The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-08 00:00:00

TEE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, APRIL 8, 1869.

SPIRIT Ole 'IE7. PUBLIC JOURNAL

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The Times in discussing the condition of Irish politics
admits the great importance of the land question. Every
Administration during the last eighteen years has acknow-
ledged the necessity of dealing with it. The colleagues of
Lord Mayo are as much committed to this truth as the
colleagues of Mr. Chichester Fortescue. The practical
question to be considered by Lord Stanley and every
statesman is whether he will pluck up courage to satisfy
so much of the claims of the Irish agriculturist as
is founded in justice, or will allow him to become
exasperated by deferring attention to his com-
plaints. It is an issue on which the common sense
of every one can judge whether the better way to
silence extravagant demands, in cases where there is an
acknowledged ground for some demand, be to concede
what is justly due or to refuse to concede anything. Pre-
cisely the same reasoning applies to the agitation for
legislative independence. The strength of this cry has
always been the injustice of the legislation suffered under,
or by permission of, the Imperial Parliament take away
this foundation for by abolishing the Establishment
and securing to the tenant his just claims, and the
agitation collapses. Refuse to do anything, and every
year will add to the violence and unreason of its demands.
The question of education is apparently more com-
plicated; but in reality equally simple. It is almost
entirely a clerical grievance, and we have hitherto
done our best to strengthen the clerical influence. We
have furnished both priest and peasant with grounds for
discontent in maintaining the Establishment and in allow-
ing the land question to pass unheeded, and priest and
peasant accept and support each other's objects. Disunite
them as they are disunited in America, and if the priest
does not cease to be influential, he ceases to be a leader
commanding unquestioning obedience. We arrive at the
same moral with respect to education as with respect to
land, to nationality, or the other cries which influence
Irishmen ; if we would maintain what is good and with-
stand what is evil, we must be prompt to remedy what is
evil and to sanction what is good.
The Standard declares that some of its Liberal con-
temporaries of the weekly press are just now a good deal
occupied with the condition, the policy, and the prospects
of the Conservative party. They profess to be very much
concerned with the fortunes of their opponents, and are
good enough to spend much labour in speculating on their
position and in advising them how to shape themselves, so
as to conform to that true ideal of Conservatism
which has been formed for our benefit. Notably
the Saturday _Review has been for some weeks past
profuse of counsel and of instruction to Conser-
vatives. The behaviour of the Conservatives at
this period of their history is to that journal a
subject of much interest and of speculation. As we
stand at present it may be perhaps useful to ourselves to
know that we are not altogether such as we should be in
the eyes of our censor. We have a good deal to amend
before we can arrive at the standard of that perfect oppo-
sition which our contemporary has imagined. We con-
tinue to be influenced by two opposite influences—the
'persistent ambition of our leaders to govern the country,
and the stolid apathy of our rank and file, who are only
too happy to remain in peaceful obscurity, and to let the
Liberals carry all necessary measures. There are special
reasons, chiefly springing from their unlucky nomencla-
ture, why those who call themselves Liberals should always
exceed in number those who reckon themselves Conser-
vatives. Most men are naturally anxious to pass in the
catalogue as Liberals. Everyone would like to be considered.
and considers himself, a Liberal. Upon a bare enumera:
tion, therefore, of the respective denominations, it ie
reasonable to suppose that the Liberals will always out-
number the Conservatives. But it is absurd to suppose
that this condemns the Conservative party to a perpetua;
exclusion from power. It is puerile, moreover, to rest the
position of the Conservatives on a question of nomencla-
ture. Those who anticipate that the function of Conser•
vatism is over, and that the party are doomed to a per-
petual opposition, have scarcely studied with clue attention
either the duties of Conservatism or the temper of the
English people. Certainly nothing has happened within
the last two years to put Conservatives either out of date
or of hope.

The Gerald says we have been so frequently told, both
in and out of Parliament, that the Conservative Govern•

ment was unpopular with the great bulk of the Irish
people, and so frequently assured that tranquillity could
only be established and maintained in Ireland by the con-
cession of Liberal measures, enacted and administered by
Liberal statesmen—that unless good proof to the contrary
could be shewn, it is more than probable that the public
mind of this country might, in the end, yield credence to
assertions so perseveringly reiterated.
.Yet, when we
appeal to admitted facts, it becomes evident—test-
ing their truth by the commission of such illegal

acts as are generally allowed to evince the real state

of Irish popular feeling—that such assertions are
perfectly unfounded. The surest indication of the social
condition of any country is to be found in its criminal
statistics ; and taking the past condition of Ireland under
a Conservative, and its present one under a Radical,
Administration as our guide, we can easily prove that it
was more satisfactory under the Governments of Lord
Derby and Mr. Disraeli than it now is under that of their
successors in office. That is to say, that there have been
three murders and two attempts at murder, within nearly
two years and a half in the one case, and just the same
number of murders and shooting within four mouths in the
other. Such a disparity in the amount of crime between the
two periods we have alluded to, is, we should think, quite
sufficient to satisfy us that—whether arising from a want of
confidence in the present Government, or from a determine•
tion to exhibit their discontent at the postponement of the
land question in favour of the Church question—the Irish
peasantry are far more hostilely disposed than they were,
and are little likely to be satisßecl by the abatement of a
grievance which does not touch their pockets, while pant-
ing for an arrangement which, according to the promises
of the statesmen they have assisted in elevating to power,
would convert them from occupiers into the more enviable
position of proprietors of the land. We have, to support
our views, only stated the number of outrages which can
be strictly termed agrarians did we extend our notice to
acts of violence arising from private motives and resulting
in death, the proportion would still more strongly indicate
the present unfavourable condition of Ireland as compared
with its past.

The Daily News says that the House of Lords has been
occupying itself during a good part of the present session
with one of the most important innovations of modern
times. Hostile critics have already described it as the
introduction of a new principle into our law, the creation
of a new class of " suspected persons," and the introduc-
tion among us of police surveillance in its most tyrannical
and odious form. But the very title of the bill deprives
such rhetorical descriptions of more than half their force.
A bill which only professes to deal with habitual
criminals is not likely to excite much alarm among
honest men. Their question about it is not very
likely to be—What new legal principle does it
apply, or with what new power does it arm the police?
They are more likely to ask—Does it afford a chance of
dealing effectively with well-known rogues? The bill
does not, in fact, create a class of "suspects ;" it merely
provides legal recognition for a class which is already too
well known among us. It is a magnificent principle of
English law that every man shall be presumed to be
innocent till he is proved to be guilty, and to all honest
Englishmen that principle is a guarantee of safety. But
underneath the fair seeming surface of modern civilisation
there has been long spreading a social rot which needs a
new principle to enable us to deal with it. The old dis•
tinctions of classes have been supplemented by
another, and the very phrase the " criminal
classes" is an addition to our social nomencla-
ture which merely recognises a new and fright-
fully significant social fact. A section of society
lives, and is known to live, by preying on the other
sections. A suspected class actually exists among us.
The l,sw does not recognise a criminal class, but a criminal
class exists ; its members are to some extent known.
Why should not the law, therefore, recognise the
fact? By Lord Kimberley's bill it does recognise it.
That bill does not create a class of " suspects ;" it gives
legal recognition to a class which already exists. It does
not treat police surveillance ; it gives an existing surveil-
lance more effectual power to protect society. It does
not affect a single honest man, except to protect us all;
t does not even alter the status of an ordinary criminal ;
it deals only with ticket-of-leave men, who are only free
by "license," and with twice-convicted habitual rogues,
and it simply removes from them the shield of that
assumption of innocence which the law throws over all
persons when they are first accused, but to which habitual
criminals Lava forfeited all right or claim.

The Telegraph observes that Mr. Disraeli's speech on
the second reading. of the Maynooth College Bill,in 1840,
is memorable, as among the fiercest of his diatribes against
Sir Robert Peel ; and in that speech he plainly disavowed
" supposed " connection of Church and State,
declaring that it had no existence, and was not
desirable. " I have," he said, " unfaltering confidence in
the stability of our Church ; but I think that the real
source of the danger which threatens it is its connection with
the State, which places it under the control of a House of
Commons that is not necessarily of its communion.
Leave the Church to herself, and she will shrink.
from no contest, however severe. I believe in Ire-
land itself, if the question be Will you sever the Church
from the State, or will you endow the Roman Catholic
Church ?' for my own part, I believe the Protestants of
Ireland would say, Sever the connection between the
Church and the State, and don't endow the Roman
Catholics," This memorial passage deserves to be recalled
now that we are threatened 2 with another debate on the
Kum )
exciting topic,

ARCHDEACON DENISON ON THE IRISI3

CHURCH,

The Ven. Archdeacon of Taunton held a visitatioft al
St. Mary's, Taunton, on Tuesday. Referring to thr
Irish Church Bill, he said it was a measure of confisca
tion, by which Mr. Gladstone's suppor:ers were pledged
to more than they at the time of the general election;
intended. This was ground sufficient to justify the
Lords in throwing out the bill. It had been reported that
many of the English bishops would not vote against it,
although present. He could not believe so monstrous
a thing. ' Mr. Gladstone had bought the support of the
Nonconformist, the Roman Catholic, and the unbeliever,
at the price of the sacrifice of the Church of the Reforma-
tion. Worse acts done under fine names, acts of more
deserved reproach to the contriver, awl of more lasting
injury both to Church and State—acts with nothing to
redeem their character except the temporary consolida-
tion of a shattered party—a test more unsound even
upon the bare principle of the world's statesmanship—
a blunder of policy more egregious and more fatalT
a more distinct and emphatic and shn subordi-
nation of the truth of religion to party policy were not to
be found in any history. It was not too late for the people
to save themselves from complicity with so great a sin.
He approved of the first assumption of the "High Church
Radical," that the Church ought to be free de facto as well
as de jure ; but that Mr. Gladstone would set the Church
free, or that, if free, she would be allowed to retain her
endowments,he regarded as the most curious hallucination
he had seen even among the clergy.

THE FORTHCOMING VOLUNTEER
REVIEW AT PORTSMOUTH _

The subjoined letter has been received by the Lord-Lieu.
tenant of the county of Hants, the Marquis of Winchester,
from the Secretary of State for War, relative to the pro-
posed review of the volunteers at Portsmouth :—" War
Office, April I.—My Lord,—ln reply to your lordship's
application of the 24th ult., I have the honour to
inform you that I approve of a field-day of volunteers being
held at Portsmouth on the 26th of April, 1869, and the
attendance of the Ist Administrative Brigade Hants
Artillery Volunteers on the occasion. I have further
to request that your lordship will be good enough to
inform me, as soon as possible, of the probable number
of volunteers who will be present at the field-day, as,
in the event of a large number of volunteers wishing
to take part in the review, it will take a considerable time
to make the necessary arrangements. All applications
should, therefore, be sent in not later than the Bth inst.—
I have the honour to be, myLord, your Lordship'sobedient
servant, EDWARD CARDWELL." Major-General Lindsay
has sanctioned the time of application from corps to be
present at the review to be extended from the Bth to the
12th inst. Commanding officers of volunteer corps intend-
ing to be present should make application at once to
the railway authorities for the conveyance of their corps.
There appears to be every prospect of a large number of
volunteers being present, and, to insure a successful and
creditable result, it only remains for those who may have
the preparation of the day's programme that such a plan
of battle may be drawn up that tl.e vt,!unteers may not
be compelled to fight in imposs.ble pctaions, arid that all
ranks may have ,:•alt!t something of their duties its citizen
soldiers at the close of their day's work.

REFORM OF T.HE UNITED STATES CIVIL

SERVICE.

(From the Anglo-American Times.)
The New York 7 ribune approves of the American
system by which every change of administration is
followed by a change in the incumbents of all
offices. That paper thus writes:—
"Washington reports affirm the existence of a per-
sistent pressure upon heads of departments by members
of Congress for places wherewith to reward needy con-
stituents. In so far as these demands involve merely the
supersedure of ins by outs, wo do not regret it. ' Rotation
in office is generally wholesome, even to those who dig-
relish it. No department clerk who is worth his salt
ought to remain in office more than four years at furthest.
Lot young, active, energetic workers be appointed to
clerkships ; let each understand that he is to be retained
but four years, and be admonished to save at least one-
third of his earnings from the outset ; let him go with
the Administration that appointed him, having saved the
means wherewith to start in some private business (set-
tling and working a quarter-section of public land, if he
can do no better); and let the next brood follow in the
footsteps of its predecessor."
It is astonishing to see the system upheld in the
very article in which the mischief it creates is de-
nounced. The clerk is to understand that he is to
make the most of his four years of office. With
that " most " he may settle on a quarter-sec-
tion of public land. Cannot the Tribune see that
the former is a direct incentive to plunder, and that
the latter places a man in the very position for which
his previous training has completely disqualified him.
He who has got the office, and knows he can at best
but hold it •for four years, loses with every week the
dread of the punishment involved in being turned
out of it. His activity for the Government can
bring no good to himself, but his activity for him-
self against the Government may be productive of
material advantage. He gets his office by unscru-
pulously serving his party, and he uses his office
unscrupulously to serve himself ; thus a young, ac-
tive, energetic worker, who under more favourable
circumstances might have proved an honest man,
is trained at the threshold of his career to be a
rascal. After teaching him the value of having a
country to sell, and unfitting him for agricultural
work by four years departmental employment, the
Tribune would place the;clerk on a quarter-section ;
and a more incongruous connection it is really diffi-
cult to conceive.
" his the crying evil of our day that working for the
public pays better, or is supposed to pay better, than work-
ing for yourself. The farmer's or the mechanic's son
would rather be an Inspector of Customs or Police-
man than his father's business and follow it. The soil is
neglected and often deserted, because those who should
cultivate it fancy they can do better as tide-waiters or
Post-office clerks. The laws and the policy which beguile
them into that delusion have very much to answer for."
And what are the laws and policy but those the
Tribune thus describes :—" To the victors belong
the spoils of the vanguished, is the accepted maxim,
and we submit, only protesting that it is not the people
and their Treasury who are rightfully vanquished."
Can Horace Greeley really suppose that the winning
party is to have its pap, but that none of the plun-
der is to be extracted from the public. If not from
the public—then from whom? Householders might
as well keep up a school for training burglars, and
then whine over their invaded premises and ab-
stracted valuables. "We have demonstrated,"says
the Tribune in another article entitled the " Siege
of the White House," " that nine out of ten of the
office seekers must be disappointed, and must re-
turn to their residences (if they have any) with
broken hearts and pockets hopelessly empty. To
say nothing of self-respect, and that personal dignity
which every gentleman should strive to maintain,
we have proved, though proof was hardly needed,
that there are very few offices the emoluments of
which are equal to the honest wants of honest
daily work in ordinary departments of human in-
dustry ; that dependence upon the public patron-
age is almost sure to be fatal to a muscular
self-reliance; and that superannuation is almost
sure to find an office-holder, who is usually bled by
his party unmercifully and by his friends heroically,
as needy in the end as he was in the beginning."
A picture is drawn of the fools who know not the
difference between shade and substance, who every
four years pursue the beautiful bubbles. Might
not this pursuit be connected with the stupendous
frauds in the collection of the revenue ? The
salaries of officials compare as but a fraction
with the sum out of which the nation is swindled
by their connivance. The fools may be running
after the bubbles, but the beautiful illusions are
the rascals living in luxury, who, from their offices,
have realized fortunes. There is something more
than bubbles to be got out of these posts, and there
are some substantial proofs of the fact. The
Tribune may rely on it that the Civil Service can
never be reformed until it becomes a profes-
sion for which lads are trained, and in which
they rise by good conduct, qualifications, and
length of service, as they do in the Navy and Army.
In one article it asserts that no clerk worth his
salt ought to wish for office beyond four years ; in
another, that no person worth his salt ought to
wish for office at all ; in a third, that General Grant
is absolutely borne down before the solid phalanx
of those who do wish for office ; that they have
settled over Washington as grasshoppers in Utah;
that the Departments are clogged with them and
their applications, the White House besieged, and
that business has been almost brought to a stand-
still by their importunities. And from what do the
eager hosts arise if not from the rotation system
in force ? This is the most apparent effect, though
it is by far the least to be deplored. Another is
thus described :

"If we could only dispel the too prevalent illusion that
the public service is a political alms-house, wherein the
lame, and the halt, and the paralytic are to be fed and
fattened at the public cost, the needed reform would be
easy. But almost every one has a brother, or cousin, or
son, or nephew, who doesn't seem to know how to take
care of himself, hence is presumed admirably calculated
to officiate as a guardian of the public interests and
welfare."
While making such a fuss about the bad results,
how is it that the Tribune can be so blind to the
cause? Any one acquainted with the administra-
tion of other Governments knows that the Ameri-
can system must breed corruption, and the Tribune
may go on deploring the corruption and the useless-
ness of the mass of candidates without changing
that result so long as the system that produces it
is upheld. Why should the army and the navy be
conducted on a different plan from the Civil Ser-
vice ? Do not most of the offices require as special
training and qualifications, many of them such as
in the Patent, the Land Surveying, and other
bureaux in a higher degree? and, if so, why should
these be open to the idiotic, the halt and the
blind, any more than the command of war ships,
of regiments, and of divisions? The security of
the tenure tends, according to the Tribune, to make
men fossils ; but experience has shown that pro-
motion is the best incentive to work, and the higher
the value attached by the incumbent to his post 1
the better the guarantee for the honest administra-
tion of its duties, and there is no such value as
security. It is certain that the present system has
worked badly, indeed so badly that most men are
convinced that Mr. Jenckes's bill ought at least to
be tried. If we sought an instance against Grant's
saying that the right way to get a bad law repealed
lies in its vigorous enforcement, we would find it
here, for the rule upheld by the Tribune, that to the
victor belongs the spoils, has worked infamously,
and has been productive of enormous injury, yet it
has created an interest perhaps powerful enough to
keep it in force against the wish of the President
and of the majority of the people.

This paragraph from the Waterford News gives
an instance of the rights of property, while it suggests
that property may have duties as well. A man commits a
sin, outrages the laws, and flies the country ; he is a great
territorial magnate, and his establishment is broken up,
his servants are suddenly and unexpectedly discharged,
and the estates on which he has resided cease to benefit
by an expenditure by which they had been fostered, and
which will continue to draw everything from them, while
it returns nothing :—" The Marquis of Waterford.—We
regret to learn that, owing to a recent deplorable event,
the establishment of the Marquis of Waterford, at Cur-
raglimore House, will be broken up, all the servants, with
the excei.tion of two, having received notice that their
services are no longer required. The absence of a resi-
dent nobleman, who spent so much of his time at the fa-
mily residence, will be felt seriously in the locality."
Mr. George G. Fogg, late United States Minister
to Switzerland, contradicts the statement of Mr. Smalley
that Mr. Hale, the American Minister to Spain, is not cn
good terms with the members of the Spanish Government,
or that he sympathizes with the late Queen of Spain and
wishes for her return.

The new President of Harvard College is Pro-
fessor Charles W. Eliot, of an old Boston family, son of
Samuel A. Eliot. He graduated at Harvard in 1853, and
is about 38 years old; ho afterwards held the place of
tutor and of professor in the college, and has been for
some time a professor in the Institute of Technology. His
specialty is physical science, but he is a good general
scholar, and has lately attracted notice as a writer on
education.

THE EMIGRANT SHIP "JAMES FOSTER,

JUNIOR."

(From the Anglo-American Times.)
The sea has always furnished a prolific field for
adventure, and the one from which novelists have
drawn most largely; but as imagination only fol-
lows iu the footsteps of natural events, the story-
teller but seeks there, as the ocean supplies the most
thrilling incidents. The narratives are various, and
all tend towards horror. The winter just closed
has been noted as one of the stormiest known on
the Atlantic. With almost the regularity, force,
and continuance of a monsoon, westerly gales have
blown over the British Isles, and the logs of
ships prove that these gales have extended far
over the Atlantic. The Pereire furnished an
instance of a mail packet almost buried under
a huge wave, returning shattered from the
dreadful encounter; the Hibernia gives the disas-
trous tale of a great steamship going down in mid-
ocean ; and now comes another story even more
horrible. The American ship James Foster, Junior,
left Liverpool on the 14th of last December, with
146 steerage passengers, bound to New York. The
weather she encountered may be gathered from the
fact that the passage occupied twelve weeks, as she
only arrived at Sandy Hook on the Bth of_ March.
Having typhoid fever on board she was placed in
quarantine, and most of the surviving passengers
were sent to hospital. Out of the total number
but 36 were considered to be in good health. The
Emigration Commissioners inquired into the treat-
ment they had received in the ship. and a harrow-
ing tale of cruelty was then revealed. Each emi-
grant was allowed about 24 square feet of room,
but it was not the space to which objection was
made. Raw food was served weekly, the emigrants
having to cook it for themselves at the ship's
galley. In such weather it was impossible to
comply, and in consequence, even had the food
been sufficient, it would have been useless to many.
Without the ordinary necessaries of life the un-
fortunate people remained huddled together in in-
describable filth, which bred a pestilence, and struck
down the crew as well as the passengers. A ship,
helplessly rolling and pitching in the cold wintry
gales of the Atlantic, with such a freight, is suffi-
ciently appalling; yet we have told but half our
story. In cabins luxuriously fitted up, and in
strange contrast with the bunks between decks,
lived officers, whose time appears to have been
spent in aggravating, not in mitigating, the suffer-
ings of the wretches committed to their care.
Accepting as true the evidence on which they
have been arrested and held for trial, Captain
Armstrong, his mates, the boatswain, carpenter,
steward, and even the surgeon, were banded in con.
spiracy against the lives of the passengers and
crew. The carpenter and the boatswain appear to
have been peculiarly active in maltreating all, and
to their brutality several deaths are attributed.
Emigrants are often deluded by an abatement of
passage money into
sinning articles to ship as sea-
men, being told they would never be required to
go aloft, only to work on deck, in aid of the watch.
When at sea the boatswain, armed with a belaying
pin, orders the long-sheresman aloft to reef or un-
furl sails, and the application of the iron to his
head either ends in his going above or in his being
carried insensible below. In the James Foster
they stood on no such ceremony as having signed
shipping papers, but used
compulsion freely in
getting the passengers to aid in working the ship.
Nor were they restricted by their contract as re-
garded the provisions. For one week nothing but
meal was issued, two pints a day, with a spoonful
of sugar, and the English portion were soon re-
duced to a state of starvation, when they bad to
buy biscuits at a shilling each from the Germans,
who appear to have made such a provision. Com-
plaints of the food were answered with curses, and
those who carried these remonstrances to the cap-
tain were driven away with violence. The work
was mostly done by the passengers thus fed on
meal and with about a pint of water a day. It is
surprising that not more than 22 passengers and
sailors died during the voyage, but the effect in
sending 88 fever patients into the State Emigrant
Refuge and Hospital on arrival was the natural
result, and there others have died. The
stories of the cruelties are appalling ; indeed
they resolve themselves into cases of downright
murder. A sick cabin boy was drawn to the upper
deck by a rope, where he lay exposed during the
night, and died. One of the men, a passenger
cook, was kicked from the hospital by the carpenter,
who required him to draw water. When he went on
board he was strong and healthy, but they buried
him in the Atlantic. The carpenter issued the pro-
visions ; and he was a man whom the combined testi-
mony of every one describes as of a cruel disposition,
and in all his excesses he was backed by the captain.
The treatment of the sailors was somewhat similar.
One night two emigrants concealed themselves on
the quarter-deck when the passengers had been sent
below, and they saw the officers lay hold of White,
mouth with soap to prevent his
him astride a spar, from which he
aws
ersseaai
castosr lafionlodl s
eh lash
tis to
be carried to the hospital, where
thrown overboard. John 0.
he died, and was
Southard died shortly after the arrival of the ship,
but he lived long enough to testify against the third
mate as the author of the injuries which had ended
so fatally to him. It is astonishing how generally
an example of such fearful cruelty can be followed.
The steward is
quite a lad, yet he pursued an un-
fortunate boy around the deck, beating him with a
belaying pin till he had rendered him insensible,
and from this state he was only carried to his grave.
The ship's surgeon calls himself Mr. Monument, a
native of Norfolk, holding a diploma from the Royal
College of Surgeons, and formerly medical officer of
the ship Great Webster. He alleged that his medi-
cines were furnished by the London Society,
and as no such society in
London for furnish-
ing medicines is known of in New York, nor
any such vessel as the Great Webster, doubts are
entertained of the truth of his story. Ile is about
50 years of age, with too rich an Irish brogue for a
Norfolk man. His prescriptions were alleged to
have been orders to have his patients flogged ; the
amount of medicine he dispensed was limited to
two doses of castor oil. When the real character of
the treatment received by the passengers transpired,
the third mate, carpenter, and boatswain were
arrested, and the captain and first mate were dis-
covered, after a diligent search, by the police.
Armstrong's wife asserted that he was very ill, which
the police discovered to be the case. Both he and
the mate had been stricken with this typhoid fever,
and the captain then was delirious. Some days
before he reached New York he complained to his
brother, the first mate
who, with the carpenter,
has also been stricken with this fever, that he was
unwell, but on arrival he was able to walk to his
home in Myrtle Avenue, Brooklyn. After recover-
ing, a narrative of the outrages which be saw in
the newspapers threw him back. He asserted these
accounts to be false ;
and under the excitement
they produced he relapsed, never rallying, till be
died in the arms of his old steward, March 17, his
last words being, "Louis Lee, if you bad been with
occurred." The place where
me this would never have
the passengers slept is about eight feet high, and
presented anything but an inviting aspect; for days
after it had been scoured and fumigated, the smell
remained, and the visitor could scarcely endure the
atmosphere. The Commissioners of Emigration
have taken
nation having been strongly directed towards it,
up the subject, the attention of the
and as the vessel sails under American colours those
who perpetrated the cruelties are likely to receive a
lesson which will prove a
warning to others. Sailing
ships should not be permitted to carry emigrants,
for such a system of treatment as that practised in
the James Foster may be prolonged till it has become
fatal, or at least to injure permanently the consti-
tutions of the sufferers.
However bad might be the
treatment on board a steamer, the run is too quickly
made, to prove so serious. Although a law cannot
be enacted to prevent a sailing ship from carrying
such passengers as choose to take berths, condi-
tions may be imposed for their comfort and protec-
tion, which would effectually prevent sailing ves-
sels from competing with steamers. The James
Foster will probably give the death-blow to the car-
riage of emigrants in vessels relying alone on sails.
The advantage—even economy—of selecting
steamers has long and generally been seen. In
1856 the total number of passengers brought by
22 steamers was 5,111, but in 1868 184,941 were
carried in 378 steamers, while the ratio by sailing
vessels had decreased in a corresponding degree.
The attention, too, of the Republic has now been
fastened on the best mode of protecting emigrants
at sea, and this will perhaps lead to conventions
with other nations, especially Belgium.

321SC'ELLANEOUS NEWS.

CLUB-LAND.

The Owl says that at the last general meeting of
the Carlton Club it was decided to request Lord
Derby and Mr. Disraeli to sit for their pictures, with
a view to commencing a gallery of eminent Con-
servative statesmen, to be preserved in the club. It
is not to be inferred from this request that the club
considers Mr. Disraeli to bear the same relation
to the Conservative party as Lord Derby does,
that of (to adopt Masonic initials) P.G.M.
The Owl gives another item of news from club-
land. " The unusual prevalence of blackballing in
many of the London clubs has recently given rise to
much remark. The practice has obtained to such an
extent during this spring at one of the oldest clubs
in St. Jamess-street that it has been decided to hold
a general meeting to consider the whole subject of
election of candidates, pending which no ballot
is to be taken." Some time ago there
was a quarrel at the Reform Club between
the members of two professions. At first all the
candidates of one profession found themselves black-
balled, and when this was discovered, their friends
took to doing the same kind office for the friends of
the blackballers. Matters became serious, and we
believe that there is now peace. But which is the
club referred to by the Owl ? "One of the oldest
clubs in St. James's-street" may mean either Brooks's
or White's—may mean either that another quarrel
has broken out among the Whigs, or that the Tories
have followed the example of their rivals.