The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-17 00:00:00

As if this cause of uncertainty was not sufficient
to deter capitalists from embarking their fortunes
in the States lately brought back to the Union, the
miserable Mexican difficulty is incessantly paraded
before the public. What can have induced an
officer in the position of General Sheridan to write
such a letter as that by Which you will have heard
by telegraph I do not pretend to explain ; but the
effect of it is clear and unmistakable. It strength-
ens the hopes of those who thirst to see the United
States at war with a European Power, and it dis-
courages those who hope to see peace preserved.
Which of these two classes is most useful to the
country in its present condition any one is able to
judge. The behaviour of some of the public func-
tionaries in this country is at times perfectly unac-
countable. The Chief Justice goes about lecturing
from " stumps" on the duty of resisting the Govern-
ment in regard to negro suffrage. The commander
of the United States' forces on the Rio Grande de-
clares publicly that the war is not finished until,
Maximilian and the French troops are driven out of
Mexico. The sense of responsibility can never have
properly presented itself to either of these men. They
labour to castfreshtrammels around the Government
which placed them where they are. Gen. Sheridan
outstrips Mr. Seward by an open declaration of war
against the Emperor Maximilian, and his soldiers
are eager that he should begin it at once. It is very
unfortunate that at such a time the President is un-
able to affmarl 1"/) rufhlin Itti.;.oaa. Thu uvuilltlOnt of
health is now such as to cause serious uneasiness, the
heavy cares of his office and the anxiety with which
he is known to have been suffering having, for a time
at least, broken him down. Happily Mr. Seward is
able to give undivided attention to the duties of his
post, and with such help Mr. Johnson might well
afford to take that rest which is imperative to his
safety. With an industry which is less to be blamed
than regretted, the President insists upon attending
personally to every detail of business, and the re-
sult is that there are grounds for some alarm re-
specting the repeated attacks of illness which have
lately followed each other so rapidly.
There is very little general news to offer. The
burning of the steamer Glasgow has caused a very
painful sensation, and every one feels that the rescue
of the passengers and crew is entirely owing to the
firmness and good management of the commander,
Captain Manning. General Grant is travelling
about the country, and is everywhere received with
immense rejoicings. In the odd phraseology of
the country he is having a " good time" of it. At
one place where he stopped the ladies (all beautiful,
as the report says) turned out and waited upon
him at table—an attention which must have been a
little distressing to so modest a man as General
Grant is represented to be. Elsewhere the admira-
tion of the fair sex for the hero was shown in a more
decided, though more tender, form. The news-
papers present hourly accounts of his " progress,"
and they ought to be thankful to him for giving
them something else to discuss besides the thermo-
meter at Delatour's. I referred recently to the
frequency of crimes against the person in this city.
The records of the police show that from the Ist of
May to the 31st of July last 20,467 arrests were
made by the police of New York for various offences.
Over 6,000 of these were women. The larger por-
tion of the return is made of robberies and assaults,
and, if to the discovered cases be added a per ten-
tage for those which are never found out, it will be
evident that New York is falling back into the con-
dition of California during the gold discoveries.
Other parts of the country try to keep pace with it
—for instance, in this morning's papers there are
full and glowing accounts of the murder of a
woman by her son ; of another son who stabbed his
mother and sister while they were in bed ; of a
frightful assault upon a woman committed by two
negroes, both of whom were subsequently lynched
by the mob at Evansville, Indiana ; of a still more
atrocious assault upon a woman by a man in Chester,
Illinois, the wretch actually cutting the woman's
throat before committing the outrage upon her ;
and a string of offences of what, I suppose, would
be called a minor character. The slight punish-
ments usually inflicted for crimes of the deepest dye
are not calculated to check the spread of this mania
for shooting and robbing which seems to have seized
a portion of the population.

DEATH FROM FRIGHT.—LLANDIIDNO, Aug. 15.
Yesterday a sad occurrence took place here. A
family from Newark-upon-Trent, named Bradbury, and
two friends were staying* the Georgo Hotel. About half-
past 10 in the morning the party left the shore in an open
boat for the Little Orme, where they remained for an hour
and a half. On their return the boat struck upon a large
stone, which drove a part of the bottom in, and the vessel
commenced filling with water. Mrs. Bradbury and her
daughter were carried ashore safely ; Mr. Bradbury and
the two gentlemen in company also landed, and the party
walked to their inn, a distance of three quarters of a mile.
Mr. Bradbury complained of a slight pain near the region
of the heart ; he took a little brandy and went to lie down.
Without any more unfavourable symptoms manifesting
themselves ho died in half an hour. Mr. Bolding, surgeon,
was soon in attendance, without avail; life was extinct
before he arrived. The inquest will be held here to-day.
Mr. Bradbury was an ironmonger at Newark, where he is
much respected. He was 50 years old, and has left six
children.

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TIMES.--It is now scarcely possible to doubt that
the triple murder in Holborn and the double mur-
der at Ramsgate were committed by one and the
same man, known alternately as Stephen Forwood
and Ernest Southey ; and the narrative of these
deeds will probably be quoted in after times as dis-
tinguishing somewhat darkly the morality of our
own generation. We can tell the story already with-
out much omission, for at Ramsgate the acts were
perpetrated almost before witnesses, and the confes-
sions of the prisoner combine with other evidence to
leave little obscurity about the proceedings in Lon-
don. On Monday, then, the 7th of this month,
Stephen Forwood engaged apartments at a coffee-
house in Red Lion-street, Holborn, and to these
rooms he brought on the evening of that day three
little boys, aged ten, nine and eight respectively.
On the morning of the Wednesday following these
children were all found dead in their beds. The man
who brought them had taken them upstairs and put
them to bed between 8 and 9 o'clock on Tuesday
evening. Shortly afterwards he went up, as he said,
to look at them, and remained upstairs about three
quarters of an hour. Then he came down, and
went out, after which he was not seen there again.
Medical evidence now establishes the fact that these
children were killed by prussic acid, and a profes-
sional witness, propounding, of course, only a theory
of the transaction, considers that to the eldest child
about a tablespoonful, and to each of the younger
ones about a dessert spoonful, of the poison was
administered as they lay. The smallest boy had a
penny-piece in his little hand—given him, perhaps,
as an inducement to take the medicine. While the
town was horrified by the intelligence of this crime,
another of almost equal magnitude was suddenly
reported from Ramsgate. On the evening of the day
when the dead bodies were found in the Holborn
coffee-house a man arrived at Ramsgate and in-
quired for a certain woman. On the following
morning he had interview with this woman and her
child, at which he shot them one after another almost
under the eyes of the other inmates of the house.
Being taken red-handed, he volunteered a statement
identifying himself with the person who had taken
the three children to the house in Red Lion-street
on the Monday previous. Subsequent inquiries and
comparisons left little doubt about the fact. Accord-
ing to all reasonable presumption it was the same
man who had slain all these people, three with poison
and two with the bullet. Nor was he quite a corn-
' mon murderer, for while he made little secret about
his own agency in the matter, he charged the respon-
sibility upon others as
.principals in the guilt, and
seemed exceedingly anxious that his views should be
made public. Upon investigation it appears that the
two persons whom he killed at Ramsgate were his
lawful wife and daughter, and that the three whom
he killed in London were his children by the wife of
another man. His " defence" is that he was driven
to these acts by the criminal neglect of society and
the obduracy of those to whom he had appealed in
vain for sympathy and succour. It may possibly be
in the recollection of the public that in the month of
December last a most extraordinary application was
made to Mr. Tyrwhitt, the sitting magistrate in
Marlborough-street. A well-dressed man appeared
before the Court and requested " advice" under cir-
cumstances which he proceeded to detail. He said
that a mutual attachment existed between him-
self and a lady whose attainments were greater
than her means, that they were anxious to be
united, but that there were obstacles in the way,
one of which was the fact that the lady was married
already. They had, however, he said, formed a
determination of raising themselves in the world
together to the position they desired to oc-
cupy, or, failing that, of committing suicide.
The fatal drugs had actually been purchased for the
last resort, when better thoughts arose. They now
resolved to separate, and not commit suicide, in
proof of which amendment the applicant made a
tender to the magistrate of the bottle of poison.
When Mr. Tyrwhitt declined, very naturally, to
take the poison into his keeping, and inquired how
the matter was supposed to fall within his depart-
ment, the applicant opened what he called the
" second part" of his case, which comprehended a
request for public assistance. " If," said he to the
magistrate, " a gentleman of your large experience,
in concert with the Earl of Shaftesbury and Sir Ed-
ward Lytton Bulwer—men who have studied life
and are skilled in its mysteries—will join with the
all-powerful Press in this work, I cannot for a mo-
ment doubt that they will at once decide on the
value to be placed on my moral and intellectual
attributes." As Mr. Tyrwhitt still declined to inter-
fere, the applicant withdrew, and no more was
heard of him ; but it is reasonably conjectured that
he was no other than Forwood; indeed, we should
hope that there are not two men possessed with these
views of social obligations. At Ramsgate, however,
Forwood read from a written statement these words
to the magistrates--" I charge back the guilt of the
crime on those high dignitaries of the State, the
Church, and Justice, who have turned a deaf ear
iv uiy heartbroken appeals, -who have refused fellow -
help in all my frenzied efforts and exhausted strug-
gles, and who have thereby impiously denied the
sacredness of human life, the mutual dependence of
man, and the fundamental and sacred principles on
which our social system itself is based." He then
proceeded to denounce, jointly and severally, as the
authors of his miseries and his crimes, the Earl of
Shaftesbury, Sir E. B. Lytton, Lord Palmerston,
Lord Derby, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Disraeli, and
other public characters. Such men, he seemed to
think, were morally bound to assist a kindred
and sympathetic spirit in the accomplishment
of his destiny, and not to turn aside from an
enlightened adept in the " mysteries" of life.
This jargon appeared to open a singular view of
the case, but it now seems as if more vulgar
motives must have entered into the consideration of
the criminal. The woman with whom he hadmain-
tained an illicit connexion had withdrawn from him,
and he had threatened her with " something more
than she could think of" in default of her return.
They were her children who were first murdered in
Holborn. The same motive would not apply to the
murder of his wife and child at Ramsgate, but he
there explained that the " contumely and frowns of
the world" would have been visited upon his repre-
sentatives on account of his misdeeds, and that he
thought the best thing he could do, therefore, was
to put them out of the world first. At the same time,
how ever, that he so readily avowed his acts it seems
as if he had entertained some instinctive design of
escaping detection, for he not only removed the
poison bottle from the bed-room in London, but left
in its place another compound, the odour of which
was strong enough to overpower even that of prussic
acid. So rests the story at this moment. It would
not be easy to match it either for horror or strange-
ness, and we have still to see what correction or de-
velopment time or investigation may bring.
POST.—The disbandment of the Federal army on
the Rio Grande is a measure of policy demanded by
circumstances. A letter, purporting to be written
by the general in command of this force, witnessed
to the expediency of avoiding explanations with
foreign Powers. It might have been more conside

rate to execute the " Mustering out" at sesinedis-
tance from the Mexican frontier ; but the Govern-
ment of Washington does not condescend to regard
the convenience of contiguous States, and Mr.
Seward will, of course, disclaim all responsibility if
the disbanded soldiers cross the river. That, how-
ever, is comparatively a matter of small importance.
As General Sheridan says, "It is of no use to
beat around the bush." No amount of Federal
sympathy, nor any number of Federal volunteers,
will suffice to restore the republic in Mexico.
" Beating around the bush" is, moreover,
unsafe as well as idle. It is exceedingly easy
to drift through fictitious neutrality into real
war, and if Mr. Johnson comprehends the interests
of the country he has not only to govern, but to re-
construct, he will be careful to steer clear of a coast
which is presently dangerous in more than one sense. i
It s inaccurate to suppose that the French inter-
vention in Mexico was in any form a challenge to
the United States. The Monroe doctrine has not
been accepted by France, and the assumption that
one State has the right to dictate to all the States
of a great continent is clearly inadmissible. The
authority of the Government of Washington extends
not beyond the frontiers of the Republic, and pre-
tensions that go further plainly contravene the law
of nations, are in their nature subversive of national
independence, and directly calculated to provoke a
breach of the peace. By no words, quiet or offen-
sive, can the Monroe theory be established, and an
attempt to enforce it by war would raise a question
more comprehensive in its bearings than appears. to
be conceived. Those who take a superficial view of
the idea may not apprehend its extreme elasticity.
It does not seem to have occurred to them that what
may be tolerated on one continent can eventually
be applied to another. The deference. to American
notions may, we take leave to think, be carried too
far. It cannot be friendly to flatter and foment
conceits which, practically, would be resisted ; and
in the presentinstance it is manifestly misleading the
Government and the people of the United States to
persuade them that, now, or hereafter, any language
they may hold would serve to set aside an accom-
plished fact. The obligation France has undertaken
she will fulfil. There is no room for doubt on the
point, and to encourage scepticism is not an act of
kindness to the nation that, without the shadow of a
reason, choses to be discontented.. The Empire in
Mexico stands upon a solid foundation, and it is for-
midably supported. Its title is incontestable, and
its power may be measured by
asuredby the power of France.
As a matter of history, it is also wholly averse
from the fact to assume that the Emperor of the
French took advantage of the difficulties of the
United States to compass the overthrow of the ,