The Sun.
London, England, 1866-10-13 00:00:00

MISCELLANEOUS AMERICAN NEWS.

An official army order has been published pre-
scribing the uniform of the General and Lieu-
tenant-General in the United States as follows :
" For the General the same as for Major-General,
except that on the coat there shall be two rows, of
twelve buttons each, on the breast, placed by
fours, and on the shoulder straps and epaulets
four silver stars. For the Lieutenant-General
the same as for a Major-General, except that on the
shoulder straps and epaulets there shall be three
silver stars."

The Chicago 2 ribune says :—" The Loyal Sol-
diers' Convention at Pittsburgh exceeds the Cleve-
land bread-and-butter gathering in the proportion
that a house on fire exceeds an ordinary lightning
bug. Pittsburgh is in a blaze of enthusiasm. The
city is crowded with delegates and bespangled with
lights and banners. The soldiers are there. Those
who congregated at Cleveland were looking after
commissions in the regular army or the revenue
service. Those who have assembled at Pittsburgh
have come to speak the sentiments of a million men
who have carried muskets in the service of their
country."

From the same source we extract the following :
—" It is reported, upon pretty good authority, that
the New York Times has lost 12,000 of its daily cir-
culation since the holding of the Philadelphia Con-
vention, and that the decline has been so rapid as
to cause the utmost consternation in the ownership
of that concern. This is a righteous punishment
—the only punishment, indeed, which Raymond
can feel. By the time he loses 12,000 more he will
be as Radical as Thadeus Stevens.

An Arkansas paper says that a company of United
States troops were fired upon by a person who did
not know that the war was ended. This seems to
be the general impression also in Texas. We hear
that the people of the town of Benham have be-
sieged a company of United States troops—that the
besiegers had telegraphed to the State authorities for
reinforcements, and that other besiegers have sent
to Galveston for ammunition. General Sheridan
has set out for the scene of hostilities. This news
has a familiar sound. It resembles the tidings which
came from Texas in 18G1, when the ruffians of the
Lone Star State surrounded the handful of troops
stationed there, and inaugurated war against the
nation. In the absence of any precise information
as to the nature of this new outbreak of the rebel-
lion we forbear comment.

The Rev. Edward Beecher has published a long
and able letter, addressed to his brother, the Rev.
Henry Ward Beecher, in which he expresses
powerfully his strong sentiments of disapprobation
at the course his brother had recently taken. " You
insist," says this gentleman, "mainly on an imme-
diate restoration of the revolted States to the Union
as essential even to the welfare of the freedmen ; you
say, in effect, let them be restored, tranquillised,
prospered, and cheered by success in business and
commercial enterprise, and it will redound to the
freedman's benefit as truly as to that of the State
and the nation: Your whole letter implies this false
assumption that there are some who are not in
favour of speedily restoring the seceded States. It
is an argument against such. You try to prove that
in our system there is no place for a State but in
the Union,' and that the Federal Government is
unfit to exercise minor, police, and local government,'
and that it is vain to attempt to govern disorganised
and disordered States by an army. It is indeed
true that there are millions of loyal men who are
opposed to a restoration of a certain kind of States
with certain powers, either immediately or at any
future time. And they oppose it because it will
neither tranquillise society, nor benefit the freed-
men, but will tend to disorganise the nation, enslave
the freedmen, and plunge us into another civil war.
But it is not true that even the most Radical Re-
publicans are opposed to the immediate restoration
of true Republican States, whose spirit and prin-
ciples are those, not of that spurious Democracy that
dishonours the name, but of true Christian Demo-
cracy, based on the law of benevolence and justice,
in which all men are equal in rights and franchises
before all-embracing, all-ennobling, all-protecting
law."

With reference to the law requiring a homestead
settler to occupy and cultivate the land for five
years before he can acquire a title, the question
has been raised whether the improvements made
by the settler within that time can be taxed before
the title has been passed to him. The Commis-
sioner of the General Land Office has delivered
an opinion on the subject, in which he says :
If a qualified settler goes upon the land, resides
there, and cultivates the tract for the full terra of
five years, the United States Government stipu-
lates that he shall on paying a small fee get a com-
plete title. The consideration is mainly a labour
consideration similated, not only for the interest of
the claimant, but for the benefit of the State. The
statue in virtue of the supreme law of the land
cannot, therefore, be rendered inoperative, or
abridged by such an exercise of the taxing powers
as would defeat the privilege conferred upon the
settler. The spirit and purpose of Congress in this
respect is clearly manifested in the fourth section
of the said Act of May 20th, 1862, which declares
that no lands acquired under the provision of this
Act shall, in any event, become liable to the satis-
faction of any debt or debts contracted prior to the
issuing of the patent thereof. It is the generous
purpose then of the United States, through the
National Legislature, to protect settlers in their
homes nmlor the law until their titles reach ma-
turity."

The article in the New York Times, on the Con-
stitutional Amendment, which has excited so much
comment, concludes thus :—" The Amendment now
awaits the action of the Legislatures of the several
States. It is just in itself, and its adoption, by
remedying injustice, and providing for the public
safety, would do much towards tranquillising public
sentiment, and preparing the way for the more
speedy restoration of peace and harmony to all
sections of our common Union. It is greatly to be
regretted that all the States were not represented
in the Congress by which it was proposed ; but it
is submitted to them all for their consideration and
action. Nothing would conduce more to the public
peace than its speedy rectification, especially by
those States which are to be most directly affected
by its provisions."
The Chicago Tribune concludes an article on the
Constitutional Amendment in these words :—" The
amendment, before the Ist day of February next,
will be ratified by the Legislatures of 21 Northern
States. Tennessee has already ratified it ; Missouri
will do the same ; if there be honest elections in
Maryland that State will also ratify it. It will not
be possible for Andrew Johnson nor the rebel States
to ignore the popular verdict thus rendered. They
will defy it any longer at their peril. They
will, by any further obstinacy, only arouse a spirit
which may not be satisfied with a Constitutional
Amendment such as is now pending, but may de-
mand security in other measures that are even now
rapidly taking shape in public opiniccu. The pro-