The Express.
London, England, 1848-11-24 00:00:00

gion would be promoted by this more rational appro-
priation of church property. It is, we know, hopeless to
think of any improvement so long as he lives. But as in
him " nature's copy is not eterne." and as he is even
now of a ripe old age, it would be useful to commence
in time the consideration of the good that can be
accomplished after his departure; and not to have
arrangements to make hastily after he has gone, as is
now the case at Sunderland.
The ease of the Earl of GUILFORD is, we repeat,
a very bad one ; probably the worst of the sort now
surviving. But let as not be too vain of the improve-
ment that has taken place since he was thus
gorged. Marked as it is in some respect', there
is much more yet to be accomplished. Nepotism,
though in a lees scandalous form, may still be
found in this very diosese of Winchester. Dr.
SUMNER himself is obnoxious in some degree to
the reproaches which hover round the memory of Dr.
NORTH. If he have not given the very beat livings in
his gift that have been at his disposal to his family,
he has, nevertheless, not left his sons, his sons-in-law,
and his kinsmen, unprovided for. And when he is
most fervent at public meetings and in pastoral cir-
culars, in the cause of church extension, he pro-
vokes a reminiscence of the loss that canes sustained
when he built for himself at the cost of the see of
Winchester and his episcopal successors that enormous
house in St. James's-square, which overtop' all sur-
rounding edifices.
Fortunate men are these SUMNER/1 ! One is pri-
mate; and costs our church 18,0001. a year: for in
addition to his archiepiscopal stipend of 15,000/. a
year, the Ecclesiastical Commission has (considerate
body!) taken on itself the payment of the interest on
the sum borrowed to improve and adorn Lambeth-
palace and Addington-house, and it amounts to 3,0001.
a year. The other is Bishop of WINCHESTER; with
an annual income of not lees than 10,0001. a year,
besides a castle at Farnham, and the aforesaid pile of
substantial brick and mortar in St. James's-square.
Good men we do not deny the Sum" EU are after
their fashion. But their goodness and services to reli-
gion are nevertheless costly at 28,0001. a year. If
they had 8,0001. between them—this metropolis
might be ohriatianieod for the other 20,0001. Nor
would the episcopal brethren be greatly under-paid
for their services to mankind by 4,0001. a year a-piece.

THERE is reseon to believe that an important suc-
cess has been at last achieved in the enterprise of cot-
ton cultivation in India. A mechanical invention has
been exhibited and submitted to a public trial at Cal-
cutta, which promises to impart a high degree of effi-
&essay to the Chucks or cleansing machine of the
Hindoos. If further experiments should bear out the
present sanguine anticipations, it can scarcely admit
of question, that one of the greatest difficulties which
have retarded this benevolent project will have been

removed.
To those whose business or whose curiosity has
made them acquainted with the details of the Indian
cotton question we need not observe that a
principal objection to the cotton of the East has
always been its short staple and its imperfect clean-
ing. The shortness of the staple is a defect which
ingenuity and scientific agriculture may in time re-
move ; but it is a defect which, in the nature of
things, is not susceptible of an instantaneous=
The process of cleaning is more immediately
by measures of speedy and effective improvement;
and, guided by this obvious difference, we can readily
understand the solicitude with which the East India
Company have urged upon their servants in India,
charged with the superintendence of the cotton firma,
the exceeding desirableness of accomplishing MOM
speedy amelioration in the mechanical process Of
freeing the cotton from extraneous impurities.
For some time there was a very general impres-
sion that the perfect cleaning of the Indian cotton
could only
.be accomplished by the use of the Ameri-
can saw-gin ; and acting upon this view, an outlay
of some extent was authorised for the purpose of in
traducing theme machines into different collectorates
of the Bombay presidency. The result has not an-
swered the very confident expectations of those who
promoted the measare; and the general result of the
machines of American pattern employed in India ap-
pears to have been stated with great accuracy by the
late Mr. OWEN POTTER. Mr. POTTER says :
lem quite convinced that the Saw-Gin will not answer
with short-stapled cottons, and where manual lobos+ ft so
cheap es in India it possesses no advantage ; whereas. fts dis-
advantages are that it frays, harrows, and renders shorter a
staple, the greatest fault of which is its original shortness.
Admonished by this result, the attention of the
East India Company was again directed to the native
and indigenous Churka. By the aid of this rude
leffort of mechanical ingenuity, the people of India
have conducted their cotton cultivation from the very
earliest periods.] There is in truth, no ascertained
date at which by some lucky accident, or in obedience
to some imperial mandate, the introduction of the
Mirka was accomplished throughout the cotton
lands of Hindoaten. The fault of the instru-
ment is not a fault of principle, but of
execution. It separates the Gerd from the cotton,
without injuring the length of the staple; but it very
imperfectly removes the extraneous impurities intro-
duced into the cotton in the course of picking. The
thing to be done, therefore, is sufficiently plain. The
design of the Clarke must be left untouched. It
must still be what it has been always—an implement
for cleaning cotton. But it must be made so perfect,
that, while it produces no effect upon the length, it
must entirely remove all foreign admixtures from
tte body of the staple, and then, as the really vital
point, it must accomplish this, not by any fantastical
or expensive machinery, but by means so simple that
a Hindoo peasant can comprehend, and at a cost so
cheap that even a Bengal ryot can afford to buy it.
Now, unless the public of Calcutta have been very
much misled, this really great achievement —an
achievement as important to India as the inventions
of ARKWRIGHT were to Lancashire—has been accom-
plished by Mr. MATHER. Mr. MATHER, we believe,
was formerly connected with an engineering firm at
LiverpooL Ile was then a resident for some time in
the district of Tinnevelly in the north of the Madras
presidency ; and front that place, we believe, he
was introduced into the north-west provinces
under the auspices of Mr. THOMASON, the lieu-
tenant-governor at Agra, to whom the enterprise
of cotton planting in India is indebted for
so many sagacious and practical measures. Within
the last twelvemonth Mr. MATHER constructed as
improved Churka, which was submitted to a commit-
tee of scientific officers at Agra, and considered by
them so far in advance of previous attempts as to jus-
tify further experiments. Mr. MATHER was thus
authorised to proceed to Calcutta and to prosecute hie
researchea. So long ago as the commencement of
this year Mr. Kenna had produced a Cheeks which
fulfilled most of the stipulated conditions. It was
cheap, simple, convenient, and effective. The con-
sulting-engineer
of the supreme government, Mr.
SIMMS, was then directed to report on the new machine.
And Mr. Slams very properly took the precaution of
assisting his own judgment by the opinion of prac-
tical cotton-spinners. The Churka was, therefore,
placed in the Uncle of Mr. MUNRO and Mr. Mosel-
see, of the Fort Gloster mills, at Calcutta, both of
them fully competent from their experience at the
Lancefield Cotton Works, at Glasgow, to express a
very decided opinion. The report of these gentle-
man, dated the 9th of February, 1848, is now before
us, and it is certainly very favourable and very ex-
plicit. It states, in substance, that the new machine
had been subjected to a somewhat severe trial, and,
that it had turned out cotton uninjured in the staple,
considerably improved in the regularity of its fibre,
and " quite as clean as it is desirable to have it
brought to the mill."
After the attainment of this result the matter ap-
pears to have been allowed to rest for a short time.
But in the course of the summer the " Agri-horti-
cultural Society of India" at Calcutta announced that
in the month of September last • prize would be
awarded by them to the beat exhibited specimen at
an improved Churka. For this prise four competitors
entered the lists, viz., HOULDSWORTH'S machine, at
Glasgow; Porreit'e, of Manchester; BURN'S, of
Edinburgh; and M-ATHER'S, of Calcutta.
The experimental trial took place on the 23rd Sep-
tember, in the presence of a very distinguished -
of the kcal scientific portion of the people of Cal-
cutta; tnd, although the decision of the umpires does
not appear to have been formally announced, there is
no uncertainty as to which of the machines has been
selected by them as the most successful. The ma-
chine
of Mr. MATHER is described as leaving its com-
petitors very far in the rear, and as the composition of
the auditory entirely excludes the supposition of any
partiality or the existence of any conditions not
rigidly alike towards all the candidates, we mast con-
clude that a fair trial has led to a result as decisive as
it is important.