The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-24 00:00:00

HORSES STRUCK OUT OF THEIR ENGAGE-
MENTS.

June 10, at 10.20 n.m. Accident, out of tho Ascot Stakes.
Juno 12, at 4.20 p.m. Ethelred, out of Ascot Stakes and
Hunt Cup.
June 16, at 12 at noon, all Mr. Ten Broeck's horses, out
of Ascot handicaps this day.
June 17, at 9 a.m. Success, out of all engagements at
Newton.
June 17, at 10.30 a.m. Scamander, out of Worcestershire
S takes.
Juno 17, at 11.51 a.m. Anonyma out of all engagements.
June 19, at 9 a.m. Blue Mantle, out of Northumberland
Plate.
June 20, at 9 a.m. East Lynn, Inca, Birkgill, and Vagrant,
out of all engagements at Newton.
June 20, at 9 a.m. Ameer, out of Great Newton Cup.
June 20, at 11.30 a.m. Scarf, out of Claremont Stakes,
Hampton.
June 20, at 1.53 p.m. Sandal, out of Worcestershire
Stakes.
Juno 20, at 2.45 p.m. Glendusk, all engagements in
Mr. W. H. Mundy's name.
June 20, after 6 p.m. Arkansas, out of all handicaps, for
which the weights have been published.
June 21, at 9 a.m. Terror, out of Trades' Cup, Newton.
June 21, at 9 a.m. Lightfoot, out of Golbome Park and
Haydock Two-yr-old Stakes, Newton.
dune 21, at 10 a.m. Ma Belle (dead), out of all engage-
ments.

The subject of paying off the national debt still
perplexes the country, but every project suggested
has failed. There is a general desire to be rid of it,
and now that the excitement of the war is over,
people begin to see very plainly the terrible conse-
quences that follow. The loans are just now very
dull. Other sources of investment are opened, and
capitalists leave the loans for them. Bonds are
coming back from Europe, and this deranges the
market. The tendency of prices is downward, and
as it is caused principally by the news from Europe
all the bondholders are angry at the attention paid
to English quotations. They say 300 millions are
held abroad, and 2,300 millions at home, and yet
the foreign quotations control. There is another
statement that has been made officially, which appals
the community quite as much as the enormous
amount of the public debt. It is an account of the
number of soldiers that have died from sickness and
wounds during the war, and has been published by
the War-office.. The number of deaths is reported
at 325,000, and the number of wounded men at
1,100,000. Nearly a million and a half of men have
been killed and wounded in this awful war on one
side alone. No report based on accurate data can
yet be made of the Confederate losses.
There is great complaint from the South about
the restrictions on the cotton trade. Efforts will be
made to have them removed. Many of the owners
of cotton have realized so little from their produce
when intrusted to military agents that they prefer it
shall rot rather than pay the expense of hauling it
within the Federal lines. An instance is related
in which an owner received a return of but one
dollar per bale for his cotton, the rest being eaten
up by taxes and expenses. By the new trade
regulations a tax of 25 per cent. is levied at the
very outset, and yet so little cotton is brought in
that the amount of tax collected will not pay the
expense of the agents. An open market, free from
military agents, taxes, &c., cotton merchants say,
will bring out the cotton, let the current price be
what it may. Military restrictions only result in the
rotting of the cotton upon the plantations.
Scarcely any new reconstruction movements have
been developed during this week. The President is
now framing and will soon issue a proclamation re-
storing the writ of habeas corpus all over the country
and ordering a general clearance of military prisons.
The Mississippi delegation arrived in Washington
and had an interview with the President on the Bth
June. He refused to recognise the Confederate Go-
vernor or Legislature of Mississippi, and stated that
he would pursue the same course in that State as was
taken in North Carolina. The Alabama delegation
have returned home satisfied with their interview
with the President. A provisional governor for that
State and also one for Georgia will be appointed
before a week elapses. Col. Parsons, of Talladega,
will probably be Governor of Alabama. It has been
semi-officially announced that South Carolina will
be the last State reorganised.

Some of the Southern railroads are being repaired.
One or two railroads in South Carolina are being
rebuilt by the military authorities. The road run-
ning from New Orleans north through Jackson,
Mississippi, will soon be in good order. Sixty miles
of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, immediately
west of Lynchburg, Virginia, are in order, and
trains are running. The railroad from Chattanooga,
Tennessee to Atlanta, Georgia, will be in order be-
fore. the end of June. The repair of the Richmond,
Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railway, formerly the
great line of travel south of Washington, is begun.
Nearly two months will be required, however, to put
it in order. Almost x,ll the other Southern railway
companies are too poor to make the necessary re-
pairs to their roads. Nothing can prove the com-
plete prostration of the South more than the
small number of newspapers now in existence
there, compared with the large number before the
war. At Macon, Georgia, there are four news-
papers ; at Atlanta, two ; at Columbus, two ; at
Augusta, three, of which the Constitutionalist is the
only southern journal printed on a whole sheet of
paper ; the rest on half and quarter sheets. At
Montgomery, Alabama, there are two quarter sheets;
at Columbia, South Carolina, one ; and at Chester,
South Carolina, one. Fifteen newspapers make up
the budget for the entire South, as it existed on the
Ist May. One of the Macon papers is a still more
complete evidence of Southern poverty. It advertises
that it will receive produce in payment of subscrip-
tions at the following rates :---Corn, $1 per bushel ;
fodder, 75c. per cwt. ; bacon, 15c. a pound ; flour,
sc. a pound ; butter, 25c. a pound ; eggs, 20c. a
dozen. It is reported that since the removal of re-
strictions upon trade a brisk trade has sprung up
between New York and Newbern ; that large quan-
tities of cotton and tobacco have been brought out
from hiding places in Montgomery, Alabama, and
Wilmington, North Carolina, and that steamers are
plying between Mobile and Montgomery.

'The States of Mississippi, North Carolina, and
South Carolina have been divided into internal re-
venue districts, and tax-collectors have been sent
there. In Virginia recent developments show that
the difficulty between Pierpont and the new Legis-
lature has been healed. It turns out that in only six
legislative districts candidates were elected, and, al-
though all are opposed to Pierpont, they are not nu-
merous enough to control the Legislature. This fact
has rendered a resort to military force unnecessary.
Pierpont will soon issue another proclamation order-
ing an election in several more counties in Virginia.
lie has started a Land and Emigration Company in
Richmond, with the object of populating the aban-
doned plantations by bringing white labourers into
the State. The proposition drags, however, as every
plantation taken by the company will sooner or later
be the source of endlesslitigation caused by conflict-
ing titles.
The evidence is universal that the farmers and
planters all over the South will reconcile themselves
to the new order of things caused by the abolition of
slavery. It is the determination of the Government
to eradicate slavery from the country. No compro-
mise will be permitted upon this point. Although it
is a very bitter draught to many to part with their
slaves, yet they view it in an economical point of
view, and consider that it will be, much cheaper to
employ hired labour on the plantations. The few
Southern journals now in existence inculcate this
doctrine. Similar sentiments have been expressed
at several meetings of the people of the South. They
wish to make the best possible use of a necessity. A

TIMES.—The Select Committee on the operation
of the Court of Referees, after hearing the evidence
of many witnesses, has arrived at a decision which
was easily to be foreseen. In the main object of
saving the time of members the experiment could
not fail to be successful. A part of the inquiry has
been unnecessarily lengthened, but the issues on
which the Referees exercised exclusive jurisdiction
have been of course withdrawn from the cognizance
of Select Committees. In former years little stress
was laid on engineering details, except for purposes
of comparison with some alternative scheme, and the
estimates were in general accepted, without investi-
gation, on the faith of the engineer for the promoters.
Opponents have been encouraged to raise both
classes of questions before the Referees in the hope
of obtaining decisions which are conclusive in their
favour. An awkward curve or gradient was not
necessarily fatal when it was of considerable public
benefit; but the report of the Referees that the
works were in themselves objectionable has practi-
cally prevented the further progress of the Bill to
which it applied. In the far more numerous cases
in which the engineer has passed the preliminary
ordeal it may be said that the time and expense of
inquiry have been absolutely wasted. It was ex-
tremely unlikely that a bridge or a tunnel designed
by an engineer of the highest rank would be either
impracticable in itself, or obviously injurious to any
important work or navigation ; but it was the duty
of the Referees to hear evidence against the project,
and in one or two instances they have devoted
a week or ten days to the inquiry. A small frac-
tion of the time would have sufficed to exhaust the
controversy before a Select Committee. Several
bills have been stopped on the ground that the esti-
mates were insufficient, and it may be assumed that
in future Sessions engineers will take the simple
precaution of allowing a margin. It may be
doubted whether a liberal estimate will promote
economy of construction, and it is certain that it
will involve an additional burden in the form
of interest on the deposit. if any estimate
has been intentionally placed too low, the pro-
moters have deserved the penalty they have
incurred, but the public interest may have been
compromised by the postponement of a useful un-
dertaking. Mr. Wilson Patten, who guides the
judgment of the House on all questions relating to
private busiaess, has long held the opinion that Par-
liament would do well to abandon its private juris-
diction. It was probably with this purpose that he
established the system of Referees, and the Com-
mittee over which he presided now recommend the
House to take further steps in the same direction.
In the next Parliament it is proposed that three
permanent courts should sit throughout the Session,
under the presidency of as many salaried members.
The chairman of committees, with two or three
assessors, will determine questions of locus stpndi,
or of the right of petitioners to appear. There is
no difference of opinion as to the convenience of
referring this part of the inquiry to a permanent
tribunal, and the decisions of the referees on the
subject have been generally received Fith satisfac-
tion. The chairman of two additional courts are
also to be members of the House, and it is evidently
unreasonable to expect that heavy judicial labours
should be performed without remuneration. On the
other hand, it is probable that sticklers for Parlia-
mentary precedent will object to the payment of
members, especially as they will be withdrawn from
the discharge of more legitimate duties. The func-
tions of the chairman of committees, who is now
the only paid member, with the exception of the
Speaker, are essentially Parliamentary. A paid
judge or juryman receiving evidence on estimates
and gradients can scarcely be said to act as a repre-
sentative of the people. The proposal of the com-
mittee is evidently intended to prepare the way for
an entire abandonment of private legislation by the
House of Commons. The other members of the
court are not necessarily to have seats in Parliament,
and it is evident that no member of the House will be
found to undertake so thankless and onerous an office.
When there is a question whether a duty shall be
discharged gratuitously or at a handsolne salary there
can be little doubt of the result. During the present
Session two gentlemen of opposite politics, favoured
respectively by the heads of the two great parties,
have received £l,OOO a year each for acting as as-
sessors to the Chairman of Committees or to Mr.
Adair and Mr. Hassard. If the House of Commons
proceeds to create several other paid offices in its
own patronage, a strange innovation will have been
introduced into constitutional practice. `The com-
mittee recommend that the jurisdiction of the re-
ferees shall be largely extended. The Court is to
examine the engineering merits of alternative and
competitive lines of railway as well as of the pro-
jects which are primarily submitted to their notice,
and in all cases, with consent of parties, the referees
may hear evidence and report on the whole bill to
the House. The committee mentions, with appa-
rent approval, the suggestion of one of the witnesses
that the Chairman of Ways and Means, the chair-
man of the chairmen's panel, and one other member
should, at the commencement of each session, select
such private bills as, in their opinion, ought to go
before the referees, and that the latter should con-
sider the whole matter and report their recommen-
dations for adoption to the House. As there would
be no intelligible principle to guide the discretion
of the Chairman of Ways and Means and his
colleagues, it is improbable that the House will
place in their hands so arbitrary and invidious
a power. It is impossible to anticipate the opera-

tion of the choice which is to be given to parties
between the referees and a select committee. The
authors of the report evidently wish to transfer
the entire powers of the House to the new tri-
bunal, and they justly conjecture that a merely
voluntary jurisdiction will not be long sustained.
The defects of a tentative system will serve as
arguments for further changes, as the committee
has adroitly used the anomaly of divided juris-
diction as a reason for enlarging the func-
tions of the referees. In the words of the report,
" some even of the referees themselves appear to be
of opinion that if the main object of the institution
—namely, economy of. time—could be attained
without a double inquiry, it would be a great ad-
vantage." The subsidiary engine was set up to
relieve the strain on the principal machinery, and
when some irregularity occurs in the working it is
suggested that the original source of power should
be detached. The referees no doubt express their
genuine opinions, but public functionaries are liable
to a bias when there is a question whether their
salaries shall be continued. It will be for the House
of Commons to decide whether the duty of private
legislation shall be transferred to a distinct tribunal.
If the plan is adopted it is idle to insist that the
judicial functions shall be exercised by individual
members of the house. The decisions of select com-
mittees have generally been just, and the issues
which they have determined are such as are most
fitly submitted to a special jury of limited numbers.
Private bills raise no questions of legal right, and
Parliamentary committees are competent judges of
expediency. If a court of lawyers or laymen with
small salaries inspires equal confidence; it will pro-
bably transact the business more rapidly, and there-
fore more cheaply, but unless the number of private
bills is greatly reduced, two courts will be insuffi-
cient for the business which has required the simul-
taneous attention of eight or ten committees. The
members of the next Parliament may save them-
selves much trouble by the abolition of select com-
mittees on private bills, and possibly the house will
prefer its ease to the privilege which it has hitherto
resolutely cherished. If a new and permanent
tribunal is established, it will scarcely be found
necessary to main the arbitrary rule by which only
one counsel is allowed to be heard. The restriction
prevails in no other court in the kingdom, and it is
not necessarily beneficial to the public because it is
extremely inconvenient to the bar, and because it
restricts the free choice of the client. It is remark-
able that the House of Lords has hitherto displayed
no intention of following the example of the House
of Commons.
HERALD.—The " Fatal march from Mhow" has
been explained, and the explanation is almost as
dispiriting as the disaster. It is some consolation in
the case of a calamity of the kind to know that it
was produced by exceptional causes, very unlikely
to occur again.; or that it was the fault of some-
body who can be pulled up sharp and made an
example of. But the manner in which this mur-
derous mistake was brought about admits of neither
source of satisfaction. For cholera is a contingency
which must always be anticipated in a country like
India, and official apathy is an offence difficult to
punish when it pervades whole departments. The
military authorities at Bombay, who have published
a very extensive correspondence on this sad subject,
lay all the blame of the disaster on Major-General
Green, the officer commanding at Mhow, who, they
declare, did notwarn them of the presence of cholera
when the march was ordered, as generally believed.
The case on the side of the authorities, as given by
Col. Phayre, the quartermaster-general, is to this
effect. The orders from home for the reduction of
a battery of artillery were received about the 17th
or 18th of February last, when Sir Wm. Mansfield
made the necessary communication on the subject.
Col. Phayre then accompanied his excellency to the
southernmost borders of the Punjaub, and did not
resume his duties at Bombay headquarters until the
3d of April. On the 7th, to his surprise, he received
a telegram from Major-General Green, referring to
a letter, of March 1, from the Assistant Adjutant-
General Royal Artillery to the officer commanding
the 21st Brigade, and asking if the men of the B
battery, for the southward, should all be sent to
Kirkee. There were, added the major-general, 95
men, 8 women, and 13 children, who would be ready
to proceed on the 12th. Col. Phayre at once in-
quired how it was that these troops had not been
marched to their destination long before, especially
as he had left instructions with the deputy quarter-
master-general and assistant quartermaster-general
at army headquarters, to carry out at once all such
detsils, without reference to Sind, in order to save
time. He was told, in reply, that the disbandment
had been ordered in the adjutant-general's depart-
ment, and that no further "communication had been
made with regard to it during his absence. As
Lieutenant-Colonel Phayre did not at once reply to
Major-General Green's telegram, the major general
telegraphed again on the 10th of April, requesting
a reply ; and on that day Lieutenant - Colonel
Phayre telegraphed to him in return, directing him
to order the detachment to march at once toNar-
gaum, the women and sick to proceed by bullock
train, and all proceeding to Kirkee. He added,
" Arrange minor details with Poona division autho-
rities." Meanwhile, on the 4th of April, Lieute-
nant-Colonel Phayre had had occasion to address a
letter to Major-General Green on the subject of
some deserters from the Inniskilling Drao•oons whom
it was desirable to send to their regiment for trial;
and on the 10th the major general answered that
communication both by telegraph and post. In his
telegram he referred to the inexpediency of sending
the deserters in question by the carrying company's
bullock train, and added " more by post." By post
he entered into further particulars, and added,
" But I would deprecate the men being sent up at
all at this time of the year, if it possibly can be
avoided ; for cholera is on the road, great heat has
set in, and I would much prefer to await the first
fall of rain, when I would send a mounted party,
with horses for the deserters, and bring them from
Nargaum without much risk, signalling to you
when to despatch them to the railway terminus:"
This letter took six days en route, and in reply
Lieutenant-Colonel Phayre addressed a letter to
Major-General Green informing him that the
commander-in-chief (Sir Charles Van Straubenzee,
who had succeeded Sir W. Mansfield) adopted the
suggestion as to the deserters, and adding that as
the same objection seemed to apply to the immediate
march of the Artillery, the major general had better
consult with the deputy inspector general of hos-
pitals on the subject. This recommendation, how-
ever, came too late, as the troops had then marched;
and Lieutenant-Colonel Phayre throws the sole
responsibility of the disaster upon Major-General
Green, upon the ground that that officer had
only incidentally made known the presence of
cholera on the road, and ,had not supplied that
information until too late. In this opinion he is
supported by the commander-in-chief, as well as by
the Governor of Bombay, and Major-General Green
has been censured in orders for his conduct upon
the occasion. That there is prima facie cause for
this conclusion is not to be denied. But who could
have supposed that an officer of Lieutenant-Colonel
Pliayre's long Indian experience and special know-
ledge of the district required to have his attention
called to a fact of which he should have been as
well aware as Major-General Green ? Nobody,
indeed, could be better aware of the fact that the
route across the Nerbudda is always highly danger-
ous after the Ist of April, after which day, indeed,
the marching of men is expressly prohibited by a
general order, dated April 17, 1860. In the minute
which he issued upon the subject, Sir Charles
Van Straubenzee remarks that Major-General
Green " appeared to have overlooked that order."
But surely Lieut.-Colonel Phayre overlooked it
when he laid before his excellency the telegram of
Major-General Green, and his excellency overlooked
it also when he sanctioned the march. Neither of
those efficers were bound by the major-general's
orders ' • but the major-general may well be con-
sidered bound by theirs, notwithstanding that he is
told that he should have exercised discretion in the
matter. In reference to this point, Major-General
Green, in replying to Lieut.-Colonel Phayre, de-
clares his belief that all discretionary powers had
been removed from him ; and he mentions that
when in 1862 Major-General Farrell, then in com-
mand of the division, " urgently deprecated the
marching of troops to this station (Mhow) at this
season of the year," he was informed that the
Sindwah jungles were not dangerous till after the
rains. " Cholera," adds the major-general, " un-
fortunately prevailed all over the Dekhan, and is not
confined to the Sindwah route alone." Only last
year, when he reported himself to the same effect,
he was told that " the requirements of the service
must not be stopped on account of vague cholera
reports." And, again, two months afterwards,
when reporting the death of an officer by cholera,
lie represented " the danger to life caused by ex-
posure in reaching this station at this season of the
year," his communication remained unacknow-
ledged ; and not having besides " received any
reply to my many telegrams and reports on the
outbreak of cholera in the cantonment last year, it
was natural for me to conclude that, having done
my duty by reporting my opinion, I had only to
obey the order I had received." The major-general
adds, too, that he had never received any orders
from head-quarters on the subject of the B battery.
The orders were sent to the officer commanding,
with whom he conceived that he was bound to act
in concert. Under all circumstances it seems in the
highest degree unfair to throw the blame of this
unfortunate order upon Major-General Green. If
the general order was disregarded higher authorities
than he were responsible for the fact. If warning
were required, surely it had been given repeatedly,
and may be considered to have been formally with-
held in, reference to the march simply because it

was considered unnecessary. That the warning was
renewed in the case of the deserters may be ac-
counted for by the supposition that their case was
not so urgent as the one in which there had alreadY
been so much vexatious delay, and which is declared
to be "an exceptional case" by the Governor of
Bombay himself. The real fault seems to lie, first,
with Sir William Mansfield, when in the local corn'
mand, for curtailing the proper independence of
divisional officers ; second, with the Adjutant-
General's Department, for delaying the arrange,'
ments for the march until the hot weather,. and
third, with the authorities higher than Major-
General Green, who disobeyed the general order:
That Major-General Green would have done well
to have taken upon himself grerter responsibility is
not to be denied ; but the experiment might hair°
been attended with professional injury to himself ;
and Government haS no right to insist upon an
officer running a risk of the kind. It is an admirable
thing to act lie a hero, but an officer who merely
does his duty does not deserve rebuke. It is due,
to the Bombay authorities to add that the greatest
sympathy has been expressed for the sufferers by
the disaster, and the most ample acknowledgraeute
made of the services of Lieutenant Stevenson, Wu'
manding the detachment ; Captain Scott, of the
Nimar Police, who volunteered his services on the
road, and others of the party, who are reconi;
mended to their immediate superiors for raga'
when occasion shall offer.

Railway Traffic Returns for the Week,