The Sun.
London, England, 1867-04-15 00:00:00

Miscellaneous American News.

The Legislature of Virginia has passed an Act
providing for the payment of 2 per cent. interest on
the State debt on July 1, 1867, and 2 per cent. on

January 1, 18G8. Until there is a settlement of
accounts with the new State of West Virginia, the
Legislature does not consider that Virginia owes
more than two-thirds the debt, and " 4 per cent.

per -annum on the whole" is, according to the
Richmond Inquirer; " equivalent to 6 per cent. on.

two-thirds of the debt."
After a debate the Senate has almost una-
nimously ratiftal the treaty with Russia for the
cession of Russian America to the United States.

The Times, in a leading article yesterday, contrasts
this sale with the proposed cession of Luxembourg
to the French. Russian America overlaps British

America exactly as the Duchy of Luxembourg over-
laps. Belgium. little alarm was felt on
the fit intege: u.04,6€,P.t0.,an5. action by:the:lllritiA
publieitte*Aittion:subsided,' and the new§-
of the final ratification Was received with little con-
cern: The Tinzes proceeds to explain why the Eng-
lish people regard this cession with indifference, and
why the Germans interfere to prevent the sale of a
duchy to France by the King of Holland, which
they have no more right to veto than the British
have the Russo-American bargain. Our transat-
lantic possessions must, says the Times, in the very
nature of things some day or other, be lost to us,
and we have no desire to struggle against the natural

course of events.
The North'Gerttan Lloyd's steamship Ilansa ar
rived at NeW Yak on MOnday, April 8 ; the
. .
Inman steamer Oa of Antwerp on Tuesday, the
9th ; and the. Great Eastern on the same day.
The New York and Havre Company's steamer
Guiding Star, Commander Van Sice, arrived at
Falmouth on Thursday, with 30 passengers, $143,900
in specie, and proceeded without landing mails or
passengers. The Africa and the Malta reached
Queenstown on Sunday from New York. The
North German Lloyd's steamer Union arrived
at Southampton on the same day. The Ham-
burg American steamship Hananonia arrived
on Tuesday at the same port. The Inman steamer
City of Washington reached Queenstown, also, on
Tuesday, both vessels having left New York ou the
30th ult. Ou Thursday the Erin, belonging to the
National Steam Navigation Company, arrived at
Queenstown from New York.
Portland (Maine) is $1,103,600 in debt.
The citizens of New London subscribed lately
nearly $4,000 in aid of the Baptist literary and scientific
institution at that place. The whole fund now amounts to
$50,000, and it will be increased to $lOO,OOO.
The gold medals voted by the citizens committee
at Worcester to the Harvard crew, the winners of the
college regatta last summer, have just been struck. They
are of solid gold, and on one side is the design of a six-
oared boat and crew, With the inscription, " Lake Quinsi-
gamond, Worcester, Massachusetts, July 27, 1866," and on
the other a triumphal wreath, with flags and oars crossed,
and in the centre the name of the recipient.
A curious way of obtaining a hearse for a rural
town in Maine is given in one of our last files of news-
papers. A dance was got up, and by this lively method
the dread vehicle was secured. Did the thought arise in
any of the dancers' minds that they were thus promoting
the means of hastening their approach hi the tomb?
Surely there ought to have been a skeleton at that festival.
Rhode Island, the smallest State in the Union,
has the densest population per square mile of any, and in
this particular exceeds any nation of continental Europe
except France, which it nearly equals; and sixty per cent.
of this population is located on eleven per cent. of her
area. Of her inhabitants, ehe in every nine over fifteen
years of age cannot write; and more than one in thirteen
can neither read nor write. The amount of capital invested
in manufactures is $33,000,000, which produced since the
last census $103,000,000 of products, and the labour of the
State shows the annual production of each man, woman,
and child to be $6Ol, while in Massachusetts it is only
$4OB.
The Southern Famine Relief Commission, of New
York, has received a letter from General Swayne, dated
Montgomery; Alabama, March 23, stating, in regard to the
amount of supplies which should be sent, that the only
true limit is found in the means of the purchasers. The
ship Purveyor which sailed from New York, on Saturday,
took 18,000 bushels of corn to Alabama. The people are
suffering terribly in northern Georgia. The commission
is informed from a reliable source that many of the people
have no bread, and nothing to buy it with. In one family,
near Dalton, four children actually died of starvation in

February.
The Springfield Republican says that only one Re•
publican Congressman from New England voted against
the bill authorising General Howard to feed the starving
people of the South, without regard to their previous
opinions, and that was General B. F. Butler, nominally re-
presenting the Massachusetts fifth district, but most cer
tainly and shockingly misreprssenting his humane and
Christian constituents in this manner. Not a Demo-
cratic member dared incur the odium of voting against the
bill, although' Fernando Wood and others opposed it in
debate quite as violently as did General Butler. The
31 Republican representatives who voted to food the
freedmen and Unionists, but to leave ox-rebels and their
wives and children to starve, were :—Butler of Massa-
chusetts; Benjamin, Gravely, and Loan of Missouri; Coko,
Covode, Finney, O'Neill, Scofield, and Stevens of Penn-
sylvania; Clarke of Kansas; Cook, Colburn, Farnsworth
and Logan of Illinois; Dodge of Iowa; Driggs of Michigan;
Eckley, Lawrence, Schenck, Shellabarger, and Walker of
Ohio ; Fields of New York ; Hopkins, Paine, Sawyer, and
IVashburno of Wisconsin; Hunter, Shanks, and Williams
bf Indiana ; and Moore of New Jersey.
Dr. William Reed, city physician at Boston, re-
ports that the health of the city last year was above the
average. The number of deaths from smallpox was only
19 against 114 in 1865, and 113 in the year previous. The
positions assumed by Dr. Reed a year ago in regard to
Asiatic cholera, that to human agency alone is its progress
from one place to another due, and that it never attacks broad-
side, but makes its entrance at isolated points on the sea-
board, where by energetic and stringent sanitary measures
it may be checked, as in the case of Halifax, last summer,
are sustained by an accumulated mass of testimony and by
the theories of eminent medical authorities.
ANOTIIER HORRIBLE INDIAN'' MASSA CRE.-A
letter just received from Fort Rico, Dakota, February 11,
contains the following :—Our latest reports from Buford,
if true, are horrible. Three Indians, belonging to the
friendly Sioux, came in and reported that Fort Buford, at
the mouth of the Yellow Stone River, was attacked on
the sth of January by hostile Indians, who were re-
pulsed by the little garrison. On the 15th, after being
reinforced, the Indians made a sudden rush on
the weakest point, succeeded in getting into the
fort, and butchered every man, woman, and child, not
one being left to tell the tale. The fort was under the
command of Colonel Rankin, and company C, 31st United
States infantry, was the only company garrisoning the
fort. The report is current that those hostile Indians have
made a declaration that they intend to drive the United
States troops from the Upper Missouri, and that they have
commenced with Fort Kearney and Fort Buford. Taking