The Sun.
London, England, 1862-08-11 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MO-#DAY EVENING, AUGUST 11, 1862.

Hero's new- enterprise appears to all of us mere
lookers on, undoubtedly—and rash even to the last
degree of rashness. But, if GARIBALDI lacks every-
thing in the way of disinterestedness—his Honesty,
his Guilelessness, his Heroism, are beyond the limits
of exaggeration.

Since writing the above this afternoon, another
Telegram has just been flashed to us from the Con-
tinent. It announces the simultaneous outburst of
a new rallying-cry among the populace in the
North of Italy, and in the South of Italy, at Genoa
and in Sicily. "Down with RaTAzzi !" It is
significant. Should the cry extend or get echoed
North, South, East, West, in the Rcman peninsula
the Minister will have to thank himself for the diffi-
culty into which he has blundered. A difficulty it
now threatens to be to Signor RATAZZI none the less
formidable of its kind, for inasmuch: as this new
cry of, "Down with RATAZZI !" is coupled in one
quarter with another cry of, " Viva VICTOR EM-
MANUEL and GARIBALDI !" Once, again, fairly
identify the interests of the KING and the Hero,
and down will go the French Italian Minister !

We do not like needlessly to find fault with our
courts of justice; but more things have been done
lately than usual, which should hardly be passed
over in silence.

We have already adverted to FLOOD'S case, con-
victed by a Sussex jury of murder without recom-
mendation to mercy, although the judge hinted
that such a recommendation would be attended to :
it was also beyond dispute that the man bore an
excellent character, and had been driven to half
intoxicate himself, and, in that condition, to murder,
by a series of regimental brutalities, and by the fear
and threat of their renewal from'the person whom he
shot. The man cannot be hanged, and if the feeling
of the country is to be respected, we may hope that
as a lesson to the real authors of the murder, his
brutal comrades—he will be punished only for man-
slaughter. It is singular that Sussex also furnished
the jury who acquitted another deliberate mur-
derer, because, though he killed a man, it was not
the man whom he intended to kill.
Another case is what, so far as we can judge
from the reported ev:dence, is a most unwarrantable
one of admitting to bail. Rape is a crime which
every woman, every father, brother, and husband,
feel to be hardly second to murder. It was,
till very lately, dealt with in the same way.
In aggravated cases, it richly deserves hang-
ing. Yet Mr. WOOLRYCH, however, admits
to bail, and on easy terms too, a Mr. JIM',
whom the evidence, as we now have it, both of the
police and of the respectable young servant girl,
prove to have been guilty of a most violent and suc-
cessful assault on the girl's honour. If screams,
fainting, hysterics, and insensibility were not pre-
sumptive evidence that JIIPP had been guilty of a
crime which merits the severest penalties society
can inflict, we know not what would be evidence.
If the poor girl had been the daughter of a mem-
ber of Parliament, or of a Bishop, Mr.WOOLRYCH'S
conduct would have been questioned in the House of
Lords and the House of Commons ; and the Home
Secretary would have been as indignant and active,
as when Mr. PILKINOTON, M.P., was garrotted—but
a virtuous servant girl is no object of interest, we
presume, to elected, or even to Episcopal Legisla-
tors. The Bishop of OXFORD, who took care of
girls of sixteen, might have bethought him of in-
quiring whether a girl of eighteen was to be thus
outraged with impunity, if hisfather and uncle were
willing to pay £lOO a piece, and the criminal him-
self £2OO, if he left as much behind him. We shall
see whether the police will be able to produce him
on the day of trial, for it seems incredible that he
should produce himself.
Another was a case in which, we believe, most
readers of the trial think there was a serious failure
of justice; nor can we but think the Judge himself
as much in error as the jury, and probably the chief
cause of their error. General SHIRLEY, he of
Bashi-Bazouk reputation in the Crimean war, is the
hero on the wrong side of this case—a highly re-
spectable and well brought-up young woman, se-
duced by him under a promise of marriage, as she
asserts, is the victim. In cases of breach of promise
of marriage, by a perversity intended surely to
favour the stronger sex, the parties to the alleged
promise cannot be examined—though the parties to
suits of infinitely less consequence may be. Hence,
a crafty old man of fifty may easily dupe a little
suspecting orphan of twenty-three, such as Miss
THOMAS was, if he choses so to do. That Major-
GeneralHOmAs SHIRLEY did so dupe Miss THOMAS must,
we should think, be the impression received by all
those who read the evidence, and it was not of a
nature, like much evidence, to appear different to a
court and to a reader.

Miss THOMAS had but very slender means, in-
deed, but had from seventeen years filled a respec-
able situation as a governess. She sought another,
through Miss MOON, the head of an agency office
for governesses, at whose instance she first
endeavoured to improve her French at
Paris, but afterwards Miss MOON suggested
and drew up for her an advertisement, which ran
thus—" As Lady Housekeeper.—A young lady is
desirous of obtaining an engagement es housekeeper
to a widower or single gentleman. She is accom-
plished, and of ladylike deportment. Address
CON STAN CE, care of the Lady Principal of the Musi-
cal Agency Office, 40, Oxford-street." It seems
hardly credible that not only the veteran seducer,
but the judge, and we suppose the jury, should see
nothing in this advertisement, but a public offer of
the advertiser to accept a dishonourable position ;
and that though the principal of the institution
drew it up herself. Miss MOON had inserted many
such advertisements, and it is certain that no re-
spectable paper would insert what this advertise-
ment was said to be—an advertisement of prostitu-
tion. The reason for the preference on the part of
Miss THOMAS approved by the principal of the in-
stitution was, obviously, that it is frequently far
more trying to a respectable young woman to
serve under one of her own sex than under a
gentleman.

General SHIRLEY refused to produce the letters
he had received, which ought to have been a pre-
sumption against him. But even his own letters,
cautiously as they were worded, to our judgment,
showed that he had made her promises of
marriage, on which a young orphan girl,
not suspecting a soldier, entirely relied. She
was wholly unaware that he was sepa-
rated from his wife, and so must even some re-
spectable neighbours have been, for they at one
place received Miss THOMAS as Mrs. SHIRLEY ; it is
remarkable that in one letter after he had effected
.
his purpose, when he wanted her to come to his
house in the country, and act as his housekeeper, he
ea o
actually added to the request that she would resume
name, for a
time tt lea
her ow, An
ake h
expression
is
which e d not
haveusiedesxtelept to make
language decently Square with promises he had
made her. There was also the evidence of a young
lady, who had heard
a conversation which it was
planned she should hear, and in which the
general distinctly Spoke
of
his promises to bliss
TiloMAb• There was nothing Whatever to impeach
this evidence. Has the general
11
ct made promises,

he knew better at fifty than to confess it, and that
in the very act of refusing to keep them.
We admit that the chief failure is that caused by
the law which refuses the best evidence, but
balancing the denial of the Bashi•Bazonk general
separated from his wife, against the assertion of
an orphan of twenty-three, corroborated by previ-
ous virtuous character, by Miss MooN's acts, by her
letters, and by the conversation, we could not hesi-
tate a moment in giving our verdict for the victim.

Another naval lesson from America, and again
from the Confederates. All of us who take an in-
terest in public matters—and few are the English-
men uninterested in their navy—will a second time
strain our eyes to the uttermost to see if anything
fresh can be learned on the subject of ironsides and
steam rams. This time we must look across half
the American continent to the Mississippi itself—
there for a long time the Federal Fleet of gunboats
has been in vain bombarding the city of Vicksburg,
and in vain, also, endeavouring by means of a canal
across the neck of the Peninsula on which it stands,
to cut it off from being a River Port for ever. The
river had fallen too much to scour through the
canal and change the channel. The consequence is
that Vicksburg is still a virgin fortress, and its bat-
teries, with those of Baton Rouge, one or two hun-
dred miles below it, command an important section
of the Mississippi, quite enough to place the Federal
fleets in a rather awkward position.
But it is at Vicksburg itself that the feats of the
Merrimac have been renewed, and that it has
again been shown how far superior the South,
considering its smaller mechanical resources, has
proved itself to the North. Our readers noticed,
probably, the brief account which appeared in Me
Sun on Saturday, of the exploits of the Arkansas,
to-day we extract, from a Chicago paper, much
fuller details of the same exploit. The river
Yazoo runs into the Mississippi at Vicks-
burg, and it was up this river that the
second Merrimac was fitted out. She appears to
have been covered like the Merrimac with a double
coating of the best railway iron, her deck low,
with portholes only just big enough for the muzzles
of the guns, nothing on deck but the " Smoke
Stack," anglice, funnel, and not an aperture by
which a boarding party could enter, a fact verified
by her foes. Her armament was powerful, but it
was her invulnerability which made her so dreadful
an antagonist. The Federal iron-plated gun-
boats pitted against her, are only imperfectly pro-
tected—their plates do not exceed 24 inches in
thickness, and they are applied only to those parts
which are supposed most to need protection.
It was known that the Arkansas was building,
though scoffers at such an idea of southern skill
and energy were not wanting. However, three
steamers were sent up the Yazoo to reconnoitre.
They were just too late. They found the Arkansas
ready to steam at them at once, while they could
not get back to the main fleet lying off Vicksburg,
in time to prepare them for a visit from the new
Impregnable. The Queen of the West went ahead
of the other two, but they had not gone above five
miles when the Queen was observed coming back
" with every pound of steam on," and proclaim-
ing—" the Arkansas is coming." And coming she
was. The Carondelet was the first to encounter her,
aided by the Tyler, the third boat. She hid her
broadside towards the approaching ship, but the
balls were seen to strike and fall harmlessly into
the water. Another broadside was given at fifty
yards, but with the same result. The Arkansas
then ran into the Carondelet's starboard quarter,
crushing it, and keeping up a fire of broadsides
with pointed shot, which raked her from stem to
stern, while the shot of the Carondelet rolled off the
Arkansas " like indiarubber balls." Boarding was
now tried, but the iron hatches were down and
fastened inside. The boarders returned but only
to their now sinking vessel ; her stem was riddled,
the officers' quarters shot away, and at last a steam-
pipe was cut away by a shot, when many of the
men jumped overboard out of the way of the
scalding steam.

The Arkansas having finished the Carondolet,
attended next to the Tyler, which, with her
thin sides, had no chance of resisting the
enemy's shot ; she fled at once, firing her stern
guns into the pursuing Arkansas, and receiving
the fire of the bow guns of the latter, till her boats
being shot away, and her hull badly injured, they
both, pursuer and pursued, came in sight of the
whole fleet. The Arkansas must run the gauntlet
of this, before she could anchor under the guns of
Vicksburg, and she was in no way reluctant to
undertake that feat. As it happened, not a vessel
in the fleet had steam up, or was in a condition
to move. They so lay, also, that a great part of
the ships could not use their guns without injuring
friends more than the enemy. The ram fleet, which
lay at the mouth of Yazoo, forthwith scattered
in all directions. On the Arkansas passed, send-
ing her shot right and left, while the most
powerful boats were hindered by the cause just
mentioned from returning her fire. At last the
Oneida hits her from her eleven-inch gun—the ball
drops harmless. Two others fire, but without
effect. The Arkansas steams on, doing all the
damage she can to gunboats and transport ships,
and apparently receiving none herself. The Cln
cinnati, the last gunboat in her route to the Vicks-
burg battery, is anxiously looked to by the fleet ;
but she has not steam enough to head the stream ;
the Arkansas attacks her, and it was thought that
the balls from her rifled parrot guns, at shurt range,
did enter the seemingly invulnerable ship—the
other guns
produced no effect at all. The Cin-
cinnati soon got into water too shallow for the
Arkansas to follow her, so as it were giving her the
parting kick of a broadside, the latter steamed off
to her destination at Vicksburg.
We do not perhaps learn much that is strictly
new from this second splendid naval feat. It was
in great part, like the former in Hampton Roads,
a surprise, but like that it illustrated what an
invulnerable could do amongst vulnerables. It is
doubted whether the Arkansas received any serious
injury at all, but there was no Monitor to en-
counter her, every boat she fought with being but
imperfectly defended. One point was proved,
the possibility of guns being worked under
closed hatches, and with portholes not much
larger than their mouths, yet not suffocating the
crew with the smoke and gases generated by the
gunpowder. It seems that ships may close them-
selves up, and become like floating armadillos,
and yet retain all their powers of offence, and
steer where they like with perfect ease.

The visit of the Queen to Gt:rmany is rendered
necessary, to a certain extent, as administratrix to the
estate of the late Prince Consort, and it is generally under-
stood that her Majesty will have a considerable amount of
business to transact in that capacity. Arrangements will
have to be made with respect to Prince Alfred, the Pie'
sumptive heir to the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg, and the in-
heritor of his father's proper:), in the Duchy.
other matter,,, will, it is expected, fully occupy the time
fixed for the Queen to remain on the Continent. —Court
Journal. This, with

CRYSTAL PALACE,—At 130 time during the year
are the grounds of the Palace so beautiful as at present
produced by dowers grouped together by thousands, delight
the eye on all sides. The great fountains are also now seen
Viewed from any Point,
masses of colour of every shade
to the best advantage, the brilliancy of the flowers giving
additional charms to the display. The whole series will be
played to-morrow (Tuesday) at four o'clock.