The Sun.
London, England, 1855-09-29 00:00:00

parently unquestionable intelligence forwarded
nearly a year ago re pecting the fall of Sebasto-
pol, and the almost innumerable stories since cir-
culated, we shall not lend too easy credence to
matters derived solely from Vienna, from St.
Paersburg, and still less from Berlin, where
there would seem to be a patent incuba-
tor for the hatching of "canards !" We
should rather patiently await the official, and
therefore authentic, tidings than lead our friends
on a wild-goose chase, by giving, as if trustworthy,
that which, although it might be true, was far
more probably founded on the excited imaginations
of those with whom " the wish was father to the
thought I" The time-honoured apophthegm,
Quod volumes facile credimus," receives daily
illustrations; but it is not for those who assume the
position of public instructors to suffer themselves
to be too frequently misled, or to become short-
sighted leaders of the blind.

We have deemed it advisable thus to caution
the public from the positive manner in which
statements have been put forward, and the slender
circumstances seized on by some of our contem-
poraries as " confirmation strong as proof of
Holy Writ" of some of their previous statements.
Prince GORTSCHAKOF might be a credible
witness if we could be quite certain that his
own words were repeated. But, as there
have been divers, and in some degree con-
flicting, reports of his " sayings and doings,"
and as the latest attributed to the gallant Mus-
covite do not at all corroborate the assertion that
any body of the troops under his command had
been " defeated by the Allies near Eapatoria,"
we shall still retain our comfortable scepticism
until it has been dissipated by unquestionable
testimony.

The incredulity with which the agriculturists
of this country, generally speaking, received the
first intelligence of the wonderful aid derivable
from the resources of chemistry must be fresh in
every one's recollection. The virtues of the pro-
ducts of the cesspool and the ashpit, they were
perfectly familiar with, and held in dutiful admi-
ration. Their fathers had done so before them, and
their faith in these appliances was none the weaker
for coming by hereditary descent. Every simple-
ton knew that if you did not manure your land
as well as turn it up for fallow, and rotate your
crops, you mustn't expect it to pay. That as
" money makes the mare to go," so manuring
made the grass to grow, and wheat, oats, turnips,
&c., to spring up thick, and return a heavy yield.
Draining too, that wasn't bad in its way, if the
landlord did it, which, as a gentleman, he was
bound to do. But what had any of these
operations to do with chemistry. The world
was a good many thousand years old, and
all that time there were mouths to fill, and
little but the fruits of the earth to fill them with,
and nobody ever heard of " apothecary fellows "
lending a helping hand with their chemicals.
They (the agriculturist; to wit) never, nor their
fathers before them, knew a doctor figuring, to
speak of, as a successful farmer. Wore they to
be gulled with tales about chemistry, and the
help it could give them now ; and, above all, was
it likely they were to spend money over such non-
sense ? The blankest thing they ever heard of
was the balance-sheet of a fancy farmer. That--
ha ! ha !—didn't say much for paying the rent !
Chemistry might be a good thing in its way,
there was no saying, but then farmer folks had
to pay the landlord.
Their bewilderment during the scientific
lectures which they subsequently attended was
a study. They were not present from curiosity
--,---that of a truth was not a failing of
theirs. They came because their landlords
asked them, and it didn't do to offend the
squire. The notions they had to listen to were
newfangled, and would, as usual, turn to no good
account, unless it was to make those who spent
money over them wiser for the future. Their
time, it was true, might be better employed, but
afber all there would be a social glass, and a bit
of reasonable talk afterwards. Even the knowing
ones, however, were taken aback as the lecture
proceeded. With clayey bottoms, the forbidden
degrees (a man may not marry his grandmother,
to wit), and the vicissitudes of courtship, they
were sufficiently conversant, but bases, affinities,
attraction, and repulsion were heathen Greek to
them. Vitriol, copperas, soil impregnated with
lime, flint, and bones, figured in the circle of
their acquaintance, but sulphuric acid, sulphate
of iron, calcareous earth, and the tribes of silicates
and phosphates were most unpromising strangers,
whose acquaintance it could not reasonably be ex-
pected they should cultivate. As for the oxy-
gins, the hydrogins, and the nitrogius, what
could they suggest but intensifications of " Old
Tom," brisker than soda water, and more fiery
than gunpowder. Well' might the lecturer
insist on the use of nitrate of sober
(soda) when recpmmending such intoxicat-
ing varieties of gin. Sahcarbonates, carbonates,
sesqui-carbonates, bi-carbonates, oxides, &e., &c.
—a day's hard ploughing, of the heaviest land,
was a joke to it. The study of chemistry be of
service to practical farmers 1 The sorriest drugged
beer in the district could not so bemuddle them.
As well ask them to read the Vicar's Greek Tes-
tament off-hand as to comprehend the admixture
of attractions and repulsions, of gin, sulphur
phosphates, and ox-hides.

It may be said that this is an exaggeration—
very little indeed of that, if it all, in a thousand
instances. At the same time it is perfectly true
that their natural leaders in most cases promoted,
to the best of their power, the new movement,
and availed themselves, ostentatiously even and
continuously, of the proffered aid. Had they
not done so the change effected could not have
taken place so speedily as it did, notwithstanding
the repeal of the Corn Laws, which undoubtedly
had its effect. The most inveterate might retain
his incredulity after witnessing one year's extra
yield from the use of chemical appliances, but it
was.difficult to do so after two. Farmer HODGE
took to scratching his head and pondering over
tie matter. Names, magic, what were either to
him if they brought him good crops, and left
him something in the stocking after he bad paid
the rent ? The eloquence of heavy yields and
large profits prevailed where Dr. FAUSTUS would
have despaired, and now the least cultivated
b,rnier will ask, in a tone of authority, and
with a precision of nomenclature perfectly as-
tounding for chemicals whose names a while back
might in his opinion serve to conjure the devil

at first sight. It is hardly possible, it may be
said, that the Australian settler can be ignorant
of the general use of these stimulants to increased
production at home, or of the success which has
attended it. Successive emigrants must have in-
foz:ned them, and rendered plain and free from
mystery that with which the British agriculturist
was at first bewildered.

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The reason, however, is pretty obvious. The
fruitfulness of virgin soil, which is to be had com-
paratively cheap, obviates, in their opinion, the
necessity of incurring any extra expenditure over
the old, and they act accordingly. This state of
things, however, cannot last. The time will
come, and it may not be far distant, when the
resources of chemistry will eagerly enough be
sought after to insure the various cultivators of
the soil a profit. The necessity for resorting to
these begins already to be felt and urged in the
vicinity of the large towns. The population goes
on increasing ; and if the more enlightened agri-
culturists do their duty that necessity will Boom
be generally recognised. Competition, it is quite
possible, may lend its aid to precept and example,
and it may be left to self-interest to do the rest.

We lave been led to these remarks by the
perusal of an Australian newspaper. In that
fine colony ar)peals are being made to the culti-
vators of the soil to avail themselves of the appli-
ances of the laboratory—to all appearance, how-
ever, with but little success. Not only are they
urged to resort to the use of the appliances in
question in the larger, but also in the
more delicate fields of cultivation. The
orange tree and the vine, no less than ex-
listed corn-fields, they are told, may be
fel tilised and rendered profitable by chemical
manures. That advice so conducive to their in-
terests should be neglected may appear surprising

THE SON. LONDON SATURDAY EVENINO, µ SEPTEMBER 29, 1855,

the number of persons arrested by the police (int-
par° della Pol Lid, as it is called), and retained in
custody without trial, and even without examina-
tion, directly in violation of the penal code, which
is as explicit on this subject as the habeas corpus
in England.

Iu Civil Courts bribery is so openly recog-
nised that no advocate would think of undertaking
a cause, be it ever so good, without first recom-
mending his client to make a propitiatory offering
to the judge, and he would hardly dare to plead at
all if the opposing party was in any way under the
protection of the police.
Thus the police rule the country in open defiance
of the laws, and it is impossible, said my in-
formant, to organise a Moderate party for the
reform of these abuses without the intervention of
foreign Powers, because all the best men of that
party are either in prison or in exile, and so
completely has six years of an espionage Govern-
ment destroyed all confience thoughout society,
that if they could return to-morrow they could not
reckon on the support of their former adherents,
who have, in all probability, become much more
violent in the meantime. Besides, should anything
like a moderate movement be discovered by the
police they would forthwith let slip some of those
societies of Lazzaroni, who under its auspices are
allowed to retain arms, and who form a standing
menace to all who have anything to lose. Between
this organised Jacquerie, patronised by the Crown,
and the proprietary class, some arbitrating power
must intervene before any rational changes, such
as would be likely to last, can be effected, and those
who object to that being done, on the score of
foreign intervention, seem to forget that the main-
taining some 12,000 or 15,000 Swiss by an absolute
monarch for the purpose of continuing abuses in
opposition to the will of the people is in itself a per-
manent state of foreign intervention.