The Sun.
London, England, 1867-04-08 00:00:00

tics as partisans.

A special committee of the Louisiana Legislature
has advised that active steps be taken for the re-
organisation of the State under the Reconstruction
Act.

A mass meeting of negroes has been held at
Macon, at which a resolution was adopted thanking
Congress for emancipating them, and expressing
kind feelings towards their late masters.
A mass meeting of negroes and Radicals was held
at Charleston on Wednesday last. Several speakers
urged the negroes to resist the efforts of rebels to
control their votes. After the meeting the negroes
were riotous, and several arrests were made.
A Radical convention has been held at Baltimore,
at which the convention called by the Maryland
Legislature was denounced, and proposals were made
for a separate convention to form a constitution on
the basis of uegro suffrage.

FRANCE.
BourtsE, April 8, Three o'clock.—The marke
closed as follows :-
4ir per Cent 5......... 96
Do. and m0nth,,.,..
3 per Cent 5.....,,.,. 66 70
Do. end m0nth...... 66 90
Credit llobilier 392 50
Do. end month 388 75
Credit Foncier ......
Do. end month ...... 1322 50
RAIL'

Bank Shares 3490
Italian Loan 5l 50
Do. end month 52
Mexican Loan —
I Do. Bonds —
Spanish Threes
Home Debt —
Deferred -
YAM!.

Orleans For Account.
832 50
Northern
20
Lyons and Mediterranean ll
870
Southern 545
Western 535
Eastern
Sardinian . 7O
Austrian
Lombard 377 50
North of Spain —
Saragossa 95
Ditto to Barcelona, —
Roman.

Metropolitan Local Management and Tax•
ation Committee.

(THIS DAY.)
The members of the committee (Mr. Ayrton,
chairman) resumed sitting this morning at Com-
mittee Room, 19, House of Commons.
Dr. Letheby, medical inspector of the City of
London, gave evidence at considerable length. He
said that he held his present appointment since
1825. He said that there had been an increase in
the number of local inspectors of nuisances in the
City, the benefits of which had become apparent in
the improved sanitary condition of the metropolis,
so far as their operations extended. He
reported weekly to the Board, and that
body discharged their duties 13 ost regularly
and efficiently. There were 5,000 houses which
were frequently visited by the inspectors, and sub-
jected to sanitary regulations. The mortality of
London contrasted most favourably with other
towns and cities in England. He considered that,
under the Sanitary Act of 1866, the Board of Health
of ,the metropolis had ample powers to insure the
necessary arrangements for attending to the sani-
tary condition of the metropolis. The mortality in
the City of London was about 18 or 20 in the
1,000, while in Liverpool and other towns it was
was much larger, and he believed that in Paris
it amounted to from 25 to 28 in the 1,000
yearly. The writer then described, in de-
tail, the steps which had been adopted
by the sanitary board in the City during the last
prevalence of the cholera, and to which he warmly
attributed the prevention of the spread of the
epidemic from the east to the west-end of the
metropolis. Amongst the measures taken to arrest
the disease were the opening of pumps in the City,
by which the poorer classes could always obtain an
abundant supply of water, the thorough cleansing
of the houses of the poorer classes by carbonic acid
and one of the most powerful disinfectants, and other
agencies, and the general attention to everything
connected with the sanitary state of the dwel-
lings of the humbler classes in London. Over
£2,000 had been expended on the object, which
had been most efficiently carried out. The
shipping, so far as passenger vessels were concerned,
were under the control of the Sanitary Board of the
City of London, which was the only power that
dealt with the shipping in a sanitary point. The
arrangements in respect to the shipping were most
admirable, they being well ventilated and cleansed,
and the lodging-houses frequented by mariners
being carefully attended to.

Other witnesses were examined, and the inquiry,
which promises to be protracted, was again ad-
journed.

TIIE THREATENED RIOTING BY NAVVIES.---The
dispute between the navvies and the contractors for the
extensive works of the Midland Railway at King's-cross
is at an end, and the men have returned to their employ-
ment. No actual disturbance occurred, but from the dis-
like of the English navvy to his Belgian follow-workman it
was feared open rioting would ensue. Indeed, so threat-
ening was the state of affairs for some days that a large
force of police was kept near the works.

The Saturday Review says :—" It may possibly
occur to Mr. Eyre and his admirers that there are advan-
tages in the adherence to legal forms which prevails in
England. If it had been possible to seize Mr. Eyre in
Shropshire, and to convey him to London, he would pro-
bably at this moment have been held to bail to appear at
the Central Criminal Court. Market Drayton is fortu-
nately a safer place than Kingston ; nor indeed is Bow-
street as formidable a forum as Morant Bay. It is hard
upon Colonel Nelson and Mr. Brand that they should
suffer from the accident of residing iu London, while
their principal laughs at the Jamaica committee in the
security of his retreat."

SOUTHAMPTON, April 7.—The North GermaD
Lloyd steamer Union, Captain von Santen, from New
York on the 28th ult., arrived here to-day. She brings 29
bags of mails for London, 154 passengers for this port,
Havre, and Bremen, and for France gold bars value
13,510 dols. She spoke the Allemanina on the sth inst.
bound for New York.

QUEENSTOWN, APRIL 7.—The Cunard (extra)
steamer Malta, from New York, arrived here at 6.45 a.m.
to-day, with 57 passengers. After lauding two passengers,
despatches, &c., she proceeded at 7 a.m. for Liverpool. Al]
well.

..1...."

*r-
eirtuln

HER MAJESTY, &c•

WINDSOR CASTLE, April 7.

The Queen, accompanied by her Royal HighneEs
Princess Louise, drove out yesterday afternoon,
attended by Lady Churchill.
His Royal Highness Prince Leopold walked in
the grounds, attended by Mr. Sala.
Princess Beatrice and Prince Henry of Prussia
also went out.

The announcement in Saturday's papers respect-
ing her Royal Highness the Princess Christian of Schles-
wig-Holstein was incorrect. Dr. Farro was sent for from
London on Friday night in consequenee of her Royal
Highness .not being quite well, but he has returned to
London.

aTIIE PREMIER.—Lord Derby was again absent
from the Cabinet Council on Saturday. He is, however,
reported somewhat better, although still unable to leave his
bed.

The Duke and Duchess of Manchester have been
entertaining company at Kimbolton Castle, Hunts, during
the latter part of last week.
The Duchess of Montrose returned to town on
Saturday from visiting Viscount and Viscountess Ingests
at Gumley Hall, Northampton.

LITERATURE.

A Wife and not a Wife. A Novel. By Cyrus
Redding. Three vols. Saunders, Otley, and Co.
Although the incidents and characters of this
story are entirely fictitious they have been suggested
to the writer's imagination by an actual history
which will at once occur to the recollection of the
readers. This fact the author trusts will only add
to the interest of his work. There is a lady now
existing, who, according to the decision of different
courts of law, has been pronounced " a wife" and
" not a wife ;" and it is apparently a matter of in-
dividual opinion whether she should be addressed by
her maiden name or by that of her " henourable"
husband. The character of Mary Fitzwalter, the
heroine of Mr. Cyrus Redding, bears no resem-
blance whatsoever to the very romantic heroine of
the actual history. Truth being in this instance, as
usual, far stranger than its fictitious counterpart.
In one respect, however, the novel is even more be-
wildering than the history. We cannot quite under-
stand what kind of marriage ceremony united Mary
Fitzwalter and Captain O'Brien. The author himself
is evidently quite uncertain about the matter, and
manifestly contradicts himself. In the first place,
the marriage is thus described :—" The usual cere-
monies being gone through by the assistance of two
or three clerical officials, so the newspapers related
the incident, in executing the Herculean' office of
reading the ceremony as by law established, the
happy pair' with certain friends went to break-
fast, and so on ; the description being precisely the
same as that of the ten thousand consecutive
marriages given by the press in the course of
the current year." So far at page 105, vol.
1., and at page 110 of the same volume we
read—" Among unrepealed acts of legislation
was one which enacted, that a marriage between a
Catholic and a Protestant should be void if the
marriage ceremony were performed by a Catholic
minister. The captain had only to profess himself
of a different creed from his wife to become a free
man—[but what of the two or three clerical officials
reading the ceremony as by law established at
page 105 ?) The captain would be High Church
of England or Catholic, as might suit his purpose.
Knowing that the Fitzwalters were Protestants, and
ho himself not holding any faith or belief so
attachedly that he could not adopt or abandon it at
pleasure to serve a purpose, he made a declara-
tion that he had been long a good Catholic, and
went once or twice to confession in proof of it."
To add to our bewilderment at these conflicting
statements we actually find, after the description of
the ceremony at page 105, after the assertion that
the Fitzwalters were Protestants at page 110, we
actually find at page 117, Mary Fitzwalter or
O'Brien, in referring to her marriage, declare, " The
good priest married us as Catholics. My husband
never spoke of his Catholicism or Protestantism
then." The best proof, perhaps, of the confused
state of the law is its evidently bewildering effect
upon the minds of all those who contemplate it.
We must confess our utter incapacity to understand
the rights of this marriage of Mary Fitzwalter with
Captain O'Brien ; as far as we can discern, it is, to
use the expressive words of Lord Dundreary, " one
of those things which no fellah can make out."

My Son's TVife. By the author of " Caste." Three

vols. Hurst and Blackett.

Mrs. Gore, in one of her most celebrated novels,
" Hrs. Armytage, or Female Domination," very
forcibly exhibited the evil influence of an arbi-
trary female invested with unusual authority. The
situation in the novel before us is somewhat similar,
but the dominant lady, domineering though she is,
is a far more amiable character than Mrs. Army-
tage, although for a time at least the effects of her
arbitrary authority are not less pernicious. The
scene in which the lady of the manor addresses her
dependents with dignified authority in her words,
but almost maternal cordiality in her demeanour, is
very well described; and the rightful heir, listening
to her in his obscurity, may be pardoned for not
wishing to overturn a rule so firmly established and
so admirably maintained. The main sufferer in this
unnatural state of things is of course the son and heir
of the great lady. A warm affection and yet a con-
tinual dissension exists between mother and son, and
this feeling becomes so great when the young heir
proposes to choose a partner that " my son's wife"
becomes the bane of the mother's life, and gives
her name to this history of the family feuds and
misunderstandings. The son's wife, Elinor Ruthven,
is a very attractive, loveable heroine, excepting
always in her unnatural grief at her father's death,
a grief so manifested as to shut the mourner out of
the pale of all our sympathies. The domestic life
of Elinor and her husband is very charmingly de-
scribed, and the sad bereavement which overclouds
its happiness is very touchingly told. Some of
the characters are far from attractive, among others
Rotha, who learns to deceive her confiding mother
and the impetuous cousin, who twice behaves
in a manner so unwomanly as to be quite re-
pulsive. The story is, however, as a whole suffi-
ciently interesting, the son's wife and the son's
mother being by far the most attractive and in-
teresting personages introduced.