The Sun.
London, England, 1869-02-16 00:00:00

THE SOU7HERN STATES.

Georgia is in a muddle ; on Reconstruction, on
race differences, in its Legislature, in its Executive,
and in Congress. Mr. Joshua Hill, the Federal
Senator, is turned out. Georgia's vote in the Elec-
toral College is rejected by the Representatives, and
Governor Bullock and the State Treasurer have a
first-class fight. The Governor is accused by the
Treasurer of unlawfully lavishing funds, and the
Governor accuses the Treasurer of duplicity, and
of advancing these charges for a political end.
A legislative Committee has taken the matter up.
The legislators of Georgia have at last discovered
that they are on a wrong track, and are showing a
sudden and suspicious anxiety for instruction on
Suffrage. They have also taken some action
upon the insecurity of life and property in that
State, as well as upon the question of reseating the
negro members of the Legislature, but do not
succeed in making much progress in either direction.
The latest intelligence denies the reported outrages
by the Ku-Klux at Augusta on the railroad as base
fabrications. The negro Captain Green, one of the
Ogeechee insurrectionory prisoners, has been held
to trial, and his will be made a test case. Eighty-
three other prisoners will be brought before the
court, and those who can be identified by the State
witnesses will be held on the same charge. The
examination has occupied 13 days. The prisoners
have been defended by United States District At-
torney-General H. S. Fitch, ex-Provisional Gover-
nor J. Johnson, and others. A ridiculous resolu-
tion was offered in the Georgia House that Mrs.
Stone be sent for to instruct the committee on
female suffrage, and an amendment that Horace
Greeley be requested to address them on the sub-
ject. The Florida House of Representatives has
voted 43 to five that the evidence against Governor
Reed is insufficient to maintain the charge of high
crimes and misdemeanours; and this is the end of
the impeaching flurry there. After the adjourn-
ment of the morning session a majority of the mem-
bers of the house repaired to the Executive-office to
congratulate the Governor, and raised him on their
shoulders, and for some minutes cheering and sing-
ing was in order. The coloured members seemed
the most demonstrative, though all the opponents!
of impeachment took an active part in the proceed-
ings. The Florida Legislature is favourable to the
project of transferring that portion of the State
west of the Chattahoochee River to Alabama, and
if the people living in that part of the State con-
sent, the transfer will undoubtedly be made.—The
South Carolina Legislature has passed a resolution
authorizing the Governor to call out the militia for
the preservation of peace and order in that State ;
and a resolution was introduced in the Alabama
House of Representatives memorializing Congress
to remove the disabilities imposed on the State by
thel4 th amendinent,but it svas indefinitely postponed.
Since Governor Brownlow called out the militia
Tennessee has become more tranquil, and the same
has been the case, though certainly after a sharp
fight, in Arkansas. Governor Clayton, of Arkansas,
admits that the militiamen of his State have com-
mitted outrages, but, he adds, the perpetrators have,
as far as practicable, been summarily dealt with.
Some Tennessee leaders, encouraged by the move-
ment in Virginia, have written to Horace Greeley
in approbation of a universal amnesty and universal
suffrage platform, and agreeing to go in for it iu
Tennessee. Meanwhile the Republicans in Vir-
ginia find that the Conservatives are getting the
best of them, and at a meeting of the State Com-
mittee, declared in favour of a more liberal policy,
and appointed a committee of thirteen to visi
Washington and confer with the Republican mem-
bers of Congress. General Stoneman has appointed
Generals Wilcox and Granger, and Col. Franklin,
a commission to examine applicants for office in
Virginia, in order that he may fill the many
vacant offices with persons who are eligible
under the 14th amendment. It is thought the
recent severe cold weather at the South has
killed the caterpillar, and preparations for a
large planting of cotton are consequently being
made. Robbers attacked the house of ex-Sheriff
Rueben King of Robinson county, near Lumberton,
North Carolina, and mortally wounded Mr. King,
and a visitor named S. E. Ward, but there is no
clue to the perpetrators of the crime. Cullen
Baker, the Texan murderer and outlaw, has been
killed, and, strange to say, by his brother-in-law,
Mr. Orr, whom he had sbortly before hanged and
left for dead, but who revived, and rendered the
State the service of ridding it of a most desperate
ruffian. Governor Brownlow will take his seat in
the United States Senate on the 4th March. He
appears to be suffering from great bodily infirmity,
though his mental activity is unimpaired. In taking
farewell of the readers of his paper, The Whig, now
in the hands of a company, with the Rev. T. H.
Pearne, D.D., as editor, Brownlow says :--"
In re-
viewing my long and eventful career as an editor I
have this to say, that had I my life to live over I
would pursue the same course I have pursued, only
more so. If in past life I have been violent on
some occasions my apology is that, like the Apostle
Paul, on many occasions, I have fought with beasts
at Ephesus."

General Beauregard's property, at Memphis, has
been restored to him by the Government.

The health of Thurlow Weed is reported to have
benefited from his residence in Aiken, South Carolina.
Five miles from Green River, on the line of the
Union Pacific Railroad, a rock has been on fire in a large
cut. When it became first ignited the labourers endea-
voured to extinguish it by throwing water on it, but in
vain. They then tried to &mother it with earth and failed.
It is thought to be sandstone saturated with petroleum.
The New Jersey Legislature has elected Wiliiam
P. M'Michael State Treasurer, and Governor Randolph
has nominated for its confirmation as Supreme Judge Ed-
ward W. Scudder, of Mercer county, and Bennett Van
Sychle, of Hunterdon, in place of Judges Elmer and Vre-
denburg, whose terms are about expiring.
The lion. Nelson Dingley, jun., of Lewiston,
was chosen permanent President of the Maine State Tem-
perance Convention at Augusta, Jan. 27. Mr. Dingley
delivered a long address on assuming the chair, advocat-
ing the views of the Radical wing of the Temperance
party, and urging the re-enactment of the imprisonment
penalty and State Police.
A sister of General Grant, Mrs. Mary Grant
Cramer, is the wife of our Consul at Leipzig ; she is also an
amateur artist, and used to paint in the art galleries. There
some of the German artists saw and admired the purely
classical features of their unknown colleague, and when
they were painting the frescoes in the new art museum of
Leipzig they introduced her head for the Grecian goddess
Diana.— Revolution.
When Grant was at Baltimore he raised a laugh
by saying "smoking was not a vice, or the Admiral would
smoke." Farragut retorted that was "no longer a
Vice-Admiral." Mr. 'Colfax is said to have popped the
question when 17,000 feet above the sea. Mr. Pratt, the
now Indian Senator, is 6 feot 3 inches high, and more than
stout in proportion. Brevet-General Augur, who was the
handsomest man in the army during General Rousseau's
life, now takes full rank.

The Secretary of War directs that William R.
Kenney of Kentucky, John 11. Broadhead of Pennsyl-
vania, and Robert Flint of Wisconsin, the Commissioners
appointed to reimburse the State of Indiana for moneys
expended by the United States in enrolling, equipping,
and provisioning militia forces to aid in suppressing the
Rebellion, meet at Indianapolis oa the Ist of March and
enter upon their duties.