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<t hfOßidc& Sentinel. " * /_ | WM§WBAI 1011116, Al ('f >T The Philadelphia Coffentlou — What Sew England Thinks of it. Every day brings to light the growing strength of the proposed Convention in Philadelphia with the conservative masses of the North. The honest yeomanry there are sick of the continued agitation of the negro question. They say that as slavery is forever abolished, there can be no good rea.-on given for continuing the agitation. The country needs quiet, harmony and good brotherhood. Having put down what they are pleased to call the rebellion, they are anxious that the former relation of the two sections should bo fully restored. Their object in supporting and pro- touting the war was to preserve and perpetuate ' the Union. Now that the war is ended, and the power of the Southern States crushed and destroyed, they demand that the country shall reap the fruits of victory in a restore 1 and harmonious Government. The conservative mas sc.- there do not ex pect or require from the f-’onthem people any expressions or protestations of rejpent attce tor the past; all they ask or de-ire is. that the South shall in good faith accept ; the results of the war, and be true in fu ture to the Constitution of the United States and the Laws made in pursuance thereof. The true men of the North and East do not require of the Southern people tire subnii -sion to a cruel test oath, to take which would perjure niuety-nine in every hundred of our inhabitants. They are willing and anxious to have us restored to our rights as co-equals under the Consti- ! tution of the United States, upon the terms of that instrument alone. These men are now powerless in the councils of the na tion. The Ilump Congress, after a session of eight months, has adjourned without ac complishing anything in the groat work of restoration and reconstruction. All that this revolutionary body lias done, has been to thwart the President in the wise and prudent eoarsa which he counselled towards the Southern people. Having an overwhelming majority in both Ilou-es, they have been enabled to defeat all measures tending to reconciliation arid peace. The duly elected and qualified rep resentatives from the Southern States have been denied admi- ion to their scats, and the States which they represent are held as subjected provinces. All this, too, in utter violation of their continued pro testations during the war that their only object in prosecuting the struggle was to save and preserve the union of the States. The safety, welfare and perpetuity of the Government demand that these revolution ists should be ejected from power. This can only Is; done through the ballot box. It becomes all-important, then, that there should he a union of all the Conservative and Constitutional men of both sections to perfect an organization which shall be able by and through the power of the ballot box to overcome and destroy this radical and destructive organization. The first step in this direction has been already taken. A call has been made fin - the as- i sembiing in Convention at Philadelphia of Representatives from all the States of the Union, to take into consideration the best j means for defeating the revolutionary ; party. Delegates have been invited from all the States to participate in that council. • Some of the Southern Press have opposed I the movement on account of some objec tionable theories embraced in the call. ' They have insisted that no one would be i admitted to seats in that body who could j not take the infamous Test Oath. We j have repeatedly given it as our opinion that! such a test would not lie applied. Weliavc j fortified our own opinion with the views of some of the leading men and presses of the j North. We have cited the position of the Boston Jh.it, Philadelphia Ayr, New York Times, World and Nitwit, the National Intelligencer and Washington Constitution- , ~ the Cincinnati Enquirer and i Cio and a number of other ativo journals. We take ,i <■■■■■' laying before our readers th iele on the same subject, which we clip from the Hartford fCoun.) Times, to show that at the North no test oath is expected to be insisted upon in the Philadelphia Convention: 'Tlu- object of tilt; Philadelphia Oonvon tion is to assemble in friendly council, dele gates from all tlio States of the Union, i t is to bring together the incooftlio North who opposed secession and rebellion, and the men of the South who participated in the rebellion, but who now surrender the doctrines of secession and ding to the Union —and it should he remembered that nearly all the men of the South took some part, directly or indirectly, in the rebellion. Wo have been at war long enough. The Conservative men desire peace, Union, friendly relations. We must have all these among the people of our common country, or the Republic will be short-feed indeed. It eoulu not be a Union Convention, were tenor eleven States refused admission to its counsels. It could not be a Union Con vention, were men who participated in the rebellion to be excluded. The object of the Convention is to bring that particular class into the I,'nion, harmoniously, and with friendly feel ings. It is the first Convention that has opened its arms to the entire country, since the war commenced. This gives it strength and in fluence. This is its main characteristic. IjOt the sneaking poltroons, who claim to be Unionists, but who at heart are exelu sionists, oppose the Convention for the rea son that “ex-rebels'’are to conjoin. They should keep clear of it entirely. They do not belong in a whole settled and truly pa triotic l nion.Convention. We want unity of action, unity in national counsels —a Union in name, and of hearts as well. Those who talk about a Union Conven tion at Philadelphia, with the ex-rebels ex- j eluded, do uot understand the object of that j Convention, nor appreciate the good work i which is contemplated by its friends. It is 1 to be the first ot friendly consultations be- | tween the North and South. Those whose bigoted imnds can consent to ; consult only with partisans—and partizans oftheThad. Stevens school at that—do not 1 come up to the spirit and intent of the Phil- ' adelphia Convention. Let them go to Ver- ! mont. and attend a “straight-forward Ke- I publican State Convention" there, andthev will get all they want—all that they are, in | their bigotry and narrow-minded views, e.v j pable of com prebend ing. Central America. A society lor the promotion of coloniza tion to Central America was organized iu Han Francisco last year, and a charter was obtained from the government of Nicaragua offering to each lamily, or member of the association, three hundred acres of land, together with freedom from taxation and duties of import and export for the’term often years, lion W. L. Underwood, ol Kentucky, was chosen President of the Colonisation Society, and on the 17th ot April last a vessel with forty families, with their household goods, agricultural imple ments, Ac., sailed from Han Francisco, for the purpose of settling under the charter. G. T. Limberg, an agent of the Society, is now in Cincinnati, for the purpose of furthering the colonization movement. Foreign Cotton. — There is a society in England. known as the "Cotton Suppb Association, which is particularly active in its endeavors to stimulate rivals to the cotton fields ot the Southern States. This association has distributed a great deal of American seed; they report, indeed, as much as 230 tens sent, for ex ample. to cotton growing districts in-the Ottoman Empire. They rejwt, also, that Turkey is fast becoming an increasingly valuable source of cotton supply. Italy and Brazil, likewise, give more and more favorable promise. Now, the amount o cotton received from other quarters than 1 India, give no such promise a* is indica ted by this association, and we choose to take their coulettr de rose report with some grains of allowance, especially since we have read similar reports from the same quarter, years agone. The President s Last Veto.— ln the last hour of the session of Congress the President sent in a A eto of the bill to erect the Territory of Montana into a surveying district. Executive exceptions are taken to the sale of 18 alternate odd sections of land to the New York Iron Mining and Manufacturing Company, at #1 25 per acre, provided for in the bill. The Com pany is organized under the laws of the State of New York, and the President ob jects to granting it extraordinary privilege, and control of so much property in another State. i Free Tickets to the Philadelphia con vention. i The following letter, from an esteemed correspondent, is upon a subject of some importance just now. Formerly our i»oo- j plfl hai fly ever felt the pressure of iuipe . cuniosity. Now. there are very few men in the Southern States whose private for tunes are sufficiently large to authorize an 1 expenditure of several hundred dollars for 1 the public n ice. The time and services of the gentlemen selected as delegates to j represent the Southern States in the Phil adelphia Convention, are all that could be reasonably expected from many of them. The material interests of the South are as i directly interested in the restoration of the Union of the States as the political and so cial. These interests should, it seems to us. be willing to bear some of the burdens incident to the effort to rcstor; the Union. We believe th*at the Southern railways will be.-: consult their-intere.-ts by adopting the generous and friendly policy recom mended by our correspondent, of "passing free of charge all the delegates to and from the Convention.” What do our railroad managers say to the qu -’d m: Will your rpad pass the Augusta, Aug. 2, 1866. Messrs. Editors: —l was glad to see that some of the railroads ui thi.- State, appre ciating the impoverished condition of our people, parsed the Delegates to and from the District Convention free of charge. Tins was -L .w' r. on the part of those ro:uls, arc guidon of the distressed con dition of the State, and the inability of j many of our be-t. citizens to give more, than 1 their tino to the public service. I notice, ; with pleasure, the action of the Savannah. Albany anil Gulf Road, and the Macon and j Brunswick Road in this matter. I desire now, through the columns of your valuable journal, to call the attention j of the managers of the Southern lines of 1 railroads to the fact that many persons se ! lected as Delegates from the South to the 1 Philadelphia Convention are so circum stanced in their means as to be unable at this time to bear the expense of the trip, and suggest that all the Southern railroads ! tender to the Southern Delegates free tickets over their roads going and return ing from the Convention. If you agree with me in thinking that something of this sort should he done, please give i hi; an insertion and call the attention of the railroads to the subject. Fair PLAY. Letter from a farmer. 1 The Chr.mic.le and .•Sentinel—Practical Hints About Farming, *^c. We take the liberty of publishing the | . following extracts from a busincs letter re- J ceived at this office, from a sterling farmer j in Washington county. His suggestions ; about agricultural labor are worthy the es ! pccial attention of our people. There are i hundreds of young men about our towns and cities, waiting for situations, or work ! ingfbra mere pittance, who, if “mixed , in’ with the fore; on some good plantation, j i would make more money for themselves, j ; and contribute greatly to the efficiency of j i our new labor system. We will endeavor, as space will permit, j jto give some agricultural reading. We j ; shall always ho glad to receive communica- : ! tions relative to the crops aud to agricultu i ral topics: Worthen’s Store, July 30. * * I have read the Chronicle and I Sentinel with pleasure and benefit from j my earliest boyhood, and can truly say j i that you have made great improvements j in it. 1 predict for you a successful career, i 1 always peak up for it, and as soon as ! nly neighbors can get some money, this j fall, I-will endeavor to increase your, sub- j scription list for this county. | j® Allow me to make a suggestion, not in any spirit of dictation. Nine-tenths of 1 your weekly subscribers are engaged in agriculture. Jf'you would devote one page j to agriculture and fruit-raising, and horti- , Culture to some extent, every week, you j would greatly benefit your paper and make i it nQirh more acceptable with the great i mass of your subscribers. The crop prospects are poor in middle Georgia. Too much dry weather for the ; corn; and unless the rains should come ! soon, the cotton will be short. Black labor will not do here, unless the white men work with them and lead them j through. By mixing in one industrious | white man to every five or ten blacks, they ' will do nearly as much work as formerly. | i and my brother have hired seven hands thi- year, and cultivate 70 acres in corn and 150 in cotton by working with them. We have no trouble, and with some rain now will make more cotton than the same hands can pick out by Christmas. All able bodied men in the country must go to work, or do worse. Our country must be built up, and universal labor is the only means. Too many men employ several f'reednien, and never'stay with them to order and show' them how to farm, and. as tltey are incompetent to do any thing without instruction, the consequences are poor crops and poor and abused stock, and grumbling about lazy freed men. As long as that course is pursued, our country will become poorer every year. Asa gen eral thing, our white people are too lazy. 1 trust you will use your influence in get ting itineration to this State as fast as pos sible. D. E. C. Capture op a Slaver— Kidnapping Freedjien. —lnformation has been received at the Navy Department of the capture of a slaver in Pensacola Bay, Fla., by the United States sloop Augustine, having on board 150 freedmen, secured at Mobile, Ala., and bound for Cuba. The system has been to enlist colored laborers about | Mobile, run them up the railroad toGreen j \ ille, Ala., switch on to the Pensacola road, and run down to a plantation in Florida, near the Escalbia River, place the negroes upon Hat boats, float down to tide water, slii}* them on board sloops, and passing by Pensacola gain the sea, and land their human freight in slavery. Parties in New Orleans, Mobile and New York are implicated in the affair. National Military Asylum. —The managers of the National Military Asylum I were in session in Washington last week. The selection of a site was postponed in ■ order to give time for new proposals. — General Banks, of Massachusetts was elected governor ; an executive committee was appointed, and by-laws were adopted. The fuud for the support of the Asylum is $3,000,000, yielding an annual income ot SIBO,OOO. The managers have appro priated $45,000 to organize a system ot outside relief, in order to aid such appli cants as may bo deserving of it, in places where they cannot be provided for, and in anticipation of the organized system of op erations. The Morgue. —A place called the Mor gue. where the bodies of unknown person found dead are deposited for three days foi identification, has recently been established in New York city. Over 70 bodies were received there last week, roost of them oi persons who died from the heat, and nios of the bodies were identified. The bodies are arranged in glass air-tight eases, when cool water drips on them, to retard decom position. The clothes of the deceased an hung up by the corpse for inspection, an decay is so rapid that they often afford th only certain means of identification. Tlui it is scarcely possi de for one having an., friends to be lost sigh; of altogether. Custom House Corruption.— Th< Journal of Commerce charges the Collec tor of Customs with having sold the ware house privilege, as a monopoly, to a sin gle party tor the sum of $40,000. It i said similar negotiations had been mad by former Collectors, and that merchant-, compelled by law to store in the designate, houses, pay exorbitant storage rates toreim burse the keeper in the privilege money and also to enable him to realize large pro fits ou his investments. The practice is : fraudulent perversion of the intents of th, law. which, should be summarily corrects by the pKiper authorise. Pensioners. —l nder an aetof Congress, approved in ISG2, pensioners in the “in surrectionary States were dropped from the rolls, but the parties whose names were ihu- passed ove r tor ihe time being, may have them restored on the list by applica tion to the Commissioner e>t pensions a; Washington, establishing their pa.-t am: present loyalty by two credible and rt - portable witnesses. The third twenty-inch cannon ever casi was east on Saturday afternoon at the For; Fitt eaunoa foundry, Pittsburg, and so far its can at present be known, was east successfully. Three furnaces were eai ployed in melting the metal, and thest were tired early in the morning. The tirs contained OS.oOO pounds of metal, tie second ti 7,000 pounds, and the third 20,0u0. making a total, in round numbers, oi 140,000 pounds of metal requii ed for the gum non. A. J. Rogers’ Minority Report on the Assassination Plot. We devote nearly the whole of our available .-pace to-day to the clear and able | minority report of Hon. A. J. Rogers, on the assassination conspiracy. AV e do not J believe that we could offer anything i more acceptable to the general reader at j this time. We shall give the conclusion to-morrow: Minority Report of A. J. Rogers, A Mauler of the Judiciary Committee, to jchichycds referred an investigation as to irh.it complicity, if any. Jefferson Davis, CUm xt t\ Clay. (}etjrge N. Sanders, j and others had in the Assassination of\ Mr. Lincoln. When I entered upon the duties of this j investigation, I did so with a deep sense j of the importance, difficulty and delicacy of j tire task imposed upon the committee. The j Government, by the offers of enormous re- i wards and the wording of its proclamations, j spread over the land a belief that Clement ; 0. Clay, George N. Sanders. Jefferson Da- ! vis. and others, wore, or might be, impli cated in the assassination of’the late Presi- ; dent, Abraham Lincoln. The historic im- I pi rtauee and record of the accused were of a charac-t r to make tile truth of this charge a di-grace, not only to any one pai- t ticular section of the country, but to the j whole of it, and the additional crimes thereafter imputed to them were of that awful nature which, when they are com mitted by men who have sat in it- high places, bin-ken the civilization of the nation in which they were trained and pre ferred. On the other hand, if it should turn out that those charges had been lightly made, and without satisfactory evidence as to a probability of their truth, the Government -o solemnly making them must needs suf ; fer in the esteem of all good men, as being i lacking in coolness during a general excite ment, and as sharing a fear which it was | its province to dispel. Knowing the entire unreliability of any testimony whose origin cannot be traced ; beyond a professional detective, especial’y when large rewards stand out in placarded l prospective, I determined, as far as in me j lay, to give every shred of evidence pre -1 sented as thorough an examination as I might be capable of bestowing upon it; and : in this spirit, with no desire to convict or to acquit capable of mastering my wish to educe the truth, L tried to ascertain it ; and this report is the result of the effort. For some reason or reasons not fully stated, the majority of the committee determined to throw in my way every possi ble impediment, not only in any assistance I might try to render them in what I con sidered a common task imposed upon usby the House, hut even in my working out any conclusion for myself, when it became evident that in this thing they not only would have none of my assistance or fellow ship, but resented deeply any attempt of mine to render any. I felt I must work out my own convic tions, not with the committee, but in spite of it. The papers were put away from me, locked in boxes, hidden ; and when L asked to see them, I was told, day after day, and week after week, that I could not. All sorts of reasons were assigned lor this, sometimes one, sometimes another; and, finally, I was told I should not. The House will recollect I brought the matter before it and that the Speaker decided I was not entitled to see the papers on which my opinions, as a member of that committee must be based, till such time as the other members of the committee chose to allow me, by saying they were done with them; and it was not till twelve o’clock yesterday that I was allowed freely to look through them and derive ac knowledge, based upon examination, for j the purposes of this report. It was said j the interests of the Government required j that none should see these papers save and only Mr. Boutwell, the honorable mem ber from Massachusetts, who was pre paring the majority report. I felt hurt at this, but I should not have alluded to this strange action on the part of the commit tee but that it was necessary to explain any j lack of brevity and clearness that may be apparent in portions, or in the whole, of this report, which, awaiting the right to j see the papers, or, rather, the power, I did nut commence till too late. If, there fore, this report be longer than it need to have been, or if it be less clear than such a report ought to be, the cause must be foutid in those reasons which induced my colleagues of the committee to endeavor to keep me in the dark till it was too late for me to use the light. As the members of the committee are members of the House, I will not presume to say they had any fear of an investigation of their doings in their examinations. As they are gentlemen, and bound by that character not to hide the truth, or any part of it, i will not say they kept me in the dark till the last hour to prevent my mak ing any reportat all; but this I must say, in justice to myself, that had they allowed me to use the usual privileges from which they excluded me, this report would have been of more benefit to the cause-of justice and of truth than l can now hope to make it, I should also have accompanied the deductions of this report with ampler ex tracts of the testimony, showing conclusive ly the existence and fostering, the hiring and the paying, of the most wicJced combi nation of perjurers the world has ever known. The main portions of the testimony al leged to connect Mr. Davis and others with the assassination of Mr. Lincoln were nil taken in the absence of Mr. Davis and of any counsel for him, and of any person capable of cross-examining and explaining the testimony. In the words of the late Attorney General, “Most of the evidence upon which they are based was obtained ex parte, without notice to the accused, atid whilst they were in custody in military prisons. Their publication might wrong the Government” —mark, the Government, not the accused. The Secretary of War, February 7th, 1866, writes to the Presi dent that the publication of the reports of the Judge Advocate General on this mat ter “is incompatible with the public inter ests.” This report, in the testimony it quotes, will show that the interests of the country would never have suffered by the dispensing with illegal secrecy, but that the interest* and fame of the. Judge Advo cate General himself would suffer in the eyes. of all the truth-loving and justice seeking people on earth. Secrecy has surrounded and shrouded, cot to say’ protected, every step of these examinations, and even in the committee room I seemed to be acting with a sort of secret council of inquisition , itself directed by an absent vice inquisitor and grand in quisitor too. How such an un-American mode of pro cedure for the discovery and prosecution of crimes cognizable by the civil tribunals of the country should ever exist in it, I find it impossible to fully understand or ex plain. “The substance of the testimony rendered before the committee, viva voce and docu mentary. is ii-esli in my memory, and also the result of some of the investigations made into its credibility. It was in as certaining the latter that 1 found myself forced to travel over the nebulous and ex tended region of the so-called “assassin trial.” There are two reports of this trial —one ipproved by Mr. Holt, revised by Mr. Burnett, and the Associated Press report, published by Peterson & Cos., of Philadel phia. Whatever of suspicion may nat urally attach to the former, none can to the latter. It will be remembered by the House hat four persons were hung by the un constitutional tribunal referred to. and that it was before this house, court, commission, or whatever you may choose to call it. :hat Jefferson Davis was. after the military uanner, charged with “combining, eon oderatiug and conspiring” with Booth, surratt. et al. The specification to the charge went still further, tor that accused -hem with inciting and encouraging John Wilkes Booth et al. At this trial, the first and most important ■art of a long tissue of falsehoods was in roduced 'to connect Mr. Davis with the assassination. The parties unconstitutional!;/ Mien h rough the subservient instrumentality oi his so-called court or commission were ai barged with conspiring with Davis, and r did seem strange to me that neither they ror their counsel made such examination •r'thc witnesses to this as might have beet pee ted. The reason was obviom# enough mwever. In the progress of that trial every pre -ration taught by ages of experience an motioned by authority was set aside. The prisoners, said to have been lueitei e niuraer. by ballet, by infection, by arson md by poison, by Jefferson Davis, wer< ■nought to hear these charges and specifies ons with irons upon them—with iron?, 00, of an unusual construction, irritating nd painful, well calculated to distrai heir attention from the savings of th. uilitary prosecutor. The House will re comber that since the trial of Cranbourne a 1606, tried for conspiring against th ifeof the King of England, for raising ebellion in aid of a foreign enemy no pris • ter has ‘ ever been tried in irons before < legitimate court anywhere that English i /token. The C hies Justice of Englam -aid ; ' Look you, keeper, you should taki iff the prisi ners' irons when they are a jar. for they should stand at their eas when they are tried.” But the parties alleged to have been incited by Mr. Davis did not so stand, but -rood in constrainment and in pain, with heir heads buried in a sort of sack, de vised to prevent their seeing! In this Might, from dark cells, they were brought :o be charged with having been incited by Mr. Davis, a-iid they pleaded not guilty. As the Congressional Committee believe -ecreey necessary. as the Attorney Genera hat was, recommends it. and the Secretary if War orders it, so that court practise?, ,t ; and :t was iu secret, with closed doors, the perjured reporter present, that the chief testimony alleged to implicate Mr. Davis was taken; and this testimony would not now be publicly known had it not been published in Cincinnati through Pitman's violation of his oath. Having arrived at the manner in which I this testimony' was taken, there now re mains for me only to ascertain how far it could be relied on, and what it professed to prove. It is a theory of courts militarv that when the accused are unprovided with counsel, the prosecutor, teehnieallv termed ; “the judge advocate,” shall defend the ac-! cused as well as plead the accusation—in fact, boa sort of amicus curia - not only to the court, but to the accused. Mes*rs. t Davis, Clay, Thompson et a!., had no counsel, of course, and the only lawyer for i the other accused capable of grasping the t : subject was insulted bv the court in a man- I ner so repugnant to personal self-respect and professional dignity, that he left it, and ' in heu of cross-examining testimony, was i forced to confine himself to the production j of an argument against the constitution i ality of the court, an argument whose has been endorsed by the deei ! cisiou of the Supreme Court in the habeas j corpus case of Milligan. Bowles and Hor- I sey. The lawyer so insulted and so feared j was a Senator of the United States, whose reputation is second to none in this coun try—once an Attorney General pf the Uni . ted States, and for years the leader of its j bar. That I should be jealously excluded by ; the committee from investigating testimo ' ny Reverdy Johnson was thus prevented i from testing; that the gentleman from Massachusetts, and the chairman of the committee, should use towards me the | very same measures and means adopted by Generals Hunter arid Harris must, it would seem, be due to their acting under ; similar motives. It was, therefore, natural that in trying ' to investigate the charge of complicity | made against Mr. Davis, this continual at tempt at secrecy, these unusual means to prevent any searching ■ examination into the reliability of the test' ’ ” lead me to suspect that the hastily and lightly made, ; President had been misinfc 1 fully and recklessly misled i:, urinated a chaise so dire at prominent, an* just ther of the nation. This si part of the court, this avoi I mate scrutiny, led me to cc , first duty was to ascertain j the witnesses, to sift it tho i ascertain by what, if any j were actuated in the delivi i ■ J ! evidence and written affid- Sanford Conover, the principal witness and originator of all the oral testimony relevant procured by the Bureau of Milita ry Justice to establish the guilt of Davis, was examined by the Committee of the Judiciary. The method of his exahiina tion w-as this. The testimony he had given at the mock trial on the 20th day of May, 1865, was read to him, and he said it was all t rue. In that testimony he was asked, being duly sworn. Q. —State your full name and present place of residence. • A.—Sanford Conover, Montreal, Can ada. On the 18th of June I find he swore “upon the Holy Evangelists” that his I name was not Conover, but James Watson ! Wallace; and in the same positive man j ner he denies under oath in Canada ail he swore to in Washington, and ends by making the following proposition: _ ‘ ‘ Five hundred dollars reward will be given for the arrest, so that I can bring to punishment in Canada, the 'infamous and perjured scoundrel who recently personated mo under the name of Sanford Conover, and deposed to a tissue of falsehoods be fore the Military Commission at Washing j ton. James' W. Wallace. w ! Conover, having finally admitted that he j and Wallace were one man with two names, ! and Wallace swearing that Conover was a scoundrel, whose testimony before the Military Commission was but a tissue of falsehoods, might well relieve me from all analysis of the testimony given by him until such crime as perjury in the courts, I delivered from any motive, becomes a cei j tifieate of truth-tolling in the other. It were needless to detail here what Con- I over alias Wallace deposed to at the mock | trial, and that is the testimony of his which Mr. Holt forwarded to the Judiciary Com mittee. A garbled report of it by Pitman, bearing the unsatisfactory authentication of Mr. Holt and Burnett will be found in Pitman’s report, page 28. A report cor rect to a word, taken by the reporters of the Senate corps, and given by Holt to the Associated Press, will be found in the Associated Press copy of “The Conspiracy Trial,” published in Philadelphia by T. IJ. Peterson & Bros , page 137. The test creditable, .v.miii istaliit-lt milt of Jefferson Dm is. (■• urge •• ode; -. Jacob Th .; • ft;.. it 0 <’lay, 1).- Blackbur Cleary, I Cameron " A !V* lin, Capt e'.'.' Carroll, ti mutely tq where hi He says 1865, de versatio, ’ 'uu .i hii m.m! TS-.mip son in the room of the latter, whence it cp pea red that Surratt had brought Thompson dispatches from Richmond, one from Ben jamin, and also a letter in cipher from Mr. Davis. -/‘Previous to that,” says Conover, “I had a conversation with Mr. Thompson relative to the plot to assassinate Mr, Lin coln and his Cabinet, and had been invited by Mr. Thompson to participate in the en terprise.” Thompson laid his hand on the dispatches brought by Surratt, Conover asserts, and said, “This makes the thing all right,” referring to the assent of the rebel authorities. Mr. Lincoln, Mr. John son, the Secretaries of War and of State, Judge Chase and General Grant were to be the victims. Conover asserts his first interview with Thompson was in February 1865, and that at that first interview Thompson said to him, “some our boys are going to play a grand joke on Abe and Andy.” The joke Thompson explained to Conover at this first interview was to kill them, and at the same interview Con over says that Thompson explained to him that the killing of a tyrant was no murder— that it was only a removal from office. Thompson told Conover, too. that he had commissioned Booth, and all engaged to do the killing would receive commissions, and if they escaped to Canada they could not be successfully claimed under the extradi tion treaty. Conover states further, that the Very day of the assassination, or the day before, he had a conversation with Cleary at the St. Lawrenee Hotel, Montreal. They spoke of the rejoicings in the North over the surrender of Lee, and Cleary, accord ing to Conover, said they would put the laugh on the other side of their mouths in a day or two, and, adds Conover, “The conspiracy was talked of at that time about as c mmonlv as one would speak of the weather.” Conover asserts also, that Sanders spoke to him freely about Booth, and feared the latter woulo make a fizzle, he being reck less and dissipated. Conover said he was ail this time corres pondent of the New York Tribune. Conover further deposed to a proposition being made to destroy the Croton dam at New York, to distress manufactories and to distress the people generally, to Thomp son's saying that the whole city would soon be destroyed oy fire. Conover said he saw neither Payne nor Atzcrodt in Canada, nor did he there ever hear the name of Mary E. Surratt. He said that while in Canada be went by the name of James Watson Wallace. Mr. Thompson had told Conover, lie says, that he thought the assassination of Mr. Lincoln and the Cabinet would meet tbe approval of the Government at Richmond ; that was in February, an 1 in April, when Surratt arrived from Rich mond, Mr. Thompson, says Conover, re ferred to the dispatches brought as having furnished the assent. Having thus testified to a certain con nection between the Government at Rich mond and the assassins in 'Washington, via Canada, Conover next testifies to the in fection plot. He says one Dr. Blackburn packed a .lumber of trunks with infected clothing. Blackburn represented himself as an agent if the C. S. A., as Thompson did. Black - uirn offered according to Conover, to pay ■«veral thousands of dollars to Mr. John Jameron if he would accompany him t> Bermuda to take charge of goods infected with yellow fever and bring them to New York city. Cameron, fearing the feve. for himself, refused. Jacob Thompson vas the money man furnishing the fund.-, facob Thompson and Mr. Cleary,. Cono ver knows, approved of and were interest ed in this design, and he thinks Lewis sanders was present when Blackburn poke of this enterprise. In June (or rather January, according o the correct report of his testimony, i tie dea of poisoning the Croton reservoir wa? liscussed. Blackburn knew the capacity hereof, and had calculated the amount o, trvehnine and other poisons neeepary. t'hompson thought they could not ge •noueh poisou together without excitim. -uspieion. Blackburn thought ue could. L>r. Paliin, of St. Louis. IV. Stuart Robm -.jii. Lewis Sanders and Cleary’ were j l , ” ■nt at this discussion, approved it. and Dr. Baffin and others thought it could be managed from Europe. . Conover says he saw Surratt in Canada three or four days after the assassination, when, hearing officers were on his track, he fled. Then says Conover : "When’ Mr. Thompson received the fispatch from Richmond in April assenting to the assassination, there were present Mr. Surratt. General Carroll, of Tetinnes -ee, I think Mr. Castleman, and I believe there were one or two others in the room, -itting farther back. General Carroll par icipated in the conversation, and expressed himself as more anxious that Mr. T should be killed than anybody e - said if the damned prick-louse killed by somebody he would kill him him self. His expression was a word of con tempt for a tailor, so I have always under stood. At this interview it was distinctly said that the enterprise of assassinating the President was fully confirmed by the rebel authorities at Richmond. ” Booth, says Conover, went by the nick name of Pet. and Conover adds, that he saw him in conversation with Thompson and Sanders, and heard him so called by Cleary. Conover, on the 27th of June, being sworn, was asked if the following testimony was given by him on October ltSth, 1865, j in the St. Albans ease. j He said, yes, but that it contained the testimony of other Wallaces who testified. « James Watson Wallace on his oath says: ; am a native of Virginia, one of the Confederate States. 1 resided in Jefferson. in said State. I left that State in October. 1 know Jamal A. Seddon was Secretary of War last yeaf&c., kc. * * * * “Whenl was in Virginia I lived in my own house until I was burned out, and my family turned out by the Northern sol diers. [Signed.] “J. Watson Wallace." The counsel for the _ United States ob jected to the whole of this evidence as ille gal. irrelevant, and foreign to the issue, and consequently declined to cross-ex amine. The testimony of Merritt was not. as al ready stated, accusatory of Mr. Davis, but of those persons who. according to Con over, acted for Mr. Davis, or with his as-ent, in Canada. Merritt says lie was introduced to George N. Sanders by Colonel Steele ; that he (Steele) said of Lincoln, that the old tyrant never will serve another term if he is elected, and that Sanders then said he (Lincoln 1 would keep himself mighty close if he did serve another. "About the middle of February a meet ing of rebels was heid in Montreal, to which I.” says Merritt, "was invited by Captain -lontt T should think there were ten or w - ‘ :s, Steele, Scott, vl- Tire Young. •V ' iTby raeh a'tyrant a/’l.toc Whe did not wish to recognize them as ! aids take to accomplish this object. The. letter was read openly in the meeting by Sanders, after which it was handed to those pre sent and read by them, one after another. Colonel Steele, Young and Hill, and I think, Captain Scott, read it. I did not hear anv objection raised. ’ ’ Merritt gees on to say that Sanders then named a number of persons who were willing and ready as he said, to en 1 gage in the undertaking to remove the President, Yiee President. Cabinet, and [ some of the leading Generals, and that j there was aay amount of money to accom | plish the purpose, meaning the assassina ; tion—the nanes of Booth, Harper, Ran j clall, and Harrison, (Surratt,) and one i Plug of Port Tobaaco, (Atzerodt,) San ders said, according to Merritt, that Booth was heart aid soul in this project, because Beall, hung in New York, was his cousin. Sanders thought disposing of the leading men would satisfy the people they had friends in tie North, and incline them to grant the South better terms. Merritt ays also, that, on the sth of April last, in Toronto, he met Harper and Ford. Next morning Harper, Cald well, Randal, Holt and a man called Texas, met him at the Queen’s Hotel, and said they were going to the States to kick up the damnedest row that had ever been heard of. An hour or two after meeting Harper tigaia, Merritsays Harper told him if he did not hear of the death of Old Abe, and of the Vice President, and of G en. Dix, in less tiian ten days he (Merritt) might put him down as a damned fool. This was the Otli of April. Booth was mentioned as being in Washington. On the Bth of April, Merritt says he found that Harper and Caldwell had started for the States. Merritt says he then went to Squire Davidson, a justice of peace, to have them stopped ;' but Davidson thought the thing too ridiculous to notice. [The only justice of the peace of that name in Canada denies any such informa tion being given him by Merritt at all.] Merritt says that, in February, 1865, Clay told him in Toronto, that he knew all about the letter Sanders had exhibited at the meeting in Montreal, amj on Merritt’s a -kit e what he thought about it. replied, he thoughr. the end w uir .justify the fueans. Merritt swore to Aiken, in cross examination at the trial, that he had ne i received one dollar from the ■ government ior furnishing any information from Cana da, nor he hadii'vivivc i anything “iV -m 'Veil this .V lari't swon ' 1 ' oross-ex amined him under >ath and in that ex amin-iiion lie contradicted all theft Agoing, and admitted that he had received in ac tual pay an aggregate of six thousand dol lar* for ms information from the Govern- States, War Department. For his testimony and services the sum of six thousand dollars in the aggregate. And that cross-exam ination fully disproving his testimony in chief, the committee would not allow that reporter to translate from his notes. The testimony of Conover being wholly invalidated by _ his contradictions, would amount to nothing unsupported, with its evident perjuries unexplained. When Mr. Holt forwarded it with the rest he accom panied the whole with an explanatory ar gument, whose every sentence is redolent witli the logic of prosecution, and, to me, it almost seemed as if it revealed something of personal motive in the conviction. There is certainly nothing in it of the amicus cu ria spirit, nothing of the searcher after | truth, nothing but the avidity for blood of | the military prosecutor. The sending of any argument to, convince the committee was in itself a step of doubtful propriety, as the committee were supposed by the representatives of the nation to be able to draw their own conclusions from the testi mony, and hence were appointed to do so, and the House, by appointing them, had given the strongest evidence that they did not desire to adopt those of Mr. Holt, al ready tendered. The sending of an argu ment might be explained as "the natural effect of that habit of directing verdicts nc- i quired in tne Bureau of Military Justice; l but the sending of such an argument I feel j compelled, to attribute to a desire to place j his own views so before the committee as j to render investigation a mere matter of | form; and I believe this was done to hide J the, disgraceful fact that the assassination I of ->lr. Lincoln was seized upon as a pretext to hatch charges against a number of his torical personages, to blacken their private characters, and afford excuse for their trial through the useless forms of a military commission, and through that ductile in strument ofvengeanee in the handsofpower, murder them. Ido not say that Judge Holt did himself originate thecharges or organize the plot of the perjurers, because I do not know that he did. I merely say that a | plot, based on the assassination, was formed | against Davis, Clay, and others, and that ; the plotters did, and even yet operate through the Bureau of Military Justice, and that the argument forwarded by Mi: Holt to i.he Committee on the Judiciary looked to me like a shield extended over -he plotters; extended, it may be, from 10 personal animosity to Messrs. Davis, Clay*, ami the others; extended, it may be with a desire to save certain officers of the government from the charge of having been betrayed into the mistakes of a vague ; apprehension, the blunders of an excite ment which it was their province to ailay or control, not to increase or share, but still extended over acknowledged, self-con victed, most inched perjury; and the fact that Mr. Holt did himself pay moneys to ' more than one of them, may awaken suspi cion that there was bribery as well as per iury; perhaps not conscious liberty, but the payment for false testimony was eom aitted; though it may have 'been done ; unocently,. it produced' the usual effect of subordination of perjury. For the sake of humanity and justice. I would in this report press upon the House i request that the cross-examination of Merritt be translated and published. I »ra aware that the Executive, acting under . he advice of Senator Wilson, of Ma.-.-a ehusett?, and other gentlemen of loyalty I no less known, has released Mr. Clay on parole, and that the release is in itself an icknowledgment that the President disbe ieves. not only Merritt's testimony, but dso that of every one of tbe members of he plot. But this is not sufficient. It is lue to all the accused that the nation at ast see and recognize the ffimsiness and ualice of these monstrous perjuries. Let it be remembered that Conover's own exposition of his perjuries was made I n Canada during the trial, and then how j ire we to account for this man’s not only ■ ■ring left at large, but being sent here as a ' ■xrnipetent witness to testify before a Jodi- ; ianj Committee of this House, and this estimony already disproved, accompanies! iy an argument from Judge Holt shaped I to induce a belief in it ? The testimony of Henry Finegas going ■ :o implicate George N. Sanders and Wit ham C. Cleary, led me to investigate hi? character and credibility. I find he was almost reared by a man named Price, in Boston, now residing in Washington, and xnown as a gambler and a prize fighter ; | that Finegas’ adopted and followed the profession ; and he went with Butler’s ex- | peiition to New Orleans, entered the ser vice, held a commission, left the service on account of misdemeanors known to Gener- , al N. P. Bank? ; that Finejm? next ap pears a? a detective in Norfolk, and for certain crimes is expelled from the Depart ment of Virginia and North Carolina, in •ompany with another detective named .And ti us or,. • 1 find each and all ; hew ness .:■-..t forward at the' so-called trial to implicate Jefferson Davis, ] Clement C. Clay, Jacob Thompson and Others. Pj be'either convicted perjurers or! men of imfamous life, and, therefore, the 1 first conclusion to which I arrived is, that all the testimony taken to establish said I complicity, under the pretence of provok- ! ing a general conspiracy, is wildly un- j worthy of credit, and that its ex parte re- ! ceptiou even by that court, and the pro- * tection of the witnesses, was an act highly reprehensible, discreditable to the officers | of the court, a disgrace to the nation and its military service, under a misapplication of the powers and regulation ot which this conspiracy to alarm the people and jeopar dize the reputation, liberty, and life of in nocent men was festered and partially con summated. With the testimony taken at the cele brated trioT was forwarded from that strange receptacle of evidence, "the Bu rea u of Military Justice. ? ’ affidavits taken since. . Among these was the affidavit ot one Campbell, acknowledged by him to be such, and to have been sworn to at the said Bureau. Campbell was brought be fore us and asked if the contests of that affidavit were true. He said it was all false. He was then asked — ‘"Why did you make it ?” ‘1 was informed by Mr. Conover that Judge Holt had offered a reward of SIOO,- 000 for the capture of Jefferson Davis; that he (Holt) had no authority really to do it: that now that Jefferson Days was taken, they had not enough against him to justify them in what they had done ; that Judge Holt wanted to get witnesses to prove that Davis was interested in the as sassination of President Lincoln, so as to justify him in payimr the $100,000.” ‘‘l never lived in New Orleans/’ fin his affidavit he had sworn lie did.] "I neve - was in Richmond,” ! [He had sworn to residing there. ] "l do not know John Surratt, and never ; saw him.” HI - had -worn to a conversation with him/ -aw Jefferson Davis. The evi ; repared by Conover. I saw a portion of it. 1 never was derate service. I. never saw V Conover said I thould be well . i for my evidence. My proper Campbell,'but Joseph Horne. : was taken in Judge Holt’s of the other witnesses Campbell 'novel is not his real name ; X 1,., name i* Roberts.” j “Farnham R. Wriglit is not his real j name ;it is John Waters. ’’_ ‘‘Jno. H. Patton is not his real name ; | it is Smith.” ‘‘Sarah Douglas is not her real name. I Her name was Dunham. [This is Con j over’s true name,] “There was another woman sworn. She gave an assumed name. ” i One of the women was Conover’s wife; t e other his sister-in-law. “Conover told me that if I engaged in it, I it was not going to hurt anybody ; that J efferson Davis would never be brought to trial ; and that if this evidence got to him he would leave the country. Conover directed me to assume the name of Camp bell. There was a person described by that name who was supposed to be im plicated in that affair, and I was represent ing this party. I met Conover, in the .first place, by the appointment of Snevel. Snevel said I could make money out of it. Money was my motive. - I received $625. I received SIOO from Conover and SSOO from Judge Holt. I got $l5O at Boston and $l5O at St. Albans. I went toCanada to hunt up a witness to swear false, who was to represent Lamar. Snevel and Con over together arranged with me to go to Canada, Snevel saw the written evidence I was to swear to after Conover wrote it. ’ ’ These hurried, yet correct extracts from the testimony of Campbell before the com mittee may seem all sufficient to gus ge the value of Conover’s evidence, Snevel’s and his own ; but lest they should seem to lack confirmation, 1 append extracts from that of Snevel, sworn May 24, 1866. The deposition he made before Judge Holt was read to him. He stated it was ‘ false from leginning to end. ’ ’ “Conover wrote out the evidence, and I learned it by heart. I made it to make money. I received $376 from Holt, and SIOO from Conover, barmen B. Wright’s name is really J ohn W aters. John McGill is an assumed name, not his.”- [These witnesses of two names each were witnesses who had been procured by the Bureau of Military Justice, and who had testified to corroborate the testimony of Conover and Merritt as Campbell and S" !vel did.] uevel further says: “I told Conover 11 was coming on here to testify to the -th ; that I had not had any rest since I ■ ire to what I did. lie said f would be i « worse fix than I was now. This was on . Saturday. He said things would be led and there would be no further |' able. When the false evidence I was swear to was read over to me by Cono ver, Campbell and Conover’s brother-in law (Mr. Ansen) were present. Conover toll me lie knew what Holt would ask me, 1 Conover asked me the same ques ions, i gave this false evidence before Holt. \\ hen I was wrong Conover would nod his head. Conover was present when I was sworn by Holt. When Conover would nod I would then correct it as near as I could. Campbell and I rehearsed at the hotel iu Washington.” Conover in his testimony said, “ I was asked if such a sum would be satisfactory ? I said it would. I can’t tell how much I received. Conover was an agent of the Government to hunt up evidence.” Having but little time to end this report, I will not swell it with any additional ex tracts from the confessions of the people. Conover was present when Campbell and Snevel testified thus to his villainy. I must inform the House that Conover alias Watson, alias. Dunham, etc, etc., was not ordered into arrest; that the commit tee, at his request, permitted him to go to New York to procure other testimony. One officer was sent with him, and Cono ver effected his escape, of course ; has not been heard of since, and has probably left the country. Whether any efforts have been made to catch him I know not: but as he was the teacher and guide of perjuries committed by the other witnesses procured through the Bureau of Military Justice, it would seem the solemn duty of this Government to apprehend, try, pun ish so foul a criminal, and in his trial as certain What temptations and through whom they came, led him to the manufac turing so awful a plot. Conover it was who found Montgomery. Conover it was who found Merritt, Campbell, Snevel and the rest; who rehearsed and taught them, and, as professor of perjury, watched his pupiL in their delivery thereof at lesson time before Judge Holt. Judge Holt himself was a wit ness before the committee. He of himself knew noth ing, of course, but he swore to bis own opinion, derived from the trustworthy testimony of the parties described, for whose testimony they say the Judge him self paid them. The testimony and revelations of Camp bell and Snevel, the abscondingofConover, were not needed by me to aid in forming my opinion of the value of Montgomery's perjuries or those of Conover ; still, when they testified so clearly, when the females of Conover’s family were shown to have also been sacrificed by him to this demon of falsehood for lucre, the cool turpitude of the wnole crew sickened me with shame, and made me sorrow over the fact that such people could claim the name of Ameri can. while I wondered who the hidden arch-conspirator behind Conover might be. The transparency of the whole plot, the imbecility of its organization and manage ment, its ease of discovery by the poorest tests of the cheapest iogie, betrayed in the framer so complete a reliance in popular credulity, so thorough an appreciation of the maxim that the masses of men believe improbable lies more readily than those colored with an air of trutn. that l could scarce resist the desire of having Campbell, Conover, Snevel. the women and the rest, all arrested and handed over to the reliable civil tribunals of the country, charged with perjury. The proof was within easy reach, plain and cumulative. I felt the honor ; nation required the punishment of these 1 people, were it only in atonement for the | credulity of those in high places who nad | so readily credited or appeared to credit j and act upon such a tissue of absurdities, ! and so stated my views to the" committee. Not one of those witnesses, nor the parties using and instructing them, if any ft sides Conover, possessed any. peculiar ' talent for imposture other than impudence and military power to awe ail questionings. A man of sense by trying to give this plot an appearance of probability would most like ly have failed sooner and no less signally, as wise men often do in addressing a multi tude, from not daring to calculate upon the prodigious extent of their credulity, es pecially where the figments presented to them involve the fearful and the terrible. Dr. Pallin, the man Blackburn, -Mr. Robinson, and other innocent citizens, nearly fell a sacrifice to the fury and fear of poison and murder, which these witnesses created, and owe their safety only to a peculiarity of our national temperament. We are most easy of all people satiated with bloody punishment. Other nations are like the tame tiger, which, when its native appetite for slaughter is indulged in one instance, rushes on promiscuous ravage. We rather resemble fhc sleuth dog, which, eager fierce, and clamorous in pursuit of his prey, desists from it as soon as blood is sprinkled upon his path. . The whole of this affair, which would simply pass down to posterity as an absurd ity unsurpassed in the history of nations, ■ were it not for the serious dangers and con sequences it came near entailing, was drawn into the arena of polities j A few weeks ago a Radical editor wrote: ; “Would that the hand of Booth had been less steady, that of Atzerodt more sure;” 1 and a woman, in the employ of the Gov ! ernment, published an accusation against ; the President as one of the conspirators against the fife of Mr. Lincoln. Recoilect ing that the taking of his own life was a leading object of Atzerodt’s and Booth's, | one may say of Andrew Johnson what a writer of the Popish plot said against j Charles the Second : "He should be tried for conspiring his own death and hanged in terrorem. That this plot, to prove design? of pois- i ouing by infecting, of complicity with the past and future assassinations, should have culminated tnto such absurdities, is uatu- j ral. for falsehood run mad outstrips itself, i and the dangerous allegations of Conover, ! Merritt. Hyams, Campbell, Snevel. Mont gomery and Finegas have their prototypes ! in other lands and times, though to Cono ver the original idea of advertising for his own apprehension as a false witness is an everlasting claim to a high place in the ! pages of the Causes Celebres of this age. Thank heaven, however, that we are only to blush at the faeUthat, upon the accusa tion of the most infamous of mankind, common informers, incited, if not bribed, i by offers of reward, of these semirings of jails, and the refuse of the detective office, j a Government like ours should brand those who had been its ministers with crimes known only to the inferior civilization of • the middle ages, and that we have not to i sorrow over their guilt. Who originated this plot, and placed the Government in so embarrassing an atti tude, I cannot ascertain. The jealous se crecy and care exercised by the gentleman from Masaehussetts in keeping most of the dooumontary evidence from me for careful perusal, the secrecj attending every step of these proceedings, makes certainty on : my part impossible as to the authorship of these ill-linked perjuries. Although I do not attribute the course of the committee 1 towards me to any desire on their part to | screen themselves, I am so deeply im ! pressed that there must be guilt some \ where, that I earnestly urge upon the ! House an investigation of the origin of the • plea concocted to alarm the nation, to mur der and dishonor innocent men, and to ' place the Executive in the undignified po sition of making, under proclamation, charges which cannot, in face of the ac cused, or even in their absence, stund a preliminary examination-before a justice of the. peace. It was not till noon Friday, yesterday, the last day but one of the session, that the committee and the gentleman from Massachusetts allowed me to read the tes timony or parts thereof that my memory alone should not be trusted to report. It was then within twenty-four hours of its adjournment that Congress, through this committee, allowed me to get ready to pre pare this report, when the unfinished busi ness of the session was crowding upon me, and no time was left me to pursue to the head the villainies I detected in the hand, or I might have been able plainly to tell Congress and the country that if 1 in this plot we had a Titus Oates in Conover, so also we, had a Shaftsbury Somewhere. Had more than twenty-four hours been allowed me, or had those twenty-four hours been less burthened with other duties re quiring immediate. discharge, I might have been able, in addition to exposing the per jury, to have told this House who con cocted it; who screened it—l do not attack the committee ; why it was concocted and screened ; and finally, why a committee of Congress acted towards one of its own members like a Venetian council of ten, whose legislation and inquiries were being kept secret for the benefit of some Foscari. Need I add, in conclusion, that, neither in verba! or written testimony, is there any credible evidence whatever to criminate Mr. Davis as an accomplice before or after the fact in the murder of Mr. Lincoln! There is not any evidence worthy of the slightest credit that connects either Mr. Clay, Mr. Cleary, Mr. Thompson, Mr. Tucker, Dr. Pallin. Mr. Stuart, or any others charged therewith, now at liberty, with that assassination, directly or indi rectly. Nor is there the slightest possible tinge of probability, according to the results of investigation, that any plot or plans ever did exist among those charged therewith to poison or infect with fevers the good people of this nation. I cannot agree with the statement made in the concluding paragraph of the majori ty report that: “It is the duty of the Executive Depart ment of the Government for a reasonable time and by the proper means, to pursue the investigations for the purpose of ascer taining the truth.” The Government, through the Bureau of Military Justice, has pursued its inves tigations over one year with the rigor of military power, and the expenditure of vast amounts, and in Conover, Campbell, Snevel and company we have the result of their labors. How long is Mr. Davis to lie under these imputations without oven a preliminary examination ? This is worse than the treatment of D’Enghien—worse than the quicker cruelties of an auto-de-fe. Disagreeing with the majority of the re port on this point as on most others, I be lieved it to be the duty of the authorities holding Davis to give him a preliminary examination, as provided by the usages and practice of all civilized nations. If in that examination it be found there remain anything unsatisfied, it is the duty of the Government to immediately hand him to the civil tribunals, that he and the others accused may have opportunity to show to the world the malice and falsehoods of these wicked accusations. The discoveries of the doings of the Bureau of Military J ustice render it a duty that whatever be done in this matter hereafter, be done in a less suspicious lo cality, and freed from secrecy. Evil mo tives alone fear the light. The Govern ment of this country should have in this matter nothing to hide or fabricate iu dark ness. As regaadsthe charge of treason, that is already before the proper tribunal, and I have only to express surprise that the ju dicial branch of the Government should so long have deferred trial, and that a prisoner could be ready for trial so long, ask for it so persistently, and yet in defi ance of law and usage be so long denied it. The assertion that legislation by Con gress is needed ere the crime of treason can bring a man to trial, is wholly unfounded, and sounds like a shrinking from the ful filment of a most plain duty. A. J. Rogers. July 28, 1806. Bishop Elliott on the Christianization of the African Race. The following eloquent extract is from ' the address of the lit. Rev. Stephen El- I liott. Episcopal Bishop of Georgia, deliv ! ered at the Episcopal Convention of that J State, lately in session. It is republished I from the New York Church Journal: j Never, in the history of the world, lias there been such a rapid and effective ; missionary work as the Christian Church ; has performed in this land in connection with slavery. For we must remember that l the slaves when brought here, up to a pe | riod as late as 1808, were the same savages ' as our missionaries are now combattling, i with so very little effect, upon the coast of j Africa ; were the same savages as are cut ting each other’s throat's day after day, | | and perpetrating enormities, which dis grace humanity, upon their own soil, even in the very sight of military opera ! tions. And yet, within the period of ! two centuries there has been made j i out of these savages a Christian peo ! pie, having a clear discernment of i right and w rong, understanding very dis tinctly the system of our religion, having i educated teachers of their own color and j j their own race: gentle "kind arm, un- I til they are meddled with, faithful and af ! fectionate. The number of communicants | in the various churches of the .South far ex j ceeds in proportion to population that of ; the whites. They had churches of their own j in all the large cities, managed by them • selves, containing thousands of communi j cants and in the rural districts they were | visited by missionaries appointed specially ! for their own benefit, or they mingled in j the same religious instruction with their | owners, eating of the same consecrated bread, and drinking of the same conscera- ‘ ted wine. Their behavior during the long, fierce war which has now terminated, is I the sublimest vindication of the institution of slavery, as it existed among us, which could have been offered to the world. ! iVith years of preliminary agitation about j the rights of the slaves and the cruelty and j barbarism of the masters ; with hordes j of deceitful fanatics scattered through the Southern country, some in the guise of j teachers, some of pedlars, some of book j agents, some of mechanics, and ail alike; tampering with the slaves ; with a war which required the absence of all the able bodied and the warlike from home ; with a proclamation of emancipation sounded in their ear as early as 1862. and summon ing them virtually to strike for their rights: with large armies of those who called them selves their friends traversing the country and thundering at their very doors, these people never once lifted their hands or their voices voluntarily against their’own ers, but w ith nobody to coerce and restrain them save weak women and infirm men and boys too young for military purposes, they remained, quiet, docile, industrious, obedient, exhibiting in no case, that I have ever heard of, insubordination or disorder. Any cruelty they may have since exhibited, they have learned from other teaching than ours—any barbarism into which they may have since elapsed, they have fallen into after they had passed from un der our influence. Where; in the word's history has there been a case like this of forbearance and quietness where an in ferior race has been opposed by a superior, and had the means given it of vengeance ? Our own times furnish us two instances in fearful contrast —the one. of the ferocity of the French in their terrible overthrow of \ the Church, the monarchy, and,the aristae- j racy, and that of the negroes of St. j Domingo, who have furnished to this age 1 a name for everything inhuman and barba- i rous. One of two tilings is, therefore, clear—either that these people suffered no oppression worth the name, or that slavery has produced Christian virtues, through its teachings and discipline, of the most rare and striking character. This aspect of things leads to two iinpor tant practical results. First, it vindicates ! the Christian Church in the South from ! the obloquy that has been poured upon it. I as it it was winkling at a barbarous and unchristian system, and doing nothing to t ameliorate in a vindication which it ought i | to have done, and which I now lay humbly ! ! upon its altar. No people have ever'labored ! ! more faithfully, more devoutedly, with j more self-denial, than have Southern j I Christians to do their best for the slaves committed to their trust. Very many have known who have given up their lives for their religious instruction —many who have impoverished themselves that their slaves might be comfortable or free. Almost every minister for a half century past, has devoted some of his time to the poorer members of his flocks, anil very many more would have kneeled at our altars, bad they ; not preferred a more exeiting worship and j a more enthusiastic exhibition of their | feelings than we allowed. I say without any fear of rightful contradiction, that if a i slave did not receive religious instruction it j was because he did not care about it, or because he was in some remote position, where the whites were as badlv oft as him self. The other practical point is that wo have ■ no need to change our system of instmc- | tion because of this emancipation ; or to t call in any foreign help to our assistance, j The Church in Georgia has always taught j the colored race so far as the number of ' clergymen and the rivalry of Other denom inations would permit her. We must simply carry on the same plan in the fu ture. We have always had Sunday schools for them ; let us cont inue the same. We have always welcomed them to our ! ■ churches aud altars ; let us continue the ! same. We have permitted them to or- I ganize churches for themselves —they have i been free as all upon this point; let us j continue the same. If those churches are 1 organized as Episcopal churches, we shall be glad to assist them in the way of true ! godliness. I sec no necessity to change j our course for the present; nor do I see : that we need any help from abroad in , their religious culture. We have Christian men and Christian women in abundance j among us, who will undertake any work for the Church. (frganize them in your various parishes, and they will do the work more efficiently than others can. None understand the colored race as well as we do—none have its confidence as fully as we have. My sincere conviction is that if any future good or blessing is to come for these people, it must be of home growth ; it must be tlie continuation of the same kindly feelings between the races which has heretofore existed. Every per son imported from abroad to instruct or teach these is an influence, unintentionally perhaps, but really widening the breach between the races. This work must he done by ourselves—done faithfully, earnest ly and as in the sight of God. Love must go along with it; gratitude for their past services ; memories of infancy and child hood ; thoughts of the glory which will accrue to us, when we shall lead these peo ple, once our servants, hut now as servants, but above servants, as brethren beloved, and present them to Christ as our offer ing of repentance for what we have failed to fulfil, in the past of our trust. FROM WASHINGTON. Closing Day'of the Session of Congress. The principal work left over for the last day was the Civil Appropriation bill, with its two riders in the shape of the bill to equalize the bounties of the soldiers and sailors, put on by the House, and the pro position made by the Senate to increase the salaries of the members of Congress to $5,000 each. The House insisted on onq, and the Senate insisted on the other, and the result, utter seven hours of conference, from one o'clock in the morning, was apparent that if each House did not ac cept the amendment of the other, this im portant appropriation bill, reaching, as it does, every branch of the Government, would be lost. In the last hour of the session the strug gle, therefore, entered iu the House, and at eight o’clock in the morning, after a long and weary night session, the House saved the bill by just one vote. The mem bers were put in the dilemma of either voting to increase their own salaries or of voting against the entire bill. Forty mem bers took one alternative and voted against the bill, and fifty-one members took the other, and voted for it. The salary in crease applies to the commencement of this Congress, and gives each member two i thousand dollars additional for each year, j The new bill to increase the regular j army also agreed to. The new bill, which the President signed, provides lor sixty one regiments, forty-five of which are in fantry. There are four regiments of col ored troops and four regiments of veteran j reserves included in this bill. The only important bill, which is that of i admitting Nebraska into the Union as a | State, the President did not notify either j House that he bad signed. He has there fore reserved his signature, which secures its defeat. During the session of both Houses last night an. effort was made to pass hills lor the relief of contractors, war claimants, lobby schemes, &c., but there was'a whole sale slaughter of them* and not one of account got through either branch. The lobby was present in full force on the flopr of the House and in the corridors, but it availed nothing. The Senate this morning after striking out that portion of the bill making awards for the capture of the assassins, which re lates to the capture of .Mr. Davis, which had already been provided for by the War Department, passed the bill. The amend ment was concurred in by the House, and the bill was signed by the President. The captors of Davis-will have to wait until the j next session for their rewards. j It is estimated by the best informed men that the bill for the equalization of boun ties will cost the Government $70,000,1 00. The House bill to increase the duty on wool was to-day lost in the Senate. There is no charge on wool. The bill fixing a duty of three cents per pound on imported cotton and placing an increased duty on imported cigars became a law. The President signed the bill granting lands to the State of Kansas to add in the • | construction of a Southern Branch of the Union Pacific Railroad and a telegraphic , line from Fort Riley, Kansas, to Fort | Smith, Ark. The night session of the House, lasting until morning, was filled with disgusting scenes. Liquor flowed pretty freely from ! ; several committee rooms, and the result j was fully exhibited on the floor of the i ! House. In one instance tellers wore ap- ! : pointed who were unable to stand in their ' I places ; and the count they reported to ! | the House ran a hundred over a quorum. j Members voted early and often to make it 1 appear that a quorum was present. Jot. - j were related and stories told. A dPzen or \ so members at one time had pitched b»t --j ties with paper wads, books, Ac., which j were flung through the air in the ha!!. At daylight this morning one member i called on the reporters in the gallery to I come down and join in the fun. The hour of half-past four having ar rived, the Speaker delivered his farewell speech. He said: | Gentlemen of the House of Representatives: I cannot speak the word that, announces | our sc para, ion until I thank you with all the warm emotions of a grateful heart for unanimously adopting the resolutions you 1 have placed on your journal. Unusual as this is at the close of a first session of Con gress, its value is thereby enhanced, and I prize it because I believe it is your sincere ( indorsement of my endeavors to administer the duties of this responsible and often try ing position, with an earnest impartiality to | maintain the just rights of a majority, to : protect the even more necessary rights of a minority, and yet to hold the scales so J poised that every decision shall stand the test of reason and jiarliamentary law, which, an presiding officer, always must be jby scores of artificial eves. His position is i never less.than difficult, and he is fortunate j who can impress the body over which he i presides with the conviction that his oon ; stant aim has been to reader justice to all. j Meeting here amid the frosts of early j winter, and parting after a prolonged se.s --| sion, amid the torrid heats of sumtner. ; friendships have been formed which wjl I brighten as year after year rolls away.— ; Discussing, some .of the gravest questions j ever submitted to a deliberative body in all ; this land, the attention of mind to mind, •and the conflicts of thought and action have lettbutfew stings behind and despite all dif ferences of sentiment no Congress within my experience has closed its session with more general good feeling amongst its members. We go back, as our constitu tion wisely prescribes, to submit to our constituents the causes which have divided us here, and cheerfully abide by their ver dict as a court from which there is right ly no appeal. Wishing you all a safe journey to your homes, and a happy reun t ion with family and friends, Ido now, in j accordance with the concurrent resolutions I of both houses, declare the first session of j the House of Representatives of the Thir- j ty ninth Congress adjourped sine die. The hall of the House and galleries i were crowded with spectators, watching j with interest the closing moments of a session that will be memorable in history. < The Speaker’s valedictory was listened to , in deep silence, and as he spoke the last j words there was an outburst of applause. ; One of the Democratic members (otrouse) ; crying vehemently, “Three cheers for our | noble Speaker. ’ ’ the call was responded to i heartily. The parting of members was of the most friendly and even gushing char acter, This closed the first session of the j Thirty-ninth Congress. Maretzek employs forty seamstresses j making costumes for operas, _ The Financial Future. It is well to be jolly, we suppose, amid the most adverse circumstances. a/'V , ra r /‘i /h® theory of the Mark lapjey seems to be a favorite withl those wlio have charge of the financial nances : and one would suppose, from their' l , reckless enjoyment of the embarrassments i thickening around them, that they were either blind to the real danger or relied on some spell to keep them harmless from im pending evil. \\ e pointed out the folly of this drifting policy, when Congress firsts assembled in December, and set forth a weil digested system of finance, the adop- I tion of which, it was reasonable to hope, . would consolidate the .public debt, and con- I arm the national credit, then deemed to be of paramount importance. As j week after week went by, and nothing was I none, we again appealed to those in power to present some definite plan of action, even if our own were not adopted, warning them that the favorable time for action was gliding oy, and that any course' resc ue el.\ held was better than the temporizing policy that had so long prevailed. Our plan proposed the public offer of a six per cent, long loan, to the amount of one thousand millions, in which to fund | 'be seven-thirties, the certificates, the ■ compound interest notes, and other tem i per ary obligations of the government. I Had this been adopted a large part of this | funding process would, ere this, have been completed, and the national Guanoes would J now be established above the reach, of any j ordinary crisis. Siu-.h a plan was opposed | by a few who really hoped, for the coun try's good, to be able to fund the debt at a lower rate of interest, and by the many j who selfishly saw a greater personal gain in a different scheme. The simple ex change of one security for another more attractive was the only foundation of the system we proposed. No expansion nor contraction of the currency need have at j tended such a transfer. The creditors of j the government hold a large amount of its I maturing indebtedness, and the Treasury j cannot well provide for its payment as it j fills due. The only sensible solution of ' the difficulty which we could see was an invitation to the holders to surrender those | short obligations, and to take securities at ! a longer date. To secure this voluntary | exchange, the new issues must lx l made 1 attractive. A low rate of interest, or a ! reservation to the government of the right | to redeem the offered bonds in five years, | would prevent their general acceptance. I It was not half as important what terms j were made, as that some satisfactory set-' ; dement was secured before the Treasury j was pre-sed for payment. Had no motive governed this choice but I a sincere regard for the public good, there I could have neon jno serious difficulty irt.de ! termining wisely ; but the leeches who i have fattened upon the Treasury could not | accept of this solution ; aud thus wfc are to-day as much at sea as ever. . The See j retarv, under the most pernicious advice j ever listened to by the first financial officer i of a great nation, lias been bartering, ex changing, anil dickering with private iu | dividuals, in a most discreditable and un derground fashion : and, after all, has ac- ’ oomplished no important result. A few millions of five-twenties have been sold ; but the great bulk of the maturing obliga j tions are still outstanding, the golden op -1 portunity has been wasted, rnd the tone of i the market is far less favorable now than i when lie commenced. The gold has been lavished and driven ! from the,country ; there are not seventy millions to-day of actual coin within the j limits of the States East of the Mississ i ippi ; the volume of paper money is vast, j aud not rising in value ; and the Treasury Department is st jjl dealing with its dfficul | ties in a retail way, v ithout avowed aim or plan, or even a seeming appreciation of the perils in the way over which it is so blindly creeping. —Journal of Commerce, Bathing Scenes at the Watering Places —How the Pair Creatures I.unk, A writer on the New York Tribune, j who has taken a jaunt to Coney Island, i thus describes the pleasures and drawbacks . of bathing at that watering-place : By midday the bath-houses, where they i hire bathing-suits, are crowded with ap ! plicants, many of whom are ladies. You j leave your valuables with the keeper, j snatch up a pair of blue jeans unmentiona ! bles, retire to an elegant apartment, fitted up luxuriously with a rough pine bench and a bucket of salt water, and, in a few moments, if you are spry, you are trans formed from a tolerable-looking, well-dress ed young mart, .Auto a scrambling, bare footed, goose-necked, non-descript, in com parison with which a Sandwich Island ragmuffin is a Broadway swell. But 3 T our natural timidity is lost when you witness the ladies emerge from their bathing closets in their bathing costumes. The transformation, if surprising in your case, is astonishing i.i theirs. Fancy a gaudy-plumed paraquet Vkk nuded of its feathers, and then rolled m ' mud, and you can have some idea of the appearance of the la dies. They enter the bath-house in all the glory of flounces, crinolines, parasols and waterfalls; they come out of it like so many beggar maids, with their coarse clothes clinging to their limbs, and their little heads made hideous in a slouchy, broad brimmed hat, which would occasion a turn-tip in the nose of a I’antagian pheasant. They run fast and awkwardly to the beach in order to conceal their ungainliness in the waves, and you follow them for the briny bath, in whose glorious luxury almost everything else is lost. The foaming breakers come up in irreg ular bursts, and their power can he .expe rienced in numberless ways. After the first plunge, the bather can recline upon the sand, and take the waves in cool, salt ripples, or he can plunge in waist-deep, and run his chance of being rolled ovar and over again, by the white-capped I headers as they roll in from mid-ocean. The ladies look oven less handsome when j they emerge from the sea, and you don’t feel like lulling in love with one of them. ! The cheeks and eyebrows of some of thorn, I were well painted and blackened before j they entered the sea, and they came out I wonderfully transformed. Black cye ' brows turn blonde, and rosy cheeks hag gard and pale; but the freshness .of the ocean at the same time, clings to them, and the.glow of health and beauty is aglcam in their eyes. “M ho Pese Dese Local Editors ? The Cincinnati Times has the following : Detective Larry Hazen was met yester day by a keeper of a beer saloon on Vine street, over the canal, who was laboring under considerable apparent excitement. Recognizing Hazen, he stepped up bo him with the exclamation: “Who pese de.se wot you calls local ed itors ?*’ “They pick up items,” said the officers, “deadhead into shows, etc.” “Dey pick up items ? I tink so. Is fold watch items ? Is sixty tollor items ? ley?” v He was asked to explain what he meant, which he did as follows : “Dis morning I Was drinkin’ lager mjt mine friends all the while in mine saloon, und in gomes a'young man wat dere never was already—und he pulls out a leetle sheepskin pook and a lead pencil, and he says he pese local editors, and he wauls me to tell him all vot there wos pout the row mit mine peer saloon last night. 'T asks him wot kind o’ business he wos to that row, by tarn, wot . kind of right ? "Und he says he reports urn in de pa pers. So I tell Mm all vot I don’t know pout the rows vot some tarn rowdies tries to. kick out of mine saloon last night. Ujid mine poarders get around und they dells more tings vot I recollects, und de nice young man, he sticks em down in his sheep skin pook mit his lead pencil. Don he trhiL'i glass lagar, which he don't let him self pay for, by tain (I felt sure as never was he one little newspaper fellow when he didn’t make pay mit my lager; butdat makes Hotting tifferejiee; dor’s no brinci ple in.dut j und den he goes out, and I don’t sees him again all de wife. "Den one of my poarders he finds him self stolen away from his gold watch, py tarn ; und my neighbor Schmitt, he found sixty tollar what he hadn't get.’ ' The nice young man who pretended to be a local editor, was a pickpocket,” said Hazen, “who took that means to carry on. his trade, and he succeeded pretty well if he got a gold watch and sixty dollars. "I rinks he succeeded pretty well, mine, Got! Do next time a nijm gomes in my saloon mit his tarn sheepskin pouch and lead pook, und says he is local editors, py tam he don't comes in A The Fresident’s Message oil the Fenian Resolution—-He Takes the Wind out ol tile Radical Sail. . The Intelligence,- in its “Note* from the Capitol,” under date of the 2oth, says : * 4 xhe message of fche IVcsiuenti delivered *o the House Ur day, in rcs!>onse to the two resolutions in beliail oi the remans, sent to him yesterday, has rather taken 1 the wind out of the sails of the Longress- I ional part'.'. The resolution was simply a I bid for Irish votes, by manifesting an ex traordinarv interest in tte fate of tho i Fenian raiders upon the border. It ap ! pears, from the response of the President, | that the sudden awakened anxiety of Con ; g regg in reference to these unfortunate per i .sons had long ago been anticipated by the j Executive, and that the desired action in | behalf of the Fenian prisoners in Canada. I and the Fenians indicted in the United I State courts for a breach of the neutrality laws, had long since been taken, without awaiting for the growth of Congressional sympathy in their favor. This purely electioneering . artifice has therefore, not only failed in its design, but has served to bring to the attention of Fenians, wno are just now so assiduously courted by the Revolutionists, the fact that the President had promptly, and without suggestions from Congress or elsewhere, instituted pro ceedings for the relief and-release df all the participators in the Fenian raid, who had been placed in arrest on either side of the line.