The Sun.
London, England, 1867-11-27 00:00:00

tranquillity. An eruption of Vesuvius has come to
enliven us. It is considerable enough to interest
travellers, who are already beginning to flock in
from Rome, but the lava has not yet reached the
cultivated land."
The fortress of Luxembourg, which so nearly set
France and Germany by the ears, has been par-
tially demolished. The first mines have been
sprung, and a breach made in the great walls
behind the arsenal. Mines have been sunk in the
masonry supporting the Marie earthworks, and
with the material the ditches between these fortifi-
cations will be filled up, and access given to this
portion of the fortifications.
News from India informs us that Col. Strachey
has published a minute summarising the conclusions
of local committees upon Indian weights and mea-
sures, and advocating a reform based upon the
French system. The control of the Post-office has
been transferred to the Financial Department, and
the control of the Telegraph-office to the Foreign
Department, the Home Department being over-
whelmed with work. The Russians intend to make
the great roads leading to Herat, Cabul, and Cash-
mere.

The Governments represented at the Postal Con-
ference, at Berlin, have assented to all the pro-
visions stipulated, and have authorised their Pleni-
potentiaries to sign the new postal conventions.
The signatures will be affixed to-day. After the
close of the postal conference negotiations will be
entered into for adjusting the international postage
rates; in the first instance with Switzerland, the
Papal States, and Italy.
General Sherman and the Peace Commissioners
having completed their business at Medicine
Creek Lodge, proceeded to Omaha and Fort
Laramie to meet the Sioux and other Northern
tribes favourable to peace. These desire to be put
into possession of the Powder River country. A
general order has been issued by Sherman, inform-
ing the troops in his division of the treaties of
peace made with the Comanches, Kiowas, Apaches,
Cheyennes, and Arapahos, against whom hootilities
were to cease. The officers and men are directed
to treat all Indians they meet kindly, sparing no
efforts to maintain this peace, which may enable
civil agents to elevate the Indians to a higher condi-
tion. The Arizona Legislature condemns the policy
of General Ikl.‘Dowell on Indian affairs, and desires
the territory, where fighting still continues with
alternate success to whites and red-skins, to be made
into a military department. It also memorialises
Congress to be allowed to raise a regiment of volun-
teers to take the field against the Indians, as it
holds that the regulars are neither keen on, nor
adapted for the service.
Up to the morning of the sth November the
total number of deaths recorded in New Orleans
from the yellow fever that ravaged that city was
was 3,006. The Board of Health has declared that
it is no longer epidemic, and that citizens and
strangers can visit the city without apprehension.
It will be gratifying to those who take a deep in-
terest in the grandest project of the age—the railway
which is to connect San Francisco with New York,
to learn that the business of the Californian branch
—the Central Pacific—was even more successful in
October than in September. There were last month
nearly 100 miles open, and the gross earnings were
$212,179, netting $173,843. Five hundred miles
of the track have been laid from the East. The
local business on the 325 miles on which trains
were running yielded over $1,000,000 in one
quarter of the present year. The survey for the
Northern Pacific Railway through the Cedar River
Pass, in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, is com-
pleted. But the Pass proves to be impracticable
for railroad purposes, being 4,160 feet high. Three
other passes are reported on. In another column
we give a statement of the business operations of
the Central Pacific Railroad Company, which de-
serves wide publication in Europe.
A full report of the late important elections, from
the summary of the Springfield Republican, will be
found in another column. The Democratic majo-
rity in New York was 45,000. The Republicans
expected defeat, but not such a crusher as this.
The Nation says the Democratic party is evidently
going to be strong enough next year to make it
worth while beating them.
We trust the statement again revived that the
New York and Havre Steamship Company have
decided to discontinue their Line and sell their
steamers may prove as erroneous as the former
report. No doubt the English agents, Messrs. H.
Starr and Co., 145, Cheapsidn, will contradict the
report if untrue. It is alleged that the company
find it impossible to compete with the French
steamers, which receive from their Government a
heavy subsidy. The ocean steamers of the United
States have as much claim to protection as any
other branch of industry. But they are compelled
to maintain the struggle not only unaided, but
handicapped unfairly in the race. If this line be
discontinued the number of American steamers to
Europe will be reduced to the Atlantic and 82/tic
on the Bremen Line. We see with pleasure that
two of the great companies have given orders for
new boats to shipwrights on the Clyde.
-
The Alabama Reconstruction Convention met at
Montgomery on Tuesday, the sth inst. Eighty two
members were present, of whom fifty odd were old

citizens of the State. E. W. Peck, of Tuscaloosa,
an attaché of the Freedman's Bureau, a white in in,
was elected president, and the office; of secretary,
assistant-secretary, and doorkeeper were given to
negroes. The Convention agreed to ask Congress
to remove the political disabilities of those who
favour Reconstruction. There is, however, a re-
port that the plans of the leaders are to disfranchise
the whites on whom the taxes are to be thrown.
regaining his
he
aTI
th
ha d
thateu s
he Steh vo epne ss it so sbne
pr ar
ep
si
nlyt at the opening
of the Session, when he will make four propositions
—a resolution to revive the old Reconstruction
Committee, Bills to depose the President when the
House presents a Bill of Impeachment against him,
to establish equal suffrage in all States of the Union,
and to confiscate the property of the public enemy.
Suppose the latter passe3, Congress would then
have to define who the public enemy was, and sup-
pose they announced the old commoner to be the
man ! The act would be as justifiable as the con-
fiscation, he advocates, of the property of the
nation's creditors.
The Manufacturers' Association of Detroit has
called a National Protective Association, to meet
at Cleveland, Ohio, on the 18th December. A re-
solution was adopted asking Congress to increase
the duties upon imports. That trade is low—that
business is stagnant—that work is scarce—are
facts. The Freetraders point to them as proof of
. .

the fallacies of Protection. The Protectionists urge
them on Congress as the result of their halting

measures, for which the only remedy is prohibition.

The New York Tribune declares that a people which

adopts the settled policy of buying articles of daily
use from foreigners will remain, or will become, bar-
barians. It is a pity that the Tribune cannot in-
crease the range of its cosmopolitan and liberal views.
Carrying such a theory to its natural result, each
man must become a barbarian who does not supply

himself with everything he consumes. The Tribune
at present confines its Protection to the United

States. Shortly, State may protect itself against
State—county against county—town against town

and when something worse than the German Zoll-
verciu has been reached, the Tribune's idea may be

realised. We prefer considering the world as a
unit, from which every inhabitant should derive
the greatest benefits procurable, regretting only

,hat it is not larger, and that ive cannot open cotn-

inunication and exchange cJwinodities with other
planets. Our theory is the reverse of that of the

Tribune.

The people who buy most from fo-

reigners becomes the most enlightened.
Petroleum, as fuel, continues to attract atten-
tion. At San Francisco several gentlemen inte-

rested in steam navigation proceeded to Santa Cruz

on the 7th October to witness another trial of

White's apparatus. It was placed in the furnace of

a 15-horse power engine, and was successful in
every trial. The principle is similar to that adopted
in the experiment on the Eastern coast ; but the

apparatus differs from that of Colonel Foote as tried
in the Palos, and is alleged to be superior in effec-
tivenee.s, convenience, and durability. The fires are
quite under the control of the engineer, being regu-
lated t►s easily as gas burners, The Mining and

Scientific Press uad erstands that the invention will
be subjected to a. Trucial trial in San Francisco, that
it may be thoroug :hly tested, and in such a manner
as fully to determine its value. Colonel Foote left
New York, acco alpanied by several engineers for
San Francisco, to look after the interests of his in-
vention on the Pacific coast.
As time go :s ov, the extraordinary change in the
see-saw of Ai nerican opinion becomes more marked.
The Republi. ;an North is running rapidly in the
direction of Conservatism ; the Conservative South
is becoming a. negro Republic, diving into the
blackest depths: ,of Radicalism. We will soon have
the North and South again standing face to face,
but the principles for which they contend wholly
reversed. The late contest was a Northern war of
interference bet weep the Southern white and black,
in which Unch Sam, seeing no other solution of the
difficulty, insis `,ed on inserting his sword to cut the
Gordian knot of slavery. The contest now ap-
proaching w 11 again be Northern interference
between Sout aern black and white, in which Uncle
Sam will have to teach Sambo his proper place, and
the one he 'aas to occupy. It is a marvellous reso-
lution if we only recall the feelings and sentiments
prevailing six or seven years ago.
The actio:a of the Tennessee House of Repre-
sentatives is a strange commentary on that portion
of Thaddeus : Steven's's-letter referring to the policy
of an export tax on cotton. The House passed a
resolution, calling upon Congress to repeal the
Cotton Tax, and the State Senate is considered sure
to concur. On the 7th inst. the New York
Chamber of Commerce adopted a memorial to Con-
gress for its repeal, and the agitation through all
parts of the country is becoming urgent. It is
somewhat surprising that Thaddeus Stevens could
have written the nonsense he has in the
face of the facts accumulating around him.
Talking of cotton, General Howard in a
late letter, correcting what he alleges to be
a mistake derived from some inaccurate statistics
published by himself, which erroneously went to •
prove that the negro population of the United States
had decreased, while the reverse was the case, an-•
nounces the cotton crop for 1867 at 2,500,000 bales.
This is far in excess of the Government estimate. i

General Howard adds that the grain crop is double
any before raised in the Southern States, while there
has been a fair yield of rice, sugar, and tobacco.
He calculates the negro population at the close of

the war at 4,500,000, and considers that as they
were little exposed to the hazards and vicissitudes
of the struggle, preserving their organisation as
labourers, that there is no reason to doubt that they
increased instead of decreased. The annual report
to Congress of the Freedmen's Bureau will be pre-
sented during November. For the eleven months
ending August, $3,597,397 were expended, the
following figures showing in what way :—lt gave
relief to 233,372 persons, the highest number being
in July, 82,000, and considerably more than half were
destitute whites ; it has in operation 2,207 schools,
with 2,442 teachers, of whom 699 are negroes,
and 130,735 negro scholars. On the Ist of next
July the Freedmen's Bureau expires by law, and
General Howard, in his annual report to the Secre-
tary of War, recommends that it be not continued.
The expenses have fallen short of the appropriation
for its support, and a sufficient sum remains to
maintain it for the term of its legal existence. It
will have accomplished the ends aimed at, of which
the chief was the encouragement of learning and
industry. Independently of the schools founded by
the bureau, the neg:oes have 391 buildings of their
own, at which 10,026 scholars are maintained by
tuition fees.

By a telegram from New York, last Tuesday, it
appears that intelligence had been received there
from Mexico that Admiral Tegethoff had obtained
the body of the late Emperor Maximilian. The
news by mail is that Juarez had sent a commissioner
to Washington to negotiate a loan of $12,000,000 ;
that there were no funds in the Treasury ; that the
army was in a state of discontent on account of

their long arrears of pay ; that the election of

Juarez is t 3 be contested by Diaz, who was inaugu-
rating a movement for the impeachment of the
President—humbly following the great example set

at Washington. A civil war is imminent, and even
that could scarcely add to the miseries of the coun-

try, which is overrun with brigands, life and pro-
perty being left to the protection of each individual.

Maximilian was worshipped by a considerable num-
ber of the-peopld in their churches as a saint, and
there can be little doubt that his memory is vene-

rated by the Indian population as a martyr, who
fell in his efforts to elevate them.

We doubt not that Mr. Adams, the American
Minister at St. James's, has had to resist a very

heavy pressure to interfere on behalf of condemned
Fenians claiming American citizenship. Condon, alias

Shore, is a native of the United States, and bore a
commission in the American army. Some time ago

he solicited the assistance of the American Minister

on the ground that he was an American citizen,

but Mr. Adams declined to interfere. Condon has

repeated his application since sentence was passed,
and Mr. Lord, the United States Consul, at Man-

cheater, has received a communication from Mr
Adams that, as Condon has broken the laws of this

country, and has been fairly and impartially tried
according to them, he cannot interfere in his behalf.

Captain Condon, we are glad to say, has been re-

prieved for reasons elsewhere given.

There seems to be a mania for the acquisition of
territory in the United States. This week the

shares of the Hudson Bay Company have risen,
under the impression that the Washington Govern-
ment contemplates the purchase of a portion of the
territory for £200,000. That Government has

agreed to pay Denmark £1,500,000 for St. Thomas
and St. Juan, with an additional £BOO,OOO, pro-
vided France will waive her claim to the neigh-
bouring island of Santa Cruz. The £2,000,000

due to Russia for the cession of her American terri-

tory is to be paid at the end of December. The
news of the destruction of the town and docks of

St. Thomas by the hurricane has, we presume, come

too late to alter the terms.

SPIRIT OF LAWLESSIVESS.

Respect for law has long been one of England's
most characteristic political virtues. The allusion,
therefore, in the Queen's Speech to the conspiracy
commonly known as " Fenianism," and to its ex-
istence in England "under the form of organized
violence and assassination," sounds strange in
English ears. That organized violence and assas-
sination should exist in revolutionary Italy we are
not.surprised, since law is openly violated by the
Government itself ; but that the spirit of lawless-
ness should be abroad in England shows that we
are entering upon a new state of things, which it
is difficult at first to realize to ourselves. This
lawlessness in Italy and Ireland is called Gari-
baldianism and Fenianism ; in England it has as
yet no specific name. Its aim, however, is to kindle
a war of classes, and to introduce mob rule. It
takes up with what there is of Fenianism in our
large cities, not out of sympathy with Ireland and
Irishmen, but in order to make use, for its own
ends, of a bold and audacious organization, and of
a cause which has a name. Distress in many parts
of the country, arising from the dearness of pro-
visions and from the want of employment con-
sequent in no small measure on the recent strikes,
has given those whom Mr. Disraeli well describes
as the " nincompoop of politics," an opportunity
which they are endeavouring to turn to their own
purposes. Insolent demonstrations, such as that
the other day at the Home Office, monster meet-
ings, presentations of petitions by masses of men,
have not so much for their object to save the Fe-
nians condemned to death at Manchester, as to
intimidate our Government, and override the
authority of the law. The Government, in the
Queen's Speech, has appealed to the country for
support in the maintenance of the law, and most
assuredly the vast majority of the country will
uphold the cause of order and authority. The
lawless spirit of the Revolution, fed by the secret
societies of which Fenianism is one, has made its
appearance in our English cities, and has given us
a specimen of its handiwork. What too many of
the leaders of English opinion have approved of
in Italy, they must now perforce condemn in
Manchester. The sight of blood, shed in the
rescue of political pri4oners guilty of conspiracy