Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-08-19 00:00:00

roads, and means of irrigation. As to the latter,
we find that the total tail of rain in the Cotton
districts of India is greater than the fall in the
Mississippi. Existing drawbacks could be
remedied by the construction of irrigational
works, and the formation of a stupendous canal.
It is also requisite to improve the fixity of
tenure, and thereby encourage the peasantry
to bring their land into improved cultivation.
Nor should there be any want of means to effect
an extension of railways in India, and the con-
struction of canals. We can come forward and
aid the financial difficulties of France, Sardinia,
and Turkey ; we can invest in the railway
projects of Holland and Russia, and buy stocks
and shares in the United States. A people so
plethoric of capital can surely assist by their
money the development of Indian resources.
The people of Manchester have taken the lead
in this Cotton-supply question. They should
not be given so much to talk. That will do
little to remedy the evils complained of. The
Bombay Times, of the 10th of July, at the
same time, wisely remarks—" If the Manchester
Men really want Cotton from India, and hope to
get it, the sooner they understand the conditions
upon which alone we can supply them the better.
First, let them come forward with a loan to the
Indian Government of five millions sterling, to
be laid out in roads and irrigational works in the
Cotton district of the Presidency." And again
The Manchester Men are requiring us to
make bricks without straw, while they simply
keep urging us to grow Cotton. The price they
offer is fair enough, and we would gladly supply
them on the terms ; but if that is all they can
do for us, it is useless to expect us to compete
with America." These are plain but stubborn
facts. We cannot expect that a population such
as that of India will throw off their natural
habits and dispositions, and become industrious
and indefatigable, to promote the manu-
facturing interests—the cotton autocrats—of
Manchester. We hope that these remarks
will induce the Cotton Supply Association to
adopt some more practical mode of effecting the
object which it has in view, than merely holding
public meetings, and delivering long-winded
orations upon the serious consequences in store
for this country, should we still be obliged to
draw our main supply from the United States.
The lengthy speeches which have already been
deli.vered on the subject here and elsewhere have
induced our Indian cotemporary alluded to, to
make the following remarks These Man-
chester Men will go on talking about the matter
for the next ten years. in all probability ; whereas
if there were one really ahle man amongst thein,
who would grasp hold of the simple fact that
our cotton fields want capital invested in them,
and set at once about arranging that investment,
ten years hence there would be no room to fear
that their mills would suffer a cotton famine,
though America were suddenly engulphed in
the waters of the vast oceans which surround
her." This statement should not be without
its effect ; and if the people of Manchester are
earnest on the subject, they will lose no time
in taking it into their most serious consider-
ation.

THE SroLenvs.—There is really some show of justice in
the cr ntinned demands of the Cork Constitution for further
irqeiry into the allegations preferred against Spollen',
wife, by Mr. Curran, in the course of his able defence of
the prisoner. Following up its recent remarks upon this
branch of the case, the Cork paper asks—" Is a woman
publicly impeached of having attempted to procure the
execution of her husband to remain at large? Is there
to be no trial, no inquiry, no investigation of the grounds
on which the accusation was preferred ? If the Attorney.
Gmeral sleeps shall the press sleep ? Ara our Dublin
cotemporaries to suffer the startling statement of Mr.
Carrara to be forgotten ? Is it not batter worth their
attention than were the host of 'rumours' on which they
Expended so much speculation? Then why are they
silent? Tnere is a clue to the murder. Either Sp ellen
was the murderer, or Mrs. Sp Alen knows cvh r was.
There is no escaping that dilemma. lirw without
knowledge of the murderer could she have told
where the plunder was deposited! How could
her statements to the police have been verified, and their
search for it have been successful ? Hew, moreover, did
Spollen's razor get into the canal ? We put these ques-
tions merely to show that if Spollen is innocent Mrs.
Sp Alen has a secret in her possession which ought not to
be left there, and that if he is not innocent she ought not
to be made the victim of the foil' est calumny ever uttered
against a mother and a wife. No license can excuse, no
exigency can justify it. Either it is true, and she is
worse, more heartless, more hardened, mere infamous than
the shedder of Mr. Little's blood ; or it is false, and
but we must not trust ourselves with the inference. Be
it which way it may, it is the duty of the law officers to
search it out, and the duty o' the press to keep them to it.
Wecrever the accusation is believed that woman stands in
a more undesirable position than Spoilen stood in before
he was arraigned : and ought this to be so and she still at
large? Is that the result we lock for from legal process
in superior courts? Is one to be a-quitted that another,
unconvicted and unqUestiened, may be condemned ?"

THZ ATLANTIC TZLEGUAPH.-We are glad to fin I that,
although the check sustained .by this na;ional undertaking
through the loss of a portion of the cable, owing to the
too sudden application of the brakes connected with the
machinery at a tine when the stern of the Niagara was
down in the trough of the sea, has had the effect of dis-
appoining for a time the hcpas of the public as to the
realisation, during the present month, of telegraphic com-
munication across the Atlantic. The h7pes and antici-
patiw-is of those engaged in the enterprise never-
theless, more and more co:Armed and sanguine as
to the perfect practicability of Transatlantic telegraphy,
An investigation into the precise causes which
have led to the temporary cessatiJn of operations is no v
being conducted by the directors, and we shall be able to
publish authoratively in a few days the result, containi:ig
a truthful statement as to the present mishap, and possibly
the details of future operations. Meanwhile we may state
that the immediato cau 3e of the breakage was as follows :
" The engineer in charge of the brake on board the Niagara
had retired for a short time from exhaustion, and a new
assn occupied his place. The Niagara was pitching in a
heavy sea, and it is believed that the man at the brake—
either from fear at the novelty of his pssition, or from
want of experience, put on the bite' at a time when the
ship was stern down 'to the trough of the sea, instead o