The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-30 00:00:00

:MBER.

Richmond
Monmouth
Manchester Autumn 24
Newmarket Ist October 26
Walsall

The Murderer Southey.

It would appear, notwithstanding the coolness
that was exhibited by the prisoner at the time of
his conviction, that he was very much disappointed
at the result of the trial, and that he entertained a
somewhat confident notion that the defence of in-
sanity would have been successful. After the sen-
tence had been passed and he had been taken back
to his cell, he addressed one of the warders, and
said he was glad it was over, and he appeared then
to be fully convinced that he had no chance of
escape. A rather extraordinary fact has, however,
transpired in reference to the culprit, which is that
the chaplain of the gaol at Maidstone, the Rev. S.
Woolmer, entertained a strong opinion, in opposi-
tion to that given by the medical men connected with
Maidstone and Sandwich gaols, and the governors
of these establishments, that the prisoner is not of
sound mind ; and it is said that he will feel it to be
his duty to communicate this opinion to the Home
Secretary. Dr. Fry, a surgeon of large practice at
Maidstone, and who, it will be remembered, gave
evidence at the trial in support of the plea of in-
sanity, appears still to be of the same opinion with
regard to the condition of the prisoner's mind, and
if a formal application should be made to the Secre-
tary of State for the respite of the prisoner upon the
ground that he is insane, it is possible that some
delay might take place in carrying out the sentence.
It will be remembered that a somewhat similar pro-
ceeding took place in the case of the prisoner
Townley, a few years ago, and that after he had
been sentenced to be executed the sentence was re-
spited upon the certificate of two medical men that
he was insane, and he was removed to a lunatic
asylum. In consequence of the feeling which
was created in the public mind by the proceed-
ing, however, the prisoner was subsequently re-
moved to a convict prison to undergo a sentence
of penal servitude for life, and he destroyed him-
self while he was undergoing that sentence.
The matter was taken up by Parliament, and
the Home Secretary bas now no longer the
power at once to direct the respite of a prisoner un-
der sentence of death, upon the certificate of two
medical men that he is insane, but, if the facts
should appear to warrant it, he may direct an in-
quiry to take place as to the state of mind of the
prisoner, and he would act according to the result
of such inquiry. At present it may be stated that
nothing has been officially done in the matter, but
it may he stated that the solicitor for the prisoner,
Mr. Gold, is in communication with some of the
witnesses who were examined at the trial, and it is
not at all improbable that an application may yet
be made to the Home Secretary, upon the grounds
above alluded to, for the respite of the prisoner.

The District of Columbia.

(From the Boston Journal.)

The altered condition of things in the city of Waghiag-
ton and " the District," now, from the palmy days of
slavery and Democracy, must be most striking. Away
back in the past to 1800, when John Randolph of Virginia
considered it one of the privileges of the chivalry of that
day to "take the wall" of Yankee members and indulge his
fierce sarcasm in debate at their expense, and down to the
last day and hour of Wigfall, slavery was dominant, in-
tolerant, and insolent. It gave its own characteristic tone
to society, in all its grades, from the White House to the
hovel. There was little pretence to fashion outside its
charmed circle. It prevailed equally at the Capitol, in the
Departments, in the churches, at the hotels, and at private
mansions. The wisest, most learned and loveliest front
the great and powerful North were sometimes patronised,
more frequently barely tolerated. Being in power and
dispensing the patronage of the Government from one
decade to another, it was all potent, and Northern affiliated
politicians, with a baseness truly humiliating, aped it,
deferred to it, and accepted the social status it conferred
upon them, their families, and their constituents. Such
was the omnipotence of Southern leaders and politicians
that the army, navy, revenue service, and all the Depart-
ments and bureaus at Washington, and the foreign mis-
sions and consulates, were literally monopolised by their
sons, nephews, and friends. If an appointment was be-
stowed upon a Northerner it was in payment of his political
obsequiousness, and usually through the condescension of
one of these oligarchs.
The prison pen for human cattle, and the auction block
with its fetters and whips, and gangs of slaves in transitu,
coupled together like a drove of mules, was to bo seen any
day. Such justice as was dispensed then from the Supremo
Court of the United States, down to the police sessions,
was in its interest, and, equally with everything else,
dominated by it. It seems but yesterday since Senators
Sumner, and Wilson, and Hale, and Wade, and Trumbull
were coolly left off from any place upon the principal
Senate committees, because they did not " belong to any
healthy political organisation." When treason, so long in
the bud, flowered, and brought forth its natural fruit, with
what affectedly mournful pride did these eminent scions
of a patriarchal institution pronounce their rhetorical
valedictions and go, like so many Judases, to their own
place.
Behold, how changed ! Slavery is abolished in the dis-
trict ; the auction block is gone ; there are no handcuffed
gangs of chattels ; a Chase sits in the place of a Taney ;
free speech is heard at the capitol and the hotels; the free
air of the North has thoroughly ventilated and purified
the social and moral atmosphere ; Northern senators
and representatives give tone to thought and speech ;
their wives set the fashions ; the " boys in blue" have
tramp, tramped every yard of the ten miles square until
not a traitor dared wag his tongue in the streets.
Strange as it may seem, there are people at the North
who lament those " good old times," and would be over-
joyed to welcome the times, the men and fashions of those
days back again—nearly as much so as the men of those
halcyon days themselves, if they could suddenly be re-
stored to their old haunts, with all their former prestige
and power. But they cannot be gratified. The loyal
people will take good care that the old regime does not
return. Washington now, with a great increase in popu-
lation since 1860, is possessed by new men with now
ideas. It will become a metropolis worthy of a mighty
nation, disenthralled and regenerated from centre to
circumference.