The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-11 00:00:00

By ilea Russell, Mirm_Ernat, Mr: Uerbert, and Signor Tivoli

with a poWerful Chorus.

Solos on the Cornet-a-Piston by the renowned performer
Mr. LEVY.
• --

---•- - -
The Comic department comprises Mr. Sam Cowell, Mr.
Marshall, Messrs. Harvey and French (the Nerves), and
Miss Harriet Coveney

Musical Director, Mr. Jont.r,!mans.
Admission —Hall, 6d. ; Sta!ls and Balcony,

T H

E 0 X F O R D,
6, OXFORD-STREET.
EVERY EVENING.

/tuber's New Comic Opera, " LA CIRCASSIENNE," and
Verdi's new Grand opera, " Simonßoccanezra," by the entire
Company. Balfe's new ballads by Miss Russell and Madame
Eoderssohn (composed expressly for them). Varied Comic
Entertainments by Miss Harriet Coveney, Messrs. W. Ran-
dall, Harvey and French (The Nerves), E. Marshall, and
SAM COWELL. Hall, 6d. ; Balcony and Stalls, is ; Private
Boxes, 10s. 6d.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THIS DAY.—Morning, Bh. 53m.—Afternoon, 9h. 30m.
To-xonnow.-Morning, 10h. sm.—Afternoon, 10h. 39m.

THE WEATHER.—SUN OFFICE, NOVEMBER 10, !got,
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
44—Mghest:since noon yesterday.
36—lowest this morning and during the night.
45—this day at noon.

BAitomrrEs.-29.20 ; falling fast.
WlND—South to South-Westerly ; strong and squally,
with rain in the night and morning. By ten it came on a
storm, with heavy hail, lightning, thunder, and bursts of
rain. It must be blowing a heavy gale in the Channel and
along the Southern and Western coasts.
Afternoon—Better weather.

Nov. 11.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
47—highest since noon yesterday.
36—lowest this morning and during the night.
45—this day at noon.
BinomuTaß-29.69 ; a sudden rise.
WlND—West•South-Westerly and West to W.N.W.
variable, yet fresh; with fine cool, clear weather.

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THE SUN.

LONDON, MONDAY, NOV. 11, 1861.

Armadas have not been always triumphant, and I
the Northerns in America, and we in this country,
will therefore watch with eager solicitude the
movenaents of that which was lying in Hampton
Roads when the last advices left, to sail, Govern-
ment only knew whither. For the new world, it
was indeed an Armada. Twenty-seven men-of war,
the Wabash, 50-gun frigate, for flagship ; sixteen
gunboats, each carrying one of the famous 11-inch
Dahlgren guns, a Parrott rifled gun, and two
24-pound howitzers; the rest frigates and sloops,
carrying from sixteen to fifty guns—in all 400—
form the naval strength of the expedition.
These seem, however, chiefly destined to protect
the disembarkation of a considerable army, of
20,000 men, true Northerns, the great body of
them from New England and New York. The
transport fleet for this purpose consists of twenty-
four ocean steamships of burden varying from 450
to 3,400 tons American measurement. Seven steam
ferry-boats, four very large sailing vessels, with
landing boats and surf boats, and vast quantities
of stores of all kinds, including provisions, skeleton
houses, and implements of all kinds, implying per-
manent occupation and actien from the point occu-
pied. " Everything, in short, that military know-
ledge could suggest." The arrangements for the
landing are made known by a general order. The
boats, it is said, are sufficient to laud at once three
or four thousand men. It is expected that the
first line will have to conquer the ground on which
it is to establish itself—will drive back the
enemy, but not venture beyond supporting distance,
the rest will then follow ; these general directions
are to be followed in a short time by others more
Specific.

Where this large force is to attempt a landing is,
of course, kept a profound secret. There can hardly
be any point along
the coast where the Confede-
rates, with the army they must keep in Virginia, can
be strong enough to prevent a disembarcation, and
the advantage of a naval expedition is that it fre-
quently can, within certain limits, select its place
for a blending, without ;
g-ving the enemy time to
hardly
become strong enough to oppose.
We
than
Charleston a place more likely to bechosen can
Charleston itself. The defences of the
h harbour
have indeed been made strong, and probably loss
of life by attacking them would not be
incurred. Evidently provision is made for land-
ing on the coast, and the harbour batteries, thus
taken in reverse, would be of little use. The cap-
ture of Charleston would be a signal chastisement
of the very authors of the rebellion, and once in the
possession cf the Federalists, being so easily acces-
sible from the sea, the Confederates could never
expel them. Fort Sumpter would than belong to
the representatives of the old Union, and they
might, if they liked to be a little dramatic, replace
Major ANDERSON in command.

If, as some say, one principal object is to open
a cotton port, and thus to prove to th© world that
Vie North is not the obstruction of the cotton corn-
fierce with Europe, Charleston is connected
.di-
rectly
by railways with the cotton districts, and
r
11°t elletclAY accessible from the plantations

as New Orleans, is within easy reach of them,
Savannah would also serve as wel3 for this purpose,
bat the Georgians are not such flagrant and
united rebels as the South Carolinices, nor would
Savannah be to near the rear of the
army in Northern Virginia. Charlestown indeed
seems too far off, being not less than 400 miles from
the camp of BEAUREGARD, but Savannah is 100
miles yet further South. If the object be a cot-
ton port, of course New Orleans is without a
rival, and FREMONT might be aided from the
mouth of the Mississippi, but the voyage thither
would be long and some what hazardous for this
time of year. Wilmington in North Carolina would
be only about 230 miles from Richmond, and there is
also a railway to it from the cotton district ; but
it is hardly the port which would be selected for
the operations of such a fleet. The whole charac-
ter of the equipments seem to qualify the fleet
to land on a surf beaten shore, and to thread
with gunboats the smaller entrances of a harbour—
while, whether Charleston be the object of the ex-
pedition or not, in no other place would success be
received with such acclamations in the North, as
a retribution for the act which first roused its
enthusiasm—the attack on Fort Sumpter.

The North ought to gain some great success
soon ; it would at least pacify the complainers for a
time. The inactivity at Washington would then be
pronounced part of a masterly policy, which was
silently spreading a net for those whom the com-
mander of the expedition terms a " zealous, active,
and wily foe, whose cease is unholy and principles
untenable:" The success must be food for a
little time to those who crave visible results ;
it must, however, be seen to result boon:in some-
thing available. If the army of the North can be
long confronted by the whole strength of BEAU-
REGARD, the mere blaze of the triumph will soon
go out, and the general strategy will be impugned,
notwithstanding. In a few days, however, we
shall probably learn everything, and the plan
will be disclosed by the result. So far
as the cotton question is concerned, we
must say we should be sorry, now, for
anything which would materially interfere with
the efforts now making in India, Jamaica and else-
where. The suffering will be but temporary, if
we never have again a bale of American cotton
in Liverpool ; the gain to England, to India, and to
the world indeed, would be immense. It hardly
seems likely, however, that the exportation of
cotton could be large while the war continues,
and through a hostile port. Unless, indeed,
the South could get the return cargoes which it
needs through the proposed port, it might as well
keep its cotton where it is. Gold, in their want of
money, would assuredly be worth something; but
the South would want, even for its gold if it got it,
the very things which the Northerners would pro-
hibit from entering the country. Probably, there-
fore, there would be little traffic with the South till
the war was over, and that, in the opinion of the
best informed, will not be for years, though it may
be in a few months—such is the strange doctrine of
chances.

Among all the convivial displays of the year the
Lord Mayor's Banquet stands first and foremost.
If after-dinner speaking be elsewhere intolerable,
as it unquestionably almost always is—here, at
least, in the ancient Guildhall of the city of Lon-
don, it is not only tolerated but even welcomed with
a certain degree of cordiality upon every recurring
ninth of November.

There has been during the last twenty
years, an additional and wholly extra-
' neous reason why the festivities consequent
upon the inauguration of the chief magistrate
of the metropolis should be regarded with a
peculiar sense of interest and almost, be it said, of
loyal exultation. The circumstance of Lord
Mayor's Day and the Prince of WALES'S Birthday
coming round upon us, year after year, together, im-
parts not unnaturally a greater zest to the rejoicings
of the double celebration. It has so happened,
likewise, that the present mayoralty, that
of the Right Honourable WILLIAM CUBITT,
has been marked by a revival of some of
those old-fashioned pomps and ceremonials that
had been latterly falling, little by little, into
desuetude—until the municipal reign of the present
LORD MAYOR'S immediate predecessor may be al-
most described as having signalised the epoch of their
apparently total, and it was imagined by many,
permanent extinction. Insomuch had the mere
cavalcade attendant upon the chief magistrate of
the capital shrunk and collapsed of late years that
in 1859, upon the advance of Lord Mayor CARTER'S
procession to the Law Courts at Westminster, and
its return thence within the barriers of the City of
London, the little string of carriages might very
easily have passed along the route unnoticed but
for the fact of its previous announcement. With
the inauguration of the Right Honourable
WILLIAM CUBITT, however, in 1860, the City
Potentate seemed to don his ancient trappings,
and revive his antique ceremonials—to be, in fact,
the Lord Mayor Redivivus. The river route was
still neglected, the state barge was still unused, as
it was wont to be of yore, the civic dignitaries still
abstained from " taking water "—contenting them-
selves a little later on in the day with " taking
wine" instead, perhaps, more abundantly—having
a wholesome recollection of the " base uses" to
which, like C2ESAR'S clay, the current of our noble
Thames has long since come ! And remembering
some of them—those who chanced to be more up in
modern literature—that (anything but appetising)
query in regard to the water of the river Thames,
put so very pointedly by THOMAS HOOD in his
"Bridge of Sighs"

" Picture it, think of it,
Dissolute man.
Lave in it, drink of it,
Then if you can."

Still evading the old route via the Silent Highway
the Lord Mayor of 1860, with his resplendant train
of attendants, including amongst them all the men
in armour, furbished up for the occasion with the
gloss of an extra polish, traversed the principal
streets of London and Westminster with a greater
splendour even than that which accompanied
some of his more remote and most ostentatious pre-
decessors, Remembering all which in regard to last
year's doings, it can hardly have been matter of
surprise that in celebration of " His Lordship's" re-
tention for another twelvemonth he should have
surpassed even himself both in the mere display
and the subsequent hospitalities. A. longer line of
streets was traversed by a yet more ostentatious
cavalcade. And, as a due and reasonable sequel to
the afternoon's display, the evening's banquet in the
old Guildhall was of more than usual magnificence.
It is particularly worth noticing, by the
ay, in re-
gard to the popularity of the Lord Mayor of
1860 and 1861, or rather, we ought to
say more correctly, of 1861
and 1862,
that it is a popularity altogether of a
personal, or, to be more accurate still, of a wholly
unpolitical character. That it is so, is a fact that
has been illustrated rather painfully to the Lord
Mayor's own vivid recognition of it. He has been
re-elected to the Civic Chair, it is true, but he bad
previously failed, utterly and entirely failed, to
win the suffrages of a majority of the Electors of the
city as a Conservative Candidate. The incident of

his Lordship's total failure there, in that instance,
was one, it will be remembered, so signal of its
kind, it was such an egregious anti-climax, after
his resignation of his old seat in the House of
Commons that it would have been nothing less than
absolutely ludicrous to his opponents, but that it was,
at the same time, so very painful to his friends and
supporters. We may assert then, with confidence,
that the present mayoralty owes next to nothing
of its popularity to the political predilections of
the chief magistrate himself. During his first
year of office, indeed, it will be remembered, that he
assumed rather conspicuously a sort of intermediate
or neutral position between the two great rival
parties still contending with each other for the
possession of the reins and responsibilities of Go-
vernment. No sooner had her MAJESTY'S Ministers
been entertained at the Mansion House, as the
honoured guests of the LORD MAYOR of London,
than the leaders of her. MAJESTY'S Opposition were
welcomed there with a kindred cordiality by the
same Chief Magistrate. The present LORD MAYOR,
in point of fact, without being anything like a mere
partisan, has almost all his political sympathies on
the side of the Conservatives. Yet is he liked by
his fellow-citizens, not because of his Conservatism
—but, in simple truth it ought to be said,
actually in spite of his Conservatism. He
is rejected as a candidate for the suffrages
of the electors when he attempts to resist
Mr. WOOD as an aspirant to the seat vacated
upon the elevation of Lord JOHN to his well- earned
peerage as Earl' RUSSELL. But, very soon after-
wards, he is preferred with a sort of enthusiasm to
Sir HENRY MUGGERIDGE, as an aspirant to the
honours of re-election to that civic chair which he
has filled for the first year to everyone's entire satis-
faction. So thorough and complete is his popularity,
that it is even compared by the Lord Chief Baron
POLLOCK to that so long accorded, accorded through
so many generations, to the Nursery Hero of
Romance, the one lured back by the chime of Bow
Bells from Highgate milestone, our redoubtable
friend with the Cat, good Sir RICHARD WHIT-
TINGTON.

It is but very rarely, of course, that anything
like political significance is to be discerned
through the speeches of the leading guests at a
Lord Mayor's Banquet. Whatever political signi-
ficance there may be be detected is only
to be detected from what is indirectly said,
or, still more, from what is left unsaid. It
is only to be inferred—now from an ambiguous
phrase or two—now from the mere circumstance of
an obviously intentional reticence. It is not in any
way with us on the 9th of November as it is with
our Gallic neighbours on the Ist of January. There
the mot du jour is pretty often listened for. And,
generally speaking, without the popular expectancy
being doomed to disappointment. Here, on the
contrary, we may listen in vain for any portents of
the future articulated by the lips of a First Lord
of the Treasury or by any of the more garrulous of
his Ministerial colleagues.
As a rule we might safely write out the
speeches of the different speakers, providing
only that we knew their names for cer-
tain beforehand. We might have felt perfectly
well assured, for example, that Lord PALMERSTON
and Sir GEORGE GREY would have spoken, as each
of them did (very delightfully) on Saturday even-
ing. As confident, indeed, of the noble PREMIER'S
allusions, with magnanimous expressions of regret,
to the fratricidal war now desolating the Republioan
States of America, as we might have been confident
that H. R. H. the Duke of CAMBRIDGE would have
referred as he did in words of generous eulogium
to patriotic sustainment throughout the country of
the Volunteer Movement. Or—shall we not say
too ?—as we might have felt absolutely certain that
the American Ambassador (Mr. ADAMS) would
have tripped gingerly among the difficulties of his
theme, as gingerly as a saltatory conjuror or profi-
cient in the science of legerdepied among his
carelessly littered maze of eggs. His Excellency's
speech it will be perceived, upon turning to it as
reported elsewhere, is of a tolerably fair length
under the circumstances. And yet, in spite of this,
Mr. ADAMS, with an admirable adroitness, con-
trived after all to say—about as little as possible !
Never was there a happier illustration affoi ded of
the truth of that sardonic saying, attributed by
many to the hand of ROCHFOUCAULD, but ori-
ginally penned in fact in his Citizen of the
World by our own guileless and gentle-hearted
OLIVER GOLDSMITH, ♦iz., that Speech has been
given to man to conceal his thoughts rather than
to utter them. Thus most certainly does it appear
to have been in the instance of the glib-talking,
but little-revealing, American Minister, who, on
Saturday evening last, must have baulked the
curiosity of many of his auditors in their eagerness
to hear what he would say, while fooling them all
to the top of their bent by saying, in reality, in a
good many well-turned sentences, just next to
Nothing !

The wonderful extension of scientific knowledge
has seldom been developed in a form more useful
to man than when it enabled him to comprehend, in
some degree, the properties of the atmosphere.
Accustomed as we are to the marvels of steam and
electricity, it still seems strange that, by the aid of
a simple instrument, storms and hurricanes may be
foretold in calm, sunshiny weather, and tempests
which might have desolated a hundred homes dis-
armed of half their terrors by being foreseen. The
interesting account of the erection of barometer-indi-
cators along the coast of Northumberland, which
was read at the last meeting of the National Life-
boat Institution, shows plainly the great service
which these instruments are likely to render, and
the number of valuable lives they will probably
be the means of preserving. The Duke of
NORTHUMBERLAND, President of the admirable
institution referred to, has assisted, in conjunction
with the Royal Meteorological Society, in the pre-
sentation of three barometer-indicators, which have
been set up along this stormy northern coast. Three
different kinds of indicators were tried, and of these
the dial indicator appears to be the most successful.
Coasting vessels have reported that they have
distinguished it with a glass at two miles out in the
offing. Its face is 8 feet in diameter—each inch
in the scale being magnified 48 times. It is, however,
reccmmended by Capt.WAsEtiNGToN, Hy drographe r
to the Admiralty, whose report on the subject we
have been referring to, that in future the scale
should not be less than five or six feet to the inch,
thus magnifying sixty or seventy-two times. Cap-
tain WAsrmIGToN also recommends that the dial
face should be illuminated—a suggestion of which
the good sense and importance is immediately appa-
rent. The darkness only adds to the dangers which
beset the storm-tossed vessel ; why therefore should
it be the means of checking or suspending the
customary aids. Capt. WASHINGTON asks—" If the
illuminated
stedirliln aunaina
dial of the Westminster clock is th®
first object to greet the traveller arriving by the
or Railwayted dial ya night,conv c y whyt o sthhoeul d not
a fisher-
man
passing coaster the intelligence he is desir-
ousis
to learn." it
by these novel instructor
very satisfactory to find that
the fishermen have shown great readiness to profit
s, and have even remained
on shore notwithstanding a ftwourable appearance