The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-15 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 15, 1E69

feeble, and incapable of resistance even wnen
goaded to desperation, but whose tainted breath and
fevered blood carry with the tread of their lacerated
feet and the various humours of their bodies the
germs -of retributive disease (conveyed, it has been
suggested, by the agency of insect life) into whole-
some farms and pastures." To all persons engaged
in teaching, in whatever rank in life, to the President
of the Committee of Council on Education, and to
the National Society's Board of Education, Miss
Coutts suggests that some plan should be adopted for
inculcating in a definite manner principles of
humanity towards animals and a knowledge of their
structure, treatment, and value to man. She men-
tions that in Massachusetts there is an institute
partaking somewhat of this character called the
" Ladies Humane Society."

dering the question, passed resolutions proposing toimpose
on the owners of the railways, mines, and manufactories
heavy liabilities in case of accident, unless they can prove
that the disaster arose from the fault of the injured per
son, or from a visitation of nature. Under such a law the
Saxon company who worked the fatal mine would have
to pay compensation to the relatives of the 27C
persons killed. Such a liability exists in France
and in Rhenish Prussia, where the Code Napo.
leon prevails, but it is thought doubtful how it
would work in Germany. The labours of the Congress
terminated with the adoption of this resolution, the
selection of the next place of meeting being left to the
discretion of the committee. It was not so largely
attended as usual, but it was noticeable that a number of
ladies were present at the debates.

at regular warfare had proved that the time had
not come for the triumph of their cause, yet the
organization was in full working order, and the
drilling of the rank and file was steadily going on.
He closed with an appeal for union on the part of
all Irishmen for the sake of the freedom and inde-
pendence of their native land. But a few delegates
were present, and the report prevails that Mr.
Savage will resign. Judge M'Cunn discharged, un-
conditionally, Mr. George R. Rutter, the president
of the Tennessee Bank, accused of running away
with its assets. Ile did this in spite of all the As-
sistant District Attorney could urge. In vain the At-
torney showed the affidavit of the officer despatched
by the Governor of Tennessee from Memphis ; in
vain he asked for a delay of three hours to obtain the
signature of Governor Hoffman, the inexorable judge
discharged the alleged culprit. Judge Barnard, in
opening the Supreme Court, pitched into an editor of
the Times, who, he supposed, had written an article
on the Erie and Susquehanna War censuring his ac-
tion. All the writers in the limes caught it ; the
late Mr. Raymond and the present Mr. Bigelow, in
a style worthy of a man who has brought such dis-
honour on the bench. Bat Judge Barnard may
depend upon this, that his own tarnished fame will
not be reburnished by attempting to sully the cha-
racters of honourable and upright men, who, in dis-
charge of their imperative duty as journalists, cen-
sure action alike disgraceful and injurious to our
country. These are the words of the Judge—
" The writer in question was a man whom he had saved,
some five years ago, from being sent to the Penitentiary
for forgery, and that ho was following worthily iu the
footsteps cf the man who, after persistent:y attacking and
misrepresenting him (the Judge), went home drunk and
fell dead. Hereafter he would make it a point to expose
the personal character of his assailants."

Brave words these ! and future juries will be highly
edified by the scandals recounted from the bench
about gentlemen the Judge thinks have attacked him
in the press. Of course Judge Barnard at once set
to work to muddle the Susquehanna affair. Ex-
Governor Lowe of Maryland has been appointed to
take testimony, and Ramsay, the president of the
road, and Van Valkenberg, the Secretary, were
brought up for examination. Orders have been
issued vacating Judge Peckham's injunctions, and
suspending as receiver Mr. Robert Pruyn. Mr.
Stokes proves another defaulter, having bolted with
some two score thousand dollars from the house of
Morris and Co., Yonkers ; as usual in these cases,
he had lost heavily in stock operations. Adam
1). Logan, a well-known lawyer, fell out of a
third-story window of the Clarendon Hotel, and
was buried on Tuesday. The failure is announced
of the respectable firm of Starin and Floyd, pro-
duce dealers. The firm has made an assign-
ment to Mr. Samuel Edmonston for the benefit
of their creditors. A small boy was crushed to
a jelly in Gregory Steel Works, at the foot of
Warren-street, Jersey City, between two heavy
rollers ; he was the only remaining son of a widow,
his brother baying been killed a few weeks ago on
a railway. There was a shooting affray last Satur-
day, in which a poor girl was killed. Miss Delia
Adams was near while Captain Foss, of the ship
Pacific, was engaged in a contest with John Harri-
son, who had interferred on behalf of some boys who
the captain alleged were stealing lime from the ship.
A shot, intended for Harrison, mortally wounded
the girl, but another severely wounded Harrison as
well. George Browne, the husband of Sarah E.
Erowne, has been arrested on a charge of having poi-
soned his wife. James M'Crorley was found dead in a
pond at the corner of Fifth-avenue and Forty-ninth-
street with his skull fractured by a heavy instru-
ment. He was a gardener of the Central Park.
The weather was screaming hot in the early part of
the week, and had fast emptied town ; but there
has lately been an inroad from the country, and a
great pressure on the accommodation of the hotels.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 27.
The States whose ratification of the Fifteenth
Amendment is complete, so far as shown by the
records of the State Department, are North Caro-
lina, West Virginia, Massachusetts, Wisconsin,
Maine, Louisiana, Michigan, South Carolina,
Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Connecticut, and Florida.
Two States have rejected the Amendment, Dela-
ware and Kentucky, while the ratification of two
others is defective, Kansas and Missouri. We have
had a return of the hot weather, and very hot it
has been ; indeed the drought is calculated to do in-
jury to the country. At the White house a letter was
received from a Parisian named Bolmeaux, asking
permission to establish a gaming-house in New
York on tLe piincip]e of the German establishments,
that are working under a license, a large portion of
' the profits going to the Government, and under
the surveillance of the police. A reduction in the
debt is anticipated, notwithstanding the enormous
payments made this month. It was supposed that
the disbursements on account of the Pension
Bureau would turn the scale the other way, but now
it appears that a reduction will be shown notwith-
standing. I regret to say that Secretary Rawlins
is very ill. Yesterday morning be was prostrated
with hemorrhage of the lungs, but he has recovered
sufficiently to visit the War Department for a short
time to-day, though his health remains a subject of
great anxiety to his friends. Secretary Robeson
and Admiral Porter have been at Boston spending
a day or two at the summer residence of J. M.
Forbes at Nanshon Island ; they are expected here
shortly. Mr. L. Estrance, of the British Legation,
left on a call from his wife's family, one of whose
brothers was drowned. Mr. Estrance married an
American, a niece of the late General Wadsworth,
of New York, who was killed during the civil war.
Senator Carpenter, of Wisconsin, arrived, and had
an interview with Commissioner Delano. Mr.
Peabody is expected from White Sulphur Springs
with the banker, Mr. Corcoran, whose guest he
will be for a few days. his donation to General
Lee's College was intended to furnish a salary of
$3,000 for a professorship, and $6OO per annum to
the library. Tonry, who was dismissed from the
Surgeon-Cr eneral's-oflice for marrying Miss Annie
Surratt, has received a lucrative post in Kansas.
He declined an appointment tendered by Judge
Ilolt. Blacque Bey, the Turkish Ambassador, has
been raised to the dignity of Ullah by the Sultan,
conferred as a special mark of favour, being the
highest grade in the first rank of the Civil Service.

AMERICAN PRISONS.—GOOD AND BAD.
Snt,—l have just received from America, through the
courtesy of Dr. E. C. Wines of New York, Mr. Gideon
Haynes, of Boston, and other correspondents, a number of
interesting documents relative to criminal treatment in
that country, a few extracts from Which may interest vcur
readers. I may just premise ihst aweo reports throughout
confirm an opinion I have long entertained, that the United
States prisons are ills best and the worst in Christendom.
Some of their larger prisons are the best, inasmuch as they
combine deterrence with reformation, and prevention with
cure, to an extent probably not approached in any other
country.. Amongst these excellent institutions may be
named the State prison of Massachusetts, under Mr. G.
Haynes, the Philadelphia Eastern Prison, the Weather-
field Prison (Connecticut), the Albany Prison (NS •),
under General Pillsburg, the Thomaston Prison, Maine,
under Mr. W. W. Rice, the Concord Prison (N.H.), and
others. The moral and financial success of some of these
prisons is very striking. Unlike most of our English
prisons these American gaols make the prisoner reform
himself by useful remunerative industry, and at the
same time save the pockets of honest citizens, and re-
imburse the cost of his confinement. For example,
the Massachusetts State Prison has, in the last two
years, paid all its expenses and salaries, and contri
buted to the State revenue a surplus of £lO,OOO (not
dollars), out of the profits of the prisoners' labour. At
the Maine Prison, at Thomaston, Mr. Rice teaches a
complete trade to every convict who stays long enough
to learn it and has the requisite capacity. He states
that "of 200 convicts discharged during his incumbency
a period of more than five years, only seven had been re_
convicted, but two of the seven had learned a trade, and
one of them was an old thief, who had already served three
terms." Framers of systems of criminal treatment who
ignore religious influences as a primary aid, are like the
builders who rejected "the head-stone of the corner." But
the better class of American prima officials make religious
(iitiSeCtariall) efforts prominent, and whilst striving to
render their gaols self-supporting, also promote prison
Sabbath-schools, prison prayer meetings, and prison
libraries. And unmistakably good results have repeatedly
ensiled. They endeavour to avoid mere routine in religi-
ous services, and aim heartily at reforming their prisoners.
Such men are the excellent Dr. Wines, New York; Mr. G.
Haynes; Massachusetts; Rev. D. Dyer and General Pills-
burg, Auburn, New York; Mr. G. B. Hubbell and H.
C.
Dorsey, Rhode Island; Rev. Mr. Canfield, of Clinton;
"Father" Willett, of Richmond, Virginia ; Mr. L. R. Brock-
way, mul rat* 7 Wort} likegqiucicd, Although in our glig

lish prisons reformation is not made nearly so prominent
an object as in the above prisons, yet efforts are being
widely increased to extend remunerative labour. And
it is time ; for at present (1869) the average cost of
English prisoners is £37 per head. The average earn-
ings rose last year from £2 to £2 10s. each per annum—
truly a small sum at best. This small amount is chiefly
owing to repeated short convictions, and, with so many
of these, it is highly creditable that the governors of
some of our gaols at Wakefield, Manchester (Now Bailey),
Bedford, York Castle, Durham, Hull, Carlisle, Petworth,
Gloucester, Birmingham, Devonport, Leeds, Liverpool
(Borough Gaol), Newcastle, Bristol, Src., secure to the
ratepayers from SA to £lO per annum out of their pri-
soners' industry. But there are other features of very
many American prisons which England is honourably free
from, and to these I must now allude. The reports just re-
ceived by the Howard Association show (what W 3 have
had confirmed by trustworthy correspondence) that great
enormities, corruptions, and cruelties are exercised in many
United States prisons by officials, who are only fit to be
prisoners themselves and not gaolers, and who owe their
positions to the lowest political jobbory, and to the mis-
chievous American system (almost universal there) of
changing all office-bearers (even those of subordinate
gaolers and post-offleo keepers) at the expiration of tiza
tenure of each political party's power. I have heard it
said in America as a rather common plea, "Let each gc in
for the stealings in rotation." Hence it is not to bo won-
dered at, that even in the Empire State of New York, tor-
ture is practised in some of the prisons. The 1869 report
of that useful body, the New York Prison Association,
states that amongst the punishments still employed in their
State prisons, are the iron cap, the ball and chain, pro-
tracted shower bathings, the iron crucifix or yoke, and tho
buck or truss. The shower-bath almost drowns the shiver-
ing, panting wretch into submission. The crucifix is a flat
bar of iron, weighing from 3.11 b. to 501 b., attached to the
neck and wrists by three iron rings which can bo screwed
to any tightness. The "buck" punishments consist is
tying the wrists and legs together, and then trussing up
the prisoner for hours by moans of a stout stick passing
between the legs and arms, and thus suspending the pri-
soner from two chairs for hours, in a doubled-up position.
Criminals should be both punished and reformed ; but
surely not, in those days, by such methods. Well may
the New York Prison Association plead as to these tor-
tures—" Let them be banished by law in monk sxottlorunz."
From a Western State prison the most atrocious outrages
upon the female prisoners by the male officers have been
very recently credibly reported by respectable correspon-
dents. This has been at length put a stop to; but it does
not appear that the wretches have been punished to any
considerable extent. Space precludes my adding more
than the following extract from a recent report by a com-
mittee of the Delaware Legislature :—" Persons are very
often arrested and committed to prison on false and mali-
cious accusations, and, after a longer or shorter confine-
ment, are discharged without trial. They have been taken
from their homes and families and business, confined in
the company of the vicious and the vile, and, after months
of suffering, aro discharged with the taint, the disgrace,
and perhaps the corruption of the prison upon them, yet
wholly without redress or compensation." Hoping that
the publication of these extracts may bo of some use on
both sides of the Atlantic, I am, sir, yours truly, WILLIAM
TALLAck. 5, Bishopsgate-street Without, E.G.

AMERICAN PRESS.

Mr. Blaikie, the secretary of the Harvard Boat
Club, under date Aug. 7, wrote to the New York

Herald in some irritation as to the treatment the
Harvard crew had experienced from that of Oxford.
Up to that time he says that every disputed point
had to be yielded by Harvard or the match aban-
doned. Nearly eighteen months ago they sur-
rendered the question of coxiwain, then they de-
sired on their arrival in England to be at liberty to
select the course for the race, but Oxford was ob-
stinate, adhering to the water with which they
were familiar, and that was also conceded :
"The Harvard crew have now been in London some
two weeks. They can scarcely be said to have got rid of
their " sea legs" before they are pressed indecently by the

Oxford crew to fix a definite day for the match. They
have not yet got their boat for the race. The two they
br,ught with them as experiments are said by the English
critics to be unfit for a Thames four-oared match, and
orders have been given for two others to be built, ono by
Salters, who built the Oxford boat, and one by Elliott, an
American builder, who accompanied the Ilarvards to Eng
land, and who is at work upon the craft in Simmonds's
yard. The Salters boat was delivered at Putney, August
6, but singularly enough it was found that her canvass at
one end had been slit up, and she had to be sent back for
repair. The Elliot boat, in which they will probably row
the match, is not ready and will not be for several days.
The Oxford men of course have their boat ready, and have
been in steady practica for some three months without in-
termission. Notwithstanding this disparity, the Harvard
men signified their willingness to name a day conditionally
upon the weather being fair and with the right to post-
pone the race should the weather be stormy and unfavour-
able. Bet this door not suit the book of the Oxfords, and

they now insist that the day shall be unalterably e;ttled
at once, without the privilege of postponernout
Nor is it surprising that the eager anxiety of the Oxford
men to fix the day irrevocably, and with a long notice in
advance, should have revived some of those latent sus-
picions of an intention to beat the Americans anyhow,
which the American press has laboured to allay."

We dare say that Mr. Blaikie was afterwards sorry
he had been in such a hurry to write. Throughout
his letter the fact is overlooked that it was Har-
vard who challenged, and the challenger always
surrenders such points. It was necessary to fix a
day, and training which forces on men the life of a
hermit, takes them from their friends and family
circle, and devotes a period of recreation to oue
of intense labour, ought to be made as short as
possible. The Harvard crew was in training before
leaving Cambridge, and five weeks would be ample
fur practice on the Thames, unless they desired to
change their style, which they did not.

The New York 'limes thus desribes the reception
of the news at New York :
" About 1.30 o'clock the result of the race was an-
nounced, and was received with a cheer, but with less
exultation than might have been expected. Tim Eng-
lishmen felt, in fact, or at least they professed to feel, that
the result of the contest was aforegone conclusion, and

that the Oxfords must win. But little money changed
hands here, for opinions were all one way. Why', said
an Englishman who was just sitt:_ng down to a beefsteak
and pot of ale, how could men expect to win that have
been living on mush, and rice, and such things ? There's
nothing like beer and ale ; and I consider this race as
showing the superiority of the roast beef of old England
over Yankee food as well as men. When I heard the liar-
yards were training on soft food, I knew it was all up with
'em. There's no muscle in it.' Still, I must say as they did
pretty well,' said another,' all things considered. It's a
mighty hard thing to beat a man on his own ground, but
they gave 'em a pretty hard pull for it.' The Bostonians,
from their connection with the great American University,
naturally felt peculiarly interested in the race, andadopted
a curious method of announcing the matter. If the
Harvards were victorious, 5-5 was to bo struck by
the fire alarm ; but, as they wore defeated, 2-2 was struck.
If the Harvards won the American flag was to be
displayed on the top of a pole on Telegraph-hill at Hull;
but as the English beat, the flag was run only half-way up
the staff. The Harvard boys assembled in Boston to learn
the result, and when it came they did not cheer. Great
excitement was manifested in New York on receipt of the
news cf the result, lat it was agreed on all hands that
the Oxford crew had acted fairly and with credit to their

;el 41—.4 1,01, .idLa.• ..E.1_1.1,2111 Mi." 11.7,11.
says that more than £lO,OOO of American money was lost
on the race, besides that which was bet outside England.
And that there was groat interest manifested in the race
may be gathered from the fact that more than a column of
matter was telegraphed by cable to the New York Asso-
ciated Press, besides special telegrams to several journals."
The Spirit of the Times, alluding to the defeat of

Harvard by the Wards, and the fact that the Ox-
ford crew have been twice defeated this year by the
crews of English clubs, observes :
"The safe conclusion therefore is, that though these
Oxford and Harvard crows are the best college fours in
England and America, they aro not the best, by any means,
that can be found in their respective countries. In one
sense it is a good thing for oarsmanship in this country
that the Harvard crew did not win this race. Their stroke
has been so misconceived and misdescribed by their friends
in some of the newspapers here that a victory would have
tended to encourage a bad system of rowing among our
clubs. The changes wore so rung from day to day upon
the rapid style of Harvard,' the `quick stroke with a
vicious jerk at the end,' &c., that we wore reminded of the
nonsense whioh prevailed at the time the little engine,'
Hamill, went over to England to row against Kelley. And

then the editorial articles to this effect were supported by
letters from correspondents, who maintained that the rapid
sti olio must win. It is true that sorno of these last in-
formed their readers that they knew nothing about beats
or boat racing, which we think was rather unnecessary, as
any intelligent boy of 10 years old would have discovered
that fact if they had never mentioned it. It finally came
to such a pitch that the rapid stroke of the oars was likened
to the effect of paddlewheels with the floats only six
inches apart, which was assumed by the intelligent writer
to bo the latest improved method of steamboat builders.
There will now be an end to all this."
The Albion notices that the Harvard men—

"Not only refused to adopt the English style, but also
rejected all the suggestions of their English ' coach' that
would lead to a denationalisation of their rowing in any
particular. This protest is enforced by their action in
abandoning, at the last moment, the English boat which
had been built for their use, and finally deciding to use the
Elliott' modollocl for thou iA Now X9rk. Thin citterral-