The Sun.
London, England, 1867-04-13 00:00:00

portal measures that h ve passed the Senate alone
are, a joint resolution transfering $50,000 from the
funds of the freedmen's bureau to the department
of agriculture, for the purchase of seeds for citizens
of rebel states ; a bill prohibiting the removal of
Indian tribes or the expenditure of trust funds held
by Indians, without permission by law or treaty ;
a bill to grant to the American Atlantic Telegraph
Company the right of way and privilege to buy
land and operate a submarine telegraph cable on
the Atlantic coast of the United States, and to
establish telegraph communication with Europe
by way of the Bermuda and Azorei Islands, re-
quiring active operations to be commenced in
two years, and provi,ling that the United States
shall always have the preference in the use of
the cable ; and a joint resolution to prohibit the

issue of agricultural college scrip to the States
lately in rebellion until they are represented in
Congrm,A. The House has ado;•)ted resolutions front
the foreign committee protestir't against the coll..
federati ,n of the British North American provinces,
and expressing sympathy with the i•eople of Ire-
land and Crete ; and passed a bill providing that
members of Congress shall receive their pay monthly.
Senators Wilson and Stunner of this State have bo',,h
introduced bills to establish equal suffrage in the
States, and Mr. Wilson has had the courage to offer
a resolution for the relief of Jeff. Davis on parole or
bail, and there are strong hopes that it will pass. A.
good deal of other new business has been introduced
into one house or the other, but very little of it is
likely to be completed at this session. The Senate
has had up the testimony taken by the House
committee in regard to the New York custom-
house frauds, and fully exonerated Senators Doo-
little and Patterson from the charges made against

them ; but the House is more convinced than ever
of the weakness or wickedness of Collector Smythe.
There has been strong talk of impeaching him, but
the matter finally rests by the passage of a resolu-
tion recommended by the committee on public ex-
penditures, declaring it to be the sense of the house
that he is unfit for the position he holds, and calling
for his immediate removal ; and this resolution was
reported after Mr. Smythe had been allowed ample
facilities for making his defence. The most excit-
ing event of the week has been the renewal of
Butler's attack on Bingham for his participation in
the conspiracy trials, and the charges intimated by
the former so plainly that they cannot be mistaken,
that the diary of Booth was purposely kept back
and mutilated, and that President Johnson was
really the person who instigated Booth to change
his original plan of abducting President Lincoln
to that of murdering him. But notwithstanding
this charge, so plainly made, the house refused
to appoint a committee to investigate it. There
was a caucus of the Republican members on Mon-
day night to take action as to future political move-
ments, North and South, which resulted in the ap-
pointment of a Congressional committee of one
member from each State. The work of filling the -
(Ave has not progressed much. The only confir-
mations by the Senate of any note are, Nathaniel
G. Taylor, of Tennessee, as Commissioner of Indian:
affairs, and General George W. Grandey, of Ver-
mont, as Consul at San Juan del Sur. The nomi-
nation of Church Howe, of Worcester, as marshal
for Massachusetts, has been rejected, also that of
William W. Taylor as postmaster at Concord, New
Hampshire. The President nominated General
Frank P. Blair as Minister to Austria, but he will
not be confirmed, and he has also appointed General
Slocum naval officer at New York, and Mr. Ken-
nedy, formerly superintendent of the census, to be
Commissioner of Agriculture in place of old Isaac
Newton.

IRELAND.

DUBLIN, April 12.

John Kirwan, the Fenian, who escaped from
Meath Hospital, has not been recaptured yet. The
persons in Mountjoy Prison charged with minor
offences in connection with the rising at Tallaght are
to be let out on bail to day. Joyce, a supposed
Fenian, arrested at Londonderry, has been released,
there being no evidence to warrant his further de-
tention.
The Special Commission for Munster was issued
yesterday. It is for three counties—Cork, Tipperary,
and Limerick, the proceedings under it to commence
in Cork on the 30th inst., when from 10 to 15 per-
sons will be indicted for high treason. The commis-
sion is addressed to the 12 judges, the particular
judges who are to preside not being yet named.
Three sergeants-at-law are included, and the follow-
ing six Queen's counsel :—Messrs. Henry 11. Joy,
James Robinson, Patrick J. Blake, James Rogers,
Edward Pennefather, and Edmund B. Lawless. The
object of this arrangement is to prevent any incon-
venience occur_ ring to suitors in the_seperior courts,
arising from the withdrawal during term of the
judges from the discharge of their ordinary duties ;
and also to facilitate the proceedings under the Com-
mission by enabling courts to be held, if necessary,
in the three counties simultaneously. Sergeant Barry
and Sir Colman O'Loghlen are retained by the
Crown to prosecute in Cork.
The death of Mr. R. Hitchcock, at Chester, on
Tuesday last has caused a vacancy in the office of
Master of the Court of Exchequer. As the place is
worth £l,OOO a year, there is a great stir among
the barristers who have been active in the Conser-
vative cause, but have not attained sufficient emi-
nence to aspire to the bench. Mr. Long for-
merly member for Mallow, is now on the groove of
promotion as Law Adviser ; but it is said that the
Government would be glad if he accepted the
vacant Mastership, and made way for a lawyer
of more energy to assist in the Fenian prose-
cutions. The rising barristers who have worked n
hardest for the party now in power are Mr. Joh
LoNonrgwfiocoidd, , thooswaevccor,usneceilmlosr,
andMr.aug to
I'u rbc ee
l l.
put o
ff
the line which leads Mr.
to the bench.
The Drogheda Corporation has resolved, by accla-
mation, to prepare and present an address express-
ing their unbounded loyalty to the Queen and Con-
stitution. A similar address from the grand jury of
the county of Donegal has just been acknowledged
by the Lord Lieutenant, who stater that his con-
nection with that county enhances the satisfaction
with which be has received it.
The Cork Examiner says that for many years
there has not prevailed more destitution than at
present exists among the numerous
_poor in the city
of Cork; 700 young men and women left Queens-
town on Wednesday for New York.
An investigation was opened yesterday in the
City Hall, before Lord Crofton and Sir John Ben-
son, arbitrators, into the claim of Mr. Tighe for
compensation for depreciation in value of his pro-
perty at Rosen in the county of- Wicklow, by
reason of the erection of the Vartry reservoir, and
the possibility of an overflow therefrom. The arbi-
tration was eventually postponed until the 11th of
June. The contractor denies the statement in the
Daily Express that the puddling was bad—a matter
not yet tested.
At the meeting of the West Connaught Endow-
ment Society yesterday the Bishop of Tuam, who
presided, congratulated his bearers on the fact that
whereas in 1811 the Protestants iu that diocese were
only Ito 88, now they are Ito 37. He also pro-
duced statistics to contradict those in the pamphlet
of the Bishop of Down, which, he said, had unfor-
tunately gained great publicity, and were greedily
taken up by the Radical press of England, who say
that surely a Church in such a state must fall. Who
shall decide when such doctors differ ?