The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-29 00:00:00

STATE OF TRADE.

CARDIFF, June 27th.—The iron trade in this dis-
trict is pretty good. Rails and bars are in better
demand, and although American advices are not so
encouraging as might be expected, yet there is no
doubt entertained that ultimately a large quantity
of railway iron will be required for the States.
Quotations are firm, with upon the whole an upward
tendency. The make of puddling iron during the
hot weather has been below the demand, and in con-
sequence prices have been getting more in favour of
sellers. Pig commands an average sale. The im-
provement in the tinplate trade is fully maintained,
and the works are as a rule better employed, makers,
although their stocks are large, having unmistakable
confidence in the future. In steam coal business is
not so depressed as it was a few weeks ago, but the
export demand is still comparatively limited. House
qualities remain without any material change.
•LEICESTER, 28th.—The hosiery trade in most
branches continues tolerably active. Manufacturers
are well engaged at the warehouses with orders for
goods of a general character. At Loughborough,
Hinckley, and the country districts business is
healthy and the workpeople well employed. Yarns
are extremely firm and high in price, spinners con-
fining their production to present requirements.
The wool market is also very firm, and exceedingly
high rates are quoted.
NOTTINGHAM, 28th.—There is not much altera-
tion in the lace trade. Business for the home
market has been, on the whole, quiet during the
past few days. Foreign buyers have been operat-
ing to some extent, but the demand for export is
not so active as it was expected would be the case
at the present time. The silk trade is quiet. There
is not much doing in silk mechlins, and quillings
are not in the slightest request. In cotton goods
generally business is inactive. The hosiery trade
continues extremely buoyant. The production of
goods is not at all equal to the demand. The work-
men in most branches have obtained an advance in
the rate of wages. Yarns continue very high in price.
The general prospect of the trade is very encourag-
ing.

Mr. DAVIS.—The Ex-President, since his arrival
on Northern soil, has been treated, not as a State
prisoner, but as a felon. It is not now denied that he re-
mained manacled for several days, and was relieved of the
irons only on the protestations of the physicians, who de-
clared that he was rapidly dying under the torture. It is
not denied that he is excluded from the light of day, re-
fused the use of books or writing materials, and subjected
to the incessant presence and surveillance of grards. It is
difficult to frame any legitimate excuse for such treatment
of a political prisoner. It is, in modern times at last,
quite unprecedented. States and rulers have before had
captives not less important and far more dangerous to their
peace ; but the most cruel of European despots has never
confined prisoners of rank in a dungeon so deadly as the
casemate at Fortress Monroe. The cruelty, moreover, ap-
pears wantonly gratuitous. It is nowhere alleged that Mr.
Davis rejected, or indeed that he was offered, an honourable
parole. But even if he had declined to pledge his word against
any attempt for his liberation, surely the resources of the
"mightiest nation," and the ingenuity of the "smartest na-
tion on the top of the earth," could have devised a plan to
keep a prisoner safe and yet treat him with the decency be-
fitting his station. England won little praise by her cus-
tody of Napoleon, and had in him both a captious and a
erilous charge, but it was not not deemed necessary to
road the fallen master of legions with chains or to feed
him with common soldier's rations. The Bastiles and the
Spielburgs of the old world are terrible places, but
they do not necessarily preclude their inmates from
air, light, moderate exercise, books, and civilised cooking.
We are now told that Mr. Davis has been removed
to a gunboat moored midway in the Potomac, under
the broiling summer sun of Washington, and that his
trial is delayed indefinitely, perhaps until July, perhaps
until September. It requires no prophet to foretell the
effects of enforced inactivity upon a mind morbidly active
from five years' overtaxing—of rigid confinement upon a
body naturally feebly and racked by neuralgic pains—of
studied insults and petty mortifications on a temperament
exceptionally nervous and susceptible to moral suffer-
ing. Grant that Mr. Davis will retain to the lasts his in-
indomitable will, his inherent dignity of character, his
Christian firmness, and his manly self-respect, yet, if that
much talked-of trial' be only delayed for a few weeks or
months, he will spare the Washington Government the
embarrassment of disposing of their prisoner. Let Andrew
Johnson, President of the United States, and his advisers,
not deceive themselves that they can escape the verdict of
history, or even of their contemporaries. It will be that
they, lacking the courage to take their victim's life in open
day, cowardly murdered him in darkness.—The Index.