The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-15 00:00:00

A WHIPPING ROUSE.

A correspondent of the Missouri Democrat, writ-
ing from Helena, Arkansas, under date of Sept. 9,
describes as follows one of the beauties of the " pe-
culiar institution" :—" Perhaps your readers are not
aware that whipping negroes is a regular business
in some parts of the South, but such is undoubtedly
the case. Improved machinery has been invented
and put into operation, and whipping is done by
wholesale. An institution of this kind is at Mayena,
25 miles from this place on the St. Francis-road,
The whipping-house,' as it is called, is about six
feet in diameter and 10 feet high. A shaft runs from
bottom to top ; on the upper end is a small cog-
wheel running horizoLtally, into which a large
wheel works. The propelling power is a robust
negro. Attached to the shaft are leather thongs or
straps about two inches wide. Lashes are inserted
in these, and when the shaft is in motion they reach
the neck. Near by is the office and stripping-house.
Here tho victims are divested of their clothing, and
five or six are placed in the torture-room ; the door
being fastened, the negro on hold of the crank, the
proprietor, with watch in hand, orders the machine
to be put in motion.

s‘ Around whirls the shaft, at the rate of 200 re-
volutions per minute, With straps and lashes ex-
tended, brusing and lacerating the poor victim with
thousands of blows extending from head to feet.
Fifteen minutes is considered by the proprietor—
Hampton Jones—to be a reasonable time to grind a
batch of human flesh ; and then it is so very cheap,
costing but a dollar per head ! Ido think it very
nearly a gnats hell itself. Nothing for human tor-
ture could be more terrible. A thousand scorpions
stinging their flesh could not inflict more punish-
ment. At the end of the time, the poor, bleeding,
quivering victims are brought out more dead than
aii
alive. The plantations for miles send their grists
to this mill to he ground, and the proprietor had
been doing a thriving business
ntil
troops came, and consequently
0 thue o theec Un
t on
upon
was ruined."

HELP
HELP FROM THE HELPLESS.—SiXtY-four of the
sick and aged inmates now in the infirmary of the East Lon-
don Union have subscribed a farthing each, towards reliev-
ing the Lancashir° distress. The chaplain, the Rev. F.
Brealey, of St. Botolph's, Aldersgate, has sent, or intends
sending, this offering---which is made in the same spirit as
the widow's mite—to the Mansion House Relief Committee.
—.ow from

LIVES of EMINENT STATESMEN,
in FUN, every week. One Penny,

Now Ready, handsomely bound in Magenta cloth, gilt, price
4s. 6d.; post tree, 55., the
SECOND half-yearly VOLUME of FUN, with
numerous Engravings by talented artists, and humor-
ous Articles by the lollowbag distinguished writers :
W. Bailey. Esq- W. S. Gilbert, Esq.
W. Barber, Esq: T. Hood, Esq.
E. L. Blanchara, Esq. T. S. Jerrold, Esq.
G. W. Bridgeman, Esq. W. J. Prowse, Esq.
F. C. 13urnand, Esq. Godfrey Turner, Esq.
IL J. Byron, Esq. &c., &c, Sze.
Office, 80, Fleet-street, London.

HALF-A-DOZEN UMBRELLAS in the
Christmas Number of SATURDAY NIGHT. Con-
ducted by THOMAS HOOD.

• **. For full particulars of amusements see first page.
ROYAL ENGLISH OPERA, COVENT-GARDEN.
This Evening, Wallace's new opera, LOVE'S TRIUMPH.
Commence at 8.

THEATRE-ROYAL, HAYMARKET.
This Evening, DUCK HUNTING. After which, OUR
AMERICAN COUSIN. With A DAY AFTER THE
WEDDING. And MY H
Com USBAN
at D'S GHOST,
Commence 7.

NEW THEATRE-ROYAL, ADELPHI.
This Evening, THE SP ITAL F lELDS WEAVER.
Followed by GREEN BUSHES. And A TICKET OF
LEAVE.

Commence at 7.

ROYAL LYCEUM THEATRE.
This Eveninv,, IT MUST BE TRUE, 'TWAS IN THE
PAPERS. Followed by PEEP O'DAY. To conclude with
lELLLAICNEY.

Commence at 7.

ARGYLL ROOMS, Great Windmill-street, 'Ha:
market. Open every evening for Promenade and Dancing•

CANTERBURY HALL.—EVERY EVENING.
Grand Selections from Verdi's " of
31 acfarren's
Cantata "May Day," and Locke's Music ot " Macbeth."—
The Etoile Family -Unsworth, Eugene, and Duley, &a•
Commence at 7.

THE OXFORD, 6, 0 3E-FORD-STREET, EVERY
EVE `I
oche of Unsworth. the original of
"Or any other man' -The C,olleen Bawn, by Miss Caroline
Part/ ea-s"r• Maclagan's Entertainment - Drew Dean, the
great Flautist—the Neacotitan MinstrelsDonizetti's—Selecti"oDon Sens from-
Verdi's " 11 Corsaro" and " N alnico,"
bastien," &c., with full ',And and chorus.
Commence at 7.

HIGH I,VATER. AT LONDON BRIDGE.
his DAs.--IVlOrlairtg, 7h. 35m.—Afternoon, Bh. sm.
To-mou.now.-Morning,tBh. 40m.—Afternoon, 9h. 12m.

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• -- _

THE SUN.
LONDON, MONDAY, DEC. 15, 1862.

While King RADAYA of Madagascar is being
crowned at Tanai:ariva with a diadem sent to him
by the Emperor NAPOLEON, the Emperor NAPO-
LEON himself is quietly continuing his minute re-
vision of the frontier line of France. Years roll on,
the first decade of the reign of NAPOLEON 111. is
already completed, war has alternated with peace
during the lapse of it—war with Russia, war with
China, war with Austria, war in Japan and in
Mexico—yet all the while the attention of the
taciturn ruler of France is steadily fixed upon the
line rigidly drawn in 1815 marking the boundary
of his dominions. Its extension so as to embrace
within it the whole of the Frovinces of Nice and
Savoy, with their million or so of live stock in
the shape of Nizzards and Savoyards, is of
course still pretty vividly within our re-
membrance. Besides a very flagrant extension
of territory by France under NAPOLEON 111., how-
ever, it should also be borne in mind, that there is
perpetually, though it may be almost imperceptibly
advancing, a cautious revision of that same frontier
line at other points. In the direction of Switzer-
land the latest and not the least satisfactory of all
these cautious revisions has just now been accom-
plished. It has been accomplished by the first out
of the nine articles of the Treaty (settling the
Dappes Valley Question) recently concluded be-
tween France and Switzerland. It is not an exten-
sion of territory, again we -would especially notify
—but a simple revision of the boundary line, and,
as it appears to us, a very equitable revision
altogether. The article of the Treaty, the
all-important first article (settling the long vexed
question), runs in effect as follows :—" Switzer-
land makes over to France that portion of the
Dappes Valley, comprising the Mont des Taffis and
its declivities, as far as and together with the road
from Les Rousses to Fauville, and to the eastward
of this road and along the same a strip of land 150
metres in breadth, or 500 Swiss feet (the entire ces-
sion consisting of 704 hectares). /n exchange for
this, France makes over to Switzerland, that is to say,
to the Canton Vaud, a piece of land of equal size, ex-
tending from the junction of the St. Cergues and
Fauville roads, along the declivity of Norrmont to
the boundary of the Valley of Joux. The St.
Cergues-road (from La Cure) is included in the
cession." Bit by bit that old, yellow, all but obso-
lete, Treaty of Vienna is being mouldered away
by the sheer lapse of time and the mere passage of
events—until before long there will hardly be left
one shred or tatter of it relating to any re-
sult still enforced by common consent of
the Chief Powers of Europe. Bit by bit the Na-
poleonian policy is creeping round the frontier line
—extending here, revising there—until, Who shall
say that the hour may not strike when Fiance may
reclaim some portion at least of the Rhenish
Provinces ?

"' 1

--~

A few days ago we recalled attention to Mr.
CHARLES DICKENS'S American Notes in their bear-
ing on the present struggle. We did so because
they gave the unbiassed observations of a traveller
whose ability and integrity no one could doubt;
and being made twenty years ago, they could not
be influenced by the passions awakened by the pre-
sent quarrel. We have said " tinbiassed',—but
really there was the strongest temptation to a bias
the wrong way. Mr. DICKENS was so feted
throughout the Union, received everywhere with
such ovations, that there was some fear that he
would at least be silent on slavery in the recol-
lection of his national reception in America. Many
people were even astonished when his notes ap-
peared, at his frank outspokenness on the monster
crime of the monster Republic, and that she should
have been painstakingly collecting facts, such as
v
e quoted from him the other day to substan-
tiate his
views.
If eiir readers will turn to the opening of his
last chapter but one, the ninth, they will find an
admirable and lifelike sketch of the three classes of
the upholder, ,f
slavery into which Mr. DICKENS
divides that unworthy body in America. Its truth
is obvious at first "O •
lt, and it is well worthy of
attention at a time when many
Englishmen are
almost seduced into ass rap,th
y with the South,which
represses more or less their
perpetuate which is the
natural indignation
with the great atrocity, to
and 'whoseanl
yearerhupting
object of the nbellioe,
in-
fluence saps the Christian and m
the entire South and of too muel of the North.
of
Mr. DICKENS'S first class is the inheritors of slaves
c!ass many of whom are to be pitied. ts The
more moderate and rational owners of human cattle
who have come into the possesion of them as so
many coins in their trading capital, but who admit
the frightful nature of the institutiin in the
abstract and perceive the dangers with which
is Notes" reached
it is fraught." When the
Americans
America, doubtless most of the
much as the
cursed the English prophet
the Hebrew monarch cursed MicALtii, because he
prophesied only an evil future for slavery. They
will not now deny that he was right when he wrote
of its dangers that, "however distant or however