The Sun.
London, England, 1869-05-05 00:00:00

TELEGRAPHING IN PAC-SIMILE.

Where may we expect discoveries in electricty to
stop ? An invention, not many removes from one
for telegraphing a portrait, is said by the Post to
have been made by Mr. Meyer, an official engaged in
the French telegraphic service. He has discovered a
plan for telegraphing fac-simile. The details are not
given, but if what is published is fact, the new system
is as wonderful as the electric telegraph itself. There
is no transmitter wanted ; the sender of the
despatch is his own clerk. The message itself does
the duty of the interpreter, and controls the elec-
trical power so as to make it perfectly faithful.
" That which the Meyer system gives us is not a
copy more or less e:•:r.et of the mess ige sent -to us ;
it is the fac-simile of r correspondent's writing,
so that, thanks to th,s apparatus, telegraphic des-
patches will present, so far as regards exactitude and
authenticity, all the guarantees now found in postal
communications." - If this be not an enigma, and do
not refer to some kind of cipher—and there is no
reason for thinking that it does—Mr. Meyer will be
among the famous of the future. We are further
told that the apparatus is at work on the railway
from Paris to Lyons, and the lines from Paris to
Marseilles and from Paris to Bordeaux will soon be
Provided with it.

7HE ALABAMA CONVEN7ION.

(From the Anglo -American Times.)

Mr. SUMNER'S long-announced speech was deli-
vered in the Senate on the 13th April. It occupied
two hours, and was the only one made on the
CLARENDON-JOHNSON Treaty. When Mr. SUMNER
sat down, Senator after Senator arose, embracing
every shade of politics and opinions, to endorse what
all considered a luminous exposition of the subject.
There is little new in what he advanced, his posi-
tion being that of an advocate, arguing the question
for his client ; it therefore gave but one side only,
scarcely attempting to show the British view or to
answer the British arguments. The treaty, then,
was not debated ; it was merely condemned, and
Senator SUMNER'S speech published in justification
of the unanimous verdict. This, instead of lessen-
ing, has increased its value, for this speech can be
safely taken by England as expressing the opinion
of the American people. Though the position as-
sumed will be considered in England as extravagant,
and unwarranted by the facts, the tone in which
these extreme demands are made is, as any one
who knows Mr. SUMMER might predict, pacific. He
hates the task forced on him, which has been none
of his seeking, as it leads him to the harsh criti-
cism of a Foreign Power, with whom be would
have more even than peace—more even than concord.
Instead of removing grievances he considers that the
Convention would leave nothing but heartburning.
it was a settlement for individual claims only,
framed on a false basis, that of the treaty of 1853,
while the essence of the question was in the national
injury and insult sustained from England's conduct,
for which no recompence or apology was provided.
The effect of the sigbinevf the couvention was to
raise Confederate Bonds froth nothing to ten, under
the impression that the United States would by it
have to redeem thern. The t use against England
was then stated in the terms now so familiar to all,
and he went ou to estitti ate the loss of America at about
$110,000,000. But this material loss was only a
portion of the ii.jury. England's conduct was war,
as shown by Mr. COBDEN in the House of Corn-
mons ; the United States paid for the whole cost of
that war upon the national unity which England
waged, making the sacrifice of life in suppressing
the rebellion beyond compensation, and the cost
in money over four thousand million dollars. If
.througli Britisti intervention the war was doubled
In .claration or extended, then England is respons-
ible, and whatever may be the final settlement such
must be the judgment in any Chancery which con- 1
sulti the simple equity of the case. Every British