The Sun.
London, England, 1869-11-03 00:00:00

mu, S!JN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 3, 1869.

MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.

ments in case or an Increase or rent, -as wen as
demand for possession of the farm. This would act
as a check upon undue demands for rent. The tenant
would always rather pay a reasonable increase than
give up his farm, whilst the landlord will hesitate
before he asks an exorbitant price, knowing that he
will have to indemnify the tenant in case of capricious
increase.

Air. Allen and Mr. Sheriff Hutton, trace moaern
robberies by young men, embezzlements, &c., to the
Saturday half-holiday. And this is the way they work
out cause and effect : lloliday, in itself a luxury, gives
opportunity for indulging in other luxuries. • Other
luxuries cost money. Salaries, formerly sufficient, are
when "other luxuries" are wanted, found inadequate.
Means of increasing these salaries are looked for, and
found in embezzlement. The Saturday half-holiday,
therefore, leads to embezzlement. That this may be
a road along which some travel is not to be denied •
but how many ? The question is, whether the evil
is so great in the Saturday half-holiday that it is
necessary to sacrifice the good.

A POPULAR ERROR.

(From the Anglo-American Times.)
No. IL

The question of the preservation in its integrity
of the Union, is one even from its financial aspect
of deep interest to Europeans. It is probable that
Mr. Bo UTIVELL may fund a certain portion of the na-
tional debt in long-dated bonds at a lower interest,
and regarding, as settled, the disposition of the people
to pay, still one other question is ever present to the
mind of the European investor —" Suppose the United
States should split asunder ?" Mr. BOUTWELL can-
not know as we do, how deeply engrafted this sup-
position is in the European, or at least in the Eng-
lish mind, yet it is, as we last week said, a popular
error. We then showed that nature, instead of
favouring a disruption, favoured unity—that the
configuration of the country rendered a division so
arbitrary, so artificial, so wholly the work of man,
placing a stumbling-block in his own way, that it
would appear almost as ridiculous as would an in-
dividual rushing into the flood of the Mississippi to
turn its course. While we admitted the folly of man-
kind, we maintained that the tendency of an intelli-
gent people will surely in a general way be to-
wards the benefit of the community, and will revolt
against such an outrage on nature as that involved
in disruption. We asserted that there is no historical
parallel by which men can forecast the future of
America, for no other nation ever attained to a great
sway in the world except by the sword. The history
of the rase and progress of a powerful people has
been a history of successful battles, the conquest and
rule of alien communities; no comparison can Le sub-
stituted between such, and a nation whose motto,
is, that the greatest progress is in peace, holding to
the established principle, of the absolute equality of
each citizen embraced within the Republic. The one
Empire is the agglomeration of repugnant parts forc-
ibly annexed and ruled by coercion ; the other is the
spread of an homogeneous people over the waste
places of a continent, and the peculiarity of the
American Government is the equal weight given to
all, whether new or old, whether the freshly natu-
ralized citizen of to-day or the descendant of a
President, whether one of the original Thirteen Colo-
nies or the State of Nevada. At the same time we
admitted that vice, folly, ambition, greed, jealousy,
might generate conflicting interests, to eventu-
ate in disruption. But we maintain that the ten-
dency of an enlightened community, as we be-
fore observed, is, on the whole, towards the gene-
ral good, and as each citizen of the Republic
cannot fail to foresee so clearly the injurious ac-
tion of disruption upon himself and his family
individually it would be next to impossible to create
that state of things which would induce the ma-
jority to sanction it. He must have but little
imagination who cannot picture the injury a split
in the Union must inevitably work to the citizens of
the Republic. A foreign nation along a border will
of necessity be an evil of the greatest magnitude.
In a country geographically so formed as is the
United States that evil would be materially in-
creased. Hostile armies, hostile tariffs, jealousy,
obstacles to the interchange of commodities, the
escape of criminals, the stirring up of sedition, the
impediments to free travel and settlement, and the
enormously increased expenditure to bear the double
burden of Governments, most of it incurred as in Eu-
rope, to be armed against the neighbouring commu-
nity are but a few of the conspicuous home evils.
The foreign ones are, in a lower flag, a citizenship of
less account, the intrigue within America of other
nations ; alliances against each other, a diminished
immigration, and conflicting efforts to turn that
tile. Slight though these be in comparison with
the home evils, they strike Americans on a sensitive
point. Their aspiration is gone—the one grand ob-
i ject which has been the string on which they have
harped, which th e world sneeringly calls spread-eagle-
ism, but, with them, is a deep and enduring thought,
almost a passion. That Southern slaveowners would
have split the Union to preserve their domestic in-
stitution is an historic fact which rather strengthens
than weakens our argument, for we have through-
out admitted what vice, &c., may do. And how was
it met ? By a rise of the great majority, who never
really faltered in their frightful task to defeat the
nefarious design. Those who suppose the North
ever did falter know little of American sentiment.
And why were these citizens thus resolute ? Simply
for the reasons we have already given, which they
all clearly foresaw. Why did the South choose such
a path ? Because its citizens were not only demo-
ralized, but almost stnpified by slavery. Having
made this wooden idol the god of their idolatry they
fell down in blind ignorance to do it homage and
to obey its behests. But could such a state of things
again arise ? No—clearly not. It was America's im-
portation of the remnant of feudalism, derived from
an age gone by for ever, almost every vestige of its
follies, being now cleared away from that Continent.
Not only is the Republic outside any historical
parallel, but its citizens are unlike and placed in cir-
cumstances wholly dissimilar to those of every other
people. America is essentially a new country, with
waste land everywhere. Spread over it are cities, vil-
lages, and peopled tracts, and, like the rivers flow-
ing in all directions lined by willows and clumps of
green trees, so run the railroads connecting the Con-
tinent, with habitations and growing towns along the
iron ways. These citizens are more nomade than
fixed in habitation; throughout there is a perpetual
going to and fro, a mass surging from the east west-
ward; a recoil of wealth and intelligence eastward
to the great cities. There never was a community
whose parts were less knit to a locality and whose as-
pirations were so wide and national in extent. Now
what does this mean ? In one word, it is the Union
against State, county, or city ; and we desire our
English reader to take hold of this fact and analyze
it to comprehend the full force of the argument.
Does he not see that disruption must be born of
local feelings ; that such prejudices must be gene-
rated by a continued residence on the spot ; indeed
they can only be effectually implanted in the mind
by the residence of generations. The South was
the most ignorant and least travelled portion of the
Union ; it repelled instead of encouraged the inter-
communication, and its prejudice became such that
it lynched, rode on rails or ducked in mill ponds,
the man who taught a doctrine opposed to its great
Fetish. In its senseless worship it endeavoured to
surround its frontiers with a wall of brass, and
local feelings were of course generated, as well as
an ignorance which led that brave but ill-advised
community to imagine that they could beat off
Northern power by the force of arms. Now that
the wooden idol has been burnt up, and that the
people have not only warmed themselves over the
embers, but seen what a hollow, stupid thing itiwas,
there is no desire or need for the wall of brass,
and intercommunication may soon be as general over
the South as elsewhere throughout the Union. This
scattering and intermingling of the people as they
penetrate into the wilds make them homogeneous ;
even though the stream of immigration be from
many sources, it commingles, producing a distinct
type having all in common which knits a nation
together, and we may search in vain throughout
the globe for a place where so general atone pre-
vails with fewer local prejudices and stronger con-
tinental aspirations. There may be, as Europeans
maintain, causes for disruption, but when cast into
the balance they are found to have but little weight.
There is a jealousy against the preponderating
power of the New England States in the Senate, that
disproportion as regards both population and extent,
which, with tb growth of the great States daily
becomes more marked. There is the dispute as to
the site of thr4 National Capital ; the necessity for a
revision in 'she boundary lines of somo States ; the
danger of the national intelligence being swamped
by the erillting( d immigration of ignorant foreigners