The Sun.
London, England, 1870-11-29 00:00:00

the end of the train, and proceeded to see what had been
the cause, and what was the nature of the accident.
The first half-dozen carriages from the engines seemed
to have been only affected by the collision—for such
now the accident appeared beyond doubt to have been.
The first carriage was a complete smash. One man had
been caught by the thighs, and his legs wrenched from
his body. Some of the passengers in the second car-
Hap' appeared to be past all human relief also. Fortu- '
nately among the uninjured passengers were a couple
of medical gentlemen. The wounded were con-
veyed on stretchers to the Harrow station,
where their temporary wants were kindly attended
to by many of the rlidents of Harrow, who, on
hearing of the accident, came to the station and were
profuse in their offers and acts of benevolence. The dead
[ that couldlbe extricated from what remained of the
smashed carriages were laid upon one side of the line. I
made out six altogether. It was generally believed that
the driver of the first engine was killed 'instan-
taneously. The person cut in two in the first
carriage, the two in the second, another person who
had his head cut through, !tad a lady, made up
the hapless half-dozen. Our friends the two soldiers, who
had some short time before been so energetically discus-
sing the probability of England going to war with Rustia,
were among those who had to be taken on stretchers to the
Harrow station, in the waiting:room of which they were
accommodated as well as could be uader the circum-
stances. Altogether some fifty or so persons must
have been seriously injured.
The carriages of the express were intended for Liver-
pool, Holyhead, Manchester, and Birmingham.
The official account of the accident furnished by the
railway authorities says that the " real cause " was the
dense fog which prevailed in the neighbourhood of Harrow
a►t the time.

Dr. Diplock, the coroner for West Middlesex, opened
the inquiry respecting the deaths of the deceased, at
Harrow. They were identified as Henry Miller
Jeffryes (55), of Brighton ; George Bell (56), civil
engineer, Bolton ; Jane Bell, of Bolton ; J. H.
Jordan, merchant, Manchester; George Henry Smith (40),
auctioneer, Manchester; William Shelvey, engine driver;
James Campbell Rowley; solicitor, Ashton-under-Lyne.—
Mr. Cawkwell, the general manager of the line, gave
evidence as to finding the bodies, after which the inquiry
was adjourned to Wednesday next.

THE ALABAMA CLAIMS AND THE
CANADIANS.

The Nation, the most thoughtful and honest paper in
the United States, has some remarks on the Alabama
question in its latest phase, which may be accepted as a
fair. representation of American opinion among mode-
rate people. The gist of the article is as fol-
lows :—" Men who lost their ships during the
war learning that England is ready to pay " the
cash," some of them are not unnaturally anxious
to get `the cash' in." The Nation holds that there rests
on the United States Government an obligation of the
strongest kind, either to adjust and pay their claims at
once itself, and then take its own time to exact reim-
bursement from Great Britain, or to push the settlement
of their claims now with all ccnvenient speed. As to the
causes of the unwillingness of the Administration and of
a portion of the press to define the satisfaction which
Great Britain must give in order to close the Alabama
controversy, they are two in number. One, which prob-
ably only actuates a comparatively small number
of persons, is the desire of revenge. They ex-
pect that England will some day get involved in a Euro-
pean war, and that then the United States will have an
opportunity of paying her off in her own coin. With this
class, however, there is little use in arguing. The second
class consists of persons who hope that by holding out we
shall get Canada eventually in satisfaction of the Alabama
claims. In this class may be included Harper's Weekly
and Senator Trumbull, probably the two ablest and most
respectable supporters of the scheme. Senator Trumbull
has, in a recent speech in Chicago, set forth the unde-
niable advantages, political and economical, both to
the United States and to Canada, of the annexa-
tion of the latter. In fact, it is something which any-
body who knows anything of the circumstances of the
two countries must wish to see brought about ; but it is
precisely because the Nation wishes to see it brought
about, and that speedily, that it deprecates all advocacy
of it in America in connection with, and especially as a
penalty levied on England on account of, the Alabama
case. It ought not to be necessary to point out to any
man who has any familiarity with history, and has occu-
pied himself with politics, that the cession of territory is
regarded by all modern nations as a sign of defeat and
humiliation. It is something to which no first-class Power
ever submits, except in exchange for something else, or as
a terrible necessity imposed by irretrievable disaster in
war. In the frantic resistance offered to it by the French,
even in the throes of despair, we have a striking illustra-
tion of the horror with which it is regarded by the leading
nations of Europe. With the feelings of the French about
it, everybody who is capable of putting himself in other
people's place—and anybody who is not ought to let
politics, and especially foreign politics, alone —must sym-
pathize. Now, Great Britain has not been defeated in
war ; she is, therefore, though willinc, enough to pay
damages for the Alabama depredations, not' prepared to sub-
mit to the payment of a penalty, and especially of a penalty so
exceedingly humiliating as the surrender of territory. If,
Canada, therefore, be asked for as a penalty—that is, as
something to appease an angry enemy without any refe-
rence to its pecuniary relation to the wrong for which it
is expected to atone—it will, of course, at once bring into
play the national pride and divers other worse passions,
and then we may bid farewell for an indefinite period to
all hope of a settlement of any kind. There is,
however, one way in which the annexation of
Canada to the United States might be made
acceptable to England, and that is its being
demanded by the Canadians themselves. If the Cana -
dians called for a severance of the few remaining bonds
which unite them to Great Britain, their application
would be received by nine-tenths of the English public
with open or secret rejoicing, and at once be acceded to.
But it is just as safe to say that anneixation against
which the Canadians protested, men of all parties in Eng-
land, and more particularly the English Radicals, would
feel bound in honour to resist to the death. The delay in
framing and producing distinct grounds of settlement in
this controversy, and urging them persistently on England,
becomes more and more discreditable to the Government
mid the public the longer it lasts ; and what a proper
regard to the interests of individual sufferers, to the
dignity of the United States, and the interests of civilisa-
tion and justice calls for, has been well set forth by Dr.
Bluntschli, Lamely, compensation for all damage done
by cruisiers sailing from English ports, and the issue
of such a joint declaration touching neutral duties as shall
not only attest the illegality of the past course of Great
Britain in this war, brt settle the law for the future.