There is a capital story, we think, in the “Gesta Romanorum,” of three thieves who have robbed a man of a large sum of gold.  They propose a carouse over their booty, and one is sent to the town to buy wine.  While he is gone, the two left behind plot to murder him on his return, so as to have a half instead of a third to their shares.  He, meanwhile, coveting the whole, buys poison to put into the wine.  They cut his throat and sit down to drinking, which soon finishes them.  It is an admirable illustration of the probable future of successful secession.  Something very like this ruined the cause of James III., and something not unlike it may be even now damaging the cause of H.S.I.M.,—­His Sea-Island Majesty, Cotton the First.

THE WANT OF EFFICIENT AID FROM ABROAD.  We are not yet quite out of the woods, and it behooveth us not to halloo that we certainly have found the path.  But it is more than probable that the Southern hope of English or French aid has failed.  Either nation by itself might be won over but for the other.  He is a bold and a good charioteer who can drive those two steeds in double harness.

Either without the other is simply an addition of x—­x to the equation.  If by next November we can get a single cotton-port open, we shall have settled that Uncle Tom and the Duchess of Sutherland may return to the social cabinet of Great Britain,—­and that being so, the political cabinet is of small account.

With the want of foreign aid comes the next want, that of MONEY.  The Emperor of Austria has a convenient currency in his dominions, which you can carry in sheets and clip off just what you need.  But cross a frontier and the very beggars’ dogs turn up their noses at the K.K.  Schein-Muenze.  The Virginian and other Confederate scrip appears to be at par of exchange with Austrian bank-notes,—­in fact, of the same worth as that “Brandon Money” of which Sol.  Smith once brought away a hatful from Vicksburg, and was fain to swap it for a box of cigars.  The South cannot long hold out under the wastefulness of war, unless relief come.  “With bread and gunpowder one may go anywhere,” said Napoleon,—­but with limited hoecake and no gunpowder, even Governor Wise would wisely retreat.

But most certain of all in the long run is THE CONVICTION OF THE MEN OF THE SOUTH THEMSELVES OF THE VALUE OF THE UNION.  It is said that the Union feeling is all gone at the South.  That may be, and yet the facts on which it was based remain.  Feeling is a thing which comes and goes.  The value to the South of Federal care, Federal offices, Federal mail facilities, and the like, is not lessened.  The weight of direct taxation is a marvellous corrector of the exciting effects of rhetoric.  It is pleasanter to have Federal troops line State Street in Boston to guard the homeward passage of Onesimus to the longing Philemon than to have them receiving without a challenge the fugitive Contrabands.  It is pleasanter to