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option. If the North can once be persuaded to make up its mind to a defensive war, the South will but beat itself to death against the bars. The hope of foreign assistance will be at once at an end, for Europe will not interfere to defeat terms at once so liberal and so satisfactory. The fierce enthusiasm which has filled her armies will decline, for peace has its blessings even for slaveholders, and men with their independence secured will not fight on forever for a mere dream of empire. Guerilla bands, however powerful as a means of defence, are utterly useless as weapons for the invasion of a civilized State, and the North has only to wait patiently to compel the South into submission to terms like these. Thus much, we believe, the North could, without another battle, secure-an immense, indeed almost an incredible, advance on her position six months ago.

Beyond this, however, she is not, despite the recent successes, as yet in a position to go, and if, impatient of any terms except unconditional surrender, she clings to the project of effecting a complete and visible subjugation, she will once again be exposed to all the chances of war. Her position is, it is true, favorable on many points for the prosecution of the campaign.~ Mr. Lincoln need no longer divert one half his strength in order to secure the Mississippi, and with it the cordial adherence of the populous States of the West. Grant can now commence with a fair prospect an invasion of Alabama, and of the great section of the Confederacy hitherto exempt from most of the evils of war. Mobile can now be attacked with a reasonable chance of success, and the Charleston expedition will, in all probability succeed. At least, the Federal troops, unless disheartened by some overwhelming disaster at the commencement of their attack, have hitherto always succeeded. Rosecranz has a fair chance of driving General Bragg from Chattanooga, and with the Confederacy split in twain, Alabama entered by a successful army of a hundred thousand men, South Carolina paralyzed, North Carolina discontented, and the key of the last great delta safe in Northern hands, the war must perforce decline into an insurrection. Still, these are only the results which may in time occur, and when they have occurred an insurrection is still the second most dangerous evil that a republic can have to face. It is evident that Mr. Davis and the coherent body of slaveholders who are the support and the agents of his rule, have resolved on a last desperate effort. Relying, as he has always relied, on the fact that the poor population of the South is not also that which labors, the Southern President has ventured on the extreme step of calling out the levy en masse. The slaves are

to be watched by the old, trades left to perform themselves, and the whole manhood of the country flung at once into the field. The order may not be obeyed, but if Mr. Davis can plead that the only alternative is submission the probability is that it will. There is no government on the earth so strong as an oligarchy backed by a mob, and that is the position of the Government of the South. The appeal, too, is made to men now thoroughly excited by the war, contemptuous of labor, and disinclined to strife only from a reluctance to accept the restraints of discipline. There is a powerful army to enforce the draft, unscrupulous leaders to direct its efforts, and the form of patriotism so carefully cultivated in the South, to give a sanction to any act which may seem expedient for the defence of "State rights." The draft, which English newspapers do not censure, though loud in their denunciation of the far lighter draft of the North, may be resisted in isolated districts, in places where Union feelling survives, in mountainous regions where resistance or evasion are comparatively easy; but the net will catch, we fear, the mass of the white population, and every man in the South will be, as Calhoun hoped, either a slaveholder or a soldier. At the same time the States are urged to increase President Davis's powers, to enable him to appoint and dismiss, to control all trade, to use all wealth, to make him, in fact, dictator throughout the South. Many of these powers will be refused, but many more will be taken, and it is a despot governing an armed nation that the North will have to meet. That they will defeat him is probable; but to be forced once more to crush armies as strong as those which the South arrayed in January of this year, and this after two years of bloodshed, expenditure, and exertion, is a frightful obligation. Moreover, the North, supreme in the west, and dangerous on the coast, is at one point still only on an equality, that point being the one which, in prestige, outweighs all. The story that General Lee is already threatening Maryland is, we think, visibly fabulous; but General Lee may be reinforced, may turn, and may once more remind the North that its best victories in the East have been gained upon its own ground. A defeat in Virginia would undo half the work of the year, bring every Southerner into the ranks, and enable every Democrat once more to clamor for peace. That the North amidst new defeats would still in the end prevail is, we think, the lesson taught by the history of the two years. But it is a matter of doubt whether the difference between the South held like a Poland, and a dependent South limited by the Mississippi, with its evil institution" decaying, its dream of empire ended, its political weight

only so far perceptible as to act as a check simultaneously attacked, if not from the sense on vain bragging, is worth the risks involved that their interests are likely to become idenin a conscription, an expenditure of a hun- tified? The prejudice that everywhere exists dred millions a year, and at least two desper- between one inferior grade of society and an-. ate campaigns. The North went to war other derives intensity in America from the avowedly to forbid the extension of slavery, jealousies of race and competition. The mean the single end for which Mr. Lincoln was whites in the South are warm supporters of elected, and the stern perseverance which has slavery because they feel that slavery is the underlain its changes of surface opinion and only barrier between themselves and the neits ridiculous brag has placed it in a position groes; the mob Irish in the North dread the to secure that well defined end. It may be increase and elevation of a class likely to doubtful, even amidst the present torrent of compete successfully with them in the lower good fortune, whether it is worth while to forms of labor. risk the success which is certain for the sake of a future which if not doubtful is at best extremely distant.

From The Spectator, 8 Aug. "T. C." AND THE SLAVES.

"PLOT, murder, and conflagration," writes the Richmond Enquirer," have begun in New York. It is a world's wonder that this good work did not commence long ago; and this excellent outbreak may be the opening scene of the inevitable revolution which is to leave the Northern half of the old American Union a desert of blood-soaked ashes. We bid it good speed!" An outbreak of singular brutality, though suppressed in three days, and carried on principally by thieves" while it lasted, has been enough to call forth from Southern chivalry, and refinement those philanthropic hopes and aspirations.

The Times, no longer able to discredit the capture of Vicksburg, or to claim for Lee the honor of a strategic victory at Gettysburg, again seeks aid of its oracle, and resummons Mr. Spence to make more false prophecies; but the organs of Confederate opinion have publicly taken from that gentleman his hardly earned diploma as their representative. Mr. Spence's opinions must henceforth be regarded as those of a private individual about which the mass of Englishmen need trouble themselves very little. The cause of the South has found a more formidable as well as a more consistent champion in the person of a writer whose greatness gives consequence even to his random words. T. C.'s" dealings with the "Nigger Question "have not been fortunate. Some years have passed since he favored us with a pamphlet under that title, in which the most defective side of his philosophy came uppermost, asserting, under cover of questionable facts and theories, the When her armies are being beaten back, inherent right of the white man to force and every mail tells of another fortress fallen, from the black man an amount of work satisthe South is ready to mistake a fire in her factory to the white man's mind. He now neighbor's chimney for a universal conflagra- professes to give in a nutshell the gist of the tion. The Richmond Enquirer exults over war which has for three years been rending the the New York riots in the strain of a Red In- Western continent, and, according to his acdian who anticipates the pleasure of wearing count, the gist of the whole matter is slavery. a fresh girdle of scalps. Our own Times re- Peter of the North, who hires his servants ceives the news of this good work" in a by the week or the day, wishes forcibly to spirit of more temperate but scarcely less de- prevent Paul of the South from hiring them for cided complacency, and draws from it, in life, which “T. C." evidently thinks the premore civilized terms, the same conclusions; ferable method. It seems to us, too, as it adding to these, however, another favorite seems to the leaders of the Southern Confedconclusion, which is peculiar to the advocates eracy, that, making allowance for a verbal of Southern independence on this side of the fallacy which lurks in the form of statement, Atlantic. The Richmond press does not vent- this is the gist of the question; that whature to tell us that, because the acts of the ever may be the various motives inspiring the Northern Government have excited a riot Northern armies the tendency of their victoagainst that class which those acts have been ries is to incline the balance towards the one, supposed to befriend, the North is, therefore, the tendency of their defeats to incline the a friend of slavery. It is a waste of time and balance towards the other, of two opposed patience to argue with men whose reasonings civilizations. But we differ from "T. C.” and assertions are daily refuted and disavowed and the South in preferring freedom to slavery, by those most closely concerned in the issue in preferring a society which is in the main of the great conflict, and who are likely to be" for freedom of discussion;" to a society well informed regarding its motives. Why which "represses freedom of discussion with have the Government and the free negroes, the tar-brush and the pine faggot." We prefer and the respectable citizens of New York been the clamor of a badly organized democracy.to

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the silence of a well-organized despotism, ar- The excuse of ancient is no excuse for modguments in bad grammar to the argument of ern times, when other forms of labor more noBowie-knives and loaded canes, a national ble and more lastingly productive have been palaver to bonfires of human beings; the discovered, and Christianity has taught that things that the South hate to the things that púoa dovλòs the Greek does not exist in the huthe South love. man family, that every man has been born to When "T. C." published his nigger pam-know and to think as well as to toil, that being phlet, the question of slavery seemed far from as well as doing is a part of his destiny, and us, the West Indian struggle was fast becom- that no race has been brought upon the earth ing a tradition of an earlier generation; de- solely to minister to the luxury or to increase nunciations which had to travel 3,000 miles to the wealth of another race. These are the find an object were naturally regarded as out- fundamental facts which the Southern plantlets for a cheap and somewhat tiresome phi-ers and "T. C." in his sullen moods seem lanthropy; everybody condemned that which to ignore, and which convert their speculanobody felt to be personally profitable. We tions into anachronisms as glaring as the inprided ourselves on being a superabund-stitution which they practically or theoretiantly anti-slavery nation; but our convic- cally uphold. In an age of the world which tions passed, like old coins, without scrutiny. implicitly believed in slavery, Aristotle had The crisis of the last three years has made it the honor of being the first to rest its defence necessary to rub the rust off their surfaces. on what seemed to him philosophic grounds; Even in politics those who can give no reason let us hope that no Englishman will be its for their faith cannot carry it safely through last defender in an age which believes in a storm. Were it possible to accept T. freedom. C.'s" last "authentic utterance gether serious, we should be driven to conclude that there were some amongst us who had never very clearly realized the nature of the institution of which they are the modi

66

as alto

From The Economist, 8 Aug.

COST OF THE WAR.

fied apologists. It may be questioned whether THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEBT AND THE hiring for life is in many cases to be recommended, whether the possibility of changing

THE following is a statement of the public

their relations is not generally desirable as a debt of the Federal Government as it stood check and incentive to master and servant. on 1st July last (charged at 4s. the dolBut slavery is not hiring for life,-the first

objection to it being that while the laborer lar) :

is worthy of his hire the slave has no hire.

INTEREST-BEARING DEBT.

4 per cent temp. loan-coin, 4,604,652

6

6

per

1,290 692,200 1,404,400 4,000,000

3,664,718 13,909,560 37,136,828 143,420

In all cases of free service there is a compact 4 per cent temp. loan-coin, £1,007,207
voluntarily entered into on both sides, work
to be performed and wages to be received.
Now in slavery there is no voluntary compact, 5 per cent temp. loan-coin, 14,161,637
nor any wages to be received; the slave is 5 per cent temp. loan-coin,
5 per cent bonds, due 1865,
merely kept in existence to perform the work,
the amount and nature of which are defined 5 per cent bonds, due 1871,
5 per cent bonds, due 1874,
solely by the master's will and the slave's
physical powers. Waiving for the present 6 per cent bonds, due 1868,
all ideas of morality irrespective of results, 6 per cent bonds, due 1881,
all theories of inalienable rights, we are con- 6 per cent bonds, due 1882,
tent to rest our condemnation of slavery on
cent Treasury note,
per cent certificates of in-
the ground that those two methods have been
debtedness, .
tried and the superiority of the former es-
tablished by history. Slavery, only tolerable
as a transition from barbarism, played out
its true part in that old age which was the
youth of the world; like other blots of civil-
ization it has been compelled either to pass
away by degrees or to assume at every stage
a more repulsive form. American slavery is
worse than classic slavery in almost the same
measure as the slavery of Greece and Rome
was worse than the mild and guarded form
of slavery which existed among the Jews;
and for this among other reasons, that an
evil which is out of date is doubly an evil.

7.30 per cent bonds, due
Aug. 19, 1864,
7.30 per cent bonds, due
Oct. 1, 1864,

£5,611,859

20,259,527

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31,418,648

6,273,174

10,582,200

17,397,900

27,984,100

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ed by the books of the Treasury department, 219,454,873 Total debt July 1, 1863, as estimated by the Sec'y in report of Dec. 1862, 224,459,480 5,004,607

Actual debt less than the estimated debt,

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to a sixth magnitude, or just visible, it is clear that as the star has undergone a reduction of ten diameters, it would be visible to the natural vision if removed in space to ten times its present distance, supposing no absorbing or extinguishing medium to exist there. A concave lens can be used for such £5,611,859 experiments, the measurement commencing 20,259,527 then at the lens itself. Reductions have been 86,255,174 27,984,100 obtained in these ways of well-known stars, 75,384,211 and give Castor as visible when reduced 10.3 times, Pollux eleven times, Procyon twelve, Sirius twenty times, the full moon three thousand, and the sun one million two hundred thousand times. Mr. Alvan Clark has actually seen the sun under such a reduction, attended by circumstances which lead him to believe that to be about the limit at which

219,454,873

224,459,480

5,004,601 Several facts of great interest appear in this

table.

First. As the amount of the Federal debt on the 4th March, 1861, the date of Mr. Lincoln's inauguration, was only 74,985,299 dollars, or less than fifteen millions sterling at the same rate of exchange as that used in the table, it may be broadly stated that the increase of debt caused by the civil war is more than £200,000,000, independently of any minor amounts which may have been raised by taxation.

Secondly. Mr. Chase has been able to borrow about £125,000,000 from sources other than the currency, which is much more than most persons in Europe believed he would be able to borrow.

Thirdly. Mr. Chase has issued £79,344,000 of paper currency, which, considering the paper circulation of the Union at the same rate of exchange was little more than £40,000,000, is one of the most surprising facts ever added to our economical experi

ence.

From The London Review.

APPARENT SIZE OF THE CELESTIAL BODIES.

THE new experiments of Mr. Alvan Clark, on the photometrical comparison of the sun and stars, are very curious and interesting. If we place a convex lens of the known focal distance of one foot between the eye and a star of the first magnitude, and find, when the lens is removed to a distance of eleven feet, that the star is reduced in appearance

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the human eye could ever perceive our great luminary. He has an underground dark chamber, two hundred and thirty feet in length, communicating at one end with the surface of the ground by an opening five feet deep, in which a lens of any required focal distance can be inserted, one of a twentieth of an inch focus, with its flat side cemented to one face of a prism, has been employed by Mr. Clark. No light whatever can enter the chamber, except through the little lens. A common silvered mirror over the opening receives the direct rays of the sun, and sends them down the opening into the prism, by which they are directed through the little lens into the chamber. An observer at the opposite end of the cellar sees the sun reduced in apparent size 55,200 times, and its light, then, in amount, varies but little from that of Sirius. Upon a car moveable in either direction is mounted

another lens, with a focal distance of six inches. The eye of the observer being brought in a line with the lenses, he sends the car by a cord into the chamber to the greatest distance that he can see the light through the

six-inch lens.

At noon, with a perfectly clear sky, the sun is thus visible at twelve feet away from the eye. The distance between the two lenses being two hundred and eighteen feet, the reduction by the small lens, if viewed from the point occupied by the car-lens, would be 52,320 times, and that again is reduced by the six-inch lens twenty-three times, making the total reduction 1,203,360 times. There seems then no reason to doubt-setting aside the idea of an extinguishing medium in space,

—that our sun would be only just visible to understanding thus enlightened, more than a human eye at 120,000 times the present ever must the heavens declare the glory of distance; or at 100,000 times away it would God." rank only as a pretty bright star of the first magnitude, although its parallax would be double that imputed to any star in the whole heavens, or only half as far away as the nearest. Because the sun's intrinsic splendor proves to be less than that of those stars whose distances have been measured, Mr. Clarke does not think it necessarily follows that its light or size is less than the average of existing stars; for, in the case of there being a diversity in size or brilliancy amongst the stars in space-as is most likely-those that would be visible would, of course, be the largest and brightest, while, by the laws of perspective, the smaller ones would be lost to view. Such would be the case equally with telescopic stars as well as those evident to the naked eye. The number of stars visible within a given area of space, by the aid of the more powerful telescopes, is far less in proportion to the power of the instruments than those visible in like areas to the unassisted eye or with smaller telescopes; and this fact has given rise to the idea of an extinguishing medium to light in space; but upon the above hypothesis, the result might equally arise from the diminution in perspective, as in this way we should see the whole, both great and small, of the stars in the nearer distances with moderate powers; while, though great and small did exist in the far off regions bounding the remotest reach of our most powerful telescopes, it would be only the great stars that we could see, and those only as the most minute specks of light. A vast number of smaller or more moderate lights may then exist amongst those whose extraordinary splendor reaches us through the aid of our best instruments. Were all the stars in existence of one pattern and one uniform brightness, and scattered broadcast in space, our great telescopes would count up more nearly the numbers belonging theoretically to their magnifying powers than they now do, as will be readily understood by considering the ratio in which an increase of radius increases the cubic contents of a sphere. If the distances imputed to several of our stars from parallax be true, these photometrical researches show our glorious luminary to be a very small star indeed; "and to the human

From The London Review. HABITS OF THE MOLE. "RECREATIVE SCIENCE" for this month contains a short but entertaining account of the captivity and death of a mole. Professor Owen, at the British Association the year before last, showed, in an admirable paper on the anatomy of that animal, how much was yet to be learnt of the structures of our indigenous animals, and these "Notes on the Mole," by the Rev. J. G. Wood, in Messrs. Groombridge's entertaining magazine, show how well worthy, too, of accurate study by the naturalist our native animals are.. Some young friends captured a mole, and brought it to that naturalist, secured in a large box. It ran about with great agility, thrusting its long and flexible snout into every crevice. A little earth was placed in the box, when the mole pushed its way through the loose soil, entering and re-entering the heap, and in a few moments scattering the earth tolerably evenly over the box, every now and then twitching with a quick, convulsive shaking the loose earth from its fur. At one moment the mole was grubbing away, hardly to be distinguished from the surrounding soil, completely covered with dust; the next instant the moving dust-heap had vanished, and in its place was a soft, velvety coat. The creature was unremitting in its attempts to get through the box, but the wood was too tough for it to make any impression, and after satisfying itself it could not get through a deal board, it took to attempts to scramble over the sides, ever slipping sideways, and coming on its forefeet. The rapid mobility of its snout was astonishing, but its senses of sight and smell seem to be practically obsolete, for a worm placed in its track within the tenth of an inch of its nose was not detected, although no sooner did its nose or foot touch one, than in a moment it flung itself upon its prey and shook the worm backwards and forwards and scratched it about until it got one end or other into its mouth, when it devoured it greedily, the crunching sound of its teeth behind audible two yards away. Worms it ate as fast as supplied—devouring fourteen in

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