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[[two columns]] [[Double line]] [[begin column]] Examiner and Chronicle, [[line]] NEW-YORK: THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1863 [[double line]] THE GIRDLE OF THE WORLD. With more quietness than the Atlantic Cable, and with surer progress, the telegraph via Behring's Straits is encircling the world's great continents. The Atlantic Cable may yet succeed -- let us hope that faith and patience and indomitable will, will attain the consummation of an enterprise of such transcendent importance to commerce, to international peace, and to civilization. The other great telegraphic enterprise is less a problem. Its difficulties are not only capable of measurement, but are now actually measured, and success is only a question of weeks and months. The lines of the Czar, which for a year have been in operation from St. Petersburgh to Irkutsk, are uncoiling their great length down the shores of the Amoor, and in a little time, from his palace on the banks of the Neva, he will transmit, in an hour, his orders to the admirals of his fleets on the Pacific. At the mouth of the Amoor, half-way from Washington to St. Petersburgh, America unites with the Russian lines, and links the telegraphic system of the Old with that of the New World. Mr. Collins enjoys the eminent distinction of having secured, from the enlightened and friendly monarch of Russia, the necessary grants for this great enterprise. The wires will traverse likewise for a long distance the territories of Great Britain, and to the same gentleman belongs the credit of obtaining from the British Crown the required permission of transit. Mr. Collins had himself traversed Siberia, and descended the Amoor. He had visited the lower portion of Kamschatka, but it was faith in invincible will which gave him his auguries for success as to the most difficult portions of the route, rather than any considerable measure of defined and conclusive knowledge. Mr. Collins, however, had not acted alone. The powerful combination of skill and capital which had stretched the wires across this continent, stood ready to assume the task contemplated by his grants, and as soon as the necessary preliminary details could be settled, the Russian "Extension" line announced its purpose to the world. Here, too, faith and determination were far in advance of settled and trustworthy information. The line originally contemplated along the Pacific shore could not stand the test of practical and earnest inquiry. The terrible coast of British Columbia, deeply indented with innumerable fiords, the scarcely less terrible coast of Russian America, where to fog and ice and the difficulties of the Alaskan peninsula, are added the treachery and hostility of the worst Indians of the continent, rendered a shore line a thing not to be thought of. Science, to which commerce is in so many ways indebted, cast the first real light on this problem, and it happened to be science in the forms in which it gives least promise of utility to mankind. Robert Kinnicott, an enthusiastic young naturalist of Chicago, had spent four years in traversing British North America from Lake Winnepeg to the Slave Lake, down the McKenzie's River, and across to the Yonkon in the Russian dominions, in the pursuits of his science; and with an eye open to everything, and pushing inquiries among Hudson's Bay people and Indians on every topic illustrative of the country, he had return with a fund of knowledge which, invaluable in itself, was a key to vastly more. More a collector for purposes of science than a scientific man himself, Mr. Kinnicott had his complement in this respect in Prof. S.F. Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution, in connection with whom he was carrying on these operations. The facts which the young adventurer had gathered, the scientific man at Washington was working into forms -- his studies embracing, at the same time, all available sources of information, whether European or American -- and so Prof. Baird was prepared to render a service to this great enterprise, as important in itself as it was foreign to the special purposes of his investigations. These gentlemen, without consultation between themselves, traced a line of telegraph from New York to Behring's Straits, as practicable as a line from New-York to Buffalo, and from that hour the ultimate success of the enterprise ceased to be a question to any one cognizant of the facts. There were reasons, not proper for specification here, for attempting [[italics]] in part [[/italics]] another route than that suggested by them. When a double line becomes necessary, as within ten years it will, so much of their suggestion as was now deemed impracticable will be adopted, and the triumph of scientific knowledge will become illustriously complete. When Capt. Bulkley -- by some promotion he is now Colonel, and we hope will be General -- when Capt. Bulkley arrived in New-York to assume the work of constructing this line, he found his first light in consultation with these gentlemen. They aided him in the construction of his maps, from them he derived the necessary information in respect to preparation of stores, and at Washington he was introduced by Prof. Baird to the latest results of Russian exploration, translated for his purpose into English, and illustrated with photograph copies of drawings. One point insisted upon as the result of wise conjecture against conflicting views, and where determinate knowledge could not be obtained, was of transcendent importance. The Pelly River, rising between the Rocky Mountains and the coast range, becomes on or before its junction with the Porcupine, the Yonkon, and then flows away into a region which at the then latest dates was wholly unknown to civilized man. Did this river, as supposed by some, by and by turn northward and flow into the Arctic Sea? -- or did it pursue its westward course and become the Kvichpak, and flow into Norton Sound below Behring's Straits? If it turned northward, it indicated barriers of high and inhospitable mountain land, which might prove a serious or insuperable obstacle. If it continued westward to the Pacific, then it assured a navigable river, invaluable for the purposes of the telegraph, for an indefinite distance of a thousand or fifteen hundred miles, perhaps for even more than this. Mr. Kinnicott took the latter view. He insisted that the great river, Yonkon, on whose ice he had seen flowing away to the the last of May, was the same river whose ice the Russian explorers had seen passing away at the same time, some hundred miles towards the Pacific, and that a small steamer for use upon its waters would reduce to the four mouths of one year's navigation, the work of one or two years without such aid. This suggestion was adopted, and a little craft now lies at the mouth of that river, ready to pursue its long inland voyage with the first license of the coming spring, and the latest intelligence confirms the correctness of the conjectures which Mr. K. maintained. The Yonkon and the Kvichpak are undoubtedly one. By the arrival of the Hudson's Bay Company's mail, a year from this time, we may hope to hear that Mr. Kinnicott has carried the flag of his country [[end column]] [[start column]] to his old haunts where the Indians knew him as the "bird man." The route finally determined for the line was [[itialic]] via [[/italic]] California and Oregon to New-Westminster, British Columbia, thence up the Frazer's and Stuart Rivers to Babine Lake (which the constructed line has nearly reached), thence along the base of Peak Mountains to the head waters of the Pelly, thence down the Pelly till it becomes the Yonkon and the Kvichpak, then leaving the river to find a spot for crossing the Straits, not at Norton Sound, not at the spot where the water is narrowest, but at a point about midway between, already ascertained to furnish the best conditions of security for the cable. The distance across the sea is about one hundred and twenty-five miles. Of the region on the Asiatic side we are less accurately informed. All which is known is favorable, and enough is known to remove occasions for solicitude as to the result. The point on the whole route most justifying solicitude was that lying north of Babine Lake, along the Peak Mountains, and around the waters of the Upper Pelly. Here the Rocky Mountains and the coast range seem to come together in angry collision, and the Hudson's Bay Company have not only retired from the region, but borne shocking testimony to its character. We have seen a letter from Mr. Kinnicott expressing the belief on testimony gained in British Columbia, that the "beastliness" of this region has been overstated, and that its practicability for the purposes of the telegraph may be regarded as established. If he is correct in this belief, the problem may be regarded as solved; and if unfortunately there shall prove to be difficulties here which are embarrassing, the worst consequences will be a little delay only, for there remains a route where no difficulties exist. We have not referred to the powerful Company which has this great enterprise in charge, nor to the organization of the corps which is engaged in construction -- these being matters of which the daily press has made the public fully cognizant. Enough that we may say in general, that everything which forethought and liberal expenditure could provide has been placed at the command of Col. Bulkley, and that his qualifications for the post which he occupies are of the most remakable character. His forces are already distributed on the line, and material, supposed to be abundant, is in his hands, or in progress towards him. The auspicious day when, faster than the sun chases the earth's shadow, America will send her greetings to Europe, cannot be distant. If the Atlantic Cable succeeds, we shall "girdle the earth in forty minutes." Whether the cable succeeds or does not, the Arctic wastes will become the medium of the world's intercourse, and commerce, civilization and Christianity will exult in this new triumph of the human mind. [[double line]] HOW THEY ARE TREATED. Very contradictory reports reach us from the Southern states respecting the condition of the freedmen, and the treatment they are likely to receive from their late masters. In some quarters their prospects seem very dark. The white population of some districts, irritated by the failure of the rebellion, and constantly offended by the presence of their emancipated slaves, do their utmost to render the negro's condition miserable, and to keep him degraded and poor. Thus in South Carolina, a State which has abolished slavery, we find the Legislature discusing a code for the freed population of the State, which, in spirit at least, is worthy of the worst days of slavery. It provides that all persons having less than seven-eighths of white blood are to be deemed persons of color. It give them the right to hold property, to sue and be sued, and to have all such legal remedies as whites are entitled to. It establishes the relation of husband and wife among the blacks, and that of parent and child; but especially provides that the person contracting with a freedman is to be known as the master, and the freedman as the servant. The children of freedmen may be apprenticed by their parents to respectable white or colored persons, until they are twenty-one, and the master is to be entitled to the services of the apprentice, may recapture him if he runs away, and may inflict corporeal punishment upon him. He is to teach him some trade or occupation, and if there is a school within a convenient distance, is to send him there for at least six weeks in every year. In spite of the apparent liberality in some of these provisions, the old repressive spirit of slavery is visible in every line. The black race is to be kept hopelessly down, and made to feel its inferiority to the white in every department of life. There is neither necessity nor excuse for class legislation like this. The sooner the South throws overboard the notion that the negro should be treated as chattel, and not as a man, the better it will be for her own interests. This is illustrated every day in the experience of individual planters in the South. We find in the Florida [[italics]] Times [[/italics]], a new loyal journal published at Jacksonville, Florida, some very interesting statements in regard to this matter. After characterizing the two classes of planters -- the men who treat their laborers as slaves and those who treat them as freemen -- the editor says that he comes in contact every day with representatives of these classes. One comes in from driving his "niggers," and despairingly declaares that [[italics]] won't [[/italics]] work -- that he pays them fifteen dollars per month and more rations than they can consume, and yet he can't get as much work out of them as he used to out of one slave. Another planter, paying, perhaps only ten dollars per month, finds no difficulty in inducing his hands, by considerate and humane treatment, to do more work than double the number of slaves. The following anecdote from the same paper, illustrates the matter very clearly, and shows that when the blacks won't work, the fault lies more with the master than with the servants: As intelligent slaveholder, a gentleman of cultivation and liberal views, met a large planter, foaming, fretting, cursing, despairing -- the country was ruined, no more cotton could be raised, "niggers" wouldn't work, his plantation was valueless, &c &c. "What will you take for your plantation?" asked the gentleman, after vain attempts to induce hime to reason. "Twelve thousand dollars," said the planter. "I'll take it." The property was transferred, and the new proprietor immediately placed it in charge of the negroes, the former slaves of the old proprietor, who, to the number of ninety, entered into contract to cultivate the farm upon shares, they receiving one-third the crop. They assure the new proprietor that they will raise two hundred acres more cotton than ever before. If all the white people of the Southern States would act in this sensible and only right manner, yielding up their old prejudices and hatred, the effect upon their material welfare would be immediate and astonishing. Wherever the negro is treated as a human being, instead of a chattel, he at once becomes a faithful and profitable worker; and all attempts to keep him down, to repress his hopes and take away his self-respect and ambition, cannot fail to be seriously detrimental to the interests of the whites. They must see this themselves, unless hopelessly blind. They [[italics]] do [[/italics]] see it; and self-interest alone, if they remain uninfluenced by higher considerations must eventually lead to the advancement of the colored race.
