The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-17 00:00:00

LOIV DON, SA7 URDAY, OCT. 17, 1868.

As has often proved the case before in America,
tne Radical triumph in the elections has diminished
on closer inspection. Telegrams, dated yesterday,
at noon, from Philadelphia, report that the Re-
publicans had carried the elections in Obio, but that
their majority, which had been variously stated,
was reduced to 16,000, and that the Indiana elec-
tions had been carried by a majority of 1,000 only,
leaving a Democratic gain of 13,000. The Demo-
crats claim, moreover, to have gained no less than
seven members of Congress by the week's selections,
so that their position has manifestly improved.
The Washington news of yesterday goes a step fur-
ther, for the Democrats in the capital actually
claim to have carried the Indiana elections.
We shall not know the truth of the matter
for a day or two when the complete returns shall
have been collected, and due examination made,
but it is evident that the contest must have been a
very close one. The New York Herald states that
there is a movement among some of the Radicals to
secure the withdrawal of Mr. SEYMOUR and Gene-
ral BLAIR, and to nominate Chief Justice CHASE.
This is hardly likely to be so on many
grounds. It would be a confession of weakness,
and highly impolitic to change the whole base of
operations in the middle of the campaign. The
election is now so close at hand that a fresh candi-
date would have little chance of success, while
Chief Justice CHASE is on many points altogether
opposed to the Democrats. The rumour may have
been set afloat for the purpose of damaging the De-
mocratic cause, or it may owe its origin to the
caprices or extravagances of a few individual mem-
bers of the party.
Congress assembled yesterday, though without a
sufficient quorum, and it was therefore adjourned
until the 10th 10th proximo. Little will be done
until the Presidential struggle is decided, and on
this the public interest is now centred..
We learn by the arrival of the Cuba, from New
York on the 6th, that General M'CLELLAN has
written a letter expressing his wishes for the suc-
cess of the Democrats, but declaring his intention
to take no part in the active business of the elec-
tion. In New York the Democrats are very busy.
A. procession of 40,000 strong has been making a
demonstration through the streets ; but such exhi-
bitions are so common in America that they cannot
be accepted as indicative of the strength of a party.
The troubles between white and black continue in
parts of the Southern States, and it is necessary to
accept the accounts with caution since the partisans
on either side greatly exaggerate them. The Radi-
cals are always famous for improving on reports,
and we find that a riot at Apelousas, Louisiana,
which on the 6th of October is described as result-
ing in the death of one white man and two negroes,
on the 7th grew into the massacre of over 100
negroes and the sacking of two Republic news-
paper offices. There is no scruple about enlarging
upon the news a hundredfold, and the Ame-
ricans are well aware of this, sa that the invention
often fails of its purpose. The Indians are giving
trouble in Arkansas and Texas, so that there are
not lacking elements of disturbance in the Re-
public.

Among the many new and important acts to be
introduced into Parliament next year a Merchant
Shipping Bill is not one of the least momentous.
The value of our merchant shipping is so immense,
the traffic so incessant, and the lives which are
daily risked in its navigation so numerous, that its
interests affect a very large proportion of the popu-
lation. Yet, notwithstanding the importance of
the subject, the legislation respecting it is in a very
unsatisfactory state. So wide a margin is allowed
to the shipowner and the master that hundreds of
lives are annually thrown away, and thousands
of pounds' worth of property wasted, from
the wretched condition in which ships are sent
to sea. The large merchant vessels which take
long voyages are generally safe enough. Accidents,
of course, occur from the inevitable action of wind
and wave ; but it is not often that their loss or
disaster is distinctly traceable to defects in the ship
or in the seamanship. With the vessels carrying
on our coast trade, however, the matter is alto-
gether different, and the number of small vessels of
the collier class yearly lost on our eastern coasts
forms a very large proportion of the total losses of
ships of all kinds wrecked in British waters.
Often very old, badly constructed, kept
together only by tar and pitch, ill found,
insufficiently manned, with cables and anchors that
will not bear a strain, they are sent out with
perfect indifference by the owners, who indemnify
themselves for their loss at the expense of the in-
surance offices. Year after year the Wreck Register
tells us the same stogy, with little apparent result.
A letter addressed to a contemporary by a gentle-
man famil?ar with the whole subject, himself a
shipowner and a director of two marine insurance
companies in Newcastle-on-Tyne, gives ample
details of the mannser in which the3e ships are
sent to sea—to be lost, perhaps, within a
day or two after leaving harbour. lie cites a
case of a vessel laden with coal for Shanghai,
which had two feet of water in her hold before she
left the Mersey, an I was abandoned before she was
three days out. 133 sides the loss of property the
lives of 15 men were risked with this ship, and the
case is by no maws au isolated one, though, ae we