AMERICA.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume XX, 7 September 1861, Page 3

AMERICA.

[From the Saturday Review, June 22.] The rude injustice and malignity of the New York journals continue to represent the hostile feelings of the Northern Americans to England. There is no reason, however, for abandoning the dispassionate calmness with which the nature and prospects of the struggle have hitherto been regarded in this country. Three months ago, the North was apparently as unanimous in its reprobation of war as it is now loudly intolerant even of the theoretical neutrality of foreigners. The present fashion of opinion will prpbably last longer, because it is embodied in large material preparations. When the flower of the population is armed and drilled, and provided with all the munitions of war, it will be difficult even for American caprice to withdraw from the struggle without some tangible result. Notwithstanding the inexperience of the civilian Generals, there can be no doubt that their troops will fight ; and as long as the campaign is confined to the Border, the United States will have a large preponderance both in numbers and in military resources. The Southern Confederacy is better provided with professional officers, but it recruits from a thinner population. Experience alone can show whether lawyers and local. orators can, on short notice, acquire the art of commanding considerable armies. Mr. Lincoln evidently consults the wishes of his countrymen by distributing hi*, principal commissions among well-known civilians. Mr. Banks, formerly a mechanic, and successively Governor of his State and Speaker of the House of Representatives, becomes a Major-General, like Mr. Sickles and Mr. Butler, for the same reason which determined the choice of Charles I. and of the To,ry Parliament in favour of peers or country gentlemen of influence. In default of special qualifications, it becomes necessary to choose leaders who are accustomed, in other departments of public life, to command respect and deference. In the civil wars, a gentleman might one month be a general, the next a justice of assize, and a few weeks afterwards he might accept a captain's commission for the reduction of a neighbouring manor-house. The war, consequently, interfered little with the relative grades of civil life until its continuance had given time for the formation of a regular and veteran army. Under civilian officers, hostilities were carried on almost at random, without definite plans or decisive results. A handful of Royalist horsemen might be spreading terror through a district while the adjacent parishes were occupied in force by the Parliamentary militia. The contending parties fought when they met, but their marches were determined by chance ; and, except in a few instances, the event of their skirmishes depended on courage, numbers, and chance, without any admixture of military skill. It is true that one country gentleman, adopting the profession of arms in middle life, more than supplied, by native force of genius, all the defects of experience and of professional education. It has generally been thought that the conditions of success in modern war are more complicated than the military qualifications of the seventeenth century. It may be doubted whether Cromwell himself, at the commencement of his career, could have handled fifty thousand men, with a proportionate force of artillery ; and the Butlers and Cadwalladers are probably by no means Cromwells, although they may have been selected for their general ability and aptitude. General Scott, who is supposed thoroughly to understand his business, is, unluckily, between seventy and eighty. There is a national versatility and haudinessin the American character which favours to the utmost the extemporaneous assumption of untried duties and responsibilities ; but the enormous levies which appear upon paper suggest doubts whether armies as large as Napoleon's can be safely moved by generals who are ignorant both of theory and of practice. The adherence of the bulk of the regular officers to the Southern Confederacy is one of the many reasons which prevent foreigners from admitting that the secession is merely a lawless rebellion. Only the most inveterate propensity to vaticination can have survived the surprises of the last six months. When the secession began, Republicans and Demo- j crats vied with each other in the offer of concessions to the supposed demands of the slaveowners. When it became certain that the Cotton States would withdraw, the most telling imputation against an opponent consisted in the charge that he entertained a criminal desire to reclaim the seceders by force. The Washington orators and the New York aud Boston journalists only discovered that they had overdone their pacific professions when the attack upon Fort Sumter suddenly roused the indignation of the North. For aboqf two months, the population of the Free States have been ostensibly unanimous in their determination to maintain the sanctity and perpetuity of the Union. Their armaments have since done credit to the energy and patriotism of the nation; aud if the North remains in its present frame of mind for some time longer, the seceders will be exposed to a formidable attack. In American affa ; rs, it is unsafe to calculate either on the steadiness or on the variable character of popular feeling. It is only certain that, whether peace or war is in fashion, England will be made the scapegoat of every

blunder and misfortune. It seems hard that foreigners should be accused of misunderstanding the constitutional questions at issue, when the first commencement of military operations has already brought about an insoluble conflict of jurisdiction.

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court issued a writ of habeas corpus to bring up the body of one Merry man, who had been arrested at Baltimore on the charge of destroying a railway bridge for the purpose of impeding the passage of the United States troops. General Cadwallader refused obedience t6 the writ, with the singular announcement that the President had given him authority ,to suspend the law of habeas corpus. The Chief Justice, in the presence of superior force, abstained from requiring the Marshal to execute the writ, announcing that he should throw ou Mr. Lincoln himself the responsibility of adopting or disavowing the conduct of his officer. There can be no doubt that civil process is incomparable with military operations in a

hostile country, and, as Northern journalists say, inter arm'a silent leges ; nor do they fail to" add, with apparent truth, that Chief Justice Taney is a Southern at heart. On the other hand^ it is certain that Congress alone has the right to determine whether it is necessary that the writ of habeas corpus should be suspended. Maryland is nominally considered by the Government as a lo\al portion of the United States, and General Gadwallader is not even acting under a proclamation of martial law. In England, a similar difficulty might be disposed of by a subsequent Act of Indemnity ; but Congress itself legislates under strict limitations, ndr has it the constitutional power to make good the defaults of the Executive. The Supreme Court would disregard a>\ irregular measure which might be passed, and in the event of a future revulsion of popular feeling, the President himself would be exposed, without defence, to the risk of an impeachment. The Americans are too practical a people to be defeated in a great national movement by constitutional technicalities; but if they were capable of justice to England, they might begin to appreciate the warning that their Constitution must suffer in a civil war. It is perhaps at present unsafe to remind them that their actual unanimity barely covers over the political divisions which seemed lately wider than ever. New York is now ostensibly unanimous in opposition to that extension of slavery which its corporation, the majority of its voters, and its most notorious journal,* have habitually defended and supported. Pennsylvania was democratic until it sold itself to its country for a selfishly protective tariff. Even in New England itself, a considerable minority has always maintained the doctrine of State rights and the cause of the South. It may be that American party feeling, however violent, is too insincere to survive a great political crisis ; but it seems premature for Englishmen to give in their adhesion to a creed which may in a short time become heterodox by a change in public opinion. The Government of the United States is fighting for an intelligible and justifiable object in denying the right of malcontent States to retire from the Union. How the Seceders are to be reclaimed, and how, if reclaimed, they are to be governed, are questions not to be solved even by the simultaneous vociferation of twenty million throats.

Singular Cause of Death. — Rachel Brady, twenty years of age, an inmate of Walsall workhouse, Staffordshire, had often complained of her head, and, a short time since, was found dead in bed. The medical officer of the union having opened the head of deceased, found in the tuber ancillare, where the brain and the spinal marrow join, four hydaiid sacs or cisticirci cellulosi. He had ascertained that it was not uncommon for her to eat sausages ; and the hydatid sac, he had no doubt, was composed of the egg of the tape worm, the worm having been, doubtless, taken into the body in process of eating sausages not properly cooked, composed of measled pork.

The worm thus taken into the body forced its way into the various organs, the liver, the head, eyes, and brain, and deposited its eg<r, and this again forced its way wheresoever it could gain most nourishment. In the present instance the hydatid sac, pressing upon the brain at the particular point named, caused death.

The Herald. — H.M. sailing . frigate Herald, Captain Henry Mangles Denham, F.R.S., has returned to England after nine years' surveying service in the South-western Pacific. She sailed from England under Captain Denham's command in 1852, for the purpose of exploring and surveying the ocean between our Australian colonies and South America. The principal estuaries of Western Australia, New South Wales, Queensland, and Tasmania having bcsn surveyed, as also the prominent islands of the New Hebrides and Fijian groups, the Herald proceeded to Java, to carry out investigations with reference to electric cable communication between Australia and Singapore, vid Baly Strait. The results of this expedition are important, because, by the use of the deep-sea lead, soundings have been made on an extensive scale. The position of Tristan d'Acunha and St. Paul Islands have been settled, and various clear passages for steamers have been marked out, free of current, between Sydney and Torres Straits. The passage from the Australian ports to Singapore or Point de Galle has been shortened, and the charts have been cleared of many supposed islands and reefs, while the position of others has been determined. One part of the duty of the Herald was to ascertain the fate of Mr. B. Boyd, who was entrapped from his yacht Wanderer at the Solomon Islands in 1851, and to punish his murderers. A record of the Herald's proceedings during her ten years' commission, has been forwarded to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. He* natural history collections have been forwarded to England periodically and deposited in the national museums; what she has now on board is merely her latest gleanings. Captain Denham has received the good service pension and the thanks of the "Legislatures of New South Wales and of Queensland for the services he has rendered to those colonies by his surveying duties while commanding the Herald. Polish Liberty. — The last advices from Poland are that Prince Waldemar Czetwertynskihas been arrested and sent to the fortress of Modlin. Count Tyszkeiwicz has been suspended from his functions of Marshal of the Nobility of Wilna, and the Countess, his wife, exiled for having made a collection for the purpose of giving an Easter banquet to the working classes. Russian Anniversary. — Next year is the thousandth anniversary of the foundation of the Russian empire ; and we have been informed that they intend to celebrate the occasion with one of their grand national religious festivals. The spectacle at St. Petersburg and Moscow will probably be very maguificent ; and the recent manumission of the serfs will give it a peculiar significance. East India House.— The sale of the East India House took place on the 20th, the tender accepted being for £1 55,000. This is a higher sum, reckoning proportionate extent of site, than was obtained for the Excise Office. It is understood to have been purchased.' with the view of constructing exteusive offices and . ' chambers.