The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-31 00:00:00

LA DON, TUESDAY EVENING, DECE AIRE rt, 31., 1.861.

THE SUN'

THORLEI"S FOOD for CATTLE, a Condiment
for seasoning all kinds of common provender. A
barrel, containin• 418 Leeds, carriage paid for post order, 405.,
payable to the Inventor, JO, EPII THORLEY, Newgate-
street, City, London.

THORLEY'S ENTIRE FEEDING • MEAL,
-n- price £l6 per ton, free to rail in London, composed of
Locust Beans, Maize, Linseed, &c„ seasoned with Thorley's
Condiment. Barrels, 12 stone each, 305., carriage paid.—
Newgate-street, City.

ItO YA 1, PRINCES S'S THEATRE.--
Lessee, Mr A. Harris.

THIS EVENING, Tueschy, Dec. 31, THE CRICKET
ON THE HEALTH. After which will be produced, a
Grand Comic Christmas Pantomime, entitled WHITTING-
TON AND HIS CAT; or, Harlequin Ring Kollywobbol
and the Genius of Good Humour. The grotesque opening
invented and written by Henry J. Byron, Esq., author of the
Princess's Pantomime of "Jack the Giant Killer." The
Scerery by Mr. James Gates, Mr. H. Cuthbert, and numerous
assistants. Good Humour, Miss Helen Howard; Princess
Popsiwopsi, Miss Rose Leclercq; Alice, Miss Pauline Le-
clercq ; Messrs. Garden, Cathcart, Morland, Collett, Hast-
ings, Raymond; Dick Whittington, Miss Maria Harris;
Robin Goodfellow and the Cat, Master John Haslem, ,pupil
of the celebrated Gabriel Ravel; Clown, Mr. llildyard ;
Harlequin, Mr. John Lauri; Pantaloon, Mr. Paulo; Colum-
bine, Miss Caroline Adams. Morning Performances will
take place at Two o'clock on Monday, Deo 30, and every fol-
lowing Monday till further notice.

NEW THEATRE-110 SEAL, ADELPHI.—
Solo Proprietor and Manager, Mr. B. Webster.

THIS EVENING, and during the week the great Drama,
entitled THE OCTOROON ; or, LIFE IN LOUISIANA :
Messrs. Grace, Billington, Emery, Phillip Jamison, Smith,
Stephenson, Romer. Lewis ; Mrs. Billington, Mrs. H. Mar-
ston, Miss C. Denvil, Miss Latimer, and Mrs. H. Lewis.

After wh'ch, at 20 minutes past 9, tin great Irish Drama
of THE COLLEEN BAWN. Mr. and Mrs. Dion Boucicault,
Mr. Fisher, Miss Woolgar, &c.
Box Office open from 10 till 5.

NEW ROYALTY THEATRE,
Dean-street, Oxford-street.

Under the Direction of Mdlle. Albina di Rhona.

THIS EVENING, A LESSON FOR HUSBANDS ;
characters by Mr. Sinclair, Mesas. Clifford and Terry. After
which, CAM ELIA ; Camelia, Mdlle. Albina di Rhona. Fol-
lowed by a New Operatic Burlesque, entitled THE VERY
LATEST EDITION OF IL TROVATOR ; or, Who
Killed the —; Messrs. Graham, Robins, James, Warren,
W. Worboys ; Mesds. Mason, Craven, and Hodson. To
con lude with new and ori ,inal Farce, A NICE QUIET
DAY.—Commence at half-past 7.

AS rLEY'S ROYAL AMPHITHEATRE.-
Sole Proprietor and Manager, Mr. W. Batty.
By particular desire, a GRAND MORNING PERFORM-
ANCE on WEDNESDAY (New Year's Day), commencing
with daring Scenes in the Circle, by the first Equestrians in
the world ; concluding with the Comic Pantomime,
JOHNNY GILPIN'S RIDE ; or, Harlequin Black Witch of
Edmonton. Doors open at half-past 1, commence at 2. The
Evening Performan e as usual On Saturday, Jan. 4, a
Grand Morning Performance, at 2.

CANTERBURY HALL CONCERTS,
AND FINE ARTS GALLERY.
Triumphant Success of Mr. Marshall's Grand Christmas
Entertainment, "THE ENCaANTED HASH " (SECOND
EDITION)-- Tonderful Transformations—Every Evening*
at a quartet-vast ten—in e,dditio-i to the following Comic
talent: Mr. Frederick French, the great Shakesperian Bur-
lesque Vocalist, Mr. Wood and Son, Mr. J. G. Fordo, Miss
Harriet Coveney, and Miss Greene.
Grand Selections from
LA TRANIATA and TROVATORE,
at ten o'clock,
By Miss Russell, Mr. Herbert, Signor Tivoli, and full Chorus.
Musical Director, Mr. Jonghmans.
Admission—Hall, 6d.; Stalls mad Balcony, is.

CANTERBURY HALL.-VICTOR JULIEN,
" THE FLYING MAN " Every Evening at half-past
Nine o'clock.

T II E 0 XF O R D,
6, OXFORD-STREET,

OPEN EVERY EVENING.

Grand Selections from " ERNANI," "Macbeth," and
"La Circassienne," by Madame Enderssohn, Miss Ernst.
and Miss Russell ; Messrs. Albert, W. Morley, Greene, and
C. Greville. Full Band and Chorus.—Conductor, Mr. F.
Jonghmans. Solos by Mr. Viotti Collins (the great English
violinist). Balfe's New Ballads, by Madame Enderssohn
and Mi-s Russell (composed expressiy for them), and other
Vocal and Instrumental Entertainments, the Comic portion
by Messrs. Sam Collins. E. Marshall, M. P. Foster, W. Ran-
dall. and Mos Harriet Coveney.
Hall, 6d.; Stalls and Balcony, is. ; Private Boxes, 10s. 6d.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tx is DAY.—Morning, lh. 9m.—Afternoon, lh. 38m.
TO-MORROW. -Morning, h. m.--Afternoon, h. m.

THE WEATHER.—SUN OFFICE, DECEMBER 31, 1861.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
ighest since noon yesterday.
31—lowest this morning and during the night.
37—this day at noon.
BAROMETER— 30.42.
Wpm—N.-Easterly; light, with dull weather.

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THE SUN.
LONDON, TUESDAY, DEC. 31, 1861.

According to annual custom, upon New Year's
Eve, we take a retrospect of the past twelvemonth.
But a very brief interval after these remarks of
ours shall have gone to press, the joy-bells in all
our city church towers and village steeples will
peal out blithely the transition from the one year
to the other—from 1861 to 1862. And there will
be this time far more than ordinary significance in
the dear familiar sound of these old joybells at
midnight—remembering, as who amongst us cannot
fail to do, how much more reason than usual we have
now to turn rather Hopefully to the Future than
Regretfully to the Past, The griefs that have come
upon us during the year that is now "fast dying" are
too poignant and too manifestly irreparable to be
loitered over in unavailing regret. While we find
cause in every direction about us to obey the
English Poet's most seasonable behest in his mas-
terpiece of in Memoriam, to—
" Ring out tho old, ring in the new I
Ring out the False, ring in the true I"

We have abundant reason also to act upon the
American Poet's no less earnest recommendation,
that we should—.

"Let the dead Past bury its Dead."

A cursory glance down the record furnished by
our Lbree hundred and thirteen daily impressions
will only too painfully justify this instantaneous
and almost instinctive preference for glancing
down the vista beiore us rather than down that
which we have just now been somewhat pain-
fully traversing. Everywhere we find abun-
dant arguments luring us rather to sanguine
anticipations than to a doleful retrospect.
Nevertheless, no matter how painful it may be to
do violence for a while to this natural impulse, to
look forward instead of backward, to muse over the
Future rather than over the Past—it is always well
that upon the last day of the y ear we should
attempt to epitomise the more salient incidents in
its history. And turning our attention now—we
will admit somewhat reluctantly—to the task, What
are the occurrences that start forth the most vividly
to our recollection ? They are but too readily
enumerated. Death in the Palace. That to begin
with—and to end with. Death deplorably reiterated
in its advent : first, that of the venerable Mother,
afterwards, that of the honoured and beloved
Husband of the Sovereign. The year of grace 1861
will, by reason of those two events alone, be remem-
bered mournfully in our national annals. The
expiring twelvemonth closes in fact while the
QUEEN and her People are yet in the midst of the
first bitter freshness of their mourning, over the by
far more lamentable event of the two—the prema-
ture and sudden demise of His Royal Highness
ALBERT, the PRINCE CONSORT of England. The
disappearance from life of Her Royal Highness
the Duchess of KENT, was only in the course
of nature; and what might not unreason-
ably have been anticipated. Not so the abrupt
vanishing from the world—in which he occu-
pied so conspicuous and illustrious a position—
of her MAJESTY'S virtuous and gifted CONSORT,
while yet in the flower of his life and the full vigour
of his comely manhood. Hardly have we consigned
his inanimate remains with unaffected lamentations
to his early grave, when Christmas has come upon
us in the midst of our mourning, and that sad
Christmas is in due course fast followed by a melan-
choly New Year's Eve. The grief cf our constitu-
tional Queen is the grief of the whole Nation.
And it is consequently, in simple truth and by no
courtly pretence of sympathy in the royal sorrow,
that we may quite ccnfidently assert that
the first and last thought of the people
of these islands, now that 1861 is rapidly

)1

merging into 1862, is saddened by the remembrance
of the bitter homre•grief that has fallen so abruptly

and so recently upon the Royal Household. Other
reigning dynasties have no immunity from the
same astounding bereavements—as we have start-
ling cause to remember, at the present moment, by
reason of the rapid succession of deaths (also from ty-
phoid fever) at the Palace of the Necessidades at Lis-
bon; the la at of these lamentable deaths being that of
the young :Prince JOAO—destined so soon to follow
his two youthful brothers, the late King of PORTU-
GAL and H.R.H. DoM FERDINAND. Death has
been playing havoc, moreover, during the past
.
year among our own illustrious compatriots. Toe
Lord High. Chancellor CAMPBELL, full of years
and honours, it will be remembered, expired quite
suddenly during the twelvemonth. Slowly, slowly,
however, 'amidst the grief of all who knew him'
faded out 'the life of one of our most honoured and
in many ways richly-gifted administrators, the
Lord HER BERT of LEA, better known as the Right
Hon. SIDNEY HERBERT. A veteran chief of the
House of Commons, whose commanding presenee,
will long be missed there, died also in 1861, in the
person or Sir JAMES GRAHAM. Another familiar
form that often rose there from the back benches on
the Liberal side of the House to address Mr.
SPEAKER, in the midst almost invariably of good-
humoured laughter, will be looked for in vain
when Parliament again assembles—meaning that
of gallant, honest, eccentric, but thoroughly con-
sistent Tom DUNCOMBE, the dandy Radical
member for the metropolitan borough of Finsbury.
Glancing back into the expiring year from our own
shores to the remoter shores of the European Con-
tinent we recall to mind, of course, the disappear-
ance, also apparently in mid career, of another poten-
tate than the late King of PORTUGAL—to wit his
Imperial Majesty the Sultan CALIPH ABDUL
MEDJTD, now succeeded] by his brother ABDUL
Aziz upon the Ottoman throne at Constantinople.
Still noting the Royal Houses of Christendom we
are reminded that defeat and not death (that might
—one would think—have been preferable to such
a defeat !) has prevented the prolongation of the
reign of King FRANCIS 11. on the throne of the Two
Sicilies. GARIBALDI'S triumph has not been mili-
tated against during 1861—but the rehabilitation
of things generally there in Southern Italy has, on
the contrary, been confirmed and stiengthoned with-
out the Liberator having had reason to go thither
again to the rescue since his departure like another
CINCINATUS to his little home-farm at Caprera. The
Re Galantuomo—if he has failed to see his Italian
Kingdom 'enlarged further so as to fulfil
at last the French EMPEROR'S renowned
programme in the Milan Proclamation, ex-
tending, namely, from the Alps to the Adriatic—
has found the sceptre of his new realm settled
more and more firmly in his bold grasp—the iron
diadem of CHARLEMY NE fitting more and more
securely on his brow. Venetia is still garrisoned by
the Austrians, as also is the whole system of
fortresses constituting the grand stronghold of the
Quadrilateral—as, indeed, is still the Eternal City
itself by the soldiers of that Eldest Son of the
Church, his Majesty the Emperor NAPOLEON 111.
But—it was but the other day that the Hermit
of Caprera—who never yet has spoken idly
or at random—volunteered the intimation to
his compatriots, that the signal would soon come to
them to be again a-foot, and that, too, sword!in
hand, and under his guidance The Austrian KAISER
all the while, froM the beginning of 1861 to the
end of it, having had cause to husband his military
recources in Venetia and the Quadrilateral, has still
more reason to do this, therefore, by reason of
GARIBALDI'S formidable intimation I FRANCIS
JOSEPH having this paramount responsibility
thrust upon him, moreover, with his coffers, as
usual, empty, and his heart full, of solicitude as to the
future attitude to be assumed by the Hungarians
towards his Government. As thus dubiously stand
matters between the KAISER and the:Magyars—so
more than ever alarmingly, they stand now between
the CZAR and his Polish Lieges. If death has
carried affliction to the reigning family at
Lisbon, the hopes of brighter days for Spain have
gladdened the councils of Queen ISABELLA at
Madrid—the expansion of her dominions beyond
the waterslof the Atlantic occurring simultaneously
with the development of the resources of her people
in the Iberian peninsula. Here in England mean-
while, if we have advanced hardly in any way
appreciably upon the path of internal reform, we
have during 1861 maintained intact hitherto
our friendly relations with foreign powers—
strengthening above all with mutual increase
of good will upon either side of the Channel our
amity with our Imperial neighbour in France.
NAPOLEON, in truth, has given good auguries, not
only to us but to his own people, by various
incidents that have marked this latest year of his
reign : insomuch that the financial reforms adven-
tured upon in the autumn of '6l are beginning to
be regarded by rattily of the keenest observers (in-
stance the Paris correspondence recently in the
columns of our able and thoroughly liberal contem-
porary the Daily News) as preliminary to the long
promised crowning of the political edifice with in-
stitutions that, once adopted, would trans-
form the all but irresponsible C2ESAR and Dic-
tator into that undoubted phenomenon a Con-
stitutional Emperor ! Within the compass of the
dying year we have had to record the close of the
Chinese war, the revival of outrages in Japan, the
introduction of many wonderful chdnges in our In-
dian administration, No Parliamentary Reform
(after all !) in the Three Kingdoms, the Conclusion
of the Little War in New Zealand, the rapid. growth
of the youngest of our sixty colonies (i. e,, British
Columbia), the deepening and strengthening of the
loyalty of that and the rest of our vast and scattered
possessions in • all parts of the globe—:and shall
we have soon to add to this catalogue
of events, the outbreak, at length, of a long
threatened conflict between the British. Government
and the Federal Government at Washington ? As
to that last and direst contingency of all, however,
we must now speak separately.

England has been again more interested through
a whole year hi foreign than in domestic matters,
and those chiefly on the other side the Atlantic.
At the commencement of the year, indeed, our
attention was attracted, wearisomely, to the ungene-
rous conduct of the French EMPEROR before Gaeta ;
and, when that was over, the noble struggle of
Hungary and lice Diet with the Despot of Vienna
and his Germans deeply interested not only Eng-
land, but the frivnds of liberty all over the world.
The spectacle of :a long suppressed nation obtaining
the power of utterance, and using it to assert its
unquestionable rights, and to maintain its venerable
institutions against the threats and cunning of
Vienna, was one from which Englishmen could not
divert their thou ghts. The name of DEAK now
takes its place with that of the great constitutional
heron of history„ ith the HAMPDENS, and SYDNEYS,
and CAVOURS. .1-11 nagary has now made her position;
she has gained /t ,e verdict of the court of Christen-
dom, and only ...awaits the opportunity to issue
execution--an of sure to come, and, it
would seem, I) asti :ning rapidly.
But hardly had Hungarian demonstrations ceased
by the arbitr pry dissolution of the Diet when t,

American struggle had acquired proportions which
attracted the almost exclusive regard of this
country. Probably hardly an instance has
occurred in our modern history of the mind of the
British public undergoing so marked a change as
that which has taken place in regard to the
Northern States and their cause within the year—
a change by no means due to the San Jacinto out-
rage. On the election of Mr. LINCOLN there was
general rejoicing here, on account of his supposed
sympathy with the cause of the negro. English-
men knew, indeed, that his party went avowedly
for nothing more than exclusion of slavery from
the territories, technically so called, of the
Union, and the limitation of slavery to its
present area. But it was supposed that more
was not professed because more was impossible; it
was thought that the Fugitive Slave Law, with all
its unconscionable inquisitions, was soon to be
abolished, and that LINCOLN and the Republicans
would lay themselves out to weaken slavery in
every possible way.
On these points, though we tried to hope against
hope, our eyes were soon opened. Mr. LINCOLN, in
his messages, studiously avoided every word that
could give umbrage to the slaveholders, and empha-
tically avowed his intention to adhere to
the guarantees furnished by the constitution for
slavery, and especially to the Fugitive Slave Law
itself. Slowly, but inevitably, the English mind
accepted the conviction that LINCOLN and the
North were averse to slavery, not on account of
its essential wickedness, but because it threatened
to interfere with the colonizing emigration of the
Free States; and that they loved their ambitious
monster Union far more than justice to the slave.
It was impossible that England could accept the
cause of the South. The South and Slavery were
indissolubly associated—we recoiled from the asso-
ciation—but on the other hand there was nothing
to attract us to the North. The neutrality which
for prudential and legal reasons our Government
proclaimed, soon became under the spare-slavery
policy of Mr. LINCOLN, the real sentiment of
Englishmen. We could not wish the South to
triumph, but we could not rejoice in a Northern
triumph. In fact we can see, as we think, quite as
much hope for negro emancipation through the
independence of the South, as through its recon-
quest by the North.
What is even more singular, we have all been
converted by the actual events of the war to dis-
belief of Northern omnipotence. It will be remem-
bered that we were all busy at first calculating the
the vast superiority of the North in population,
militia, wealth, manufacturing resources, shipping,
and so forth, and showed, as we had a right to
show, what immense advantages lay on the side of
the North if she could but save Washington from
the first threatened attack. Washington was
saved, and on the capture of Fort Sumter the whole
North rose to tread out rebellion and vindicate the
honour of the national flag. An army of 500,000
men, and five hundred millions of dollars for their
support, were promptly voted, and Virginia was to
have been overrun at once. We all know the long
weary sequel. We were looking for a Northern,
a Western, and an Eastern army to march upon
and join each other at devoted Richmond, driving the
Confederate Congress like sheep before it—but we
have seen the Western and Eastern divisions unable
to advance beyond Western Virginia and Fort Mon-
roe, and the great army of the North, after fleeing
in a never-to-be-forgotten panic from Bull's Run,
not venturing to renew the attack, though five
months have passed away.
In the Border States, as might have been ex-
pected, councils have been divided. The parts
adapted to, and cultivated by, free labour have
clung to the Union, the other parts have tended
fo secession. We have seen how undecided and
cruel has been the struggle in Missouri and Ken-
tucky, while Maryland remains loyal as a whole,
solely because the whole State is occupied by the
Federal army. This, then, is the result; so different
unquestionably from any anticipated in April or
till midsummer, that the South, as standing on the
defensive, are triumphant at present. They have
not been driven back from their positions, and a
naval raid or two, which do not seem likely to tell
upon the war, are all that the North can boast.
It must, however, be borne in mind that
military superiority was not the only one on which
Englishmen relied in their calculations of Northern
superiority. They recollected the slaves. They
knew the power of the North to beat up Southern
quarters, and give Southern regiments work enough
in keeping down slaves to whom the North pro-
claimed universal emancipation—they did not
suppose the North could be guilty of the con-
summate folly of turning the slaves into the
strength instead of the weakness of the
South ; nor did they imagine that "'cute Yankees"
would be so intolerably stupid as to enable the
Southern white men to muster at Bull's Run as
numerously as themselves, because they had slaves
at home quietly working hard to maintain in the
field the men whom the Yankees could not drive
from it.

That the year as regards them and us should
close with the San Jacinto affair and all its conse-
quences, is certainly an incident that could least of
all have been anticipated. If any crazy Captain
WTLKES could have been imagined likely to com•
mit such an outrage, it would have been supposed
that, with one unmanageable war on his hands, Mr.
LINCOLN would have hastened to disavow the act
of the captain, would have placed the men in Lord
LYONS' hands, and have made the apology without
waiting to be asked for it. This, however, only
discloses more plainly what was becoming
apparent before—the incapacity of Mr. LINCOLN
for such a crisis, and his subjection to the American
mob. His weakness has caused the year to close with
a demand on him from onr Government which
will make him wince, while he will be unable to
refuse compliance with the judgment, not only of
England, but of all civilised Europe. He will feel
humiliated, because he refused at the first to act as
became a man of honour. He sees English ships-
of-NN ar arriving on his coast, English troops pro-
ceeding to Canada, and the certainty before him
that, if he ventured on war, the issue would be not
the annexation of Canada, but the annexation of
Maine to our colonies, of which it properly forms a
part.

The Earl and Countess of Chesterfield and Lord
Stanhope passed through town yesterday, from spending
the Christmas with the Earl and Countess of Carnarvon, at
their seat in Wiltshire. The earl and countess have gone
Lo Bretby Park. Lord Stanhope has repaired to Melton
Mowbray.

The Earl and Countess Delawarr have left Bourne
Hall, their seat in Cambridgeshire, to spend a few days
with Mr. H. Itussell, M.P., and Lady Elizabeth Russell,
at Oakley Park, Bedfordshire. _ _

The Earl Grey left town at the close of the past
week fur Nice, to join the countess, who has arrived in that
city from Florence. It is not the intention of the earl and
countess to return before the first week in March.

The Earl of Hopetoun has arrived at Long's
Hotel.
Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe is sojourning at
the Bristol Hotel, Brighton.

TArd Dufferin arrived in town on Saturday from
visiting the Earl and Countess of Carnarvon, at Highclere,

Lord and Lady William Powlett have arrived
in town from visiting Lord and Lady Harry Vane, at their
Rat in Sussex.

LATEST NEWS.

TURIN, DEC. 31.

The Italia gives a denial to the statement, made
by the Diritto, that a Parliamentary deputation
had given advice to Baron Ricasoli, in reference to
the present state of things, and says that the Minis-
try have resolved to pursue the policy they have
hitherto followed.

PORTUGAL.

We (Times) have received a telegram from our
own correspondent at Lisbon. After confirming
the news of the death of the Prince Joao, the tele-

gram says :
" The King is well.
" The street disturbances have been suppressed
by the military.
" Continued tranquillity is probable."

ENGLAND AND AMERICA.

PARIS, DEC. 30.

The Paris papers of this evening assert that Lord
Lyons had declared to Mr. Seward that he would
wait for the answer of the Federal Government
until the evening of the 20th instant, and that if
the Cabinet of Washington should then refuse to
surrender the prisoners he would leave Washington
and return to London.

The same papers assert that the Federal Con-
gress, in its sitting of the .18th instant, voted an
address to the President, urging him not to surren-
der the prisoners.

VIENNA, DEC. 30.

Yesterday, during the celebration of high mass
in the church of St. Bernard, at Lemberg, national
Polish songs were sung, notwithstanding the pro-
hibition of the authorities.

Several of the police who proceeded to make ar-
rests among the congregation were insulted.
In the evening crowds of people assembled before

the prison.
Several persons had been arrested by the patrols
which were clearing the streets.