The Sun.
London, England, 1870-03-31 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 31, 1870

S Clem High school, to the Military Academy at
West Point. Poor Wilson will have the enviable
distinction of being the first coloured martyr of
West Point, for the prejudices of boys are more
; unreasonable, are more loudly.and insolently ex-
pressed, and more cruelly than those of their fathers.
General Butler has "the hide of a rhinoceros," as
" Sunset'.' Cox said, and cannot appreciate the
suffering to which a sensitive lad thus placed may
b.: exposed, but the act appears to have been dic-
tated by good motives, for the boy was the first of his
class, and his father was killed while fighting
fot the Union. The young ladies employed in the
Tie isury Department have presented Repre-
sentatives Roger.;, of Arkan as, with leather
me,da!s, the work of their fair fingers, in honour of
the 18th day of February. Mr. Rogers knows
what happene I on that day, and perhaps by turn-
ing beck a tile of your papers, any person Who is
curious on the subject may learn it too. As far
as memory seeves • (for there is nothing I hate
more than wading through papers), Mr. Rogersthen
made a ferocious onslaught on the characters of
the " unprotected females," winding up with the
declaration that he would introduce a bill prohibit-
ing the Government from employing them as clerks.
General Schofield has arrived from St. Louis, and
he was examined by the House Military Committee
on Monday, but Mr. Butler of Tennessee does not
appear to have gdned anything by bringing the
General this long way from his district. He denied
niost positivc;y that he had ever requested Butler
to make any appointment. Mr. Anderson was
examined on Tuesday in the case of Mr. Mungen,
to whom he asserted he had been introduced by
Judge Overmeyer of Ohio, as a Democrat, though
he is a Republican, and he made no offer of money
whatever to Mr. Mungen, but he did pay $3OO
to a Mr. Wilson. A delegation from the National
Banks, headed by Mr. Freeman Clarke, had waited
-on Secret try Boutwell to protest against the clause
affecting -them in the Funding Bill, which they de-
clare, if enforced, will break up the National Bank-
ing system. The delegation cannot see, nor could
the Secretary satisfy them of, the justice of dealing
with their bonds in a differe .t way from these of
others. 'There is a bill introduced into Congress
abolishing the offices of General and Lieut.-General,
now herd by Sherman and Sheridan, with tEe present
incumbents; re luciug the five Majore-General to
three ; the eight Brigadiers-General to six ; and ap-
pointing Colonels in lieu of Brigadiers-General for
all bureau offices. Under it over 500 officers will
be mustered out with the gratuity of one year's
pay ; it abolishes brevet rank •, the holding of civil
offices by military officers ; and rations, commuta-
tions and allowances, of every kind. This hits
harder than you may suppose, for according to
Mr. Logan, General Sherman's pay is $19,500
a year, including allowances; and General Sheri-
dan's but little lie's, while the bill brings the
former down to $12,000 and the other to $lO,OOO.
Brigadiers-General in the bureaux receive $9,000
yearly, and they take rank before the civil
cffieers of the Government, except the President
or of course Foreign Ministers. Their pay is nearly
double that of the Commissioners, and it is esti-
mated that. by this wholesale reduction the country
will save $3,000,000 a year. Mr. Logan delivered
a grand speech in support of his bill. He asserted
that the Staff of the American army was as large
as that of the French Army or of the Russian
army, though the first consisted of but 37,000 men,
the second of 500,000, and the third of 800,000
men. There was a commission offic:T to every ten
men, and a non-commissioned cffics-r to every six
men, wh -yeas in all European at mies the lowest rate
was twenty men to each commissioned officer.
Ile was very severe on the folly of making generals
inspectors of boots and shoes, and hats and bean
soup. He came down sarcastically on the working
of the system which left a plain captain in command
of a company, in the rear ranks of which was a su-
baltern officer, whose brevet rank was major-gene-
ral, the captain addressing his subordinate as gene-
ral, while the general received orders from the
captain. He referred to the case of General But-
terfield, who was dismissed from a civil appoint-
ment, though he retained the rank of colonel in the
army, and could not be tried by court-martial.
The Act of the 30th Jun,, 1863, makes a general
of the army superior to the President; so that if
General Sherman was to perpetrate the highest
crime, he could not be arre-ted, relieved, or court-
martialed by the President; and this he would re-
peal. For two hours Mr. Logan spoke, while
General Sherman sat in the House and listened,
and the Representative certainly carried the House
with him, if not Sherman. Secretary Boutwell
maintains his opinions, both with regard to the
Funding Bill arid the aboltioa of the Income Tex;
but whatever may be the fate of the fo:mer, the
later is likely to be reduced to 3 per cent., and all
incomes tinier $2,000 exempted. In di-continu-
ing the printing of_the Patent Office books, on the
ol i scale, $174,000 will be saved. Laet year
16,550 copies were issued at a cost of $212,010,
while henceforth bet 100 copies will be printed,
and a few only reserved for sale if anybody wants
them. Festivities have ceased with the arrival of
Lent, though the literary reunions by Mr. King are
kept up.

BERLIN, March 21, 1870.
SlR,—Having been several years in the Con-
Eular service of the United States, I was greatly in-
terested in your article in .the last Anglo-American
Times re!a ive to Consular lawyers. I have never
availed myself of the permission of the Govern-
ment to engage in pursuits foreign to the purpose
for which Consulates were established, as I should
decline to receive fees for my own use without
feeling that the money was rather due to my em-
ployer than t 3 myself. Nevertheless, I might
h we had always the ready reply that my employer
paid me poorly, as indeed he d ,es all his Consuls,
and as you remark it may be but just that a poorly-
paid Con,ul should seek outside employment. But
every thinking man will say with you, why 'not
pay Consuls ad.‘quate salaries, ani secure their
entire attention to the public business? I have
paid a great many visits to my brother Consuls in
all parts of Europe—they have all now retired to
private life, and I h we begin invariably impressed
with the fact that, except in a few unimportant
places, all the Consul's time, talents, and energies
were needed to protect the commercial interests of
the country. rl'o Consuls, moreover, is confided
the important duty of protecting the revenue
from false valuations. This duty devolves espe-
cially on inland Consuls. I have often been asked
to sympathize with Consuls, because Government
refuses to allow a sufficient number of clerks
to attend to the business of the public, but at the
same time it struck nie that the execution of law
papers received always prompt and Careful atten-
tion. At some places this mingling of the two
characters of Consuls has given rise to much scan-
dal. An illustrious personage, who was charged
two hundred dollars by a former Consul for law
papers, designated the charge as an extortion, and
made it the subject of bitter complaint. In fact,
these matters have become sources of annoyance
and scandal. Whether the charges are right or
wrong I- have no means of deciding, but I agree
with you that the permission should be withdrawn,
and that Consuls should be paid adequately for de-
voting all their time and attention to their duties.
sincerely hope that your excellent article will
prove the means of calling the attention of Con-
gress to the matter, and of inaugurating legislation
for the benefit alike of Consuls and the service.—
' am,
Ex-CONSUL.

The Archdeaconry of Huntingdon, vacant by the
resignation of the Hon. and Rev. R. Yorke, has been
a.-xepted by the Right Rev. F. T. INlTougall, late Bishop
of Labuan.

LAD v EILTISSIIENT.J—Avoid Medicines—they always aggravate
chronic complaints; but Du Barry's delicious health-restoring
Regale/Aft Ambles, Food, which yields three times the nourish-
ment of the best meat, saves 50 times its cost in other-remedies,
and invariably restores perfect digestion, strong nerves, sound
lungs, healthy liver, pure blood, refreshing sleep, functional re-
gularity, ease energy to the most disordered or enfeebled. We ex-
tract a few oat of the 68,000 cures:—"The Pope's health restored
by Du Barry's Food. Cure No. 68,413. "Rome, July 21, 1866.
—The health of the Holy Father is excellent, especially since,
abandoning all other remedies, he has confined himself entlre4
to Du Barry's Revalenta Arabica, Food, of which he consumes
a plateful at every meal. It has produced a surprisingly bene-
ficial effect on his health, and his Holiness cannot praise this excel-
lent food too highly. -.From the "Gazette du Midi," July 25. Cure
No. 58,216, of the Marchioness de Brehan, of seven years' lives
complaint, wasting away, debility, nervousness, with a nervous
palpitation all over. bad digestion, constant sleeplessness, and
the most intolerable nervous agitation.." Cure No. 1,771; Lord
Stuart de Deeiee, Lord-Lietitenant of Waterford, of many years'
dyspepsia. No 49,839 ; " Fifty years' indescribable agoey from
dyspepsia, nervousness, asthma, cough, constipation, flatulency,
spasms, sickness, and vomiting.—Maria Jolly." Cure No.
46,270: Mr. James Roberts, of Frimley, Surrey, of 30 years'
diseased longs, spitting of blood. liver derangement, and
partial deafness. Important Caution.—,Beware of the many
unsavoury and more than sloppy imitations to which, without
authority, Baron Liebig's name is most audaciously attached.

in tins', at Is lid; 1 lb 2s 9d; 2. lb 4e Cd; 5 lb ils; 12 lb 225;
24 lbs 4. 14. %ISO D U BARRY'S REVALtNTA. RABICA CIinCOLATE
PoWDER is packed in tin canisters: for 1: cups at 2s, for 24 caps
at is 65, for 4S cups at Gs, for 2,•8 cups at 30s, for f. 76 cups at 55s
—boing abort one penny per cup. The 30s and 65s tins are sent
free of carriage in England on receipt of Post Office Order.
BARRY Do BARRY and-Co., No. 77, Regent-street London; and
all Grocers and Chemists.

THE EVILS OF INTEMPERANCE.

TUESDAY.
This morning a confekence Was held at the City Ter-
minus Hotel, Cannon-street, to consider what steps could
be taken for mote effectually checking the evils of intern..
perance in this country. The Rev. William Pennefather
M.A., presided, and there was a large attendance.
The CHAIRMAN said they must try and obtain sorw
scheme by which they could reduce the awful evils of in-
temperance. Some might think one :theme the best, and
some another ; but all must agree that something ought
to be done to reduce the evil.
Mr. T. B. SMITHIES read a letter from Mr. Gladstone,
son of the Premier, which expressed his regret that pres-
sure of business prevented him from being present. He
felt as much as anyone the great havoc which intempe-
rance was making in this country, and earnestly sympa-
thised with anyone who tried to lessen the evil. The
speaker, in referring to the great extent to which the
drinking custom prevailed, quoted some statistics which had
been prepared by Mr. Samuel Smiles, and which were
supported by Parliamentary returns, Mr. Samuel Smiles
stated that the total amount stood thus :—" Home and
foreign spirits 29,418,535 gallons, £30,568,232; beer of
average strength, 749,983,824 gallons, £43,749,456; foreign
and colonial wines 15,151,741 gallons, £12,987,927 ; cider,
perry, home-made wines, &c., say, £1,5000,000; tobacco,
54,663,8291b5., £11,438,299 ; total, £100,243,514. We
have here an expenditure of more than £3 6s.
per head of the entire population—men, women,
and children ; or of more than £l3 for
every adult male in the United Kingdom. The gross
amount seems perfectly fabulous, but it is competent for
any one to test it by the Government returns, which are
indisputable. A hundred millions sterling a year on drink
and tobacco ! Yet we profess to be an economical
and reforming people, ca,nva§sing every item
of national expenditure, down even to the pen-nibs
in the public offices, and the wages of the dock-
yard labourers. The whole expense of governing the
-United Kingdom for the year ending the 30th of June
1868, excluding the interest of the national 1
dt—
amounted to only £47,196,626 • yet nearly double this
amount was voluntarily expended by the people governed
upon drink. Surely, all the Government extravagances
that can be conjured up sink into insignificance
beside this. What we spend on ardent spirits
and beer alone exceeds the entire national
expenditure, including' the interest on the National
Debt. Our army, which does duty in all parts
of the world, costs fourteen and a half millions sterling
yearly ; while we spend' over thirty millions upon gin,
whisky, and brandy. Our navy costs nearly nine
millions ; and our beer nearly forty-four millions. The
whole expense of managing the postal service costs only
one-fourth of what we spend on tobacco. Some three
millions a year are devoted by the middle and working
classes to life and health assurance, and thirty times the
amount to the indulgence of their sensual appetites !
Such facts as these are surely little creditable to us as a
people. They skew us to be amongst the most thought-
less, thriftless, and bibulous of nations—very rich, but
very wasteful, tell-indulgent, and improvident. All
classes seem to be alike in fault • but the
penalties of the self-indulgence unquestionably fall
the heaviest upon those who, for the most part, have
had no share in incurring them, and are the least able to
bear them—the wives and families of the labouring classes.
It is not known how much of the £330,000,000 supposed
to be annually earned by these classes is spent in drink,
but it is undoubtedly very large. The whole life of a
working man it rounded by drink—drink at " footings,"
drink at sick-clubs, di-ink, at morning, noon, and night.
Many drink one-third of their earnings; some as much as
one-half and even more. It has been estimated that two-
thirds of the home-made spirits and beer are consumed
by the working clssses of the United Kingdom. If this be
so, it would give a total expenditure of about forty-eight
millions sterling a year ! What a splendid fund
for co-operative industry, for social improvement,
for education, for independence in old age !"
There is, on an average, a public-house license and beer
license to every forty-five males in the United Kingdom.
29,418,535 gallons of proof-spirits were consumed in
March, 1868, or equal to an average consumption of about
four gallons for every male adult in the United Kingdom.
One of the greatest inducements they could offer to the
working men of this country was some day to possess a
home of their own. In the provinces they could hope to
do this, but in London there was hardly any such hope,
and any legislator who could bring about such a change,
that the working man could have the chance of buying a
piece of land or a cottage, would be one of the greatest
benefactors of his country.
Mr. BARBER, of the firm of Rose, Barber, and Norton
solicitors, felt it was a great national disgrace that on the
Continent and other parts of the world we were looked
upon as a nation of drunkards.. When he was in Massa-
chusetts, America, he was told that public opinion was
so strong against drink, that if a clergyman was known
to be in the habit of putting it on his table, it was a stigma
on his character, and was a prevention to his promotion.
(Hear, hear,) As to smoking, was it necessary? (Hear.)
He never heard any other defence for it than "it did no
harm." It did not feed the body. It was only a luxury
and a vexatious one. For forty-five years he was in the
habit of drinking three, four, or five glasses of wine a day,
but twenty-three years ago he bad a week's illness, when
the doctor advised him not to take wine for a week, and
since that time he had not drunk anything. ,He belonged
to a hard-working profession, and he could say that he
worked hard all day in his secular duties, and was happy
to be able to engage in spiritual duties at night, but he
found lie was actually better than when he was
in the habit of drinking. He did not say
that everybody should abstain entirely. It rested on
medical testimony that stimulants were not nourishment.
He who took stimulants regularly took them wrongly. If
they were necessary at all, they were only necessary to re-
pair the system, and when the system was repaired,. let
them leave it off till the system again wanted repairing.
What they had to do was to set an example. He was
sorry to say that his own experience was that the evil
of which they complained was a growing one. As he came
up by train of a morning he noticed that there was a
habit of drinking spirits at the railway refreshment bars.
A large number of men asked for brandy and soda, or
some stimulants. What they had to do was to set an
example. Let them repress the evil by example and by
precept. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. SAMUEL BOWLY was exceedingly anxious that they
should have the clergy with them. He admitted there had
had been too much dogmatism amongst the teeto-
tallers, and too much a desire to denounce
those who did not come up to their standard. He did not
believe teetotalism was to do everything for them, and he
deeply sympathised with those who were trying to improve
the condition of the people. He was very anxious to get
as many as possible to set an example. He never asked
his servants to put beer out of the kitchen till he had pu
wine off the table.

The CHArnmAN asked the company to join in silent
prayer for the blessing of God in their work.
This having been done,•the meeting was addressed by
the Revs. S. Hansard (Bethnal Green), Dawson, Green,
Taylor (Independent), M`Gee, Thomas (Sion Chapel),
White, Ellison (Vicar of Windsor), Matthews, Wood
(America), Dr. Spencer, and others.
The conference was brought to a conclusion by the
passing of the following resolution :—" That a meeting
of clergymen, ministers, and laymen, held at the City
Terminus Hotel, Cannon-street, in anticipation of
the proposed Licensing Bill, hereby respectfully
urges upon the Home Secretary the desirability of, his
including in his measure the prohibition of the sale of in.

toxicatilik drinks durinc, the whole of the Lord's Day,
together with increased' restrictions on the Liquor
Traffic."

The Chairman was requested to sign the resolution and
orward it to the Home Secretary.

The Denzocratic Union, a journal of Ravenna,
publishes a letter from Mazzini, addressed to his " Bro-
thers," charging them whenever a bold initiatory move-
ment is taken by any town or district, to follow that
movement unhesitatingly without waiting for elaborate
calculations, which are useful fcr wars, but ill-adapted
for revolutions. Action should create action, and oppor-
tunies should be turned to account. This letter throws
some light on the origin of the recent agitation.
A conflict is at present being waged in Dunoon
between the Highlanders and Lowlanders belonging to
the Free Church, which appears likely to lead to a very
vexatious spiritual feud. The Rev. Robert M`Morran, who
was ordained on the 17th instant, cannot preach in the
Gaelic tongue, consequently the Highlanders feel aggrieved
that their spiritual interests are ignored, and that their
constitutional, 'legal, and Christian rights are wrested
from them. They have therefore appealed to the com-
mittee appointed by the Assembly.

Canon Liddon writes to the Guardian, quoting
lines from Keble's "Christian Year," to shew that he ap-
proved of the damnatory clauses of the Athanasian Creed.
Canon Liddon adds, with regard to himself, that if those
clauses were removed he should have to reconsider his
position as a clergyman of the Church of England, and
should say " this is not the Church in which I was or-
dained." The Hon. and Rev. W. H. Lyttelton strongly
condemns these clauses, and the Guardian publishes more
than three columns of letters on the subject.
The Guardian thinlis that the Education League
is losing ground. " Every one of its meetings, but most
of all the last, shews that, though its numerical strength
is derived from the infatuated support of the Noncon-
formists, it is really fighting the battle of secularism. In
the speeches of its main champions this fact has always
been thinly disguised, but the disguise is growing thinner
every day. If the last meeting and the cheers which
greeted Pll secularist utterances do not open the eyes of
the advocates of unsectarian religious education,' nothing
will."

A large meetinr, was held at Plymbuth last even-
ing, under the presidency of the ex-mayor, in favour of
extending the franchise to women. A petition was
adopted, only a few hands being held up against it,
praying for the passing of Mr. Jacob Bright's bill on the
subject.

A fire broke out in the vaults of the Custom-house,
Boulogne, at noon, on Tuesday, and still continues, A
portion of the cargo of the Indiaman Allahabad, which
was stranded on the 17th at Andre seller, and other goods,
have been consumed. A valuable portion, however, has
been saved.

The City of Dublin was placarded with bills
"yesterday, announcing a public meeting to protest
a,-rainst the Peace Preservation Bill. Mr. G. jr. Moore,
1.P., and Mr. Butt, Q.C., are to be among tne speakers.
The placards were headed, " Ireland's Answer—protest
agailat deo.votivn."._ - - - - -