The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-25 00:00:00

rnE SUN; LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 25, lEEE.

because he will not rule and act in accordance with
their savage views. They even declare that he
ought to be impeached for his conduct. They say
that his proclamations are of no account without
the sanction of Congress, and that all he has hitherto
done is wrong wherever it has clashed with the
sovereign power and wishes of the New Englander
and his ideas of slavery and universal emancipation.
It'is very singular how these people go to such
extreme lengths in their idelki fraternization with
the black man, when in practical intercommunica-
tion they cannot even bear the sight of him, far
less have any dealings with the unclean thing.
They shrink from their " free brother's" company,
his touch is considered contamination. Is not this
an idle self-delusion, a wicked hypocrisy against
common sense, and a sad wrong perpetrated on the
very people for whose freedom and future welfare
they have laboured so long and so incessantly. The
poor ignorant slave has been so long inured to
bondage, that his sudden liberation has come on him
with a bewildering surprise. Emerging from mental
darkness, he is " blasted with excess of light," and
his deliverers seem only anxious to play a sort of
blindman's buff with him—showing him the beauty
of freedom in the abstract, while he is left to feel
the penalty of starvation as the hitter reward of
his freedom. A heavy reckoning is yet in store
for those who betray him and yet glory in' their
deeds.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

INDIA.
BOMBAY, AUG. 25.

The traffic on the East Indian Peninsular Rail-
way has been stopped by floods, but they have now
partially subsided, and the traffic has been resumed.

The native directors of the Commercial Finan-
cial (?) have been committed on a charge of for-
gery, and liberated on heavy bail.

JAPAN.
(By Direct Overland Telegraph.)
SHANGHAI, AUG. 21.
Advices from Japan announce that Sir Harry
Parkes is establishing a Legation at Jeddo.

TURKEY.

CONSTANTINOPLE, SEPT. 22.

The committee of the Bourse have decided that
after the next settlement, sellers of Cons°lides will
have the right of delivering New 5 per Cent. Stock.

The Wreck Register and Chart for 1864.

-0.

In the face of the gratifying fact that our com-
merce is year by year expanding itself by many
thousands of tons of shipping, it is a lamentable and
mortifying truth that the advance of our science and
skill does not keep pace with this expansion in
diminishing the number of wrecks that every year
play out their tragedy on our shores. With unfail-
ing progression, the wrecks and casualties, during
the past year, have moved on from month to month,
until the aggregate number amounts to 1,741.
So great is the number of our losses in shipping
that the admirable document of the Board of Trade,
" The IVreck Register," has become at last a publi-
cation of great importance and interest, chronicling,
as it does every year, with unfailing accuracy not
only the loss or disaster to every vessel in our seas
and on our shores, but also the number, so far as
can be ascertained, of the precious lives lost there-
from. It may be argued that this loss of life and
destruction of property are the natural consequences
of our immense and increasing commerce, repre-
senting, probably, 70,000,000 tons of shipping, and
of the value of £500,000,000. In commenting on
the facts detailed in the register, it is not our pro-
vince to dwell minutely on the destruction of pro-
perty, as that is a matter which concerns ship-
owners, underwriters, and others, but our observa-
tions will bear more particularly on the lamentable
loss of life, although it is an encouragement to know
that we are making great and rapid progress by our
life boats, and other means, to lessen such loss.
Our life boats and rocket apparatus have multi-
plied amazingly on the coast, and in lieu of having
to lament, as in past years, the loss of 800 or 1,000
lives during the last 12 months, the number who
perished on our shores during that period amounted
to 516 only, amongst 4,000 or 5,000 persons placed
in imminent peril by shipwrecks ; the number lost
in 1863 being 620. Still, this is a large number;
and it is to be hoped that the public will continue
to support the National Lifeboat Institution, that it
may unceasingly use every effort to reduce even
that number. It appears from the returns that
30,261 lives have been saved by lifeboats, the rocket
apparatus, shore boats, ships' boats, and other means,
from 1855 to 1864 inclusive—a fact which is with-
out a parallel in the history of philanthropic efforts,
and that 3,619 lives were thus saved last year alone.
During the past few years this country has been
visited by terrific gales of wind ; and there is no
question that the increase of our shipping casualties
has occurred in particular gales of remarkable vio-
lence. For instance, in 1859, our shores were visited
(among other gales), with the storm which proved
fatal 4i the Royal Charter and 446 lives ; in 1860,
there was a succession of gales throughout the
year ; in January, February, and November, 1861,
there were fatal gales from the N. to E. and S.E.,
which alone added upwards of 460 to the number
of casualties in that year ; in 1862, the westerly
gales of January, October, and December added
upwards of 510 to the number of casualties ; in 1853,
the westerly gales of January, March, September,
October, November, and December added upwards
of 930 to the number of casualties ; and in 1864, the
easterly and westerly gales of January, February,
March, October, and November added upwards of
400 to the number of casualties.

Of the 1,741 vessels which mec with disasters in
1864, 1,434 are known to have been British ships,
and 246 foreign ships ; while the country and em-
ployment of 61 are unknown. Of the British ships,
454 only were foreign going, and of the foreign ships,
179 were making voyages to or from the United
Kingdom, and 13 were employed in the British
coasting trade, the remaining 1,095 were employed
in the coasting trade, with the exception of a few
foreign ships which were passing the coasts of the
United Kingdom, on foreign voyages, and those
whose country and employment are unknown.
Of the total number of casualties reported in 1864,
351 were casualties arising by collision, and 1,039
were casualties from causes other than collisions.
Of these 1,390 casualties, 467 resulted in total losses,
and 923 in damage more or less serious.

Of the 38G total losses from other causes than
collision, 163 only were caused by stress of weather,
89 were caused by carelessness, incompetency, and
neglect ; 39 from unseaworthiness, or defects in the
ship, or her equipments ; and 95 from various acci-
dental causes.

As usual, the number of ships of the collier class
meeting with accidents is nearly half of the whole
number of ships to which casualties happened dur-
ing the year, amounting to no less than 844 ; and
this notwithstanding the loss of 74 fishing vessels
during the various gales of 1864. It is to the un-
seaworthy and ill found vessels of the collier class
that the great number of casualties on our coasts is
due. It is worthy of notice that, of the 1,741 ships
to which accidents happened in 1864 only 136 were'
steamships, only 91 exceeded 600 tons burden, and
only 328 exceeded 300 tons burden.