The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-25 00:00:00

THE SUN, 1,0111)0.N TUESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 25, 1866.

Miscellaneous American News.

NAVAL NEWS FROM NORTH AMERICA.--A private
letter from Halifax states :—" The Duncan, flag
ship of Admiral Sir James Hope, is alongside the
dockyard, and will remain there all the winter until
she sails for Bermuda in February, on her way to
England. The Wolverine came alongside also, and
was preparing to house in for the winter when she
suddenly received orders to sail next morning, her
destination being unknown. Her captain received
sealed orders, to be opened in a given latitude. I
hear that she went south, and some parcels intended
for her were sent to Port Royal, Jamaica. The
Niger was ordered south, but as the Wolverine was
sent away so unexpectedly she (Niger) is to remain
at Halifax for the winter, with the Cordelia and
Duncan."
The New York Tribune gives "The Case in a
Nut-shell." The Cincinnati Gazette has a corre-
spondent travelling in Arkansas, who writes that—
" Arkansas is not a desirable State at present ; but
25 years of freedom will put a new face on
the country, and investments of capital may now
be made here to fine advantage. Great numbers
of the old planters must sell, and others, disgusted
with freedom, are determined to get away. Planta-
tions of 500 to 5,000 acres are offered at low figures.
One man below Pine Bluff, late a private soldier in
the 15th Illinois Infantry, has made a handsome
fortune since the close of the war. He came South
without a dollar, and now owns 1,100 acres of the
finest Arkansas River bottom. He has produced
this year over 1,000 bales of cotton. He says he
has not found the slightest difficulty in procuring
all the labour he has needed. He has paid the freed-
men good wages, rewarded the first-class hands with
extra pay, paid promptly, and fed well. He says
that many planters are obliged to send every year
to distant places for hands, because they oppress
and defraud their labourers, who cannot, of course,
be induced to remain with them the second year."
We venture to say that there are a hundred thousand
experiences that corroborate this planter's, and not
one that contradicts it. Good wages, good treat-
ment, good supervision, will secure labour in abun-
dance, white or black ; while those who grind the
faces of the poor will always find them unservice-
able. Just now labour is more plentiful than em-
ployment; and whoever can and will pay for work
can get it, North or South, black or white.
During the late war West Virginia contributed
15,376 native born and 1,692 foreign soldiers to
the National Army.
The papers of Northern Texas speak of the
emigrant trains constantly passing through the
country toward the interior of Texas. They are
said to be mostly Mississippians.
Fort Rawlings, just below Vicksburgh, is to be
demolished, by order of Gen. Grant. It took
2,000 men 60 days to erect the works.
On the recent rise in the Ohio river, 78 barges
and 47 boats, carrying 1,830,000 tons of coal,
passed down to Cincinnati.
The report of Adjutant-General Cowan, of Ohio,
shows that the State has furnished 310,000 troops,
of all arms and terms of service, during the war,
being 6,000 in excess of all calls, and that number
to her credit on the next war.
The Vermont Legislature has passed a bill, dis-
franchising utterly all deserters from the United
States army or navy during the war, or all who
voluntarily entered the rebel service. The bill
passed by a large majority.
Professor Marsh of Yale College pronounces the
fossils recently found at Cohoes, N.Y., the bones of
a female mastodon, of full growth, though compa-
ratively young, and says that the animal must have
existed over 10,000 years ago.
The office of the National Express, in Wheeling,
has been sold out for the benefit of the creditors.
The company has become totally insolvent. It was
a Southern concern, and its fate is typical of
Southern business in general.
A new island is forming in the Missouri River
opposite St. Joseph, and two citizens have built a
shanty on it iu order to secure the first claim to
entry when the Government places it in the
market.
THE GROWTH OF NEW YORK.—At a meeting of
the New York Historical Society, the Rev. Dr.
Osgood of that city read a very interesting
paper showing the growth of the city since
the beginning of the present century. Some
of the more interesting items are as follows :
In 1801 the city contained about the same popu-
lation as Providence, R. 1., and extended up
as far as Anthony-street. Taxes were then about
one-half of one per cent. on the valuation of the
property of the city. A genteel house could be
rented for $2OO per year, and a genteel family could
live on $750 per annum, when it now took them
$6,000 to $lO,OOO. The chief characteristic of New
York then, as now, was its business enterprise. In
literature it was behind Philadelphia and Boston, or
even Charleston, South Carolina. But it was busi-
ness that gave the city its empire and draws litera-
ture in it., train. New York owed to Robert Ful-
ton and De Witt Clinton more of its imperial posi-
tion than to men of science or letters. Who could
estimate what the steam-engine had done for civili-
sation and for the organisation of liberty on this
continent ? Old New York culminated in 1825 by
the completion of the Erie Canal. It now became
the mother of the nation—the national city. In a
quarter of a century more it became cosmopolitan,
European, and one of the principal cities of the
world. - In 1801 the taxation amounted to $17,000 ;
now it amounts to. $17,000,000.. The city has now
50,000 dwellings. Her manufactured products
amounted in 1865 to $159,000,000, or nearly one-
eleventh of the entire manufactures of the country.
Her receipts from customs last year were over
$100,000,000. These facts show the imperial wealth
and power of New York. With the usual rate of
increase her population in 1900 will reach 4,000,000
souls. The speaker gave some statistics gathered
from the unpublished census of 1865, from which
it appears that there are in th© city two and a half
regiments of boilermakers, four regiments of but-
chers, one and a half regiments of brokers, three
regiments of shoemakers, four and a half regiments
of cartmen, seventeen and a half regiments of clerks,
half a regiment of clergymen, nine and a half regi-
ments of dressmakers, one -regiment of engineers,
three and a half regiments of laundresses, one and a
half regiments of lawyers, one regiment of grocers,
six regiments of merchants, three regiments of me-
chanics, one regiment of musicians, one and a half
regiments of physicians, 33 regiments of servants,
10 regiments of tailors, one regiment of ship car-
penters, &c., and 100,000 school children.
IMPORTANT DECISION CONCERNING INCOMES.—
AN INTERESTING DEVELOPMENT FOR FARMERS.—
Judge Guiles, in the United States circuit court at
case of
Baltimore, delivered the following important deci-
sion in et the
collector
00fdiennteBrnoawliereavgeaninose in that
against V.cSitay :
Sand—
s,
formerly
The statement of facts filed in this case shows that
the plaintiff, in 1866 and 1864, paid the income tax
on the products of his farm for the year 1865 and
1863, although said productions remained unsold ;
that said products were sold in 1866, and that the
assessors in 1865 included the proceeds of said sale
with the income of the plaintiff for the year 1864,
and the collector required him to pay the income
tax on the same, which the plaintiff did under pro-
test ; that in estimating the plaintiff's income for
the year 1864, the assessor included in said income

the value of the agricultural products consumed by
the plaintiff's family in said year. lam of opinion
that, in the first question, the collector was wrong;

.hat the tax on income authorised to be levied and

collected by the Act passed March 3, 1865, was only
upon the products of the plaintiff's farm for the

year ending on the 31st of December, 18G4, and
for such of those products of that year only as should
be sold or used by the plaintiff during that year,

and did not authorise a tax on the products of the

plaintiff's farm for any previous years unsold and on
hand at the close of those years, and so too in 1864.
Upon the second question I think the collec-

tor was right. The tax imposed by the Act of
1864, as by the previous acts, was a tax on the

gross receipts or gains of a man during the preced-
ing year, and no deductions are to be made, except
those specially authorised in said act. I construe

the 117 section in connection with the 116, as if it

read, ; All other vegetables or other production,

being the growth of produce of the estate of such
person sold, not including any part thereof unsold

and on hand during the year next preceding the 31st
December, until the same shall be sold,' and con-
strue the word or' as and,' to further the evident
intention of Congress, and to fully carry into effect
the provision of the 116th section. I, therefore,
direct judgment to be entered for the plaintiff for

the sum of $2,013, with interest from October 19,
1865, and costs." The cases of the other parties,
ten or eleven in number, instituting like proceedings,
were deferred until Saturday next, at which time
it is expected that the counsel on both sides will
make known their intention, whether to abide the
above decision, or take an appeal to the supreme
court. The decision is regarded as one of much
importance, and if the internal revenue bureau agrees
with the court in its interpretation of the Act, and
does not appeal to the supreme court, it will neces-
sarily require the return to a considerable number
of persons of a large amount of money, which they
have paid for taxes on their incomes.
MUZZLE LOADERS, BREECH-LOADERS, AND RE-
PEATERS.—Assuming that a muzzle-loading gun can
be loaded and fired in sixty seconds, fifty-nine se-
conds of that time are required to load. The problem
then is how to save this lost fifty-nine seconds of

time out of the sixty. Obviously by reducing the

number of motions. If a muzzle-loading gun take
sixty motions or the equivalent to load it, then a

gun that has twelve motions can be loaded five
times as fast, and will reduce the lost time to eleven
seconds, or one that requires but six motions can be
loaded ten times as fast, and so on. Hence it is
evident to judge of the value of any gun is simply
to know the number of motions required to load it.
Let us illustrate this. The .celebrated Prussian
needle-gun requires twelve motions to load it, and
can be loaded and fired five times in a minute,
which reduces the time lost from fifty-nine to eleven
seconds. The best American single breech-loaders
are operated in six motions, and can be loaded and
fired ten times in a minute, thus reducing the
lost time to five seconds. The best American maga-
zine or repeating guns are operated in two motions,
and can be loaded and fired thirty times in a minute,
thus reducing the time lost in loading from fifty-
nine to one second. In other words a Prussian
needle-gun is five times as effective as a muzzle-
loader, the best American single loaders are ten
times as effective, and the best American repeater is
thirty times as effective ; or again, a repeating arm
is six times as efficient as a Prussian needle-gan and
three times as efficient as the best single breech-
loaders. Another advantage that repeaters possess
is that in an emergency, when suddenly attacked
by an overwhelming force, they may be used
to the extent of the charges in the magazine (fifteen,
more or less) at the rate of sixty shots per minute.
—New York Evening Post.
The Ohio Penitentiary has now 882 convicts
confined within its walls, being 150 more tban this
time last year. There has been a steady increase in
the number of inmates of the institution since the
close of the war.

AMERICAN NEGRO SOLDIERS.---It appears that
the War Department have ascertained that there
have been 169,624 coloured men enlisted in the
United States' service. Of these 20,236 have been
discharged, principally on account of physical disa-
bility; 31,866 died while in the service ; 14,887 de-
serted ; 1,514 have been killed in action, and 1,344
were reported after engagements as missing. —New
York 7 irnes.

Freemasonry was introduced into America in
1730.

The Lynchburg and Danville Railroad Company
has been organised by electing Colonel W. S. Black-
ford chief engineer, and E. S. Hallet treasurer.
The Navy Register for 1867 will show that of six
hundred vessels in the navy at the close of the war
there are now but 294, mounting 2,563 guns.
Beds of verd antique have been discovered in
Delaware County, Pennsylvania.
The well-known yacht Young America has been
sold to a Savannah man for a pilot boat.
The use of a wire tiller-rope is stated to be the
principal reason why there was not a terrible loss of
life in the recent burning of the steamer Von Phul,
on the lower Mississippi. The usual tiller-rope
would soon have been burned off, and the boat have
become unmanageable.
The city authorities of Boston have accepted the
design of Mr. Billings for a monument to be e'ected
iu that city to the memory of the soldiers of the
city who lost their lives in the war. It will be an
obelisk 120 feet high, built of Concord granite, sur-
mounted by an appropriate figure, and placed on
Flagstaff -hill.
The Catholic Bishop of Savannah recommends
the foundation of schools for the education of
priests for the freedmen.

There are 336,616 white males of full age in
Indiana.

A whale, sixty feet in length, was recently washed
ashore at Rockaway Beach.
From the official records it appears that during
the war 45,000 Federal prisoners died in the South,
and 26,436 Confederate prisoners died in the North.

A man having died of delirium tremens in Lewis-
burg, Ohio, his wife brought suit against the two
persons who had sold him the liquor, and recovered
damages.

revenue, the tariff, &c., have hardly been touched
upon as yet, though somebody has tried we believe to
introduce a bill repealingthe 5 per cent. tax on manu-
factures, and to reduce the tax on some other in-
terests. But it is just as well to wait for the report
of the special commissioner on these subjects, Mr.
David A. Wells, which will be ready about the
middle of the month, and if his suggestions are fol-
lowed Congress will be much more likely to go
right than if it should attempt to legislate for all
the different interests that will besiege it. The
appointment thus early, however, of a committee on
the part of the House to investigate internal reve-
nue frauds, especially in regard to distilled spirits,
cigars, and tobacco, is a move in the right direction.
Several new Senators were present and took their
seats on Monday, among them Messrs. Cattell and
Frelingliuysen of Now Jersey, the former recently
elected and the latter appointed by the Gover-
nor, and George H. Fogg of New Hamp-
shire, appointed to fill the vacancy occasioned
by the resignation of Mr. Clark. Mr. Johnson
of Maryland attempted to offer the credentials of
the two Senators elect from Texas, but they were
promptly ordered to lay on the table. General J.
M. Thayer and T. W. Tipton, Senators elect from
Nebraska, have arrived, bringing the new State
Constitution, and the question of admitting Ne-
braska as a State will speedily come up. In the
arrangement of the Senate committees, Messrs.
Doolittle, Cowan, Dixon, and Norton have been
placed at the foot of their respective committees,
and Cowan is struck off from the finance committee
entirely, and the place given to Cattell of New
Jersey. Very naturally these gentlemen feel their
degradation, but they have the comforting assur-
ance that they brought it upon themselves. Three
members of the house elect from Tennessee, who
were not present at the last session, are on hand
now, Samuel M. Arnell, James T. Campbell, and
Isaac R. Hawkins. Mr. Arnell is the only Repub-
lican among them, and his seat is contested by Mr.
Cooper.--Springfield Republican.

Shall Women Vote ?

Most men dislike the very sound of the words
" women's rights," which is proof presumptive that
they ought to be obliged to hear them. No parti-
sanship, social, political, or theological, which fret-
fully shrinks from full and open discussion of its
own merits, can escape the suspicion of unsoundness
or injustice. It is true that a great many men hate
a given subject merely because they hate the
trouble of thinking about it ; but their moral atti-
tude is not much better than that of those who con.
ceive that by simply shutting their ears to argument
they will he able to keep something which they
have no right to withhold. The question of women's
rights can never be tided over by either of these
expedients any more than the question of aboli-
tion was. Whatever cur individual opinions,
it is the part of wisdom to strive rather to
see the future as it will be than as we would
have it to be. Emancipation was not prevented by
the fact that we were able to laugh at some of its
advocates because they had long hair, ate brown
bread, or talked through their noses ; and women's
rights, whatever the phrase may cover, will hardly
be materially retarded because some of the women
who are brave enough to come forward and claim
them have Corkscrew curls, red noses, squeaky
voices, or other attributes which make them to un-
feeling eyes appear ridiculous. The subject of
women's rights will have to be taken up sooner or
later in this country, and dealt with seriously,
thoroughly, and justly. We cannot, if we would,
escape it. Conventional thinkers, preachers, and
presses will, of course, hold out against the discus-
sion, and will employ alternately the weapons of
ridicule, neglect, and persecution to stifle and extir-
pate it. But this will be of little avail. The agita-
tion has been commenced ; it is carried on in public
meetings, of which we get reports more or less ab-
surd, but always indicative of progress ; it is advo-
cated by some very thoughtful beads and by some
very able pens, and it is the subject of anxious con-
sideration by many a fireside in thousands of little
nooks and corners all over the land. We may as
well make up our minds first as last that the women's
rights question can neither be crushed out nor laughed
down. Can it be argued down? We cannot tell ;
but we may be very sure that, if put down at all, it
will be by this means, and not by any other. Now,
it is extremely difficult to find arguments which can-
not readily be disposed of as frivolous and vexatious
against granting women the suffrage. Whether it be
a right or a privilege, why should educated and in-
telligent American ladies be debarred from that
which the hod-carrier who visits Biddy in her kitchen
now enjoys, or which Sambo, who cleans the boots,
is to have next year ? Is it because the hod-carrier
and Sambo are better judges of the principles of
political economy, or because their moral sense is so
much nicer—so sensitively superior—that they are
more likely to wield their power for the public bene-
fit ? These questions are manifestly absurd and un-
answerable. The truth is, there are a great many
weighty reasons against manhood suffrage; but man-
hood suffrage once conceded, it is next to impossible
to find valid reasons against universal suffrage. When
we think of the unwashed and degraded mob, in all
sections and of all colours and odours, now and here-
after to control the policy and destiny of this mag-
nificent country, and remember the millions of re-
fined and thoughtful women who are absolutelywith-
out voice in the matter, it is idle to assume that our
system is what it should be or what it might be. We
claim to be in some sort the organ of the unrepre-
sented classes, and, so far as any efforts of ours can
cause this much ridiculed and most important topic
to be gravely investigated and considered, we are
well disposed to give them. The arguments of the
lamented Mrs. John Stuart Mill, who was scarcely
less gifted than is her illustrious husband, and which
may be found in the collection of his miscellaneous
writings, deserve, in this connection, to receive pro-
found attention. It may well happen, after all said
and done, that the best corrective for the evils of
ultra-extensive suffrage may be found in the admis-
sion of an element which has other good reasons to
recommend it. The objections so often urged respect-
ing dangers to domestic tranquillity and the unfe-
minine surroundings of the polling-booth, which
would militate against obvious advantages, are in
a considerable degree superficial, and probably
quite surmountable ; and the plea of unfitness may
surely be met by the consideration that it would
scarcely be possible to find so many women intellec-
tually or morally disqualified as there are now men !
in the country who cast votes without challenge.
If the best form of human government is adjudged
to be that which nearest approaches the type of the
divine, the feminine complement can assuredly be
shown to be essential to its unity and perfection.
The justice of the ideal man tempered by the mercy
of the ideal woman must compose something higher
than either constituent without the other can be
hoped toattain. We cannot justly affirm that cruelty,
passion, dishonesty, or any of the worst products
of either the tyrant spirit or the mob spirit are more
likely to exist in the tender sex than the other. Fe-
male sovereigns have notoriously been above the aver-
age, both in wisdom and clemency, and why women
should collectively be worse than they are indivi-
dually it is noteasy toperceive. A nation which tole-
rates polygamy is in no fair position to refuse to at
least listen to arguments in behalf of female suffrage.
Whatever evils might arise from its concession, we
have no fear that sending from among their own
sex representatives who should be prototypes of the
blacklegs and pugilists sent by the other would be
among the number. Even a Congress half com-
posed of women, visionary and absurd as such a
thing may at first sight appear, would not, to our
thinking, be either less upright or less dignified
than those to which we have unhappily been accus-
tomed. We have not managed so remarkably well
as to justify our refusal to give the friends of female
suffrage a respectful hearing. Let them have a fair
field, then, and--if their countrymen are so ungal-
lant as to insist upon it—no favour. We cannot
afford to forget all our late experience, and stranger
things have happened than would be the spectacle
five years hence of the whilom bitterest foes of
feminine enfranchisement coquetting for an alliance
with the female vote.—The Round Table.

The course of exchange at New York on London for bills at
60 days' sight is about 104 per cent. At this rate there is
no profit on the importation of gold from the United states

untir OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—If there be one English institution which
Englishmen regard with a greater traditional pride
than another, it is our judicial system. The House
of Commons itself has its detractors; local statesman-
ship ceases to inspire the same confidence as it once
did ; nor are there wanting indications of a grow-
ing desire for State interference, in more than one
quarter, to the prejudice of individual liberty.
The administration of justice is almost the only
function of Government which has not been sub-
jected of late to this sacrilegious criticism, and
upon which national self-complacency may still
be indulged without reserve. With most of our
countrymen who have never gone to law, it is a
fixed idea that our legal machinery, with all its de-
fects, works as well as any legal machinery can be
expected to do. The expense, the delays, and the
glorious uncertainty of law have passed into a pro-
verb—but very few people have been audacious
enough to surmise that such evils are due in a very
great degree, to causes within our own control, and
that we have probably more to learn from our
neighbours on this subject than on any other. The
consequence is that the law reforms, of all kinds,
excite less interest in the popular branch of the Le-
gislature than measures of infinitely less import-
ance, and that grievances incident to litigation are
tolerated by the public with a patience otherwise
inexplicable. Perhaps the most conspicuous, and
certainly the most remediable, of these grievances
is the difficulty of getting the simplest cause tried
within a definite or reasonable time. There was, at
least, some excuse for the duration of Chancery
suits in the good old days of Lord Eldon, for the
questions involved in these suits are often most
complicated, the parties concerned in them are very
numerous, and the steps to be taken for the protec-
tion of various interests are of such a nature as to
require many successive applications to the Court.
In ordinary actions at law there are no difficulties
of this kind. All the pleadings have been pre-
viously conducted on paper; the matter in dispute
has been thus reduced to one or two plain issues of
fact ; the counsel on either side have been engaged,
and the witnesses summoned for a given day ;
there are no other parties to be consulted ; and the
case might be decided in a very few hours, to
the relief of both the litigants; yet, in very many
instances, it is adjourned to the next assizes or
sittings, unless this grievous hardship be anticipated
by a mutual arrangement or an all but compulsory
reference to arbitration. In any of these events,
the money spent in counsel's fees and the payment
of witnesses is absolutely thrown away, while in the
event of an adjournment or an arbitration the un:
happy suitor is taxed over again in order to obtain
the redress which is his lawful right, but which the
Court has virtually denied him. A short paragraph
which appeared in our Law Report yesterday will
show that we have not exaggerated the magnitude
of this injustice. It there appears that out of 153
special jury causes and 143 common jury causes
entered for trial at the last Guildhall sittings but 50
in all were tried, 75 having been withdrawn, 53
having 13.? en made remanets by the parties, and
nearly 100 having been " left untried." In other
words, little more than one-sixth of the business set
down on the cause list was actually transacted,
while no less than one-third was postponed for
want of time. Of the remaining half, the 53 re-
manets evidently belong, for the most part, to the
same category, since it rarely happens that a cause
stands over on the application of the parties, except
where there is little chance of its being fairly tried.
Even the 75 cases withdrawn do not all represent
voluntary settlements by_ainicable mediation, for,
as our reporter truly observes, such arrangements
are often forced upon unwilling suitors " by sheer
despair of ever coming on in order for trial." Yet
two judges have been working assiduously early and
late to despatch their hopeless task, and "even those
who have been holding winter assizes have been
pressed into the service of the public at the Guild-
hall sittings the moment they have returned from the
country." When we consider the amount of incon-
lvenience and pecuniary loss entailed on the mercan-
tile community by such a result as this we can only
marvel at their long-suffering. It is not merely that
all the expense and anxiety of litigation is incurred
twice over when the trial of an action is adjourned,
but that in the meantime engagements of the
greatest importance may be kept in abeyance, and
undertakings of urgent necessity may be reduced to
a standstill. Let us suppose, for example, that an
action is brought against A for £20,000 or £30,000,
held by him as agent of B, and claimed by C. So
long as it remains to be determined whether the sum
in question is really due to C (the plaintiff), A (the
defendant) is not only placed in a hostile relation to
him, but must decline, iu self-defence, to make any
further payments on account of his principal or cor-
respondent B. It is easy to imagine circumstances
under which almost any present sacrifice would be
preferable to indefinite suspense, and in which a firm
might wisely submit to be wronged once for all,
rather than be righted by so lingering a process.
Now, the question is why all this injury should be
inflicted on merchants and other classes, both in
London and the country, if it could be prevented
by so obvious an expedient as au increase in the
number of the Judges. No one ventures to allege
that more work can possibly be done by the indivi-
dual members of the present Bench. There are no
public servants of equal rank, except a very few
Cabinet Ministers, whose labours can be compared
to theirs, and there are few men so advanced in life
who would be capable of the sustained efforts day
after day which are imperatively required of them.
Others who fill high- offices can often choose their
own times for exertion, can delegate some things to
deputies, and can slur over things without being
called to account. A Judge lives wholly in public ;
from morning to night his every word and act is
exposed to the watchful scrutiny of an acute pro-
fession, and the ordinary routine of his duties is such
as to keep his faculties at their utmost stretch. The
mode in which these duties are discharged is, upon
the whole, admirable, and fully deserves the respect
which is sometimes transferred, with less justice,
from the persons to the system. It is no fault of
our Judges that prompt justice is not and cannot
be administered in our superior Civil Courts ; it
is the fault of the Government and the Legislature.
We have not increased our judicial staff in propor-
tion, or in anything like proportion, to the in-
crease of population, wealth, and litigation.
If 12 judges were not too many some time ago, 15
are too few now, unless, indeed, some radical change
be made in procedure and practice. It has often
been urged that if the most difficult Chancery suits
can be decided to the satisfaction of the bar and the
public by a single Vice-Chancellor, many of the
points which come before a Court of Common Law
in bane might be determined by a single judge. How
far this could be done, and how much power might
be thus economised, is a consideration for the judges
themselves and for those who practise before them.
For our own part, we greatly doubt whether any
a^antage gained in this manner will more than
compensate for the additional business which addi-
tional facilities for disposing of business seldom fail
to create. If this be so, we shall still need more
judges, and although objections to this. proposal are
said to be entertained, we have never seen or heard
them specified, and have yet to learn their nature.
POST.—Over the hush of suspended business, over
the strifes of men and nations, over the discords of
human passions and the pangs of human suffering,
over all that is fleeting, frail, and temporal, rings
out once more the happy message of the Christmas
bells. For a brief day the voice of things unseen
and eternal calls the thoughts of men to the higher
powers and privileges of their nature, and reminds
them that there is an immortal as well as a mortal
side to the destiny of mankind. If sometimes clouds
of sorrow hang thick and dark over the world, and
compel us to Own that the dispensation, under which
we live is a mystery, there are other times when the
balance is rectified by the precious insight into the
future prospects of our race given by the historical
facts which have gone before. In these we trace
the spiritual laws which guide our being, and
read—dimly indeed, but not uncertainly—the
principle of the Divine dealings with men. Christ-
mas day is one of these. The consent of Christen-
dom has made it a day of joy, as being the
birthday of Christianity. All that is distinctive in
the Christian system starts from this day. The
initial point of that Faith which all the Churches,
Eastern or Western, have held for nearly twenty
centuries iy built upon the Incarnation of the Son
of God. Get rid of that central fact, and the doc-
trines circling round it, and Christianity is at an
end. Then either the Jewish dispensation is yet in
force, or we are referred back to the systems of the
ancient philosophers. If neither of these content
us we are cast loose upon an unlimited ocean of
speculation, and left, each one for himself, to make
what conclusions we can out of the mysteries and
problems that lie around us. Certainly if Chris-
tianity be not true no other system yet known is,
and the world has yet to discover who and what we
are, whence we came, why we live at all, why we
die, and what—if anything—comes after death. In
fact, the difficulties of rejecting Christianity are so
great that even those least disposed to accept it as
a practical rule of life arc fain to admit its facts

and submit to its consequences, rather than encoun-
ter the far greater difficulties which must attend
any attempt to construct a moral system out of the
results of imperfectly known sciences. Ethnology,
anthropology, biology, metaphysics, contribute
their share towards unravelling the tangled web in
which the human condition is involved, but they
do nothing to help us towards making the best of
the three score years and ten within which we

have not only to discover and accept, but
also to cultivate, utilise, and enjoy the true

conditions of life. That any of these sciences
when ithey come to be thoroughly known—as
doubtless in future years they will be—will oppose
themselves in any powerful way to the great facts
and doctrines of Christianity, we do not believe.
Beyond question the time will come when the facts
of revealed religion will be found to square exactly
with the facts of ascertained science, and when the
ethics of the Gospel will be accepted with gratitude
by the most accomplished of independent inquirers
and moralists. But that time has not yet come.
Meanwhile there is a conflict as to what is truth,
arising not so much out of a desire to find diffi-
culties in Christianity, as out of a reluctance not to
face apparent difficulties presented by the progress
of science. In such a conflict there will always be
some enthusiasts who, overflowing with zeal but
short of patience, will take one side or the other
with an energy that shows no mercy and pardons
no hesitation. But the greater and deeper men can
afford to wait. They see the case to be this :—On
the one hand is the revealed system of Christianity
complete, admitting no discoveries, no developments,
but perfectly independent of human wisdom, re-
vealed ab extra, and concluded once and for all. On
the other hand, a number of sciences, each of great
importance and utility, but thoroughly inductive,
and purely dependent for their discovery, elucida-
tion, and completeness upon the achievements of the
mind of man, at present only in progress, and
wholly unfinished either as regards their facts or
theories. No wonder, then, that wise men prefer to
accept the fully revealed Christianity in preference
to the conclusions of sciences yet imperfectly known,
and theories necessarily crude and narrow. On the
whole, we may be thankful for the heritage be-
queathed us by the past, and for the great fact
whereof this glad day is the commemoration. Year
by year, since the day when New Testament history
begins, Christians have celebrated Christmas. The
celebration has wound itself round their hearts,
worked itself into their habits, and associated itself
with their best affections. Of late years, since the
revival of the Church Arts, it has become identified
with much of sentiment and beauty, besides devo-
tion. To decorate our churches with expressive sym-
bols, to beautify the services with all the appliances
of music, to blend nature and art in one expression
of adoration and gratitude, are now amongst the
accepted modes of observing Christmas. Every
such act is a witness for the truth in these
days of trial and conflict, and a protest against
the schools of Strauss and Renan. May the time
.never come when the growth of infidelity shall
have deprived weary sinking human nature of one
of its greatest helps and consolations—that, namely,
of knowing that the Son of God was manifest in
the flesh, and, being manifested, and becoming one
with us, has enhanced the dignity of human nature
by identifying it with his own, and attaching to it
privileges and powers which, if well used, must help
on the best hopes of our race in this life and the next.
Almost every year has had its own controversy, and
Christmas has generally found some ecclesiastical
suit pending iu the court of final appeal. This year
is no exception. In other years it has been some
phase of Rationalism, like that of the ,6 Essays
and Reviews," or Coleus° ; this time it is Ritualism.
While all through the Church the facts and doc-
trines of the day are universally admitted and
celebrated, the mode of celebration will be enor-
mously varied. In some, the appointed service
will be sung within walls resplendent with elabo-
rate and costly decoration, by priests in vest-
ments of ancient pattern and gorgeous colour,
amidst clouds of perfumed incense, and with pros.
trations and genuflexions of studied precision. In
others, the decorations will be less elaborate, the
vestments no other than are ordinarily worn by
officiating clergy, and there will be no prostrations
and no incense. In some, the broad line of demar-
cation between the Roman and the Anglican cere-
monial will almost disappear; in others, it will be
traced as clearly as it could have been in the days
of Elizabeth ; while a few still rejoice in the bold
sterility of the Georgian era. Out of this varying
standard of ceremonial within the Church of Eng-
land a great controversy has arisen,and is still run-
ning high. Our counsel is to let it have full run.
Like other controversies, it will expend itself in due
time, and reason, law, and common sense will bring
all prudent people safely through it. At all events,
let there be a truce to-day. In terra pax is the
motto of Christians. Let us all heed it ; let it hush
the jar of family discord, still the voice of anger,
quiet the spirit of the discontented, revive the hope
of the desponding, and being comfort to all sorts
and conditions of men.

COUNTRY MARKETS.

COLCHESTER—DEc. 22.

A very short supply of wheat at market, which sold at
is per qr advance. Barley in better demand, and brought
is more money. Other grain was quiet, with no material
change in value.
Wheat, white r2s 70s Beans, Mazagan......33s 409
red 6os Ctis Middle and small 44i 48,
Barley 428 564 , Peas, white 386 42s
Oatii .... ...—B - s grey 'l2o