The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-26 00:00:00

THE SUN, LO.N DON, IN: ONDAY VENING, OCTOBER 26,, 168,

up all .the time of our legislators fo deal with mu&
questions as the Reform Bill and the Irish Church,
so that they cannot stoop to the consideration of such
evils as these. It is satisfactory to be able to state
that we shall soon have some information on this too
much neglected subject. Matters have become so
bad in Bedford that the chairman of the quarter
sessions has taken the thing in hand, and is contri-
buting all the information he can gather to a local
paper, to be afterwards used in a more completo
work.

THE WISBECH ELECTION DISTURBANCE.

The 'rows which occurred at Wisbech some time ago,
when the Conservative candidates made their triumphal
entry, have produced an action in the county court, in
which a cabinet-maker sues Mr. Young, one of the Liberal
candidates, for damag,elto the amount of,2lo,'caused by the
mob on that occasion. The judge postponed the case till after
the election, thus frustrating the intention of the mayor,
who lately thought fit, when in his place on the bench, to
make a long charge, with all the importance of a Lord
Chief Justice, on a constitutional question, in which he
denounced "hoary-headed villains" who incited the
rioters, lectured his brother magistrates, and reminded
the court that Mr. Young had a relation a journeyman
tailor, while Lord Royston was friendly with the French
Emperor.

4r.R. .REVERDY JOHNSON AT LIVERPOOL.

It is stated that the visit of the Hon. Ileverdy John-
son to Liverpool will be prolonged for a few days,
as he has accepted an invitation to dine with the
mayor on Monday evening next. On Friday Mr.
Johnson, accompanied by several of the local autho-
rities, inspected the "lions" of the town, including
St. George's Hall, the Public Library and Museum,
and the new pile of corn warehouses at the
Waterloo Dock. Afterwards he cruised along both
shores of the Mersey, and thus obtained a compre-
hensive view of the dock works. It was noticed
that Mr. Johnson particularly observed the Lairds' ship—
building yard, where the Alabama was constructed, and
that he chatted freely with Mr. Laird, M.P., who accomj
panied him during the cruise. In the evening Mr. Johnson
dined with a distinguished party at the residence of Sir W.
Brown, Bart.

The Sheffield Independent has the following:—" Warnings!,
it will be remembered, were given as to the conse-
quences of Mr. Roverdy Johnson meeting Mr. Laird at the
Liverpool banquet, yet they met notwithstanding. Our
London correspondent reports that Mr. Johnson re-
sisted all attempts to dissuade him from going, and that in
the judgment of well-informed persons his speedy recall is
by no means improbable. The Americans were already
greatly offended at the result of his fraternising with Mr.
Roebuck and Lord Wharncliffe, and it is thought this In-
tercourse with the builder of the Alabama will not be for-
given.

THE AMERICAN MINISTER AT
LIVERPOOL.

At one time we thought it probable that his
Excellency IlryEenv JoussoN might decline the
invitation to the Liverpool banquet, in respect to a
feeling so generally expressed in the United States
against Americans meeting in social harmony such
enemies to their country as Mr. J. LAIRD, jun.,
M.P. The American Minister has, however, a
very determined opinion of his own, and he has for
years been accustomed in a fierce struggle to lead
a small minority against a powerful and overbear-
ing majority. He was the man, too, who suppressed
BUTLER when fairly " on the rampage;" and taking
these circumstances into consideration, we might
have guessed that if he thought it right to go—go
he would, and leave his countrymen eventually
fairly to estimate his motives. The banquet has
been given, the speeches made, and the Minister
from Washington and the builder of the Alabama
have joined in the cheer which greeted the senti-
ment of perpetual amity between the United States
and the United Kingdom. But another scene
awaits us, for though on this side it is plain sailing,
on the other the Minister is among reefs and shoals,
and he must have sat down to that dinner in the
full assurance that he was running counter to a
strong American tide of opinion. The name of
LAIRD is simply hateful in the United States. His
building the Alabama for•the Confederacy as a mat-
ter of business could be forgiven, for all know
there are grasping, avaricious traders who, if man-
kind had but one neck, would manufacture the axe
to sever it. A business community appreciates the
strength of the feeling to trade at a good profit ;
but LAIRD'S case was different, for he gloried in his
work; he took credit for the depredations of the
craft he had built, and he was enabled to give weight
and expression to these feelings as a member of the
British Legislature. It was but the other day that.
a man named HORNBLOWER—and a very curious
name it is—speaking for his friend LAIRD at
Tranmere, said that Englishmen " blushed
with pride" that LAIRD was the builder of the
Alabama. Making every allowance for elec-
tioneering tactics, this was both in bad taste
and untrue; yet it may be taken as evidence
that Mr. LAIRD is bent on brazening out an act now
admitted to have been not only a national crime,
but a still greater folly. The vessel was nothing
to have been proud of, for even if all is well that ends
well, still she ended by making a miserable fight
when she met an antagonist of her own calibre—
sinking—alike to the amazement of friend and foe,
and so greatly to the surprise of the captain of the
Kerseage as to leave him half believing she had gone
back to Cherbourg under water. As then the name
of LAIRD is detested in the United States, and as
Mr. JOHNSON was generally blamed for meeting at
a public dinner table two men far less obnoxious, we
will await with curiosity the response from America
to the Liverpool banquet. As a question of pro-
portion we would work out for it a degree of in-
dignation which would loudly demand Mr. JOHN-
SON'S recall ; but there are qualifying circum-
stances. There was no ROEBUCK to disturb the
harmony of the evening by an outrageous speech ;
and when the news of the banquet reaches America
beyond the bald telegram, it will be in the midst of
a furious political campaign, in which so insignifi-
cant a person as Mr. LAIRD will be wholly over-
looked. There is, too, another point which strikes
us forcibly. No nation has a keener sense of the
ridiculous than the Republic, and national indigna-
tion aroused on account of J. LAIRD dining at a
Liverpool banquet given to an American Minister,
considering that he is the member for a town really
forming part of Liverpool, would, in truth, sa-
vour strongly of the absurd. The Liverpool recep-
tion, also, must be taken as a whole. If New York
can be said to be a European City, Liverpool may
be said to be an American town. It has grown
with the Union from a paltry village to the greatest
of all shipping ports, and it owes its prosperity
mainly to its American trade. Nothing could be
more proper than that such a place should tender a
grand welcome to an American Minister, that
he, as the representative of such a people, whatever
might be his private feelings, should accept the
compliment intended for them. There was the re-
ception at the Town Hall from the people, the Cor-
poration, and the Chamber of Commerce, with the
American flag flying over the building ; there was
the luncheon in the drawing-room, and as he left
the Town Hall he received what was intended as
the greatest compliment, the lowering of the Eng-
lish flag. Then there was his visit to the Exchange,
that greatest of business marts, and finally the
banquet given by the American Chamber of Com-
merce. All this was not to be frustrated because it
was necessary that a person of comparative insig-
nificance like Mr. LAIRD should from his official
connection with the town be invited. The occa-
sion was also used—and these are the only occa-
sions which an Envoy can use—to tell of the progress
of his mission. Here, he was simple and unreserved,
indeed so as to surprise those among whom diploma-
tic traditions still linger of mystery and chicanery.
He represented himself and Lord STANLEY as trans-
acting the important business entrusted to their
care in a candid, fair, and generous spirit. Instead
of being like two men with rapiers in their hands,
at point and parry, argument by argument was ac-
curately weighed, and the whole nicely adjusted so
as to mete out justice on the broadest principles of
right. "Two of the subjects of difference are now
substantially settled, on terms alike honourable to
each, and the third will soon be settled on
terms equally honourable ;" and these words of
Mr. JOHNSON were confirmed by Lord STAN-
LEY. Indeed, his Lordship spoke in a tone
which will give satisfaction on the other side, where
it has been said that Mr. JOHNSON was fawned on
and flattered by the Government, that the Tories
might have the feather in their cap of having ami-
cably settled the questions in dispute. Speaking
for himself, Lord STANLEY very properly avowed
his earnest desire for the future, and for a
more proper feeling no Minister could have. " I
for one," he said, " shall feel that result in itself an
ample compensation for all the delay, for all the
ressponsibflity, and for all the anxiety which is at-
tached to that conspicuous, but not always enviable,
position of the Foreign Secretary." The first ques-
tion is the dispute about the island of San Juan ;
the second is that on naturalization ; and the third
has especial interest for Mr. LAIRD, for it relates
to the claims mainly caused by the privateer he
built. The American Minister touched on another
point of great interest in the United States, and of
importance to Europe. " I was struck," said
his Excellency, " when at Sheffield, with the
wisdom and good sense of the motto which
the Cutlers' Association had adopted "To en-
sure success, preserve your credit ?" What
would England or the United States have been if
they had not strictly observed this, or be should they
disregard it, which he was satisfied was as impossi-
ble for the one as for the other. Doubts may arise,
but policy, justice, and honesty require that such
doubts should be given to the benefit of the cre-
ditor. This being the substance of what he said
it is now evident, and a subject of deep congratu-
lation to every wisher of the United States, that
there is scarcely an • American of prominent posi-
tion who has not deprecated any injury to the
credit of the United States, even by taking ad•
vantage of any legal point against the bondholders.
His Excellency was to visit the Docks and other
objects of interest in the Mersey, at the invitation
of the Dock Board ; and Liverpool, barring the
Birkenhead shipbuilder, has done her best to do
honour to America through her representative.

Last Wednesday, Oct. 21, was the day fixed for
the grand boat race between the Ward brothers and the
famous St. John's crew on the Connecticut river at
Springfield. John Tyler declined WKiel's challenge to
a race at the same place on that day.
The Adjutant-General has already sent out be-
tween 5,000 and 6,000 of the soldiers' testimonials sug-
gested by Governor Chamberlain and authorised by the
last Legislature. They are very popular, and are prized
by those who receive them as memorials of their patriotism
and devotion to country.
LUXURIANT AND BEAUTIFUL HAIR.—MRS. S. A.
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beauty, and with the first application a beautiful gloss and de-
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falling off. It prevents baldness. It promotes luxuriant growth ;
it causes the Hair to grow thick and strong. It removes all
dandruff. It contains neither oil nor dye. In large Bottles—
Price Six Shillings. Sold by most Chemists and Perfumers.
Depot, 266, High Holborn

SEYMOUR ON THE 87UMP.
(Front the Anglo-American] Times.)

HORATIO SEYMOUR shows greater courage than
discretion in "stumping the States" to further the
interests of his party and his own election, as an-
nounced by cable from New York on Tuesday last.
If more manly to give up milking and crying,
and boldly to face both friend and foe on the
platform, still the wisdom may lie in making
cheese. We presume it is his way of showing that he
will die game, and that if he commenced by weeping
for hours " like a newly-weaned baby," he will end
by standing like a man in the gap to oppose the full
rush of the victorious foe. It is clear that the try-
ing time has arrived foreseen by his best friends,
from which many of them desired to guard him. It
may have been very rose-coloured when the shout
of the assembled 5,000 which nominated him in
Tammany Hall as the Democratic candidate was
taken up and re-echoed over the States, sounding
back from far distant places, so like the voice of the
Union, that many were deceived. But this differs
widely, from the torrent of desertion and defeat ;
from the foreboding of a failure—perhaps destined
to destroy the party. HORATIO SEYMOUR knows
that his acceptance of the nomination was open to
such grave objection and suspicion as to give a
readily available handle to his enemies. But that
strange convention in Tammany Hall —the wheels
within wheels—is now said to have had an inner
circle of intrigue by which both SEYMOUR and BLAIR
were used as mere tools to further a State object of
the wire-pullers, who, not believing it to be pos-
sible to carry a candidate against GRANT, thought it
advisable to get all they could and secure their own
lesser objects in the Empire State. A movement
has b een started, according to the New York
Herald, by prominent Democrats, to withdraw
SEYMOUR and BLAIR and substitute CHASE which,
though denied, speaks volumes of party demo-
ralization ; and it is in the face of such dis-
couraging circumstances folio wing the defeat in
the recent elections that HonaTio SEYMOUR now
proposes to take to the stump. If he would
throw himself aside, and forward to the utmost
of his ability the election of the Democratic
nominees for Congress, he would, we honestly be-
lieve, advance the interests of the United States.
There are t No points in which the country is deeply
interested. The one is, to secure a strong Govern-
ment ; the other, a powerful opposition. It may
be thought that the latter would weaken the former,
yet experience shows that such is not always the
case. What has weakened the Government fatally,
and would lead perhaps to civil war if prolonged,
was the hostility between the Executive and Legis-
lative branches. We earnestly desire to see the Go-
vernment united ; and knowing that the majority
of the Legislature, both Senators and Representa-
tives, must be Republican, it would be little less
than national madness to place in the White House
a Democratic President. If, then, HonaTto SEY-
MOUR were gifted with such persuasive eloquence
that he could charm his fellow-citizens into an act
of unspeakable folly, he would not only injure him-
self, but deeply injure his country. The people are
however, too much accustomed to such oratory to
be greatly influenced, even though his eloquence ex-
celled that of a BURKE. On the otherhand, were Mr.
BEl'3lO ull, to aid in lessening materially the strength
of the Republican majority in.the House, he would do
a good work. Party organization in the United States
is too thorough and tyrannical to permit of an inde-
pendent clique, and when the majority is overwhelm-
ing it ceases to be controlled by other considerations
than party expediency, and becomes then the despo-
tic tool of a few leaders, whose motives may be more
selfish than patriotic. If it can and does carry mea-
sures without discussion, and overrides, without lis-
tening to the veto message of the PRESIDENT, then it
has created what is little better than a tyranny—
indeed it may be something worse if the wire-pullers
are not influenced by a sense of decency. The re-
cent elections show that the parties do not greatly
differ in numbers ; therefore, according to every
principle of constitutional government, the Opposi-
tion ought to be very powerful, for if not, the citi-
zens of the Republic are unfairly represented. An
overwhelming majority works many evils. Mea-
sures carried without debate concede nothing to op-
ponents, yet the Opposition may number little less
than half the people of the United States. Not
only is arrogance generated with all its train of in-
tolerance, but the very qualities of a debating as-
sembly are neutralized, and a Parliament is made
to sanction what is merely the decree of a few
despots. Nothing more influenced for evil the Con-
gress now expiring, than the strength of its majo-
rity, but fortunately it contained many good and
experienced men, although at oue time it nearly fell
under the dictation of the " War-Horse " element.
It is this tendency of a crushing majority to be ruled
by its extreme faction which is the greatest danger.
The most thorough men are those who obtain the
mastery unless the check be strong ; and thorough
men are wanted only in war. What is required is
that the Washington Government should be all
powerful throughout the country for Federal pur-
poses, but strongly controlled in Washington it-
self ; and this can be effected only by a united
Executive, working with a majority in the Legisla-
ture, against an Opposition strong enough to be
feared. During President JOHNSON'S term the re-
verse has been the case—a dis-united Executive
fighting against a Legislative majority, uncon-
trolled by so feeble an Opposition as to be utterly
contemptible, and the consequence has been to
weaken the Government over the United States,
while the Legislature forced through ill-considered
measures, which require a powerful executive to
carry into operation. The result is patent to all—
the Southern States reconstructed into a condition
closely analogous to a servile war, a Civil Service
through whose connivance exists the whisky ring,
and other gigantic systems of fraud, and a Trea-
sury whose officers ate openly accused of using the
gold balances at their disposal to aid the opera-
tions of speculators with whom they combine against
the public, while the ruling party tosses the blame
to the Executive and the Executive back to the
ruling party.

For these reasons, we will hail with pleasure a mea-
sure of Democratic success, which would leave no
more than a good working majority for the Repub-
lican party in the Forty-first Congress, with GRANT
in the White House. Though the Senate must be
wholly Republican, yet no one fears Senatorial
excesses, but many moderate Republicans are
pleased to see a Democratic gain of seven Con-
gressional Representatives in the late elections.
We welcome the news of SEYMOUR taking to the
stump as a sign that the Opposition is not only
alive, but bent on fighting out the battle, and
though we rejoice in the knowledge that GRANT will
be elected by acclamation, yet we are so persuaded
of the necessity for a respectable opposition that
up to a certain point, we shall be glad to hear of
Democratic success. This is all that is now open
to the Democrats, at least in Washington, and we
think it will be for the interest of the country that
they should succeed to that extent.

It is said that orders have been received for the
removal from the North American lakes, before the winter
sets in, of the Imperial gunboats which have been doing
duty upon them for the past two years, and that the whole
fleet will winter at Bermuda.
A telegram from St. Petersburg, dated Oct. 16,
is to the following effect :—" An Imperial ukase has been
issued, dated September 16, subordinatini the direction
of the United Greek Church to the Ministry of Public
Worship."
Perhaps the finest scheme that could just now
be floated would be a grand Hotel Company for building
refreshment houses on the Union Pacific Railroad, and big
hotels at the termini. Already something of the sort is
being carried out by the rail% ay company, but one great
joint-stock company might carry out the scheme, and it
would be work enough for one. We learn that the Union
Pacific Railroad Company aro building hotels at the prin-
cipal points for the accommodation of travellers, in the
event of being delayed or desiring to rest while making
the journey across the plains. Sherman, the highest point
on the Union Pacific Railroad, is 8,262 feet above the level
of the sea, and 7,292 feet above Omaha.
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