The Sun.
London, England, 1870-04-14 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL 'l4, 1870.

dent ventilation, the report deals with hatchways,
side scuttles, openings to the sea, pumps,
&c., and on the important point of Stowage urges as
a necessity that the loading of a ship should always
be done under the immediate and personal super-
vision of the captain. Ships are often so stored that
the weights being too low, cause them to roll so
rapidly and with such violent motions as to carry away
the spars and in other instances so high that the
s!iip is liable to turn over. Both these faults in
stowage may be remedied. The present rules of the
Board of Trade regarding lifeboats and tackle are
commended, but a suggestion is thrown out that
every boat should be fitted with sufficient water-tight
compartments to float her. The system of proportion-
inf, anchors and cables by Lloyd's is satisfactory ;
but as the proof test can alone_ establish the excel-
lence of the cable, the reputation of the maker must
be relied on. The foregoing and other suggestions
of minor importance are comprised in the report,
w:lieh will doubtless be useful to a large portion of
the trading community. • •

%armed by a rew of the faithful peopie,'ne•nas curno...
to bay and died in harness. His case much resembles
that of Theodore. But romantic as was the Abyssinian
expedition, it pales in tragic interest before the
matchlessly strange events of the Paraguayan war.
This contest, which commenced in March 1865, has
been prolonged during five years by the devotion
and bravery of the Paraguayans. No tyranny of
which Lopez was capable, nor any defeats
inflicted by the allies, could shake their
attachment. Starvation, nakedness, and disease
were cheerfully borne for his sake. The Paraguayans
fought with the rudest of weapons, and regularly
fired back the shot which came from the allied camp;
and yet the most scientific appliances,' and a vastly
superior army, could succeed in conquering them
only by the slowest degrees. Nothing in the history
even of religious wars is more remarkable than the
utter indifference with which the followers
of Lopez faced death ; and when the supply of men
ran short the women
,armel themselves, and made
good the vacanciea:

AMERICAN INTER- OCEANIC SHIP

CANALS.

(From the Anglo-American Times.)
On March 16, Colonel Julius W. ADAMS read
the report of the committee appointed Feb. 16 by
the American Society of Civil Engineers on Ameri-
can Inter-Oceanic Ship Canals. There are periods
in the world's history when the minds of men are
directed to certain projects all bending simulta-
neously in the same direction, and the present
mania seems to tend towards connecting ocean
routes by grand canals. Africa has been severed
from Asia by joining the waters of the Red Sea and
the Mediterranean. Soon there will be a passage
from the Gulf of Lepanto into the Archipelago,
and other projects of a similar character are con-
templated in Europe, but these are only a "step
forward in the physical improvement of the earth's
surface ; and have, it may be, served its most valu-
able purpose, in reviving the interest of the world
in a still more potential movement in commercial
geopraphy." The theorem of the report is '• The
waters of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean
have been united by a ship canal across the isthmus
of Suez ; those of the Altantic and Pacific may, and
must be, united by way of the narrow lands which
connect the great divisions of the New World." It
is not in the interests of the Old World, except col-
laterally, but in those of the New, that the work is
required. It is not France or England that is push-
ing forward to the greatest of all enterprises, but
the Republic, moved by common, sense as well as
patriotism, to explore and select the location with
a special reference to the necessities of Ameri-
can commerce, and the requirements of American
political safety and convenience. Happily, however,
for the world, what is beneficial to one nation in a
great degree is sure to be beneficial to all others if in
a lesser degree; and where a stupendous work strikes
at any particular interest, the injury is an exception,
and in facilitating the traffic of the world merely
supersedes an obsolete system of carriage as rail-
roads did stage coaches, or as the telegraph does the
carrier-pigeon. COLUMBUS died in the belief that
he had reached the Eastern shores of Asia, other-
wise he might have been the first to design the con-
struction of an artificial strait to connect the
Atlantic with the Pacific. To CORTEZ belongs the
honour, as he urged the project on the attention of
CHARLES V. So confident was this cear-sighte I
Spaniard that through the Isthmus would be the
future high road connecting Europe with Asia that
he planted thereon it his personal hopes anaprivate
fortune, all Ws estates being selected in the Valley
of Oaxaca and near Tehuantepec ; from them he de-
rived his title, and to this day they are called the
CORTEZ es'ates or the Marquisanas. Between the
selection of a route across the Isthmus of Suez
and the Isthmus of Panama there io this great
difference, that in the former, nature had traced
out the line of the canal, a locitlity familiar to
science for ages; but, in the latter, the choice
spreads along a range extending 1,500 miles, pre-
senting not only problems to task the utmost re-
sources of scientific engineering, but questions of
State which affect the future interests of all the great
n arititne Powers of the wort 1. The lines suggtated,
and more or less explored or surveyed, number
twenty-six. Of these, all but the Tehuantepec are
below the peninsula of Yucatan, and would directly
connect the two oceans ; while the Tehuantepec,
the most northerly, would join the Pacific with the
Gulf of Mexico. All these routes narrow themselves
into-1, Tehuantepec ;2, Honduras ;3, Nicara-
gua ; 4, Panama ; 5, Darien, including Atrato. Of
these the Committee consider the first and the
last ; the one representing a canal with locks, the
other a " thourough cut." In discussing: he con-
struc. ion of a ship canal at Darien, the report as-
setts that it can neither be a canal witnout locks,
nor can it be a "thourough cut ;" for though the two
oceans have the same mean level, the tide in the
Pacific at Panama rises from 18 to 20 feet higher
than on the Atlantic shore, rendering the resort to
locks absolutely necessary. Nor is there a particle of
authentic information showing a "thourough cut" to
be practicable ; while much evidence exists proving
that a tunnel miles in length is a necessity. The
construction of so gigantic a work woul I at the
outset be confronted by a deadly climate, render-
ing it costly in treasure and life at first, and mili-
tating against its usefulness for ever after. Ob-
stacles would be encountered in the periodical
floods ; and capital would not be contributed to-
wards an enterprise from which no dividends could
be expected, however useful to the commerce of the
world. Mr. TRAUTWINE, whose knowledge of the lo-
cality, acquired while he was employed as a civil
engineer on the Panama Railroad, puts the minimum
cost of the canal along the best line at $325,000m0.
On neither coast are there good natural harbours,
fuel, provisions, nor ship materials. The great
objection of the United States to the Isthmus of
Darien Canal is, however, political, as it is not only
out of the ordinary channels of trade, but would be
difficult to protect in case of war. The Report
then turns to the Tehuantepec route :
"Just north of the great peninsula of Yucatan, the strip
of elevated land which unites the continents of North and
South America is once more contracted within compara-
tively narrow limits. This is the Isthmus of Tehuantepec,
lying wholly within the domain of the Republic of Mexico.
The direction of the coast line on either sea is so nearly
east and west that the shortest line across the Isthmus—
which would be about 135 miles in length—must be drawn
almost due north and south. Both on the Pacific and on
the Gulf of Mexico the outline of the coast is broken and
irregular, and indented here and there with bays and the
mouths of considerable rivers. The interior, as elsewhere
on the American 'narrow land,' is traversed by those
ranges of cordilleras' which seem to form the backbone
of the New World. While there are, however, a number
of peaks of very respectable altitude, the mountains are
generally scattered, and the table lands have no very for-
midable elevation, while in a southerly direction from the
mouth of the Goatzacoalcos river, on the Gulf, there exists
a remarkable natural depression or hollow, extending
through, with some irregularities, to the Pacific slope,
forming a very available sort of ' pass,' and which has been
made use of from the earliest days for purposes of transit
from coast to coast." _ .

Cowin marched his mPn through it, conveying the
material for the ships he constructed on the Pacific,
and it was here he planned the ship canal and
Roman road ; and when the Spanish Government
long after entertained the prokct, it was there to
unite the two oceans. Mexico expler:d it in 1842,
and the Report strongly favoured the fe :sibiity of
the project ; and twice the depression in the tnoun-
ta'n range has been carefully surveyed for railway
construction. The proposed Inter-Oceanic transit
line would be 15G miles long, of which 50 would
1:), artificial, and the remainder improvements on
the River Goatzacoalcos on the Atlantic side and
two large lagoons on the Pacific coas'. A canal ad-
mitting vessels of twenty feet draft, wit't a rail•
way as an auxiliary, would accommodate three-
fourths of the commerce of the globe, as ships

of a greater draught could be lightened and re-
loadel, while a deeper canal would involve only a
greater money outlay. The cost in time and mo-
ney would be less than a third that of the Darien
design. The mouth of the Goatzacoalcos offers a
safe and capacious harbour, with a bar having 18 ft.
over it at low water, capable, too, of being deepened
at a moderate cost, and the two lagoons could be uti-
lised so as to shelter the largest vessels. The
mate of Tehuantepec is salubrious, the soil fertile,
and supplies of all kinds abundant, or could readily
be procured and maintained. We need scarcely allude
to the enormous advantage that the constructing of
the canal so as to connect the Gulf of Mexico with
the Pacific, would confer_ on the United States, merely
mentioning by way of conveying to our readers a
notion of the fact, that alto igh it New Orleans

and San Francisco would be brought nearer by
more than 2,500 miles than if the canal were cut
out across the Darien. Another effort is being
made by the Washington Government thoroughly
to explore the Darien route, and it is probable that
the paper read by Col. ADAMS, and other informa-
tion which must be in the hands of the Govern-
ment, will induce it to investigate the statments
made, and determine by a careful survey the ad-
visability and practicability of a canal across the
Isthmus of Tehuantepec; indeed, a movement en
the subject has already been maie in the Senate.,

THE LINE AND STAFF CONTROVERSY.

The difficulty of adjusing the rank of non-com-
batant officers with combatant officers has been
experienced alike in the American as in the British
Navy. As regards the former, a controversy has
long raged, puzzling both the Executive and Con-
gress. The Navy is essentially a despotic service,
and, as such, has all the prejudices, the immobil:ty,
and aversion to change, as well as the exclusiveness
of high Toryism. A commander of a frigate is a sove-
reign, perhaps exercising the most-, thorough and
complete rule that is exercised on earth. From the
combatant officers, or the executive officers, or the
iMe officers as they are termed, the commander must
be selected, and should he die or become incapaci-
tated while abroad, the executive officer next in
rank assumes the command, the rule being that only
that class of officer can command. Of any encroach-
ment on this executive power the Navy officers of
the line have been peculiarly jealous, a jealousy
quite as discernible in the British Navy as in the
American. To complete a man-of-war, it is neces-
sary to have engineers, surgeons, chaplains, pay-
masters, and others of the class which make up
what are termed Staff officers, the tern- nt of the ser-
vice ; and the dispute which has now been carried
on in the American Navy is equitably to adjust the
rank of these with that of the combatant officers
of the ship. For months the Naval Committees of
both Houses have been considering the subject, and
several bils have been presented to Congress ; but
as yet no conclusive arrangement has been de-
vised. Settlements have been attempted, but
overthrown, and even what had been effected in
favour of the Staff has, it was assert ed, been prac-
tically set ad !e by the line. The latter argue that
there are no real Staff officers in the Navy, terming
them " non-combatants," although they are killed
in battle, and are equally table to the dangers of
the seas ; and " Civil officers,"though tried byNaval
tribunals under naval law. But finding these terms
are not applicable, " auxiliaries" has been substi-
tuted. During the controversy, into which bitter-
ness has been infused by the trial of Dr. Green
acd others, General Sherman was applied to as to
the practice in the ArMy, and a letter of his to
Vice-Admiral Porter, whe is a strenuous upholder
of the line officer, has lately been publ shed. The
General says that all Army Staff officers have
actual rank, holding commissions as Generals, Co-
lonels, Majors, Captains, &c., which fix their pay,
allowances, precedence, and privileges generally;
but the Sixty-Second Article of War establishes
that he who is to command, is the officer highest in
rank of the line present, unless otherwise specially
directed by the President. *So long as a line officer
is those no matter haw junior his rank, he must
c minand, and he is held responsible, whether be
lips s it or not, though there may be surgsoris, quar-
termasters,p ym asters on the spot bearing far higher
commissions. In other re spews the Staff officers
have the full advantage of th it r in.., and General
Sl,eienan adds that the Army sys em works
well iu practice. Now this is precisely th •
systein of the British Army, which is also
found to work well in practice. ller Majesty
may not actually sign corem'ssions as Generals,
Colonel:, &c., for Staff officers as does the President
of the United States, but the re!ative rank is clearly
defined, and marked by badges or distinguishing
ornaments on the uniform precisely as with the line;
so that a sentinel knows when the officer passes,
whether line or Staff, if he has to present arms,
carry arms, or turn out a guard. The power given
to medical officers in the British Army is consider-
able, and co estan, ly overrides that of the command-
ing officer. If, for instance, a regiment be quartered
in Ind'a, and its Colonel proposes to commence a
course of drill, musketry instruction, or other
practice, he would countermand the order if officially
informed by the surgeon of the regiment that it
mightlend to injure the health of the soldiers, and
such interference frequently happens, bringing the
two into collision, in which the surgeon generally
comes off victorious. But in the Army, command-
ing officers are not such despots as in the Navy,
where they cannot endure any one passing between
the wind and their nobility. The demaed of the
Staff officers of the U. S. Navy is to be placed on
the same footing as their brethren in the Army; and
it is probab'e Congress will comply with the request,
the more so as the bad repute into which the service
gets, as regard its Staff, deters applicants, and the
result is seen in 54 vacancies among the medical
officers, whose entire number is only 200, with very
few properly qualified candidates offering, while
there are 200 applicants for vacancies in the Medi-
cal Staff of the Army. The experience in this
respect of the American Navy is precisely that of
the British Navy; they made the service unpopular,
and found it out by the class and number of the
candidates who presented themselves for vacancies.
One curious incident of this controversy is the
denial by Admiral Farragut of a letter on the sub-
ject which bore his signature, and was furnished to
Congress as genuine by Paymaster T. H. Looker.
It appears to be almost certain that, notwithstand-
ing the Admiral's denial, the letter is genuine, and
that, having lately been very ill, and much shaken,
he had simply forgotten that lie had not only
signed it, but bad personally given it to Mr. Looker,
the author of the letter, which he had got the
Admiral to endorse it.

A staggering case of defalcation, on the part of
a Government officer, holding a responsible post in the
Revenue Dept., has startled, even frightened, New York.
J.F.Bailey, after the failure of the charge of corrupt practices
against Mr. Fulle:ton, Mr. Cook, and others, mysteriously
disappeared, and it then transpired that as Collector of the
Thirty Second Internal Revenue District ho had to a
large amount defrauded the nation. Mr Bailey's character
was considered to be above suspicion. Indeed he had
earned for himself the reputation of being the most zea-
lous revenue officer in the service, the terror of whisky-
thieves, and the breaker-up of fraudulent rings. So in-
cessant had been his prosecutions of illicit distillers,so un-
wearying was his energy and vigilance in the pursuit, that
about two years ago a cheque was signed conveying to him
$250,000 if he would but resign his post. When Mr.
Raymond died a new bond had to be drawn up, which was
signed by gentlemen of such position as George Opdyke,
Henry Clews, Thomas C. Durant, George Douglas, and
John R. Dilleber as sureties, and these names were ac-
cepted by the Government. What has happened? we have
waited for the mail of the 26th March to learn, but we re-
gret to siy it has not arrived while we write(noon,Friday).
All positively stated was, that Mr. Bailey had disappeared.
that his books had been examined by Collector Pleasanton
and other officers sent especially from Washington, that
District Attorney Pierrepont is reported to have sail
that the defalcations discovered up to that time had
reached the Sum of 120,030 dollars ; that Colonel White-
ley, chief of the Secret Service Police, had male an
afiblavit against C. S. Childs and Frederick Low, as
well as B:iiley, for conspiring to r b the Government,
setting the sum at $lOO,OOO, and that Mr. Chills had been
rrested, he being Deputy Collector of the District, without
whose connivance the frauds could not have been perpe-
trated. Childs admits that be knew of the irregularities,
and puts the " steahmrs" at $lOO,OOO. The roar of delight
with which those Bailey had systematically persecuted
greeted the expose sounded unpleasantly to the community.
Everyname and crime that could be imagined was fastened
on the absconding Bailey. He was a thorough-paced scoun-
drel, a double-barrelled villain, a sham and a fraud, and
the number of the "I told you so" men is large, while
many incredible ruinoues were floating through Now York
as well as Washington.

„BRITANNIA” ON JOURNALISM.

While a leading-article-writer in the Times was
remarking that a member of the House of Com-
mons scarcely dares to call his soul his own, and
contrasting that assembly in this respect unfa-
vourably with the House of Lords, a critic in
Britannia was discussing the leader writer as a per-
son held "in shere and absolute servitude." Iu the
opinion of the magazine set ibe the newspaper press
is about as free or natural as the machinery of a
manufactory is free or natural, and the party-jour-
nalist works neither more nor less naturally than
does the piston or the screw. It seems a surprising
thing adds this critic, but it is lit-rally true that
out of about a dozen newspapers which are daily
pub!ished in London there is only one in which
there is the slightest pretension to public honesty
—the Pall-Mall Gazette. We must do him,
however the jus ice to state that he alludes par-
ticularly to the " party journalism," which he says,
rather than journalism, is the curse of the day.
The writer contrasts unfavourably English jour-
nalism with French, and asserting servility to to
the basis of the occupation, he proceeds to show
who they are who pursue it as a calling :
" Men with clear business-like heads, some little power
of fancy, considerable readiness of expression, general
shrewdness ; men devoid of all liberal education, wholly
self-taught so far as their teaching goes, sprung from the
flex Romuli and the residue of our population ; men who
know absolutely nothing by experience of our infinitely
many-sided English life, of no social training, of no gener-
ous impulses ; men who are to modern literature what the
paid sophists were to Greek philosophy, ready to advocate
any side, to espouse any cause, if a sufficient sumis offered
them—renegades by nature, whom it is necessary only,
to bribe to cause them to desert their sworn allegi-
ance, and who, if a Radical newspaper offers them a few
shillings more wages than their Conservative employer,
will trample the blue under their feet, and rush to the
orange standard without a moment's compunction—these
be thy gods, 0 Israel! Of this kind are the men who
presume to instruct the public every morning in the co-
lumns of their respective prints. Think you That this gang
of scribblers who electrify the reader each morning with
theirthrilling Tory sentiment, who cling to the Throne
and the altar, the Queen and the COnstitution, the old
families and the old laws, the sacred torch of learning,
and the holy fire of religion ; think you that the eloquence
of these, has the ring of sincerity, that the writers them-
selves hold the creed that they profess? Why should
they hold it? What is there that should make them Con-
servative? Is it their birth?—but they would have a
difficult matter to refer their pedigree to a grandfather.
Is it their stake in the existing scheme of English society ?
—but English society they kuow not. Is it their educa-
tion, their early associations, their inbred sentiments?—
but of education they have received nothing ; associations
and sentiments are things they are not capable of enter-
taining. Is it their enthusiasm for the religious faith and
life of England ?—but in their ordinary conversation they
make it their fashion to sneer at what is sacred, and to
pert etrate ribald jests at the expense of all that is holy.
No ; —it is none of these things which make ;them the
sworn defenders of the Constitution; they scent profit ; and
they follow that track and none other.'
Though our critic be not complimentary, it is well
to hear all opinions. He starts with the charge
that the journalist receives his cue in all matters,
gee at or small, from the leader of the party who
condescends to despatch missives from Grosvenor-
gate to Fleet-street, or from Carlton House-terrace
to a certain square adjacent to Ludgate-hill.*
From the strict directions of the inspired editor the
journalist is not permitted to stir one inch, and if he
acts in a moment of impulsive independent origina-
lity, the bit of sentiment he ventures to insert will
be remorselessly eliminated" and a good thing, too,
if the sentiment be of that spurious character to be
expected from the men above described. What
the limes asserts is that the House of Commons is
kept by its political leaders in trammels so strict
that no member can call his soul his own ; what
Britannia asserts and notably of the Times is that
the party journals are as strictly trammelled by
these same leaders with this difference, that the
newspaper men are a vile gang of tools. If both
be true, the United Kingdom is as enslaved a
country as any military despotism, though the
fetters be not so apparent or as galling. And
who are the despots? Why, Messrs. Gladstone and
Disraeli, at the head of the Liberal and the Conserva-
tive caucases ! We always thought that these gen-
tlemen were eminent, able, and respectable mem-
bers of society ; but until we saw the article in
Britannia we had no idea that they were so greet,
or the press so little. A gentleman, says Britannia,
once recommended a young man, in whoea ebitibieti
he believed, to a very popular daily paper (the
Telegraph, we suppose), on the ground that his
protege was conspicuous for strong t'.inking.
" Str n,g thinking !" exclaimed the j urn listic
speculator, with disgus ; "what we want is strong
w.i:ing." To what does all this point ? Who do
such charges hit but the public? and if Britannia
could e-tablish the article as fact, then Britannia's
children stand self-con letnned. The newspaper
press is venal ; it is written only for the sordid mo-
tive of a money gain ; it is the mere tool of a few
men who acquire political power ; and as it finds
that it lays to be the contemptible thing it is, it
naturally takes to the paying course ; that is the
style of thing the people buy. If truth were honestly
written, nobody would purchase, and the journal
would die. Honesty, then, must kill a party news-
paper, because the public will not support a journal
so conducted ; and if an editor desires his paper to
succeed, he must get together a staff of low-born,
ill-bred, ill-educated men, unacquainted with so-
ciety, but ready to obey the editor's every bid-
ding. That these illiterate outcasts, raked out of
the purlieus, do hit by some extraordinary intuition
the public sentiment may be seen by those favoured
mortals who are admitted into English society. If
these poor wretches got inside a Club door, if they
ever put their legs under a gentleman's mahogany,
or chatted in a lady's drawing-room, they would
find society pervaded with the emanations from
their pens, though every bit of sentiment be eli-
minated. They would hear men coolly reproduce
their arguments as original ; they would see women
melted to tears at their touching pictures, or fired
with indignation at the wrong they bad dragged to
light. Curious state of society this, 0 Britannia !
Perhaps you had better look a little deeper into it,
and see if there be not something that has escaped
your observation, or, perhaps, it might be as well,
now that you have reviewed the motives actuating
the leading-article writers, that you should turn
back and review your own.
Some write for pay, some for an idea, some for
spite ; but this is certain, that a free people may
be judged by the tone of their press. It it be sen-
sual, servile, venal, ignorant, and unenterprising,
the more that is learnt of the general characteris-
tics of the people, the more clearly will the inquirer
see bow the press is inspired ; and a man who con-
demns the British Press, as the writer in Bri-
tannia has done, simply condemns his country-
men, if -he be an Englishman. That a great
journal should require the close supervision of
one mind is self-evident, otherwise it must be-
come a curiosity of incongruity. It is just as
necessary, if it is to be made effective, that it should
advance in line, as that a battalion should so ad-
vance ; and those who take to journalism as a call-
ing must comply with the requirements of the
paper, or leave it if they cannot. They have no
more right to expect permission to run loosely
about than have soldiers on the march, or lawyers
in a court, or clergymen in conducting a service.
All these accept pay while working under guiding
rules—not as their own imagination may dictate;
and we fail to see wherein lies the sin of journalists
in permitting themselves to be trammelled by the
organ which they serve. We quote this curious
article in Britannia as a proof that journalism in
England is very far from having reached the place
in public estimation which it ought to hold ; while
on the other side the Atlantic it has been elevated
above the position to which it has the right to
aspire. At the same time the leading journals of
England exercise a much greater influence on Eng-
land than do the leading journals of America on
the United States. Thus while the organs in the
old country are the more powerful the journalists
in the new country hold a far higher position,
and a very curious fact this is, but not difficult
to account for. England is a land of precedent
and old stereotyped ideas, the newspaper press is
comparatively new, and having supplied a public
want it has achieved a public position. But the
writers are unknown, and have never been recog-
nized in the history of the country. They are an
innovation and are so regarded, while all itmova-
tians are s'ighted and (Us iked by the Tory senti-
merit of the country. The peode accept the paper
as an abstract thing, and ne:ther know n r want
o know anything of those who make it ; no more,
indeed, than tl.e paper-makers or the tyi e setters.
In A nie.ie 1, they had no such preju lice to contend
againe, and a more inquiring mind to satisfy, so
paptr mak_r and compo..itor, es well as the jour-
nalist, take a place in public. estimation ; the men
becom'ng of as much interest as their work.
Anglo-American 7iines.

* Wha the writer means is from Mr. Disraeli to the
Standard, and from Mr. Gladstone to the Times.