The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-11 00:00:00

Unler the management of Mies Louisa Pyne and Mr. W.

Harrison.

THIS EVENING, THE PURITAN'S DAUGHTER. Miss
Louisa Pyne, Miss Susan Pyne; Mr. Santley, Mr. H. Corn],
Mr. George Honey, Mr. Patey, Mr. A. St. Alloyn, Mr. T.
Malin, Mr. Wallworth, Mr. Eugene Dussek, Mr. C. Lyall,
and Mr. W. Harrison.

Conductor, Mr. ALFRED MELLON.
After which will be produced (written expressly by J. M.
Morton), a Grand Comic Christmas Pantomime, entitled
HARLEQUIN GULLIVER • or, A Trip to Brobdignag, a

Peep at Lilliput, and a' Flying Visit to Laputa.
Gulliver, Mr. W. H. Payne; Mrs. Gublver, Mr. F. Payne.
Principal danseuse, Mdlle. Lamoureux, supported by the
Ladies of the Corps de Ballet. The Harlequinade sustained
]by the eminent Pantomimists, Messrs. ff. Payne, F. Payne,
H. Lauri, E. Lauri, S. Lauri, and Miss Jenny Lauri.
Commence at Seven.

THEATRE.ROYAL, ITAYAIARKET,
lAlr. J. 8. R:hiii-stma,
TAI EVENING, to commence with THE HONEYMOON.
Juliana,
Miss Jane Coombs (her 7th appearance in Eng-
land).
After which, a Comic Christmas I'antomime, LITTLE
MISS MUFFET AND LITTLE BOY BLUE • or, Harle-
quin and Old Daddy Longlegs. Louise Leclercq, 'Charles Le-
G. Becket, and Miss Hostile.
Hen Cole,
clercq,
Commence a. 7

ROYAL LYCEUM THEATRE.
nanaer---Hr. Edmund Falconer.

-
TIIIS EVENING, Jan. 11, the new and original Drama,
entitled PEEP O'DA Y ; or, Savourneen Declish. Messrs.
Walter Lacy, Hermann Vezin, Charles Selby, Edmund Fab,
cones ; Mrs. D. P. Bowers, Miss Clara Weston.

After which; a r exv and original Burlesque Extravaganza,
entitled LITTLE; RED RIDING HOOD ; or, Th_ Fairies of
the Rose, the Thistle, and the Shamrca. Principal charac-
ters by Mr. Chas. Selby, Mr. Warlow, Miss Cicely Nott, and
Mi as Lydia Thompson:
Acting Manager—Mr. F. B. Chatterton.
Prices as usual. Doors ohall-past 0, to co
1 Box-office open dell pen at mmence at
Y from 11 tlll5.

4 t V7,,T, •
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THE SUN.
LONDON, SATURDAY, JAN. 11, 1862.

lye have several times reminded our readers of
the political worthlessness of the men for whose de-
liverance from prison we have been ready to go to
war. We must, however, now, emphatically insist
on their demerits, since they are not unlikely to pay
us an early visit. It would be a most mischievous
error were the persons themselves to be received
here with anything but the silent contempt due to
their political baseness. When a Southern gentle.
man was recently honoured with a dinner, with a
hearing, and with a certain measure of applause, by
a Worshipful London Company, we pointed out
that it was by concealment alone he could obtain
those cheers. Ilad he told the Company that he
was a slaveholder, the son of a slaveholder, and
seeking to establish a Government, of which the
corner-stone, to use their own expression, should be
slavery, we assured him that he and his cause would
have been hissed and hooted by all classes of Eng.
lishmen from the West-end to Bankside. Southern
agents can obtain a hearing in England, only by
suppressing the infamous principles on which they
are acting. But, if they have the sense to veil the
atrocity of their cause, let them not expect to be
treated as if we were ignorant of it.

The worst tyrants and the noblest patriots have
equally found a refuge on our shores, but we have
not shown ourselves insensible to the difference be-
tween them. In 1848-the despots and their agents
who landed here from our packets were received
with silence which would not insult even the un-
worthy in their calamities; but a KOSSUTH was
welcomed with ovations. We do not counsel in-
sults to Messrs. MASON and SLIDELL, but we do
counsel that every Englishman who comes in con•
tact with them should let them see how we regard
their cause. We could wish some fugitive slave
should come over in the vessel with them, and
that the latter should enjoy the welcome we so
joyfully accord to the oppressed escaped from
the hand of his oppressor, and the two Commis-
sioners reminded that they and theirs stand in
English regard infinitely below the poor negro.
They will rerhaps attempt to be great at Manches-
ter, like the orator at the Fishmongers' dinner, on
free-trade. Hypocrisy could not be more hateful.
These very men helped, without a dissentient voice,
to pass all the protectionist tariffs but the last
and then they were absent for the worst of rea-
sons. But they will say—" We did it, not wil-
lingly, but for political reasons." Yes, for political
reasons, indeed ; reasons which make their conduct
ten times worse. They purchased fugitive slave laws
for themselves by tariffs hostile to England ! Are we
to clap men who sold Free-trade for Slavery and
kidnapping ? And to this hour what is their
policy—to use Free-trade as a bribe to England to
put up with their Slavery ! It is from no love to
offer it to us. It is be-
Free-trade that they
cause they want our cheaper commodities, and
because they love Slavery.

We have mentioned before that Mr. MASON was
the main author of the accursed Fugitive Slave
Law, and Mr. SLIDELL one of his most active sup-
porters. The fitting procession to head their pro-
gress from the ship to their hotel would be one in
which that I,lw was printed on its first fhig, while
the other flags should exhibit the seizure of the
escaped negro, the floggings, and the auction block
where human beings are sold,and the mere sight of
which, this summer, almost turned Dr. RUSSELL
sick. MASON rlt/d SLIDELL aro not sick at such
sights. They deem them the glory of Virginia; they
arc Virgin ia,ngiand Virginia is a slave-breeding state.
These are the men who are fighting that they may
retain the power to breed men and women and to
sell them, precisely as we do cattle and horses.
This is not the slightest exaggeration, We have

been on the verge of a war to save a pair of persons
whose life-object is to secure the power of breeding
and selling human beings.

Our readers should not forget the main features of
the—infernal—law of which Commissioner MASON
was the parent ; to secure which he submitted to
protectionist tariffs; while, to procure the tariffs
Northern Representatives and Senators, Mr.
SEWARD not opposing, we believe, aiding, carried
this accursed law. It was one of the foulest,
basest transactions in legislative history; although
Mr. LINCOLN would ratify it, if the South would
but come again under his rule, First, the law
denies the poor slave who is claimed by,the South,
a jury, Next, it gives a judge summary juris-
diction ; then it gives him ten dollars if he sends
him back to slavery, only half that sum if
he liberates him ; and we know what
Yankees will do for the Almighty dollar. Again it
refuses the alleged slave's evidence of his own free-
dom, while it makes that of the alleged owner
conclusive. It has a wholly deceptive method even
for proving that the claimant has lost a slave at
all;; one which here would not prove the loss of a
gold pin. It levies ruinous fines on all persons
harbouring or aiding the fugitive; and if the
marshal allow the alleged fugitive to escape or
refuse to act, he too is enormously fined. We
need not go further into details—these are a few
specimens of the deserts of Messrs. SLIDELL and
MASON, at the hands of a slavery-hating nation. Not
only under this infernal legislation have number-
less human beings who sought freedom by flight
been dragged back from the recreant North, but it
is certain that very many men who never were
slaves at all have been carried off to slavery, and
young women to something far worse than slavery.
No men on earth more richly deserve, as a provi-
dential retribution, the fetters from which they
have just escaped, with hard labour, under the
dread of the lash added, than do Messrs. MASON
and SLIDELL. These men are, indeed, worse than
the LEGREES—for it is by the help of their brains
that the system which makes a LEGREE is upheld.
We have said little of their other political de-
merits in regard to ourselves—these are, as it were,
more personal. Theirs is the party which for the
last forty years has been dominant in America.
They have been the leaders in insults to England,
and in aggression on other States. They have not
wished to destroy their own cotton market, but
they have believed that so completely had they us
in their hands through their cotton, that they
could kick and abuse us as they pleased. Man-
chester would put up with anything, and English
Governments dared not on trade questions quarrel
with Manchester. Such was their creed in regard
to England; what it was in regard to Texas, to
Mexico generally, to Cuba, and to Central America,
those countries can but too sadly tell. No thanks
to the South, as a whole, though we must not in-
clude Virginia, and if it was impossible
to put down the slave trade after all
our efforts, the SLIDELL and MASON sec-
tion of the old Union has been the chief hindrance.
The kind of creation deserved by these persons is,
therefore, plain enough ; but we trust they will be
only consigned here to political contempt.

The advance of Civilisation into the very heart of
the Chinese Empire is henceforth, we take it, a fact
visible and undeniable. Not only have the armed
forces of England and France together been known
to have penetrated to the walls of the hitherto all-
but mythical City of Pekin—not only has her
Britannic MAJESTY'S Ambassador to the Court of
the Celestial Empire taken up his abode in that
once inaccessible and sacred capital, a capital
sacred from and inaccessible to the desecrating
footsteps of the Outer Barbarians—but actually
Pekin, of all places in the world, has but very
recently indeed endured the shock of a genuine
coup d'etat. This incident, the tidings of which
have within the last few hours been brought to us by
the Alessilia, is the grand jumble of the Calcutta,
Chinese, and Australian mails—at once, if we may
but adopt here in a passing way the lax diction of
Sir BOYLE ROCHE, of Ridiculous memory, at onee
admits China within the pale of European civiliza-
tion.

It is not of course to be supposed for an instant
that political changes of an abrupt kind have not
been effected before now in the alternate organisation
and disorganisation of the Chinese Government.
There have been there rare and exceptional changes
of dynasty even—there have been frequent
but intermittent changes there of Ministry time
and again. Europeans know enough of the
history of that wonderful and still, it must
be allowed, • for the most part, inscrutable
race, to know that much of them perfectly well.
For those who are acquainted with no
more than the alphabet of the Asiatic
annals—that alternation of rulers at Pekin is a
matter so far known familiarly. But reiterated
though the Ministerial changes have been that
haVe taken place ere this in the capital of the
Chinese Empire—Pekin has never had experience
of one so peculiarly and essentially of an European
character as this last one. Of course, it must be
admitted—with peculiarly Asiatic variations ! It is
a coup d'etat in its general outline—such as one
has read of before now, as taking place at Paris or
at Vienna—with (added to this) a few Chinese
embellishments. In other words it is—the same
—with a difference ! The Cabinet is suddenly
overthrown. But—following hard upon its over-
throw—the Ministers composing it are impri-
soned. Nay, we recently learnt that his Celestial
MAJESTY had been rather seriously in earnest in
his attentions of late to several hitherto powerful,
but latterly disgraced and even doomed personages.
Unlike his brother autocrat of Constantinople, the
SULTAN CALIPH, who in the like circumstances
finishes the career of his fallen favourites (with a
more dreadful significance than is understood
amongst ourselves in the familiar phrase) by giving
them the sack—the Celestial Emperor of CHINA
removes all difficulties from his path in that way,
by literally giving his fallen Ministers or dis-
graced representatives rope enough to hang them-
selves ! Sending them silken cords together
with intimations which—ridiculously enough they
most meekly comply with—to go and hang them-
selves ! Occurrences of this kind, we learn by our
last advices from China, bad not long since.taken
place there, as they had so often done before. And
we learn in addition to this that those very pointed
attention from his Imperial MAJESTY had been
rapidly succeeded by a genuine coup d'etatatPekin.
A new regency, the telegram intimates has been
thus established under—mysteriously enough—the
two Empresses. The intelligence reads like the
adoption of a hint from the duplex system of Go-
vernment flourishing now for a long while past
both among the Chinese and among the Japanese.
But—added to these rather tantalising fragments of
information—comes what we cannot but feel dis-
posed to regard as the most propitious circum-
stance yet recorded in reference to the late coup
d'etat
Pekin
ni namely, the fact that Prince KUNG
has appointed President ef the New Ministry,
been
in
p
among the members of which Ministry, by the way,
are enrolled both KW ELIAN G and HWALIAN G. Now
our diplomatists saw quiie enough of Prince RUNG
during the course of the last campaign in China to