The Sun.
London, England, 1862-08-25 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVEN! G, AUGUST 25, 1862.

7HE CRYSTAL PALACE SUMMER

POULTRY SHOW.

The summer poultry show, of which there was a
private view on Saturday, and which will be open
to the public for the next three days, is certainly
ono of the best that has yet been held. There are
nearly 800 entries, and amongst them some very
rare specimens indeed. The Spanish are exhibited
in 22 pens, and are very pure, their jet black plu-
mage showing up in bold relief the pure cream
white about their heads for which they are peculiar.
Of the Dorkings there are 60 pens, and the Cochin
Chinas are in 43. This class is sure to make it-
self seen as it does heard, and it is really
well worth careful inspection, for although they are
all this year's birds, their gigantic size is astonish-
ing ; and, although they do not command the fabu-
lous prices which they did a few years back,
thorough breds fetch a very high figure in the
market, and hence they are not likely to be ne-
glected, and we may expect them to improve in
future, as they certainly have done in past years up
to the present show. The Brahma Pootras, in 10
pens, are good ; and the collection of game fowl, in
71 pens, embraces every variety of this pugnacious
species. The Hamburgs, gold and silver, pencilled
and spangled, are in 69 pens, and are exceedingly
good. The gold pencilled are particularly beauti-
fully marked. There are 19 pens of Polish, three
Malay, which are good. The bantams are in 54
pens and always form an interesting part of such
an exhibition as this; b►ut this class is rendered
more attractive this year by having amongst it
some lapanese bantams and ruftlers, some imported
and others bred in this country. These birds dif-
fer both in plumage and build from all others of
their species; their legs are entirely concealed by
their wings and feathers, and they carry their
heads and tails exceedingly erect, giving themselves
a very dignified appearance, They are very pretty
and very curious, and visitors to the show should
not miss seeking them. There are 32 pens of ducks,
9 of geese, 9 of turkeys, 8 of ornamental water fowl,
all of which are good. The gold and silver pheasants
occupy 13 pens, and their gaudy plumage shows
up very well amongst their less varigated and less
brilliant neighbours. There are 60 or 70 pens of
other varieties exhibited, and the pigeons occupy
200 cages. Amongst them are to be found speci-
mens of every known variety. There are a larger
number of rabbits and of better quality exhibited
than have ever been brought together at any for-
mer exhibition. The winner of the first prize for
longest ears measures from tip to tip 23 inches, and
the one whose weight secured to him the place of
honour weighed 161 b.
The show is held on a level with the machine.
room, and under the superintendence of Mr.
Houghton, the secretary for this department.
Every arrangement has been made to prevent
overcrowding.
Tho following are tho chief prizes awarded :
SPANISH.

Class 1 (chickens of 1862) : First prize, Mr. J. R. Rod-
bard.—Class 2 (chickens of 1862) : First prize, Mr. James
Barry.—Class 3 (cocks, chickens of 1862) First pri4e,Mr.
11. Lane.

of Cheapside, it is no wonder they are the special admira-
tion of all visitors.

Besides the above special attractions a very interesting
meeting will be held on Wednesday of the Deutches Turn-
fest, or German Gymnastic Association. Great attention
has of late been given throughout Germany to institutions
connected with athletic sports and exercises, and one held
last autumn created the greatest rublic interest, many
thousands of Germans taking part in the proceedings. This
will be the first gathering of the sort in this country, and is
likely to excite no inconsiderable attention.

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)

NEW YORK, AUG. 11.

"At last we have a Governnent." Such on Sa-
turday morning last was the cry of the jubilant
Republican party, willing to consent to any abridg-
ment of the public liberty to gratify its political
hatred. "At last we have a Government," echoed
the great crowd of silly people who admire vigour
of action because it is vigour, cad not because it is
justice. "At last we have a Government," chimed
in the astute friends of the South, who do not choose
to declare their real sentiments Fn a more straight-
forward fashion, for fear of FortLafa3 ette, and who
maliciously applaud every act of tyranny committed
by the Federal Government, is the hope that its
effect will be to disgust all moderate people with the
war and the Administration. All these united their
voices in one loud chorus, the last being the most
obstreperous. The cause ef the clamour, half
exultant and half deprecatory, was that the War
Secretary, with the Presiderl4 at his back, had pro-
mulgated an Imperial edict or ekase on the previous
evening through the agency of the telegraphic
wires, preventing all strangers and citizens from
leaving the country without passports, and further-
more forbidding all persons whatsoever from pro-
ceeding beyond the limits of the particular State in
which they happened to be domiciled. Here was
a strong Government with a vengeance—strong as
that of the Czar at Warsaw, and quite as arbitrary.
The reason alleged—for Mr. Stanton and the Pre-
sident, unlike other despots, condescended to ex-
plain the grounds on which they acted—was that
there was so rapid an exodus of persons liable to
military service under the recent conscription,
that it would be unjust to the Republic, and to
the loyal persons who remained at the post of
duty, to suffer such multitudes of people to ex-
patriate themselves. The rabid Abolitionists and
ultra Republicans were delighted with the act, jus-
tified on the tyrant's plea of necessity, and exhi-
bited altogether so slavish a subserviency to power
for the furtherance of their own party objects as to
show how abundant are the materials for a despot-
ism which exist in this country. If there be any
ambitious and unprincipled soldier before Rich-
mond, in the valley of the Shenandoah, at New
Orleans, or elsewhere, " biding his time" to topple
over into the mire and blood of the war the shaky
fabric of the Republic, and erect a new form of
Government in its stead, he must have chuckled in
the solitude of his tent or bivouac at the base ser-
vility and still baser intolerance of other people's
liberties which the last few days have exhibited
throughout the North. Nor was this edict the only
act of arbitrary power which Friday night pro-
duced for the study of such a soldier. The Habeas
Corpus Act was again suspended throughout the
country; and it was declared to be treason in any
person to discourage volunteer enlistments, either
by speech or writing ; treason subjecting the
offender to imprisonment in Fort Lafayette, or any
other of the Bastilles of the Atlantic coast, at the
pleasure of the Government and without form of
trial. As regards this last decree, it appeared to be
taken for granted that such men as Mr. Wendell
Phillips, who belongs to the dominant party by
which Mr. Lincoln was elected to the chief magis-
tracy, were not to be affected ; and that treason is
only to be considered treason when it flows from
the mouth or the pen of a Democrat, or of some
poor journeyman painter who has no one to advise,
defend, or take any interest in him. It is Demo-
crats alone, and those of the highest social stand-
ing, who are to languish in the forts on the seaboard
on mere suspicion, without proof, or even charge
against them. The Republicans are exempt from
the persecution, and may be free as they please
until democracy shall be laid utterly prostrate, and
then, perhaps, their turn will come.

The Etna and Saxonia steamers were advertised
to sail on Saturday morning—the one for Liver-
pool, the other for Southampton. The passengers,
unsuspicious of evil, and unaware of the telegraphic
orders of the War Secretary, proceeded in due
course to the wharves with their goods and chattels.
They found the approaches and gangways in pos-
session of the police, were denied the right to travel
if they were American citizens in the prime of life,
and if they were aliens were consigned to the con-
sulates of their native countries to obtain passports.
Great were the uproar and discontent.. Many
Englishmen, on whom the Government had not the
shadow of a claim, and who were returning home
on business or pleasure, lost their passage in default
of procuring passports at a moment's notice, while
hundreds of Irishmen, who had never been natura-
lised, and who in consequence of the war and the
conscription had renounced all intention of becoming
American citizens, were thrown back on their Bri-
tish nationality, and, unable to prove it without
formalities occupying more than a day, were com-
pelled to remain in New York till the sailing of
another steamer. 1 happened, about 11 o'clock
in the morning, to be at the wharf on the North
River, alongside of which the steamers of the Inman
line are usually moored, and was witness of the
English and Irish discontent, and I must add of the
Yankee insolence and brutality that were exhibited
throughout the day. The police were courteous as
well as firm, and bore the outburst of Irish anger
with remarkable good humour : but the mob of
Yankees, composed principally of lads too young
and grey-beards too old to be affected by the con-
scription, behaved—or misbehaved—in a manner
that was very trying to the patience of the English,
and still more so to the quarrelsome excitability of
the Irish. The latter were mostly steerage or
second-class passengers, but seemed, from their
dress and the quantity of luggage they had brought
to be well to do people. They insisted that they
were not American citizens, asked when America
bad ceased to be a free country, and vehemently de-
nied the right of any policeman to deprive them of
the liberty of going to Ireland by any vessel and on
any day they pleased, if they had paid their pas-
sage money. " Get your passports, gentlemen," said
the police captain, " and you may go when you
please." "Is it a passport you mane," said one
sturdy fellow, who looked as if he could have enacted
in his own person all the fun as well as all the fight-
ing of Donnybrook, " and why the devil did not you
say se last week, when I would have had it ready
for you ? Passport, and be hanged to you ! It's
no passport that I'll take to come back again, any-
how." And he proceeded with a swarm of his
countrymen in search of the office of the British
Consul in a temper that boded ill for any one who
should tread upon his coat-tail on the way thither,
or who should come with hostile h. tent within
reach of his arm.

Mr. Stanton had not deemed it courteous or ne-
cessary, in issuing his ukase, to acquaint the British
or any other Consul with his intentions ; and Satur-
day morning found those gentlemen suddenly over-
whelmed with a mass of business, which they found
it all but impossible to attend to. The British and
Prussian Consuls suffered most. The office of Mr.
Archibald, who is temporarily absent• in England,
was so crowded with intending refugees from the
conscription, that the acting Vice-Consul, Mr. Ed-
warde, was unable to mount his own staircase with-
out the insistence of the police to clear the way;
and in the course of the day near upon a thousand
persons, mostly Irish, and about 200 of them per-
sons who had paid their passage money and intended
to go home by the Etna or the Sasonia, were en-
abled to certify in due form that they were British

subjects. The Vice-Consul opened his office for a
couple of hours on Sunday to expedite the business
so suddenly thrust upon him, and ail this day (Mon-
day) the crowd, bent on the same errand, has been
equally great, and all equally determined to escape
the draught or to leave she country. Similar
scenes were enacted at the German Consulates ; and
the result of the three days' works was that the
United States lost some thousands of citizens, or
persons who would have become citizens if it had
not been for the draught ; and that the Americans
who had been smitten with so intense a desire to
visit foreign parts, and to leave M'Clellan, Pope,
Butler, and the Federal Government to their fate,
whatever it might be, were compelled to remain in
their native land until quieter times, and to learn
to their sorrow that their Government had a
heavy hand, and a powerful will that con-
tains within itself a new law and a new con-
stitution. Passengers, whether alien or American,
who were proceeding to the West Indies or Cali-
tornia, were subjected to the same interference and
inconvenience. At the railway stations all who
attempted to book through to Canada—of whom
there were many hundreds—found themselves in the
same predicament as the ocean travellers, except a
very few old gentlemen obviously 15 or 20 years be-
yond the maximum recruiting age of 45, who
claimed, as American citizens, the right to go to
Canada if they pleased, and had the claim allowed.
The terms of Mr. Stanton's ukase were so stringent
that they seemed to apply even to pleasure travellers
to Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.
The consequence was that _the -usual- wtiekly, excur-
sions of toil-worn and heat-exhausted citizens-Colllo
seaside, from Saturday to Monday, were greatly
diminished in number, many timid or ignorant peo-
ple preferring to remain sweltering and simmering
in the hot sun of New York rather than run the
risk of offending the War Secretary and of being
conveyed to Fort Lafayette as skulkers and traitors.
The average number of persons of all nationalities,
including many Americans with Southern sympa-
thies, who have left the country since the conscrip-
tion was ordered, is said by those who have the means
of forming an estimate, to have been at least 1,000
a day, while the voluntary enlistments for the
army have not been half that number. The press
of New York pretends to be very indignant at the
runaways, whom it stigmatises as " cowards " if
they be Americans, and as " ungrateful vagabonds
if they be Irish or Germans. But why cowards, it
may be asked. The Americans do not deserve
the epithet from their own countrymen or any
one else, as they daily prove, and will prove again
whenever they fight in a cause with which
they can sympathise. It seems to me that it is
not because they are cowards, but because they
object to fight against their fellow-citizens, and
because they disapprove the inception, conduct, and
principle of the war, that they refuse to shed their
blood for the Federal Government, and adopt such
means as they can to avoid giving their aid to the
prolongation of the strife. Neither ought the Irish
or Germans to be declared ungrateful, because,
having come to a country which they believed to be
free, they desire to leave it when they discover it
to be despotic; or because they condemn the policy
of a Government that considers the conquest of
10,000,000 of unwilling people to be dearer and
more precious than the liberty, wellbeing, and pro-
gress of the 20,000,000 whom it goads to unprofit-
able and unnatural warfare. If the charge of in-
gratitude lies any where it lies against the Federal
Government, that seduced the ablebodied popula-
tion of the Old World to forsake their homes on the
promises of liberty and exemption from the grind-
ing taxation of Europe, to replenish, cultivate, and
enrich America, and that suddenly turns round upon
them when they refuse to fight its battles volunta-
rily, because their souls abhor the pretext on which
the war is waged; and not only taxes them more
heavily than they were taxed in their own coun-
tries, but enrols them in a conscription ordered on
the sole authority of the President, acting as if he
were an irresponsible Czar, or other autocrat claim-
ing to rule by divine right. These people have
learnt to love liberty since they came to America,
and do not understand that their duty is to allow
their thews and sinews to be hired.out for hang-
man's work against the citizens of the Southern
States, who have the same right to life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness that they have themselves.
But though the threatened conscription has had
these and other bad effects, and will have worse
before many days, it has had one good effect for
the Federal cause which the President perhaps
intended. It has expedited the voluntary enlist-
ments for the first batch of 300,000 men. The
"rowdies" and the mercenaries have been stirred
up to clutch the bounty money, especially in the
New England States, many of which have filled
up their full quota of men since the decree for
a draught was issued. Whether the fact
speaks most for the greediness, the patriotism,
or the fanaticism of New England, I am un-
able to determine; but if greed and fanaticism go
together and both assume the mask of patriotism,
the spur and the whip are strong, and the result
can be attributed to the particular cause whichbest
suits the whim or the idiosyncrasy of the observer.
In New York State, and throughout the West,
where the Irish and Germans are more abundant,
and where the wages of labour are higher than in
the bleak North-east the voluntary recruitment has
not made such rapid progress, though the Govern-
ment organs would have it inferred that the num-
bers will be filled up before the 15th. This I doubt,
but I do not in the least doubt that the fact will be
so stated whether it be true or false, and that the
conscription will be relinquished as far as that
batch is concerned. The opposition to the draught
is so great in some of the Western States that
efforts have been made to induce the Government
to extend the time of voluntary enlistments from
the 15th inst. to the Ist October, but it is exceed-
ingly doubtful whether the President is in a posi-
tion to accede to the proposition.
AUGUST 12.

The telegraph has been for once allowed to inform
the people that there has been a severe battle, in
which the Federal army has not been victorious.
There had been vague rumours for some days of an
approaching conflict in the Shenandoah valley be-
tween General " Stonewall" Jackson, who never
boasts, and General Pope, who does little else;
some of which rumours had gone so far as to allege,
so lately as Friday last, that the rival forces had
met on Thursday, and that Pope had been ut-
terly routed. The reports were not generally be-
lieved ; but they proved to be premonitory of
the truth, though premature and exaggerated. The
shock of arms took place on Saturday night, near
Culpepper Court-house, on the road between Gor-
donsville, on theVirginiaßailroad to Richmond, and
the once famous position of Manassas Junction. As
usual, the Federal journals insist that the Confe-
derate army was three or four times more numerous
than their own ; and that if the result were not a
Federal victory, it was at the worst a drawn battle,
in which the Confederate loss was greater than their
own. The loss on both sides is estimated at between
2,000 and 3,000 in killed and wounded, besides
about 1,000 prisoners. There does appear to have
been a general engagement, and the Federal army,
if it has escaped, which is not yet placed beyond a
doubt, escaped by good luck far more than by good
management. General Banks held his own bravely
against a superior force until Pope came to the re-
scue. The latter gained no laurels in the encounter.
He was evidently taken unprepared, and very nar-
rowly escaped being made prisoner, a catastrophe
that would have carried delight into every Southern
camp and household without being very disagreea-
ble to the North. Such details of the battle as have
been allowed to appear will be found in the New
York journals of the last two days, details from which
it is difficult to extract the real history of the event.
A more elaborate, and, possibly, a more faithful
report was prepared for a Philadelphia journal, but

was suppressed by General Pope, from which it may
be inferred that the Confederate advantage was
much greater than Pope or the Government thinks
it at present wise to avow. Most likely the affair
was only a preliminary skirmish, though on a scale
of unusual magnitude, and the real battle, which
may decide the fate of Washington and Baltimore
and the fortunes of the South, is yet to come, or
mey be in progress at this moment. Wall-street
has taken the matter rather quietly, and gold has
neither gone up nor stocks gone down in conse-
quence. The only thing that has gone down ap-
preciably is the reputation of General Pope, who is
too much of a boaster and too little of a performer
to be a favourite of any one except of the President.
Altogether the signs and symptoms portend that
the current week will be prolific of great events,
both in Shenandoah Valley and before Richmond.
It is obviously the policy of the Confederates to
strike heavy blows at both points before either the
mercenary volunteers or the unwilling conscripts of
the North can be brought into action, that every
one anticipates a speedy catastrophe.
More than one-half of M'Clellan's army are pros-
trated by the heat of the weather (94 deg. in the
shade) unwholesome food, and bad water ; and
the Confederates know it and will profit by the
knowledge.

In the meantime, a savage spirit seems to be tak-
ing possession of that portion of the Northern people
who still indulge in the vain dream of Southern
subjugation. The corruption of officials, the imbe-
cility of the Government, the inefficiency of the
generals, the divided opinions un the subject of
the hostility pf the foreign element
of the population to the further prosecution of the
war, the disinclination of the-trading and profes-
sional classes to fight in their own persons, though
they are willing enough to pay others to fight for
them, and the unexpectedly long duration of the
war have each combined to produce a feeling of
exasperation that is fast assuming an aspect of blood-
thirstiness. These people not only approve every
illegal and unconstitutional act that the President
and his secretaries commit or authorise, but they
bellow lustily for confiscation and the gallows for the
mildest forms of what they consider treason. They
support and admire Butler. They have faith in Pope
—not because he is a good soldier, of which there is
no proof, but because he is truculent and vain-glori-
ous. They think Blenker a good general, because
he allowed his soldiers to pillage. They affect to
consider the charges against General Mitchel and
Colonel Turchin to be purely malicious, though
Turchin has very properly been dismissed from
the army. They inveigh against M'Clellan because
he is humane, and respects both the letter and the
spirit of the constitution. They call the President a
fool, and declare that his moderation will ruin the
country. They call for the enrolment and arming
of the negroes both in the North and the South.
They insist upon a " short shrift and a high gal-
lows for traitors great and small; and last of all
they clamour for the infliction of the penalty of
death on all deserters from the Federal army.
Though these rabid people are in a small minority
just now, it is unhappily the tendency of revolu.
tions to cast rabid minorities into the high places
of power, and to maintain them there, until they
in their turn are superseded by others more rabid
than themselves. This class has grown bolder
every day since the defeat of M'Clellan, and should
General Pope be routed or captured in the Shenan-
doah Valley, or should any other great defeat and
humiliation occur to the Federal arms, some " great
and stunning misfortune" as Mr. Wendell Phillips
calls it, such as the capture of Baltimore, Phila-
delphia, or Washington—a result which that orator
but no statesman openly declares he prays for—this
class would in all probability make a desperate
effort to supersede the President, and put General
Fremont or some other violent theorist and aboli-
tionist in his place. The whole political atmosphere
is surcharged with electricity, and the next thunder-
bolt that may be launched at the heart of the Re-
public may come from a Nortlern, and not from a
Southern sky. The actual Government is the Go-
vernment of a minority, and it is goaded to violence
by a still smaller minority than itself. Were the
people, who in their hearts detest the war—were
the wealthy citizens who are striving to escape
from the vortex of revolution into the peaceable
haven of Europe—were the countless friends of the
old and desecrated Constitution of Washington,
Jefferson, and Hamilton to unite their incohesive
ranks, and exhibit half the courabe of Mr. Wendell
Phillips and the bigots and zealots who agree with
him, the conduct of affairs would come into the
hands of the majority, and there would be peace
once more in this miserable and distracted country.
But these quiet people depend upon a European
mediation to save them. That failing, they know
not where to look for security, or even for hope.