The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-01 00:00:00

Miscellaneous American News.

Mr. Morgan, of New York, presented in the Senate
the resolutions of the Chamber of Commerce of New
York, in favour of the employment of a portion of
the national navy for the purpose of ascertaining, by
proper soundings, the facilities afforded by the bed
of the Atlantic ocean for laying lines of telegraphic
cable directly connecting our Atlantic coast with the
western coast of France and of Southern Europe.
Referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.
Mr. Darling (New York) introduced a bill to the
House of Representatives, granting the right to land
the submarine cable of the American Atlantic
Telegraph Company. Read twice, and referred to
the Post-office Committee. This bill grants the
Corporation, organised under the laws of the State
of New York for the purpose of establishing tele-
graphic communication between the United States
and other nations, via Bermudas, Azores Islands,
and Portugal, the sole right and privilege on the At-
lantic coast, within the jurisdiction of the United
States, for a period of twenty years, the company
to commence operations in two years, and the Go-
vernment to have priority of use.
Mr. Donnelly (Minnesota) offered the following
preamble and resolution :—" Whereas, emigration,
travel, and trade between the States of the Missis-
sippi Valley and the States of the Pacific coast have
been and now are greatly interrupted by the hos-
tility of the Indian tribes on the great plains ; and
whereas, it is a reproach to our Government that
its citizens cannot travel from one portion of the
national domain to another without danger to life
and property at the bands of a few thousand
wretched savages ; therefore, Resolved, that the
Secretary of War be required to report to this
House what addition to the force of the regular
army would be required thoroughly to protect com-
munications by the great routes across the conti-
nent, to wit, a route upon the general line of the
Union Pacific Railroad, and a route upon the gene-
ral line of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and that
he also be requested to communicate to the I-louse
the report of the tour of inspection made during
the past season through the Territories of Da-
cota, Montana, and Idaho, to the Pacific coast.
Adopted.
Mr. Ward, of New York, introduced into the
same House a bill to grant certain States that have
been in rebellion a Republican form of Govern-
ment. Read twice, and referred to the Reconstruc-
tion Committee, and ordered to be printed. It
provides for the appointment of provisional
governors for those States, who are to call State
conventions. All male persons, native born or
naturalised, who have been residents of the election
district six months, irrespective of colour, of the
age of tweny-one years, and not belonging to the
excepted classes, to vote in selecting delegates to
the Convention, the delegates to be loyal men.
The excepted classes are those who have held office,
civil or military, under the Confederacy, guerrillas,
publishers of rebel newspapers, rebels who violated
an oath to support the constitution, or have been
educated at the military or naval academy. When
the delegates frame a State Constitution that shall
secure suffrage to all but the exceptional classes,
shall disqualify from holding office all who aided in
the rebellion, and secure to all men, not disqualified
by treason or other crime, equal rights and full pro-
tection ; shall, in the event of the adoption of the
constitution by the people, provide for the election
of state, judicial, and legislative officers, and shall
submit the constitution to the people authorised to
vote for delegates for adoption or rejection ; when
said constitution shall be adopted, and the amend-
ments proposed by Congress to the Constitution of
the United States are adopted, then the loyal
members of Congress from those States are to be
admitted to their seats.
We fully concur with the correspondent when he
says, "It is feared in some quarters that the
Senate will reject the President's nomination of
General Dix as Minister to France. General Dix
took a prominent part in the proceedings of the
Philadelphia Convention he is therefore an object
of Radical dislike. It is hoped that the spite of
the Senators will not go so far as to result in the
withdrawal of General Dix. The humiliation
would be for the country, not for the Ambassador."
TILE FREEDMEN.—Gen. lloward's report shows
that the number of rations issued to refugees and
freedmen from June 1, 1865, to Sept. 1, 1866, was
13,112,273. The usual increase of di3tress with the
approach of winter will be aggravated by the short-
ness of the crops, and the monthly issue of rations
will probably therefore be enlarged. There are of
men, women, and children attending school in the
late rebel States, about 150,000. Outrages, though

by no means wholly repressed, are not so numerous
as they were a year ago. The Bureau controls
275,000 acres of laud and 1,100 town and city lots.
For the ensuing fiscal year an appropriation of
$3,386,300 is asked by the Commissioner.
The Bureau superintendent of education in Geor-
gia, in his report for October, reckons the number
of schools at 48, teachers 63, and pupils 2,755.
Thirty-four of these schools and 1,163 pupils are
sustained entirely by the freedmen ; the rest by the
benevolence of the North. Twenty-three of the
teachers are coloured, for the most part imperfectly
qualified. The contributions of the freedmen during
October reached $l,OOO. A bill has been intro-
duced in the Georgia Legislature " to provide for
education and to establish a general system of Geor-
gia schools." The third section shows the peculiar
features of " Georgia schools:"—" Sec. 3. Be it
enacted, 6-c., That any free white inhabitant, being
a citizen of the United States, and of this State, and
residing within the limits of any county or school
district, organised under this act, between the ages
of six and twenty-one years, shall be entitled to in-
struction in the Georgia school of said county or
district without charge for tuition or incidental
expenses."

Large numbers of freedmen at Chattanooga are
making contracts to work upon the railroads of the
South-west, and squads are daily cleparting from
that point.

Governor Worth, of North Carolinas Governor