The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-24 00:00:00

CUSTOM-HOUSE, TUESDAY, DEC. 23.

ENTERED INwAßDS.—Oriental, from Madras, &c. ; Bee-
cher Stowe, Alexandria; James R. Keeler, New York;
Hastings, Madras ; Lady Bate, Jamaica ; Pearl, Quebec ;
Gen. Williams, Genoa, Leghorn, and Messina ; Baretto,
jun., Quebec ' Marianne, Dantsic; Enterprise, Mogadore ;
Lord Palmerston, Rangoon ; Mystery, New York; Elphin-
stone, Honduras; Zephyr, Umea.
ENTERED OUTWARDS.—EcIipse, for Cienfugos ; Pearl,
Quebec; Uncle Billy, Dunkirk; Dreadnought, Cape of
Good Hope ; James R. Keeler, New York ; Oriental,
Hobart Town ; Premier, Demerara ; Royal Charles, Ade-
laide ; Admiral, Rotterdam ; Ino, Antwerp; Vicar of
Bray, Valparaiso.

CLiAR 6 OUT WITH CARGO.—Herzog Paul, for Mel-
bourne.

The German customs conference which had sat
at Eisenach from the 15th July to the 12th Octo-
ber, and from that date to the 17th December,
closed its session on the last-named day.
PRIVATICERING.—Accompanying the President's Mes-
sage is a letter from the Russian charge d'affaires at
Washington, in which he says :—" His Majesty the Em-
peror accepts, for his part, the conditions under which
the United States consent to the abolition of privateer-
ing, viz., that the private property of the subjects and
citizens of the contracting parties shall, in times of war,
be respected by their respective naval forces, as well as
by those of all the powers which may join in this decla-
ration.—New York Journal of Commerce.

MR. ERNEST JONES ON THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION.—
Last night Mr. Ernest Jones gave his second political
soiree, at St. Martin's-hall, Long-acre. As on the previ-
ous occasion, the political portion of the entertainment
was preceded by a concert, of which it is impossible to
speak but in terms of just admiration. Mr. Jones's own
address commenced with the praise of that portion of
the press which was liberal enough to open its columns
to the reports of his lectures, and the condemnation of
those papers which, as he alleged, misrepresented
them. He then went into an arithmetical calcula-
tion to show that every labouring man in the country
ought to have at least 1451. per annum. This, in Mr.
Jones's opinion, is to be accomplished by the simple
process of doing away with a territorial aristocracy,
with the Established Church, with the factory owners,
and with royalty itself. The address, which was delivered
with a good deal of oratorical effect, was enthusiastically
received by his unthinking audience.
..._

THE GREAT CENTRAL AND THE CITY GAS COMPANIES.
—An adjourned meeting of the shareholders of the
Great Central Gas Consumers' Company was held at the
I,)ndon Tavern last evening, to resume the discus.
sion of a project for effecting an amalgamation with
the City Gas Company. Mr. Dakin, the chairman,
moved a resolution committing the meeting to an ap-
proval of the amalgamation upon the terms laid before
the first meeting, but referring the matter back to the
board that it might in investigate the state of the City
Gas Co.'s plant, and make other preliminary inquiries.
The motion having been seconded by Mr. Virtue, a long
and animated discussion ensued, in the course of
which Mr. Bennoch (a director) strongly condemned
the proposed amalgamation, characterising it as a whole-
sale sacrifice of the property of the younger company,
whose plant was perfect,while that of its old and almost
effete rival was in the last stage of decay. Amid the
general applause of the meeting, Mr. Bennoch proposed
an amendment declaring the principle of taking the
gross income of the City Gas Company as a basis of
calculation, without regard to net profits, to be utterly
fallacious. The amendment was carried without a
dissentient voice.
WHY SAILORS DESERT FROM AMERICAN SIIIPS.--The
desertion of seamen from American merchant ships la
foreign ports has latterly, we regret to say, become an
event of frequent occurrence. Last summer a rather
remarkable case of this kind took place in England.
Several sailors who bad contracted on American soil for
the voyage out and back, absconded from their vessels
at North Shields, in the river Tyne, and thus violated the
engagements to which they had voluntarily become par-
ties, in this, their native, or adopted country. When the
details of this case first reached us we could perceive no
valid excuse for such conduct on the part of the abscond-
ing seaman, and at once denounced it as unjustifiable and
criminal—nay, we went so far on that occasion as even
to cry out fora remedy for an evil which appeared equally
injurious to the interests of our shipowners and our com-
merce. In this particular instance the conduct of the
sailors was probably what we described it ; but our sub-
sequent experience in cases of a similar class has led us
t ► the conclusion that oppression on the part of ship
captains and their subord►nate officers too often con-
strains seamen to abscond from their vessels and violate
their engagements. The Liverpool correspondent of the
London Times, in a recent communication, reports
shameful things of some officers of American merchant
ships that have visited that port. Outrages by officers
of United States' vessels, as well on the high seas as in
the Mersey, are, according to him, of common occur-
rence. Seamen, he assures, are not unfrequently seen
to jump into the river on the arrival of our ships, that
they may swim ashore and escape the brutality of our
mates. Nor is this the worst. Numerous cases are
admitted into the hospital in which men have been
beaten, he asserts, " within an inch of their lives ;"
while for several days before the communication in
question was penned Mr. Mansfield, the stipendiary
magistrate of Liverpool, bad been engaged in the in-
vestigation of chr.rges against three of the mates of
the American ship Ocean Monarch, and bearing evi-
dence which disclosed a series of atrocities of the most
dreadful and disgusting nature. The result of this in-
vestigation was that the three officers were found guilty,
and fined in proportion to their respective criminality.
Now, these cases reveal a state of things which is not
less discreditable to our national character than injuri-
ous to the interests of our commercial marine. Of course,
such disgraceful conduct is far, very far from being
characteristic of the officers of our mercantile navy as
a class. But there can be no question that it is too ex•
tensively prevalent among them, and that in every case
where it exists it not only induces desertion on the part
of our seamen, but renders desertion under such circum,
stances justifiable and excusable. Let there be only less
of tyranny and brutality on the part of our efficers, and
they may depend on it that there will be less desertion,
and more fidelity to their several engagements on the
part of our seamen.—New York, Tilrces.