The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-25 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

-4-

TIMES. --Our recent correspondence from the
United States has contained a description of Ame-
rican feeling towards England which it may be
useful to consider with more than casual atten-
tion, especially as the representation was made
from an American point of view, and with a pur-
pose of establishing its reasonable character, and,
at least partial truth. The importance of the
case, as thus opened for our contemplation, is cer-
tainly beyond question. We are assured that
sentiments of " bitterness and irritation" towards
us pervade all classes of society in America, in-
cluding even the most thoughtful and moderate
of the higher ranks, and that this spirit of hos-
tility may be regarded, indeed, as " universal."
Nor does the feeling express merely such aliena-
tion or ill blood as will occasionally disturb the
relations between the most right-minded States.
It goes far beyond this. It is spoken of even by
a grave and temperate organ of American opinion
as familiarising the people with " the thought of
war" with England, and we are given to under-
stand that the Government of Washington is sub-
jected to a pressure from without in the same
direction, which, if not prudently resisted, would
quickly "precipitate a collision." All this points
to something more than a mere interruption of
cordiality through jealousy or rivalry. Such a
state of opinion among a civilised, educated, and
intelligent people is undoubtedly serious, and we
turn with no slight interest to the allegations by
which it is justified. It will be a satisfaction to
Englishmen to hear that no substantial grievance
is founded on the conduct of England during the
civil war. When Americans are pressed upon this
point they confess their inability to produce any
ground of complaint. They make the acknowledg-
ment rather grudgingly, but still they do make it.
They are willing generally to admit that our pro-
mised neutrality was preserved to the end, and that
no act of wilful commission or omission can be
charged against the British Government. Their own
experience has taught them how impossible it is for
a government to succeed always in controlling the
adventures of private citizens, and they can hardly
deny thai we did our best. Their single grievance
in this case is purely a sentimental one. They say
that we gave them no sympathy ; that our " edu-
cated classes" were all against them in the struggle,
and that the " conduct and expressions" of the
aristocratic and wealthy classes of society were such
as to produce the irritation now existing. We
might say something upon those assertions, but it
is unnecessary to do so, because it is presently ac-
knowledged that in point of fact the feeling
described does not date from the war at all. It is
of earlier growth and longer standing. It prevailed
before the war began or was dreamt of, and the
incidents of that memorable struggle did no more
than intensify or quicken a disposition already noto-
rious. For the truth of the matter, therefore, we
must go back a little further, and consult American
history of twenty years since for the reasons which
are now held to justify Americans in entertaining
the idea of a bloody and calamitous war with the
country from which they sprang. These reasons
are frankly exposed to us. The Americans, we are
told, are keenly and almost morbidly sensitive to
the opinion of foreigners, and especially of Eng-
lishmen. They wince under criticism, and pine for
sympathy and encouragement. They have had
neither, but have, on the contrary, been incessantly
subjected to ridicule and sarcasm. Tourists have
crossed the Atlantic only to laugh at them, and
have actually impeded by their scoffing the work of
a rising nation. We Englishmen have been the
greatest sinners. We have held American manners
up to public derision, have passed without a word
of praise the services rendered by Americans to the
world, and have thus provoked a well-deserved
animosity by our ungracious and inconsiderate con-
duct. There is the real indictment—the true
account of our offending. Our conduct in
the war was but of a piece with this previous
behaviour. We were true to our original part,
and left without any sympathy a people whom
we had formerly treated without any respect.
That is really the aspect in which Americans
desire that the relations between them and ourselves
should be viewed, and we venture to ask whether
such a case was ever put before the world as con-
taining a legitimate cause of war between two great
and civilised nations. There is hardly standing-
ground for two jealous woman to fight upon.
Travellers' tales and tourists' sketches, shilling
novels and sixpenny caricatures--a pretty subject
for a war which would be " the greatest of political
errors," a " moral crime," and " disastrous in equal

measure to the true interests of both countries 1"
We believe it is about the truth of the story ; but
how can the Americans have the face to tell it ?
Why, there is not matter enough in it for an after-
dinner speech—not to mention that the Americans
have had their full share of the game, and have
kept the international account, we should think,
tolerably square. They are a young nation ; we
are an old one. They have rough work to do ; our
rough work is done. They have the vigour and
the resources of an infant country ; we have the
smoothness and polish of an ancient State. Each
of these positions admits of caricature. If that of
the Americans appears most exposed to it, it is be-
cause we have borrowed the materials from Ameri-
cans themselves. They are the best caricaturists of
their own manners, and their best comedians bring
the pictures over to us with extraordinary success.
They have been tolerably successful, too, against
ourselves, but did ever any Britisher " become
familiar with the thought of war" under such kind
of provocation ? We may suggest, too, that they
have gone a little beyond this. Setting off the
Press of one country against the Press of the other
—a bargain of which the Americans can certainly
not complain—we may say that no English statesman
would allow himself to speak of America as public
men in America speak of England. The Americans
have been giving as well as taking, and it is absurd
for them to act now as if the taking had been all on
their side, and to cry out for a war to redress the
balance. Seriously, let us ask them to consider for
a moment what we have done during the last four
years. Let them remember the relations with which
we started, and the hostilities with which we had
been constantly menaced on questions which no
other country would have allowed to become em-
bittered for a moment. Let them then think of the
pressure put upon us by the cotton famine, and
augmented by every device which could suggest
itself to those who would have welcomed a war be-
tween the Federals and England as the greatest of
advantages. This was not all. In recognising the
Confederate Government we could have found
allies, and in impeaching the original efficiency of
the blockade we might have maintained our policy.
All this while, too, the alarm and depreciation of
the American themselves showed how fatal our
intervention would have been to the cause of the
North, insomuch that, next to their own invincible
perseverance, the Federals may be said to owe their
success to our inflexible neutrality-. This political
justice was a better thing than private sympathy,
which, after all, did but take here the same course
as in America itself. If our " educated classes"
sympathised with the South, so did theirs. The
upper ten thousand were Confederates at heart, as
every newspaper assured us. The Americans now
claim, and not unreasonably, to have been strength-
ened as well as sobered by the ennobling influences
of an engrossing struggle. They cannot show their
progress better than by discarding the susceptibili-
ties on which this case is based, and giving evidence
to the world that they can afford to be laughed at
just as well as Englishmen themselves.
HERALD—If it were announced to-morrow morn-
ing that some distinguished exile had been kidnapped
by foreign emissaries in the midst of London, and
carried off to undergo whatever fate the justice of
his country or the vengeance of his enemies might
have in store for him, what would be the state of
public feeling ; what the vehemence of national in-
dignation, from one end of England to the other ?
What would be the panic on the Stock Exchange ;
what the excitement at the clubs • what crowds
would gather in the streets, and what would
be the trepidation at the Foreign Office !
Let us suppose that Italian detectives have
stolen into the house of Mr. James Stans-
feld, and, concealing themselves in the basement
till evening, have rushed out upon Signor Mazzini as
he took his homeward way, and having secured and
gagged him, have carried him down to the river,
embarked in a steamer lying ready for them, and
that, before the patriot's friends have had time to
start in pursuit, the trail is lost, and the party safe
on their way to Italy. Signor Mazziui does not en-
joy the best of reputations in this country ; he is
accused of being an assassin—on evidence somewhat
more plausible than that brought forward against
President Davis, and he is known to be an invete-
rate disturber of the peace of Europe, and an incur-
able plotter of abortive insurrection. But what
Englishman would on that account be disposed to
acquiesce in an outrage on the dignity and honour
of England, or to rest satisfied with anything short
of the amplest and most signal retribution for so
heinous a crime ? What language would suffice to
express the wrath of Mr. Bright, Mr. Forster, and
Mr. Stansfeld ; what excuse would the Daily News
allow to be pleaded in extenuation of the lawlessness
and ingratitude of the outrage? All the Democratic
party and all their organs would be full of the mat-
ter. For a few days we should hear no more of
charges raked up from the mire of the Federal press
against Confederate captives, and arguments for the
murder of Jefferson Davis would be suspended, at
least till the life of Mazzini was assured. For once
Lord Russell's accustomed insolenceto minor Powers
would be in place ; and the stinging despatch in
which the crime of the Italian Government would be
stigmatised, and the rendition of the captive cie-
manded, would be published to applauding England
before the courier had set foot on the Continent.
Nor would the case be very different if the victim
were M. Ledru Rollin and the kidnappers French
detectives, who had inveigled their unsuspecting
countryman into a carriage, and driven him off at
speed to some secure asylum, in preparation for his
conveyance across the water. In this instance

public- indignation would probably be still stronger ;
although Mr. Bright, seeing some danger of actual
war, might exert himself to pacify his Radical
friends, and Lord Russell, not daring to submit to
so gross an insult, would request reparation with
all the gentleness and courtesy which he com-
monly employs towards Governments capable of
resenting impertinence. Still, reparation would
be exacted, and, failing reparation, war should be
inevitable. Nor would it greatly mend the matter
if the Government concerned were to reply to that
the kidnappers were not in their actual employment,
but were urged to their enterprise by loyal zeal,
patriotic devotion, and the handsome price set on
the victim's head. England would reply, " What
right had you to set a reward of £15,000 on the
head of a man living quietly in England, and who,
as you very well know, will never venture within
your jurisdiction ? You did not offer that sum for
the cheap and easy service of arresting him if he
should set foot within your dominions. Such an
enormous recompense can only have been offered
with a view to a very dangerous service ; the
service, namely, of kidnapping a political refugee
on English soil. This service you clearly contem-
plated and intended, even if in set terms you for-
bade it ; and for what has occurred, as the neces-
sary and obvious consequence of your acts, you are
as strictly responsible as if the perpetrators had
worn your uniform and carried your orders in their
pockets." Mutat° nomine, this very thing has been
attempted. Between the real and hypothetical
outrages there are differences of detail—differences
of men, locality, and success,—but none of prin-
ciple or of law. George N. Sanders is a less noto-
rious person than Mazzini or Ledru Rollin. Canada
is very far from London, and outrages committed
and tamely endured there do not provoke the same
dangerous explosions of wrath which would make
it impossible to forgive their authors if they occurred
in London. And Yankees are accustomed to prac-
tise, without shame and without punishment, a law-
less disregard of public law and international right
which would not be tolerated from the most power-
ful of European nations. Still, it requires all our
experience of Lord Russell's abject servility and
of Lord Monck's dutiful imitation of patron's
demeanour towards to the United States, to render
credible the tale we have to tell. Among the Con-
federate refugees in Montreal is one George N.
Sanders, not, perhaps, wholly forgotten by our
readers. This gentleman has been included in some of
the impossible stories told by the witnesses suborned
by Mr. Stanton and his chief to assist in the late

judicial murders at Washington, and he was also
included in that memorable proclamation whereby
President Johnson was not ashamed to accuse the
Confederate Government and its Canadian agents
of complicity in the murder of Abraham Lincoln.
Of course there was not the slightest foundation
either for the perjuries of the witnesses or for the
Presidential calumny, for if there had been a jot or
a tittle of presentable evidence the Federal Govern-
ment would have demanded the extradition of San-

ders from the too complaisant authorities of Canada.
This it dared not do; but instead of this it offered
£15,000 to any one who would arrest Mr. Sanders
on American ground. The proviso had a double
purpose ; it served to save appearances, and at the
same time to suggest the crime it appeared to for-
bid. Every one said at once, "No Government
offers such a reward for the seizure of a single man

within its own-territory, especially when if knows
that he is safe beyond it. Such an offer would de-
feat its own purpose by making it certain that the
intended prey would never trust himself within
reach of those who had set a price on his head, and
it would be far too high a reward for the easy ser-
vice it nominally requires." It was easily under-
stood that if once Mr. Sanders were. " arrested on

American ground" no questions would be asked of
those who brought him there. It was resolved to
seize so, rich a prize, and a gang of conspirators be-
took themselves to Montreal. They failed in a first
attempt to seize him by concealing themselves in his
house. The second plot was better laid. A Mr.
Leary, of the police of Montreal, was asked to join
in it, and affected to do so. Mr. Sanders was told
that a magistrate wished to see him, entered into a
cab, gagged, bound, and driven off towards the fron-
tier. But Mr. Leary had warned the police, and

they were on the alert; the carriage was stopped,
the victim released, and two of the chief con-
spirators captured. It is said that the prisoners
assert that they acted under orders ; but
they are repudiated by the Government they
served. Nor do we doubt the bona fides of that
repudiation, so far as it goes. We do not for a
moment suppose that the President or any of his
Ministers gave orders to kidnap Mr. Sanders. But
neither we nor any reasonable man can honestly
affect to doubt that the President intended that he
should be kidnapped, when he offered such a price
for his " arrest. We need not waste comment on
a crime of this kind. Its failure covers it with an
aspect of ridicule most convenient to the principal
offenders ; but we must not forget that it was ex-
pected to succeed ; that its purpose was to capture
by force a foreigner resident upon British protection
in a British city, and consign him to a Federal
gallows ; this was precisely the course pursued
towards the Dac d'Enghien, and that through the
territory violated in that instance was that of a
small German Prince, not of a first-class Power,
the atrocity of such a violation of neutral rights and
independent sovereignty provoked the indignant
hostility of Europe. President Johnson has been
fortunate in the failure of this reckless enterprise.
The habitual lawlessness of his nation, its profound
contempt for all rights but its own, and the im-
punity which followed the glaring offences of his
predecessor, have blinded Mr. Johnson to the danger
of exasperating his neighbours into war by outrages
intended only to gratify the passions of his country-
men. Had he succeeded in obtaining possession of
Mr. Sanders, he would have foundfor the first time
that there 'is a limit to English patience with
American trespasses ; that there are insults which
no minister can condone, satisfaction for which is
exacted by the unanimous voice and united force of
an indignant nation.. He must have hanged his
prisoner at the risk of war, or restored him with the
certainty of humiliation. Failure has saved him
from a different dilemma, but it ought not to save
his Government from the disgust. and anger of all
honest Englishmen, not to close our eyes to the
character of a people among whom such enterprises
are thought neither too base to command the aid of
numbers, nor too lawless to be prompted and re-
warded by the Government.

Rochdale Agricultural Society.

SERIOUS ACCIDENT AT THE SHOW YARD.

The 11th annual show in connection with the Whit-
worth and Rochdale Agricultural Society was held yester-
day, on Mr. A. H. Royds's grounds, at Falinge. The
weather being fine, the attendance of visitors was very nu-
merous, and the exhibition proved far superior to any pre-
vious years. The entries numbered a total of 1,005, indicat-
ing an excess of 200 over 1864. The quality of the animals
showed a creditable improvement. Cattle comprised a rare-
selection, and included some of the best blood in England.
Mr. R. Eastwood's Barmpton Butterfly, purchased from
Col. Townley's stock, almost attained the acme of perfection.
The cup winner, for the best animal in the show yard, Mr.
A. D ugdale, possessed a superior animal in the Kent Cherry,
one of the finest cows exhibited for some time. She has
taken the palm at the York shire Society's show, and
every other place where her rare qualities have defied com-
petition. Mr. Jonathan Peel exhibited two very prime
bulls. Lady Pigott's light roan heifer was a fair speci-
men, but her ladyship was fairly excelled in respect to
some other animals she had sent to the show ground.
Horses included excellent specimens of good breeding ;
cart horses were thst-rate. Of pigs, the greater num-
ber was shown by cottagers, and in these a decided
improvement was obseried upon the animals shown dur-
ing the last three years, though they were still wanting
in good blood. Shep were scanty. Poultry and dogs
were an improned show. As the weather continued fine
the number of visitors rapidly increased, so that at foUr
o'clock the grand stand, commanding a view of the leap-
ing by hunters, was filled with spectators. Here during
the afternoon an alarming accident occurred. While the
ponies were being shown a crash was heard, followed by a
continuous cracking, and then the central portion of the
grand stand fell, with 230 spectators. It was a marvel that
no fatal injuries were inflicted, considering that the height
from which some persons fell was no less thau 20ft. There
were several ladies among the spectators, many of whom
were hurt. Nearly all were shaken, some severely, about
six were rather seriously hurt. One lady, Mrs. Whitworth,
residing in Whitworth-road, Rochdale, sustained injury of
a serious character to her back, and had ono leg much
hurt. She and the other injured ladies were promptly
attended to by several surgeons, who were on the show
ground at the time of the accident. But the result of the
accident was far lass serious than the nature of it led some
to suppose. To say the least of it, the stand had been
slightly constructed, and was dangerous, beyond a doubt.
That portion which gave way consisted of nine tiers of
deal seats, which were placed upon and supported by three
rafters. These rafters were secured at the top by a bolt
to an upright, while the lower ends rested upon a small
lin. wooden prop, which had only the ground to rest upon.
The rafters were of spruce deal, only 3in. thick by 11 wide,
and it was owing to the heavy pressure above and the
slight support beneath that these beams snapped in the
midst, and let the spectators and their seats drop in the
perilous confusion.—Manchester Guardian.