The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-03 00:00:00

LAW INTELLIGENCE—(This Day.)

ROLLS COURT.
(Before the Master of the Rolls.)
HUNT V. HUNT- JIMGMENT.

His Honour the Master of the Rolls, in delivering judg-
ment, said,—This is a motion on _behalf of the wife to
restrain her husband from prosecuting in the Divorce Court
an action instituted by him for the restitution of his con-
jugal rights. The marriage took place on the 11th NON ~
1857, and a deed of separation vas executed 30th April,
1860. There was on the first pert the husband, on the
second part the wife, and on the third part two trustees.
There was a sufficient consideratim to support the validity
of the deeds. And the covenants were that the wife should

live as a fcm sole, and that he should not take any
proceedings to compel her to live with him. [His Honour
on considering the decisions rebrred to by the learned
counsel, came to the conclusion that he could make no
order.—lnjunction refused.

IN RE CARLIN'S ESTATE \ CT-JUDGMENT.
This was an application for an kthninistration Order in
his suit.

His Honour on considering the decision in the case of
Wood and Becker, 5 Milne and Craig, granted the plaintiff
the usual Administration Order. Costs to be costs in the
cause.

POLICE INTELLIGENCE.—(This Day).

MA R LBOROUGH-STREET.

RUFFIANLY A SSAULT ON A LITTLE GIRL.—COMMITTAL
'WITHOUT A FlNE.—William Harding, a young man, was
charged before Mr. Tyrwhitt with the following assault on
a little girl named Sarah Bye, living at 12, Little Pulteney-
street.

It appears that the little girl was passing along Russell-
street the previous afternoon, when the prisoner seized her
by the hair of the bead and lifted he? off her feet. He then
threw her down with great violence, and destroyed her bon-
net.

Godwin, 206 C, corroborated the little girl, and said tha
on asking the prisoner why he did it, he replied because the
girl had followed him.
Mr. Tyrwhitt said he should send the prisoner for six
weeks to prison, without a fine. It was a gross outrage on
a little girl without any cause.

CURIOUS CASE-A WO➢IAN BEWITCHED.—Elizabeth
Armand, a dirty little woman, was charged before Mr.
Tyrwhitt with violently assaulting Mrs. Susan Eagle under
the following circumstances : .

The complainant, the wife of a bird. shop keeper, Great
St. Andrew-street, said that on the previous night the pri-
soner came into the shop and abused and struck her several
times about the head with her fist, and tore out a quantity
of her hair. It was the third time she had so treated her.

Mary Gardner said she heard the prisoner ask for Mr.
Eagle, and on being told that he was not at home she at-
tacked Mrs. Eagle.

Prisoner—The complainant's husband has bewitched
me. He has been murdering all of us for some time while
in our beds.

Austin, 318 A, said the prisoner, both last night and
this morning, told him that Mr. Eagle had bewitched her
and set a spell on her.

Prisoner—He has set a spell on me. lam enraged to
madness, and can't live. lam bewitched. I live in Lam-
beth.

Mr. Tyrwhitt—You will have to find bail. Whether
you are crazed or not, I cannot tell, but your conduct is

dangerous.

The prisoner, who is a strange looking woman, was then
ordered to find one bail in 15.

THAMES.

THE GREAT SILK ROBBERY.-Mr. Woolrych recom-
menced the inquiry relating to the circumstances of the
robbery of ten bales of China raw silk on the 10th of March
last.

Mr. Humphreys, jun., of the firm of Humphreys, Son;
and Morgan, Newgate-street, who conducted the prosecu-
tion, said he expected to conclude the case and complete
next week.

Mr. Woolrych said he was very glad to hear it.
(The case was expected to occupy the whole of the day.

OUR NAVAL:POSITION IN THE _EVENT
OF WAR.

The American Government, in all their contests with
English diplomatists, have relied upon two ad vantages—
their monopoly of the cotton supply, and their power of
destroying our seaborne trade. A strange chain of circum-
stances has turned the first weapon against themselves, and
it may be well to examine, with something more of precise-
ness than has hitherto been required, the value of the second
resource. The American fleet, it is admitted, is incompe-
tent to cope with our own, though national vanity has, we
suspect, blinded Americans to the degree to which this in-
competence extends. It is not too much to say that the
disposable American fleet, so far as men of war are con-
cerned, would be justified in avoiding the attack of our
American squadrons. The Federal Government is proud,
and justly, of the skill and the energy displayed in landing
an army upon the coast of South Carolina, and the papers
are never tired of recounting the number of vessels at their
command. But ability for transport service does not of
itself imply readiness for active war. According to the
American Almanac for 1861, the Government possessed ut
the beginning of this year 10 sailing ships of the line, all
above 2,500 tons, and 10 frigates, all above 1,700, 20 sloops
above 500, and three smaller brigs. They had at the same
time eight steamers of very large size, six of the weight of
tho San Jacinto, and 15 smaller vessels, mounting six guns
apiece. They have added a few steamers since the
war commenced, but most of these must be transports,
wholly unequal to a sea fight with first-class steam
men-of-war. Even if all these vessels were equipped

and ready for service, they would not suffice to protect the
six or seven separate points on the Federal coasts which lie
invitingly open to an attack, far less to keep up the Southern
blockade, and defend their own ports. This fleet, moreover,
has no reserve producible in good time, and great as Ame-
rican energy may be, it cannot improvise men-of-war, espe-
cially at a moment when their whole system of finance must
inevitably go to pieces. Enthusiasm may call up armies,
and we shall not be suspected of believing Bull's Run a test
of American prowess on shore, or of thinking an army a
mob because captain and soldier consider they ought to
shake hands when they meet. Conscript armies survive a
similar social equality, and to this day a French officer
plays billiards with the private whom he would shoot for
remarking on an order on service. But nothing but money
will make navies, and with all trade stopped, half a million
of men in the field, and two wars on hand, money will not
be plentiful with the American Government. Then the pre-
sent concentration of the American fleet, though it increases
the means of defending the seaboard, leaves the rich and
important foreign trade singularly unprotected. The Ame-
ricans have no squadron in the Mediterranean, and none
in the Pacific, no force in the Indian seas, and a very feeble
one, if any, in the Chinese waters. We have, besides the
regular fleets at all these points, a supplementary and most
powerful fleet in China, collected for the last war, and not
yet altogether dispersed, and the fleet of the Indian navy,
which, though not equal to a contest with a great European
Power, is strong in numbers, accustomed to all waters east
of Suez, and quite competent to render American trade
between the Pacific and Western Asia all but impossible.
The national fleet is not, however, the reliance of Ameri-
can statesmen. They look back to 1812 and recall the feats
of their privateers with an exultation which we believe
misguides their judgment. It is, we admit, quite certain
that they can obtain privateers. The maritime scoundrelism
of the world will be only too happy to take out letters of
marque under the American flag, and prey in quasi-vessels
of war on the rich British commerce. The courage and
energy of honester American seamen will be forced in great
part into the same direction, and every port in the North
at once blockaded will send forth a swarm of vessels
fitted with men whose powers of fighting must no more be
underrated than their capacity for plunder. Nevertheless,
admitting all this and much more, the Americans, we are
convinced, place far too great a reliance on this ancient de-
vice. The success of 1812 occurred before steam was in-
vented, and steam is very fatal to privateering. The ocean
guerilla of 1812 could, for example, enter the Mediterra-
nean, attack vessels bound for Constantinople, and trust to
his heels to escape the huge tubs which then served as ves-
sels of war. What is he to do against vessels which, carry-
ing the armament of an old 70-gun frigate, can move for
five days in succession at 11 miles an hour ? And be it re-
membered steamers cannot be used except in very rare cases
as privateers. Not to mention their cost—an important ele-
ment in the question—the Americans have no coal. In
Earope they have no depot, and the European country
which refilled them would simply be cut off from its own
supply. In Asia every pound of coal is already in the pos-
session of the British, and their depots, without an excep-
tion, out of the risk of attack. The great stores at Aden are
covered by the guns of the strongest fortifications in the
world. The depots at Trincomalee, Singapore, Labuan, and
Hongkong can readily be protected by the fleet, and the
great Asiatic source of supply, the coal field of Raneegunge,
could not be menaced without an army of 50,000 men. Coal
is procurable all over Asia for English ships, and for them
alone. American clippers sail fast, but what are clippers to
do against an auxiliary steam power which can move in the
very teeth of the wind ? The only danger in the south and
east would be to the Australian gold ships, but they can be
attacked only from San Francisco, a port it is quite possible
cannot
to blockade, and gold will bear carriage by the overland
rGute, a traffic which can only be arrested in the south of
Asanli a beyond by
Ceylon which
b can privateers narrmesotveed at 12 miles The
an h
trade, no doubt, would be in serious peril, but even there
the danger from privateers has been greatly diminished by
Atlantic
hour;
steam. The patrol of the seas is much easier, and the
chance of escape for any vessel reduced to her sails has be-
come almost infinitesimally small. Tho privateers, heavily
manned and armed, are in no position to carry large quan-
ties of coal, and each separate chase would either reduce
them to sailing ships or compel them to put back to port
after each successive adventure. We do not mean to deny
that our trade would suffer severely—perhaps extremely
severely. It has quadrupled in extent since 1812, and
though the enlarged size of the vessels increases their safety,
it also increases the risk which must fall on individual
owners, Convoy, too, has become, except in the case of gold