The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-16 00:00:00

THE SO U 7 HEIM STATES.

General Howard, having completed his tour o
inspection as Commissioner of the Freedmen's
Bureau, returned to Washington September 19. He
reports the bureau in goo I condition in all the
counties throughout which he travelle 1 ; but what
we desire to learn is the opinion he has formed on
the state of society in the South. This, however,
he says that he has observed a growing tendency on
the part of the Democrats at the South to treat the
new made voters with consideration. The Hon. A.
II .Stephens has been requested to deliver an address
on the present condition of the country, irrespective
of the party—a request which has been signed by
several members of the Georgia Legislature as well
as by Governor Bullock. It is believed to be the
intention of Mr. Stephens to write a history of the
rebellion. General Buchanan's order, handing
over the command of the Department to General
Rousseau, has been published, as well as the
order of the latter on assuming the command.
Governor Warmouth at the instance of prominent
Democrats has appointed George A. Fosdick, Vice-
President of the New Orleans Chamber of Com-
merce, to be a member of the State Board of Regis-
tration, the other two members being Republicans,
it being understood that the same rule is to be car-
ried out in the appointment of local boards. At a
meeting of the State Board, on the 17th inst., a
majority of the Board decided that they would not,
under any circumstances whatever, permit a Demo-
crat to be placed on any Board of Supervisors. Mr.
Fosdick presented a protest against this action, but
the Chairman and one member constituting a ma-
jority, they declined to recede from their posi-
tion. Governor \Yarmouth says that he does
not approve the action of the Board of Regis
tration, but that he has no control over it. I
was announced that Joseph W. Holden, son o
Governor Holden, made an inflammatory address
to the negroes assembled at Raleigh, North Caro-
lina, wherein he advised them to go fully armed to
the poll. This he now denies, telegraphing from
that city that the report of his speech was false,
and that neither he nor any one else gave the ad-
vice attributed. The Raleigh Standard gives a ter-
rible account of the torture inflicted in a prison on
two coloured Republicans. O'Neils, the gaoler,
under the orders of Captain Lusk, fed Farmer and
White, the two coloured prisoners, un a small piece
of pickled pork, fried to a crisp, little else than
solid salt, which produced agonizing thirst, while
the supply of water was barely sufficient to main-
tain life. If the Raleigh gaol is conducted as the
Standard describes, there is no tyrant whose power
exceeds that of the gaoler. But it is necessary to
accept all stories from the South with a good deal
of caution. It is said that one delegation at the
Republican mass meeting held on the 15th Sept.,
led by Mr. J. C. Chilson, comprising 400 men,
walked 150 miles from the South Carolina border.
Thirty thousand people assembled on the occasion,
and the hills around Raleigh looked as when Sher-
man's army had encamped about it.
The Georgia and Louisiana Legislatures remain
in session, but no business of importance has been
transacted, except the final passage of the Negro
Equality Bill in Louisiana. Governor `Yarmouth,
of Louisiana, has issued a proclamation calling for
an election of Presidential electors and members of
Congress, November 3. There was a political dis-
turbance in the streets at New Orleans, Sept. 22, in
which several political clubs of the opposing parties
engaged, but though shots were fired and many
persons were wounded none were killed. In Fuller
county, Arkansas, Captain Simpson Mason, Presi-
dent of the Board of Registration, has been assls i
sinated, while one negro in Lewisburg and three n
Columbia county have been killed lately by the
Klan, while several churches have been burned.
.At Tuscumbia, Alabama, lately, three negroes
confined in gaol, charged with burning a fe-
male seminary there, were taken out by a large
body of the Ku-Klux and hung to a bridge, in spite
of all the efforts of the authorities. According to re-
port several thousand stand of arms have lately been
imported into South Carolina, and as it is feared
they are to arm political organizations there is con-
siderable alarm. A shooting affray occurred in
Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Friday, Sept. 18,
between Robert W. Stedman, son of W. A. Sted-
man, and Dr. W. 11. Morrow, a United States
deputy marshal, in which both were killed. A
bill for the suppression of the Ku-Klux has passed
both branches of the Tennessee Legislature, but
Governor Brownlo w says he will not call out the
militia to preserve order, if the President keeps his
recent promise to send a sufficient military force
into the State. Meanwhile everything is pretty
quiet in Tennessee,though outrages by the Ku-Klux
continue to be reported. The Democratic State
Committee recognize in their late address the ne-
gro's right to vote, and a growing disposition is
observable to court his vote, which is a good sign.
A mass meeting of a thousand negroes was held at
Richmond, Virginia, Sept. 21, at which resolutions
were adopted declaring a want of confidence in the

Republican State Committee, because it is not in
favour of equal rights and justice to all; while the
negro speakers were especially severe on carpet-
baggers.