The Sun.
London, England, 1870-04-18 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, APRIL 18, 1870.

AMERICAN AFFAIRS.

(From the Anglo-American Times.)

The serenade to which our Washington corre-
spondent alludes took place on the night of the Ist April,
when the President responded to the address of Colonel
Forney on behalf of the Republican citizens as follows :-
-" I can assure those present that no consummation since
the close of the war affords me so much pleasure as the
ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitu-
tion by throe-fourths of the States of the Union. I have
felt the greatest anxiety ever since I was called to this
House to know that this was to be secured. It looked
Bk.) the realization of the Declaration of Independence.
cannot say as much on this subject as I would like to,
rot being accustomed to speaking, but I thank you for
your presence this evening." Senator Sumner, to whose
house they afterwards adjourned, did "a deal more talk,"
although it might have been supposed he had lately been
pumped dry in the Senate. He said for years his hope
and object had been to see the great promise of the De-
claration of Independence changed into performance, to
see that Declaration become a reality. Gen. Fremont was
next visited, but he did not make a speech, and Secretaries
Fish and Boutwell were caught together and loudly called
for, when Secretary Fish skilfully and diplomatically
introduced his colleague, on whom ho managed to throw
the burden of the speaking. General Butler was not at
home, and afterwards all night the tour of Washington
was kept up to the lesser magnates.
General Logan is about to introduce a bill in
Congress to incorporate the Irish. National Colonization
Association. Its managers comprise leading wealthy and
influential Irishmen in every city in the Union. The
principal object of the bill is to remove the surplus Irish
from the over-crowded cities of the East, and place them
on farms, as well as provide means of transportation for
the poorer classes who are daily arriving from Europe.
It also provides for the establishment of loan offices and
emigration agents in the different cities of the seaboard."
It ought to be extended, and made more general. It is
more important to encourage English than Irish immi-
gration, as facts are now forcibly demonstrating in the
United States. We hope this truth will be recognized
and t cted on in America in time; otherwise grave evils
may result.
The split in the Democratic ranks of New York
culminated in open war, in the occupation of Tammany
Ball by the police, and in the rout of the Young Demo-
cracy. The struggle was over what is known as the new
Tweed Charter, which has passed the House, and the
rebels were at first so successful that the belief was gene-
ral that they would carry everything before them ; but
they had to do with experienced politicians, who under-
stood how to act and where to strike when the decisive
moment arrived, and the Young Democracy was scattered
to the winds at the very moment when they were cheer-
ing for success. The new Charter names December for
the city election ; the Mayor, to have two years of office,
confiding to him the appointment of all heads of depart-

ments except finance and law. The Finance Department
is to be under an elected Comptroller, removable only by
impeachment, and holding office for four years. The LtW
Department is to remain as it is. A Board of Alderman
is to be elected by general ticket, and Councilmen limited
to one for each Assembly District. The Police is to be
confided to a board of four or five members, so is the Fire
Department also the Public Parks as well as Docks, Health,

and Charities. The new City Charter was passed after
some amendments on the 30th March, and the Young
Democracy was therein defeated, as well as in the at-
tempt to hold a meeting of the Democratic General Com-
mittee on the 28th ult., in Tammany Hall, thedoors having
been closed, and the building occupied by police. The
practical leader of the sec._ *.a. Sheriff O'Brien, whose
early antecedents cast a shaae over his later successes. He
is a man of great ability; has secured the most lucrative
of all offices, in comparison with which General Sher-
man's paltry $lB,OOO, and the Chief Justice's still more
paltry $6,500, are mere pittances; for his salary is no less
than $250,000 per annum ! He was backed by Messrs.
Creamer, Genet, and Morrissey. What the proposed Char-
ter is going to do for the city remains to be seen ; but few
New Yorkers have any faith in it, and most of them re-
garded the fight as the contest of opposing gangs of plun-
derers; nor would they have been averse to see them
enact the part of the Kilkenny cats.

Among the interesting occurrences reported from
America is the dissolution of the American Anti-Slavery
Society. Their Work is accomplished, and they have re-
solved to turn their last meeting into a Commemorative
Jubilee to have been held in Apollo Hall, Now York, last
Saturday. The society was to be diss lved that even-
ing, in the presence of Representative abolitionists frcdn
all pars of the country. In reviewing the career of this
society, extending over 37 years, we find the work of the
greatest magnitude achieved in the shortest titne over
recorded. Indeed it would appear almost incredible, like
a dream, to some of the gentlemen assembled last Satur-
day in Apollo Hall.

The only American club ever established in
Europe has just celebrated its first anniversary. The an-
nual meeting of the Washington Club of Paris look
place on Saturday, April 9. The various reports presented
indicated the prosperous condition of the Club, which in
its success has more than realized the expectations of the
gentlemen who founded it. The following officers were
elected for the new year :—Board of Direction : President,
Lorillard Spencer ; vice-presidents, W. H. Paine, Sheldon
Leavitt ; treasurer, Armand Voisin; secretary, Nathan
Apkleton ; directors, Alfred Lockwood, E. M. Warden, Dr.
T. T. Pratt, John Garcia, W. H. Riggs, W. Pem-
broke Fetridge, H. W. Brevoort, Leonard W. Jerome,
S. A. Samanos, Dr. J. B. Rottenstein, Lloyd Phoenix,
J. F. Loubat, Dr. Thomas W. Evans, E. Riggs. In the
evening the annual dinner came off at the Cafe Vefour,
where over fifty of the members were present, among the
guests being General Read, Consul-general, and Colonel
Hoffman, Secretary of Legation. The decorations:of the
room were thoroughly national, and the whole affair was
a great success. The rooms of the Washington Club are
most pleasantly located, directly opposite the Grand
Opera House, and in the immediate vicinity of the Grand
Hotel and the American bankers. These rooms are very
tastefully lit.ed up and supplied with every comfort, a fine
reading-room furnished with all the prominent journals,
not being the least attraction.

We desire to impress on intending emigrants a
fact they ought to know which is often misrepresented so
as to lead to a false inference. They are told that there
is a surfeit of labour in such a city as New York, and that
many are on the verge of starvation, and that the masses
do not secure reinuerative employment. We grant this,
sorrowfully acknowledging its truth. We are now in-
formed that in San Francisco the Mayor was empowered
to employ the labourers of the city on the public works to
keep them from want; and as he had not immediately
carried this into effect demonstrations, which have as-
sumed the proportion of riots, have been the result. The
explanation is simple. The most idle and worthless are
the most likely'to crowd into the large towns and re-
main there whether there be employment or not, doing
enough work if it offers to gain a scanty livelihood,
and, if it does not, becoming a burden on the com-
munity ; but it does not follow that there is a scarcity
of work throughout the country, though thousands should
be unemployed in New York, San Francisco, and Chicago.
Along the Pacific coast strikes were general because the
labourer could not command from fourteen to twenty shil-
lings a day; and a gentleman in from a town reports that he
offered ten shillings a day to mon, scores of whom were
standing idle and nearly destitute, yet all refused his
terms, and he was compelled to abandon the enterprise he
had proposed , Indeed, so complete has been the com-
mand of the labour market in California by the working
men, and so exorbitant have been their demands that they
have materially injured the State; and now that the rail-
road has cheapened the cost and facilitated the transport
to Jalifornia, a slight change has occurred in favour of the
capitalist, whereupon strikes become general, and the
idlers in San Francisco insist on the city employing them
on the public works.

In the sitting of the Commons of the Dominion on
the Bth inst., the Finance Minister introduced his budget.
The ordinary expenditure is shown to be in excess of the
revenue. It is proposed to increase the latter by imposing
light duties on flour and grain, 50 cents per ton on coal,
five cents per pound on hops, and five coats per bushel on
salt ; but the latter shall remain free of duty if imported
from England and other British possessions. This pro-
posed salt duty is merely a protective measure against the
United States. A charge of 5 per cont. is to be added to
all present ad valorem duties—that is to say, on the duty not
on the value of the goods. It is further propoied to in-
crease the wine duties by 20 to 25 per cent. ad valorem
per gallon. Duties are to be calculated on the invoiced
value. The foregoing and other tariff changes are ex-
pected to add two millions of dollars to the revenue. The
Minister of Finance also stated that the Government in-
tended to disregard the opinion of the law offims of Eng-
land as to the appropriation of the International Railway
Loan of last year.

The Fenian raid, according to telegrams sent from
Toronto and Ottawa on Wednesiay, appears to be as-
suming a more definite shape, for the 16th Regiment had
been pushed that afternoon to the Eastern frontier, an.l the
London Qntario field battery to the St. Clair River. It is,
also stated that a measure suspending the Habeas Corpus
Act was to be passed 1)3 the Dominion House of Commons
that day, atti will receive the Governor-General's imme-
diate assent. Even the mail news reports a movement