORGE ARMITAGE as its Foreman,
closed this most cruel and revolting investigation
by bringing in a verdict that, while it pronounces
Mr. WINDHAM to be perfectly competent to take
care of himself and his affairs, is declaratory also,
of course, that there proves to have been abso-
lutely no case whatever for the petitioners. Al-
ready we observe this notorious inquiry alluded
to as another and not the least remarkable of the
Causes Celebres—when it ought, more strictly
speaking, to be set apart from the usual category
as in many senses un cause infame. That, termi-
nating as it has terminated, it should have been
conducted as it has been conducted, is absolutely
nothing less than a disgrace to English jurispru-
dence.

Here is a man who is in part already, bat for the
most part prospectively, the owner of landed estates
and other property bringing in from ten to fifteen
thousand pounds sterling per annum, who, upon
evidence that has long since proved to be utterly
valueless (to say the very least of it !) is declared
by his relatives, by those who have hoped,
sooner or later, to come into possession
of his ancient inheritance to be insane,
to be fit only for a lunatic asylum,
if not even to require very urgently to be secured
in a padded room and strapped in a straitwaisteoat
—and who is nevertheless, after all, at a cost to
himself that it is positively frightful to contemplate,
proved to be as sane as any one of the jurymen
who brought in the verdict yesterday.
Remembering now what has thus been delibe-
rately proved and demonstrated beyond the reach
of contradiction, is it not absolutely lamentable to
reflect upon the character of the proceedings which
have led to this simple decision through such a
ruinous squandering of money, and through so
protracted, so laborious, and so ineffably loathsome
a research ?It is enough—in order to appreciate
this to its most painful extent—merely to glance
at the few but fearful statistics noted down at the
close of the now notorious WINDHAM Inquiry. In
the prosecution of the inquiry, as we have seen, no
less than thtrty-four days have been consumed,
Nearly nine of those days having been devoted to
the oratorical displays of the numerous counsel
engaged in the cause, either for Mr. WINDHAM
himself, or for his mother, Lady SOP HIA GIUBELET,
or for his wife, nee A GNES WILLOUGHBY, or for
those who, we hesitate not to assert (notwithstand-
ing the filthy disclosures that have been made
during the course of this investigation in regard to
the condict of others), are, of all parties concerned,
regarded with the largest amount of scorn and gene-
ral contumely—meaning, of course, the now
thoroughly worsted Petitioners. As conclusively
demonstrative, however, of the perfectly monstrous
dimensions to which the inquiry has been allowed to
expand during the course of its development—it
will be enough to bear in mind that the evi-
dence of no less than 140 distinct witnesses
was, more or less elaborately, extracted upon
examination and cross-examination. _Fifty of
these being brought into the witness-box on
behalf of the Petitioners—Ninety on behalf of
Mr. WINDHAM. Sickening though details have
frequently been even in the abbreviated and ex-
purgated reports which have been by necessity
published from day to day in our columns and in
the columns of the rest of the public newspapers,
those printed records have been as nothing com-
pared with the mass of abominations dragged forth,
first of all in the Court of Exchequer and after-
wards in the WEsiminster Session House, before
the unhappy Jury and the unfortunate Master in
Lunacy who were compelled by a solemn duty to
—sit and listen ! It is in regard to this particular
especially that we are constrained at once to ex-
press our very earnest sympathy for those ill-
starred gentlemen, for Mr. Mrsigigx I+2-Lie Master),
and for Sir GEtAqu All 2
ITA6E and his brother
Jurymen, who, in their capacity as Judge and