The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-14 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 14, 1868.

ALLEGED MURDER BY A WIFE.

A tradesman's wife, named Laura Court, was on Monday
night apprehended at Leamington, on a charge of murdering
her husband. On Friday at mid-day she and her husband (who
carries on business as a watchmaker in Satchwell-street),
was heard quarrelling, and she was heard to knock her
husband down violently. Ho has not been heard or seen
alive since. A police-inspector has frequently visited
the house, and questioned the woman as to her husband's
whereabouts ; but she denied all knowledge of him,
and stated she had written to his friends in London
to know if they knew anything about him. On
searching the house last night, the inspector found the de-
ceased at the bottom of the steps of the cellar leading off the
kitchen with his brains dashed out. During yesterday a
neighbour went to the house and said to the accused, " Laura,
what can have become of Edwin ?" and she partially
'searched the house, but on going towards the collar steps
the accused said, "It is no good looking there !" and she
did not prosecute her search furthor. Tho accused is in
custody on a charge of wilful murder.

COLLISION ON THE LONDON AND NORTH-
WESTERN RAIL IV AY.

..~ ~. _._

An aecident of a serious nature occurred late on Monday
night on the London and North-Western Railway, near
Oldbury Station. Two goods trains came into violent
collision, a number of carriages were destroyed, and
an engine overturned, blocking the line during
the night, although we are glad to state that the occurrence
was not accompanied by any loss of life, and but slight
injury to only one person. A local account of it
states that at a quarter to eleven o'clock, the local goods
train, which left Bushbury Junction at 8.20, had 'shunted on
a siding at the Spon-lane basin near to Oldbury station, to
allow the passenger train for Dudley to pass, when the
train was removed from the siding on to the main up
line. The only conjecture which could be offered for this
and the subsequent collision was that there was some
mistake made in the signals, owing to the great fog
which prevailed. Almost immediately after the local
goods had gone upon the main line, the London goods,
drawn by a powerful engine, overtook it. The driver of
the latter, seeing that a collision was inevitable, jumped
off the engine, escaping unhurt, the stoker remaining
at his post. When the engine was close upon the
orake the guard jumped from the van, and sustained no
injury. The engine then dashed into the local train with
terrific force, overturning and completely smashing up the
ran and leading waggons. The engine was thrown off
the metals, and fell over on its side across the line. About
thirty waggons were broken up or partially destroyed,
and here and there furnished a vast pile of &Iris. The
waggons were heavily loaded with minerals, coals, &c.
The stoker was the only person injured. The Scotch mail
was stopped and sent hick t) Birmingham. The Liver-
pool mail wail s !so stopped by signals. With respect to
the cause, it w.a a,se.-ted that, owing to the density of the
fog, the drfre.-s were prevented from making out the
signals properly ; and, on the other hand, that the signal
was "all right" when the local goods train went on the
main line. The damage is very great.

FHE PUBLIC HEALTH,

It appears. from the return issued by authority of the
Registrar-General, that in the week that ended Saturday
last 4,368 births and 3,115 deaths were registered in
London and in thirteen other large towns of the United
Kingdom. The annual rate of mortality was 25 per 1,000
persons living. The annual rate :of mortality last week
was 24 per 1,000 in London, 25 in Edinburgh, and
20 in Dublin ; 22 in Bristol, 18 in Birmingham, 30
in Liverpool, 31 in Manchester, 41 in Salford, 25 in
Sheffield, 26 in Bradford, 31 in Leeds, 28 in Hull, 20 in
Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and 27 in Glasgow. The rate in
Vienna was 21 per 1,000 during the week ending the 26th
ult., and in Berlin 35 per 1,000 during the seven days
ending the Bth inst. Scarlatina and different forms of
typhus and typhoid fevers are jnst now shewing increased
fatality in several of the large English towns ; the former
more particularly so in Manchester and Leeds, as well as
London, and the latter in Liv erpool, Manchester, and Leeds.
Scarlatina last week in Manchester was three times, and
typhus in Liverpool five times as fatal in proportion to popu-
lation as the same diseases in the metropolis. In London
the mortality from small-pox, measles, and whooping-
cough,- is comparatively low, but the death-rate from fever
is high, and from scarlatina greatly in excess. During the
last four weeks 383 deaths have occurred in the metropolis
from the last named ; it is to be regretted that no general
measure has hitherto been devised for stamping out this
destructive disease.

A SKETCII OF GEORGIA.

(From the Anglo-American Times.)

Georgia is just now the object of much comment
and attention. After adopting the new Constitu-
tion, after accepting the 14th Amendment, and in
consequence being readmitted into the Union, the
Legislature has taken a position wholly at variance
with the conditions expressed as well as implied.
To use a slang word in its broadest sense, Congress
and the North generally have been " sold" by
Georgia. It is worth while to glance back to see if
the history of Georgia casts any light upon present
transactions. This State, though the latest settled,
was one of the original thirteen. General Ogle-
thorpe was tEe founder, having planted the colony
of Savannah as early as in 1732, although the name
of the State came with the charter from George 11.
The area is 58,000 square miles, and the popula-
tion, according to the census of 1860, was 1,057,286.
Like that of South Carolina, Georgia's eighty miles
of sea coast is low and lined with fertile islands
(which form numerous lagoons and inlets), whereon
the celebrated sea-island cotton is produced, while
rice is extensively grown in the swamps of the
mainland. To the north of the coast line
in the midst of these marshes, and border-
ing on South Carolina, stands the city of Savan-
nah, the most important of the State, with its
population iu 1860 of 22,000, although Milledge-
ville is the capital. The next cities in importance
are Augusta, at the head of the steamboat naviga-
tion on the Savannah river ; and Columbus, on the
Chattahoochee. Next to these, ranks Atlanta,
where the Government is, a town made celebrated
by the war. It was from Atlanta that Sherman
launched his army, without a base, at the heart of
the Confederacy, after burning the city. A glance
at the map will show how the State was swept by
that General, when it is borne in mind that he har-
ried the country from Tennessee, Atlanta being the
objective point of a long and bloody campaign, con-
ducted for the most part against one of the greatest
Generals the South produced, continuing the destruc-
tion to Savannah, where he came into communica-
tion with the fleet. After Georgia had suffered the
full force of this desolating march, her Convention
unusually active in its opposition to some che-,
rished Northern measures, and among them strenu-
ously resisted the legal extinction of the Confederate
debt, although the delegates were returned pledged
to its nullification as well as to the repeal of the ordi-
nance of secession and the abolition of slavery.
When the State Legislature bad met after the re-
cess of January 15, 1866, the Governor laid before
both Houses the code for the government and pro-
tection of persons recently emancipated from
slavery, reported by a commission appointed for the
purpose, thus describing its provisions :—" It is
just and liberal, as it should be, to the freedman. It
is safe, as it should be, to the citizen. It extends no
political rights to the former, but it gives ample
security to his rights of person and of property.
Like a great majority of the States which never ad-
mitted, or have long since abolished slavery, we are
wholly averse to investing him with political rights
and privileges. For that very reason we are under
the highest conceivable obligation to protect him
in his rights of person and property, and to aid by
all just means his advance in civilization. This
aid we gave him, this advance we effected for him
whilst in slavery. Why should it be withheld now ?
Whilst we insist upon occupying in relation to those
persons the position of the governing class let us
fully and fairly meet its responsibilities." After re-
gulating the relations between apprentices and
masters, an Act was passed granting to coloured
persons the right to make contracts, inherit pro-
perty, to hold and to convey estate, and to benefit
equally in all laws for the security of person and
property, which was followed by the partial resto-
ration of Georgia to her civil rights in accordance
with the order of the President. Governor Jen-
kins admitted in his proclamation that this highly
satisfactory movement was induced mainly by the
legislation of the General Assembly relative to the
status of the freedman—that is, that it was a bribe.
The feeling of the Legislature in Georgia in 1866
111
was best shown by the Governor's Message, and
the discussion which ensued on the proposed 14th
Amendment to the Federal Constitution. The
Governor thought that if the State Representatives
in Congress had had any hand in its preparation it
would have assumed a less odious form. " The
policy seems to have been first to push it without
their participation beyond the stage of amend-
ment, and then say to them, accept our bantling, or
take the consequences." Mr. Jenkins concludes by
advising unflinching firmness in the rejection of the
obnoxious amendment, " which magnanimity would
not exact, and self-respect could not make." The
committee on the state of the Republic, to which
each House referred the subject, doubted the
propriety of discussing the proposed amendment at
all, from which they only departed to give their
reasons for forbidding the discussion, and these
seem to us so forcibly to embody Southern opinion
that we give the questions discussed in full :-
1. If Georgia is not a State composing a part of the
Federal Government, known as the Government of the
United States, amendments to the Constitution of the
United States aro not properly before this body.
2. If Georgia is a State composing part of the Federal
Government, known as the Government of the United
States, then these amendments are not proposed accord-
ing to the requirements of the Federal Constitution, and
are proposed in such a manner as forbids this House from
discussing the merits of the amendment without an im-
plied surrender of the rights of the State.

In establishing these propositions we shall endea-
vour to establish :

1. That Georgia is a State of the United States, co-equal
wish all the other States of the Federal Union, and there-
fore entitled to all the rights and privileges of any and
every other State under the Federal Constitution.

2. That the amendments have not been proposed in
either of the methods required by the fifth Article of the
Constitution.

The report concluded with a resolution declining
to ratify the proposed amendment, which, in the
Senate, was unanimously adopted, and in the House
passed by 132 to 2. An Act was carried referring
to education, by which the Georgia schools were
opened to all white children between 6 and 21 years
of age. On November 30 a resolution was unani-
mously adopted in each House, expressing the sin-
cerest condolence and warmest sympathy with Mr.
Jefferson Davis, praying the President to restore
him to a people for whom he had so faithfully
struggled and endured so much. It may readily be
believed that the Georgians did not relish an inter-
ruption to the proceedings of a Legislature which so
fully gave effect to their wishes in controlling the
blacks ; and, in truth, many negroes of this State
are even more than ordinarily unfitted for poli-
tical privileges. As we before observed, the most
productive part of Georgia is along the swampy
lagoons of the coast, where negroes of a very in-
ferior type are to be found. These degraded speci-
mens of the race believe liberty to mean idleness and
lawlessness, they see no moral guilt in theft, and are
restrained only by fear. Elsewhere in the State the
African is more intelligent, and indeed when justly
and kindly treated has in many instances worked so
vigorously for his former master as to restore his
ruined estate. In 1860 the total valuation of pro-
perty returned in specie was $369,627,922, which,
reduced to currency, means au increase of 40 per
cent. In 1866 the total value of taxable property
was $207,051,677 in currency, which shows the
frightful waste of the war. This is independent of
the slaves, the number of whom in 1860 amounted to
450,033, valued at $202,694,855. The following
statement gives the actual losses sustained by the
State during the war apart from other pro-
perty. In railroads, fifteen millions of dollars ;
in banks, thirty millions ; in public buildings, &c.,
ten millions, to which if we add the loss of slaves
and the decrease of taxable property, a total is
shown of $841,254,876, estimated to be four-fifths
of the entire wealth of the State. The suffering
which followed the desolating march was dreadful,
involving famine and, as usual, plague, and the
Legislature appropriated $200,000 early iu 1866 to
buy corn for the starving poor. The return of that
year showed that the State had lost over one hun-
dred thousand producing labourers since 1863.
The drift of labour was to the rich lands of the
Lower Mississippi and the West ; but there was
another drain independent of this which the Comp-
troller mentioned in his report. "It is an established

fact," he says, " that the mortality among the ne-
groes far exceeds what it was under our well regu-
lated system of slavery, being so great as to give a
reasonable foundation for the prevalent belief that
the days of the race are numbered, and that they
will eventually become extinct." The history
of the Reconstruction is too fresh in the me-
mory of our readers to need recapitulation
here. The Constitutional Convention framed the
new Constitution embodying the requirements of
Congress ; the Legislature was elected, the Gover-
nor chosen, and the members of Congress were
admitted to their seats after the State had accepted
the fourteenth Amendment, when it was declared
" reconstructed." It was then that the Georgia
plot was rapidly developed, and the negroes ex-
pelled from the Legislature ; who thereon were de-
clared ineligible if with an eighth of negro blood, or
to hold office, or to sit on juries. After unseating
one-seventh of the Representatives, the next step
was to replace them by white Democrats, the can-
didates of the minorities. It was in vain to remon-
strate or to assert that some of the gentlemen then
sworn in were ineligible under the 11th Amend-
ment; such motions were voted down, and no in-
quiry permitted. By this means it was hoped that
the Democratic majority might be sufficient to
over-ride the Governor's veto, and reproduce in
Atlanta the state of affairs at Washington, only
reversed with regard to the political proclivities of
the executive and Legislature. Action yet remained
to be taken against the two coloured Senators,
Wallace and Campbell, each being allowed an hour
to show why they should not be expelled. Wallace
in disgust absented himself, but Campbell spoke to
the point in a modest and sensible address, though,
of course, without avail ; and with their expulsion
the plot of Messrs. Toombs, Cobb, and Hill was
carried to a complete success. It is in such action
that Southern politicians have shown the greatest
skill and met with most success . They shine in
attack, and when they have the whole position be-
fore them they seldom fail. But masterly as have
been the tactics displayed in throwing the power of
Georgia into Southern hands, it is just possible
that they may have been too successful ; that they
have overdone their work, or that it is premature.
Brilliant in attack as the Southern politicians are,
they are impetuous and incautious. There never
was a more successful conspiracy—there never was
one more ably conceived and more skilfully carried
out than that which placed Abraham Lincoln in the
Presidential chair, and led to secession as planned by
the Southern leaders; nor could there have been a
more striking instance of an engineer being hoisted by
his own petard. And why ? Because they calculated
only their own side ; they omitted a careful esti-
mate of the character and strength of those against
whom they were working a long way off, and un-
seen. Possibly they may, for the third time, have
made the same mistake ; for on the eve of a general
election they have risked, and perhaps wrecked, the
hopes of their party in the Union to gain this poor
triumph in Georgia. Putting aside, however, the
ultimate results, and viewing only Democratic ac-
tion in Atlanta, we cannot withhold a high measure
of admiration. Congress considered no precaution
had been neglected, and the Republican party
imagined that they gave Georgia over, tied hand and
foot, to their own friends. The ready way in which
the "rebel" fell into reconstruction called forth Re-
publican praise. Georgia was held up as a model
State ; nothing could exceed the harmony of the
blacks and their white advisers, who were equally
led by the nose, till the plot exploded under their
feet, and they discovered, when too late, what it
was to trust to such guidance. When the Africans
had been rendered ineligible for seats in the legisl t-
ture, to hold office, or to sit :on juries in Georgia,
their position was the more hostile, as the confidence
they had placed in the whites had betrayed them
into aiding in such measures. The condition of the
State rapidly became worse, when the most intelligent
of the negroes had been placed in open opposition
by proceedings they considered to be directed
against their freedom. In vain Governor Bullock
attempted to suppress armed organizations in which
he then knew there was danger. Murders and out-
rages became more and more frequent, till they cul-
minated in the massacre at Camilla. The truth of
this story has not yet been ascertained, as each party
denies the account the other has given, and neces-
sarily so, as they are totally at variance. Major
0. H. Howard, of the United States Army, has
made an official report through his commanding
officer, Colonel Lewis, at Atlanta, Georgia., to Gen.
Howard, Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau
at Washington ; but the Sheriff denies its accuracy.
Weighing the conflicting statements, we believe that
common sense would lead to the conviction that the
more trustworthy account is that of the army officer,
particularly as the results bear him out. He gives
the full list, so far as ascertained, of the negroes
killed and wounded, with the loss on the other
side, concluding with these words :—" Of the at-
tacking party only two are reported wounded—
James Jones, the ringleader, who has a pistol
ball in the forehead and two in his back, said to
be mortal, and Collins, slightly wounded. It is
estimated that at least fifty freedmen were killed
and wounded." To enable our readers to under-
stand the affair, it is necessary to publish his
letter :

" Colonel,—The affair at Camilla seems to have
been a massacre. I enclose an accurate list of
the killed and wounded, so far as known. A
freedman, who was a prisoner at Camilla, but
who escaped during the night, states that he
helped to remove one dead freedwoman and four
wounded freedmen from the road within 100 yards
of the Court-house. Ihe white men, his captors,
boasted to newcomers of twelve freedmen killed in
one pond near Dr. Dosher's, two miles from Camilla.
Another freedman took refuge in a swamp, where
he lay concealed all last night with two others near
him. He beard during all the earlier part of the
night the white men scouring the woods, shouting,
cursing, and shooting the freedmen. The pursuers
were accompanied by bloodhounds. He heard the
cries and shrieks of the fugitives as they were shot,
and as they were pulled down by the dogs, two
of the men near him becoming frightened en-
deavoured to escape, and both were shot within
his hearing. It was reported to me as late as
four o'clock this afternoon, that up to eight o'clock
this morning, whenl my informant left, they were
still pursuing the freedmen with horses and dogs.
There has been an intense excitement in town all
day. The town has been filled with the freedmen ;
they have swarmed about my office by hundreds.
It has been difficult to restrain them froni proceed-
ing en masse to Camilla. I have addressed them,
counselling peace and order, and I have told them
that the offenders shall be punished, and that their
lives should be protected; but I have no heart for
my work. I felt no assurance that my promises
would be fulfilled. The Mayor addressed them,
as did some citizens, but the freed people scoffed
at them, would not listen to them, and I had
the whole burden to bear. At this hour, mid-
night, all is quiet. Dr. Rushenberg has re-
turned from Fisher and Flagg's plantation, nine
miles below here, where he has been all day,
caring for the wounded. I will, to-morrow, take
affidavits of the wounded men and others, and pre-
pare an official report. Please instruct me, and in.-
form me what action will be taken by military
and civil authorities.—Very respectfully, 0. 11.
HOWARD, Major and S. A. C." Briefly sketching
it from other sources it appears that Captain
William P. Pierce, a Kentuckian officer of the
Union army, who was stumping the State with
Mr. John Murphy, of Indiana, approached the
town of Camilla, Mitchell County, on the 19th
September, together with the Rev. F. Putney,
Philip Janin, one of the expelled coloured re-
presentatives, and about 75 others, where they
were to address the coloured Republicans. At the
time both Pierce and Murphy had narrowly
escaped being killed, the white people from Ander-
sonville having sworn the two white scoundrels
should die. When four miles from Camilla, James
Jones met them and announced himself to be a
courier from the people of Camilla sent to notify
that they would permit no Radical speaking in
Camilla. Mr. Pierce before moving on sent a note
to the sheriff of the county asking the protection
of the civil authorities, and the sheriff and his con-
stables met the party two miles from the town.