The Sun.
London, England, 1866-11-26 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 26, 1866.

thus threatening the public peace, and a war-
rant was accordingly issued and served upon
them, and they were brought into court, ob-
liged to give bail for their good behaviour,
and in default were committed. A writ
of habeas was issued by Judge Bartol, of the Court
of Appeals, on Saturday night, but not served till
.Dlonday, when the warden reserved to himself the
full time allowed him by law for making his return,
and Judge Bartol sustained him, though it was
known this delay would bridge over the election.
The good management which thus defeated the sel-
fish, political ends of the Governor, and at the same
time avoided bloodshed and even much violence,
cannot be too highly praised. The courts will pre-
sently have an opportunity to decide, at their cus-
tomary leisure, whether the power lay with the
Executive to try and then remove the commissioners,
and if so, whether the new appointees were justified
in seeking to take forcible possession of the autho-
rity with which they were invested. Thus far it is
the latter question alone that has come up, and it
has been decided sufficiently to preserve a most im-
portant election from being held under the auspices
either of Andrew Johnson or, to speak metaphori-
cally, of Jefferson Davis, though not to debar per-
jury from prevailing at the polls.
A young man, who has passed under the name of
George Olsen, and who has been engaged as lamp
trimmer on board the United States steamer Ma-
dawaska, has just discovered that he is an Hunga-
rian nobleman, that his true title is Edward Louis,
Count Batthyani, and that he is the owner of an
immense estate. He has already received $300,000
as a portion of the money due to him, and is now in
Washington, under the protection of the Austrian
ambassador, trying to get his discharge from the
United States naval service.

Davis Bartlett, a North Becket sportsman, killed
a coon the other day, which weighed 231 pounds.
At the recent meetings of the Evangelical
Alliance at Bath, the Rev. Dr. M'Cosb, of Belfast,
read an able paper, in which be gave details of the
formation of an American Evangelical Alliance, and
sketches of the religious condition of the United
States, gathered during a tour this summer, extend-
ing over fourteen weeks, during which period he
travelled between 13,000 and 14,000 miles by sea
and land. In his paper the learned divine gave a
hurried description of the country, the state of the
people, the condition of education, &c. In the
course of it he urged that every effort should be
made to improve the coloured people (for they were
capable of being improved), and raise them in the
social scale ; the people themselves were enthusiastic
for instruction, and if the present time were not
embraced—if they were allowed to continue in igno-
rance—they would sink into habits of idleness and
degradation, from which it would almost be impos-
sible to remove them.

In Thursday's Journal des Deba ts M. Prevost-Para-
dol has an article on the foreign policy of the United
States, which will be read with interest in England.
After approving President Johnson for reviving
the Alabama claims, and commending the English
Government's determination to appoint a commission
to inquire into the operation of the laws respecting
neutrality, he proceeds to say "On the other
hand, the conduct of the President, in the matter of
Mexico, bears too evidently the impress of election-
eering tactics. He cannot possibly entertain a sus-
picion that France intends to remain in Mexico, in
defiance of the formal undertaking into which she has
entered with the United States ; he cannot appre-
hend that the Empire of Maximilian (if it be notde-
stroyed already) will survive our departure;
finally, he cannot ignore the professions of neutra-
lity of his own Government with regard to Mexico.
None of these provisions, none of these recollections,
however, seem able to prevent Mr. Johnson as-
suming with regard to Mexico an attitude which he
must know cannot but be painful to the French
Government. Mr. Johnson, who is aware that we
are going, is evidently bent on looking as if he were
driving us out, and far from doing what he can to
attenuate that too obvious check to our policy, he
leaves nothing undone that can make it more galling.
The course of events, however, was so clearly de-
fined, and the success of American policy in
Mexico so inevitable, and so close at hand, that a
President free from personal views would not have
made so glaringan abuse of so favourable a situation.
But Mr. Johnson has now his own position to re-
trieve, and those French papers which were at one
and the same time writing up both the Mexican
empire and Mr. Johnson's home policy, may now
discern who will have to pay for the damage sus-
tained by the President's popularity. Nevertheless
the boldest of Mr. Johnson's advances to popular
passion is his diplomatic intervention on behalf
of the Fenian invaders recently sentenced to death
an
England
ad i a n
will
jury. Clemency
only is always a good
deserve praise if,
in this instance, she inclines to mercy rather than
by a
thing, C
and
justice. But that a powerful neighbour, who has
allowed such an expedition to be organised within
his dominions, and who cannot plead (as England
in the case of the Alabama) anything beyond ex-
tenuating circumstances for this departure from the
neutrality laws, should in addition claim the pardon
of invaders taken in arms, and add to his recom-
mendation to mercy a lecture on clemency, is what
must stagger the world, were not the electoral posi-
tion of Mr. Johnson sufficient to account for such
conduct. As regards justice, it would be difficult
to bring forward a single argument in favour of the
Fenian marauders. This is not a case of rebels
rising against the Government of their own country,
but of foreign adventurers, who, in the midst of
profound peace, attempting the conquest of a colony
content with its fate, and determined to maintain
its allegiance because it knows it to be a security for
its independence, taken in arms, condemned by a
jury after a trial, the impartial fairness of which
they acknowledge themselves. Having staked their
life on a guilty venture and lost it, the Canadian
Fenians may afford a great example of clemency,
but they can never be made a pretext for interna-
tional discussion. Nevertheless they have been
unable to escape the vigilant eye of Mr. Johnson,
eagerly scanning the map from Mexico to Quebec
in quest of some opportunity that might be turned
to account for his rehabilitation. These weaknesses,
inherent to all governments where election is the
exclusive source of power, are but of secondary im-
portance by the side of the great example the
United States have given since the end of the civil
war, by the peaceful disbanding of their army, and
the regular paying off of their debt."
On the Ist November the Musical Fund Hall,
Philadelphia, was filled in every part by an intelli-
gent audience, to listen to a lecture by Rev. T. De
Witt Talmage, of the Second Reformed Dutch
Church of this city. The lecturer was introduced
by Mr. J. Ford, President of the Philolathean
Society. The lecture was entitled " Our New
House, or Pleasures of House Hunting." For
sparkling wit, plain common sense, deep pathos,
keen satire, and useful suggestion, the lecture was
unsurpassed. The lecturer set forth with inimitable
humour the dreary work of wandering among houses
to let, and then portrayed what a house ought to
be, going from hall to parlour, and from parlour to
dining-room, and from dining-room to nursery,
and from nursery to sleeping apartments, stopping
at the door of this last room to wish his hearers
good night. Any report would fail to do justice to
this lecture, made up for two hours of laughter and
tears. The Philolathean Literary Society, under
whose auspices the lecture was delivered, is composed
entirely of young men, who have for their aim the
welfare of the young men of Philadelphia, by im-
proving them in their literary attainments.
A short time since a Roman journal published a
cable despatch sent to the Pope by a council of
seven Catholic archbishops and forty bishops held
at Baltimore.
WHO ARE TIIE WORKING CLASSES ?—There are
thousands of employers who work hard or harder
than the employed. There are many, in what is
called a large way of business, whose tasks are never
done by night or day ; and who are besides worn
down by the anxieties which are the necessary
attendant of their calling ; upon whom disasters
occasioned by fluctuation of markets, the vicissitudes
of wind and weather, and numerous other casual-
ties, beyond human control, are often descending
with crushing violence like an inundation on the
corn-fields or an avalanche from the mountains,