The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-21 00:00:00

7HE LEGISLATURE OF CALIFORNIA.

The golden State is attaining to a position of so
much interest to the world, and its career is now so
keenly watched, that we give the list of the Houses
as they assembled on the 2d December last, at the
Capitol. Mr. Knox, recently deceased, only was
absent from the Senate, and all the House but four
were present. L. B. Mizner was elected President,
pro tens, of the Senate ; and C. T. Ryland, Speaker
of the Assembly
SENATE.-E. L. Brady, Placer; David Belden, Nevada ;
Phineas Banning, Los Angelos ; Horace Beach, Yuba and
Sutter; William A. Conn, San Diego and San Bernardino;
N. Greene Curtis, Sacramento ; John Conly, Butte, Piu-
mas and Lassen ; J. N. Chapelle, Shasta and Trinity ; S.
Ewer, Butte, Plumas and Lassen ; J. W. Freeman, Fresno-
Kern and Tulare ; Janson J. Green, Contra Costa and
Marin ; John S. Hager, San Francisco ; George W. Hunter,
El Dorado; Thomas Hardy, Calaveras; E. H. Heacock,
Sacramento; James Johnson, El Dorado ; H. Kincaid, San
Francisco and San Mateo ; W. J. Knox (deceased), Santa
Clara; J. H. Lawrence, Mariposa, Merced and Stanislaus ;
E. J. Lewis, Colusa and Tebatna ; F. A. M`Dougall, Mon-
terey and Santa Cruz ; J. W. Mandeville, Tuolumne, Mono
and Imyo ; D. L. Morrill, Calaveras ; H. D. Murcb, Del
Norte, Humboldt and Klamath ; P. W. Murphy, San Luis
Obispo and Santa Barbara; L. B. Mizner, Solana and
Yolo ; J. E. Perloy, San Joaquin ; Win. M. Pendegast,
Lake, Naps and Mendocino ; George Pearce, Sonoma ; L.
E. Pratt, Sierra ; E. W. Roberts, Nevada ; A. H. Rose,
Arnador and Alpine ; Henry Robinson, Alameda ; John H.
Saunders, San Francisco ;J. W. Bhaw, San Francisco ;
Charles A. Tweed, Placer; A. L. Tubbs, San Francisco;
E. Teegardon, Yuba and Sutter; Oliver Wolcott, Tuo-
lumne, Mono and Inyo; E. Wandsworth, Siskiyou.
ASSEMBLY. W. Z.Angney, Santa Clara ; Thus. J. Ables,
Mario ; Isaac Ayer, Calaveras ; T. S. Beaver, Calaveras ;
Thomas A. Brown, Contra COS ; A. B. Bird, El Dorado ;
J. R. Buckbee, Plumas and Lassen ; Marion Biggs, Sacra-
mento ;T. Battelle, Sierra ;B. J. Broderson, San Fran-
cisco ; J. C. Brown, Tulare and Kern ; A. J. Bacholder,
Yuba ; A. M. Church, Alameda.; John O. Crig!er, Napa
and Lake ; R. M. Cochrane, Butte ; William 11. Cure-
ton, Mendocino; Paschal Coggins, Sacramento; A.
Comte, jun., Sacramento; William Caldwell, Sonoma;
Msithew Canavan, San Francisco ; David W. Connely,
San Francisco ; L. B. Clark, Yuba ; J. M. Days, Nevada ;
G. D. Dornin, Nevada; J. W. Downer, Sierra; Perry
Dyer, Shasta ; W. A. Davies, Tuolumne, Mono and Inyo ;
John W. Dwiueile, Alameda . Asa Ellis, Los Angeles ;
John B. Frisbie, Solano ; J. A.- Fairchild, Siskiyou ;
Thomas E. Farish,. San Francisco ; J. B. Gregory, Ama-
dor and Alpine; W. S. Green, Colusa and Tehama ;
Charles Gilded, Eld Dorado ; Francis Ginner, Mariposa

JANUARY 21, 1868.

Benjamin Hayes, San Diego ; John M. James, San Ber-
nardino ; T. E. Jones, Trinity ; John M. Kelly, Yolo ;
Bruce B. Lee, Sacramento; Samuel L. Lupton, San
Francisco ; R. P. Mace, Fresno; Otto Mentzell, Cala-
veras ; L. J. Morrow, San Joaquin ; R. L. Mattingly, San
Mateo ; John H. Moore, Santa Clara ; S. M. Martin,
Sonoma; John Middleton, San Ranoisco ; Frank Mahon,
San Francisco ; W. T. M'Elhany, Santa Barbara, San Luis
Obispo ; B. A. Mardis, Tuolumne, Mono and Inyo ; M.
Meagher, Tuolumne and Ingo ; Hugh B. Newell, El
Dorado ; J. W. Newsom, Merced and Stanislaus ; W. M.
Ord, Butte; Warner Oliver, San Joaquin ; J. J. O'Malley,
San Francisco ; George M. Payne, Amador and Alpine ;
George Pardee, Santa Cruz ; Jasper J. Papy, San Fran-
cisco ; 11. G. Rollins, Nevada ; C. T. Ryland, Santa Clara ;
Thomas 11. Klamath and Del Norte; A. G. Russ, San
Francisco; C. G. Spencer, Placer; B. R. Spillman, Sutter;
Elijah Steele, Siskiyou ; Frank V. Scudder, San Fran-
cisco; J. K. Smith, Yuba; E. C. Tolley, Monterey; C.
A. Tuttle, Placer; Charles Westmoreland, Humboldt;
John D. White, Nevada ; J. A. Watson, Los Angeles ;
M. Waldron, Placer; Chazlos Wolleb, Sacramento;
Stephen Willett' El Dorado ; J. B. Warfield, Sonoma ;
and Thomas N. Wand, San Francisco.

211 E LATEST PHASE OF FENIANISM.

(From the Nation.)

There is, probably, no question of foreign politics
which interests the United States at this moment
so much as the Irish question. In all other ques-
tions the interest of Americans may be said to be
speculative or sentimental or humanitarian merely.
But the Irish question is almost as much a question
of American as of British politics. There are nearly
as many Irishmen in America who are nominally
Americans and bestow their hearts and allegiance
elsewhere, as there are Irishmen in Ireland who
are only nominally Britons. Moreover, the grow-
ing power of the Irish element in American
politics, combined with the growing determination
of Irishmen to make the United States assist,
by some means or other, in the solution of the Irish
difficulty, opens up nearly as troublous a pro-
spect, though happily less clouded with moral re-
sponsibility, for the American Government as for
the British. Tho United States occupies towards
Ireland now a position very similar to that which
France occupied in the last century. After the
Revolution of IGBB, and the final overthrow of
James 11., the Irish flocked in nearly as great num-
bers in proportion to population to France as they
have during the present century flocked to the
United States, with this difference, however, that
the Irish emigrants to France were recruits for
the French army, while the Irish emigrants to the
United States include women and children, and
are in search of better food and better cloth-
ing, and a better future for their descendants.
But the participation of the mass of the Irish
voters in American politics is due to very much
the same feeling as the participation of the
Irish troops. in the wars of Louis XlV.—the de-
sire of annoying and damaging the English. Of in-
terest in France or her affairs the famous " Irish
Brigade" made little pretence, although it is calcu-
lated that in the first half of the eighteenth cen-
tury nearly half a million of Irishmen died in the
French service. With the French Revolution as an
uprising against Church and King the Irish had
not a particle of sympathy any more than they had
with the late war of the North against the slave-
holders. The Irish in France probably all stood by

the old regime, just as the Irish here in the main
sympathised with the Confederacy ; whatever sym-
pathy the popular cause in France received from
the Irish at home, was due to the fact that England
was opposed to it. But there was one feature
common to both the French Revolution and the
late war here which caused them to exert a powerful
influence on Irish affairs—each brought a first-class
Power into an attitude of hostility to England, and
each threw out of employment a large number of Irish-
men, possessing more or less knowledge of the military
art, and eager to use it against Great Britain. Each
also—and perhaps this is the more important of their
effects—sent a strong tide of Democratic feeling into
Ireland, though in Ireland the Democratic wave,
whenever it passes over the island, takes a local hue
unknown either to Frenchmen or Americans. The
French Revolution accordingly produced the
" United Irishmen" and the rising of 1798, just as
the late war has, we do not say produced Fenianism,
but lifted Fenianism from the position of a little
whisky--stained conspiracy in a Chatham-street
grog-shop into the rank of a formidable association,
aping the airs, and exercising some of the powers,
of a regular Government. The United Irishmen had,
however, a maddened population at their back who
rose and fought like furies, though without a trace of
military spirit or of military skill, while the Fenians
have only a discontented and hopeless peasantry, who
will do nothing for them but keep their secret. The
regular Fenian " army" in Ireland, who plunder
the gunmakers and hold midnight drills, are gene-
rally young clerks and artisans from the towns,
whose imaginations have been fired by Fenian lite-
rature and oratory. In campaigning they have
proved the most harmless and best-natured men in
the world, and will hardly fight as long as any other
means of exhibiting their dislike to English rule
is left open to them. The immense popularity
of the mock funeral rites which have been
celebrated so extensively for the men who were

hanged in Manchester has been undoubtedly
due to the strong dislike to more " active
operations " which most of the Brotherhood
contracted during the brief campaign against
the police last spring ; and the blowing-up of the
gaols and assassination of single policemen is pro-
bably partly a revival of the traditions of " White-
boyism," which have never wholly died out, and
partly a copy of the Confederate operations at the
North during the closing year of the war.
The hope of the Fenian leaders now is beyond
question that England will get into a war some-
how, with somebody, and that they will then at
last find both an ally and a purchaser for their ser-
vices. Ireland, in its present state of discontent,
would be a very formidable auxiliary to a foreign
enemy if England ever lost the control of the sea. It
was her complete command of the sea which deprived
Napoleon of the aid of the Irish malcontents, and made
the expedition which landed in 1797 under Humbert
at Killala such a complete failure, and prevented
the Emperor from ever again attempting to operate
against England on this her vulnerable side. In
any future war, also, no enemy will ever be able to
use Ireland against England which is not able to
beat England in a fair stand-up fight at sea, and
keep the Irish ports open. A foreign army in Ire-
land which did not also hold the sea would find
itself in a cul de sac. Whether England is still the
mistress of the seas, even of her own seas
whether the sceptre has not departed from her
with the application of steam and iron plating
to war vessels—is one of those momentous
problems which nothingbut a great war, with France
or the United States opposed to her, will solve ;
and the solution is so doubtful that we think most
Englishmen shrink instinctively—perhaps uncon-
sciously—from seeking it, just as a man who feels
poorly shrinks from having his' heart or lungs ex-
amined, though persuaded in his own mind that
they are sound. There can, we think, hardly be
a question that this vague misgiving has had much
to do with the firm adhesion of the English public
of late to a peace policy, and the strange indiffer-
ence they have of late displayed to any loss of pres-
tige which is not caused by positive reverses in the
field.

Foreign interference in Ireland she would have
little difficulty in crushing if she was able to hold
the ports ; and the bigger the invading army was,
the more rapidly would its fate come upon it.
Armies need stores and arsenals ; Ireland would
furnish neither one nor the other, and the help the
Fenian chiefs would supply woul I be of a kind that
would in three weeks either drive a French general
mad or cause him to try his Chassepot rifles upon
them. An American general woul I be more patient,
partly from his greater experience of volunteers and
raw levies, and partly from his greater sympathy
for the Irish, and partly because his army would
be largely made up, under such circumstances,
of Irishmen ; but his patience would simply bring
his destruction on him somewhat sooner. England,
too, has her sympathizers in Ireland. One-fourth of
the population are on her side, heart and soul, and they
happen, unfortunately for the Fenians, to be the
fourth which possesses nearly all the education,
money, an I organizing power WI be found in the