The Sun.
London, England, 1856-01-14 00:00:00

Spirit of the Public Journals.

(Prom tite Times of this day.)
We conclude that the steamer now due from the
United States will at last bring the result of the
contest for the Speakership, and we venture, in
no unfriendly spirit towards our Transatlantic
brethren, to make the following observations on the
protracted election for that important office. The
newly-elected Congress of the United States met
on the 4th of December, at a period when, if we
are to believe their press, their orators, their
Attorney-General, the dearest interests of the
country require prompt counsel and vigorous action.
The overbearing insolence of England, it is said,
longs to find an excuse for intermeddling in the
affairs of the Republic, and, after having commit-
ted the inexpiable offence of setting up the pursuits
of regular warfare as rivals in the eyes of New York
Roughs and Rowdies to the more popular pursuits
of piracy and bucaniering, the British Government
cannot be brought to a proper sense of its crime, or
to a state of more than superficial penitence. Then
there is the present alarming state of Kansas, where
the late Congress, which designedly left it a, a
battle-field between Slaveholders and Abolitionists,
seems very likely to be taken at its word by the
occurrence of some tremendous combat or some
dreadful massacre. The crisis is urgent, the dan-
ger is pressing every day, news is expected of the
commencement of the first civil war of the Ameri-
can Republic, and nothing but the most prompt and
energetic intervention of the central power can, it
is said, avert so lamentable a catastrophe. This was
the state of things on the 4th of December, when the
new Congress ntet, to deliberate as was generally sup-
posed, on the affairs of the nation, and to apply by
wise and energetic counsel a remedy to the pec-
cant humours of the body politic. Unhappily,
however, before this remedy could be applied there
was one thing to be done, and that one thing was
just the one thing which the united wisdom of the
whole of Congress could not effect. It did not
seem so very difficult either. Greater obstacles
have been overcome in the annals of representative
government than that which has neutralised so
effectually the House of Representatives. For
three weeks they have done nothing except quarrel
among themselves, but have not been able to pro-
ceed to business. The obstacle was the election of
a Speaker. Speakerless Congress was on the 4th
of December, and Speakerless it remained on the
26th. Time after time has this weighty question
been put to the vote, and time after time has the
clerk of the house announced that there is no elec-
tion. The difficulty does not proceed from any ob-
stacles thrown in the way of a decision by the forms
and rules of the house. In this, as in so many
()flier cases, the institutions of the United States
are better than the spirit in which they are worked.
All that the rules of the house require is that the
Speaker be elected by the majority of the mem-
bers present, and it is with this plain and simple
requisition that Congress has for upwards of three
weeks been unable to comply. There are several
candidates, of whom the chief are Mr. Banks, Mr.
Richardson, and Mr. Fuller. The first on the list
has 106, the last not ten votes. The New Metro-
politan Board of Works had a much more difficult
problem to solve the other day, and, had they
gone upon Congressional principles, might have
spent their whole lives in an attempt to solve it ;
but they got rid of it at once by taking a series
of divisions, and striking out the lowest candi-
date on the list, so that at last the numbers
were reduced to a point at which one candi-
date obtained a clear majority. What was to
prevent Congress, if it really wished, as it certainly
ought to have wished, to go to work at once, from
striking out the lowest candidate on the list on the
first division, then aradually ascending to Mr.
Fuller, and at last deciding between Mr. Banks
and Mr. Richardson ? Greater things have been
done with far less inducement and necessity for
doing them.
Meanwhile the Presidential Message is waiting
the termination of this endless election in order to
see the light. The President must suffer Inuch
from the re. entering of such a mass of matter into
his system, and long fervently for a deliverance.
The document is, moreover, by no means easy to
ke©p ; a thousand greedy hands are stretched out
for it—a thousand prying eyes long to peep into its
mysteries. No griffin was ever harder put to it to
guard its gold from the Arimaspian—no plover
ever laboured harder to decoy the spoiler from its
nest—than does the President to keep his uneasy
secret, and reserve the publication of his own Mes-
sage for his own lips. And this is not the worst of
it., Congress stands still, but the world does not.
From the 4th to the 26th of December is but a
brief period to representatives living at the public
expense in the ease and comfort of the capital ; but
when civil war is to be checked, piracy put down,
and ticklish foreign relations regulated, three weeks
are in themselves an age. A Message fit to have
been delivered on the 4th of December must re-
quire considerable change on the 26th, and tine poor
President must be perplexed with endless touching
and retouching. There is nothing in the rules of the
House ofOonamons to prevent such an occurrence as
this from happening, not only at the commencement
of every Parliament, but of every session, and, if
nothing of the kind has ever occurred in England,
it should lead our American brethren to consider
how far they can expect benefit from institutions,
unless they take along with them the spirit in
which they have been uniformly and successfully
worked. The matter may appear to some as trivial,
but we view in it a symptom of that disorder which,
we fear, is rapidly gaining ground in the United
States,—the uncontrolled supremacy of mere will,
and the indisposition to submit it to law and order.
Rather than appeal to comprise or conciliation,
the citizens of Kansas are sharpening the sword for
civil strife ; rather than waive the power they pos-
sess of obstructing the success of a more powerful
party, the minority in Congress doggedly obstruct
public business, careless of the serious injury they
are doing to the interests and reputation of their
country. That respect for the opinions of the ma-
jority which influence so strongly American society
in private disappears in the House of Representa-
tives, where it might most fittingly prevail, and
the result is the unseemly exhibition on which we
have just been commenting. For ourselves, as
Englishmen, we have no reason to complain of the
delay, even if it should extend to a much greater
length than at present seems probable. Every
week of delay gives time for the popular excite-
ment which has been so sedulously got up against
this country to subside, and gives the President at
any rate the opportunity, if he will but avail him-
self of it, of reconsidering any harsh expression
which he may have inserted into his Message in the
transports of virtuous indignation and the agonies
of au anticipated election. Moreover, we feel per-
fectly satisfied that, had the Congress been disposed
to secon 1 the press of America-in picking a quarrel
with us, they would hardly have suffered them-
selves to be delayed by an obstacle so trivial. ,

TESTIMONIAL TO MR. J. BUCKSTONL

We learn from the Sunday Times, that on New
Year's Day, the 665th day of Mr. Buckstone 's
season at the Haymarket, a handsome service of
plate was presented to him by the members of his
company. To a letter from Mr. Chippendale, ac-
companying the plate, Mr. Buckstone promptly
replied as follows:
"Theatre Royal, Haymarket, Jan. 1, 1856.
" My dear Chippendale —I this morning unexpectedly
saw on
my
tometab Ines
a handsomethnteswveyreyarai
ft by every person en-
gaged present of plate
presented
gaged in this theatre. I am the more gratified by the
offering, because it is given by every one employed here,
and while it records the fact of the let January, 1856:
being the 665th night of the present Haymarket season,
I feel it to be any duty, in acknowledging the gift, to
admit that the accomplishment of the event it celebrates
is mainly due to the devotion evinced towards the man-
afzemeut by every one, without exception, belonging to
the Haymarket Theatre.
"In the midst of war, pestilence, hot weather, and
great competition, the present season has been thus pro-
longed, and as it is still proceeding, I am happy to say
the existing prospects of the theatre do not indicate any
necessity for bringing the season to a close for many
months to come—a circumstance which I feel great
pride and pleasure in stating, because my chief anxiety
has always been to sustain the old renown and foremost
position of the Haymarket Theatre, and, at the same
time, ever using my best endeavour to make everybody
employed in it happy and contented.
"Convey this acknowledgment, my dear Chippendale,
to all concerned in this kind and graceful token of
esteem, and to whom I wish, one and all, A happy and
prosperous new year. At the Fame time, believe me,
faithfully and cordially your?,
JOHN B. BIICKEITONI."

CRYSTAL PALACE.—FIVE SHILLING DAY, Saturday,
Jan. 12, 1856.—Admissions on payment, 57 ; ditto by
season tickets, 749. Total visitors, 806.
GUN-BOATS AND MORTAR-VESSELS AT LIVERPOOL.—
The following are the names of the 14 wooden gun-boats
which are being built at the yards of Mr. J. Laird, Bir-
kenhead and Liverpool:—Ten gun-boats of 233 tons
each—Beacon, Brave, Blazer, Brazen, Bullfinch, Red •
breast, Rainbow, Rocket, Rose, and Raven. Four
gun-boats of 211 tons each—Blossom, Gadfly, Gnat, and
Garland. Mr. Laird is also building 15 iron mortar-
vessels on the same plan as the one built at his Liver-
pool yard, and successfully tested at Portsmouth a
few days ago. During the past year Mr. Laird
has launched about 20 vessels of an aggregate tonnage
of upwards of 20,000 tons, including her Majesty's
troop-ships Resolute and Assistance, 1,900 tone each,
two ships of 1,800 tons each, four of 1,700 tons each,
three of 1,200, and one of 1,000 tons. Messrs. W. and
C. Miller, Liverpool shipbuilders, are constructing four
wooden gun-boats for the Admiralty, of a similar class
to Ulm building by Mr. Laird.