The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-10 00:00:00

MAILS DUE.

Australia and Mauritius, via Southampton .. Oct. 19.
via Marseilles Oct. 13.
4razil and Cape Verde, by British packet. Nov. 4.
Cape of Good Hope, Ascension, and St. Helena Oct. 29.
'lhina, Penang, and Singapore, via Southampton. Oct. 19.
via Marseilles Oct. 13.

Falkland Islands
Gibraltar, via Southampton Oct. 11.
India (Calcutta), and Ceylon, via Southampfon Oct. 19.
via Marseilles Oct, 13.
India (Bombay), via Southampton .. Oct. 11.
via Marseilles Oct. 6.
Portugal....
51alta, Egypt, and Aden, via Southampton Oct. 11.
via Marseilles Oct. G.
Newfoundland .. Oct. 12.

Oporto and Vigo.. .....
U. S. and British N. America, by Brit. packet.... Oct. 12.
by U.S. packet....
by Canadian packet. Oct. 7.
All parts of West Indies, including Chili, Peru, 10ct.14 . .
California. and British Columbia..

THE MASTER OF MARTON. A novel. 3 vole.—
" There is a good deal to admire in ' The Master of Marton'
It is well written, and it has an interesting plot. It will
take a very high place among the novels of the Kasen.
The character of the heroine is most admirably drawn. The
growth of her intelligence, the first yielding to hasty im-
pulses, and the subsequent steadying down to a beautiful,
cheerful, kind, loving woman, are excellently worked out;
and the same may be said of almost every character in the
book—there is not one upon whom the greatest care has not
been bestowed. The dialogue throughout is good, speaking
everywhere with geniality and wit."—Star.
THE HORSES OF PHIDIAS, says M. Berjean, are
of the pure Arabian race, although, when compared
with the present type, their head is more square and larger.
When the horseman is on foot his breast is at a level with
the head of the horse ; when on horseback his feet are lower
than its knee. Here the neck of the Greek horse is strong
and muscular, his shoulders are well set, the breast deep,
the joints strong, dry, and admirably perpendicular ; the
back is short, and the tail carried with a peculiar elegance.
The mane is generally cut brush-seise, while the tail is long
and floats freely in the brerz 3. The horseman wants neither
saddle nor stirrups, and under his directions the horse is
either racing or cantering in a gentle gallop. But no mat-
trr what motion the artist may have chosen to depict, his
marble horses arc almost really living. Their admirable
proportions and fine bearing, no doubt, caused them to find
favour in the eye=, and mercy at the hands, of the Mussul-
man devastators, whose fanaticism so sadly mutilacd the
heads of the horsemen. more per tioularly perhaps Lect.use
the representation of men is prohibited by the Alcoren.
[ADV] RTISEMENT.]-110110Wa:,'S
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pel all morbid matters from the circulation, and thoroughly
cleanse and invigorate the glands, viscera, and brain.
Through this wholesome inflttonce Holloway's medicine
casts out the seeds of all fevers which, in sultry weather,
prove so formidable to health, and in a vast majority of cases
destroy lite itself. Forewarned should be forearmed—a
position easily obtained by taking these excellent pills when
lassitude, headache, or dejection distresses us.

LONDON, MONDAY, OCT. 10, 1864.

How to expend the greatest amount of public
money with the least possible result is the problem
which our Board of Admiralty appears to have set
itself to solve. They have often succeeded in coming
very near a result, but their last achievement really
out does themselves. The public have grown so
accustomed to their maladministration and extra-
vagance that they have almost ceased to wonder and
exclaim, but the case in qusstioa is so flagrant that
it has aroused the attention even of those who look
on all Admiralty proceedings with cinet despair.
Great interest has been excited by the trial of
Captain COLES'S much-talked-of system of turret
ships, and it was a source of general satisfaction
when it was first decided at headquarters that his
method should be submitted to the fair test of prate
thee! experiment. It was many a long year before
this concession was wade, but the decision when
come to was generally applauded, for without in
any way committing ourselves to unconditional
approval of the system, we must say that Captain
COLF.a'S perseverance and ability, the skill with
which he supported his views before competent
examiners, and the favour with which they have
been received in•scientific and professional circles,
alike entitle his m )del turret ship to a fair trial.
This point, however, was gained, and the Admiralty,
following their favourite plan of cutting down and
altering whenever it is possible to find an excuse
for doing so, directed that Captain COLES should
convert the Royal Sovereign, a vastly wooden three-
decker, into a turret-ship on his system. And
now, what is the end of the story ? The ship is
completed, equipped, manned, and put under the
command of a very able officer, Captain OSBORNE,
and all who are interested in such matters are
watching with anxiety the results of her winter
campaign. The trial trips have been as yet satis-
factory, and her commander has expressed himself
well pleased with what he has seen of her. All is
ready for the promised fair trial, when the public
is startled by the intelligence that the skip is paid
out of commission and placed in the steam reserve
—when and in what form to be allowed to re-
appear, may be esked. Such a proceeding is outs
regeous alike to common sense and justice. It is
undoubtedly due to Captain COLES and his sup-
porters that the ship should be sent fairly to sea and
allowed to prove her sea-going capacities. That is
the very point on which he especially claims prece-
dence for his system over the famous American
Monitors, which, however formidable at close quar-
ters, have been proved to have the serious draws
back of being generally unseaworthy. A ship may
be in the mysterious list of the steam reserve for
fifty years without anyone knowing how she would
bahave in rough weather at sea ; and thus Captain
Coms's invention is pronounced to have failed,
qaietly huddled out of sight with the hope, per-
h ipe, that it will drop out of public remembrance.
Bat the public feel that they have b!en ill-used no
less than Captain COLES, Why, if the experiment
was not worth trying fully and fairly, was a
veesel that cost a hundred thousand pounds to be
secrificed to it, and the public money wasted in an
experiment which was never intended to be carried
cut? Why, if there really were grounds, as there
undoubtedly were, in the present transition state of
naval architecture, for testing how much Captain
COLES's plan was worth, should the work atop half
way ? Why should men and officers who have
learned how to work this particular ship be paid
off, end' their knowledge turn,,,d to no account ?
Why are we to go on building iron plated ships on
the ordinary plan, when
all the tima the turret
ships, for what we know, mayprove far superior
as vessels of war ? We cannot see that the Admi-
ralty excuses for the proceeding are at all satisfac-
tory. It is gravely asserted that the Royal Sove-
reign was never intended for a sea-going chip at all,
bat merely as a fl sating battery for harbour defence,
eapable of being sent to any part of the Channel,
but not adapted to cruise with a squadron—that

her want of masts and the lowness of her decks
disqualify her for a seagoing ship, and to try her
with the ships of the Channel, would be of no
practical use. She was sent to Portland, we are
told to try her turrets and guns; and that since an
accident necessitated her going into a dockyard,
Captain OSBORNE sent up a list of alterations that
were requisite, when it was thought no advantage
would be gained by keeping the ship in commission
daring the winter, so in one of our Admiralty's
periodical fits of economy officers and men were for
the most part paid off, and the grand new experi-
ment, the Royal Sovereign, transformed into a
tender to the Excellent. There are several points
in this explanation which require explanation them-
selves. The R )yal Sovereign, we are told, was
never in her new form intended for a sea-going
ship. But :she certainly was intended for a
sea - going ship when first built at an
outlay of a hundred thousand pounds, and if
Captain COLES was to do no more than build a
floating battery he might, one would think, have
been allowed to construct it for himself without
spoiling a ship of the calibre of the Royal Sovereign.
Bat it was generally understood that the Royal
Sovereign was to be a seagoing ship, and unless
Captain COLES has been very much misrepresented
that is certainly the impression he intended to con-
vey. There is no great miracle in constructing an
effective floating battery " capable of being sent to
any port in the Channel, bat not adapted
to cruise with a squadron." A good many
professional men • could, no doubt, design such
a one without devoting ten years to perfecting
and publishing it. The very merit of Captain
COLES'S scheme is its professed superiority to the
American method, which makes the ships unsea-
worthy; and if his real endeavour is to be no more
than a floating battery, it is decidedly inferior to
monitors, which have contrived to go to sea. As
for the assertion that the absence of masts and the
low decks of the Royal Sovereign disqualify her
for sea-going purposes, that is virtually deciding
against all turret ships, for the low decks are one of
their distinctive features. To say that it would be
useless to grant the ship a trial is to pre-judge the
case. It would have been fairer to the inventor
and to the public to say it was useless to make the
experiment at all. When the affair first begun,
it was certainly given out that the Royal Sovereign
was to be a fair test of Captain COLES'S method,
and as such the public accepted it. The "floating
battery" is only, we believe, a convenient excuse,
for nobody doubted that Captain COLES could con-
struct a floating battery. We should like to hear
what he has to say on the subject ? We should
imagine he feels considerable indignation as well as
disappointment at the issue of this much talked of
trial, which has really been no trial at all. There
is one thing certain. -When Parliament meets we
shall hear something more about this "floating
battery," and we shall hope that one practical result
of the affair will be the application of the Admi-
ralty's favourite principle of conversion and al-
teration to their own Board, which needs a
thorough remodelling before it fa:fils the require•
ments of the public service.

News received from New York up to the Ist of
O ;tober, still leaves the actual condition of affairs
uncertain. Bat all that we gather from the vague
and hesitating details of the grand encounter
between SHERIDAN and EARLY, seems to confirm
our original impression that the Federal success
had been greatly exaggerated in the first instance.
the Americans claim to make war on a new scale,
and certainly not only in the gigantic extent of
their undertakings, but in the eccentricity of their
results they have reversed the whole system of old
world military tactics. We, of the old school,
should not thick very much of a triumph where
the victor cannot keep his communications
with his own Government open and from
which the vanquished retreats in safety with the
whole of his trains and stores. Yet such appears to
have been the case at Winchester, and it is very
certain that the discrepancy between the losses on
the two sides cannot have been fairly stated, since
SHERIDAN has not thought fit to push on his ad
vantage. When the Confederates state their losses
at 2,500 killed, wounded, and missing, and the
North will not calculate theirs, the case looks bad
for the Federals, and the capture of SHERIDAN'S
couriers by Confederate cavalry in his rear makes
the matter worse. It is true that the Federal
Government may find it just now very convenient
to receive no despatches direct from the seat of war,
but the people cannot be deceived for long. Mean-
while in Missouri and Alabama the Confederate star
is again the ascendant. General PRICE has entered
Missouri with his whole army; he is within 60 miles
of the capital of St. Louis, where business is sus-
pended, and the citizens are arming themselves,
in answer to an appeal from the Federal com-
mander, General ROSENCRANS. The real sympa-
thies of the West are mainly with the South, and
if the Confederates hold St. Louis it will be an
important step gained. In Alabama, again, General
FORREST has advanced successfully ; and it was
anticipated he would cut off SHERMAN'S communi-
cations with Nashville. These two simultaneous
movements in the West are full of importance, but
the PRESIDENT and his associates will take care
that as little as possible is known until the great
political contest is concluded. It is a stormy pic-
ture, at best, and the real lovers of their country,
whether North or South, may well look with a
heavy heart on the widespread and continuous
devastation.

It is always to be regretted when those who at-
tempt to administer justice fail in some of its chiel
requisites, for the harm that such mistakes occasions
is always incalculable. One of the most glaring
cases of undue severity 'that has been made public
for some time is recorded as taking place in Kent.
A poor boy of fourteen years of age was brought be-
fore General iIITCIIENE3, charged with the trifling
offence of having knocked down six walnuts from a
tree in a field. Surely, it was hardly worth while
to have brought up the youth on such a charge at
all, but the most that was awarded to him should
have been a reprimand or a fine. We are not t old
that the boy had been seen before to commit such
an offence, and his own version of the affair might
well have condoned his error in the sight of any one
less austere than his judge. He said that he had
been disappointed at his ill success when out nutting,
and that he was tempted by the appearance of these
walnuts in question. He therefore threw stone
and took up six that fell. It seems almost incredible
thlt, upon hearing such an Recount, General
HIV:HEINS should have passed such a sentence as
that which followed. The poor boy was condemned
to Maidstone prison, with hard labour, for six
months. The option of a fine was not allowed. Can
anything be more monstrous than such a sentence P
It is virtually ruining the boy for life, and taking
away his chance of earning an honest livelihood,
because Le has done as hundreds do every day, and
helped himself to a trifle. It is not as if he
had entered a house and taken a email portion of
property ; that would have been a very different
affair, and ought to have been de.;lt with rigorously
by way of prevention. The punishment of six
months' imprisonment with hard labour is dealt out
to many who have committed assaults on others,

and half killed them perhaps, and such an award
is deemed sufficient, yet this poor boy is to no.
dergo a like penalty b:cause he has been charged
with a most trivial fault. Such things ought not
to occur in the administration of justice, and it is
to be hoped that some inquiry will be instituted
into the circumstances of the affair. The Home
Secretary should certainly turn his attention to
this affair, and ascertain the grounds upon which
such an extraordinary sentence could have been
passed. It is a scandal to the community that such
harshness should be tolerated, and it will prevent
the recurrence of the like inconsistency for the
future if notice is taken of this departure from jus.
tier which has taken place under the mask of the
law. There can be no greater mistake committed
than to send those convicted of trivial offences at
an early age to mix with felons, and it is a wrong
thing to strain the law so that a youth should bear
the stigma of imprisonment upon him at his en-
trance into life. Beyond these considerations it
seems that in this case a direct error has been com-
mitted by the Magistrate himself, and for the sake
of justice, which can never be tou perfectly ad
ministered, some decided steps should be taken to
prevent the chance of similar inconsistencies again
arising to shock our sense of propriety.