The Sun.
London, England, 1857-07-21 00:00:00

MOBOCRACY IN NEW YORK.

There is certainly a moral of some sort to be de-
duced from all great disturbances, riots, and
emeutes. Hardly one occurs in any part of the
world which does not convey a lesson to somebody.
Very few people are supplied with as many lessons
of the sort as we are. We have riots and disturb-
ances of all sorts, grievous and disgraceful enough
in their way. The only consolation we have in re-
cording or commenting upon them lies in the fact
that probably in no part of the world are riots so
little significative of the state or feelings of the com-
munity at large—so entirely local both in their
causes and in their results. An English riot im-
plies, as a general rule, great and wide-spread suf-
fering or discontent so acute, that the restrain's
of a strong Government and well-knit arisioeracy
areinsufficient to prevent itsboiling over. A French
emaute is either the herald of revolution, or the at-
tempt of hordes of fanatics to break up the frame-
work of society, and imposes upon the nation, per
fas aut nefas, the wildest " crazes" which the
wildestimaginations can conceive. When barri-
cades are erected in the rue St. Antoine the world
knows that the Government pro tem, is resting on
an unsteady basis, and that a large portion of the
French people is desirous of change. It is hardly
necessary to speak of the full force of disturbances
in any other European country. In all despotisms
popular outbreak implies not simply the existence of
deep-seateddiscontent, but that the malcontents were
growing too strong for theT tyrants. It is at once the
price and privilege of freedom to indorse turbulence
and disorder with impunity. No Frenchman ever
crosses the Channel and witnesses the tumult by
which an English election is marked without feel-
ing convinced that the empire is tottering to its
fall. No foreigner, we are fully persuaded, ever
reads the accounts of riots and bloodshed by which
the columns of our own journals are frequently dis-
graced, without arriving at the conclusion that all
security both for life and property is
at an end
within the limits of this Republic. One must
be on the spot and have some insight, how-
ever small, into the genius of our institutions, and
instincts
of familiarity, however slight, with the
of the people, to know how ale the whole body
po'itic is affeeed by what are,
after all, but
scratches on the surface, which a thorn might in-
flict or a day might heal. We desire to guard
aced
i
our-
selves expressly iu making these remarks against
the imputation of being the apologists of such
scandals as those by which our city was disgrace
on Saturday and Sunday nights last. There sno
way in which armed conflicts between bands of
ruffians in our streets in broad noonday can be
made to wear any aspect but a discreditable one.
But we do wish to have the world know that in all
this, so far from buying our freedom too dearly,
we could bear twice the amount of rowdyism by
which we are at present afflicted, without
wishing
to sacrifice one jot or tittle of this rude license, in
return for the chains, the bayonets, the clean streets,
and trained police of a "strong Government."—
New York Times.