The Sun.
London, England, 1869-11-23 00:00:00

SMALLPDX AMONG THE INDIANS.

The smallpox is making terrible ravages among the Gros
Ventre Indians. The deaths number five hundred, of
half of the entire tribe. They are committing suicide by
blowing their brains out with revolvers. Tho dead
Indians strew the road from the Forks to Mill river. The
Gros Ventres demand that the Indian agent shall act as
a mediator with the Great Spirit to stop the disease.

AMERICAN AFFAIRS.

(From the Anglo-American Times.)
NEW YORK, Nov. G.

General Butterfield is highly indignant at the
rumour put in circulation about him, and has, in
consequence brought an action against the New
York newspaper which started it, for libel. It is an
old story, and one which told strongly against the
appointment when first made, although then drowned
in a chorus of newspaper praise which always looks
suspicious when sung, for the newspapers do not
thus raise their melodious voices unless the key-note
be sounded, and that is not given without an object,
which generally is to cover some scheme or to hide
some black mark in the record of the appointee.
The story is that, when a staff officer of the army,
he used his privilege of sending telegrams in cypher
and his information, to operate in stocks after the
battle of Chancellorsville, while he withheld all in-
telligence of the disaster from the newspapers and
the public. There is little chance of such trials
being pressed to their legitimate conclusion. If
they were, another chapter will have to be written
about the war of a highly sensational but not very
creditable character. If, for instance, Fisk and
Gould would submit the affidavits on which Orland
W. Joslyn, Fisk's broker during the Gold Gamble,
was arrested for perjury to the searching ordeal of
a fair and public trial, people would obtain infor-
mation about the secret operations of the ring which
would help them in forming an opinion on the
character of some New Yorkers in high places.
But these are always evaded, though the quarrel
among the robbers has done something in the way
of exposure. Mr. Joslyn lately brought a suit in
the Common Pleas to recover sums he had lost on
the purchase of gold for Fisk and Gould, who
then repudiated their contracts. The latter made
affidavits denying that they had ever bargained
either to sell gold to him or to receive gold
he had bought, and as the affidavits pointed to
perjury on the part of Mr. Joslyn, he was brought
up at the Tombs Police Court, where Francis P.
Wallace gave bail that he would answer any indict-
ment found against him by the Grand jury. Al-
though we have gone through an election week,
no amount of stirring up, could make the people
shake off their apathy. The closer the exciting
moment came the greater was the apathy, and not-
withstanding the tremendous issues involved,"
the screams to look out for repeaters, to register,
to vote, to work, to advance the entire line, people
still were indifferent, and in view, too, of the new
Constitution. Five coloured clergymen, supported
by some members of their congregations, have ap-
pealed to the people for the abolition of the clause
which saddles them with a property qualification of
$250 on each, over and above his debts. What
they say is very forcible, and some Radical papers
have used it with effect to excite a
.little interest,
although, as I said before, nothing did arouse the
people. Their poverty contrasts in numbers, wealth,
and social standing with the position of the whites.
They are barred instruction, then taunted with ig-
norance ; excluded from work, then flouted with
being idle and beggarly. Every avenue to emi-
nence is closed, while men wonder they lack energy,
thrift, and aspiration. To weight them with a pro-
perty qualification not applicable to the whites,
while denied the most ready means of acquiring
property, does not sound like equality is our De-
mocratic Republican State; and the best of the joke
is that Irishmen, who are always spouting about
their the wrongs of
race, and raising over a bright
horizon the dawning sun of liberty, carefully ex-
clude poor Sambo from the benefit of its rays,
leaving him out in the cold and in the dark shadow
with his blackened face. There was a free fight
last week among the First Ward politicians, when
one man was mortally wounded ; but this was in a
drinking
T saloon,h and I know not if it arose out of
politics.
Rev. W. 11. Millburn, who has lately
e Re
been lecturing and preaching in London, recently
returned to the United States, and preached last
Sunday at the chapel of the Holy Saviour. It is
extraordinary the information this blind gentle-
man acquires on his travels. There are thousands
who go over the same ground with both eyes open,
but see little in comparison with him. The Cham-
ber of Commerce does not advise immediate action
with regard to the Mediterranean Oriental Steam
Navigation Company, to help in their organization;
but it urges Congress to instruct the Post-office
Department to take measures for increasing the
mail service to a semi-monthly instead of a monthly
line between San Francisco and the China ports.
Father Ilyacinthe has run the reporters down ;
they can get no good out of him ; he has gone, I
believe, to Albany, after his visit to Staten Island,
and will leave, I am told, in ten or twelve days for
Europe. At the meeting of the various evange-
lical denominations at the Fifth-avenue Reform
Church, the Rev. Dr. Schaff gave an interest-
ing account of his recent mission to Europe. Its
object was to obtain the promises of leading
Protestant clergymen to attend the meeting of
the Evangelical Alliance which towards the end of
next year is to assemble in New, York. He had
been cordially received by Lords Stanley, Shaftes-
bury, and 'bury, and many members of both
Houses of Parliament. 'I he Archbishop of Canter-
bury, though not seeing his way, would:correspond
on the subject, but the Dean of Canterbury pro-
inised to be present. The Rev. Mr. Spurgeon, though
strongly sympathizing, could not attend. Dr.
Schaff had met with as much encouragement on the
Continent as in Great Britain. Dr. Thompson
read a letter from Father Hyacinthe, who was un-
able to attend- through a detention at Highland
Falls. The letter was written to the Rev. L. W.
Bacon, as a preface to the sermons that gentleman is
translating. The Father expressed his gratifi-
cation at their republication in English. How-
et er unworthy, he presented them to Ame-
rica and to those Protestant Churches, of which
1- the translator was such an ornament. He was
proud of France,
and would continue faithful to
the Catholic Church. In protesting against her
usurr at ions his love could be judged by the bitter-
ness of his lamentations. lie appreciated the syins
pathies of other Churches in his stand, nor did he
think, though separated from the Catholic Commu-
nion, they were beyond the pale of the Holy Ghost.
Hereafter we will be united through time, and all
live in hope of the same eternity and have of the
same God. We aro all labouring in common
for the great Church of the Future. To him, the
Lord had spoken, putting into his hand the two
withered branches, Rome and Israel he had so