ALABAMA CLAIMS. 77 
cupied by the Society for the Succor of the Wounded : 
a room of moderate dimensions, but adequate to the 
purpose, fitted up ‘with elegance and good taste, not, 
however, specially for the Commission or Tribunal, 
but for ordinary uses of the City or Canton, indicated 
by its title “Salle des Conférences.” 
The Hotel de Ville is a structure in the Florentine 
style of architecture, situated on the summit of the 
old Geneva, and which is occupied both by munic- 
ipal officers of the City and by the executive and leg. 
islative authorities of the Canton. 
COUNT FREDERIC SCLOPIS. 
Here, then, in the “Salle des Conférences” of the 
Hotel de Ville, at Geneva, the Tribunal assembled to 
listen to the opening discourse of the President, Count 
Sclopis, and to take up the business remaining for the 
consideration of the Arbitrators. 
‘ Count Sclopis, in this discourse, expressed belief 
that the meeting of the Tribunal indicated of itself 
the impression of new direction on the public policy 
of nations the most advanced in civilization, and ‘the 
commencement of an epoch in which the spirit of 
moderation and the sentiment of equity were begin- 
ning to prevail over the tendency of the old routines 
of arbitrary violence or culpable indifference. He 
signified regret that the pacific views of the Congress 
of Paris had not been seconded by events in Europe. 
He congratulated the world that the statesmen who 
directed the destinies of Great Britain and the United 
States, with rare firmness of conviction and devotion 
