The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-01 00:00:00

THE VOLUNTEERS.

DISTRIBUTION OF PRIZES TO THE 46TH MID-

DLESEX RIFLE VOLUNTEERS.

On Saturday night the prizes won at the annual
rifle competition of the 46th Middlesex (Westmin-
ster) Rifle Volunteers were distributed to the suc-
cessful competitors in Westminster Hall. Sir John
Shelley, the commanding officer of the regiment,
presided. Previous to the ceremony the regiment
underwent the usual winter inspection. With the
exception of a somewhat scanty attendance, the
commanding officer expressed himself very well
satisfied with the appearance of the men.
Addressing then the corps; which was drawn up
in front of the prize tables,
Sir Jour/ SHELLEY fitst expressed the pleasure he
felt at finding himself once more amongst them.
The dissolution of Parliament had taken him away
at the period of their official inspection, but he was ,
glad that they had acquitted themselves so satisfac-
torily to the inspecting officer that he had given a
favourable report of the corps to the authorities.
After his election he had been so knocked up that
he had been obliged to go abroad. In the ensuing
year he hoped nothing would occur to prevent his
being constantly at their head. It was usual on
such occasions to make some reference to the
volunteer movement gener*lly, but for his part
he thought it had lasted sufficiently long to make
that unnecessary. The presence of the regiment
was a proof that the 46th Middlesex looked upon
the movement as one .of the permanent institu-
tions of the country. When the volunteers
first enrolled, the time had arrived for them to show
that they were not going to stand any nonsense, and
the course they had taken had raised them consider-
ably in the estimation of foreign nations. The pro-
gress of the movement had induced those notions to
respect Englishmen as they deserved to be respected.
The estimation in which the force was held at home
was evidenced by the approval of all political parties.
Although the 46th Middlesex had had as many
difficulties to contend with as any regiment, he was
glad to find there had been no falling off in the
numbers. The strength of the corps was the same
as last year ; and hoped from a statement he was
about to make, that they might in the ensuing year
look forward to a large accession of numbers. He
was sorry, however, to say that, as regarded effi-
ciency, there was a falling off. There was no excuse
for such a state of things, for the number of drills
in the year to qualify for an efficient were so few
that every man, if he felt inclined, could make him-
self effective. A large number of men who wore the

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uniform of the corps appeared at
called the "larks" of the year, such a '''• '19;47
and Wimbledon reviews, or at a par, „0,4*.>
Park, but they would not work to make tlignselfli
effective and earn money for the corps. He had
never insisted on men paying subscriptions, but he
had always said that if men would not make them-
selves effective, he should consider himself free to
proceed against them and make them pay. That
course he should certainly adopt, for so many re-
cruits were now willing to join that it would be
better to get rid of men who would not do their .
duty. The figures this year were 259 effectives -- -
against 330 in 1864. Their difficulty was one com-
mon to mitny other metropolitan corps, viz., the
want of a rifle range. They had been deprived of
their range by an injunction, and it was only in
August last they succeeded in getting the partial use .
of the range they were now using. He hoped in the
ensuing year to make a more satisfactory arrange-
ment. As a consequence of their want of a range
only 107 men fired through their periods, of whom
83 passed out of the third class, 17 out of the second
class, and 7 hadqualified as marksmen. Adverting
then to the necessity of renewing uniforms after
four years' service, the gallant officer stated that he
and the officers of the regiment, with the assistance
of the adjutant, Captain Henderson, had provided
a fund, whereby considerable assistance would
be rendered in re-clothing the corps, the men
only having to bear a small proportion of the ex-
pense. He had obtained also the consent of the Lord
Lieutenant to substitute a neat chaco, with ball,
for the horsehair plume, which dangled so un-
pleasantly before their eyes in wet weather. Although
the muster appeared a small one, and when he re-
collected how hard many of them had been at work,
and that these were the Christmas holidays, he was
well content.

The gallant officer then proceeded to hand to the
successful competitors prizes subscribed for by the
officers. The 46th, being a working man's corps, • '
totally lack that assistance to promote their shoOting
which is lavished in profusion on more fortunate
regiments. The ceremony was therefore of brief
duration, and was brought to a termination by three
cheers for the ladies who had honoured the distribu-
tion with their presence.

The South—The Progress of Material
Development.

In making note from time to time of the material de-
velopment of the South, after the ruin in which it found
itself at the close of the war, and in illustrating its impor-
tance, primarily to the South itself, and collaterally to all
other parts of the country, we have taken occasion fre-
quently to speak of the bearings of this material growth
upon the political and moral well-being of the Southern
people. The work of any given people forms to a large
degree the character of that people. For idle hands the
devil always finds some mischief, and we could have had
no hope for the South, either in the present or the future,
had its people, after their military defeat and industrial
prostration, settled into inactivity and indolence, and into
negligence of the ordinary ambitions of life. The fact
that so soon after they lost the game upon which they had
staked their all, they resumed to as large an extent as they
found possible the pursuits of agriculture, commerce, and
general business, gave us the very best hopes that they
would soon , also resume, in proper spirit, their amicable
relations with the people of the other sections of our com-
mon country.

We have tried to encourage and forward this resumption
of industry, this return to prosperity, this material deve-
lopment of the South in every way in our power. We
have brought before Northern capitalists the inviting fields
furnished by the South for investment, in planting, in the
mechanic arts, and in commercial activity. We have placed
before emigrants, or those who might purpose to migrate
from the North or from Europe, the advantages offered by
various of the Southern States. We have tried, as far as
we could, to induce the proper relations and feelings be-
tween the white race of the South and those who were for-
merly their slaves, in order that both classes might work
harmoniously and profitably, under the new conditions, in
the daily occupations of life. We have felt that those in
the North or the South who attempted to retard the flow
of capital and population thitherward, or those whose poli-
tical course was adverse to conciliation between the Sou-
thern people and the Government, or between the Southern
whites and blacks, were dangerous enemies to the moral
and material interests of the South, and to the material and
moral interests of the whole nation. If industry has a
direct action upon opinion and character, so, conversely,
feeling and opinion have a very direct action upon indus-
try. In individual cases every one has observed what
stimulus words of enconragement may have upon a work-
man, and every one has seen the poor results that come
from a labourer who is sullen in spirit. So precisely it
may be with a body situated as the people of the South
now are. We can incite them to activity and duty by deal-
ing with them in a spirit of magnanimity, as well as by
enlarging the rewards of their labor through our contri-
butions of capital and population. The Southern people
and press, in like manner, must remember that they may,
by their expressions and spirit,, exercise the most powerful
influence upon those in the North who desire to co-operate
with them in the enlargement of their material prosperity.
Fixed malignity of feeling in a population, or the indul-
gence of whining, will repel capital and population from
them, no matter how great inducements are offered of other
kinds. It is for this reason, amongst others, that we have
from time to time urged temperance upon the Southern
press, and begged it to restrain itself in the use of that
strong and exciting language which is always the favorite
of feeble thinkers.

We have watched with the most lively interest during
the last nine months the progress made in material acti-
vity and development by the various Southern States, and
by the South as a whole. Speaking generally, it has been
as steady as it has been great. The South has been en-
larging its capital at a very rapid rate. And not merely
from Northern investments—though these have been far
larger than is imagined, except by those who have un-
usual means of information—but by receipts from the
sale of its great staples which escaped the ravages of
war. In the item of cotton alone, it has turned out
that the South had a volume which few had
suspected. We gave yesterday , some very strik-
ing figures upon this subject. Not to go again into
details, it was shown that eleven hundred thousand bales
have already been delivered at Northern and Western ports
and towns, and of the estimated value of the whole supply
(400,000,000 dais.) a large proportion has already been paid
for in cash by Northern capital, though much of the cotton
is not yet delivered. This vast amount of money is at this
time being applied to the industrial development of the
Southern States. Its influence has already appeared to
some extent, but in a few months it will be far greater.
The commercial growth of the Southern cities has likewise
been enormous, and their present activity is really won-
derful. New Orleans and Memphis, Nashville and Savan-
nah, Richmond and Wilmington, all tell the same tale.
Take ono of these cities as an example, and a city about
whose activity we hoar much loss than that of many others.
Our correspondent at Savannah wrote but the other day
that before the war there were but two or three steam-
boats running between that place and the city of New
York. Now there are five lines of steamships on the same
route. The Atlantic coast mail steamship line, composed
of the steamers Herman Livingston, Euterpe and Varuna ;
' Murray's Line, the Zodiac, Virgo and Leo ; Pioneer Line,
the Chase and Hunter ; Star Line, the Nevada, America,
Constitution and Woybossot ; and the Empire Line, the
San Jacinto and San Salvador—fourteen first-class steam-
ships in all. There is also a line between Savannah and
Philadelphia and Boston direct, and two lines running
direct to Liverpool. There are also two lines of boats with
Charleston and two with Florida. Between Savannah
and Augusta there are four lines —in all, sixteen steamers.
In fact, the Savannah River has done more business in the
last six months than it has done before in eight years.
In those tidings, as well as the quiet but tolerably deep
stream of emigration that is moving toward the South, we
see sure hopes for its attainment of a condition of national
prosperity unequalled in the past, and we see, moreover,
prospects for the return of amity between all parts of our
great Union.—New York Timer.

PROGRESS IN KENTUCKY.—Tho message of Gov. Bram-
lette to tho Legislature of Kentucky indicates progress in
some points, as appears from this brief account of the docu-
ment :—" The Governor argues that the adoption of the
constitutional amendment would give perpetual indemnity
against any attempt to control the suffrage question through
the Federal power, and recommends its adoption because
slavery has ceased to exist, and universal emancipation
has made freedom thoroughly national. The question as
to what is to become of the negro, the Governor leaves to
time to solve. Ho recommends inviting, a superior class
of laborers to develope the mineral and agricultural resources
of the State, and suggests modes whereby such laborers
may bo attracted there. lie recommends each county to
organise a military company to support the civil authori-
ties. He says the result of the war has been such as to for
ever banish th
to of secession, and it only remains for
the
that secession is treason to have the
judiciary heresy
subject for ever and finally adjusted. The adjudication
should properly be had in the case of the chief of the rebel-
lion, to make it a precedent for all time to come. Of the
conduct of Kentucky in the war he- says Kentucky
has furnished to the Federal armies, of mostly three years'
men, 63,975 white and 25,538 colored soldiers, and ours
danger, but that
unyielding devotion to
was not the loyalty which draws its subsistence from pro-
mised profits, and its
principle
courage from distant ger,
which neither the loss of
,property nor present danger could overcome."'

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