The Sun.
London, England, 1862-03-27 00:00:00

tAlfillings, and pence which will, I am well convinced,
flow in when the opportunity is presented. Let
Cambridgeshire be the first to set an example
which will be followed by every county in England.

There could hardly be a more honourable tribute to
the memory of this benevolent Prince than to have
it recorded upon his monumental memorial how
large a sum was collected in pence from the work-
ing classes of the English people." This is surely
a very excellent proposition. If evidence were
required of the perfect possibility of collecting
large sums in small proportions out of the
pence lying (sparsely enough, GOD knows) in the
pockets of the poor, we have a solid token before us
in the full length bronze statue erected upon a
granite pedestal to the memory of General Sir
CHARLES NAPIER, the Heroic Conqueror of Scinde,
and now passed by, to and fro, daily by the London
multitude in the stony wilderness of Trafalgar-
square. According to the true but affecting in-
scription graven upon the pedestal of that memorial
statue—an inscription which, it may be remembered,
was penned by Sir Wm. NAPIER, the Historian of
the Peninsular War—the chief part of the moneys
paid for the monument had been contributed towards
the liquidation of the expense of it by the small
coin dropped, into the hands of the Treasurer of the
Committee, by the Privates in the British Army, the
humble followers of the glorious Captain and Con-
queror. Again, the noble collection recently made
at the Mansion-house for the surviving population
of the little colliery village of Hartley was com-
menced originally by the handing in of one shilling
by a poor working man, who went without his
dinner for the day in order that he might give that
little metallic germ of a forty thousand pound& !
A dozen years ago, in the very room in which we
are now writing these words, we well remember
ourselves to have collected together for the poor
exiled Hungarians then thrown upon our shores
penniless in a foreign land—upwards of one thou-
sand pounds. A thousand pounds—and more—
almost entirely made up by halfpence, and sixpences,
and shillings, brought here to us by the toiling
artizans of the metropolis, or sent to us from all
parts of the country by provincial sympathisers.
And this—instantly as it were—in answer to a
suggestion thrown out by us in these columns
of The Sun, to the effect that a collec-
tion of this lowly but generalised kind
should be at once commenced. No sooner had
our remarks obtained circulation than the small coin
poured in upon our table here so rapidly—that it
swelled in a few days in goodly piles of copper and
silver to an aggregate of upwards of one thousand'
pounds sterling. The proceeds of the collection being
transferred by us to Messrs. COUTTS'S Bank, and
being afterwards distributed judiciously among the
Hungarian exiles then in England, by a committee
composed of Liberal and Independent members of
the House of Commons, among them the late Lord
DUDLEY STUART : this Committee having—when
the collection was almost entirely completed—
been formed (for the purpose of administering
the funds) as by an after-thought. Nay, more; have
we not the agreeable remembrance of having received
the personal acknowledgments of the exiled leader
of the Hungarians, of KOSSUTH himself, in reference
to the kindly feeling evidenced by this manifesta-
tion of the cordial sympathy felt towards his coun-
trymen by the working population of London and
Westminster ! Well, and this is precisely
what Lady HARDWICICE now proposes should
be done far and wide among the poor in the pro-
vinces of England, with a view to swell the funds of
the ALBERT memorial. If her ladyship's sugges-
tion be but promptly and energetically acted upon,
we are perfectly well satisfied that the considerable
sum already collected together in honour to the
memory of our noble-hearted Prince, " ALBERT the
Good," will be increased enormously—and that,
moreover, within a very brief interval from the
dropping in of the first pence from the hands of these
more humble contributors.

Who can wonder that the North should be exult•
ing and confident—that it should even have limited
the duration of the Rebellion to thirty, instead of
ninety days ? The brilliant little exploit of the
Merrimac is not of the slightest importance com-
pared with the defeat and retreat of the Confederates
everywhere else, and the occupation of all their
coasts and great rivers by the Federals. The
North-westers have the credit of actually turning
the tide of war, and M'CLELLAN that of creating
real armies out of materials which, though excellent
as men, were not easy to mould, almost to coerce
into trained and disciplined regiments. The great
North-west, determined not to lose the com-
mand of its great river connection with the
sea, furnished the contingents which first routed
poor ZoLLICOFFER'S army, killed their Gen-
eral, cleared Kentucky, captured Forts Henry and
Donnelson, compelled the evacuation of Columbus,
took possession quietly of Nashville, the capital of
Tennessee, and it is now reported of Memphis, its
great river port also ; and has brought the Confe-
derates finally to bay at a rather strong position in
the extreme south of Tennessee.

Probably this success has had as much to do with

the flight of the Confederates from Manassas as
the movements in strong force of General BANKS
on their left flank at Harper's Ferry. What with
the men of the North-west occupying Kentucky
and Tennessee on the west, and the Atlantic coast
being in the hands of the Federals, the Confederates
saw that Virginia could not be long tenable ; and
they have fallen back accordingly. But, thanks to
the energy of M'CLELLAN, he has now a disciplined
army to fo44w them, and follow them he doubtless
will. He finds the country indeed abandoned
and desolate as he advances. A great
part of it, in fact, suffers that curse of
slave cultivation—once fertile plantations now
surrendered to what looks like primeval forest,
thorns, and thistles ; slave tillage being too unin-
telligent to preserve to the land its original fer-
tility. But there are railroads through this wilder-
ness; the damage done there will soon be repaired ;
the Potomac is clear, and supplies will be easily

furnished to the army by the river and the railroads.
It can hardly be long before Northern Virginia will
be occupied by the Federal troops down to Rich-
mond and the St. James's River, on which that
capital stands ; that the Norfolk Navy Yards
will then fall again into the hands of the Federal
Government ; and the Merrimac, if she has not
been injured so much as to be useless, will soon
have no fort or haven where she can lie in safety.
With such prospects before them, the North may

well reckon on the early submission of the South.
We are told, indeed, that desperation is now to do
its work, but that remains to be proved. If the
South concentrates its armies by retreat, the
North, on the other hand, will concentrate its
larger and better Equipped forces, by following
the retreating enemy. The Southern armies ap-
pear to be in rather evil plight, so far as the
little which can be heard of them informs us,
and
o k
vill not, in the face of ill success, be easy
to keep together ; while the Northerns will be
as desirous to
As to the last re
fall back amongst ev
_.moo shall believe
value, in that
adhere to the triumphant side.
solve—to burn their produce and
it when
forests, and alligators
'when we see it. Of what
case, are their State bonds, secured