The Sun.
London, England, 1869-04-29 00:00:00

TIIS SEASO'N.

The London season has commenced, and the
xttetropolis is full. Full too at a time when the
country is so very beautiful. All theireat families
have left their mansions, parks, and lawns, with the
freshness of spring upon them, and are now helping
to choke the over-full, and certainly not lovely,
metropolis. Why is this ? Fashion, we arc told, it
inexorable. No matter that real enjoyment cannot be
had. Excitement can, and the onemust makeup forthe
other. Moreover, materfamilias urges that she wants
her daughters to marry. And so she leaves the more
healthy country and comes to ruinously expensive
London,' there, • amidst the feverish whirl of balls
and parties, to get her daughters mated for life. The
LailyaVezes asks whether all this is necessary :
" We would ask if everybody cannot be seen an&every•
body get married without everybody rushing up to
London for the purpose at a certain time, and that time
the most delicious one of the rural year? We fancy that
folks married and gave in marriage before the days of
the iron rail, and still go through those indispensable
ceremonies in countries where iron rails and their con-
verging points at a metropolis are as yet wholly unknown.
As for free and frequent intercourse with comparatively
distant neighbours, that, no doubt, was a matter difficult
of attainment before steam was applied to locomotion;
but the very same ease and rapidity of moving about
which we now owe to railways can surely be utilised in
carrying people from county to county, and from one part
of the country to another, as in carrying them all up to
London."

AMERICAN FINANCE, 1665-1869.*

yield a return comparable to the rapid gains of
trade and speculation--the rural districts threw
their surplus population into the great cities, which,
in spite of the rise in rents and cost of living, rapidly
grew. The currency acted as a violent spur to
speculation and as a screen to profits ; smuggling
became a system and fraud a habit. This state of
things attracted the serious attention of Congress,
and the still more serious attention of really patrio-
tic citizens, but though Congress stormed, it did DO-
thing effectual to check the tide. The system of
officering the Government service was ingeniously
contrived to give force to the current; but, not-
withstanding the efforts made in both Houses, no
change took place. We write from memory, but
the Reviewer does not appear fully to appreciate
what a tremendous check corruption would receive
in the passage of such a bill as that of Mr. Jenckes,
of Rhode Island. Ile asstrts with truth what Mr.
Wellsaffirtns, that the effect of greenback currency
to mike the rich richer and the prior poorer ; to make
speculation a trade, and to generate huge corpora-
tions, whose wealth and power create oligarchies
in their States. Strong and severe as is the article, we
are bound tosay that the writer has put down naught
in malice, and its point and force 2re derived from its
simple truth. Although the overflow of corruption,
leaving its slimy traces all over the country, breeding
plagues in its malaria, is not a pretty picture for
Americans to contemplate. They do not object to
hear the truth from a foreign critic. It is below
what their own papers state to be the case, and the
Reviewer can substantiate all he says from official
documents. Still we hold with the Hon. Thomas
A. Jenckes that it is but a temporary phase, one of
those manias which follow other periods of excite-
ment, and which end in a general smash when
people will awake to a stern reality, and learn by
experience that they must not only be honest them-
selves, but force their neighbours to be honest as
well ; and that any lapse from this rule will surely
tend against the weal of society. It is but the scum
which has boiled up to the surface that we see,
while beneath it is clear and pure. Before the war
there were those who affirmed that all martial quali-
ties had died out in the trading, peddling Yankee,
yet the world knows how this was belied by events.
We hope the first step in reform is the passage of
the Civil Service Bill ; that the Courts and Legisla-
tures will be purified ; but, above all, that society
will learn to stigmatize crime, and cease to hold
that success makes any difference.

211 E PACIFIC RAILROAD.

The Union Pacific Railway fight continues un-
abated, indeed grows in dimensions and crops up
everywhere. In Utah, in Washington, and in New
York it excites great interests; in the courts and in
the Legislature it is the all-absorbing topic. De-
bate has followed debate, recrimination has followed
recrimination, and the public are, utterly at a loss
to judge of the merits of a case wherein the de-
fendants openly proclaim on the witness stand.; and
in the halls of the Legislature the rascality of the
plaintiffs, and the plaintiffs assert as confidently
the rascality of the defendants. In the examina-
tion there is a wide discrepancy between the affi-
davits sworn to, and the evidence given, and in
Congress the speeches on the subject deal very
freely with the characters of the directors. Senator
Stewart, of Nevada, made a savage attack on both
the Union Pacific Railroad Company and the
Credit Mobilier. The latter he asserts to have de-
feated the law which intended the stock to be open
for subscription by subscribing a little, then closing
the books, and building the road out of the enor-
mous subsidies obtained for bonds. The Senate con-
cluded by passing a motion to direct the President
to fix the point of junction according to the legal
rights of the respective roads ; and another motion
was agreed to, offered by Mr. Davis, of Kentucky,
to investigate whether or not the character and all
the franchises of the Union Pacific Railroad and
its branches have not been forfeited, and to execute
all necessary legal proceedings if they have ; second,
to investigate whether the said company has not
made illegal dividends upon its stock, and if so to
execute the necessary legal proceedings to have the
same reimbursed ; and third, to investigate whether
any of the directors, or agents, or employes of the
company have or have not violated any penal law,
and if so to institute the proper criminal proceed-
inois againsts all of them who have done so. The
House Committee on the Pacific Railroad, after
hearing argiunents for and against the Union and
Central Pacific RAilroads, decided to suggest the
adoption of a resolution asking the House to autho-
rize the continuance of the investigation and the
taking of testimony during the recess of Congress.
A joint resolution was eventually passed by Con-
gress, after long and adjourned debates, by the
Senate. It provides that stockholders of the Union
Pacific Road shall bold a meeting in Boston on
April 22 to elect directors and estab ish the general
office at such place as they may select ; that Ogden
shall be the point of junction of the two roads ; that
the Union Pacific shall continue laying the track
until reaching Promontory Summit, but the Central
Pacific shall pay for and own the same from Ogden ;-
that the President shall appoint Gotninissionera to •
examine into the condition of the roads, and shall
withhold a,sufficient amount of bonds to insure their
completion as first-class roads in every respect, and
that the Attorney-General shall institute an exa-
mination as to whether the two roads have forfeited
heir franchises, and, if so, to proceed against them.
tithe House Committee agreed to withhold,from both
companies the bonds on the 80 miles of road 'be-
tween Monument Point and Ogden until the ques-
tion of junbtioa was settled, a decision which quickly
brought the companies together to arrange thair
differences. In the meantime the legal squabbles
progressing in New York are becoming a bore.
The affidavits, the speeches of counsel, the ruling
of judges are interminable; however, the latest de-
velopment is of interest, namely, that a clerk of
Mr. airrant has credited to his private account
$5,000,000, against which. the Union Pacific draw
eheques when it wants money. By direction of the
Secretary of War, the
.military route of travel to
the Paciiie coast is fixed by the Pacific Railroad,
an I $2OO advance mileage will be paid to officers
under orders from the East to California, Oregon,
&c.