The Sun.
London, England, 1867-03-18 00:00:00

Miscellaneous American News.

The West Virginia Legislature has voted to re-
move the State capital to Morgantown, Monon-
gahela county, on the Monongahela river, 295 miles
north-west of Richmond.

The Albany Argus suggests an entirely new
liquor law, compelling the drinkers of liquor, in-
stead of the dealers, to take out a license. " The
license should be annual, and the sum charged should
be from $2O to $lOO. No young man should be allowed
a license till he was sixteen, and then and until
twenty-one years of age only a beer license at a
moderate charge. After twenty-one he could vote,
and chew tobacco upon payment of license ;
and the same privilege should be extended to strong-
minded women."

The commissioners of both city governments
have reported, as was expected, in favour of the
immediate annexation of Roxbury to Boston, which
would give a city with a population of 230,000
inhabitants, and when peopled as densely as
the portions of Boston now built upon, would
contain 1,000,000. The principal obstacle to the
consolidation mentioned in the report, is the lack of
an adequate water supply. The Cochituate water
commissioners say that the capacity of their works
is only equal to the supply of a city of 254,000
inhabitants, which Boston will have in fourteen
years at its present rate of increase, and they do
not recommend that Boston should be compelled to
build new and expensive waterworks for the benefit
of Roxbury.

The action of the Republican party is producing
its expected fruit. Like the struggle in the field—
the struggle on the platform, in the press, and in
Congress, is going in favour of the stronger party,
who are exerting their power with an obstinate
determination to conquer. The impolicy of the
President's policy is now apparent. It was he that
raised the opposition feeling in the South, and led
the people to aspire to hopes and measures never
to be realised. Mr. Johnson's attitude induced the
South, when prepared to accept the Northern
terms, to await the result of the struggle between
himself and Congress, and to lend him all the, sup-
port they could. The end has only been to delay
reconstruction and the harmonious working of the
entire Union. Congress has shown itself tobe mas-
ter, when it fairly represents the Northern people ;
and with that conviction now entering every mind,
the South knows that its only course is to take
the conditions offered, and work back by constitu-
tional means into its former place in the Union.
When opp: sitiou is seen to be hopeless, and likely
only to lead to more stringent measures, difficulties
will disappear ; the South will accept the position
which it is now doing, and the Northern people
will smooth the road back, for it is the wildest
untruth for the extreme Copperheads to state that
any considerable section of that people desire to
exclude the Southern States, or have any wish but
to see the Union restored and military government
totally abolished. In two States the military go-
vernment has been declared in force, and there
appears to be a general intention on the part of
the South quietly to accept the measure. The
President has nominated the officers to the different
commands, and those named are Generals Scho-
field, Sickles, Ord, Thomas, and Sheridan.

A clause in the Army Appropriation Bill, which
has been passed, curtails the power of the President
in his action as Commander-in-Chief of the United
States Army. By this bill he is prohibited from
removing General Grant, or assigning him any
other post than Washington in which to do the
duty of his office without first obtaining the ap-
proval of the Senate. The President is further re-
quired to issue all his military orders through a
general of the army.
The news of the rising in Ireland has not been
received so coldly by the. Fenians in America as we

were led to believe. A mass meeting has been held
by the Brotherhood in Union-square, New York,
to appeal for aid for the insurgents in money and

n men.

Secretary Seward has been compelled to produce
some more of the diplomatic correspondence result-
ing from the " M'Cracken " statements. Letters
are now shown from Minister Hale at Madrid, from

Minister Sanford at Brussels, from Minister Morris
at Constantinople, from Consul-General Murphy
at Frankfort, and other representatives, declaring
the allegations utterly and entirely false in every
word and line. It must have been gall and worm-
wood to the Secretary for Foreign Affairs to be
forced to furnish a correspondence which condemns
him more than any other official act of his life as
wanting in the dignity, reserve, and discretion
which should characterise the great officers of a
great nation.
Surratt was arraignel, Feb. 23, in the District
Criminal Court. The irons with which he was
fettered were removed. Ile maintained a calm at-

titude, and he has observed the strictest silence on
the subject of the crime laid to his charge. Ile
pleaded " Not Guilty," and was conveyed back to
prison when the preliminary investigation was con-
cluded. lie was to be tried at the next term of the
court, which was to open on the 4th instant.
Sandford Canover, who had been found guilty of
perjury in the testimony he had given as to the
complicity of Jefferson Davis in the plot to assassi-
nate Mr. Lincoln, was brought up on the same day
and in the same court, to receive sentence. The
sentence was deferred, pending a motion for a new
trial. The wheel of fortune has again brought
these two men together, over whom hangs so strange
a mystery.

In default of the Senate confirming the appoint-
ment of the Hon. Edgar A. Cowan as Minister to
Vienna, Postmaster-General Randall will be nomi-
nated. Mr. Colfax will be elected Speaker of the
New House, and Mr. M'Pherson clerk.
The Atlantic telegraph informs us that the Pre-
iclont will not send the usual 1,1..aag,. to Congress,
and that he is preparing to execute the Bill for the
military government of the South. This bill the
Governor announces is in force in the State of
Louisiana. The House of Representatives has
asked the Speaker, in view of the events transpiring
on the northern frontier, meaning thereby the
Confederation of the British Provinces, to appoint
a Committee of Foi eign Affairs, to consider the
foreign relations of the United States. That House
has passed a supplement to the Reconstruction
Bill, empowering the military commanders of the
South to take a census for registering the votes of
the population ; to call a Convention and form a
constitution under the Military Government Bill.
Congress will not adjourn until the question of
proposed guarantees for the reconstruction of the
South is settled. Mr. Sumner proposed to guaran-
tee the homesteads of the freedmen, but his pro-
posal was defeated in the Senate.. The Republi-
cans have carried the elections in New Hampshire,
Mr. Harriman having been elected Governor, and

;hree Republican candidates returned to Congress
a] that State.

A Portland firm received an invoice of flour from
California recently, which was only forty days on
the route. Flour can be obtained quicker from San
Francisco than from Chicago, so unreliable and in-
adequate are the transportation facilities from the
West.

The officers of the Nellie Chapin, on which the
Elder Adams' colony went to Palestine, report that
Adams got drunk frequently on the passage out,
and opened a liquor shop as soon as he arrived at
Jaffa. A party of colonists, larger than the first, is
going out for the relief and consolation of Elder
Adams' Palestine emigrants. They will he gathered
principally from Orriugton, Cherryfield, and towns
in the vicinity from which the pioneer adventurers
went.

The Providence Journal recommends the appro-
priation of Field's Point, a promontory at the head of
Narraganset bay, two miles from the city, as a public
park, and that it be suitably improved and forever
dedicated to this purpose. The tract of land has a
water front on three sides and contains nearly 200
acres, of which enough for a beautiful park can be
obtained at an almost nominal cost to the city.
The National Board of Fire Underwriters have
just held their annual meeting in New York and
presented a report, which shows that the average
losses of each of the five years preceding 1865 were
$18,000,000, but in that year they increased to
$43,000,000, and in the first six months of 1866
were largely in excess of those of the entire year
before. Including the increased expense of con-
ducting the businesses, the condition of the com-
panies was shown by the fact that at the end of
1865 there was only $2.37 of assets to every $lOO
of risk, instead of $2.98, as had been the average
for the preceding five years. The report advised an
adherence to the present rates, and an advance, if
necessary, sufficient to make insurance what it pro-
fesses to be, an indemnity against loss by fire. The
subject of increasing the rates was discussed fully,
and finally left with the executive committee to
arrange as they should judge best. The number of
the committee was increased from twenty-five to
fifty, and a tax of $lO on each $5,000,000 of risk
belonging to mutual companies assessed, to meet
the expenses and pay up the debt of the board.
Congress has passed a bill to pay Commodore
Winslow and the officers and crew of the Kearsage
$190,000 for destroying the pirate Alabama, the
amount being her assumed value.
Last Saturday a telegram was forwarded from
London to New York, and au answer received
within four and a half hours.
With regard to the duty on foreign pictures, to
which we referred in a previous number, it has been
recommended by the Committee in the Senate that
a specific duty of $3O be imposed -upon every im-
ported picture valued at $lOO, and less. On all
pictures above that value, it is recommended to
levy a duty of $3O, with an additional ad valorem
of 10 per cent.
Returns received by the Commissioner of the Gene-
ral Land Office from the local offices at Tallahassee,
Florida, show that during the month of January
last two hundred and eighty farms, comprising in
the aggregate 21,490 acres, were added to the pro-
ductive force of that State, under the Homestead Act
of July 21, 1866, which limits the entries to 80
acres each.
A proposition is said to have been made by the
Sioux Indians to guarantee the safety of travel
through their country, if a force is organised from
their number by the Government, and properly
paid.
Preparations for work on the new scientific school
at Worcester, for which John Boynton, of Templeton,
gave $lOO,OOO two years ago, have been begun. The
building will be of rubble stone with light granite trim-
mings, three stories high, with a southern frontage of 150
feet, and surmounted by a tower 85 feet high. In con-
nection with this school, lehabod Washburn of Worcester
is going to build and equip a large machine shop, where
young mechanics can get practical and theoretical training.
The number of public schools in Boston is 280 ;
number of teachers, 612 ; average whole number of pupils,
27,723; average daily attendance, 25,809, an increase for
last year of 808; total expenditures for school purposes,
for the financial year ending April 30, 1866, s776,37s—in-
crease over previous year, $132,600; cost per scholar,
' $20.77.

The new building of the Berkshire Life Insur-
ance Company, which is to 'be erected at Pittsfield during
the coining summer, will be wholly of the light-coloured
Nova Scotia stone, and the first from this material in
western Massachusetts. The expouse of the edifice will not
bo less than $lOO,OOO, and it will be one of the finest
business blocks in the state.
A NEW FEATURE IN FREEMASONRY.—On Wed-
nesday evening, Febenary 20, a meeting was held by the
members of Marion Lodge, No. 278, F. and A. M., at their
lodge, West Farms ; Brother Macoy, of New York, pre-
siding. The proceedings were of a highly interesting
character—to confer the Eastern Star degree on about 45
ladies, wives and daughters of Masons, principally resid-
ing in America. Judging from the pleasure depicted on
the countenances of those present, particularly the fair sex,
the ceremony was looked upon with intense interest, and
gave great satisfaction.—Neto York Ilerald.
la A Portland man suggests that high schools be
established where young ladies can be taught in all useful
household arts, and when sufficiently proficient that they
receive the honourable degree of F. W.—fit for wives.
Marriage is getting to be within the reach of all
classes at Bath, Maine. They have a minister there who
lately performed the ceremony for 38 cents.
Smuggling over the line from Canada is a profit-
able employment, and is still carried on with much skill

and persistence. A carman named Richard Kane was de-
tected in importing about three gallons of whisky, bottled
up in a hole seven feet long, bored with a two inch augur
in one of the beams of his sleigh rack.
LAMP EXPLOSIONS.--A Cleveland gentleman has
kept a partial record of accidents from the use of kerosene
lamps during the past two years. Ho says that nearly two
hundred persons have been burned to death, and six mil-
lions of dollars of property destroyed.
A PLEA FOR OUR WAIFS.—In Frank Leslie's
illustrated paper there is an excellent article on this sub-
ject, full of compassion and humanity. It is indeed a
pitiful sight, to which we all become too familiar, to see
the number of destitute neglected children in our streets,
at an age when they should be trained to constitute a
nation's strength, instead of becoming each day
a greater
source of weakness and crime. We fully agree with
Frank Leslie that it is safer to bestow in passing a mite orl
a neglected, half-starved, half-frozen child, than to quiet
our consciences and steel our hearts with the reflection--
"itis no charity to give to beggars." We also consider
the subject of such importance as to call for wise and com-
prehensive legislation So much has been effected for our
dogs, horses, and domestic helpless animals, by benevolent
societies, that we do not despair that this infinitely nlor°
important subject will yet be taken up, with the attention
and determination it so loudly calls for.

A very radical temperance man in Pittsfield re-
cently sold a neighbour a cask of cider, the purchaser to
take the goods from his cellar. The cask was sent for by
a job waggon and duly delivered, but the buyer was a good
deal surprised, on tapping it, to find that it ran Bourbon
'whisky instead of cider. The cask was returned, and LllO
mistake rectified.