The Sun.
London, England, 1862-11-15 00:00:00

throw " Wadsworth, tyranny, niggerism, and
swindling, contractors:' They have also ex nsively

circulated a little card, with a wood eng ving re-

presenting a stalwart Southern negro, ; olding at

arm's length by the leg the naked body of a white
infant, into whose heart he has ju• plunged a

dagger, while the white mother lies dead at his feet

upon a bale of cotton. The card bears the inscrip-
tion " Gen. Wadsworth's docile peasantry," and is
intended to prefigure the results of Mr. Lincoln's
proclamation of freedom to the slaves, should that
ill-starred document ever provoke the servile war
which the Abolitionists expect. The issues to be
decided are indeed momentous. Not only New Tork
but eight other States—those of New Jersey, Mas-
sachusetts, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Mis-
souri, Minnesota, and Delaware, hold their annual
elections on that day. The Democrats reckon on
success in five of the nine, and even in Abolitionist
Massachusetts are not without hope of defeating
both Governor Andrews and Mr. Charles Sumner,
two gentlemen who share with Mr. Wendell Phil-
lips, Mr. Horace Greeley, and the late John Brown
of Ossowattamie the most cordial hatred of the
\ party. By far the most important of all the elec-
tions are those for the State of New York. If the
I Democratic victory be achieved Mr. Lincoln must

either recal his Proclamation of Emancipation, dis-
miss his present advisers, and walk strictly in the
paths of the constitution, or brave an organised and
powerful opposition in Congress and the States,
which will sooner or later produce a revolutionary
crisis. The example set by the Abolitionist Go-
vernors, in refusing to forward troops to the sup-
port of the President until they coerced him into
the adoption of measures in accordance with their
own views, will indubitably be followed by the De-

mocrats, if the President should call upon them
hereafter for additional men to carry on hostilities,
and public affairs will either come to a dead lock or
a civil war between the rival factions of the North.

A journal which claims to be the organ of Ameri
can gentlemen, and which every week indulges in
fierce personal invectives against Gen. M'Clellan,
is so violently in favour of the Republican ticket,
that it declares "if Seymour is elected, there are but
two desperate remedies left to reunite the North and
save the country. One is an immediate war with
England; the other the quick displacement of
M'Clellan, and the seizure of authority by some
bold military chieftain, whom the soldiers truly
love, and who will return the Republic to the
people (a dangerous chance) after he has snatched
it from its present perils." But as there happens to
be no military chieftain whom the soldiers love, or
in whom they have any confidence, except M'Clel.
lan, and as the North has more than enough on its
hands in fighting the South, without rushing into
an unprovoked war with England, the despair of
this representative of American " gentlemen" is
not likely to be converted into hope by the adop-
tion of either of his alternatives. Were M'Clellan a
man like Napoleon 111.--able, ambitious, and dar-
ing—he, and he alone, of all the public men in Ame-
rica might, with the assistance of the triumphant
Democrats (if they are to be triumphant), effect a
successful coup d'etat. And if something of the kind
be not attempted, it will be for lack of a man, and
not for lack of provocatives, or of latent sympathy
on the part of larges masses of the people.
The premium on gold, notwithstanding the efforts
which are made to keep it down by the Financial
Secretary and his friends the " loyal bankers;' who
look upon the commodity as a traitor to the Union,
refuses to go lower than 29 and 30 per cent., and
obstinately and feloniously shows a determination
to follow its own laws in reference to superabund-
ance of paper issues. The working men of New
York have begun to discover what they did not
previously know, that a premium on gold is but
another name for a depreciation of paper currency
not convertible into gold; and that their ordinary
wages of a dollar and a half per diem in paper re-
present at the present rates no more than a dollar;
and that a dollar no longer purchases more than
two-thirds of the food, fuel, and raiment into which

it was exchangeable in the halcyon days of peace.
The consequence has been a new feature in the
social history of this country—a succession of
" strikes" (long believed to be peculiar to Eng-
land) for higher wages. Among the la-
bourers who have recently struck for an ad-
vance on the plea of the increased and
increasing price of the necessaries of life are
the ship caulkers, the gas workers, the
stevedores and ships' porters, and the ostlers and

drivers of the horse railway cars. In all these cases

the men have been successful in their demands, and
in some instances the mere threat of a strike was
sufficient to procure a consideration of and an
acquiescence in their claims.
The readers of the Times will perhaps remember
the case of Mr. W. H. Winder, a gentleman of
Philadelphia, who has been imprisoned for more
than a year in Forts Lafayette and Warren, with-
out cause assigned, in pursuance of a telegraphic
order from Mr. Simon Cameron, then Secretary of
War, which that gentleman denies he ever autho-
rised or had any knowledge of. The case was first
made known to the world in my letter to the Times
of the 15th of August, but was not reproduced or
commented upon in any of the journals of this
country. Last week an application was made on
Mr. Winder's behalf to Judge Clifford, of the
United States' Circuit Court of Massachusetts, for a
writ of habeas corpus directed to the military corn-
mandant of Fort Warren, to show cause why he
detained that gentleman in custody. The Court
granted the writ. fhe day before yesterday the
deputy-sheriff, on bein; refused a pass to go in the
regular steamer to the fort, proceeded in a sloop,
but found a company of soldiers drawn up on the
esplanade, and was not allowed to land. Finding
it impossible to serve the writ he returned, and re-
ported proceedings to the judge. The Court heard
his statement, and replied that it had no means
with which to enforce the writ, and ordered the
papers to be filed. And so the case ends for the
present. Mr. Winder, however, is not likely to let
the case drop, and perhaps the sheriff, or one of his
assistants, may yet succeed in finding the means of
reaching the commandant—if he ever leaves his
ensgto in the pleasant pur-
lieuschurch, or accepts
take
the elegant hospitalities of that learned city. At
grim
o fortress
f
Common, an a
giroi
present ho remains as close a prisoner as Mr.
Winder.
The draught continues to be so unpopular, and
the consequences of a possible or threatened re-
sistance continue to be so distasteful to the Go-
vernment, that a demand has been made for its
adjournment in the State of New York, and gene-
rally throughout the North to the Ist of January.
It is not yet known whether the demand will be
acceded to. In the meantime, the number of per-
sons claiming exemptions as aliens increases from
day to day, and affords employment to a large staff
or clerks in all the districts of the city. Under the
expectation that many Irish and Germans who are
unwilling to fight for the Union, but willing enough
to vote at elections, will present themselves at the
polling booths on Tuesday next, the War Depart-
ment has issued an order to Provost Marshal Gene-
ral Draper to watch all such cases, and submit any
offenders they may detect to the summary operation
of martial law. This threat is aimed at the Demo-
cratic party, who are strong in Irish support. They,
on their part, will take what measures they can to
prevent fraud on the Republican side, and should
an etnigtact ship from Bremen or Liverpool happen
to arrive on Monday the emigrants will not be
bal-
lowed to pass themselves off as citizens, and vote
for General Wadsvcorth, though such things have
happened before now in hot political contests. Con-
na;nglite,tuysiih
is felt. for the peace of the city on
zdaleay
parties are highly excited.

A WORD 'UPON OUR. CRTMINALS.—The class Of
bard and hopeless criminals is not large. It is a disgrace
to a society like ours that it cannot manage that mischiev-
ous element; but the failure is partly due to the good-
natured mistake of respectable people in imagining criminals
to be like themselves in feelings and in views. It does not
enter their innocent heads that criminals are not ashamed,
but Vain of their pursuits; that they have peculiar notions
of honour and conscience, and views quite unlike ours of
what is desirable in life. Our respectable people therefore do
operation
irmatpzrn tan
in ci
n ofota the system s}b•
not know what to aim at in the management of our convicts
and do not understand
ed in
te the
syt ecneir tvia hicohf
its
hpero ssiiicases
is entirely spoiled
being
neglected which are carefully fulfilled
inn in Ireland.— Once a Week.
i
t
svuiesceionsi