The Sun.
London, England, 1867-02-04 00:00:00

Miscellaneous American News.

A convention representing the coloured men of
the country met at Washington, on Thursday, Jan.
10, pursuant to a call issued by the National Equal
Suffrage League. John M. Laughton, of Ohio, was
chosen president, and B. M. Arnett secretary.
Delegates from 12 States were present. They will
petition Congress for impartial suffrage in all the
States ; also to remove the tax on raw cotton, or
amend the present law, so that there may be a dis-
tinction of tax for different grades.
General R. R. Scott, Bureau Commissioner for
South Carolina, has issued a circular letter to the
planters and negroes of that State, in which he
urges the former to educate the freedmen, and re-
commends the adoption of the labour system of the
North and West—that is, pay each labourer by the
day, week, or month. The freedmen he exhorts to
honesty, industry, and thrift ; and he declares that,
if a proper course is pursued by the white citizens,
the resources of the State will be more fully de-
veloped than heretofore.
An interesting race has taken place between two
American clipper ships, the Luis Walsh and the
Charlotte W. White, both of Belfast, Maine, from
Callao to Algesiras. These two vessels sailed from
Calloa on the 26th of September last, and kept
company for fifty-four days, passing Cape Horn on
the twenty-sixth day. They parted in lat. 20 S.,
long. 21 W., crossing the line in sixty-five days,
losing the N.E. trades in lat. 28, long. 36 W., after
which time they had light east winds for seventeen
days, and came in company again on the 30th of
December, but parted the same evening. On the
9th of January they met again off Gibraltar, when
the Luis Walsh won the raca by twenty-five
minutes, after a passage of 104 days.
The climate has had a sad effect upon the Maine
colonists at Jaffa, and twelve of them have died.
Among the losses at the great fire at Yokohama,
Japan, on the 26th of last November, were the
archives of the United States consulate. These
were first rescued by Consul Fisher from the office
and placed in the bonded warehouse, which was
soon after also destroyed, with all its contents, at a
loss of $160,000. A large portion of the archives
of other consulates were burned, and the French
consul lost his office and all his private property.
A. It. Spofford, the librarian of the congressional
library at Washington, gives the following interest-
ing facts in his annual report :—The extensions of
the library are nearly completed, and the total
length of iron shelving is now 21,360 feet, which
will afford space for about 170,000 volumes.
Adding the shelf accommodations of the law
library room and the attic room, the entire length
of shelving is nearly five miles. The rooms are now
fireproof, being constructed of solid iron through-
out, and future accessions to its stores, as well as
the present accumulation of valuable works, are secure
from a casualty which has twice consumed our
national library. The accessions during the past
year were 7,251 volumes, which bring the aggregate
number of volumes in the library up to 99,650,
exclusive of the 40,000 volumes of the library be-
longing to the Smithsonian Institution, which have
been removed to the Capitol. The union of the
two libraries will prove doubly advantageous to