The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-26 00:00:00

COMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE.

NEW YORK, May 17 (Morning).
Gold; 1294. Exchange on London, 1431 ; on
Park, 3.90. Stocks dull. New York Central, 91 ;
Erie, 763-; Illinois, 116 ; 5-20 Bonds, 104. Cotton
dull. Middling Upland, 50c. Flour and wheat
declining. Corn quiet. Provisions good inquiry.
Coffee and molnsuies steady. Sugar firmer. Petro-
leum quiet ; crude, 36 ;.refined, 52.

MEXICO.
NEW YORK, May 17.

It is reported from Mexico, via Cairo, that the
Liberals demanded the surrender of Matamoras on
the 29th ult., and that the Imperialist troops re-
fused to march out and meet them. Subsequent
reports state that on the 4th inst. the Liberals were
in full retreat.

FRANCE AND AMERICA.
PARIS, MAY 26.

The Constitutionnel of this morning says —" We
learn that the Government of the United States
have taken measures to repress any attempts to
effect illegal enlistments, and to put a stop to any
proceedings undertaken with the object of prepar-
ing emigrant expeditions against Mexico, in viola-

tion of the Federal laws. Instructions to this
effect have been forwarded to the United States
Attorney at New York, who at once took the neces-
sary measures for, the prompt execution of the

same."

The Royal Mail steamship Scotia, from New
York on the 17th inst., arrived at Queenstown at
6 a.m. to-day (26th inst.), with 265 passengers,
and $936,250 in specie. She landed 116 sacks of
mails and 46 passengers, and proceeded for Liver-
pool at 6.30 a.m. All well.

The Scotia made the passage in eight and a half

days.

Negroes and Negro Labour.

The following circular has been issued by General
Gordon relative to the disposition of negroes and
negro labour :

" Head-quarters, District of Eastern Virginia,
Norfolk, May 10, 1865.
To the people, white and coloured, within this
district : .

" You are now called upon to meet a question of
vast importance—one the discussion of which has
often agitated the country, and been presented as an
insurmountable barrier to the freedom of the coloured
race. Now, through the grace of God, the coloured
man is free, and he is here demanding a social status
in your midst. He is here upon your farms and your
plantations, in your towns and your cities ; and
to-day you must meet the fact, and this hour begin
the solution of the problem. Bad men for political
ends, weak-minded men and women, and therefore
pitiable, not blameable, have been deceived, or have
deceived themselves, in regard to the difficulties of
its solution. There are no real obstacles in the path ;
nothing that for one moment should make coloni-
sation or expatriation questionable or debateable.
Whatever rule may be for the present en-
forced by the nation, or whatever policy adopted
by the State, it may be safely asserted that it must
be in accordance with laws adopted at the North,
governing free labour for those who can work, an
entire or partial support of those who cannot, and
compulsbry labour for those who can, but will not.
Entire or partial support, in States heretofore free,
of the infirm and aged poor, or the homeless too
young to labour, is secured in every town or county
in the most humane manner, on farms conducted
and supported by the town or county for whose poor
provision is thus made. From these farms minor
children are bound out to proper persons upon pro-
per and humane conditions. At the poor farms all
who are able labour under the supervision of a com-
petent overseer, and thus aid the town or county in
their support. For the idle and lazy vagabond
the penitentiary is provided, where compulsory
labour lessens expense. Thus in each community
there is provided the home, the poor-house, and the
penitentiary. As the whites of the South appreciated
the incomparable value of the free labour of the
coloured man, as they find—as they surely will—that
their capital increases, and new channels for industry
arise in proportion to a just, moral, and intelligent
aid given to raise and educate his labour, they will
loudly call for still another Northern institution that
lessens expense and diminishes inmates of poorhouses
and penitentiaries and increases the number of
homes—the schoolhouse. Then they will appreciate
that the coloured labour in their communities is of
priceless value, and will regard any effort to rid
themselves of it as springing from lamentable igno-
rance or hopeless insanity. The coloured race
wish to live and labour where they were born, and
they are anxious to support their families in the
community where they were raised. That they
may be encouraged in this work, that they may sus-
tain themselves and save the community from ex-
pense, that they may build up their homes and edu-
cate their children, is it not both economy and
wisdom for the farmers and planters to hire them as
labourers upon their lands, and thus relieve the com-
munity from the support of many that would other-
wise fall upon the public charity ? It is not only
economical, but does not such a course insure greater
public security ? To this consideration your atten-
tion is invited. Aid the willing labourer, punish
and confine the idle and lazy, support the pauper,
and educate the race. Let each city, county, and
town charge itself with the management of these in-
stitutions, and there will be no insurmountable diffi-
culties arising from freedom to the slave. In this
district, under the disadvantages of a state of war, the
negro population have been treated, as far as pos-
sible, in conformity with•the principles enunciated.
From the scarcity of demand for farm hands, and
from the impracticability of adopting new, and as
yet untried, fields of labour in this community, from
the over-crowding of people drawn by the barbari-
ties of war from near and remote plantations and
homes, the Government agents in adopting, as nearly
as possible in the case of the homeless and landless
race, the Northern institutions of the home, the
school-house, the poor-house, and the penitentiary,
have been compelled to make departures from their
practice, and bestow charity upon those who would
work if work could have been found, although this
class has mostly been confined to females ; they have
also been compelled to find labour for the coloured
man where be should have found work for himself ;
and thus the Government has not been able to prac-
tically teach that inexorable lesson that from to-day
must be taught the coloured man—that support
will alone come from the labourer's own earnings;
that with impartial laws and all aids to progress,
mental, moral, and physical, the negro starts
henceforth to hew his own way through all
obstacles to equality before man as he now stands
equal before the law. For the steps that have been
taken in this district too much praise cannot be
awarded Capt. 0. Brown, Superintendent of Negro
Affairs, under whose intelligent effort the coloured
man has been partially instructed that he must earn
his own bread by the sweat of his own brow.—By
order of " Brigadier-General GEo. H. GORDON.
" T. 11. Harris, Assistant Adjutant-General."

SPEEDY JUSTICE.—A daily paper published in our
little namesake, Canadian London, states that recently at
the railway station of that westernmost city of Canad%
a fight took place between a passenger and a townsman.
The men wore at once taken by a constable before an
alderman, tried, convicted, fined a dollar each with costs,
and sent about their business. It was all done in a
quarter of an hour, and the passenger combatant sue
ceeded in rejoining his train before it left the station, tnd
went on hie way to sarnia,