NEW YORK.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 825, 12 August 1864, Page 5

NEW YORK.

(From the Correspondent of the Times, 6th May)

This great city, exhibits no outward symptoms of any consciousness on the part of its citizens of the terrible importance of the crisis. The lovely bay is filled with yachts and steamers, fishing boats, ferry boats, and merchant vessels from every part-or the globe. A Russian and a French fleet ride fraternally at anchor in the Hudson River, but for what purpose they are here, nobody knows or seems to care. It is remarked, however, as singular, that the naval power of Great Britain is not represented by a single vessel. To make amends, however, British maritime enterprise displays its flag in the ocean steamers of the Cunard and Inman lines; and in the Liverpool sailing ships, models of naval architecture, which depart and arrive every day. The arrivals are more than usually numerous, not only from [Liverpool, but from Hamburg and Bremen, many of the ships bringing as mauy as 1000 emigrants, youn£ and old, the young bent upon bounty money, and the elder people upon cheap tarms in the boundless prairies ot the West. Never was there such an iuflux of good bone and sinew into a land that so greatly needs them to make up for the waste of war and fill up the decimated ranks- of labmv On shore there are as much activity and bustle as in the bay, and all the outward signs of a neverinterrupted and continually-increasing material prosperity. In the lower parts of the city—that little corner which was the whole of New York 30 years ago-the produce and provision trade encumbers the footway with its kegs and barrels, rolling them; from warehouse* into carta, and from carts into the holds of ships preparing to sail, for Europe. Further up Broadway the wine-merchants, the • cotton-brokers, and the express companies—the Piekfords and Chaplins of America—carry, on their traffic as if the pavement belonge t to them and not to the puhlic, rendering locomotion difficult for men and almost impossible for : women. From the immense number of bales of cotton to be seen at all moments hoisted into or hoisted out of the stores and warehouses by gangs of negro or Irish, laborers, it would seem as if the scarcity of that article were the fancy of a hypochondriac, and that there is more than enough to spare irom the abundance of this city to satisfy all the wants of the world. Still higher 'up the" great artery the tide of pleasure and fashion is in full fiow. The omnibuses can scarcely crawl along for the excess of their own numbers, and the jumble of carts, waggons, and private carriages. The pavements are jammed with people, among whom the women, in the fullest possible circumference of crinoline and hoop, preponderate largely. The star-spangled banner flaps merrily in the wind from a hundred ■ homesteads and steeples, and buying.and selling, i idling and drinking, flirting and intriguing, and all the vice of a great capital flaunts itself in the eye of day. No one saems to think of the hideous :'snioke of battle that may be obscuring this beautiful May-day sun; of the awiul carnage that once ao-ain is reddening the soil of Virginia with the blood of tens of thousands of brave men, ot . the death, shrieksjhat are ascending to Heaven from the gaping throats of strong m?n in the last agonies of dissolution, of the thousands of exulting young men who crossed the Kapiaan ; three days ago to return no- more, or of-the accumulated horrjrs of the battle-field which fair ladies read of with complacency, but which, no .man who has ever beheld them, were he ten times a conqueror, can remember without a shudder, or a qnalm of sickness. I But if, leaving the crowded way, and penetrating into the quiet offices of merchants, brokers, bankers, and speculators in stocks, the observer of the temper of the people looks around him and enters into conversation, he finds the traces of a worthier-feeling. The speculator is anxious. The banker is nervous and unquiet. The merchant is ill at ease. The issues to be decided by the battle are so. momentous that men of sense, on whichever side their sympathies maybe, are at a loss how to act, and are pervaded by an allengrossing thirst for news-not unaccompanied, sometimes, by inability to distinguish the true from the false, or to pick out the grams of probability from the huge dust of chaff that ,s blown hitherward every hour from Baltimore and Washington. Many of them are very hopeful some "fry dispirited, while large numbers of those who have thriven tolerably well on the war and the mad frenzy of speculation that has Sown out of it pray that nofching^worsethan fTawn battle may be the result. What signify to them the numbers of the slain ? The protraction of hostilities for a few months longer would better "suit their book" than a victory, either for one side or the other. These men dread peace worse than they do the continuance of war. HEPBURN, AND Co.

They have not yet converted their greenbacks into gold. They are not ready to take their flight to London or to Paris, but if the war outlasts the Presidential election of November next, they hope to be rich and ready for all emergencies. In the meantime they do np^, care how fiercely the battle rages-provided atways that it be indecisive.Let me add a few wor3s about the ladies. They appear to have been shamed into economy by patriotism, but are, in reality, playing a little game for the benefit of astute manufacturers of New England. These gentlemen, who make silks not half as good as those of Lyons and Spitalfields, cotton prints that match— lonqo intervallo-vr'.lh those.of Lancashire, and. cloths that r.ere it not for exposure to the weather and the brush might rival those of Leeds, Yerviers, and Saxony, and who contrive by means of a protective tariff', to charge the' consumers of their native trash a price almost as high as that paid for the foreign and superior articles (Customs' duties and premium upon gold included), have commenced a great social and. economic movement. They have been among the women. They have made patriotic speeches. They have insinuated themselves into the favor of the leaders of fashion at New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, Chic3go, and other cities ; and have persuaded those hitherto extravagant persons that it is not seemly, while the young men of the country are pouring; out'theiir blood like water in support of a compulsory union of free States, to beheld together by the bayonet, that the yoang women should wear foreign silks and satins, laces and velvets, paisleys and cashmeres, to the sail depletion of the pockets of their husbands and fathers, to the disarrangement of Mr Chase's finance, and to the scandal of the sorrowing female relatives of the slain, who mourn, in sober and inexpensive weeds the protectors they have lost. The ladies, or a large portion of those who consider themselves entitled by their social position to speak for their less exalted sisters, have been powerfally impressed with the insidious teaching, have entered into a solemn, "league and covenant" to wear no foreign _ finery until the present war is over, doubtless belie Ting, ia the innocence of their hearts, that, they shall save at least lOOper cent, in the cost of their attire by the exemplary reform which they have resolved to inaugurate. One gushing enthusiast from Washington declares, in a letter that has gone the round of the newspapers, without exciting any criticism but that of approbation, " that the occasion demands that the women of America should pledge their jewels, lay down their diamonds and velvets, silks and satins, French kids and fine laces, and refuse to buy more, until the rebel hosts are destroyed, and the angel of peace r<?st upon the outspread wiHgs of onr nation's eagle." The motives of tb,e fair covenanters are good ; and, although, their friends the manufacturers of the native articles will, doubtless, take care that there shall not be too wide a margin betwf en the price of the home made shoddy and that of imported finery, , they will, by the encouragement of the extravagance which has prevailed amonsr the wives and. r'anghters of low-bred millionaires-during the Jast twelve months, set an example which trueladies and unaffectedly good women may be deliarhted to follow. There is one thing, however, which the " shoddy"' manufacturers and the ladies have forgotten, but which the Secretary of the Treasury will remember, if *he movement should become half as successful as the ladies seem to desire, and that is, that with the cessation of the foreign trade will came a cessation of the payment of eo!d for customs' duties. How, in that case, is the national creditor to receive^ his dividends, except in greenbacks ? And, if he he natf in greenbacks, wilt not faith be broken, with the public %•

BoNELLI'S .PRINTING TELEGRAPH:.—As OUT readers are no doubt aware, AT. Bonelli'B system of printing telegraphy is now in full operation, between Liverpool and Manchester. On Saturday afternoon swne experiments were conducted at the Liverpool office, in the presence of the deputy mayor and other local gentlemen, and the editor of the Telegraphic, Journal, with a vi^w to test the capabilities of the apparatus, and the results were sufficient to show that the system has many great advantages. The plan of working is simply this:— A message _is first set up in type of an easily legible size. Ifc is then placed in a kind of grooved table, which is brought ur.der five metal points connected with the wires. These parallel points touched the raised surface of the letter; and while so touching it, the electric circle is complete; and the current instanly transmitted by the wires terminates in another series of five parallel points, which are made to run over the surface of a slip of prepared paper, and while the circle is complete they act chemically on the paper and leave the perfect forms of the letter, word, and sentence complete.thereon. Then by an arrangement of the movingl table, one movement from end to end of the apparatus serves not only to send a message, but ta receive one — "thus saving much time. All such interruptions as " go on," " stop," " repeat,'* &c, are performed by a separate wire and bell, and all changing of type is thus prevented, There can be no mistake—the type is-, set up and read, and if it is correct the machine cannot make a. mistake. On Saturday, forty messages, averaging twenty-five words each,, were set np, sent to Manchester, and a cor res-, ponding number of messages received,_ in the short space of ten minutes. Much gratification was expressed at the satisfactory result of these . experiments,, which-clearly indicate that thetime is approaching when telegraphy will be as free from blunders as typography can be. Another valuable feature of the invention is, that thougk in passing the insulators as much as 59 per cent of the electric force is sometimes lost, it has noapparent effect on the plaianess of the impression, on the paper., Mr Cook on Saturday conducted the experiments in Liverpool. FA3IINS., ANDvPESTIuENOS AT THE CAPE DB, Vbrdb.—Letters received in Liverpool on Saturday from.lisbon confirm the very worst anticipations relative to the famine at the Cape de VerdeIslands. Nearly all the islands of the group were parched with heat,, and the earth refused to yield its crops in consequence of the fearfnl drought which has prevailed with but slight intervals, when rain-fell scantily, for several months. Some of tbe-islands and their inhabitants were in a better condition than, others, but unfortunately, two 01. the islands, Brava and St. Jago, were in,a most lamentable state of destitution. The towa of Porto Praya presented a sad aspect Thousands ■of the inhabitants of St. Jago had flocked down to- ■: the town, and were lying crouched in the streets !. and the roads approaching the place in an. utterly ; destitute an<i starving condition. Those who were : able to procure them^managed to alleviate their hunger by eating-the bark and roots of trees, and ; vermin of every description was eagerly sought ' after and devoured ; and the consequences were that diseases of the most infectious and loathsome nature were rapidly spreading among the untoi> tanate neople, and as rapidly decimating the population. At Brava things, if anything, were worse. What little- stores the inhabitants had saved until the crops w.ere up, were all gone, p.nd people who were once in a, tolerable way were starving. In the villages nearly all tbe houses were empty, many of their tenants lying dead inside, while the remainder of the inhabitants, had fled to the seaboard in the vain hope ot receiving succor from the ocean. Hundreds were lying stark and dead on the roads and in the fields, and their bodies were affording: a. dismal repast to the birds of prey which infest the island. The writer of the^e letters, who has visited these islands, saysr —" I cau candidly, hut with feelings of horror at what I have witnessed, assert that unless a kind, a heneficie.nt Providence interposes, and the inhabitants receive speedy assistance, in. two months, but few of the inhabitants of Cape de Verde will survive to tell their sad story ot v famine and pestilence. It was well known in this place (Lisbon) that when the drought commenced all the crops were in the ground, and the stock of provisions on the islands were just barelysufficient to last until tie harvest was gathered in. These provisions are gone long since ; the seeds are parched in the earth, and the result is that the population is being cut away by want and sickness." MANSE STREET,