The Sun.
London, England, 1860-07-18 00:00:00

iotmof Lord PALMERSTON, After having called
the proceedings of the Lords a " gigantic innova-
tion," he is willing, as Mr. OSBORNE observed,
when he finds himself pressed for money, to put all
this in his pocket, and defer all considerations of
constitutional necessity. We must also, with Mr.
OSBORNE, throw the blame of the whole difficulty
on the House of Commons. The Lords, as he
observed, acted correctly but unconstitutionally.
Correctly in a financial point of view, though tech-
nically, they had no knowledge of our finances ;
but, acting on their real knowledge, they used a
technical right to redress a financial wrong by
an unconstitutional wrong. No one will now
probably dispute this view of the case ; and since
we are such a practical people we are but too likely
to acquiesce in the facts as they stand. It is, indeed,
instructive to witness the struggle of zeal for our
House of Commons' liberties, with knowledge of our
having misused them. The indignation against the
Lords is no doubt both extensive and just, but yet

it speaks with bated breath because every speaker
knows that the think the Lords did, wanted to be
done. Of the many who attack the Lords hardly
any defend the Commons.

Did any one note the incident which closed the
proceedings which marked the inauguration of the

ourth session of the International Statistical Con

gress as reported in our impression of yesterday

It occurred immediately at the close of the address
delivered by H. R. H. the Prince CONSORT—when

Lord BROUGHAM, the veteran champion of the

Negro, seeing among the number of those present his
excellency the American Minister, observed signifi-
cantly in the hearing of all there assembled—" I hope

my friend Mr. DALLAS will forgive me reminding

him that there is a negro present, a Member of the
Congress." Whereupon says the reporter in

parenthesis —(" Loud laughter and vociferous
cheering")—adding directly, " After the cheering

had subsided Mr. DALLAS made no sign"—being
in fact, we may presume, rather non-plussed, or

what we call in familiar parlance, in a quandary.
But it is remarked—the negro in question, who
was understood to be a Dr. DELANY, rose in the
midst of loud cheering and said—" I pray your
Royal Highness will allow me to thank his lord-
ship, who is always an unflinching friend of the
negro, for the observation he has made, and I
assure your Royal Highness and his lordship that I
AM A MAN." No wonder it is added in the report
that this novel and unexpected incident elicited a
round of cheering very extraordinary for an assem•

blage of sedate statisticians. There are few, if any,
thank GOD ! in this country who will not concur in
regarding it as an incident (simple though it is) in
the highest degree impressive and Affecting. What
will President BUCHANAN think when he comes
to hear of it ? Will he not feel somewhat riled that
the diplomatic representative of America did not
avail himself of so tempting an opportunity to utter a
sober and formal protest against an outrage to the
Majesty of Republican Americain his Excellency's
person—an outrage all the more flagrant, seeing
that it was done in the presence of delegates from
so many remote corners of the globe, and actually
within ken of the Royal CONSORT of the English
SOVEREIGN ! The presence of a negro anywhere in
an assemblage of Englishmen, he could not but feel
would be regarded by those gentlemen as no out-
rage at all upon themselves. That would be their
" look out"—their whim, their crotchet, their
absolute delusion, or whatever we may please to
call it. But to a free American citizen, and what
is more, to a diplomatic representative of the en-
lightened Democratic Government at Washington
how great the indignity, how heinous the offence,

how sickening the insult to all the more delicate
susceptibilities of the highly sensitive, refined, and

liberalised United-States'-man ! For Mr. DALLAS
himself we doubt not the wound inflicted is not alto-
gether so entirely beyond the reach of assuage-
ment. He may find an anodyne anywhere he lists
to look for it in all this social system of this broad

free land of ours. But with Mr. BUCHANAN, we
may be sure it must be otherwise. W hen reading
the record of the incident, what, we cannot but won-
der, will be his emotions—how will those profound
emotions of his manifest themselves? Will the
President faint, or burst into a flood of tears, or
become hysterical ? We could almosgwish that he
had some fetish upon which to relieve his agonised
feelings, like that doll into the head of which MAGGY
spitefully hammered so many nails and tin tacks,
in that old garret, in the Mill on the Floss—or,
again, like that hideous figure-head belaboured by
the little demoniacal dwarf, QUILP, as having
about it a shadowy resemblance to his boy-
enemy, KIT. By way of bringing Presi-
dent BUCHANAN'S excited feelings upon this
subject to a climax, we could almost wish that he
had simultaneously with the receipt of this irritat-
ing intelligence (about the incident above referred
to) become aware in that most appropriate abode of
his, the presidential palace, aptly called the
" WHITE Rouse," of those complimentary allu-
sions to himself written (upon the same subject
matter of the negro race) by the great Poet
VICTOR HUGO, penned from his place of exile in
Jersey. Elsewhere, this evening, we give VICTOR
HUGO'S characteristic letter in its entirety, the epistle
addressed by him (in ackowledgment of thanks for
his eloquent defence of brave old JOHN BROWN) to
the negro-editor of the Progres, of Hayti, M. E.
HOURTELOUP. In this singularly characteristic com-
munication it will be seen that VICTOR HUGO main-
tains that—by reason of the death of JOHN BROWN
—" Henceforth the American Uuion, in spite of all
that is said in President BUCHANAN'S disgraceful
Message, must be considered as broken." Coming
as a sequel to galling comments like those from the
pen of VICTOR HUGO, the incident of Monday
surely cannot but prove to President BUCHANAN
actually excruciating. Advocates of slavery are
themselves by the way so particularly thin-skinned
in regard to what they deem " outrages" of
this description that one can hardly help
wondering how upon a subject of this kind—
s, mere question of the epidermis—they pos-
sibly can be thus particular "to a shade." The
truth being, however, of course, that their love
for the negro is not even skin-deep. Has it
never penetrated to their cognisance how in-
tense and measureless are the scorn and abhor-
rence excited by the pitiable display of these irra•
tional prejudices ?—to say nothing of the inhu
manity they engender ! In answer, how
ever, to all the wretched arguments o
the Advocates of Slavery there have gone forth west
wards towards the " WHITE House " of Presiden
BUCHANAN those few but solemn words articulated
at London, penned at Jersey—Dr. DELANY, the
negro delegate at the International Statistical Con-
gress, exclaiming "I AM A MAN "—VICTOR HUGO
writing himself " YOUR BROTHER" at the close
of his letter to the negro editor of the Hayti
newspaper.

The fears for Damascus seem to have been but
too well founded. This still populous city, the
oldest known city, if we remember rightly, in the
world, has been attacked by the savage Druses,
and fire and sword have done their work. The ac-
counts differ slightly, some say only "many," others
more definitely 500, of the Christian inhabitants