The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-18 00:00:00

hat rash and hasty legislation which so many the QUEEN has been grossly insulted and traduced
parties endeavour to pledge him to. He feels while zealously engaged in the discharge of his duty,
that it is impossible to reduce the chaos of conflict— and it is imperative that at once, and without any
ing passions and opposing principles to immediate avoidable delay, he should be vindicated before those
order by strict and regular measurement, and to who were mean enough to attack an absent man,
deal with a mass of mankind, whether black or and prejudiced enough to permit all they heard to
white, as if they were machines that would obey ma, - favour their own version of the affair. It is high
questioning the hand of the engineer. " I know," time that Ministers should shake off the unworthy
r
he says, "that sincere philanthropy is earnest -Tor ear which they have shown of the violent demeanour
and fierce invectives of the satellites of Exeter-hall
the immediate realisation of its remotest aims, but
time is always an element in reform." It is, he adds,
• intolerance.
a great thing to have brought four millions of people The community have had enough of this
n ation,
mean
into freedom, and the next duty is to throw open method of conducting the policy of a great
to them the career of free industry, so that
and for the sake of justice, and for the interests of
their future fortunes must depend on -themselves.
our colonial empire in general,we must demand and
insist that no favouritism be shown to the "
if they fail, and so perish away, let us be careful
tors of General EYRE and the brave men who aided
persecu-
that the failure shall not be attributable to scanyhim in the momentous period of the insurrection.
nial of justice. In all that relates to the d
of the freedmen, we need not be too anxious to read
It may be inconvenient to offend influential per-
the future ; many incidents which, from a specula-
sons ; but political considerations must be cast
tive point of view, might raise alarm, will quietly aside, and party advantages and disadvantages
settle themselves." He admits no doubt as to made of no account when honour is in the question.
the right of the freedmen to the security of By this time the Government must be in posses-
their liberty and their property, their right sion of the most important facts relating to
to labour, and their right to claim the just return this affair, and it is believed, indeed,
of their labour. The country needs labour, and that they are of the most conclusive kind in favour
the freedmen need employment, culture, and pro- of the policy of General EYRE. In the name of that
tection. Why, then, cannot the two wants be har- fair play which is the chief characteristic of our
moniously supplied by each other ? He opposes the nation, in the cause of that independence
notion of the forced removal and colonisation of which is our proudest boast, and in the
the negroes, which has been from time to spirit of that jusftitche State, and animate the di-
ich should pervade all
time suggested as a means of escaping the departments o
the difficulty of dealing with them at rection of affairs through the confines of our empire,
home. "Let us rather," exclaims the President, on which the sun never sets, we must protest
has
encourage them to honourable and useful industry against the course which our Government
where it may be beneficial to themselves and to the pursued, and seems likely to pursue, in this
country, and instead of hasty anticipations of the affair of the Jamaica Insurrection. It will
certainty of failure, let there be nothing wanting to not do for them to try to shield themselves from
the fair trial of the experiment." This is, in fact, the the consequences of their own precipi ;ate folly and
great experiment of the day, and much depends on tame subserviency by having recourse to delays,
its result. To be fairly tried, all party passion and and trusting to the doctrine of chances. Lord Rus-
political virulence must be put aside, andevery State SELL has stepped out of the course of an impartial
must endeavour, by protecting the freedmen and judge by siding with the cause of the anti-slavery
legislating for the due performance of contracts on sect, and he cannot now saythat he will wait for some
both sides, to bring about that good understanding time to have all arranged in an orthodoxwho fashion
have
and mutual confidence between employer and em- At once and without delay the party
ployed which is conducive alike to their immediate accused Governor EYRE should be made to hear all
interests and to the general good of the country. the circumstances that defend him from their asper-
With regard to the vexed question of the negro sions, and if this be not done promptly and effici-
suffrage Mr. JOHNSON speaks wisely and well. He ently, the Parliament will have its duty to perform
strongly urges the immediate adoption of the con- in calling to account the Ministers who put the pre-
stitutional amendment by all the States, for so long judices of faction before the calls of honour and the
as it is delayed he believes that doubt, jealousy, and claims of justice.
uncertainty will prevail. But the question of the
suffrage must, he thinks, in accordance with
the principles of the constitution, be left to each
State to settle for itself. The concession of the
elective' franchise to coloured men would have ne-
cessitated an interference, not alone with the
Southern suffrage, but with that of the Northern,
Middle, and Western States, and such an assump-
tion of power by the American President would
have been something altogether arbitrary and un-
constitutional. Every State has hitherto possessed
the acknowledged right of deciding its own suffrage,
and certainly this is no time to change. To force
the negro suffrage on an unwilling population who
have as yet scarcely become reconciled to the sud-
den alteration in the social position of the negro
would be to inflame that irritation and antagonism
which it is above all things desirable to calm down.
By degrees the negro, if he prove capable of ful-
filling his social obligations, will assume a
more distinct and acknowledged position,
and as education and honest, independent
industry do their work, he will, we may
hope, become duly qualified for the posses-
sion of political power ; but the present change in
his state is too trying and too important a crisis for
another experiment to be made in conjunction with

Olympic Theatre.

LV•
The abolition of slave labour will no doubt be the
greatest-blessing eventually to the Southern States
by destroying that social monopoly which kept out
enterprise and intelligent industry. President
JOHNSON bids them forget the past in the
future ; and, reminding them of the natural
wealth and fertility of their country, he
declares his hope and belief that these now
desolated States may hereafter vie with any in the
Union in wealth, inventive genius, and industry.

The financial difficulties of the country were
dealt with at some length in the course of the
Message, and the discharge of the national debt
he considers an immediate obligation. There is
happily no attempt at repudiation, but the
PRESIDENT declares the debt to be doubly secure
in the wealth and resources of the country, and in
the character of its institutions. The foreign policy
of the PRESIDENT we have already referred to, and
more especially to that portion of the Message which
dealt with his relations with this country. There

is plenty of that laudation of the Government and the
people of America for which we naturally look for
in an address of this kind, a species of national con-
ceit, from which it seems impossible for democracies
to be free. But the general tone and tenour of the
Message, especially when it deals with practical ques-
tions, is statesmanlike and constitutional, and in
following out the principles here plainly put for-
ward, the PRESIDENT will adopt the course best
calculated to heal the differences and develope the
capabilities of his country and his people.

IRELAND.

No public man has any cause to envy Lord RUS-
SELL just now, for he has inaugurated his career
by the commission of a great blunder, and, what is
more, by an act of great injustice. We can call to
mind no official act of late years which was charac-
terised by such haste and inconsistency as this pro-
ceeding of suspending the Governor of Jamaica has
been. In every respect it is greatly to be censured,
and a more mortifying occurrence could hardly
\
have taken place than the landing of Colonels
NELSON and HILL soon after the Gazette had
been
published which conveyed the news of
the suspension of the Governor. One thin°.e,
is of great
importance now, and that is for
no time to be lost in letting the public know the
full particulars connected with these transactions in
Jamaica, about which so much misconception has
arisen, and which it is so necessary to have cleared
up with as little delay as
possible. It will never do
for any more shuffling and expediency to be em-
ployed in this affair. The character of Governor
EYRE has been assailed in the most wanton manner,
and it is only fit and proper that the English public
should be put in possession of the facts connected
with the case. Had the unreasoning and unthink-
ing parties who composed the motley crew who have
worked themselves up to a pitch of frenzy been
content to make their remarks in a more temperate
form, and, above all, if they had not virtually re-
ceived the countenance of the Premier, delay might
have been tolerated, though it could never have
been approved of ; but, as it is, nothing of a dila-
tory kind must be suffered to intrude into the
management of the matter.
The English people will put up with a great deal,
but there is such a thing as going too far. Lord PAL-
MERSTON found it so in the zenith of his popularity,
with a hundred majority in the house of Commons,
and Lord RUSSELL will find it so also if he does
not take care. Besides this affair at Jamaica
is of more moment than the Conspiracy Bill,
and more deeply affects our interests. A. subject of

THE SUN, LONDON, IVIONDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 18, 18b5.

The production at this theatre of a dramatic
version of " Henry Dunbar," one of Miss Braddon's
most powerful and thrilling works, is more than
likely to result in one of the greatest successes that
has yet been recorded in the annals of the sensation
drama. Unlike the general run of striking plays,
we are not in this instance indebted to our neigh-
bours on the other side of the channel for the inci-
dents and situations that make up the drama of
" Henry Dunbar ;" on the contrary, the French
have been the first to appropriate Miss Braddon's
story to the stage, a fact of which the talented
authoress may well be proud. In the present in-
stance the bills of the play are silent as to the
adaptor of this highly-wrought work to the stage,
but we believe we are not far wrong in naming Mr.
Tom Taylor as the gentleman who has so well per-
formed the task. In the novel, intensely interesting
as it is, there are some points not at all suited for
stage representation, and these the adaptor has
most cleverly dealt with ; but, on the whole, he
has adhered with the greatest fidelity to the novel,
and in those places where he has departed
from it, it has only been to make the play less
tragic than it otherwise would have been. The
novel of " Henry Dunbar, the Outcast," has been
so extensively read that, in noticing a dramatic
version of it, it becomes quite superfluous to detail
minutely the plot. It will be recollected that the
leading incident in the novel is the assumption by a
murderer of the name, estate, and position in society
of his victim, and thus quietly settling himself into
possession of all his property, acts which the
ignorance of the friends of the murdered man,
owing to his long absence from England, never
suspect, as they are quite unacquainted with his
personal appearance. The affable and easy manner
of the murderer disarms suspicion, and for years his
guilt remains hidden from the world. The dis-
covery, however, is made, after long toil, by his
own daughter, who, tracking the assassin through
all the intricacies of his guilt, at last arrives at the
terrible conclusion that the man she has so long
laboured to discover and denounce is no other than
her own father. Having made the dreadful
discovery, she becomes animated by filial
love to protect him she has to a great
extent unmasked, and this leads to the wildest and
most romantic adventures, but in the end the death
of Dunbar brings the enthralling story to a termi-
nation. The dramatiser has taken a license, to which
all who have such a task confided to them are by
usage entitled, and the alterations made in the drama
render its termination much less tragic than the
novel. The difficulty of mitigating the intensity of
the tale without weakening the plot of the drama
must have been a work of no ordinary labour ; but
the clever adapter has succeeded, and so well, too,
that it would spoil the interest of the play were we
to tell how the climax is brought about in " Maudes-
ley Abbey," which, it is not too much to say, is a
scene without parallel even in these days of sensa-
tional dramas. The slight blemishes that were
apparent on the first night of its representation have
been removed, and although the interest has not
been heightened—for that would have been an im-
possibility—it acts closer, and the incidents follow
one another with greater effect. In the
assumption of the part of Henry Dunbar, Mr. H.
Melville has surpassed all his former creations.
He has evidently made a profound study of the part
and every portion of the character ; its lights and
shade are brought out with consummate skill, and
it is no mean compliment to him to say that his
conception of the character is the living embodiment
of that which Miss Braddon has so artistically
drawn. His very look, word, and action when
alone
,shows the guilt that is weighing down his
spirits, and a more impressive representation of a
man borne down by guilt and remorse has never
been presented on the stage. It is the greatest
thing Mr. Neville has yet performed. As a com-
panion picture there could not be a better than that
presented by Mr. Vincent as the Major. He is the
very essence of effrontery and villainy combined.
The battered broken hat, the faded military frock
coat and peculiar trousers, worn by Mr. Vincent,
render him the very photograph of a dilapidated and
broken swell, who still wishes to persuade himself
and others that he is yet a gentleman. Mr. B.
Soutar's Henry Carter, the detective, is also
an excellent performance, and Mr. Montague,
as Clement Austin, is equally effective.
Mr. H. Cooper, as Jerrams, the head waiter at the
George, acts with uncommon spirit, and anything
more life-like than his performance we have never
seen portrayed. Miss Kate Terry's Margaret Went-
worth is quite worthy of all her previous parts. At
times she perfectly electrifies the house by her
thrilling eloquence, whilst at others she is the per-
fect embodiment of pure filial affection. Miss Ellen
Leigh, as Laura Dunbar, shows she will he a great
acquisition to the talented troup at the Olympic ;
and Miss E. Farren is entitled to high commenda-
tion for her assumption of the part of Mary Madden.
The play has been mounted with the utmost care.
That it would have been otherwise, under the able
superintendence and direction of Mr. Horace Wigan,
was not for a moment to be anticipated. The
scenery, dresses, &c., are all that could be desired,
and whatever may be the length of time the piece
will maintain its place in the Olympic "bills of the
play," it will assuredly deserve the run, because
anything more perfect in the way of stage illusion
has never been presented to playgoers of the
metropolis.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

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Bank Shares 3780
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Italian Loan 66 10
Do. end month 66 10

DUBLIN, Saturday Evening.
The first trial in Cork has resulted, by direction
of the judges, in an acquittal. At the sitting of
the court yesterday Charles Underwood O'Connell,

who had been a captain in the Federal army, was
put in the dock ; but, on the application of Mr.
Butt, his trial was postponed for the arrival of Mr.
Lawless, solicitor. John M'Afferty, late captain iu
the Confederate army, was put forward, and pleaded
not guilty. Mr. Butt said that the prisoner was a
native of Ohio, United States, and should therefore
be tried by a jury half composed of foreigners. The
Crown consented, and a mixed jury was accordingly
sworn. There were eighteen challenges made by
the prisoner, and three gentlemen were desired to
" stand by" on the part of the Crown. The At-
torney-General then stated the case for the prose-
tion, and the approver Nagle was examined to
prove the existence of the conspiracy in Ireland.
His evidence did not refer in any way to the prisoner.
At 7 o'clock the Court adjourned until 10 o'clock
this morning, when it resumed. At the sitting of
the court Judge Fitzgerald asked the Crown counsel
in what manner they considered overt acts
alleged against the prisoner had been sustained
by evidence. Counsel having been heard on the
poilit, Justice Fitzgerald said—" Having carefully
considered the case last night, the Court had come
to the conclusion that there was no evidence to sus-
tain an overt act on the part of the prisoner after
the tender arrived at port. They would direct the
jury to acquit him." A verdict of acquittal was
accordingly returned. The prisoner will be detained
until the close of the commission to give the Crown
an opportunity of considering the course to adopt.
All the parties charged with alleged Fenianism in
the county of Limerick have been bailed out to ap •
pear when called upon, except four or five persons
who are detained in gaol, and who, with one excep-
tion, are in the very humblest class of life, and with-
out means or intelligence, and against some of whom
at least, if not all, so far as has been ascertained,
there is no evidence of any importance.
The evening papers announce that the Lord
Lieutenant has, by a special letter, superseded the
Board of Superintendence of Richmond Prison in
the appointment of interim officers, and has dis-
missed the governor, Mr. Marquise, who IN as under
suspension. This prison, you will recollect, is the one
from which Stephens escaped, and has been under
the supervision of the corporation. This proceeding is
considered very arbitrary, and will, no doubt, lead
to mia.ch discussion in our municipal council.

Eliza Adkins, who was sentenced to death by Mr.
Justice Mellor at the Leicester Winter Assizes, for the
murder of her son at Thringston, Leicestershire, has been
reprieved.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

CALCUTTA AND CHINA MAILS.

SUEZ, DEC. 16.
The Nemesis, with the above mails, arrived here
at 3 p.m. to-day (Saturday).
MALTA, DEC. 16.

The Pera, from Southampton on the 4th inst.,
arrived here on the 14th at 4 p.m., and left at mid-
night for Alexandria.
The Ripon, from Marseilles on the 13th inst.,
arrived here to-day at 1 p.m., and leaves at 5 p.m.
for Alexandria.

BELGIUM.
BRUSSELS, DEC. 18.

The presentation of addresses to the King by the
Senate and the Chamber of Deputies took place
yesterday evening. The Queen, the royal children,
and the Count of Flanders, stood by the King, and
the foreign princes were present.
The Prince de Ligne read the address of the
Senate, which expressed sympathy in the loss which
his Majesty had suffered ; but congratulated him
upon his accession to the throne. The address fur-
ther announced the unalterable devotion of the
Senate, and concluded with expressions of homage

to the Queen.
The Deputies were immediately afterwards ad-
mitted to the royal presence, and the President read
their address, in which they assured the King of the
attachment of the Belgian people to the constitution,
and its deep love for his dynasty.
The address also expressed the conviction that the
King would preserve that which the courage of the
people had founded and the wisdom of King
Leopold I. consolidated.
The King, in his reply to both addresses, declared
himself animated by constitutional principles.

FRANCE.
PARIS, DEC. 18.

The Moniteur of this morning publishes a report
of the deliberation of the Council of the Academy
in the case of five medical and two legal students
who took part in the Congress at Liege.
An old soldier named Coignet, who was the first
to bear the title of Knight of the Legion of Honour,
has just died at Auxerre, aged 91.
The Pays states that the Prince Imperial this
week went out shooting in the park of Compiegne,
and killed five rabbits and four pheasants.
According to latest advices from Cronstadt that
port is surrounded with ice. Communications with
Oranienbaum are carried on by means of sledges.
The state of M. Bixio's health is such as to cause
uneasiness at present amongst his friends.
A subscription has been opened to erect a monu-
ment to the late M. Rouviere, the actor.

A telegram from Marseilles states that the Mes-
sageries Imperiales Company's steamers Peluse,
with the mails from the Islands of St. Maurice and
Reunion, arrived in that port on Saturday evening.
At Naples, on the 13th, there were 11 cases of
cholera and 2 deaths ; and at Ponticelli, 19 cases
and 5 deaths.
The Emperor, on the proposition of the Minister
of War, has conferred the decoration of the Legion
of Honour on the eagle of the 51st Infantry,
as a recompense for the capture by that regiment
of two standards and three pennons in various
actions during the war in Mexico.
BOURSE, Dec. 16.—The market is very buoyant,
with a good amount of business doing at improved
quotations. The quarterly coupon on Three per
Cents. is detached to-day. This stock is quoted at
68f. 50c. ex div., which is equal to an advance of
7/c. Italian Fives have reached 66f. 10c., with an
improvement of 30c. Credit Mobilier Shares are
actively dealt in at 912 f. 50c., ari advance of 10f.
Spanish Mobilier have gone up sf. The Railway
Department is also active, and Northern Shares
have gained 6f. 25c. ; Lyons, 10f. ; Lombard, 3f.
75c. ; Austrian, sf. ; Saragossa, 2f. 50c. ; and Por-
tuguese, 10f. Three o'clock.—The market has
closed on the following quotations :

Roman
Ottoman Fives 43 50
Mexican Loan 49 50
Do. Bonds 333 75
Russian -
Austrian
Spanish Throes
Home Debt
Deferred

Amt.