The Sun.
London, England, 1870-03-25 00:00:00

ANNEXATION.

The Senate Committee upon Foreign Relations
have disposed of the treaty for annexing San
Domingo, and they have decided equally to recom-
mend the treaty for acquiring the island of St.
Thomas. But the two Wrest Indian islands are in a
very different position. The purchase of San
Domingo is an incomplete bargain, and the Senate is
quite at liberty to annul it. But St. Thomas was
finally bought from the Danish Government ;
it was understood on all hands that the transfer was
decided upon; the Danes abandoned the island ; and
nothing remained but to pay the money. But
the Senate, if it takes the advice of ics Foreign Com-
mittee, which is very likely, will refuse to pay the
money. Even some of the American papers have
admitted that this transaction is a discredit to the
nation. -

THE CORPS LEGISLATIF AND CAPITAL

PUNISHMENT:

The Corps Legislatif has resumed its sittings, M.
Schneider being.in the chair- Several reports were pre-
sented, most of them having reference to much needed
reforms, such as the abrogation of the Law of Public
Safety, and of the Article 75 of the Constitution d the
Year VIII. (by the reckoning of the Revolution.) This
article guarantees the immunity of officials in cases of
illegal arrest, &c. M. Tachard gave notice of a motion
for the free admission of unbleached cotton intended to
be printed in France for re-exportation.
Mr. Gr4vy gave notice of an interpellation from the
Left respecting the intentions of the Government with re-
gard to the constituent power. He was followed by M.
Steenackers, who put a question to M. 011ivier.
A circular had lately been issued to justices of the peace
relieving them from the obligation of addressing reports
to the procureurs. He wished to see magistrates of a
higher grade set free from similar obligations. The pre-
decessor of Mr. 011ivier, M. Royher, had directed them to
send quarterly reports of the political trials and other matters
which had occurred in their district to the military com-
mandants, thus making them political instruments, if not
police agents, and compromising the dignity and inde-
pendence of justice. M. 011ivier replied that the reproach
was unfounded. There was nothing derogatory in the
magistrates making these reports. It was a judicial and
political act, and in no sense an act of police. The only
point in which he objected to the circular of his predecessor,
was that the judicial authority should have to communicate
directly with the military authority, instead of through
the Minister. He had given orders that in future the
reports should be sent direct through the Minister of
Justice.
M. STEENACKERS thanked the Minister for the altera-
tion, but could never give his approval to the magi-
strates making political police reports. (Murmurs, and
cries of " Assez.")
M. OLLIVIER said that a strict separation of law and
politics was no doubt necessary, but at the same time it
would be a mistake to consider the office of the police as a
dishonourable one.

Military matters subsequently came forward, a contin-
gent of 90,000 men, instead of 100,000, being asked for
1870, and a modification of the law of military substitutes
being proposed. M. Mony's interpellation, on the pro-
priety of modifying the Senatus-Consultum of 1852
respecting public works, was withdrawn, the Minister
(M. de Talhouet) promising to introduce a bill on the
subject immediately. The debate on capital
punishment was then opened.
M. Jules Simon, who had a motion for its abolition,
who, in a long and eloquent speech, brought forward all
the arguments in favour of his views. Many of his friends,
he said, had long contented for the abolition of capital
punishment, on the ground that society had no right to
take away human life. That was not his opinion. He
recognised the right, and he once thought that the moment
for abandoning its existence had not come. It was only by
study and reflection that he had arrived at his present
convictions. The strongest argument in favour of the
punishment of death was its efficacy, but in all countries
there was an immense reduction in the number of crimes
punishable by death. In England, before 1789, these
amounted to 240 ; to-day they were reduced to two,
murder and high treason. In France, owing to the
confusion of laws before 1789, it was difficult to dis-
tinguish exactly the number of crimes that entailed
capital punishment, but in 1810 it was reduced to
39, and in 1848, was reduced to 15. Now it had reascended
to 23, because punishment by death for political
offences, whose abolition was a noble conquest of the revo-
lution of 1848, was restored. (Murmurs of denial.) M.
Pelletan interposed. It was proposed to restore it, but
it was not restored.}—M. Simon continued, and
cited a number of statistics proving that as
the law became milder offences became less frequent,
and that in many parts of Europe, Tuscany, San Marino,
Anhalt, Nassau, and Portugal, the penalty of death did not
exist, and the criminality so far from increasing had di-
minished. He might, he said, have also cited Russia,
but he did not like hypocrisy, and if Russia had not
capital punishment she had the knout which was much
the same thing. Besides could Russia pretend she
had no scaffold when she had killed Poland ?
A movement in favour of abolition had also
taken place in America, where in several States
the penalty of death no longer existed. In Sweden, in the
Low countries, and in the Duchy of Baden the subject was
under discussion. In the North German Parliament when
the subject was debated Count Bismarck spoke in support
of the penalty ; but despite the weight of his influence, it
was defeated by 118 against 81. A considerable ameliora-
tion of public manners was certain, M. Simon contended,
to follow an amelioration of the law, and he gave several
instances of the ferocity produced by a system of public
executions, mentioning the butcher of Paris who proposed
to skin Ravaillac (the murderer of Henri IV.) with his
own hands. The warning offered by the speCtacle was, he
maintained, useless ; and he referred to several notable
murders committed in England, France, and Sweden,
immediately after the murderers had witnessed executions.
When Muller was hung in 1864, a man was killed under
the scaffold. Momble was executed in August, 1869,
for the murder of a woman and child ; and six days
later Troppmann committed the Pantin massacre. An
English prison chaplain had said that of 167 persons con-
demned to death 161 had been present at an execution.
After a speech from M. Bourbeau, in support of the
penalty, the debate was adjourned.

The adjourned debate on the abolition or capital
punishment was resumed in the Corps Legislatif by M.
Jules Simon, who replied to the speech of M. Bourbeau.
He left to his antagonist, he said, the task of substitut-
ing perpetual solitary confinement for the punishment of
death, but for his part he was opposed to it. He acknow.
ledged that the proposed abolition would entail the re-
form of the criminal law, but in any case such a reform
was indispensable. The present penal code could
not last, and its demoralising effects were clearly
proved by statistics. It was deplorable that they should
seclude men from the world to make them worse instead
of better. Publicly and privately all were concerned in
improving the existing state of things, and he himself
would undertake to present to the Chamber the draft of a
complete reform. Several neighbouring countries had
instituted a complele reform of the criminal law. Prison
reform in Ireland had been accomplished by one of the
brothers Hill, whom he had the honour of knowing.
M. Simon said he only differed from Mr. Hill on one point
the solitary confinement of the prisoner. Criminal
reform was based on a just principle—that man
must be left some -stimulus. It left him hope, the
only stimulus which survived honour. The working day
in the Irish prisons was divided into five parts, the four
first parts were compulsory, and enforced by punishment.
The fifth was permissive, and the prisoners who worked
in it five times gained one day in five of their punishment.
The result was most satisfactory, and the discovery was
as important as those of scientific research. In proposing
the abolition of the penalty of death they proposed to
transform the penal code from a school of vice into a
school of morality.
Mr. Jules Favre said the debate should be re-
stricted to the question of an inquiry since they could
not decide such a matter summarily. It was useless to
reject inquiry on the ground that everyone had made up
his mind on the subject. Opinions were formed on all
subjects but they did not refuse to discuss them. In the
name of humanity he called upon them not to thrust aside
the question without inquiry. The arguments brought
forward in favour of the punishment of death were
the same by which men had always attempted
to defend the errors of the past. Let them
remember what M. Troplong had said on this subject. He
hoped for the day when society should dispense with the
punishment of death in criminal offences, and with im-
prisonment in civil offences. He said that the punish-
ment of death aroused a sentiment of pity for the criminal.
They had, since M. Troplong had thus spoken, abolished
imprisonment for debt, and credit had not suffered. It
would be the same with the penalty of death. The scaffold
would be overthrown, but society would not be shaken.
"In any case," concluded M. Favre "it appears to me
impossible that this great question in whose train all
thinkers, all magistrates, and all philosophers are found
should be stifled in a corner of your palace by a summary
and disdainful execution."
M. Favre sat down amidst loud applause, and after a
few words from M. Cremidux and M. Gambetta, who both
maintained that the refusal of the inquiry would virtually
prejudice the question, the vote was taken. The report of
the committee (refusing the inquiry) was rejected by 112
against 97, and the subject was referred to the bureaux.

THE FUNDING BILL.

(From the Anglo-American Times.)

The Washington correspondent of the New
York Tribune gives the arguments urged in Con-
gress as also by the American press against certain
clauses in SHERMAN'S Funding Bill. The appro-
priation of $12,000,000 for the expenses of con-
verting the old bonds into new bonds is declared
to be utterly out of proportion to the value of the
proposed service. It c ost Mr. CHAsE,then Secretary of
the Treasury, only three-tenths of one per cent., to
set in motion the JAY COOKE agency with its im-
mense ramifications for turning public attention to
and enlightening the people about these Govern.
ment loans, while now one per cent. is proposed for
merely exchanging onebond for another, a difference
the correspondent describes as similar to running a
train over an existing railway and building the
road. He adds that every one now knows what a
Government Bond is, and if a paragraph be put on
the wires any night having reference to these bonds
three-fourths of the holders will read it, and begin
discussing it next morning. But the proposal mainly
objected to is the payment of the interest in florins,
francs, and pounds sterling, as well as in dollars
Bankers and brokers will be needed atseveral points
in Europe, and a heavy expense maintained, while,
too, it is unbecoming in the nation to issue such bas-
tard securities. The place for the Union to make its
exchanges is not in London, in Frankfort, Amster-
dam, or Paris, but in Washington and New York,
and the various branches and agencies of the U. S.
Treasury; while the means of effecting the exchange is
a simple public advertisement that a 5 per cent. bond
awaits the holder in exchange for a six per cent.,
and that when the fives are gone, then a four and a
half per cent. ; and, lastly, a longer dated four per
cent. Finally comes the inducement. The exchange
will place the bondholder in an impregnable position,
removing for ever the uncertainty now hanging over
the ultimate payment of the national debt. The
Republican party will then have performed all its
duty, and the bondholder thenceforth will hare only
to blame himself should he reject the new and ad-
here to the old securities, if there be hereafter a
change in public opinion about the redemption
of the Five-Twenties in gold. This communica-
tion is forcibly answered in the leading columns
of the Tribune. It is surprising that the folly is not
apparent to the writer, or that these views should
find so general a currency, and such a measure of
support as shown in the passage of the bill through
the Senate. The Tribune hopes that the appro-
priation of $12,000,000 may be sufficient to cover
the cost of funding the debt. Secretary BOUTWELL
will spend no more than is necessary, but the ex-
pense of printing and registering the newbonds and
many incidentals will be very heavy. The objec-
tion to loans payable in florins, francs, and pounds
sterling, and to agencies in Europe, would be good
if it was a matter of increasing instead of decreas-
ing the charge to the country :

" The debt is there—we honestly owe it ; we are not
ready to pay it ; and we want to fund it at a lower rate of
interest than we are now paying. It is but reasonable to
presume that many who are slow to buy a bond that they
cannot read, would readily purchase one that was print,cl
in their mother tongue, and of which the interest was
payable right at their own doors, instead of four thousand
miles away. We believe a 4f per cent. thus printed and thus
payable would ,be acceptable to many in preference to a
5 per cent. which they could not read, and of which the
coupons must be sent across the ocean for collection. If
so, is it not childish to refuse to print and reduce the an-
nual burden of our debt to a minimum ?"

The question is a mere business matter. The United
States form a community; that community owes a
heavy debt, which Mr. BOUTWELL has been selected
to manage. He proposes to borrow at a cheaper rate
than the community now pays,for the debt was incur-
red in time of great trouble, when the nation's pros
spects were gloomy, and its credit correspondingly
bad. In borrowing with a good security he na' urally
seeks the market where money-ii cheapest ; but to
make the bond th ere attractive he must make the in! e-
rest payable in the coin circulating among another
people and in their neight:ourhood, the cheapest mo-
ney market being in Europe, not in America. Two
objections arise—the one.on the score of the expense
which must be incurred in establishing agencies
for this payment in foreign cities; the other, on the
score of dignity, as well as the impolicy of recog-
nizing for American exchanges any city out of the
Union. Mr. BOUTWELL'S business is to accomplish
the work set him by the nation at the lowest cost
to the community, therefore if the argument of
expense held, it would be fatal to Senator SHER-
MAN'S proposition ; but, instead of being a matter of
expense, the clause is urged simply and solely on the
ground of economy ; and there never was a more
absurd instance than this, of the " penny wise and
pound foolish" practice. Uncle SAM'S dignity may
be touched in having, as some Americans say, his
bonds peddled about Europe; but the salve Mr. BOUT-
WELL offered is the material lightening of Uncle
SAM'S burden. The objection of expense is singu-
larly inappropriate, yet it is mainly that which is
dwelt upon, an d probably weighed so heavily with the
Senate as to induce the Chamber to strike out the
florins, francs, and pounds sterling clause. In so
doing our firm belief, as all along stated, is that
they have taken out the oyster and left the shell ;
they have taken out the painting and left the
frame ; that they have taken out the wine and left
the decanter. It may be looked at as a curiosity of
legislation, but it will attract no customers. As
the Tribune remarks, the very essence of the subject
is the rate of interest; and although Congress may
not see this, yet, reducing it, ought to be the great
work of the session. The Tribune deeply regrets
that there has ever been any talk of paying more
than four per cent. on American untaxable Con-
sols ; believing that one rate, with a solemn pledge
to pay at least $50,000,000 per annum till the debt
be reduced to $500,000,000, is the true policy, of
which there can be but little doubt, provided what
the Tribune adds be true. It says :—" There are
four houses in Europe that could place 500,000,000
of Forty-year Bonds for us at 4 per cent. if they
were really to try ; and they might be induced to
try." The bankers work for pay, and Mr. GREELEY
would rather pay them two per cent. thus to place
the amount than to have it placed for nothing at
five per cent., all printed in Yankee and payable
at the U. S. Treasury ; because the difference would
be twenty millions dollars per annum on the whole
debt, and that, with compound interest; would pay
it all off within fifty years. American legislators
so dread jobbery that they have a morbid objection
to the formation of new agencies and to opening
any additional means for enabling men to put their
hands into the Treasury ; and as a consequence it is
probable that the opportunity now offered for fund-
ing the debt upon lower terms will be lost. After
striking out the payment of the interest clause in
Europe, and substituting Sumner's Amendment,
the bill passed the Senate authorizing " the Secre-
tary of the Treasury to issue $1,200,000,000 in
bonds, the principal and interest to be payable in
coin and exempt from taxation, and the issue to
be inthree classes, as follows :—First, $400,000,000
bearing 5 per cent. interest, redeemable in from
10 to 40 years, and exchangeable at par for out-
standing Five-Twenties; secondly, $400,000,000
bearing 4i per cent. interest, redeemable in from
15 to 40 years, and exchangeable for any outstand-
ing obligations bearing higher interest in coin ;
and, lastly, $400,000,000 bearing 4 per cent. inte-
rest-, redeemable in from 20 to 40 years, and ex-
changeable at no less than par for any outstanding
obligations of the United States. The Secretary
of the Treasury is authorized to sell any bonds
issued under the provisions of this bill at par for
gold, and to apply the pr.ceeds to the redemption
at par of any outstanding bonds not offered by
holders for exchange. The bill also authorizes the

Secretary of the Treasury to pay agents here and
abroad / per cent. to negotiate the bonds, and
gives to the Secretary a discretionary power to in-
crease the 4 per cent. issue, provided no increase of
the aggregate national debt should be caused there-
by." Afterwards it went before the House Com-
mittee on Ways and Means, and we expect to hear
more of it before going to press ; but the general
belief is, that it will be modified or defeated by
the Representatives. Touching the matter of dignity,
we ask, which is the more dignified course—to hold
out to the bondholders, a threat of repudiation as
the inducement to change into bonds bearing a
lower interest, or to offer instead of his diminished
interest a boon he values. To us the former course
bears the stamp of "peddling ;" indeed, we might
qualify it by a harsher name; and it is not the new
bonds that are bastard,but the Five-Twenties,about
whose birth such a question could be raised. The
wisest policy is that of honesty, and much more is it
wise in a nation than in an individual, for the brief
span of the latter may not enable him to enjoy the
fruits of the character he has earned, while with
the other the return is certain. We maintain the❑
that both on the score of dignity and of policy that
the Tribune's Washington correspondent is in error,
while on economy his argument is little less than
absurd. It is natural that Americans should not
fully appreciate the value to Europeans of receiving
the interest on the bonds in their own currency, and
at home. If they did, it is scarcely possible that they
would have expunged this clause from SHERMAN'S
Bill. Even in London (where, if there be a city in
Eurore which ought to understand all about Five-
twenty Bonds), the ignorance islittle less than incre-
dible to Americans. They would,however, better ap-
preciate the position if they could keep promi-
nently in their minds the facts that their Bonds are
comparatively new; payable in a country on the other
side of the Atlantic ; in a foreign coin estimated at

a fictitious valuation, imparting to the fluctuat-
ing exchange a difficulty in calculation which is be-
yond the arithmetic of the average European. When
a person is transacting a business wherein he feels
wholly at the mercy of another, he either has con-
fidence in the man with whom he deals, or he goes
away with the disagreeable impression that he is pay-
ing heavily for his ignorance. Added to the difficul-
ties of comprehending American finance is the dif-
ferentia between the currency of the coun'ry and
golf, which is the currency of the world. When
an English investor is recommended to turn his
attention to Five-Twenty Bonds he is launched
into a sea of uncertainties, and if he had a U.S.
Senator to whom he could put questions on th. 3
subject, he would enlighten the mind of that digni-
tary by giving him an idea not only what the depth
of the ignorance is, but of the difficulty of expla-
nation. One simple method was open : to make
the Bonds payable either in London, Paris, Frank-
fort, or Berlin in the currency of those cities.
They would then there assume a new and far
higher value ; and as these are the marts from which
the means must come to enable the United Stats
to make the exchange desired, the obvious policy
is to enhance the Bonds in the places whence the
greatest benefit to the U.S. Treasury can be ex -
tracted. The truth of what we advance will probably
s)on be f&t by Mr. BOUTWELL, should the bill as
amencitd in the Senate be passed by the House
and become law.

Mr. Dawes was welcomed on the Ist March at
his home in Massachusetts, on his way back from New
Hampshire, with great warmth by his fellow-citizens.
In response, Mr. Dawes said that it was of value to a
public man, earnestly striving to serve his country, to
receive such assurances of public confidence. Hs repeated
what he had said in New Hampshire, that there was no
division among those charged with the management of
national affairs. Never, during his participation in the
public councils, had all the departments been in such per-
fect accord ; all are united in the determination that not a
dollar of the money contributed by the taxes of the people
to the Treasury shall be misappropriated. Many others
would have taken like steps as he had they possessed the
same information, and when the facts were brought to light
the majority united to correct the errors exposed.
The folowing nominations were sent to the
Senate on the 4th inst.:—James W. Mason of Arkansas
to be Minister Resident and Consul General to Liberia;
George H. Butler of California to bo Consul at Alexandria,
Egypt; Almon A. Thompson of Michigan to be Consul at
God( rich ; P. P. Meigs of Tennessee to be Consul at Mon-
terfden ; James Riley Weaver of West Virginia to be Con-
sul at Antwerp; David J. Williamson of California to be
Consul at Callao. 'file first, Mr. Mason, is a mulatto, a
native of Arkansas, but a gentleman of high attainments,
who has run a singular career. He graduated in an Ohio
College, whence be proceeded to a Paris school, and, after
there studying, enlisted in the French army. He served
throughout the Crimean war, and so distinguished himself
as to reach the grade of Lieut.-Colonel. He declined for good
reasons the appointment of Judge of the Court at Cape Town,
and now, backed by Senator M'Donald, he has been nomi-
nated Minister Resident to Liberia. Charles H. Lewis of
Virginia has been nominated Minister Resident to Por-
tugal, and if he does not reject it, that post will at
last be filled. Thomas K. Ring of Rhode Island has
been confirmed as Consul at Cork; and Thos. F. W ilson
Consul at Metarnores. Wo are glad to see that Commo-
dore John A. Winslow has been promoted Rear-Admiral,
and, as we all along anticipated, General Sickles has been
confirmed as Minister to Madrid, the vote in the Senate
being 45 against 13, a very large majority.
American despatches state that the body of the
late Hon. Anson Burlingame will be taken charge of by
Mr. Curtin, the American Minister, and the members of
the Chinese mission, who will see to the embalming of the
remains. The body will lie in state at the American Le-
gation, in St. Petersburg, for the proper time, and will
then be sent to the United States, in charge of the repre-
sentatives of the United States and China. The cause of
Mr. Burlingame's death was a severe cold, upon which a
congestive chill supervened, terminating his life in a few
days. The negotiations with the Czar will be continued
by the Chinese Embassy, and when completed the diplo-
matists will return to China.

The American frigate Sabine has left Naples for
Gibraltar, whence she will proceed home, being expected
in America by July. Capt. Walker and the officers gave an
entertainment before her departure. The flagship Franklin,
A dmiral Radford, now at Spezzia, is expected at Naples
towards the end of the month. The Supreme Court of
the District of Columbia gave on March 1 a decision in the
Farragut cases. The first, for bounty money for destroy-
ing rebel vessels at New Orleans in April, 1862, was dis-
missed for want of jurisdiction. The second was for prize
money for capturing vessels at the same time, and in this
Case it was held that the suit was not correctly brought,
and leave was given to amend so as to bring it iu the name
of the Government, as required by law.
In the Southern parts of Arizona the Indians are
in large numbers on the war path. They had attacked a
mail train en route from Apache Pass to Tucson, but the
driver and the escort escaped. It was reported that Salt
Lake Settlement had been attacked and all the cattle cap-
tured. It is Southern Arizona to which Brigham Young
looks for the site of the New Zion, and it is stated that he,
with several of the leading Mormons, bas left the new
Jerusalem for a newer, if he can hit on a suitable tract.
How he will get on with the Apaches, the savages so well
be
described by Dr. Bell in his New Tracks, remains to
naammonergitithaet
mseoesnt;
bbluotodiftbthirestMy Mormons u
Indians
ocfa
theliCveonitninepneta,coe
least, can never afterwards be denied them. General
Cullom's anti polygamy bill is said to have caused the
design of moving, though there is little chance that it will
be adopted by the Legislature.
BUDGET OF MISCELLANEOUS.—IIaryard has a
coloured female law student.—The opponents of capital
puuishment in New York are said to be trying to recon-
cile the hanging of Reynolds with their ideas on the
subject.— The line of vessels between Stettin and Now
York, which has so long been contemplated, will com-
mence running early nes t month. This will be a
great boon to emigrants from Posen, East Prussia,
&e., as the land journey will, be greatly shortened,
and the fares less than from Bremen and Hamburgh.—
The Hamburgh Borsenhalle confirms the news that the
directors of the Hamburgh American Steam Packet Com-
pany have resolved on the establishment of a line of steam-
ships between that city and the West Indies, and will
make proposals to this effect at the next general meeting of
the shareholders. Nothing has as yet been settled re-
garding the proportions of the undertaking and the insane
of raising the nee ssary capital. —Mr Inman has denied
tha report—malicious it might really be termed—that the
City of Boston was overladen ; the vessel had on board but
200 tons of wheat packed in bags. The ship Golden Gate,
Captain Swinton, arrived at San Francisco Feb. 27, from
Liverpool, which port she left on the 18th of November,
making the trip in 100 days, the quickest time on record.