The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-28 00:00:00

TIIh SUN. LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY 28, 1864.

position of those strange measures which in foreign
countries have convulsed States, and rendered all
popular representations a sham and a delusion.
The chief aim and object put before those who
come forward and represent the interests of their
country, ought not to be the setting up or the
pulling down of any party, but the real good of
the State and the welfare of the community. Let
these be secured, and all else is secondary, while if
they are disregarded nothing can atone for
their absence, or compensate for their loss.

The meeting of the Manchester Chamber of
Commerce is an event of some public interest in
the present condition of the cotton trade. The
opinion of men so closely connected with that
branch of commercial industry must certainly be
worth having, since they not only give us the
present aspect of the trade as it appears to them,
but they represent also the estimate formed of
the promises and prospects of the future. Cotton,
of course, was the grand subject of debate, as
well as the prominent feature in the Report.
It is satisfactory to find that the general tone of
the meeting was sanguine as to the revival of the
trade, and that no dissentient voice expressed a
doubt of the future increase of supplies, although
there was naturally some difference of opinion as
to minor particulars. Whether that increase de-
pends on the old source reopening, or the new ones
developing their powers, is really a matter of less
moment than the question of sufficient supplies,
although it is very fervently to be hoped that never
again will one country be allowed the virtual
monopoly of the raw material. That such depen-
dence was necessitated by no special peculiarity of
soil or climate was sufficiently evidenced by the
statistics given by the Chairman of the assembly on
Tuesday. "In a short time," he said, " they might
hope for enough cotton to serve the wants of the
consumer, and to employ all hands who still re-
mained in the district, though it might be longer
before all the idle spindles were employed. In 1861
our imports of cotton from Egypt were 97,800
bales; last year they were 284,700, the increase
in the money value being nearly £12,000,000. The
increase in Indian produce is by no means propor-
tionate. According to Mr. ASHWORTH'S statement,

in 1861 the amount furnished by India was 986,000
bales, while last year it rose to 1,223,000 bales; the
value having risen from £12,000,000 to £43,000,000,
an increase which, as he justly observed, must have
exercised a sensible effect on the industry of India.
Still the difference in the quantity supplied is not
at all commensurate with the rapid development of
the trade in Egypt, Turkey, Africa, and other
places. Remembering the effect of British capital
and enterprise in other quarters, the vast impor-
tance to this country of obtaining a speedy and
sufficient supply ; remembering, too, the uncon-
trolled authority we exercise in India, the public
will be tempted to ask with Mr. PENDER, M,P.,
who was one of the speakers at this meeting, what
is the cause of this discrepancy. " Looking," he
said, "at the production of cotton in other countries,
and at the rapid increase which had taken place in
the production of Turkish and Egyptian, looking
also at the very small increase in India (taking into
consideration the immense area covered by the
cotton field, for India had been for centuries a cotton
growing country) it might naturally be asked
' What is the renson of this slow increase of pro-
duction in India ?' " The answer has hitherto been

that the price required was high, but this
is no longer acceptable, since manufac-
turers are unable to obtain the quantity they
want, although the price of Indian cotton is now as
high as 23d. per lb. The real answer to the query
was readily supplied from all parts of the Chamber
by the sitccessive speakers, who lamented the negli-
gence and 'mismanagement of the Indian Govern-
ment, Complaints were made that the roads were
neglected, and no efforts made to stimulate or en-
courage the trade. In the annual report it was

stated that Sir CHARLES WOOD's explanations with
respect to the occupation of waste lends, and the
measures to be adopted for increasing tho Indian

cotton supply were far from satisfactory. The
right hon. baronet's self-glorifications at Halifax
were received at Manchester cum grano salis. The
President demurely remarking that had his consti-
tuents at Halifax been dependent upon cotton in-
stead of wool for their staple manufacture, they
would have been less easily satisfied with his state-
ments. At a great crisis like the present, when
thousands of our industrial population have been
suddenly thrown out of employment, and one of
our chief branches of trade and commerce has been
abruptly paralysed, it would have seemed to an im-
partial observer that the first duty of an English
Minister who had the direction of affairs in a
country which had the power to supply in some
measure the defection of the old source, would be
to it'amulate the cultivation by every means in his
reach. It might have been expected that he would
use his authority, would exert his influence, would
empty his treasury, would stretch his powers to
the very fullest extent in the endeavour to obtain
the largest possible quantity of raw material for the
Eneish market. Road-making and canals into the
interior should have been hurried forward to sup-
ply the means of communication—liberal advances
should have been made, prizes offered on the part
of the Government fcr the best specimens of Indian
grown cotton, first-rate seed should have been ob-
tained and distributed, waste lands reclaimed and
let or sold for the express purpose of cotton culti-
vation, and all those means which have proved so
eminently successful in the hands of the rulers of
Egypt, of Syria, of Southern America, and other
places, should have been tried with unremitting
energy. How far Sir CHARLES WOOD has done all
this may be seen from the figures adduced above.
We cannot but hop© that the Secretary for India
will be called upon in his place in Parliament to
give some account of what he has done and left
undone in India during the past twelve months,
and certainly neither India nor England will have
much cause to regret the substitution of an abler
and more enlightened statesman at the head of
Indian affairs.

OPERA PROPRIETIES IN PARIS.—WouId you like
to know what is the thing to do if you go to the
Grand Opera? Scoutez. First take your box three days
beforehand ; then obtain two Napoleons ; send one of these
to M. Alphonse Kars, poet and gardener at Nice, the other
to a confectioner in Paris. Addresses may be had at the
box-office, adding the number of your box. Before the
overture you will receive a bouquet of spring flowers—the
modest viJlet, fillies mired with roses ; in fact, " omnis
copia narium," in a wooden box ; and after the first act, a
tin case full of iced fruits. I can assure you nobody who is
anybody—nobody of our world, you understand—now goes
withou them ; and a truly 'fashionable audience has its
mouth full during the whole performance.
HEAVY GERMAN JOKING.—We learn from Ger-
man papers that the " Railway theatre which has been
instituted on the trains between Manohester and Liverpool
is a complete success, and that the performances might
serve as models for fixed stages I l'' If this bo a joke, we
don't see it.

THE TREATIES OF PARIS AND VIENNA, 1814 and
1815, Dr. Abdy has chosen as the subject of the law lec-
tures at Gresham College, for the present Ililary Term.

A CALCULATION RATHER DIFFICULT TO BE
EsTlMATED.—ProfessOr Bischoff, of Bonn, had made some
experiments on the rate of cooling of basalt, and on these
Professor Helmholtz had founded a calculation, by means
of• which he proved that the,period which a globe of basalt
of the size of the earth would take to cool from 2,000 deg.
C. to 200 deg. C. would be 350,000,000 of years.
LIVERPOOL AND BIRKENHEAD are to be con-
nected by a tunnel under the Mersey, at a cost.of 2400,000.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

LREUTER'S TELEGRAMS.]

MARCH OF THE AUSTRO-PRUSSIAN
VANGUARD,
KIEL, JAN. 27 (Evening).

Orders have been received here for the vanguard
of the Anstro-Prussian army corps to advance. It
is expected that the troops will commence their
march to morrow towards the Eider canal.

BERLIN, JAN, 28.

Advices received here from Warsaw to the 25th
ancounce that the Dziennik publishes an order of
General Berg, according to which Poland is to be
governed in future by martial law.

THE PRINCIPALITIES.

BUCHAREST, JAN. 28.

The question of the Monastic property which
has been secularised by the Government is
entirely settled, the Chamber of :Representatives
having yesterday voted an indemnity of 50 million
francs to be paid to the religious communities of
the Holy Places. This indemnity will be covered
by a loan to be issued at 88, and bearing 7 per cent.
interest.

LITERATURE,

The Rev, J, M. Bellew's Novel.

For Ever: A Story of English Country Life. By
a Clergyman. Three vols. Hurst and Blackett.
Although the real authorship of " For Ever''
appears to be only half anonymously hinted upon its
own title page, in the words, "By a Clergyman,"
we believe there is no reason for affecting any
mystery whatever about it. In point of fact, the
name of the Rev. J. M. Bellew as the writer of this
new three-volumed novel, or, as it modestly calls
itself, simply, this Story of English Country Life,
was actually advertised for some time by the pub-
lishers in their preliminary announcements of its
proximate appearance. And, now that we have
ourselves read the book, we certainly can-
not see any reason whatever for the conceal-
ment (even supposing that concealment were any
longer possible) of the author's identity—for
the withdrawal of his name (supposing it to
be yet in any way practicable) behind the mask
of the anonymous. The cit, now several weeks
since, was let slip out of the bag. And were it
capable, even yet, of being caught and popped in
again—pottrquoi?—we should still know ail about
it. Vaguely By a Clergyman, therefore, means
specifically By the Rev. J. M. Bellew. As
was, in fact—w 6 repeat—first announced to
us through advertisement. And wherefore
not ? After Rabellais, with his Gargantua
and Pantegruel--after Swift, with his
Tale of a Tub, and his Travels of Gulliver—after
Sterne with his Uncle Toby and his Corporal
Trim in Tristram Shandy—after Maturin with his
Pour et Centre, and his Melmoth the Wanderer!
And, not only may we say after these and other cleri-
cal fictionists, but—novv-a-days—w hen among Mr.
Bellew'simmediatecontemporaries,we behold r!popu-
lar novelist in the person of one of her Majesty's
own Chaplains, to wit, the Rev, Charles Kingsley,
the leader of what is grossly entitled the
school of Muscular Christianity, author, among
other well-known contributions to imaginative
literature, of that hot-b'ooded, highly spiced, almost
wholly voluptuous " Hypatia." Remembering
all which, it is surely the most natural circumstance,
all things considered, that so very " strong-minded"
a clergyman as the Rev. J. M. Bellew—Popular
Preacher, Public Lecturer, Theatrical Critic, Elocu-
tionist, Journalist, and what not (he already having
in each of those characters acquired for himself a
certain recognisable reputation in London circles)—
should add yet another feather (the feather end of
another goosequill) to those upon which he already
may (and with some show of reason) plume himself.
Dropping the name, however, of the individual
clergyman, to whose lively imagination novel
readers are now indebted for this Story of English
Country Life—a story entitled for no conceivable
reason whatever, saving that the two words are
the last two words of the narrative, " For Ever"

—we may henceforth drop into the half anony-
mous manner of the revised title page of the
book, referring to its author as A Clergyman. As
stories go, then, "For Ever" will be found to pos-
sess that most welcome attraction among all to the
devourers of fiction—interest I Without being at
any time in the course of the whole story what one
could go so far as to designate actually en-
thralling—the book for the most part, deeply
interesting. Before saying another word about

it, however, it may be as well at once to
give 9, taste of our author's quality in regard to
his mere manner as a Novelist. And no better
illustrations of his manner could hardly be ad-
duced, we imagine, than those we shall here give
forthwith, by way of companion quotations. They
will serve two purposes, moreover, the particular
extracts we have thas selected for quotation. They
will indicate, not unfavourably, the mannerism of
our clerical novelist a 3 a narrator. And, while
doing this, they will serve to introduce the reader,
in one sense directly, in another indirectly, to the

young hero and the young heroine of the love
story, or rather of the love part of this same story of
English country life. Noscitur a sociis, says the
prover)). But, know them from the mere " sur-
roundings," even though these latter be what artists
term "still life," says our new novelist clergyman.
Taking this axiom of his as our guide, let as now
turn at once to an examination of this pretty little
peep into—

MARY LEE'S HOME." NEST."

Now, because "tine nest" owed its peculiar beauty entirely
to llary Lee--for her elder sister seemed naturally too
indolent and undemonstrative to care about the matter—and
that Mary Lee's inner life has much to do with my story, I
must be allowed to delay the progress of events by a brief
description of the scene of many future incidents—of much
thought, much joy, and much sorrow—all of which, to my
eyes, are dimly shadowed out in the ensemble of that little
room as we enter it unseen by the side of Mrs. Lee.
Like all the rooms in the rectory, it was wainscoted half
way up the walls, with black oak in panel. Above the
panelling, which might have had a sombre effect had it not
shone by dint of age and labour as though it had been a
skilfully arranged series of steel mirrors, was a warm crim-
son and gold paper, on which hung some half dozen artists'
proofs of pictures by old masters. Murillo's hsavenly
Madonna was there, and the " Madonna Colle Stelle," and
Raphael's "Holy Family," and "The Three Marks" of
Annibal Caracci. The west end was taken up by a large bay
window looking out across the garden on the opposite tor,
with the sea for an everchanging background. Opposite
the white granite fireplace was an oriel window deeply
recessed, and set round with crimson seats. Here was
Mary Lee's peculiar abode. The window ledges were a
blaze of geranium and verbena, and perfumed with the
sweet odour of mignionette and heliotrope. The window,
she herself, having an artistic talent, had filled with quarrys
bearing all kinds of quaint devices and emblems, and sun.
rounded with a bolder of bright cclours.

Here she was sitting at a low table as her mother en•

tered, and from the open casement could see the stately
church tower, the white cottages and homesteads bordering
on the shining fields of wind-ruffled corn, and the misty
summits of the great and mysterious moor looming heavily
in the far purple distance,

As, literaliy, a companion picture to which glimpse
of Mary Lee's belongings at Moorcombe Rectory,
. _ _

.-
turn we now to this hurried glance through the
suite of rooms at St. Ord's, in the University of
Oxford, the suite of rooms there set apart as—

'WILLIAM ASHE'S COLLEGE CHAMBERS.

Tho larger room is wainscoted nearly half-way up with
dark, tawny oak, above which there is a rich flock paper of
crimson and gold ; the carpet is Turkey—we trust that our
young friend will take it with him to Cleveborough, when
he finally returns thither, for the paternal dining room
carpet is less handsome, and was possibly less costly. There
is a small regiment of rather rickety mahogany chairs, evi-

dently bought in from a former tenant; they are, however,
covered with new crimson damask and bound with
gold cord. The owner's special armchair was rather a
curiosity ; it hada mechanical apparatus whereby the sitter
could raise or lower it and screw it into any conceivable
and desirable shape. There was a reading desk, candle-
sticks, and foot-stool attached, which were similarly move-
able; so that it became quite a small amusement to "put
Aslle's chair through its facings," and the reviews were
numeroturenoush to produce a general shakiness and creaki-
ness, which were by no means conducive to the well-work-
ing of the machine.
The walls were covered with pictures—one or two tole-
rable water-colours of the Lake district we noticed, and a
good engraving of Raphael's Holy Family, and a represen-
tation of Henley Regatta, and a rather unnecessarily un-
draped young lady reclining on a bank, and the Madonna
Celle Stelle, and Landseer's " Life in the Old Dog Yet,"
and so on. The books—all gorgeously arrayed in elaborate
bindings—are also various : Aristotle, and A lam Bede,
and Gibbon, and Buckle, and the Idylls of the Kings, and
Owen's Palreontology, and Kant, and Hooker, and Darwin
are all to be found in that curiously-carved bookcase. There
is a piano, with a pile of songs upon it, boo a key bugle.
Over the chimneypiece is an armoury of whips, spurs, foils,
walking-sticks, and pipe stems. The windows are full of
flowers, and the room is a perfect museum of Spierian nick-
nacks of every conceivable iety of uselessness.
Tho " third room" has arilow settee running round it,
end on its centre table is a chaos of "
book and papersho
Mere the owner apparently does his rsadsing ;" for
does read, and his friends put him down as a probable
"second," whilst he himself studiously disclaims all in-
tention of going in for honours.
The bedroom is merely remarkable for its smallness;
there is just room for a low truckle bed, and a washingstand,
and a chest of drawers, and a huge tin bath upreared
against the wall. How the proprietor contrives to dress
when the bath is not in that position is a mystery which
we do not pretend to fathom.
And now, having got a fair general notion of our
friend's likings, dislikings, habits, and general tendencies,
let us pause awhile in our description, and allow the
actors to appear on the scene.
Ashe and Mary Lee, of course, being—
hence, indeed, our selection of the foregoing extracts
as companion quotetions—the young lovers of the
narrative. The Villain of the Book is Willis:
Ache's reputed father (in reality his uncle), Martin
Ache, of Alaery Barton, and, before the end of the
story, lg.P, for Cleveborough. Before the end of the