The Sun.
London, England, 1862-10-14 00:00:00

lady, but perhaps there is some reality behind

it all ; she tells us that he bribes the slaves to
discover arms, and that masters get into prison for
concealing "a sword-cane, a revolver, or a bowie-
knife." The fair writer seems to forget that in
describing such weapons as common and natural,
she only unveils the semi-savage life led by the
Southern Liverpool. The servants, she says, hide
weapons in the house, and then denounce their
master and mistress. Possibly, but what, again,
has become of the patriarchal relation, and the
filial attachment and fidelity of the negroes. She tells
us that " the creatures in the streets talk of wading
knee deep in the white man's blood when the hour of
retaliation should come." Indeed ! we have always
heard that contented, well fed, happy, prefering
slavery to freedom, they had nothing to retaliate
for—indeed that the retaliation would be one of
affectionate services for treating them as kindly
as they treat very costly cattle.
We do not doubt that under the BUTLER regime
the slaveholding ladies and gentlemen, too, of New
Orleans have rather an uneasy time of it. It
must be a sad overturning of social relations to
have an absolute ruler over them, whose creed
is that " the coloured man has rights which the
white man is bound to respect," and; amidst all
the provocations, which the General is certainly
very foolish to notice, we suspect he often does a
really capricious and harsh thing. It is beneath him
to descend to a battle of spite and petty malice. We
incline, however, to the opinion that if the 20,000
negroes of New Orleans could tell us their tale, it
would be one very mach in praise of Gen. BUTLER,
and we have yet to learn that Englishmen would
not think the story of the long oppressed, quite as
well worth hearing in regard to their ruler, as that
of their old oppressors. It seems to us unworthy of
Englishmen to take our opinions of Gen. BUTLER'S
rule in New Orleans, only from the months of those
whose abominable tyranny is sapped by it. It is
something surely, if we are able to read, on the
authority of this hostile informer, that " they
held last night a Union meeting of free blacks, and
that slaves, of course, composed the majority."
Englishmen would give a good deal for a BUTLER
in every Southern city, if he would in this
way secure the goodwill of the negroes, and such
public action as should bring their masters to their
senses. As to the nonsensical talk about 's massacre
and bloodshed"—we who heard the same silly rant
about West Indian Emancipation, and who knew
how ridiculously absurd it was proved to be, if
proof were wanted, by the event—we only laugh
at it. The first of January is indeed a frightful
day to slaveholders in New Orleans to think
of : but its terrors all resolve them-
selves into a very good jollification of the
negroes over their New Year's gift of liberty,
and a few long faces on the side of their old
masters when they pull out their purses to pay them
the wages of freedom. The lugubrious sentences
of a journal or two in this country, and the furious
ravings of the Southern press over the horrors of
Emancipation are simply laughable. We should
think our contemporary Punch might give us a
good cartoon of the weeping mistress, the raging
masters, the terrified negro•floggers, and the good
tempered rejoicings of the black cattle converted
into black men.

Now that the International Exhibition at South
Kensington is rapidly approaching the date ap-
pointed for its closing—it may be allowable to argue
that it has not been the failure it is reported to have
been in some quarters : that is to say, bearing in
mind the adverse character of the circumstances at-
tendant upon it throughout. Granting for a
moment that that estimate may prove to be accurate,
which has already been formed as to the Exhibition
when closed leaving the guarantors out of pocket to
the tune of £50,000 sterling—still we cannot but
maintain, even then, that the enterprise must be
looked upon dispassionately as a success, under
those adverse circumstances alluded to.
The lamentable death during the last
winter, of His Royal Highness the PRINCE CON-
SORT, the ori,inator of the Exhibition of 1862, as
formerly of its historical predecessor, the Exhibi-
tion of 1851—was of itself enough to mar the fair
prospects of so gigantic and elaborate an under-
taking. Apart from the irreparable loss sustained
by the Royal Commissioners from the absence of
that sound judgment and that exquisite taste that
had always proved their guide and stay in any more
than ordinary difficulty—the presence of Royalty
was, in consequence, denied to the Exhibition from
the very commencement. It has been with-
held from the enterprise throughout. The
widowed QUEEN has not ventured to cross the
threshsld of an edifice that could only by possibility
have been fraught to her MAJESTY with the most
painful recollections. The Court has been removed
from the metrorolis, moreover, during the whole of
this last season. In a courtly sense, in point of fact,
1862, has had no Season at all—this very year, that
is, of the Great Exhibition. No levees, no drawing-
rooms—not a single ball or concert at the palace !
The customary attractions of the,fashionable world,
of foreign as well as of domestic wealth and rank,
havcallthtey his while been awanting—and that, of
course, in the very year when (under the circum -
stances of its being the chosen year of the Exhi-
bition)
would have been most desirable.
\ feltasAnxietiesto
o again were for a longer time than usual
now been very
until
prospecthappily
the of the harvest throughout
the country.
Fortunately those anxieties have
the crops could be gathered in tdissipated
chief
po forportion
of
ion
most part—butof
they were
rather
long continuance. The American war, again, has
from first to last been dead against the interests of
the Exhibition. Its lamentable consequences, espe-
cially among the manufacturing districts in the
north, are woefully visible at this moment as a
reminder of the profound and protracted gloom of
the year during which the Exhibition has bad to
against a world of difficulties. '
when
come the i n
to-
.:herefore, we cannot but regard Al l
thwinigths
even this whispered foreboding of a
considered,
strugglepiaeer
comings and the outgoings
of the Exhibition
result might clearly have been
deficiency to the extent of i 50,000,
The
be balanced.
worse—under the circumstances.

It is to bo hoped that the rumours lately afloat,
to the effect that upon his return from his autumnal
excursion in Scotland, the hon. member for Roch-
in that borough
dale will attend a public meeting
for the purpose of addressing his constituents, may
be verified. Mr. COBDEN'S opinions upon public
affairs generally, upon what the French call the