The Sun.
London, England, 1866-02-13 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, 'FEBRUAIVV 12, 1866,

LAW INTELLIGENCE.---This Day.

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COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH.
(Before Lord Chief Justice Cockburn and a special jury.)

GORE T. WALPOLE.

This was an action for alleged trespass and false im-
prisonment, and the defendant the Right Hon. Mr. 'Wal-
pole, who had been Ncretary for the Home Department,
under the Conservative Government, pleaded not guilty,
justification, and, finally, that the alleged offence was
voided by the Statute of Limitations.
The plaintiff conducted his own case, and the defendant
was' represented by the Solicitor-General and Mr.
Hannan.

The plaintiff read a vory lengthened document which
occupied some hours yesterday, when the case was com-
menced, from which it appeared that he claimed damages
of £5,000 for illegal detention in Bethlem Hospital for
two years and nine months, and also for being confined
in the Queen's Bench prison in a room with criminals.
The case is likely to occupy a considerable time, owing
to the number of witnesses whom it is proposed to examine
for the defence.

COURT OF EXCHEQUER.
(Before Mr. Baron Martin and a Special Jtrry.)
CATCHPOLE V. THE NORTH LONDON RAILWAY.

Emigration to the Southern States.

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The Commissioners of Emigrattn at New York
have lately published the annual statement of the
number of emigrants which have arrived at that
port. They numbered 201,275 in 1865. The desti-
nations of the new corners are also given, and as the
Southern people are eagerly inviting white emigrants
to settle among them, it will be interesting to know
how they have succeeded since April last; It there-
fore appears that of the whole number of emigrants,
Arkansas acquired 5 ; Alabama, 10 ; Florida, 5 ;
Georgia, 21 ; Louisiana, 294 ; Mississippi, 34 ; North
Carolina, 27 ; South Carolina, 45 ; Texas 21 ; Vir-
ginia, 583. Total, 1,045; or less than one two-.
hundredths of the whole. The great Western States
absorbed the greater proportion. Illinois took
seventeen thousand, lowa over thirty-seven hun-
dred, Michigan over four thousand, and Wisconsin
nearly sixty-five hundred. Even Massachusetts
absorbed nearly ten thousand of the new-comers,
whilst New York retained the lion's share, over
ninety-one thousand. The Southern States, by
natural advantage, fertility of soil and climate, with
undoubted means of enriching the industrious ad-
venturer, hasmany attractions which no other States
in the Union possess. Why, then, the reluctance of
adventurers to seek this rich country, where wealth
and independence is promised to every man that
labours ? Undoubtedly it is because there has not
yet been shown by the inhabitants such a respect
for the rights of industry that it will be profitable
for any man who believes in the dignity of labour
to settle among them. So long as the South endea-
vours to degrade labour by oppressive laws, which
are designed to reduce him to the merest pittance,
and keep him in abject want, every man who has
regard for the dignity of his avocation is warned
away. So long as a particular class of men are per-
mitted to arrogate to themselves peculiar honour,
they repel the advances of every stranger who
might be useful to them. The emigrant will ask,
for his labour at the South, as good wages as he can
get at the North. If he is to compete with a class
of so-called freedmen, who are compelled to accept
whatever payment their generous " master race"
chooses to accord under the pressure of unjust laws, j
he will decline the job altogether, and go where the
conditions of freedom, personal independence, and
political equality are assured to him. This accounts
for the fact that although the South has been call-
ing out lustily for white men to come down and
cultivate its fertile fields, it has been found impos-
sible to induce more than one man in twenty-one
to respond to the call among all the emigrants at
the principal point of arrival in the United States.

European Privation—American Plenty.

It is estimated that between four hundred and
five hundred millions of dollars in national securi-
ties have been exported from the -United States, and
sold in England, France, and Germany, for the
products of those countries. These bonds, drawing
six per cent. interest, and payable in gold, have
been sold for from sixty to seventy cents on the
dollar, or at a discount of from thirty to forty per
cent., and this notwithstanding they draw nearly
double the rate of interest paid by European
Governments. In other words, the United States
received from two hundred and thirty to two
hundred and seventy millions of dollars for bonds
that they will have to redeem in a few years with
four or five hundred millions, with interest added
thereto. This unprofitable exchange is still going
on with' undiminished volume, and with no present
prospect of a cessation. Meanwhile, they have
on hand fully one hundred millions of dollars
worth of produce—beef, pork, hams, grain, and
valuable timber—which they might sell in European
markets, not only not at a discount, but at a fair
profit to themselves ; and they can raise and sell
the same amount each year, only that they lack
•transit facilities for getting it to market. The great
West, if it could ship its grain, timber, pork, beef,
and hams to Europe at a moderate cost for freight,
might and would prevent and save to the American
nation from fifty to one hundred millions of this
frightful loss of national securities per year. But
with present railway facilities, if the West should
ship one hundred millions of dollars' worth of
produce to Europe, by the time it reached
England it would be reduced to • thirty-three
millions—fully two-thirds being eaten up by
the cost of transportation, and for the sixty-seven
millions thus eaten up by freight charges, the Ame-
rican nation—the whole country, East and South,
as well as West—has to pay at least one hundred
millions in gold for the discounted bonds used to
supply the deficiency caused by high freights. In
other words, their one hundred millions of produce
ought to and might save to the nation one hundred
and thirty-three millions in bonds, instead of thirty-
three millions only ; and this hundred millions lost
them, for lack of transit facilities, has to be paid by
levying a tax upon the industry and wealth of the
whole Union. Nor is this the worst, for, discouraged
by the high freights and consequent low prices,
they do not send forward their produce, and do not,
therefore, save even the little that they might. And
lacking the stimulus of an accessible market and
easy transit, they do not produce for export one-
sixth of what they might and should under more
favourable circumstances.