construe an English statute better than English lawyers can; and the English Government cannot allow a foreign arbitrator to criticise the steps which it thought proper to take from day to day in its honest intention to carry out the law. that all Mr. ADAMS's information was untrue. It was only when he got a strong opinion from the present SOLICITOR GENERAL, hinting at the British Government being responsible for the consequences if it continued inactive, that Mr. ADAMS could get the case even laid before the Crown lawyers. It so happens that there is an exactly Days went by, Mr. ADAMS urging that the parallel case in American records, which vessel would get off, and our Government shows how the Government of the United replying that it could not seize unless proofs States acted under precisely similar circumwere furnished which, in the opinion of the stances. The case is that of the reclamaLaw Officers, would ensure a conviction. tions of Portugal for injuries inflicted, durThe Alabama, as Mr. ADAMS prophesied, ing its struggle with Brazil, on Portuguese did get away, and its escape and subsequent subjects by vessels that issued from the haradventures furnished the subject of much bours of the United States. The first comdiscussion in England. The general result plaints were made in 1816, and the correwas a great doubt as to the operation of the spondence between the two Governments Enlistment Act, and a clear conviction that on the subject continued to so late a date as the sooner and more effectually we stopped 1850. In 1817, at the urgent instance of the exit of armed vessels from neutral ports the Portuguese Minister, the PRESIDENT the better it would be, not only for the Fed-recommended to Congress a change in the erals, but for ourselves. The Government law as to fitting out cruisers in American acted on this conviction, took a certain amount of risk, and stopped the rams. Mr. ADAMS says that, when we found the Enlistment Act ineffectual, we ought to have altered it. That was a question entirely for the Government and Parliament of this country to decide. So far as a foreign nation is concerned, it is exactly the same thing to it whether the action of our Government in the case of the rams was or was not in conformity with our municipal laws so long as it was satisfactory. Our reply to the American claim is, in short, that in the first case which arose our Government honestly acted according to our existing law, and under the advice of our best lawyers, but that, finding the existing law practically insufficient, they, in compliance with the request of the Federals, and to meet the justice and necessity of the case, made such a change as effectually prevented the evil complained of. Are we, then, to be responsible because our Government in the first instance acted legally? No nation could admit this; otherwise foreigners would be the judges of what our municipal law ought to be, before we ourselves have an opportunity of seeing how it works. But did the Government act legally? This, as Lord RUSSELL justly remarks, resolves itself into the two questions-Did the Law Officers of the Crown form a right construction of the Foreign Enlistment Act? and, secondly, did the Cabinet, as guided by the Crown lawyers, act with reasonable promptitude? Who is to decide these questions? Lord RUSSELL refuses to submit them to arbitration. It is impossible, he says, for any foreign arbitrator to pretend that he can ports; and the Enlistment Act, on which our own was modelled, or supposed to be modelled, was the result. This measure, however, failed to effect the desired end, and complaints were made by the Portuguese for three years subsequently that the evil was increasing. Mr. ADAMS suggests that the injuries may have been inflict ed by vessels that had got out before the Enlistment Act came into operation; and there is no evidence to show whether this was so or not, except that the statement that the evil was increasing would lead to the supposition that there were more agents engaged in causing it. The parallel, however, is exact, except that many more vessels are known to have issued from American ports to the injury of the Portuguese than issued from English ports to the injury of the Federals; and the American vessels were in many cases commanded by Americans, whereas in no case has an English ship fitted out for the Confederate service been commanded by an Englishman. However, the main point is that the American Government for thirty years refused to allow the Portuguese claims, on the ground that it had honestly tried to do its duty, and would not hold itself answerable for the misdeeds of American citizens who, in spite of the honest vigilance of the Government, managed to commit an unlawful act to the prejudice of a foreign nation. So close is the parallel, so completely does it show that the American Government acted not suddenly, but on full deliberation, and for a period of thirty years, exactly as we have acted, that Mr. ADAMS is obliged to seek refuge in the astonishing plea that very possibly the American Government was to fail, but it would not cause all to fail; wrong throughout, and that England ought not to follow a bad precedent. We will leave Mr. ADAMS to settle this question with his own Government; and we feel sure that the American people, with, their substantial love of justice and respect for law, will be largely influenced, in spite of all their prepossessions, by the statements, arguments, and precedents put forward by the British Government. Reason and good feeling will settle the past, but how is the future to be settled? What precautions can be taken against the issue of cruisers from neutral ports in wars to come? No nation is so much interested as England in making the law against the issue of such vessels as rigid and as operative as possible. Will measures of prevention suffice? Experience shows that if the belligerent who has cause to apprehend the issue of these vessels is as active and pays as heavily for its information as the Federal Government was, and if the neutral is as honestly anxious as the English Government was to prevent the issue, it will be with a difficulty almost unsurmountable that a regular vessel of war can be built, equipped, and got to sea. An amount of interference with shipowners and of supervision over them which produces no really bad effects will suffice to prevent them taking the risk of building vessels of war for illegal purposes. The real danger is not here; it is in a very different quarter; and the case of the Shenandoah teaches us where to look for it. The Shenandoah was not a vessel of war; it was a common merchant ship-of the kind that trades to the East, and it was chartered to Bombay. On its voyage out, it was met by a vessel engaged in the perfectly legal trade of carrying guns. The guns were put on board the Bombay trader, and at once there was created on the high seas an armed cruiser in the Confederate service. It is hard to see how any preventive measures, any vigilance, or any good intentions could have hindered the creation of the Shenandoah, which has nevertheless inflicted such desperate injury on the American whaling-trade. It is only by penal measures operating after the evil has been done that other intending offenders can be deterred. And these penal measures must operate either against the men engaged in the transaction or against the ship. We do not see why severe penalties should not be inflicted on the men, or why, if a proper penal law were passed, it should not be put in execution. The want of evidence might cause some prosecutions and English subjects who knew that, if they ever set foot on English ground after fitting out a vessel in the way in which the Shenandoah was fitted out, they would certainly be arrested and tried, would hesitate in many instances to take the risk. That a neutral should act against the ship, and seize a vessel bearing the flag of the belli gerent, is a suggestion easily made, but full of the gravest difficulties, as it must almost inevitably involve the neutral in the war, and would cast upon the neutral the duty of performing a task which the other belligerent ought properly to discharge. The better course for the neutral to take would probably be to remonstrate with the belligerent Government that had authorized and profited by the transaction, and, if it were strong enough, it would remonstrate in a way which would make its remonstrances effectual. From the Saturday Review. THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT AND THE MECCA PILGRIMS. THE attention of Europe has been called by the French Government to the fearful condition of the annual Mecca caravans. Mecca this year has certainly been the birthplace of the cholera that hangs at present over the south of Europe. The columns of pilgrims that flock yearly to the Caaba from Egypt, Damascus, and Bagdad have long been famous for their numbers and their filth; and the ships that bring worshippers from Suez by the way of Yambu, Jeddah, and other seaports are simply magazines of dirt and of disease. The religion of Mahomet is in theory a wholesome and a sanitary one. Cleanliness, according to the tradition of the prophet, is one-half of the faith, and the key of prayer. In the first ages, our forefathers long languished in ignorance of the art of washing, down to the times of Abraham himself, when an angel was sent expressly to teach the unaccustomed patriarch how to perform the curious and unknown rite. But though water, as the believer learns from his Koran, will happily abound in Paradise, it is in the desert a rarer luxury; and the holy precept which permits the Mohanfmedan, for all purposes of ablution, to employ a handful of fine sand, is a concession partly to the necessities, and partly perhaps to the indolence, of the earthly pilgrim. Despite the anxious admonition of the Apostle of God, cleanliness throughout the Mecca pilgrimage is only conspicuous ments of disease which they carried with by its absence. A multitude of human beings, of every country and degree, huddled pell-mell with dromedaries, horses, asses, sheep, and goats, constitutes the procession; vermin of all kinds flourish and abound; but the patient believer, when once he has put on the sacred habit, is bidden by the rules of his faith to abjure the inhuman practice of insecticide. In such a motley gathering the elements of pestilence exist already, but they are fostered and increased by other unhealthy incidents of pilgrimage. The Korban Beiram, as its name implies, is a feast of sacrifice; and an older superstition perhaps than that of Mahomet still dimly survives in the yearly slaughter of innumerable victims. Their putrified remains add to the corruption that is breeding already in the air, and make the prevalent filth and impurity still more dangerous and deadly. Of late the numbers of pilgrims had been believed, upon fair authority, to be upon the decline; but we hear that this year the crowds amounted to at least two hundred thousand. The numbers, and the calamity which befel them, may recall to the mind of scholars an ancient and time-honoured Moslem superstition. When at Mecca the Imaum blesses the assembled tribes, the pious know that precisely 80,000 believers are present; if the number were greater, God would reduce it by his power; if less, angels would flock to make up the proper congregation. This year the surplus was fatally and suddenly reduced towards the predestined average; for the cholera, in all its virulence, made its appearance in the midst. The pilgrim bands were at once decimated, and more than decimated. It is the characteristic of that awful pestilence that its seeds multiply and fructify without visible contagion; and in a few months the cholera was spreading towards Egypt, Syria, and Constantinople, and steadily moving as usual from the East upon the West. them to be dissipated or dispersed. Thousands now go and return by sea, in the most crowded and malarious of ships; and unhappily for the country for which they are bound, the voyage is soon over. That cholera is thus engendered, if not propagated, is proved by our recent experience; and the next question to consider is how Europe can meet the evil. Putting aside the obvious precaution of setting one's own house in order, there are two rival methods of grappling with the cholera. The first is the antiquated and somewhat discredited system of quarantine. Ever since its invention, subsequently to the Crusades, the system of quarantine has injured European commerce, without securing to Europe immunity from pestilence. For a great commercial nation, with a hundred seaports, it is simply inoperative. To shut cholera out by establishing a rigid blockade is about as possible as it is to keep flies out of a garden by shutting the garden gates. The carelessness of officials, the fraud of a single captain or of a single pilot, may render every effort nugatory; and if one avenue is stopped, cholera has a habit of either going round or flying over it. The common sense of the world has come to a clear conclusion on the point. One Transatlantic controversialist, in a burst of commercial enthusiasm, asserts that the providential mission of cholera is to establish the utter futility of quarrantine; and careful observers, while they may hesitate to pronounce on the subject of cholera, will perhaps agree that such will at least be one of its results. To the French Government belongs the credit of having some time since despatched a medical commission to the East, to study the cholera in its origin, to investigate its character, and the laws that regulate its march. The information received from consular agents and from commissioners alike have led the French Government to the conclusion that the Mecca pilgrimage is a species of pestilence centre. The introduction of steam navigation only makes the dangers greater than ever. During the passage through the desert, the pilgrims, at all events, were in the open air; and a tedious journey allowed sufficient time for the ele Touching quarantine, the French have taken a strong and vigorous line. In 1851, an International Sanitary Conference was held at Paris, upon their invitation, and envoys were accredited to it from England, Russia, Spain, Austria, Italy, and Turkey. After long deliberation, the Conference agreed upon a report. A convention was drawn up, and submitted for approval by the va rious representatives to their Home Governments. Owing to the reluctance of one or more of the Powers of the Mediterranean seaboard to endorse the opinions of their envoys, this convention fell through. Five or six years later a second Conference was again held at Paris, which was destined in in its turn to prove equally abortive. The persistent energy of the French Government may be explained by the extreme losses inflicted on French commerce by the system of quarantine losses which some time since were stated to amount to the extravagant figure of one hundred millions of francs per annum. So high an estimate can- territorial authorities by means of interna not but have been founded on considerable tional arrangements." There is nothing that exaggeration. But that the annual injury is alarms English statesmen of the old school so great has always been admitted, and is im- thoroughly as any proposal emanating from plied again this month in the report of M. Paris to take the affairs of the East under Béhic. Quarantine being thus most noxious the international care of Europe. But this to commerce and innocuous to cholera, the jealousy of French ambition, however inFrench propose to fall back upon an alter-stinctive, may be carried too far. It would native expedient. It is not possible, when the cholera is once on its way, to arrest it en route. Is it possible by any means to strangle it in its cradle? Can nothing be done to improve the sanitary condition of the pestilence centres of the East? Unfortunately, the proceedings of the abortive sanitary conferences of 1851 and 1856 have never, we believe, been published in this country. Without doubt the documents are voluminous, but they must as certainly contain much interesting matter. Lord St. Germans, in 1852, moved for the printing of some of the papers connected with the earlier Congress, but at the request of the Derby Ministry the motion was allowed to fall into abeyance. It was represented at the time that their publication would only impede the ratification of the proposed Convention by Italy and Spain. The reason—if it ever was worth anything, which we doubt - no longer exists; and a selection, at all events, from the minutes of the proceedings might be a valuable addition to the next issue of Bluebook. If we are not mistaken, something like the question now raised by M. Béhic was raised, if not debated, before the first Conference. It was doubtless part of the project to substitute for the vain precautions of quarantine a stable system of sanitary supervision in the East. We should like to know whether this idea was elaborarated in the discussion, or dwelt upon in the final report. The French Government now recur to it again, and are anxious that quarantine, if it is not altogether to be replaced, may at all events be supplemented by some such scheme. "It is not sufficient," says M. Béhic, "to oppose to the cholera, upon each of the stages it traverses, obstacles which inflict real injury on commerce, and only offer to the public health guaranties too often powerless. It is, above all, necessary to organize at the point of departure a system of preventive measures connected with the be carried to an extreme if it were permitted to interfere with the progress of civilization or Christianity, or with the public health of Europe. The one thing to be investigated is, whether any serious good can be achieved by Europcan mediation or interference. The French evidently think it can, and we are far from saying that it cannot. M. Béhic limits himself to the sugges tion that a thorough system of observation and surveillance should be established at Jeddah or Suez; and that the Red Sea ships which carry back pilgrims from Mecca should be jealously inspected. He thinks that, if exact reports upon cases of illness arising during the passage could be brought betimes under the notice of local sanitary authorities, the " centres of infection" might be extinguished or isolated. If this means that the system of quarantine, which the French wish to see relaxed in the West, should be made stricter in the East, we are afraid that M. Béhic proposes what is at once illogical and useless. The proper step would surely be to insist upon proper san|itary precaution on board the Red Sea vessels themselves. And after all has been done in this way, a great deal will of necessity have been left undone. The miseries of the overland caravans, the dirt and filth of the crowds at Mecca, the pestilential miasma of the offal left after the sacrifices, will still remain unremedied. Those who know the East best will best be able to say whether the case is absolutely hopeless. would evidently be desperate if the Mohammedan world were left to its own devices; but it is worth considering whether, under sound international arrangements which would preclude all possibility of individual encroachment or ambition, the Western Powers cannot contrive anything to abate a nuisance which so intimately concerns their own welfare. It A FAREWELL TO AGASSIZ. BY O. W. HOLMES. How the mountains talked together, When they heard our friend had planned his How they'll bare their snowy scalps - When the cry goes through their passes, Till I have him for spectator!" Heaven keep him well and hearty, The traveller his p'ison, From every pest of Natur', Likewise the alligator, God bless the great Professor ! -Atlantic Monthly. EMIGRATION OF GYPSIES.- The Trenton women tell fortunes, discover stolen goods and (N.J.) Gazette of Tuesday says: raise money by all such methods. These gypsies say they came from England a few months ago, with the purpose of making this country their future home." "There is an encampment of gypsies on the Branch Turnpike which appears to be populous, requiring twenty-six wagons for the transportation of themselves and baggage. They are en- Owing to recent acts of the British Parliament, camped on the edge of a piece of woods above by which extensive commons are inclosed and the residence of Mr. Morgan Beakes, and ap: the former gypsey haunts rendered trespassable pear to have established a tolerably permanent settlement. The men buy, sell and trade horses;grounds, it is said that the gypsies are becoming manufacture and sell baskets, &c., and the quite numerous in the United States. |