The Sun.
London, England, 1856-09-02 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONIAWN TUESIWI- 14:VE' - G SEPTEMIIER 2, 1850.

be employed in aid of the enforcement of the enact-
ments of the alleged Legislative Assembly of the ter-
ritory of Kansas, recently assembled at Shawnee Mis-
sion, until Congress shall have enacted either that it
was or was not a valid Legislative Assembly, chosen in
cot fortuity with the organic law by the people of the
said terrrtory. And provided that, until Congress shall
have pessed on the validity of the said Legislative As-
serribly7at Kansas, it shall 139 the duty of the President
to use the military force in the said territory to pre-
serve the peace, suppress insurrection, repel invasion,
and protect persons and property therein, and upon tb.e
national highways in the state of Missouri from unlawiul
seizures and searches. And he it further provided that
the President be required to disarm the present organised
militia of the territory of Kansa4, and recall all the
United States arms therein distributed, and to prevent
armed men from going into said territory to disturb the
public peace, or aid in the enforcement or resistance of
real or pretended laws."

This was rejected by the Senate, but the
House of Representatives, as tenacious of
their rights and privileges as the English
Commons would be in a similar case,
steadily refused to accept the mutilated bill. In
vain were Conferences held—the representatives,
faithful to the important trust confided to their
charge, felt that it would be an abdication of
their functions to surrender. The session there-
fore closed without any vote on the Army
Appropriation Clause, and there is at this mo-
ment, or rather was at the date of the last
intelligence, no legal military force in
the United States. General PIERCE has
therefore resorted to the extraordinary privilege
of again convening Congress within three days
after the termination of their former labours. We
trust that those who have hitherto acted so well
will display similar resolution to the end. A
great principle is at stake—a principle on which
mainly depends the future fate of the Federal Re-
public. Should it unfortunately turn out other-
wise, our Transatlantic brethren can no longer
boast of their model constitution, but will prac-
tically be placed under a despotism of the worst
description—one which, under the mask of liberty,
completely sets aside the wishes and aspirations
of a large majority of the people.

That Slaveholders should resent the interference
of our Press with American " domestic' politics
is not surprising, since there is but one point in
them which Englishmen and those who write for
Englishmen care at all about, and that is just the
" domestic institution ;" but that Americans gene-
rally should feel at all aggrieved by our strongest
language on that subject is unreasonable. Every
liberal, every philanthropist, and, of course, every
advocate of thoroughly free institutions has a
stake in the question of American consistency.
We in the Old World, who form the advanced
liberal phalanx, are for ever taunted with Ameri-
can slavery. Monarchical and aristocratical in-
stitutions, and Roman Catholic nations, and
nations with Established Churches, have all freed
themselves from the taint of personal slavery, and
we aro bid to look at the contrast where liberal
principles have the fullest swing. No explana-
tions or arguments avail against the broad fact of
the unparalleled despotism of the 350,000 slave-
holders over 27,000,000 of their fellow-country-
men ; that is an aristocracy and a despotism infi-
nitely more oppressive and odious than anything
in Europe ; and hence " see what tyrants your

republicans are"—is the answer which we got for
advocating the ballot, or representative reform, or
any measure of political liberty. Those who
venture to hint that a clergy paid by their con-
gregation are the best servants or the people, are
bid to look at the great body of American clergy-
men, who, with the exception of a few proscribed
"heterodox," are almost to a man pro-slavery
preachers. Indeed it must be confessed that the
moral degradation of the American clergy is, to a
reflecting man, the most appalling fact of the
case. Here, in Europe, the clergy were the first

emancipators of slaves, and the foremost to prose
it on the consciences of laymen. In America
pew-rents are but retaining fees to pulpit counsel

for slaveholders. It is not the crime of one reli-
gious sect or another; the great majority of the
clergy of every denomination prostitute the Bible
itself in support of slavery. Americans cannot,
therefore, be reasonably annoyed at the painful
interest felt by all the friends of civil and religious
liberty in the great domestic battle 130 ff raging
amongst them, and at our taking the side of the
consistent republicans among theca.
There was a good joke in vogue lately, that Sir
G. C. LEWIS had contributed 100,000 dollars

towards the election of an anti-slavery candidate ;
but we are confident that ten or twenty times that
sum would be readily subscribed by Englishmen
if it would aid in peacefully, subverting the
abominable institution of American slavery. We
believe even Mr. JOHN BRIGHT and the Manches-
ter cotton-spinners would contribute handsomely
if they could do so without affronting the New
York cotton merchants. T:lere does appear to be
some hope that the North is at length aroused to
the assertion of its own liberties and rights, after
having tamely succumbed to the South and
Slavery for so many d.isgracel'ul years. As Miss
AIARTINEAU has shown in her lucid and instruc-

tive little pamphlet,* the whole course of A-nari-
can policy from the first euphemisms in the slave
clauses of -die Declaration of Independence, o
the present day, has been a history of compro-
mises with the slave power—compromises always
made to serve a present gain to that power, but
always broken as soon as that purpose was served.
A review of the 'simple facts of Southern over-
reaching and northern subserviency must be
enough to make any New-England man blush, or
rather to exasperate him with the past and to
arouse him to use his vast power for the future.
The fatal series of compromites began with that
blot on the much-lauded Declaration of
Independence, which makes the vote of a
single slaveholder, with ono hundred slaves,
equal in returning members to Congress
with the votes of sixty•one New-England men !
What boroughmongering at Old Sarum or Castle
Rising came up to this; yet we in England have
got rid of our burgess tenure voters. This clause
in a deed which declares all men " born free and
equal," laid the foundation of the present slave
empire in the United States. Had the votes been
,apportionedi to the number of the whites only
slavery would by this time have been extinct.
The next great compromise, known by the
name of the Missouri Compromise, in 1820,
again gave the predominance to the slave power,
'rider guise of excluding it from all territory
north of 36 (leg. 30 min. north latitude, compre-
hending the territory of Nebraska and Kansas.
Then came the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850,
chiefly as the price of admitting California into
the Union as a free State, and abolishing the slave
market at 'Washington. The last great act of the
slave power, with slavery fanatic PIERCE as Pre
sident, was not a compromise, but the repeal o
the Free States' share of the Missouri compromise
of 1820. The Nebraska Bill of 1854, which re-
pealed the prohibition of the extension of slavery
to the north-west, on which condition alone Mis-
souri was admitted as a Slave Skate ! But now
the fight has, we hope, begun in good earnest.
Thrown upon their own energy to introduce
Kansas as a Free State into the Union, and to
SAVO the North from further pollution by slavery,
the free emigrants from the North rapidly settled

* A History of the American Comprorninee, pp. N.
Chapman, and eon,

in the new territory. Their numbers and rights
were undoubted ;—how the pro•slavery men by
mere violent irruption, on the days of election,
subverted all the rights of the settlers ; how they
were aided by the traitor President ; and how
ruffianism, plunder, arson, and murder have pol-
luted this fair territory in the attempt to pollute
it for ever with Southern slavery, is known to
every reader.

To his exposure of these last deeds of Slave-
holding and Presidential violence is due the out-
rage on Mr. SUMNER. His speech, at full length,
appended to a rep►int of the admirable Review of
"Uncle Tom's Cabin" in the Edinburgh, with
several other documentst, now lies before us, and
is well worthy the perusal of all interested (and
who is not?) in the horrible tale of Slaveholding
outrages in Kansas, and the disgraceful attack on
the eloquent defender of violated territory. Mr.
SUMNER inveighs, with American vehemence,
against the advocates of slavery in the Senate
in their public character, against the Slave States,
and against, above all, the unheard-of violence
perpetrated by the slaveholders' banditti in Kan-
sas ; but there is nothing which a man, with the
slightest regard for his character, would think of
chastising with any other weapon than counter
oratory, or, were it possible, by counter facts.
There is some hope that the Northern States will
now be aroused ; that enthusiasm for their own
representatives lives, their own northern terri-
tories, and their honour in the eyes of the whole
civilised world, will stir them up to what they
could make a very easy victory. There may be
two or three millions of white inhabitants in the
Slave States, and perhaps;twice as many negroes,
three-fifths of whom, though of course not voting,
are yet reckoned as population in respect to the
number of representatives allowed each State.
' Call the electoral population of the slave States
five millions; that of the free States is now not
less than seventeen millions, probably nearer
twenty 1 It is plain, therefore, that the guilt of
the Legislative triumphs of slavery lies entirely
with the Free States. They have but to unite,
and in the House of Representatives, in the Pre-
, sidential chair, and very soon in the Senate, they
must be overwhelmingly triumphant.
If the Free States review their historical posi-
tion it would seem impossible for them to remain
longer quiet. In a speech by Mr. RICHARD DANA
(author of "Two Years before the Mast"), printed
in the latter pamphlet referred to, he remarks—
" This oligarchy has governed the whole country
and governs it now with a sway of increasing de-
mands
and exactions. Of seventeen Presidential
elections, natives of Slave States have carried
thirteen, natives of Free States four. Of the life
of our Government, 49 years have been passed
under slave-holding chief magistrates, and 18
under non-slaveholders. They have always
had a majority in the Supreme Courts of
the United States. The population, the arts,
the sciences, commerce, inventions, copyrights,
manufactures, all are with the Free States,
yet the Slave States hold, and have always
held, the judiciary. They almost monopolised
the Army and Navy when appointments were
open. At this moment, though there are sixteen
Free States and fifteen Slave States, a majority
of the Senate are slaveholders. To make a long
story short, there never has been a question between
the slave power and the free power in which the
slave power has not triumphed. Can it be possi-
ble that the Free States will not, now the ques-
tion is fairly before them, decide it for the supre-
macy of population, intelligence, wealth, and,
above all, Republican liberty ? The issue is indeed
a high one. The eyes of all civilisation are
turned to this Presidential contest as they have
been to none of late. They see in the opposed
candidates, slavery, piracy, and war on one side;
liberty, fair trade, and peace on the other. Ame-
rica may now begin to regain the moral status of
her early days, or sink deeper than ever in the
eyes of all but Czars and their slaveholders.

t American Slavery, &c., &c. Longmans, p. 164.

The Stethoscopeme, periodicallfployed for the
examination of the dread disease ever working at
the national heart—crime !—is the remarkable
Annual Report compiled by the Surveyor-General
of our Convict Prisons, and presented in the form
of a compact Blue-Book, session after session,
"By Command of her Majesty," to both Rouses
of the Imperial Parliament. Col. JERB has never
more fully, than in the Eighth Rep3rt% just given
to the public, demonstrated to the apprehension
of the most captious—demonstrated beyond the
reach of cavil—demonstrated, let U 3 say at once,
completely and definitively, his singular, and, in
some respects, unequalled aptitude for organisa-
tion. Guided by his unerring sagacity, the dar-

ins system inaugurated but two or three years
since appears to have already attained a very
advanced stage in its development-4F, indeed,
there has not, even now, been reached the per-
fected operation of the Act 16 and 17 VICT., cap.
99, the memorable statute by which Penal Servi-
tude was, as it were, by a single stroke of the
pm—La Reine le vent—substituted for transporta-
tion. Scarcely three years have elapsed since this
extraordinary change in the whole machinery of
the Criminal Code of the British Empire was
adventured upon—a transformation originally
effected, in truth, as recently as the autumn of
1853—and already Col. JEBB may be regarded
as having mastered the principal difficulties in
the way of this most novel scheme of criminal
jurisprudence. Gathering up the reins in one
vigorous grasp, but handling each with a most
delicate sense of responsibility, and with an ex-
quisitely cautious and prudential regard to the
exigencies of the situation, Colonel JEBB may
be considered to have already got the system well
"under"—winning his way, as he has advanced
steadily onwards, by the light of experience, and
gaining "golden opinions'' at once from an ob-
servant people and an appreciative administration.
Encomiums such as these are high, no doubt,
when employed, as they are now, in re-
ference to one occupying the very deli-
cate and difficult position, at one and the
same time, of Surveyor-General of Prisons and of
Chairman of the Board of Directors of our huge
and complex Convict Establishments. Yet they
merely involve a tribute of praise to which
-Colonel JEBB in that twofold capacity has now
long since been proving himself, more and more
conspicuously year after year, to be eminently
well entitled. He, at least, is one of those rarest
of all rare exceptions--" The Right Man in the
Right Place." He at any rate is Master of the
Situation. His is by no means a mind elated at
the ingenious discovery of How Not To Do It.
His is in no one particular an office connected,
directly or in indirectly, with the grand central
office known by the significant name, style,
and title of Circumlocution. Ecce signum—
if no other-where or otherwise—this Eighth
Report on the Discipline of the Convict Hulks
and Prisons—at Woolwich, at Portsmouth, at Park-
hurst, at Millbank, at Dartmoor, at Portland, at
Pentonville ! A Report extending over 363 pages

* " Report on the Discipline of the Convict Prisons,
&C., 1854-1855." By Col. Jebb, C.D. &c., &o. Pp. 368,
Bro, EyreandSpottiswoode, 1806.

large octavo, including a very copious and sin•
gularly readable Appendix, gathering together as
it were in a single focus a mass of authoritative
opinions illustrative of the relative advantages
and disadvantages of Penal Servitude and Trans-
portation. Opinions collected indiscriminately
from regions as remote from each other as France
and the United States, as Germany and Tasmania
—opinions as variously entitled to consid qution
as those expressed by such men as MM. BEREN-
GER, and PERROT, and VIDAL, and DUCPETIAUX.
Descending to a more detailed examination of
the important statistics compressed within the
compass of this really remarkable Blue-Thok—
we are at once arrested by the fact that it is no-
thing less than an army of criminals that we have
to deal with annually—the male convicts alone in
the United Kingdom numbering, in 1854, as
manyaslo,o96, and having increased numerically,
in 1855, to no less an aggregate than 10,543 1
Nevertheless, in the very teeth of this stubborn
fact, it is consolatory to know that crime has given
tokens, unmistakeable and appreciable tokens, of
diminution recently, contrasting the annual num-
ber of criminals with the yearly increase of the
population. Corroborative of the accuracy of
which assertion comes under our notice in this
Eighth Report of the Surveyor-General of Pri-
sons, the significant circumstance that the
maximum of prisoners has nowhere been attained
in any one of our large convict establishments.
For example, while at Portland there is
accommodation for 1,526, there have bean
upon an average but 1,050 in confinement. At
Portsmouth, with accommodation for 1,020, there
have been upon an average but 1,000 in confine-
ment. At Dartmoor, With room for 5'72, but
545 upon an average incarcerated. At the
Hulks, with room on board the " Defence" for
528, and en board the " Warrior" for 450, but
an average of 509 in the " Defence," and an
average of 438 in the " Warrior." And so
throughout the balance lying more or less
" upon the right side," with an unanimity in the
result in every way most satisfactory. A circum-
stance, as we have already intimated, very conso-
latory in its significance—more consolatory, be-
cause less frightfully so, than the fact alluded
to upon a recent occasion by the Noble
Lord the heir to the (now) Premier Earldom
of England, the terrible yet encouraging fact, that
the vast proportion of our criminal population
consists, both male and female, of children! Ma-
der all these evils, therefore, is still discernable—
Hope—hope that lay like a priceless jewel in the
old fabled hell-box of PANDORA. The youthful-
ness of our criminal population assures us that
much may be effected with a view to the yet fur-
ther diminution of crime amongst us by the spread
of education among the less cared-for sections of
the community, by means of the humane system
of the Reformatories. While the disproportion
between the numbers of our annual prisoners,
and the amount of accommodation actually pre-
pared for them, must satisfy even the least san-
guine that we have already within our grasp the
wherewithal for their instant and individual cor-
rection, with a view to their collective and gradu-
ated improvement. Coupled with which reflection
must again be here mentioned, very explicitly,
the encouraging remembrance that we have an
administrator as sagacious, and intelligent, and
cautious, and experienced as Colonel J. JEan,
C. 8., at the head of our vast Convict Establish-
ments.

We earnestly invite attention to two commu.
nications, which will be found in another par
of this day's impression, on the all-important

subject of the proper drying and management
of the cereal crops at harvest time. The real
ec protection" which farmers require is against
their own apathy and indifference. They will
teadily persevere in the old jog-trot course,
although by so doing they put money out of their
own pockets. Miss EDGEWORTH'S Grimes Good-
enough has many representatives in the present
generation. It is far easier to grumble than to

take active measures to amend the palpable evil.
There was a deep moral conveyed in the old fable,
in which HERCULES directed the waggoner to set his
own shoulder to the wheel, and it is one that should
be particularly regarded by the agricultural popu-
lation. At present every farmer is looking
to the state of the weather, and not merely
every farmer, but every pater families through-
out the length and breadth of the land.
It is indeed an important subject. The
profits of the one, Nand the application
of the earnings of the other, depend on the result.
But would it not be wise to become independent
of the vicissitudes of the weather, to be en-
abled to preserve the crops without re-
ference to the state of the atmosphere ?
We believe the resources of science to be illimi-
table, that " where there's a will, there's a way,"
and that all that is necessary is that the atten-
tion which its importance so eminently merits
be directed to the subject. If "ever, in our
fickle climate," the crops may be considered safe,
with due diligence, surely those who neglect
the obvious precautions have no right to complain
of any losses occasioned by their own apathy
and insouceance. Before they grumble at
the dispensations of PROVIDENCE, let them
be prepared to show that they have to the
best and utmost of their respective abili-
ties taken advantage of the opportunities
placed within their reach. When they have done
so, they will find no occasion to demand sympa-
thy. The result will prove the vast importance
of striking the nail on the headat the right time.

The Marquis of Dalhousie has greatly improved in
health since his return to Scotland, and is, with his
daughters, the Ladies Ramsay, making a tour of visits.
The Earl and Countess Delawarr and Lady Arabella
West paid a visit to Major-General Lord West, at Dover
last week, but have since returned to Buckhurst Park.
The Earl and Countess of Dartmouth paid a visit to
the family estates at Slaithwaite and Lingard, York-
shire, on Thursday last, and on arrival at the hall from
their seat in Staffordshire, were most joyously welcomed
by the tenantry.
Lord Campbell and the Hon. Miss Campbell arrived
at Inverlochny Lodge, Lord Abinger's seat in Inverness-
shire, on Thursday last, from the South. Lord and
Lady Abinger have a select family circle assembled at
their Highland residence.

The Earl Fitzhardinge left Berkeley House on Satur-
day last for his marine residence at Cowes, Isle of Wight,
The noble Earl has quite recovered from his recent
nesi.

The Duke and Duchess of Northumberland have been
staying at Alnwick Castle since their return from Scot-
land, and have not been at Keilder Castle, as erroneously
stated.

At the meeting of the Victoria (London) Dock Com-
pany, held last week, it was stated, in reply to an inquiry,
that several lots of the company's surplus land on the
south side of the dock had been let on long leases at the
price of V. 103. per lineal foot, with about 200 feet
depth. The land in question commands the use both of
the dock and the Blackwall Railway, and is highly valu-
able for the timber and other similar trades. These terms
are equivalent to a rent of 5601. per annum, and would
appear to give an enormous value to land which cost the
ompany a comparatively trifling sum a few years since.
INSOLVENT DEBTOES.—Between 28th July, 1853,
and 10th June, 1856, 2,301 petitioned the Insolvent
Debtors Court in London, under the provisions of the
let and 2d Vict. c. 110, of whom 2,132 filed schedules
and 169 did not ; 53 did not appear, 44 were dismissed,
1,643 were ordered to be discharged from prison forth-
with, 347 were subjected to various periods of imprison-
ment, and the total cases heard were 2,132. In the same
period the number of petitions under the Protection
Acts of 5 and 6 Vict., c. 116, and 7 and 8 Vict., c. 96,
was 2,688, and of those 2,275 were adjudicated upon at
second hearing.

THE WEATHER AND THE CROPS.

TO THE EDITOR Or THE SITIP.

Sta,—.A. word or two oa this fertile subject in your
invaluable journal may not be out of place at the present
time.

It is admitted, I believe, by all who are conversant
with the subject, that, owing to improved agriculture,
the lands of this country have within these few years
been made to produce more abundant crops than for-
merly ; and it is likewise granted that much more re-
mains to be done in this very desirable direction. Nor
have attempts bee, wanting, on the part of our ma-
chinists, to produce a machine that will rapidly and eco-
nomically reap our corn; bu I deeply regret to add,
t'.at very little attention has hitherto been turned to the
art of saving these immense crops, on which so much
labour and skill have been expended. On the contrary,
it is painful to observe that no effectual precautions have
heretofore been taken to provide against the effects of
our changeable climate,—which is the more surprising,
in this age of discoveries, because all men, both growers
and consumers, are deeply interested in this most impor-
tant matter.

"As sure as sunshine follows rain" has passed into
a proverb ; and it would be well if our farmers had the
converse Gf this axiom indelibly engraved on their me-
mory, and never for one moment forget that during
their corn-harvest, at least, "rain is sure to follow sun-
shine," and if continued a few days would destroy or
materially damage the farmers' hard-earned erop and a
nation's bread, left as it is by the present wretched sys-
tem, cut and exposed in the opan fields for many days,
thus leaving recklessly to hazard the bounteous harvest
which God in His great goodness has vouchsafed to us.
The true remedy for this great evil appears to me to
be, simply to place all kinds of grain into wind-mows
immediately after the sickle ; and this plan to be fol-
lowed invariably, wha'ever the weather may be at the
time of cutting ; the size and form of the wind-mows to
vary according to the dryness of the corn or the quantity
of weeds or grass with which it may be intermixed. I
am not a practical agriculturist ; but I cannot forbear
saying that one form of these wind mows seems admir-
ably adapted to secure the drying of the greenest corn.
It is this :—Place two hurdles in the form of an A, , nd
build the sheaves on two sides, with the ears inwards,
leaving the opening free, which secures a current of air
where most required ; and the roof or top of the mow
may be covered with the same, or a little reed, according
to taste.

Now, sir, if this very simple plan were universally
adopted in the British Isles, I have no hesitation in say-
ing that, eve', in our fickle climate, our harvests may be
considered safe in any year ; for thrre is always suffi-
cient fine weather for cutting—the only difficulty hitherto
has been to save the crops. I will only add that if
my bumble suggestions should prove of practical
value, I shall feel most amply rewarded.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Devonshire, Aug. 30,1856. COMMON SENSE.