The Sun.
London, England, 1867-02-11 00:00:00

TEN DRING HUNDRED.

This company's extension to Walton-on-the-Naze
is expected to be opened for traffic at the close of
next: month. The section has already been bal-
lasted throughout. The opening up of railway com-
munication to Walton-on-the-Naze is expected to
greatly incretre its importance as a watering-place.

STONETIOTTSE AND NAILSWORTIT.
This new line of railway, which is an exten-
sion or branch of the Midland, was opened last
week for public traffic. The line is only six miles
in length, but has occupied three years in con-
struction, owing to failures of contractors and the
slipping of bridges. The line runs from the Stone-
house station of the Midland line iu Gloucestershire

through Dudbridge to Nailsworth, and was intended
to be carried on through Tenbury to Christian Mal-
ford, but this extension is at present in abeyance.
A spur 'is to be made from Dudbridge to Stroud,
placing Stroud on the narrow as well as the broad
gauge.

Miscellaneou3 American News.

__ -~--

The people of Martinsburg, West Virginia, are
complaining of the high rents demanded by land-
lords.

Five Nantucket vessels have received this year
$7,012 in cod fishing bounties.
Vermont sent 22,963 cattle, 197,013 sheep, and
3,360 swine to the Boston markets last year.
New York State can put 25,000 militia info the
field iu five days after call.

THE ANGLO-AMERICAN CHURCH IN PARIS.—
The following letter appeared in the Standard on
Thursday last :—" Will you allow me, through your
columns, to inform the members of the English aul
American Churches that the municipality of Paris
have very liberally granted a site near the Exhibi-
tion for a temporary church during the season ;
and that the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel are willing to undertake the arrangement
of the services, &c., under the sanction of the
Bishop of London, and, in conjunction with the
American Church, provided that the funds are
forthcoming for the temporary iron church, the
expenses of which will be about £l,OOO. The
promise of donations will be thankfully received by
the secretary of the society for the Propagation of
the Gospel, 5, Park-place, St. James's, or by your
obedient servant, A. CAZENOVE, St. Mark's Parson-
age, Reigate.
AMERICAN PRICES.—A correspondent of the
Louisville Democrat, complaining of the very high
price to which clothing has risen, represents that if
he wants to take a trip to Europe, and to go pro-
vided with a few things "no fella can do without,"
say a black suit of superfine West of England cloth,
a wearing tweed suit, an overcoat, a silk hat, a pair
of boots, a pair of goloshes, a dozen pairs of French
kid gloves, and a dozen socks, he will be charged
$324 for them in Louisville. His plan, therefore,
fur a trip to Europe, is to buy over there. He says
he can go from Louisville, via New York, to Liver-
pool (in second cabin), get these clothes there, and
after paying for them have enough of the $324 left
to pay his fare both ways between Louisville and
Liverpool, and $BO over to spend while staying in
the latter town.

AN ODD FISH.—The Boston Cultivator gives a
report of a recent lecture of Professor Agassiz, in
which he describes the extraordinary habits of a
newly-discovered fish. We suggest that they might
be ornamental to the trees and shrubbery of the
Central-park or Boston-common, if they could be kept
within the enclosures. The professor then described
several families of the Goniodontes found in the
waters of Brazil, remarking that he gave these de-
tails to satisfy his hearers that the animals of Brazil
are entirely different from ours, and as having an
important bearing on the question whence they
come, and how animals are distributed on the globe.
One was the family of Calliethists, characterised by
two rows of scales upon their sides, with a depres-
sion between them. These fish have the peculiar
habit of leaving the water at times, and the profes-
sor said he had frequently found them on dry land
three miles from the water. They deposit their eggs
in a cavity, after the manner of the stickle-back,
and hatch them by sitting, as it were, upon them.
They ascend trees, and the same shot of the sports-
man which brought down a parrot has been known
to dislodge one of these fishes.—Watchman and
Reflector.
A lake of borax, recently discovered in California,
is producing largely. All the borax hitherto used
in the world has been obtained from a lake in
Thibet, in Asia (which is in the hands of an English
monopoly), and some, though not much, from
Northern Italy.
An American paper states that for several years
it has been feared that it would be impossible to
supply a sufficient quantity of butter and other
dairy products to meet the demand. It proposes
olive oil as a substitute for butter, and says that
" when the olive shall be cultivated on the Pacific
slope, the mountain and mining region can be sup-
plied with pure oil, which will take the place not
only of butter, but of lard."
The estimated expense of building the five miles
of railroad, in Sheffield, New York, is $103,077,
exclusive of land damages and fencing. The stock
of $125,000 is being rapidly taken.
A friend has sent us the following excellent
account of a boat race at Shanghae, in which, after
a well-contested struggle, the stars and stripes
fluttered past the victor's goal first. The Ameri-
can oarsmen, to the astonishment of their British
competitors, winning a race, the latter had fondly
hoped would, without doubt, have been theirs.
As soon as the coining match began to excite
attention, the papers contained the customary
letters, the general strain of which was patronising
commendation of the hopeless pluck of the Yankees.
One person, signing himself "Tomßrown," asked if
any nation could contend against the " bone and
siranceew
hoof
ehOalndg
edE n dhis ta,'n'
eb,ut just
aed befo
re
stehene
the
again
t Yankeessay
that
tl
thoevye r
werethe course, rote.
The day was fine, the mail was off, and the tide
high, when the English eight went up to the starting
point, amid the applause of their friends and backers.
The course stretches a mile and a half from just be-
low a sharp turn, to an old redoubt, on which stood
the judge, the British vice-admiral, watch in hand.
A good horseman can follow the whole race on the
bank ; but most people took up positions at inter-
eveaelse:paltlieeeres wtherereee,roaawddstiolef
iaelltenraetsitoiglsr,e
wst ai
htitoenhsaeanasd
the long American boat, with the beautiful little flag
in her bow (the handiwork of an absent lady
pushed off from the boat-house, and
swungvist'eirt)dily up. The starting-place was soon
reached, and the turn made ; the last instructions
and warnings were passed up the boat; the "Forward
all !" was given ; the starter, stop-watch in hand,
stood on one bank, and the umpire, on a fast horse,
the gthuenneeexrshwadaieh,isehreatniedhoedn
was ready
do on
ft ht eh
eo other; tnh
;e
in his seat, with the starting rope in his left hand,
and the yoke-lines in his right, had replied " all
ready" to the starter ; and the start came. The
lead was to be taken if possible, and taken it was,
and after half a mile, pulled as hard as ever in
this country—thirty-six to thirty-seven strokes to
the minute—the Americans had a lead of a clear
length. Another half mile they held it well,
the pace being very severe. At one time the Eng-
lishmen put on a little spurt, and there were cries
from the bank of " Well pulled ! pick her up ! go it,
English, you're gaining !" but our coxswain was a
match for them. He could not only steer well, but
he had been an old fireman too, and he was ready
with a yell that would have galvanised a boatful of
mummies—" Go it, Yanks, no they ain't !" " Don't
you hear your friends calling to you ?" Friends
calling, indeed ! how shall I describe the scene on
the bank? Babel was nothing to it. Our friends
had been straining their eyes ever since they heard
the gun, some cool and confident, others actually
pale and trembling with excitement, and now diplo-
mats, consuls, missionaries, doctors, merchants,
captains, awl all were fairly beside themselves.
The Americati !lig was raised on two canes,
one man begged another to take his spy-glass
and " hit him over the head," awl an
old speaking-trumpet that ha .I often hailed
the weather yard-arm off the cape was used lustily.
Onr coxswain had made the last turn to perfection,
and the captain had quickened for the rush in at the
finish, the gap widening at every stroke, when the
English crew stopped for some seconds. They went
on again, amid the enraged cries of their friends, but
had lost the chance of even making a good show at
the end ; and they had not gone far when the report
of the gun announced that the urbane admiral had
seen the stars and stripes go past the winning-post
in 8 minutes and 30 seconds from the starting flash,
slightly against the tido. Not a man in the crew.
was distressed ; they gave three cheers and a tiger,
and landed to be almost torn in pieces by their
friends. The English captairegave an explanation
of his stopping, on coming in, to the effect that the
stroke side was weak, and that as they could not

beat, and he had another race to pull, he thought
best to take this course. This does not seem to
satisfy his countrymen. They acknowledge the
defeat handsomely, and give all credit to their
" generous rivals," as they call us ; but while the
bards and correspondents are singing our praises
the poor captain is the scapegoat to be blamed for
the stopping of the other crew when they might
have made at least a fair race, although no one
claims that they had the ghost of a chance to win.
The following important decision was recently
rendered by Judge Drummond of Chicago :
" Aaron L. Collins versus the City of Chicago,
United States Circuit Court," January, 1867. The
facts were that the city caused to be assessed for
the payment of taxes, under the law of Illinois, the
stock of the First National Bank of Chicago as so
much capital in the aggregate, with the intention of
having the tax levied on the sum total of the capi-
tal stock of the bank. The plaintiff, a non-resident
shareholder,appl ied to the court to have the assessment
laid aside as illegal. The Court decided that the
assessment was a violation of the Acts of Congress
authorising the existence of the National Banks,
and that the capital stock of the bank, as such,
could not be assessed under State authority ; that
the only way that the stock could be reached was to
assess the shares of the different stockholders in the
same manner that the assessments were made in
other cases against property owners by the citizens
and inhabitants of the State. The Court, therefore,
held that the assessment made by the city in this
case against the capital stock of the bank could not
be sustained.

The President's first regular levee of the season,
which took place on the 25th January, was unusually
well attended. The thermometer stood at 20 deg.
below freezing point, but we learn from the IVashing-
ton Republican that every department of the Na-
tional Government was represented without regard
to party politics. All the 36 States of the Union
were represented ; Great Britain, France, Russia,
Prussia, Italy, Austria, Spain, and nearly all the
other foreign Powers, by their Ministers, or mem-
bers of their Legations. The President appeared to
be in excellent health, and greeted bis guests with
great cheerfulness and cordiality. _ _

A new line of steamers is to be started between
Boston and Southampton, Havre, and other
European ports. There will be eleven steamers,
which were originally intended to run between
New York and California.

It is reported that surveys are making for the
purpose of building a pneumatic railway across the
North and East Rivers, to unite New York with
Brooklyn and Jersey City. The idea is a sub-
marine tube, through which passengers should be
shot by air.
Of the two coloured members of the Massa-
chusetts Legislature, one, who is a lawyer, has been
placed upon the Committee on Federal Relations,
and the other, a printer, upon the Standing Com-
mittee on Printing.
Agricultural colleges and schools have long been
among the favourite ideas in America as means of
advancing agriculture. Pennsylvania has one,
which, by all accounts, is not now in a flourishing
condition. New York has a magnificent one in pros-
-pect to replace two or three which have from time
to time been opened and soon closed, and Massa-
chusetts intends:to open her's so soon as its trustees
can erect their buildings and mature their plans.
All these means of increasing
agricultural know-
ledge are proper subjects for discussion, which the
people will do well to consider. The Cornell Uni-
versity, New York, which embraces the State
Agricultural College, is organised on a plan which
includes five different courses of study, twelve
resident and a number of non-resident professors.
Short courses of six or twelve lectures are to be de-
livered by the most eminent men in the country.
Mr. Andrew S. White, of Syracuse, is the pre-
sident.

The New Hartford (Connecticut) people have
decided to prosecute a temperance reformation on
their own account, and have subscribed a fund of
$12,360 with which to carry on the legal part of the
work. Several wealthy men gave $l,OOO apiece.
The Washington correspondent of the New York
Times, from a personal conversation with General
Grant, thus states his position on the suffrage ques-
tion. He was present at the Cabinet meeting by
request, without previous knowledge of the subject
that
owno tnllnd tch mt
bei
bill General
for p
G deliberation.rantln h
took
no part,te d
a ni s-
d
after all were through, and he hadkin
grise
hisn views
eo
wms hison
seat to depart, the President asked him if there
would be any impropriety in as
the subject: General Grant replied, very briefly, that
the objection which had been urged by one member
of the Cabinet, that it was unconstitutional because
it disfranchised rebels without trial, was in his esti-
mation the best part of the bill and exhibited the
most wisdom. With reference to conferring the
right of suffrage upon the coloured people of this
district, he remarked that he always thought it in-
consistent on the part of Congress to enforce this
right here while they refused to grant it to the same
class in their own States. Either members of Con-
gress should extend this privilege at home or writ
until the people here asked for it.
The culture of cranberries is exciting much atten-
tion in America. In New Jersey, on Cape Cod,
Massachusetts, and in Michigan, thousands of dol-
lars are being expended in planting this wholesome,
useful, and pleasant fruit.
Newburyport has a steam fire-engine to which
the self-propelling invention has been successfully
applied, and the machine now runs to the fires with-
out asking any favours of the horses or anybody
else. It has been so contructed that it will travel
over ice or bare ground with equal facility.
The Memphis Post, a loyal journal, thinks there is
sufficient evidence to show that Gen. N. B. Forrest
" condemned at the time, and has done so ever since,
the conduct of his men in massacring the negro
soldiers at Fort Pillow. When the General arrived
at the fort the butchering had begun, and he en-
deavoured to restrain them, using severe measures,
even to shooting one of them dead for not obeying
his orders." The Post says " that it is the great
grief of his life that this horrid thing should have
occurred, and that his name should have been con-
nected with it."

The funeral of the late Lieutenant Wilson, only
son of the lion. Henry Wilson, took place January
9th, at the Orthodox church in Natick. During
the progress of the service and the passage of the
procession to the cemetery, the stores and places of
bu.sines3 in the town were generally closed, and oc-
cupation suspended.
The claims of Charles Sumner for the next Pre-
sidency are advocated by the Newburyport Herald
and New Bedford Standard.

One Michael Pryzbylowiez proposes to go to
Congress from Kansas.

The eldest female graduate of any institution in
America is Mrs. Elliott, of Philadelphia. Her
diploma bears date 1794.
A Mrs. Woolworth has been dismissed from the
Congregational Church in Winstead, Connecticut,
for obtaining a divorce from her husband " with-
out Bible cause."

The Boston Traveller says that the efforts of
General Banks's friends to raise money to help
him out of his pecuniary difficulties have been very
successful.

Senator and Vice-President Foster, of Connecti-
cut, who retires from Congress in March, will very
likely have a foreign mission. That to Italy, in
place of Mr. Marsh, is named.
Mr. Cyrus Legg and Mr. S. Laing, M.P., are
the candidates who have offered themselves to sup-
ply the vacancy at the Gr-at Eastern board occa-
sioned by the retirement of Sir E. C. lierrison,
Bart., M.P.
Mr. Leonard W. Jerome, of New York, has given
$5,000 to Princeton College, New Jersey, the inte-
rest of which is to be annually expended for a me-
dal, to be given to the graduate who shall be declared
each year to be the "first gentleman of his class"
by a vote of his classmates. Mr. Jerome, in making
this endowment, says the most pressing necessity of
Young America just now is to get a little good
manners.

L. W. Wright, a verdant member of the Wis-
consin Legislature from Greene county, blew out
the
with great diffiry.
gas in his bed-room at Madison, the other
night, and 3ras
eult es
usAci tpaitpeed
holethe
nn
te
hx
et
cmh
iomr
aienyg,

through which the gas was drawn up, was all that
saved him.'

The Hon. Elihu B. Washburne, M.C., from
Illinois, has sailed for Europe to seek medical
advice. Mr. Washburne is a prominent Republican,
and one of the ablest members of the House, in
which he has served for 14 years, and, being the
oldest member in continuous service, is now the
" Father of the House."

James P. French, the valedictorian of the Am-
herst College class of 1859, died at Rahway, New
Jersey, Sunday, Jan. 13, aged 26. The college
course of Mr. French was one of unusually brilliant
scholarship, combined with rare literary ability, and
the tidings of his sudden and untimely death will
bring sorrow to a wide circle of classmates and
college friends. Ile bad devoted himself after
graduation to the profession of teaching, most of the
titne at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and St. Louis,

Prince Napoleon and the Duke of Rutland have
each ordered a boat like the Red, White, and Blue,
from Ingersoll, the boat builder.
A arge meeting, at which Wendell Phillips and
ex-Governor Andrew were the chief speakers, has
been held in Boston, to sympathise with the Cretans,
and a relief committee appointed.

A Roman Catholic Church is about to be built at
Washington, which will be the largest church build-
ing in America.
News comes from Massachusetts which we are,
on the whole, sorry to hear. The town records, it
is said, show that in the first generation of settlers,
when they were Englishmen, the average number
of children in a family was eight or ten. In the
second, third, and fourth generations, the number
was seven or eight ; in the fifth, five was the average
number; in the sixth, it was less than three. In
the present, which is supposed to b 3 the seventh
generation, the average number of offspring is less
than three even, and the deaths exceed in number
the births. Meantime the foreigners increase, by
immigration and by excess of births over deaths ;
and in about twenty-five years, if things go on as
at present, the foreign-born pOpulation and the de-
scendants of foreigners will be in a majority. The
gradual progress of this diminution has been
taken to prove. that the vitality and virility
of the old Puritan stock is gradually di-
minishing. Probably this is not true, or
not true to any very great extent. In the war just
over, Massachusetts men, as may b 3 proved by
statistical records, showed no lack of endurance or
courage. We do not understand that complaint is
made of the wantof virility of the New Englanders,
largely Massachusetts men, who have peopled the
West. And it must be remembered, too, that the
damaging comparison of Massachusetts parents
with foreigners is drawn between them and people
of the Irish race, one of the most prolific in the
world. We suppose that the comfort in which the
New Englanders live, and for many years have
lived, has had the same effect upon population there
that a like condition of things has had latterly in
France and for a longer time in Switzerland—
namely, it has kept population nearly stationary.
Give a man a respectable position in life, and he
does not wish his children after him to occupy
lower places. That this consideration is
of force is a fact in political economy, just
as it is a fact that when a man in poverty and misery
is satisfied that he cannot raise himself by any exer-
tions, he marries young and leaves many children
to inherit his wretched condition. " The Irish
manufacture, that of children," which Sydney Smith
speaks of, was never more flourishing than when
the manufacturers were most abjectly miserable.
Ministers have been cited, a proof that these some-
what occult causes are to be taken into account,
though we have never seen any statistics that would
support the theory. They seem, it is said, to get
into the habit of relying upon Providence and their
congregations, and thus generally have a pewful of
offspring. Were they more worldly-minded and
careful of ways and means they would have less
need of carefulness than too many of them now
have. The prurience of the Yankees, then, has, in
our opinion, had most to do with bringing about a
state of things which the rest of us regret. And
doubtless it would b 3 correct, too, to lay some por-
tion of the blame upon the physical education, or
want of it, of the New England women.—The
Nation.

The New York Tribune advocates the recon-
struction of the South on the basis of equal suffrage,
and thinks that if either the freedmen or the ex-
rebels are counted out, we shall only have cleared
the decks for a new fight, in which the advocates of
universal enfranchisement are sure to win at last.
True, but do we really gain anything by another
reconstruction ? Unless we disfranchise nearly the
entire white population, the political power of those
States will remain in the same hands where it now
is, and once restored to their places in the Union
these States will mould their local institutions, suf-
frage among the rest, to suit themselves. Thus we
are brought back continually, after all our wander-
ings among temporary expedients, to the conclu-
sion that nothing will answer the purpose but the
establishment of equal suffrage in the constitution.
Let this be rtiade the sole and indispensable condi-
tion of restoration, and everything else is safe.
Attempt to gain the end by bills of reconstruction,
and there is a possibility, if not a probability, of
utter and disastrous failure.