The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-10 00:00:00

TUE SUN, LONIJOS, MONDAY EVELSING, DECEMBER 10. 1866.

and capable of giving employment to 250
,men. It will be in working order by the Ist of
January. The company have contracted for 70
m.achines for cutting screws, with which they
will'be able to manufacture 1,500 gross of screws
a day. The cost of the building, dam, canal,
wheel, &c., is about $25,000, and the machinery
order ed will swell the amount to $lOO,OOO. The
building and water-power are capable of running
$lOO,OOO worth of machines in addition to those
ordered. The number of hands employed in this
factory will be from fifty to seventy-five. Adjoin-
ing this is a forge shop, 80 feet by 40 in size, and
one story high. About 50 men are now employed
on and about the buildings, and the work is being
pushed rapidly forward. The arrangements for
receiving and removing freight are unsurpassed.
A track is to be laid from the Canal Railroad to

xoof;

the factory, running along the side-hill east of the
Cook lot. The distance is 2,500 feet, and the Canal
Company agree to lay 1,000 feet of the track, the
proprietors of the factory doing tha grading and
laying the remainder of the track. This track will
run into the tower, so that freight can be taken
directly from the cars and hoisted into the factory,
and vice versa.

We learn from the Philadelphia Inquirer that the
work on the bridge of the Philadelphia and Balti-
more Railroad at Havre-de-Grace is finished, and
that on Monday next it will be used by the regular
trains. This bridge has been completed in despite
of great obstacles, not the least of which was the
overturning of the whole structure during the pre-
sent year by a hurricane. From the accounts given
of that disaster, it was thought that a long time
would be required to repair the damage. But the
company has worked with great courage and deter-
mination, and formidable obstacles have been sur-
mounted. The completion of this bridge will do
away with the delay occasioned by the use of the
ferry boat across the Susquehanna, and shorten the
time between Philadelphia and Baltimore about 30
minutes. The railroad company and the travelling
community may well be congratulated at the happy
result.

President Johnson made a journey upon what
might be called a public occasion, aud, strange to
say, made no speeches. The ceremony of laying
the corner-stone of the Masonic Temple at Balti-
more was honoured by his presence, and he partici-
pated in it without any show or display of oratory.
Had he used the same discretion when he " swung
round the circle" the result might have been better
for his " policy."

_
The iumours, says the Nation, about the probable
course of the President are numerous and conflict-
ing. He has had " conferences" of some length of
late with Chief Justice Chase and other " traitors,"
who certainly never approved of the "policy," and
it is inferred from this, with some show of reason,
that he is still " open to conviction." It is hoped,
too, that the heavy douche of the elections may have
cleared his brain a little and led him to view
the situation with a somewhat steadier gaze than
a week or two ago. Of course, all this is possible,
and even not improbable ; but Mr. Johnson's train-

ing and the structure of his mind are such as to
make it very unsafe to attempt to calculate what
he will do under any given circumstances. The ma-
jority against him is, perhaps, the phenomenon he
can best understand, and which will produce most
effect on him. It may either induce him to remain
passive hereafter—which would be unfortunate, as
he has done mischief which he is bound to undo—
or it may make him modify his " policy," but still
insist on having a policy, which would also be un-
fortunate, as it would protract the conflict between
him and Congress. The talk of his proclaiming
universal amnesty in return for impartial suffrage
is very foolish talk, and we hope does not originate
with him. He has no power to make any such
arrangement, and if he had, ought not to make it,
as it would settle only one of the very important
points in the controversy between the Union and
the revolted States.

Amongst the signs of Mr. Johnson's conversion
which are just now spoken of, is his refusal to listen
any longer to Democratic applications for offices.
Delegations of office-seekers and their friends calling
attention to the state of the post-office in their
neighbonrlioo I are now every day sent away sorrow-
ful. This is very well as far as it goes. If Mr.
Johnson had only thought of it two months ago !
The Uommission, or which Ualeb Cushing is the
head, for the codification of the United States laws,
are making rapid progress with their work. There
is more labour involved in this work than any of the
judges supposed.
The Tribune continues to discipline its employees
in public. It is evidently thoroughly purging its
floor. This time it is an unfortunate reporter
named Miller who has been " discharged" (" dis-
missed" is, as Tony Weller would say, " a more
tenderer word") for attempting to edit the
paper, when he was only employed to collect
news for it. If these acts of wholesome se-
verity wiil only bring the true nature of the
distinction clearly before the mind of all the re-
porters in the country, the Tribune will have ac-
quired a fresh claim to the gratitude of the public.
General Pile, the successful opponent of the Hon.
John Hogan for a seat in the 40th Congress, was
charged by the Missouri Republican, just on the eve
of the election, with being an embezzler and a thief.
There was no truth in the charge, but at the late
day when itwas made, its refutation could hardly be
effective in the canvass. We commend the general's
example to every candidate, whether Democratic or
Republican, who in his own person suffers from wbat
is the curse of American political journalism. He
has. brought a suit against the Republican for
$5,000. We fear his best chance of getting any
thing, lies in the fact, that the whole administration
of the law in Missouri is in the hands of a party
bitterly opposed to the Republican, and which itself
has proved its ability to call names.
The Secretary of the United States Navy has
issued a circular providing as follows :—All persons
who have served as volunteer officers in the United
States navy for the term of two years, and who
1 desire to be examined for admission to the regular
navy, as provided in the act of Congress approved
July 25, 1866, will at once make application ad-
dressed to Commodore S. P. Lee, Hartford, Conn.,
who will notify them when to appear. Those who
do not present themselves when notified, will be
considered as having waived their claim for exami-
nation. Candidates will take with them, when
summoned, their official papers showing their naval
record.

Rear-Admiral Gordon, commanding the South
Atlantic Squadron of the United States, under date
of Rio Janeiro, October Bth, reports to the Navy
Department that the latest advices from the seat of
war in South America is anything but favourable to
the Allies. They captured Fort Cumsia some time
since, with heavy loss, and then prepared for an
attack on Lumpali, a strong point on the route to
Humaita. The new Ministry have urged the attack,
which proved most disastrous to the allied forces.
They acknowledge a loss of five thousand in killed
and wounded, but the accounts are Brazilian, and
it is thought that ten thousand willprovoef nearer the
truth. General Flores, the President
has withdrawn from the front with the remainder'
of the Uruguayan army, about five hundred men.
The ironclad squadron has been very roughly
handled, and Admiral Gordon says, that the last
events in the field, confirm him in the belief that the
Allies will not have control of Paraguay, for some
time to come. •
That distinguished gentleman, Chief Justice
Chase, is expected to be in Philadelphia to preside
athaasneleeting to be held at the Academy of Music,
by the Freemasons' Union Commission. His
Honour, who is always found in all good and
patriotic works, is now President of the Commis-
sion, in place of Bishop Simpson, resigned. The
meeting will, doubtless, be one of much interest, as
besides the Chief Justice, Rev. Phillips Brooks
(lately returned from Europe), General- Howard,
and other eloquent speakers, are expected to repre-
sent the cause of education among the freedmen.
The Philadelphia Inquirer gives a full account of
a prize fight which came off near Washington on
the 20th November between Carr, alias English,
and a man named White. The appearance of the
men, their size and weight, &c., are all fully de-
tailed. Every round, from the first to the forty-
first, is described, We fear our relatives on the

other side of the Herring-pond are drifting into
some of the vices they have so strongly condemned
on this.

The present United States Senate consists of 38
Radicals and 13 Democrats and Conservatives,
counting the Tennesseeans. The next is likely to
have 41 Radicals and 10 Democrats. The new
Senators, thus far, are the Hon. Cornelius Cole, of
California ; the Hons. J. S. Fowler and David T.
Patterson, of Tennessee (who have taken their
seats) ; A. G.'Gattell, of New Jersey (present Con-
gress) ; and H. W. Corbett, of Oregon. Only one
of these, Senator Patterson, the President's son-in-
law, is a Democrat. The complexion will be fur-
ther changed by the election of a Democratic
Senator in Maryland (probably Governor Swann),
to fill the place of the Honourable A. J.
Creswell, Radical, whose term expires next
year ; and in Pennsylvania and New Jer-
sey by the choice of Radicals in the place of
the Hons. Edgar Cowan and William Wright,
Democrats, the latter deceased. John Evans and
Jerome B. Chaffee are the Senators chosen from the
proposed new State of Colorado, and Thomas W.
Piptou and General John U. Thayer those chosen
from that of Nebraska. These four Territorial
Senators are Radicals. Should they be admitted in
the next Congress, the Radical strength will be
forty-five members.
The steamer Henry Von Phill, from St. Louis for
New Orleans, with 3,500 bales of cotton, has been
burned above Donaldsonville. Two lives were lost
by the accident. _ . _

Improved machinery and implements had arrived
in large quantities at New Orleans, for the Fair to
be held 28th November last ; and a great display was
expected of superior stock of all kinds. A number
of fine horses from the Western cities were to be
exhibited.

The St. Louis Despatch has news of the safe ar-
rival at Omana of two miners' fleets, one of six-
teen the other of seven boats. The aggregate
amount of gold dust was over $1,500,000.
Colonel Talp Shaffner, of Kentucky, whose ex-
periments and successes in scientific mining and
engineering are well known, has arrived in Wash-
ington to induce the departments to recommend
the removal of the rocks at Hell Gate by the means
of nitro-glycerine and electricity. Colonel Shaff-
ner claims that his recent experiments with this
powerful explosive agent at Hoosac tunnel render
it certain that the channel at Hell Gate can be
entirely cleared by submarine blasting.
_ _

The trial of the celebrated " Jumel case was
brought to a sudden close on November 12, by a
verdict in favour of the heirs, a compromise having
been effected with the defendants before the case
was brought into court. In about five minutes the
jury renderei a verdict for the plaintiffs, Mme.
Jumel being held to be of unsound mind at the time
of the execution of the will.

In 1860 there were in Texas 3,535,768 head of
milch cows, working oxen, and other cattle
exclusive of horses, sheep, and swine. A diffi-
culty in getting exact statistics in this respect
from Texas exists in the fact that so large a per-
centage of the whole are kept at pasture in charge
of Mexican vaqueros, and, being once branded, are
hardly counted again by the owner for a year. An -
other difficulty lies in the fact that there are herds
of really wild cattle in some parts which have escaped
from their keepers, and have to be hunted almost
like game. They have the brands of their owners
in most cases, but are quite as wild and as little
relied on as the cattle of Attakapas were some years
since.

The result of the late elections is even more
favourable to the Republican party than at first
supposed. In the State of New York the Repub-
lican candidate for Governor has been elected by a
majority of about 15,000. The majority of the Re-
publicans in Massachusetts is about 70,000. Illi-
nois gives to the same party 60,000 ; Michigan,
28,000 ; Wisconsin, 25,000 ; Minnesota,
10,000 ;
Kansas, 20,000. Together, the four last-named
States show a Republican gain, over 1861, of nearly
60,000 votes. Missouri has gone Radical by over
20,000 majority, and Nevada by 1,000. As
regards the election of members of Congress, the
Republicans lose three districts in New York, one in
New Jersey, one in Missouri, one in Maryland ;
and they gain, on the other hand, three in New
York, two in New Jersey, and one in Missouri—
making the. number of gains and lu=s crew. Alto-
gether, 163 Congressmen have been elected this

year, of whom 128 are supporters of .the policy of
the 39th Congress, and 35 are opposed to it. In
1864, 130 Republicans were elected, and 33 Demo-
crats. As of the former eight have acted this year
with the President and Democrats against the
majority of Congress, thus making the relation of
the parties, for the remainder of the 39th Congress,
122 Radical Republicans against 41 Democrats and
Conservatives, the present majority of Congress
may be said to have gained this year six members.
The Legislature of every northern State, as well as
those of ➢Missouri, West Virginia and Tennessee,
and the State Legislature elected in Nebraska,
sympathise with the majority of Congress.
Buffalo has now in operation four anthracite fur-
naces, which make 30,000 tons of pig-iron per
year, and two more of the largest capacity are pro-
jected. In the same city have recently been erected
a Paisley shawl mill, a silk ribbon factory, and a
delaine mill—the two former being b operation.
Some New Jersey capitalists have built an immense
pottery, fire brick and gas retort factory.

Admiral Farragut gets $19,000 for his share of
the Mobile prize money.
THE CONDEMNED FENIANS.---The Toronto Globe
gives the following sketches of the history of the
Fenian prisoners under sentence of death in that
city :—Robert B. Lynch was born in Galway, we
understand, in 1818. He was at one time chief
clerk in the Department of the Board of Charitable
Donations and Bequests, Dublin Castle, and re-
tained- that post from 1827 to 1812, when he is said
to have emigrated to the_United States. He then
engaged in business in St. Louis for a time, but left
there in 1819, and travelled to many of the leading
cities in the South American Republics and West
Indies. He subsequently joined the American
army, and was Quartermaster, with the rank
of Major in the 24th Wisconsin Volunteers.
During the latter part of the war he was
chief clerk, with the rank of Major, in the
Discharge Department of Louisville. Afterwards,
he says, he came to Canada, under the direction of
Adjutant-General M'Dermott, of the F. B. of
Louisville, Kentucky, to report the Fenian cam-
paign in Canada. This is the prisoner's account
himself, but we have heard other versions of his
career, which assigned him a residence of some years
in Western Canada. Rev. John M'Mahon was
born in the county of Monaghan, Ireland, about
1820, and is consequently 46 years old. He studied
for the ministry, according to his statement, in the
University of St. Mary's, Chicago, and, after serv-
ing as a priest in various parts, was lately appointed
to Andersonville, Madison county, Indiana. He
was parish priest there until the time of his arrest
at Fort Erie, on the morning of the 3d of June.
Robert B. Lynch, the condemned Fenian pri-
soner, has written a letter to a relative in Mil-
waukee, in which he says :—" I was unable to pro-
duce the evidence that could preve my innocence,
as they were liable to arrest themselves, and their
sworn evidence could not be received unless they
were present. I was found guilty and sentenced to
be hung December 13, 1866. I am innocent, but
it was necessary to satisfy the Canadian people that
an example should be made of some one. I was
the person selected for this sacrifice, though I had
no military connection with the Fcnians. But if it
is a crime to love my native land, then I am willing
to suffer death, for I am guilty of that crime, and
will meet it like a man. Don't be uneasy about
me. My death upon the scaffold will bring no dis-
grace on you, the children, or any of our family—
particularly for such a crime as this. Many true
and noble patriots died for this noble cause—why
should I complain ? I have not the slightest doubt
but that the witnesses against me must have mis-
taken me for some other person. Considering that I
am a doomed man, I am in my usual spirits and in
good health. The governor of the prison and all
the officers are very kind to me."
The New Haven correspondent of a Connecticut
paper tells the following anecdote :—Mr. and Mrs.
Oren Cleveland, formerly of Winged)
Connecticut

removed to Ohio in 1839. Theyburied their eldest
child in Winsted in March, 1809, and all of the
others, nine in number, survive ; nor has there been
a death in their immediate family for the long
period of 57 years. The aged parents, partners
during 60 years, have for 12 years past had a strong
desire to see their children altogether once more on
the shores of time. Time, in its course, had brought
six of the nine children to reside within 40 miles of
.the parental home. Three were still living "at the
east," one in New Hartford, Litchford county ;
one in New Haven, and one on Long Island,
New York. These three made a flying jour-
ney to Huntsville, Geauga county, Ohio,
and on September 24th celebrated the birthday of
the mother, she being 81. The father was 81 last
May. A bountiful dinner being prepared for the
occasion, they all sat down, eldest by eldest—the
eldest child being 58, and the youngest 35. All
were grey, more or less ; yet the last tine they met,
at the wedding of :the eldest child, not one had a
grey hair, but that was 31 years ago. The mother
and eldest son had not met before in 28 years.

The 11ev. Daniel Dorchester estimates -the num-
ber of children and youths between the ages of five
and twenty in the United States at 12,577,329.
GREAT SALT LAKE CITY, Wednesday, Oct. 24.
—ln.the middle of Monday night a tragedy occurred
in the heart of this city which sent a thrill of horror
through the community, from which it has scarcely
recovered. Dr. J. King Robinson was called up
about 12 o'clock of the night stated by some person
who professed to require his surgical service in a
case of a broken limb of "his brother, John Jones."
The doctor dressed and went off with the man, but
they had not exceeded a stone's throw of the doctor's
residence when he was assaulted and mortally
wounded, expiring about two o'clock on Tuesday
morning. He was struck on the face several times
with an axe or some other heavy sharp instrument,
and also shot in the face, probably with a revolver.
His funeral took place to-day, under the auspices
of the Odd Fellows, and was attended by a
long train of citizens, on horseback and on foot.
The cowardly assassination has called forth
the detestation and abhorrence of all classes of
the community. The city and county jointly
offer a reward of $2,000 for the apprehension of
the murderer or murderers, and the merchants and
principal citizens have subscribed largely in addition,
nearly $l,OOO to the present time. As yet there is
no clue to the murderers, nor is there any known
or surmised provocation on the part of the deceased,
that might be considered an inciting cause of his
untimely taking off. One or two circumstances
have been particularly talked about as possibly con-
nected with this murder, but to dispassioned ob-
servers they seem to be so insignificant as to be un-
worthy of serious thought, and the best plan will
doubtless be to await the course of the law. At
all events remote and scarcely probable suspicions,
if spread abroad and magnified, would be likely to go
to the prejudice of innocent persons, especially in a
community where party feeling is so strong, and
prejudices are so deep-rooted and bitter as they are
here. Suffice it to say that the feelings of the com-
munity have been so stirred to their utmost
depth by the tragedy that it is evident that no
stone will be left unturned in the endeavour to dis-
cover the dastardly perpetrator—that there- is a
manifest intention on the part of some of the " Gen-
tile" portion of the community to make it appear
that the horrible deed was a Mormon and a party
offence, and that in such a view it will doubtless be
used as argument for the necessity of a larger mili-
tary force being stationed in or near this city.
Owing to the Virulence of party feeling here any
attempt to make this tragedy appear a party affair
will doubtless be received generally with consider-
able caution, and only on the clearest evidence. Dr.
Robinson was born at Calais, Maine, and was about
thirty-one years of age. He left a recently mar-
ried wife to deplore his horrible and cowardly
assassination.—Correspondence of the New York
Times.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.-- The effect of the Indian Mutiny has been
to entirely alter the tenure by which we hold our
Oriental dominions. Before that momentous event
the received theory was that India was maintained
in subjection to her foreign masters by the agency
of Indian armies, that our function was to dii Get
and organise those armies, and to supply just as
many English troops as were required to give tone
and example to their Asiatic comrades. This state
of things had doubtless many advantages. It en-
abled us to assert, with great show of reason, that
though from the peculiar constitution of Asiatic
society we were unable to obtain a plebiscite, or any
other public manifestation of popular assent, we
might fairly boast that we held India with the good
will of her people, since it was by their own hands
that our rule was maintained. Many collateral
advantages flowed from this. It moderated the in-
solence of a conquering race, and made it necessary
for us to respect the feelings and prejudices of the
natives. That state of things, however, passed
away when the native army on which we relied
rose in mutiny against us. From that time the
basis of our power in India has avowedly been
the English troops whom we maintain there.
Nothing but hard necessity could reconcile us to
such a change of system. The drain upon our own
resources is enormous. In case of a European
war, it is very difficult to see how this country,
hard pressed at home for men, could maintain so
large a force in the remote East to defend an Empire
which, however brilliant and glorious it may be,
neither fills our treasury nor recruits our armies.
There are other evils in the present system. We
rule avowedly as an alien race by alien swords.
Such a confession is mortifying to the pride of many
high-spirited races in Lyda, and affords a peculiar
temptation to that uns.: mpathetic and domineering
spirit which is one of the most prominent defects of
our own. Most gladly would we return to the for-
mer state of things, were it possible, or find the
basis of our power in India anywhere else than in a
given number of English bayonets. It remains to
be seen whether we may not to some extent copy
the policy upon which Austria has subsisted for so
many centuries, and, availing ourselves of the vast
extent of our territory, and the different races of
the people who inhabit it, balance one part of the
Empire against the other, and rule by the equipoise
that we establish. For such a policy, we require,
however, something equivalent to the eight millions
of German subjects which Austria possesses—some-
thing which may serve as a nucleus towards which
the elements of power may have a common conver-
gence. The difficulty is where to establish a firm
footing, where to find a solid resting-place, amid
so much that is treacherous and uncertain. Re-
garded from this point cf view, the Lahore letter
of our Indian correspondent, which we published
on Thursday last, has a very peculiar interest.
We are too apt to have our attention distracted
by the suffering of a particular province—such as
Orissa, for instance—and to forget the vast work
that is steadily and successfully going on over
the whole continent of India. The increased
demand for labour, the rise in the prices of agri-
cultural produce, the greater facilities of inland
transport, and the growth of wealth and wellbeing
arc all advances in the direction of peace and tran-
quillity, but nothing is so reassuring as the complete
success that we have met with in the latest and most
hardly won of our conquests. The Punjab, although
it has a very hot climate, is not within the tropics.
Its winters are cool and refreshing as compared with
tropical India, and the races that inhabit it are
braver and more vigorous, and apparently more
capable of culture, than their southern neighbours.
It is the India of Alexander and of Porus, and many
causes combine to show that it is destined, notwith-
standing its inland position, to be the citadel and
centre of English power. Indeed, it has been so
already ; for, brief as is the period during which it
has been attached to us, it has already, under the
administration of Sir J. Lawrence, been the means
of saving the Empire. It was by the forces contri-
buted from the Punjab that Delhi was taken, and
this service was rendered only eight years after the
country had been annexed. Nine years have since
passed away, and we are now presented with a view
of the Punjab such as it is under British rule. It is,
as our correspondent says, as if we had held the
country for a century. The habits and pursuits of
17 years ago have passed away. The military
hordes, the terror of Northern India, have become
thriving husbandmen, or veterans enriched by the
plunder of Indian mutineers and Chinese palaces.
Roads, railways, and canals are doing their work,
and security and justice have raised prices and pro-
duced general content. The goods exported to Hin-
dostan Proper have nearly doubled in value during
the last three years. The income from ferries and
from town and octroi duties has greatly increased
during the last year. The cost of the Government
of the province, including the maintenance of
14,000 English and 25,000 native troops, is four
millions sterling, three millions of which it contri-
butes front its own resources. The frontier vi hich

they guard is enormous, and, considering that this
service is rendered not only to the province but the
empire, it may, perhaps, be fairly considered that
the Punjab already fully pays its own expenses.
To have effected such a transformation in so short a
time and with such brilliant results is a feat, we
believe, unexampled in the dealings of civilized
.with half-civilized nations. The problem we have
had to solve in the Punjab is something similar to
that which has been attempted by France in Al-
geria, only that, instead of a long sea coast, a
climate substantially the same as that of the South
of Europe, and a harbour only forty-eight hours
distant from our shores, we have achieved these
great changes at the distance of half the globe,
in a remote inland country, with a climate of
oppressive heat, and, towards Peshawar, of the
most dangerous insalubrity. We are repairing
the monuments of °titer times ; we have built
churches, gaols, penitentiaries, lunatic asylums,
medical colleges, and museums. We have initiated
the Sikhs into the arts of municipal self-government,
and taught them to administer justice to each other,
somewhat after the manner of our unpaid magis-
trates. We are making the boldest innovation in
the habits of the East by the impulse we have given
to female education. There are already in the
Punjab a thousand female schools, either supported
or aided by Government, in which more than 21,000
girls are receiving instruction. We seem to have
found in the hardy and manly race which inhabits
this remote province more docile pupils and more
energetic associates than elsewhere in India ; and
if the stupendous problem of engrafting European
cultivation upon Oriental habits and feelingse is to
be solved anywhere, it is probably in the Punjab
that such success will be obtained. There are so
many persons bent at present on exposing the weak-
nesses and exaggerating the faults and shortcomings
of England that it is only right we should every
now and then break through the habits which have
become inveterate in us, and, instead of invariably
displaying our weaknesses and our failures, point
occasionally to feats like the one we have just been
describing, and challenge our censors to point out
the race or country in ancient or modern times that
can show anything comparable to them.
The Daily News, referring to the decision of the
Government to appoint a commission to consider the
present state of international law with regard to
captures at sea, congratulates the Ministry on their
approaching the question of marine capture in any
way, however roundabout or undignified. The
matter is of prodigious importance, it would con-
cern us as belligerents far more than even as neut-
rals, and since it cannot be settled after war has
broken out, the necessity for settling it by some
general agreement in anticipation is the more
urgent. We in this country have as yet had no
occasion to consider the matter practically. Our only
modern war was with Russia, and the configuration of
that country is such that we were able to seal hermeti-
cally all egress to her vessels, with the exception of the
force which for a short time roamed the North Ameri—
can and China seas. Nor had then the idea occurred to
a belligerent that, though without the use of a
single port of her own, she might purchase a vessel
of war in a neutral territory, arm and commission
it at sea, and send it forth on a plundering mission,
entitled to full honours of war and rights of shelter
in every neutral port. If Russia had only had such
an inspiration she might with an Alabama of her
own, fitted out in Stettin, Trieste, Cadiz, or New
York, have swept our commercial marine from the sea
as effectually as the Confederate Alabama and her
consorts purged that of the Federals from the At-
lantic and Pacific. And, in that case, we should
doubtless have eagerly urged the insertion of a
further declaration in the Treaty of Paris, by which
it would have been solemnly laid down that " arm-
ing and commissioning a belligerent vessel at sea,
or in a neutral port, is and remains abolished." Our
naval supremacy may show itself in pitched battles,
or in blockading long lines of coast, but our mer-
chant navy is a prey to the tiniest gunboat of the
feeblest State. We have more than any nation to
lose by preserving the old rules under the new con-
ditions—more than any nation to gain by accepting
a modification which others have already offered.

The Star hopes that the effort
.being made by
some of our railway companies to induce the French
Government to suspend the hateful system of cus-
toms search during the Paris Exhibition season may
be successful. During the period of the Paris
Exhibition of 1855 there was a suspension of the
passport system, and there is therefore good prece-
dent for a relaxation of the customs examination
during the coming year. The Imperial Govern-
ment have made so many sensible concessions to
international good-fellowship that it hardly seems
probable this very reasonable request will be refused.
Where the customs search is rigorously conducted it
is an almost insufferable nuisance ; where it is a
mere formality, as it now generally is, it is a super-
fluous and inexcusable bore. The Emperor of the
French is said to have set his heart upon the success
of the forthcoming Exhibition in Paris. A very
important step towards insuring its success, so far
as the number of foreign visitors go, would be to
suspend, if only for the season, the weary and tor-
menting ceremonial, the expectation of which now
sits like black care behind the traveller as he ap-
proaches his journey's end.

THE AMERICAN PRESS.
THE CONFEDERATION SCHEME.

The delegation from Canada to press upon the
English Government the necessity of authorising
the scheme of confederation of all the British North
American Provinces sailed from New York in the
steamship Australasian. This project, which seemed
very doubtful of success at one time, acquired new
vigour in consequence of the Fenian invasion. That
Unfortunate and wicked expedition furnished the
advocates of confederation with new arguments in
favour of a strong Government, and carried over
many of its former opponents in the general excite-
ment. The Canadian delegates merely represent
the feeling in those provinces, and are not autho-
rised to speak for all. British North America. There
is not a hearty acquiescence in the Confederation
plan in the other provinces. In New Brunswick
there was strong opposition, but about the time of
Killian's attempt upon the island of Campo Bello,
the excitement in consequence contributed to the
choice of a Confederation Ministry. There is, never-
theless, a very strong anti-Confederation minority
in that province, and at the next election, now that
the Fenian excitement is over, it may triumph.
Prince Edward's Island is strongly against Confe
deration, which the people consider to be a sch me
to consolidate power in the Canadas, and one which
is opposed to the interests of the maritime pro-
vinces. Newfoundland has not decided in favour
of Confederation. Nova Scotia has, by its Leg'sla-
ture, passed resolutionsin favour of some plan of
confederation, but it has not indorsed the plan pro -
posed in Canada. The project proposes that British
North America shall be a Viceroyalty, governed by
a Viceroy nominated in England. The Parliament
is to be composed of a Legislative Council and
House of Commons. The Upper House is to have
seventy-six members, of which the two Canadas
are to have nearly two-thirds and the other pro-
vinces a little over one-third between them. It
is proposed that the Home of Commons shall be
composed of one hundred and ninety-four mem-
bers, of which the two Canadas shall have
one hundred and forty-seven. The plan, in fact,
is intended to make the Canadas overwhelming in
their influence, and to intrust the interests of the
maritime provinces to delegates who, if united, will
be powerless against a heavy insular majority. It
is this fact which renders the maritime provinces
fearful of being oversloughed, and renders them
jealous of their rights. The delegation which goes
to Great Britain may have some effect, but the
cautious language of Lord Carnarvon to a delega-
tion, urging Confederation, some time ago, may be
indicative of hesitation on the part of the present
Ministry of Great Britain. Confederation was
strongly urged by the Russell Cabinet, it was sup-
posed, because Great Britain desired to escape from
the expense of maintaining her colonies, and in the
hope of making them strong enough, by combina-
tion, to resist the dreaded power of the United
States. But the Derby Ministry is not bound by
the action of its predecessors. As long as some of
the provinces are opposed to the scheme, it would
be doubtful whether it would be judicious to com-
pel them to adopt the plan. If such a policy is re-
solved upon, the new Confederacy will start with
heartburnings, opposition, and jealousies which will
create much trouble hereafter.—Philadelphia In-
quirer.