The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-12 00:00:00

POSSIBLE RESULTS OF THE AMERICAN
CRISIS.

The Meta York Herald says :—" We have re-
peatedly called attention to the hundreds of thou.
sands of men, in the vigour of youth and the prime
of manhood, that are now thrown out of employ-
ment in our midst, and who are ready for any en-
terprise, any prospect of advancement, that may
present itself to them. Their condition here is not
like the condition of the poverty-stricken classes of
Europe. There are no standing armies, no ad-
mitted social organisation of superior and inferior
classes to keep them down and force them to suffer
in silence and inaction. Individual enterprise is
free, and every man may go where he likes and
as he likes, with arms in his hands or without
them, provided he does not infringe the
laws by making an armed. organisation
within our territory. To this we have to add
the facility with which every man among us
abandons one vocation and takes up another, and
tliocce military tastes that lead all our youth to play
the soldier, and practice the use of arms at his lei-
sure, and merely as a matter of amusement. Ever
since we were a nation our people have gone on
martialising themselves, till now we are the most
military people on the face of the earth, and our vo-
lunteer service is the most popular army in the
world. While such is the condition of the people,
the position of our public and representative men
is equally striking. During the political canvass
a year ago Mr. Buchanan's opponents dared not
use against him, to any great extent, his participa-
tion in the Ostend manifesto, for they well knew
that it would operate much more to his benefit
than to his injury among the masses. Now,
when a financial revulsion has swept away all
the old political issues that once divided parties
among us, and new forms of public) agitation are
springing into life, a clique of shrewd sectional lead-
ers are !seizing upon certain popular cries, in order,
if possible, to force the Administration into carrying
out the policy of the Ostend Manifesto. Just
causes of war can be found at any moment that will
readily influence the popular mind. The elements
of war are effervescing within and around us.
Whatever may bo the wishes of Mr. Buchanan and
his Cabinet—and there is no doubt of their desire
to preserve peace, and their determination to pre-
vent illegal expeditions from our shore,,—there is
no telling how soon they may be carried irresistibly
into a popular foreign war, and forced to give em-
ployment to the hundred thousand men that are
at this moment ready to embark in any Filli-
buster expedition, and thus meet the exigency
of southward expansion, and an equilibrisation
of the Senate. We are now in the midst of
revolutionary times, when the minds of men
are becoming ready for any and every des-
perate enterprise ; and if we do not get some kind
of a war upon our hands to work off the surplus
energy and enterprise that will soon be unemployed
among us, we may anticipate that it will follow the
lead of private individuals and develope a Fili-
bustering spirit such as has never before been
seen. Let but one partially successful leader any-
where show an opening and an opportunity, and
voluntary emigration will become the order of the
day, and such a tide will be poured forth from these
States as will astonish the world. It will not be
composed, like the armies of Europe, of the rabble
drawn from the purlieus of crowded cities,
fit food for powder only. Mechanics skilled
in every art that the labour of civilized
man knows ; agriculturists, familiar with all
the soils and products of the earth ; mer-
chants bred to trade, and who are capable of organ-
izing the commerce of any new country at once ;
young politicians, ambitious and competent to be-
come statesmen in a new community ; inventors,
that with a jack knife and a piece of wire are capa-
ble of building a steam-engine ; labourers, inured
to toil and with a ready adatability to every kind
of work ; priests to build churches ; lawyers to frame
cedes ; doctors and surgeons to attend the wounded ;
officers trained to the art of war in every class of
military school, from West Point to the worst fur-
nished State academy ; and hosts of men ready and
capable of turning their hands to anything—these
are the multitudes that are being now thrown out of
work here, and who want only half a chance to
overrun Mexico, Central America, St. Domingo,
Cuba, or any other of the countries that are now
going through the disintegrating progress of pre-
paring for the advent of the Filibusters. We
shall need a war to start the life currents of the
body politic and to clear the atmosphere. This
country is ready for it ; the people are readyfor it—all are trained to the use of arms. Ppest
and layman, mechanic and labourer, professional
man and he without a profession, master and
apprentice, high and low, rich and poor, all
know how to use the rifle ; and when they have
nothing else to do all are ready to use it. In
this state of things, look out for wild fruit from
the present revulsion. The Filibusters are on
the watch, and war is always a popular cry. It
will be more so than ever during the coming
year."

The two streets of the north and west of the Institu-
tion of the Blind School have just received the names of
the Rues Bertrand and Duroc.

THE SAMARITAN INSTITUTION.—Last night a meeting
was held at the Vestry-room, St. Andrew's, Holborn,
to take into consideration the pecuniary loss sustained
by Mr. Potter in the law proceedings connected with
the suppression of the so-called Samaritan Institution.
It appeared from the statements made at the meeting,
that the costs of Mr. Potter iu defending the action
brought against him by Mr. Barber, the secretary of
the institution, were 259/., a sum which he has to pay,
although the verdict was in his favour. The friends of
both parties were present, and the proceedings were of
an excited character ; resolutions were, however, passed,
declaring the sympathy of the meeting with Mr. Potter,
and appointing a committee to raise a fund to reimburse
to him his outlay, the opinion of the majority being that
he had performed a public service.