The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-13 00:00:00

people is changed. But the Liberals never can hope
to overthrow the Empire. The truth seems to be
that along the Rio Grande frontier, contiguous to
the United States, the Liberals can manage to hold
their own and defy Maximilian, but everywhere else
the Empire is and will be supreme. Acapulco, the
last Liberal post on the Pacific coast, was captured
recently by French men-of-war, and all vestiges of
Liberal tendencies in that region have disappeared.
The population acquiesce willingly in the new order
of things, no doubt glad to see a prospect of perma-
nent peace. Want of money paralyses the Liberals
and makes all their movements inefficient. Along
the Rio Grande they have gathered their troops to-
gether—scarcely more than 3,000 in all—and laid
siege to Matamoras. On Sept. 10 the Liberals
were before the city, but the garrison of 1,500 Im-
perialists successfully held it. The Liberals hope to
capture it, but in all their prophecies want of means
is the stumbling-block. If they only had a little
more ammunition, they say, they could drive Mejia
out, but they do not know where to get it, and will
keep up a desultory siege of the town until Impe-
rialist reinforcements come up the Rio Grande,
when they will dissolve into predatory bands and
disappear no one knows whither. From the great
mass of falsehood that usually conceals the real state
of affairs in Mexico it is hard to extract the truth,
but there is no longer a doubt that Juarez's cause is
gone, and the end of his Presidential term, which
comes some time in November, will see the end of
the Liberal Government.

The political contests in America are so exces-
sively dull that the only exciting one, a fight for the
spoils in New York city, overtops all the others in
interest. This battle does not depend upon the re-
sult of an election, but upon an investigation which
is now being made of the most gigantic frauds ever
perpetrated in America. As every one knows, the
municipal taxes in New York are enormous, and,
as the city is always bankrupt, there has not been for
years the slightest doubt that the Treasury was
robbed wholesale. So the " Outs" have devised a new
mode of attacking the " Ins." For the last seven
years the same party has controlled New York, always
holding power, no matter what changes were made
in the political connections of the national and State
Administrations. A certain set of people have held
all the offices and divided all the spoils, and those
who cannot get in are now hard at work trying to
oust them by process of law. The honest New
Yorkers—those who do not wish to pay such heavy
taxes—have united for the time being with the
" Outs," and the battery brought against the office-
holders is extremely heavy. By the constitution the
Governor of the State has the right to remove from
office all persons guilty of peculation. Charges in-
volving frauds to the enormous amount of 30 mil-
lion dollars have been brought against the office-
holders, and those who bring the charges say they
can substantiate them all. They embrace stealing
for a period of seven years, and to answer them the
mayor and various other officials of New York city
were summoned last week before Governor Fenton,
at the State capital, and after a partial investigation
the examination was adjourned to New York, where
it is now progressing. The Governor says he has
the power to get back the 30 million dollars stolen
from them ? Out of or in office it is still the same,
the people have been robbed, and though the punish-
ment of the thieves may be a slight gratification, it
will be no protection against future robberies. Still
the case is important, and both sides are using every
possible means to influence it. I doubt very much
if the corporation of any other city in the world has
stolen 30 million dollars in the last seven years.
The recent meeting inLondon of the Confederate
bondholders has directed the attention of American
financiers to the subject of the Confederate debt.
While there is not the slightest hope of any of the
Southern debt being paid, unless it might be such
State debts as were in existence before the war, the
amount of these debts will no doubt be of interest.
On January 1, 1864, the Confederate Secretary of
the Treasury made the following statement of the
Confederate debt at that time, with estimates of
expenses until January 1, 1865. To these I have
added the State debts, and an estimate of the ex-
pense of the war until General Lee's surrender :
Funded debt 5297,871,000
Non-interest notes 766,447,000
Interest-bearing notes 102,000,000
Call certificates 89,000,000
Unpaid interest 181,000,000
Estimated expenses for 1864 1,427,488,000
Expenses until Lee's surrender in P,1;5 500,000,000
State debts 87,000,000

Total..

$3,450,766,000

Paper was so much depreciated in the Confede-
racy that the debt increased with astonishing rapi-
dity, and when this enormous sum of nearly
$3,500,000,000 was suddenly swept away no one
could be astonished that it beggared the entire sec-
tion.

The President, without yet declaring a general
amnesty, has adopted a system of pardoning which
very closely appro-aches it. He now grants pardons
to the Southern people at the rate of 300 or 400 a
day, and though he has not yet pardoned any of
the military officers, he has given orders that no
one unpardoned is to be unmolested. A file sinzileof
his signature has been engraved, and is affixed to
the pardon blanks by clerks. Very little examina-
tion is now made into the character of the applicant,
and the mere presentation of an humble petition
seems sufficient to secure a pardon. The pardon car-
ries with it immunity from confiscations. All estates
are restored to their owners upon the exhibition of
the pardon, and in Richmond, where nearly every
man's property has been seized, the rejoicing at the
President's sudden and most agreeable change of
demeanour is very great. The Richmond courts are
now kept busy in restoring confiscated property to
the owners.

Petitions for the pardon of Jefferson Davis are
sent to the President from all parts of the South.
Every Southern Convention has asked that cle-
mency be extended towards him. In some places,
however, the military authorities are not pleased at
these exhibitions of friendliness for the great captive,
and at Lynchburg, Virginia, the commanding officer
recently dispersed a meeting that had assembled to
petition for his release. The expressions of feeling
all over the South show the sincerest sorrow for Mr.
Davis's misfortunes.

The Wirtz trial drags its slow length along, ex-
citing very little interest. The defence has been
opened, but thus far has been characterised by little
else than squabbles among the lawyers. Wirtz is
slowly dying, and will not live to be punished by
any earthly court. It is said that Howell Cobb, of
Georgia, is to be arrested for having ordered some
of the cruelties alleged to have been inflicted by
Wirtz. Robert Ould, the Confederate Commissioner
of Exchange, will be witness in Wirtz's defence.

General Lee has quietly begun his duties as Pre-
sident of Washington College at Lexington, Vir-
ginia, although he will not be formally installed
until October next.

It is astonishing to see the facility with which the
Southern people work their way into the affections
of the North. In Washington City returned Con-
federates get all the choice positions, and in New
York they can command auy business connexion they
wish. Prominent Confederate officers arc now en-
gaged in mercantile pursuits in New York, and, if
anything, are received more cordially for having
been Confederates. The transition is wonderful
from the hard words and harder blows of a year
ago. In the South the people are reconstructing the
State Governments in their own way. Both the
South Carolina and the Alabama Conventions have
(riven a death-blow to negro suffrage in their ore-
spective States by enacting that the basis of repre-
sentation shall be the white population ; and in
South Carolina the establishment of a militia sys-
tem similar to that of Mississippi has been ordered
by the Convention, and the military have been told
to let the people have their own way. Gradually the
people of the South are recovering the reins of
government from the military authorities, and as
one support after another falls from the power of
the soldiers the people gain confidence and do things
they would not have dared to think of a short time
ago. In Kentucky Generals Palmer and Brisbin
have been indicted for violating the slave laws of
the States in running off negroes, and thus far
neither has attempted to use the military power to
apnul the indictment. The only act of lawlessness
committed by the soldiers this week has been the

arrest of the editors of the Clarksville (Tennessee)
Chronicle for too plain an expression of opinion
with regard to Governor Brownlow.
In Kentucky and Tennessee—whether it be caused
by the leniency of the military is not known—the
guerillas have again appeared, and in Robertson
county, Tennessee, a gang of 40 have lately engaged
in indiscriminate murder and robbery. These out-
rages have been diabolical, and troops hal, e been sent
to capture them. In Kentucky the operations of
the guerillas have not been so bloody, but still are
such as to imperil the peace of the neighbourhood in
which they act. They do not steal or murder, but
they arrest every man who brings suit against re-
turned Confederates, and compel its withdrawal.
Their head-quarters are in Morgan county, and
their latest prank has been the seizure of the col-
lectors of the United State's Internal Revenue, whom
they compelled to desist from collecting taxes. A
force of troops endeavoured without success to drive
the guerillas away, and now an entire regiment has
been sent after them.

Much litigation is feared in South Carolina, owing
to the destruction of all the State and most of the
district records during the war. In many of the
county seats the court offices,containing title papers,
deeds, wills, &c., were burnt, and endless law suits
must result. It seems the miseries entailed by the
war are never to cease.

A new political element has appeared in America
in the effort made by the working-men to establish
eight hours as a lawful day's work. They are hold-
ing mass conventions in all parts of the country, and
in many places have announced that they will vote
for no candiates for office who do Rot faithfully
labour for the eight-hour system. Their determina-
tion will have an important influence upon our
elections.

For the encouragement of applicants for office in
America, it is announced that 10,000 applicants for
such vacancies as may occur in the 2,700 places
in the Treasury Department at Washington have
already been received and filed away carefully for
future reference. As no office-holders resign and
few die, there is very little chance for the army of
aspirants.
The English delegation of capitalists will return
to New York to-night, when they will separate,
some going to Canada, others to England, and a
few remaining at New York to complete business
arrangements. They have spent nearly four weeks
in examining the railroads of America, and no
doubt express great pleasure at the cordiality of
their reception in all parts of the country.
the captain of the emigrant ship Villafranca,
charged with cruelty to his passengers, has been
held in $5,000 bail to answer the charge at court.
The Grand Jury of New York have indicted for
manslaughter the owners of the steamboat Arrow,
which blew up recently, killing some passengers.
Their trial will be the first in the United States in
which men are arraigned for causing the disasters
so common throughout the country.
The standstill race of the two gunboats, the
Algonquin and the Winooski, tied to the dock inNew
York, has ended, and the judges have decided the
performance of the two boats to be equal. The
Algonquin is high pressure, and the Winooski low
pressure, and to decide the merits of the two classes
of steam engines the novel trial was ordered. They
will soon race with each other on Long Island Sound.
In the first week of October the cargo of 700 y oung
ladies sent by Governor Andrews of Massachusetts
to furnish wives and housekeepers to the people of
Washington Territory, on the Pacific coast, will
sail from New York.

As I close the intelligence reaches me that the
President has decided on removing General Palmer
from command in Kentucky, and that he will also
soon issue a proclamation declaring the State relieved
from martial law, and restoring the civil authority.
The President has also received a despatch from
Governor Parsons of Alabama, announcing that the
State Convention, by a vote of 60 yeas to 19 nays,
has repudiated all war debts both of the State and
of the Confederacy, and has forbidden the State
Legislature making any provision for their payment.

The United States steamers Saranac and St. La-
wrence, of heavy armament and great speed, sailed
from San Francisco on Sept. 14 and 20 in pursuit of
the Shenandoah.

A letter from Capt. Hall, in the Arctic regions,
has been received in New York, announcing the
probable safety of three of the men who were with
Sir John Franklin. They are said to be residing
among the Innuits.

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE.

GREAT WESTERN OF CANADA.

The half-yearly general meeting of this company
was held on Wednesday at the London Tavern ;
Mr. Alderman Dakin in the chair.

Mr. B. Baker (the Secretary) having read the
notice convening the meeting, the
_report (an ab-
stract of which has appeared in The Sun) was taken
as read.

The CHAIRMAN, in moving the adoption of the
report, said he thought their prospects had consider-
ably improved, and from the progress recently made
he thought the time was not far distant when the
shareholders would be again recompensed for their
outlay. The accounts were made out on one uni-
form plan, so that they could easily compare the
various items of one half year with another as far
back as the accounts extended. The capital ac-
count showed an increase in the expenditure of
£27,180 during the past half-year, and they had
paid off £72,700 of bonds, which had reduced the
amount of capital to that extent. The expenditure
of the £27,180 had been wisely laid out. The
balance of net revenue at the end of the half year
amounted to £152,078, and as compared with
£174,751 in the corresponding half year of 1864
showed a decrease of £22,672. This decrease was
caused by a falling off in the freight and live stock
earnings during the first two months of the half
year of £44,903, which was reduced by an increase
in the passenger traffic of £14,528, leaving £30,374
decrease. From this was deducted £7,701, the re-
duction in the working expenses leaving the net de-
crease £22,672. The decrease of traffic in the two
first months of the half year was owing to excep-
tional circumstances. The cost of .converting the
American currency had also diminished their net
profits. In the corresponding half of 1864 the
average of exhanges was 1741, for the half year
ending the 31st of January, 1865, 2051, and in
the past half year the average price of con-
version was 153 k. The exchange was now pretty
steady, at 1431 ; the loss would therefore dimi-
nish as compared with corresponding periods.
Since January, 1862, the loss on exchanges amounted
to £370,671, which was a very large amount.
They had in fact earned a 5 per cent. dividend through-
out, but had lost the difference in exchanges, owing
to the war. The rates for local and through freight
had been raised since the corresponding period of
1864, by about 30 per cent., and the passenger rates
by about 22 per cent. He thought with the in-
creased receipts, diminished cost of converting Ame-
rican currency, and reduction of working expenses,
they might fairly expect a little sunshine after the
darkness that had prevailed. The renewal account
had been very heavy during the past four or five
years. Their engineer had told them in one of his
reports that the railway would require £331,279
expended to put it in good order, by renewing the
way. Each half year had been since charged with
sums varying from £25,000 to £35,000 for that
purpose, and in the last account £26,317 had been
charged, but it was satisfactory to know they had
expended £283,720 in renewal of the way, and there
now remained only £47,558 to be expended to com-
plete the system and to perfect the renewals. The
cost was estimated five years ago, they were now
assured that the estimate was quite sufficient for the
purpose, and they proposed to spread the expendi-
ture of the £47,558 for renewals over the next two
half years, when there would be an end of that ex-
penditure. Another matter was their postal ar-
rangement with the Canadian Government. They
were much indebted to the exertions of Mr. Swin-
yard, their general manager, who had conducted the
matter for them with zeal, energy, and tact. The
Government had only allowed $7O per mile for the
mail service, which was totally inadequate. They
raised the allowance to $lOO per mile up to the 31st
of August last, and since then further negotiations
were entered into for additional services and the