The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-06 00:00:00

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

11th Dec.—Mr. Pruyn, of New York, in refer-
ence to the debate relating to Russian America on
the 9th December, said " that the legal point made
by Mr. Butler wAs incorrect. Mr. Butler assumed
that the House was not botind to make appropria-
tion to carry out the treaty made by the, Senate.
He contended that when a treaty was made in good
faith by the Senate it was the duty of the House to
make the necessary appropriation to carry out the
treaty, and any other course would be a violation of
faith. A treaty made by the Senate was a law
binding upon the House, and must be concurred in
.by the latter."
Mr. Butler, of Massachusetts, asked . leave to
make a personal explanation, but Mr. Wood and
others objected. _

Mr. Dodge, of lowa, from the Committee on
Military Affairs, reported a bill to amend the Act
of Apr it 10, 1806, for establishing rules and articles
for the government of the armies of the United
States.. [lt repeals Article 61 of that date, and pro-
vides that all brevets shall bear date from the time
of the action for which the officer was breveted.]
Passed.

Mr. Garfield reported back the bill relating to
officers of the army dismissed or cashiered by sen-
tence of court-martial, and which prohibits the re-
storation of such officers unless they shall he sub-
sequently confirmed by the Senate.

Mr. Niblack, of Indiana, asked if the bill was to
be retrospective or prospective.

Mr. Garfield replied that it was tote prospective,
of course.

Mr. Niblack said he was led to ask the question
because it was supposed that the bill was to affect
General Fitz John Porter's case.
After some further discussion the bid was recom-
mitted.

Mr. Banks, of Massachusetts, from Committee
on Foreign Affairs, presented a letter from the
Secretary of State in answer to the trial of Ameri-
can citizens in England. The communication sim-
ply relates to the copying of certain documents.
Re- com tted.

The whole House then resolved itself into com-
mittee, when Mr. Washburne, of Wisconsin, spoke
at length, condemning the purchase of St. Thomas
and of Russian America. He read from geography
and from books of travel. He contended that the
Purchases were utterly useless, and could be of no
benefit to the United States. Alaska was a bar-
ren waste, and he would vote no money for its
purchase, and the fact that the Senate had rati-
fied the treaty would not induce him to vote for
an appropriation. On which Mr. Pruyn again
stated that good faith required the appropriation, as
the treaty was ratified. Mr. Maynard, of Tennes-
see, asked if Mr. Washburne was willing that Eng-
land should take the territory, who answered, Does
England want it ? when Mr. Maynard said, he
supposed she would take it from her known grasp-
ing desires and her propensity to gather up all the
property under the sun. Mr. Washburne replied
that this country was not under the sun—(laughter)
—and he doubted whether England wanted the
territory.

The select committee on Southern railroads sub-
mitted to the llouse of Representatives the testi-
mony taken. They report that they have concluded
the taking of testimony upon all points except as
to the expediency of do ?laring forfeit, lands granted
in aid of railroads in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana,
Mississippi, and Arkar teas, in which case the tes-
timony is now being, procured by the War De-
partment from the military commanders in those
sections.

Upon the other poi at 3 they will be prepared to
report when the testi? no. ly is printed, for which pur-
pose the testimony S. 110 w being reported with a
request to that effect_
A large number of itnesses have been examined
at various points.

A communication fi om Gen. Grant, Secretary of

War, encloses a state went of the indebtedness of
the respective heads ors the Ist of November, 1867,
from which it appears that the total appraised value
of the property sold was $7,456,396 39c. Total
payments to Nov. :1, 1867, $3,459,344 29e., as
follows :—By cash, 2,169,547 48c. ; transportation
of Government troops and supplies, $708,569 42c. ;
mail service, $581,2:28 39c.
The payments ware made at various dates between
Nov. 30th, 1865, raid Nov. 1, 1867.
The balance due the United States on the Ist
Nov., 1867, including interest, was $1,884,500 62c.
On the 12th D.F.toamber, the Committee on Com-
merce was direct(il to inquire into the causes of the
depressed condition of the shipping interest, and
whether that int cest does not require a remission of ,

internal duties on material entering into building
material for vessels.

The Committee on Roads and Canals was directed
to inquire into the expediency and propriety of
making an appropriation for a canal around the
Falls of Ohio, on the Indiana side, and that f
Ways and Means of levying a tax on family crests
and coats-of-arms worn upon household furniture
in actual use.

Mr. Cary, of Ohio, offered a resolution, which
was referred to the Committee of Ways and
Means, declaring—" That in the opinion of this House
the Secretary of the Treasury should not provide
for the immediate payment of the bonds of
bruary, 1847, now due on the bonds of 1848, due
after July, 1863, but that the payment of the same
should be postponed until the currency and legal
tender notes are of the same commercial value."

We have elsewhere noticed Mr. Maynard's resolu-
tion for selecting from among negroes the diplomatic
and consular representatives to Hay-ti, Liberia, and
other African ports, which was referred to Com-
mittee on Foreign Affairs. The resolution of Mr..
Baker, of Illinois, was universally adopted, "That the
military establishment should be as small as possible,
and that the Military Committee should inquire into
a reduction of the army." The Committee on Naval
Affairs was directed to inquire into the expediency
of locating a navy yard and naval depot at Erie,
Pennsylvania.

Mr. Farnsworth, of Illinois, offered a resolution
directing an inquiry into certain charges against
Mr. Hale, United States Consul to Egypt. Referred
to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. [The charges
are preferred by Francis De Lacy, of New York,
who charges Mr. Hale with having attached in
Egypt several hundred thousand dollars' worth of
goods at the instance of parties in New York
City.]

The Committee on Ways and Means is to in-
quire iuto an exemptiou from taxation of all in-
comes not exceeding $2,500 per annum.
Dec. 13.—Mr. Eliot, of Massachusetts, presented
a Quaker's memorial in the welfare of Indians,
praying that the love of peace may prevail, and just
laws be passed for their projection. Mr. Eldridge's
resolution was adopted relative to the collection of
income tax from the Shakers of New Lebanon. Mr.
Kerr, of Indiana, moved to inquire into the expe-
diency of amending the internal revenue law, ex-
empting from stamp duty official bonds executed for
religious, benevolent, or charitable societies.

Dec. 16.---Mr. Hubbard, of West Virginia,
brought up his bill to facilitate the resumption of
specie payment. It provides that after the Ist of
July, 1868, 20 per cent. of all duties on imported
goods may be paid in United States notes ; after
the Ist of July, 1869, 40 per cent. ; after the Ist
of July, 1870, 60 per cent. ; after the Ist of
July, 1871, 80 per cent. ; and after the Ist of
July, 1872, the whole. Referred to committee
of Ways and Means. As was also that offered by
Mr. Brooks, of New York, relating to legal tender
notes, which provides that the Finance Committee
of the Senate and the Committee of Ways and
Means shall inquire into the expediency, first, of
making legal tender notes receivable in part pay-
ment of Customs duties, say five per cent. after the
first of January, 1868 ; ten per cent. after the first
of February, 1868 ; with like proportion after the
first of March, 1868 ; second, of repealing the legal
tender act on all contracts made after the first of
March, 1868, or, if not repealing it, enabling con-
tracts to be made payable in gold and silver. Mr.
Benjamin, of Missouri, offered a resolution reciting
that the President in his late Annual Message had
seen fit, in utter disregard of the• popular will as
expressed in the election of the members in the
XLth Congress, to recommend the repeal of the Re-
construction laws, the effect of which would be to re-
mit the government of the late rebellious States to
rebel hands, and abandon the entire loyal element
there to the will of traitors, and that it is emi-
nently proper that the House should respond in
emphatic terms to so extraordinary a proposition,
and resolving that the House will never consent to
take a retrograde step from its advanced position
in promoting the cause of "equal rights, nor to
deviate from its fixed purpose of protecting all men
as equal before the law, that there is no reason to
doubt that the restoration of the rebellious States
is being successfully accomplished on a firm and
enduring basis, and that no good reason exists why
the
w y
the Reconstruction Acts should be repealed. Mr.
Kerr's movement to lay the resolution on the
table was defeated by 112 to 32, and the resolution
and preawble adopted by a strictly party vote of
111 yeas to 32 nays. Mr. Butler, of Massa-
chusetts, moved to suspend the rules to enable
him to offer a resolution, declaring that in the
judgment of the House all the indebtment
of the nation ought to be paid in exact ac
cordance with the Acts of Congress creating
it, but not otherwise ; that is to say, all loans
enacted to be paid in gold, to be so paid, and all
loans not so enacted to be payable, ought to bepaid
in lawful money of the United states. The rules
were not suspended. Yeas, 63 ; nays, 83 ; and the
resolution was not received. The Speaker pre-
sented a message from the President, transmitting
copies of the papers. relating to the trial of Albert
Lusk, of Indiana, in New Orleans, and stating that
no action in the case had yet been taken by the Pre-
sident. The message was referred to the Judiciary
Committee. [The indorsement on the papers by
the Secretary of War ad interim is that the crime
was a most fearful and brutal one; that this was
the first trial for murder by a military commission
under the Reconstruction Acts, and that the sen-
tence should be carried into effect.]
The House then, in committee of the whole, with
Broomall, Pennsylvania, in the chair, proceeded to
consider the Deficiency Appropriation Bill, which
appropriates $118,892, including the following
items : for stationery for the House, $15,000 ; fur-
niture, repairs, and packing-boxes, $20,000 ; fold-
ing documents, including material, $50,000 ; news-
papers, $12,500. To the latter claim is appended a
proviso that hereafter no member of either House
shall be allowed or be paid for newspapers and sta-
tionery for any one year more than $125 in money,
or its value. After the rejection of two amend-
ments the committee rase, and reported back the
Bill to the House, when the rules were suspended
by 84 to 39, and the Bill read a third time and
passed without amendment.

John Mitchell, editor of the New York Irish
Citizen, but better known for the part he took in the out-
break of 1848, has been offered the presidency of the re-
united Fenian Senate, which, after some negotiation, is to
be composed of seven nominated by Roberts, and seven by
Savage, who is supposed to be the legitimate successor to
James Stephens. If John Mitchell refuses, the senate thus
constituted will elect a president.

A PLEA FOR THE HOUSEHOLD FAlRlES.—Panto-
mimes are not dull this year because we are blasé or de-
pressed with the badness of the times. They have taken
away our children. There we sit night after night in
gigantic Covent Garden or lordly Drury Lane, but no
sweet music of children's laughter goes echoing through
the house. Where are those little golden-haired
boys and fairy girls who used, in the good old
days, to clap their little hands and jump about in a wild
ecstasy of delight ? Gone ! all gone to morning perform.-
ances, and we are left to enjoy the banquet with no ex-
hilarating drink to wash it down. Not only on the
selfish grounds we have mentioned do we object to
morning performances of pantomimes. Are modern
children more virtuous than we were ? It was not
the pantomime alone that delighted us in our childhood
We liked the drive to the theatre in the carriage ; the
gas-lit streets; the dissipation of sitting up late, and a
supper to crown everything. We would have sneered at
a morning performance. It is only once a year, kind
mothers. They are a little bit cross next day, perhaps;
but that soon wears off. Leave morning performances
to the inhabitants of Surbitou and Streatham, Hen-
don and Edmonton,—folks who can't get back home at
night ; but let us have our little folka back at the even-
ing pantomimes, sn that their shrill voices may waken up
the British audience, and their bright faces dissipate its
gloom.

[ADVERTISEMENT.]—HoIIoway'sPiIIs.- Winterly Draw-
backs.—Whence fogs spring or whether they retire, it is
not our present purpose to explain, we desire to point out
how their ill effects on the human frame can be neutralised.
The blood must be freed from superfluous carbon and
mephitic taints by some purifying medicine like Hollo-
way's Pills; which not only cleanse the circulation, but
adjust in every organ the defects imposed upon it by that
fluid when it has become foul or sluggish. These Pills
prevent stagnation, congestion, and are the best regu-
lators and preservatives against internal inflammations,
irritations, and ulcerations,, while expelling morbid matters
from the system, they cool it, by their gently aporitive
action, and strengthen it by their tonic yirtAes.

. -
WHAT IS IT THAT _IRELAND WANTS?

It is not unseldom asked, with an air of seem-
ing innocence, What in the world can Ireland
want? The question carries with it its own answer,
to a mind that will reflect upon it. For it displays
the profound ignorance of the enquirer, whilst
the state of Ireland calls for the clearest know-
ledge, and the most consummate wisdom and pru-
dence. It betrays the self-satisfied complacency
of prejudice, indignant at being called to account ;
whilst the condition of Ireland requires the most
impartial investigation, and the well-being of Eng-
land the most rigid self-examination. It savours
of the slothful pride of a master accustomed to take
his ease, and Ireland needs the solicitude of a tender
and unwearied mother. It argues disregard of Ire-
land's appeals for just consideration, and heedless-
ness of England's past iniquities. Those iniquities
still cry to Heaven, for no reparation has been yet
attempted. Nay, the injustice itself is not wholly
done away.

True loyalty does not consist in idle abuse of
Fenianism, but in endeavouring to remove its cause.
All the Fenians in America could do no harm to
England, through an Irish, channel, if she would
but take the pains to consider Ireland's wants,
and set herself in earnest to win Ireland's heart.
It would be an easy and a grateful task, and the
sooner it is entered upon the better. For, until it
is taken up and followed out, Ireland will never be
at rest. Then would Ireland be England's buckler
as now she is her thorn. What was it gave the
Fenians birth ? What now gives them ground for
action ? What is the fulcrum on which their
lever rests to upset the hated English incubus ?
It is Ireland's discontent which arises out of Eng-
land's disregard. England endeavours to govern
Ireland from an English point of view. Would
England rest content under an Irish mode of go •
verning ? Let her do as she would be done by !
How many of our English legislators have been
at the pains to visit Ireland, and inform them-
selves of what Ireland wants ? Hoa many of them
who have crossed St. George's channel have done
more than enjoy a pleasant tour, with a laugh
at Irish humour, and, it may be, a chuckle at Eng-
lish superiority ? How many, out of the few who
have done more than this, have sought their infor-
mation in the quarter which represents the Irish
people ? They may have asked it of the wealthy
Protestant landlord, and the intruded Protestant
parson, but they ought to have gained it from the
parish priest, from the industrious Irish farmer,
from the enterprising and intelligent Irish mer-
chant. These are the true representatives of the
Irish people, and the mouthpieces of Irish feeling ;
the others do but in general represent the do-
minant English power, and speak the voice of
English interest.

We are not Fenians, God forbid ! Nor are we
Irish, though we might well be proud of such a
nationality. We are English, but we are just.
We are loyal, but we are true. Nor shall our gra-
titude as Catholics to the noble Irish nation beguile
us beyond the limits of justice in estimating her
due claims. As Catholics we are Ireland's debtors,
but as Englishmen we are more. We belong to a
country which has done her injury, and we are
bound to call on our country to repair it. Loudly
as we condemn the means to which a revolutionary
faction has lately had resort, we cannot let it be
supposed that we see no cause for Ireland's dis-
affection. We are not puzzled to answer the que
tion :—What is it that Ireland wants? First of
all, she wants attention, and the attention of a
mother.

The Irish character is a loyal one, but loyalty
requires reciprocity. If England had acted loyally
to Ireland, she would have had no children so true
to her as the Irish. Why is it that Ireland hates
her ? It is becaus2 England disregards her cries.
Better Fenians, better anything than England as
it is, is the present feeling of the Irish race. And
so it will contiune till Englishmen are at the pains
to ascertain for themselves what it is that Ireland
wants !—Westminster Gazette.

SENSATIONAL ITEMS.--A crime of more than or-
dinary atrocity was committed by Mr. and Mrs. Brown, of
Chatham, New York, early last month. It appears ti at
they had insured for $5,000 the life of their little daughte
a girl twelve years of age. To obtain this money they
murdered the child, and, to conceal the crime, set fire .0
the house.—A fire, accompanied by circumstanwi
of unusual horror, occurred at New York on
16th of December last. It broke out at two a.m. :0
a six-storey building in Second Avenue, where 150
sons were asleep. The dense volume of smoke penetratieS
into the rooms drove the occupants in a panic upwards I.ill
they reached the garret, when they endeavoured to escape
by a ladder through the ventilator in the roof. The lad-
der broke, when, in a frenzy of fear, the people threat
themselves fromthis enormous height into the street, where
all must have been killed but for the masses of snow
which broke their fall. Some escaped by the gutter
pipes; others by ladders. Twenty-three were rescued by
the police, and seven dead bodies were found in the upper
room. The house was a " model" tenement, and against
the owner, who is accused of murder and assassination,
the people vow vengeance, as the building is supposed to
have been set on fire, and 11 persons perished in the
flames. As we have fairly embarked on horrors, we give
the story of Mrs. Boone, the widow of the actor, and he:
four children, known as "infant prodigies." After act-
ing sham sensation scenes, these poor children being
reduced to the last stages of want, enacted a reel
tragedy. Mrs. Boone having pawned everything, adrde"
nistered laudanum to the whole family. Perhaps she bad
not money enough to effect the object she contemplated
or the drug was adulterated, for they were all discovered
by the police in a state of unconsciousness, and conveyed
to the hospital. The family remain in a critical state. To
these cases we add the railway accident on the Ver-
mont Central Railroad, which occurred on the 11th
Dec. A carriage, with 75 men, employed in rebuilding
a bridge recently burnt, was backed off the abutment.
The fall was 60 feet, and the car, as it was precipitated, broke
in three pieces; one part fell on a shelving rock, where
25 men lay half-way down the bank; 19 were killed and
40 desperately injured. It is remarked as singular that
none were killed who fell the entire depth. Frank Abbott,
the driver, has been censured, though, it is said, the
engine was beyond his control. Mr. Locklin, assistant
superintendent of the road, and Major Tenney, the master,
bridge builder, escaped by jumping from the train. 01
the injured more than 30 belonged to Vermont, and marl
were French Canadians. The dead were taken to North-
field, where the accident occurred, and five surgeons from
that town, and six from Montpelier, were quickly on the
spot. We cannot close this grand record without. giving
a big thing in robberies. On the 13th Dec., while the
snow fell and the wit,d howled over New York, a mes-
senger proceeded to the Bank of New York, from the
Cleating-house, by Wall-street, with his satchel filled
with cheques and drafts. A man driving a sleigh
stopped and seized the bag, with which he jumped into the
vehie!e and drove off, the messenger hanging on to the
property till he was stunned by a blow on the head and
left lying in the snow. The cheques and drafts amounted
to $3,600,000, of which payment has of course been
stopped, but the thieves have not yet been discovered.
Admiral Porter gives a glowing report of St.
Thomas, setting forth the excellence and defensive caps'
bilities of its harbour. The inhabitants, ke says, 4, are
hospitable to a fault, and they are mostly coloured and
extremely well educated." His. Majesty of Denmark has
published a pathetic proclamation, in which he takes leave
of his islands, commending them to the protection of the
Almighty in a way scarcely complimentary to the United
States.