The Sun.
London, England, 1861-04-15 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, APRIL 15, 1861.

We must have patience with America. Pro-
gress towards anything decisive is very slow
yet ; the President cannot act if he would, and
probably, now, would not if he could. The Senate
confirms his appointments, accepts his refusal to
produce correspondence with Major ANDERSON,
and declines to vote resolutions calling on him to
withdraw the Federal troops from the States
which have seceded, and to decline collecting the
revenue there. On the other hand, a resolution in
favour of enforcing the Federal laws in these
States is equally shelved. To do nothing is the
sum of the policy indicated by the course of both
Congress and the President up to the date of
the last advices.
The Senator from Ohio earnestly contends, how-
ever, that the people have no voice in the Govern-
ment which has been erected in the South, that
they are trampled down by a military despotism. A
General LAMON also has returned from Fort
Sumpter and reported favourably on the state of
the garrison, although he speaks of the Southern
preparations as so considerable and so skilfully
made, that the fort could be reinforced only with
hazard and loss. It is, however, rumoured that
the Government has introduced into Fort Pickens
several hundred troops by night, and has sent
orders to the West to confiscate all goods
which enter without paying the Federal duties.
The difficulty would be to find the force
requisite for confiscation; the populace of the Free
States on the Mississippi probably do not love the
Federal Government so well as to pay willingly
the protectionist duties of the new tariff, or even
those of the old one; and for ten per cent. would
probably send the few helpless officials of the Fede-
ral Government about their business, while they
cleared out a cargo of cheap English manufactures
at St. Louis in Illinois. " Why should they not
get all the goods in return which they could for the
corn they had sent to England ?"
" Old Virginy," though she has not joined the
Secession, is acting strongly in favour of slavery.
She has voted that " African slavery is a vital part
of the social system of the States in which it exists,"
but declined to add that it was also " part of the
political system of the Federal Government," There
is still, we suspe3t, every reason to fear that the
Free North will purchase the support of the border
States, by retaining a vigorous Fugitive Slave Law,
and thus still marring their whole republic by the
blot of slavery. If the North temporises and con-
ciliates the South, it can only be on the condition of
the North becoming, as before, slave hunting ground
for the South.

A burilbliearnotf
ourcontlraadg
ly neer tocohas
tsin ers, in the person
..recently been added to
thenm
iss Sullivan. Those who have already heard this
of m
accomplished artiste must have recognised in her
ordinary accessions to--what lures,even now, so effec-
tually the art-loving million to the musical enter-
tainments of the Metropolis. Those who have not
yet heard Miss Sullivan have a likelihood of doing
y
so upon many future opportunies. This
evening,olapur
aforirdewxeal known
ml-pie, she is announced to sing the
popular " To Thee " in the first part,
and the yet more famous "Il Segreto" in the second
part of a concert given by Mr. Petters (a blind
To-morrow pianist)
evening
Literary TueTue Institution,sda3, ) ,
a t t h ate
New B Bayswater,
Vestr
yswater.
Hall, in the King's-road, Chelsea, Miss Sullivan
is
announced, moreover, for a far more arduous under.
taking, a far greater test of her abilities and capa-
bilities as a musician, namely, the taking of the
principal contralto in the grand oratorio of " The
Messiah,"

an address of the House of Lord, dated the 11th of
April, 1859, for a return of the number of Con-
victs to whom tickets of leave have been granted
during the years 1857 and 1858 ; syecifying the
number given each year ; also the number who dur-
ing that period have been remanded to prison in
consequence of the commission of any subsequent
offence." According to which return it appeared
in due official form, under the timbre of the Home
Office, that during the two years 1857 and 1858 the
total number of convicts released on orders of leave
amounted to-1,084. The return adding thereupon
that within the same period, during those same
two years, 1857 and 1858, the number of license-
holders recommitted to prison for fresh offences
amounted to-966 ! Showing, argues the writer in
the Cornhill—ingeniously, it may be, but cer-
tainly not ingenuously—" that nine-tenths relapsed
into crime." Upon this amazing deduction from
the figures just particularised, what is the comment
of the Inspector-General of the Convict Establish-
ments ? Why, it is simple enough as a com-
ment. But it is also, as a comment, completely
overwhelming. "Before the writer committed
himself to drawing any conclusion from these
figures," says Sir JOSHUA JEBB, " he should have
inquired whether the 1,084 convicts referred to
were the whole number out on license at the end of
1858, because the 966 license-helders reported for
misconduct or re-committed to prison for different
offences were taken out of the whole number at larg e
and not out of the comparatively few who were
released in the two years included in the return.
Under these circumstances, I think I am entitled
to state that the effect of this return to the House
of Lords has been most grossly, and, I fer, wil-
fully misrepresented. Now, what are the real
facts ? From October, 1853, when the first licenses
were issued, to the 31st of December, 1858, there
were released on license no less than 8,449 male
and female, convicts, and it is out of this number
that 966 were recommitted in the two years in
question." So that while the C'ornhill writer is
arguing as though the 966 recommitted were to be
taken out of the 1,084 released on orders of license
—those 966 are, on the contrary, to be taken from
the whole number of convicts thus returned upon
tickets of leave ororders of license between 1853 and
1858, an aggregate number amounting not to 1,084
merely, but really and truly to as many as 8,449 !
Sir JOSHUA JEBB explains, in fact, later on in
his letter, that out of the returned con-
victs of 1857 and 1858, out of the 1,084 sent
adrift again upon society—not 966, but (how many
do the Cornhill readers suppose ?) only 117 were
recommitted within these two years (1857-1858):for
fresh offences! With perfect reason, therefore, after
this extraordinary exposure of a very gross and
flagrant misrepresentation, may Sir JOSHUA remark
at the close of his communication—While " I
refrain from now entering into any controversy
or any defence of the system of discipline which
with so much care has been established in England
and carried out with such marked success, I do
earnestly protest against the means resorted to for
crying it down." Adding, "I do also protest against
the deep injustice that is done to the whole of the
officers who have for many years devoted their best
energies to carrying out the views of the Govern-
ment in regard to the proper mode of administering
the law in connection with the highest class of our
secondary punishment." The time has certainly
arrived now in regard to this agitation
of the question as to the merits or demerits
of the discipline of our convict establishments
generally, the period has certainly arrived
now, we say, in regard to the agitation of
this delicate and important problem, when the
public should begin to bear in mind before pro-
nouncing judgment upon the system—[for as yet
they have mostly heard of late but one side, namely,
the arguments of its antagonists and depreeiators]--
they should bear in mind the good old honest axiom,
Adi alteram partem.