The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-07 00:00:00

CITY SLWERS COMMISSION.

Yesterday a meeting of the Commissioners of Sewers of
the City of London was held at Guildhall, under the presi-
dency of Mr Deputy and Und.r-sheriff De Jersey, chairman.

THE GIS SUPPLX TO THE CITY,

Mr DAIV, the principal clerk, laid before the Court a me-
morial from the inhabitants of the Ward of Cripplegate
Without, in which they stated that they felt themselves
aggrieved by the impure quality, deficient quantity, and
high price of the gas now supplied to the city of London,
which was inconsistent with the economical and improved
method now used in the manufacture of gas.. The memo-
rialists prayed that the Commissioners of Sewers would take
such steps as might be deemed advisable to relieve the in-
habitants from the injurious monopoly under which they at
present suffered, in order that the supply might be in-
creased, the price lowered, and the quality improved.
The memorial contained the signatures of 199 inhabi-
tants of the ward.

Mr PICKERING, a member of the deputation which at-
tended in support of tho petition, said the subject of the gas
supply was one that had been well ventilated throughout the
City, and that they did not intend upon that occasion to do
more than hand in the petition, and leave the matter with
confidence in the hands of the Commissioners.

Deputy FARRAR asked the members of tho deputation
whether they could suggest any mode by which the Court
could accomplish the object they had in view.
Mr PICKERING said the memorial was presented with the
object of strengthening the hands of the Court in any steps
they might think it advisable to take, rather than to make
any suggestions to them. He apprehended that suggestions
could only be made by persons possessing a practical engi-
neering knowledge of the gas question, which could not be
expected from the petitioners. It was well known through-
out the City that the supply of gas was most unsatisfactory,
and the memorialists came before the Court to ask them to
obtain relief by application to Parliament or otherwise.

On the motion of Deputy READ, seconded by Mr 11.
WIND, the memorial was referred to the special gas com 4
mitts° to consider and report.

QUARTERLY REPORT ON THE GAS SUPPLY.

Dr LETREBY laid before the Court the following report
on the quality of the gas supplied to the city of London for
the quarter ending Saturday, Nov. 26, 1864:
' Gentlemen,—ln the course of the quarter 659 experi-
ments have been made on the illuminating power of tho gas
supplied to the City by tho three companies, and in the case
of the City Company the average illuminating power was
1362 standard sperngcandles; in that of the Chartered 12.89
candles ; and in that of the Great Central, 13.33 candles. In
11 instances the gas of the Chartered Company was under
the requirements of the act of Parliament, and in that of the'
Great Contra! it was twice below the standard, while the
gas of the City Company had not in any instance been
less than the illuminating power of the act. Taking the
average of the illuminating power of the gas supplied to the
City by the Great Central Company and Chartered Com-
pany for ten years before the passing of the Metropolis Gas
Act, and bringing it up to the proportion which it would
have been had it been tested by the burner now in use, it
appears that the power of the Great Central gas was equal
to 14.47 etandard sperm candles, and that of the Chartered
to 13.70. There has therefore been a great falling off in the
illuminating power of the gas since the passing of the Me-
tropolis Gas Act of 1860.
"The chemical quality of the gas has been tested on 195
occasion, and the average amount of sulphur in the City
Company's gas has been 18 3 grains per 100 cubic feet : of
the Chartered Company 18.67, and of the Great Central
21.98 grains. Moreover, of the 65 occasions when the gas
of the City Company was tested, only four were above the
requirements of the act. In those of the Chartered there
were 17 occasions, and of the 65 occasions in the Great Cen-
tral there were 48 occasions, and the quantity of sulphur
ranged from 17 to 32 grains per 100 cubic feet.
(Signed) "13. LETHEBY,
" Gas Analyst to the City of London."

It was decided that a copy of the above report should be
forwarded to each of the companies at present supplying
the City with gas.

STATE OF THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST. DIONII, BACK

CIIURCiI,

The attention of our readers has upon two or three occa-
sions been drawn to the proceedings which have taken place
in reference to the repairs to the parish church of St, Dionis,
Backchurch, in Fenchurch-street, and the subject was
again to-day brought under the notice of the Court. Some
months since the district surveyor, Mr J. Young, having
examined the structure reported that the north wall of the
church was in a dangerous state, and the Commissioners
issued t ho customary order upon the parochial officers to put
the same into a proper state of repair. A considerable
number of the inhabitants, however, entertained a contrary
opinion with regard to the state of the church, and have
contended that the expenditure contemplated, in order to
carry out the order of the commissioners, was unnecessary.
It was, however, decided at the meeting held a fortnight
since that proceedings should be taken against the parochial
officers to enforce the carrying out of the order. The sum-
mons was heard before the Lord Mayor, when it wag stated
by the district surveyor that ho found a crack existed in the
north wall about seven feet from Lime-street, which he con-
sidered rendered the structure highly dangerous; and added
further, that there was a hole there through which he could
run his arm. The Lord Mayor, after hearing the evidence,
ordered that the repairs should be executed within 14 days,
A numerous deputation of inhabitants of the parish at-
tended the meeting of the commissioners upon the subject. i
The rector of the parish, the Rev. W. H Lyell, M.A.,
on behalf of the congregation of the church, a 3 well as him-
self, desired o state his opinion that the order of the Lord
Mayor ought at once to be carried out, and the repairs exe-
cuted without further delay.
Mr T. A. HANKET, on behalf of the deputation from the
parishioners, complained that the rector had attended the
Court in opposition to them, without giving them notice
that he intended to do so, 11e went on to say that the inhabi-
tants as a body were opposed to the carrying out of the re-
pairs in question, believing them to be quite unnecessary.
The question was as to the state of tho wall of the church,
and they had abundant evidence to show that it was not of
a dangerous character, and that the summons had been
issued by the commission under an erroneous impression of
the circumstances of the case. The Court was therefore
asked to modify or suspend their order, so that all the cir-
cumstances might be clearly ascertained.
Mr SCOTT, an architect, having personally examined the
well of the church, strongly denied the statement of the
district surveyor that there was a hole there through which
he could run his arm.

After a lengthened discussion it was resolved to postpone
the decision on the application until the next Court.

TILE ACCOUNTS OF TILE COMMISSION.

The CLituxc laid on the table the commissioners' accounts
for the year ending at I\Tichaelmas last, as audited by the
accountants appointed by the Court of Common Council.

It was decided to certify the same on the 20th inst,
The Treasurer's accounts for the same period wore referred
to the General Purposes Committee to examine and report.

SANATORY CONDITION OF THE CITY.

Dr LETHEBY presented the following report of the sana-
tory condition of the ity :
" Gentlemen,—The inspector's returns which are before
you relate to 265 houses that have been inspected during the
week, and I submit a list of 28 places for sanitary improve-
ment.
"The markets and slaughter-houses have been duly in•
spected, and the officers have condemned 2,o2filbs of meat
as unfit for human food, most of which was in a diseased
condition. I have also to bring under your notice the fact
that on the 2d inst. two sheep and a calf, which had died
and ha,i not been slaughtered, were condemned by Inspector
Wylde at Newgate-market, and from inquiries made it ap-
pears that the animals had died in the layers of. the New
Cattle-market, and were dressed in the slaughter houses of
the market, and then sold to a jobbing butcher, Mr Hawks,
who brought the carcasses to market for sale. The car-
casses were brought to Guildhall, and were ordered to be
destroyed by Mr Alderman Waterlow. I have brought
these facts under your notice because it is an uncommon
thing for diseased meat to be dressed for human food in the
slaughter houses of the New Cattle-market, and then sent
to the City markets for sale as food; and I submit that the
case here referred to be placed in the hands of the solicitor
withja view to further proceedinr, and that a copy of this
report be sent to the authorities having control over the
business of the New Cattle-market, with a view of stop-
ping the source of supply of diseased meat to the City
markets.

" The mortality returns for the week show a large in•
crease of mortality as compared wish the returns of the
preceding week, arid also with the average number for the
corresponding period of the last nine years.
" Last week the number of deaths were 79, whereas the
number in the corresponding week of the last nine years is
67, and in that of the preceding week only O. The excess
of deaths was chiefly among old persons, and was not due
to the existence of any preventible disease. The chief causes
of death were as follows :—Phthisis 6, bronchitis 11, mesen-
teric disease 2, hydrocephalus 2, continued fever 4, scarlet
fever 4, whooping cough 2, croup 1, and diarrhea ). 1, making
together 10 deaths from tubercular diseases, 11 from inflam-
matory affections of the lungs, and 12 from diseases of a
symotio character.

" I remain, Gentleman,
" Your obedient servant,
(Signed) " Humus: LETHEBY.
" Guildhall, Dec. 6, 1864."
The report of the medical officer was agreed to, and the
solicitor was instructed to take the necessary proceedings
in the case referrJd to. In addition, a copy k) f the report
was ordered to be forwarded to the Market Committee of
the Court of Common Council to whom the management of
the affairs at the Metropolitan Cattle-market is entrusted
by the civic body.
Tho Court, after disposing of some other business, ad-
journed.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The art of war, Ks at present understood

and practised, is about to receive a very singular
illustration from the events now passing in Ame-
rica. North seems at last to have awaked to

;he conviction, impressed upon it by four bloody

and indecisive campaigns, that it has not yet hit

upon the way by which the rebellious South can be
subdued. Except in the infliction of an enormous

.oss of life and an immense amount of domestic

misery, the North has hitherto done almost nothing
towards the subjugation of its adversary. As far
as mere slaughter goes, its armies have endure-ci
much more evil than they have inflicted, and the

capture of Vicksburg, New Orleans, and Atlanta,
estimate them as highly as you may, has been more
than compensated by the damaging failures before
Charleston, Mobile, Savannah, and Richmond. The
commerce of the North, as carried on by cea, has

been nearly destroyed, its finances tykee been fright.-
fully embarrassed, its confidence in itself at one
moment so shaken that there seemed for a short

time a positive mania for peace, and yet the result
of the Presidential election is to place once more at
the head of the republic a men above all other men

pledged to the energetic and unsparing continuance
of the war, surrounded on every hand by persons
who cannot afford to admit even the possibility of
failure, or of peace on any terms except the entire
and absolute submission of the South. In this crisis
we have no cause to be surprised if we find new and
hitherto untried expedients resorted to, and risks
ran which in any other war, or even in this war at
an earlier period, would have been regarded as
utterly desperate. By a long aeries of bloody battles,
followed up by very bold and able naancteavres, the
Northern Generals have contrived to force their
wav through the discontented States of Kentucky
and Tennessee, and to cross the mountain ram-
part which separates the waters that flow into the
Ohio from those which find their way into the
Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. The Southern
commanders, after the fall of Atlanta, appear to
have thrown themselves on General Sherman'a
communications, and to have believed that by
operating on the long line which connects him
with the North they could force him to abandon
the advantage he has gained, and to retrace his
steps through a wild country, where he might be
attacked with every possible advantage. With this
view it is said that Gen. Hood has taken up a posi-
tion more than 100 miles to the north-west of the
position occupied by Gen. Sherman. The effect upon
that bold and able commander does not appear to
have been exactly that which was originally con-
templated. The movement seems, so far as we can
judge from very imperfect information, to resemble
the celebrated march of Napoleon in 1814 to St.
Dizier, by which he threw himself upon the commu-
nications of the allied armies, then advancing upon
Paris, and would, it is said, except for the interven-
tion of Lord Castlereagh, have compelled their re-
treat at the very moment when the object of all their
labours seemed to be within their grasp. Ia the
same way Sherman, instead of seeing in the opera-
tion of Hood a necessity to fall back upon his origi-
nal base of operations, has read it as an invitation
to seek a new one, and, instead of falling back on
Tennessee and Kentucky in the north-west, he has
turned his face towards the Atlantic, and is march•
ing in a south-easterly direction. There is a remark-
able consent of opinion, probably resting en sure
though tine vowed information, that the object of
the General is principally, perhaps, to destroy the
railways which connect the Eastern with the
Western States of the Federation, and then, dividing
his army into two parts, to at tack with one the town
of Augusta, situated on the Savannah River, and the
seat of the principal powder manufactory of the
South, and with the other to advance to the mouth
of the river and capture the city of Savannah itself,
which, although it was taken by the English in the
former revolutionary war, has as yet defied all the
efforts of the North to take it by sea. If this enter-
prise be brought to a successful termination, Gen.
Sherman will be entitled to the honour of having
added a fresh chapter to the theory and practice of
modern warfare. Instances, no doubt, have occurred
where a bold general, under the pressure of some in-
superable difficulty or seduction of some irresistible
temptation, has abandoned the basis of his operations
and undertaken a long and toilsome march in search
of another base. But history also records very few
instances indeed whore operations of this kind have
been crowned with. success. The attempt has gene-
rally been made in the hope of raising a country
disaffected to its existing Government, and with
the prospect of almost entire security if the point
sought for can once be reached. General Sherman
has neither of these conditions in his favour ; the
country into which he plunges is entirely hostile to
him; he can count on no information or assistance
of any kind, but must look, on the other hand, for
every opposition that can possibly be offered to his
advance by a people whose very existence is staked
on the alternative of his failure or success. The
country through which he is to penetrate is not
filled with large towns or populous villages ; it is,
according to English notions, very thinly inhabited,
and there is no reason to suppose that its inhabitants
will allow any of the means of subsistence which it
is in their power to destroy to fall into the hands
of an invader. The railroads which he comes to
destroy have rendered almost unnecessary other lines
of communication; the country is thickly timbered
"and intersected with streams and ravines, offering
innumerable points where his march may be delayed
and his advance harassed ; the organisation of labour
:n large plantations, each under the absolute direc-
tion of a single chief, is favourable to any scheme
that may be devised for throwing obstructions in
his path or driving away everything that might con-
tribute to his subsister" a His orders are to devas-
tate and lay waste, at is reasonable to suppose,
without attributing either Spartan fortitude or even
Russian self-denial to the inhabitants of Georgia,
that they will think it their best policy to anticipate
him. There are no roads worthy of the name, and
his reliance for facility of transport i 3 said to be on

the sandy nature of the soil, which dries up very
speedily, and will not, it is thought, be permanently
affected by the storms which we may expect at this
advanced periodof the year. We are not informed
. . .

whether General Sherman takes with him his heavy
artillery; nor can we, of course, form the least idea
of the amount of resistance, either from regular
troops or hastily levied militia, which he has to ex-
pect. We can only reason from parallel cases. The
assumption of the North seems to be—to use their
own simile—that the Southern Confederation is like
an egg, possessing indeed a hard shed, but when
this is once passed soft and penetrable. Experience
has given us more proof of the truth of the first than
of the second of these assumptions. There is no doubt
that on whatever side it has been attacked, with the
single exception of New Orleans, the Confederacy
has been proved to have an exceedingly hard shell,
much more resembling the armour of a tortoise than
the thin covering of an egg. But this proof of one•
half the metaphor can by no means be taken to este.
blish the other half. When Gen. Banks invaded the
State of Louisiana an army sprang up as if out of
the earth to resist him, and he was driven back
upon his communications with disaster and defeat.
Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Virginia south of Rich•
mond and North Carolina, have all been found
equally impervious. It is assumed that the old and
high-spirited State of Georgia is made of softer
stuff. Time will show; but at present, at least,
analogy is all against it. The Confederates have
probably known for sometime of Sherman's intended
move, and have had the opportunity, if they pos-
sessed the means, of throwing garrisons into Macon
—the point first threatened—Augusta, and Savan-
nah. They have every inducement to do so, for not
only have they to save their powder magazines
at Augusta, and a port and city which would be
a formidable basis of operations to the North at
Savannah, but, besides this, every day's delay holds
out a prospect not only of escape, bat of victory.
We have said that in his invasion of Georgia
Gen. Sherman has left behind him in the north-
west Gen, Hood, who it is natural to suppose will
not be slow to follow in the footsteps of his retreat-
ing antagonist. A few days' delay before Macon
or Augusta, or before any of the natural obstacles
which must be encountered in a march through a
wild and trackless country of between three and
four hundred miles, would suffice to bring Hood,
possessed of much better information, up with
Sherman under circumstances which mint almost
necessarily place the latter between two fires.
The worst of such enterprises as Sherman's is that
they allow nothing for the chapter of accidents,
proverbially so potent in war, and that the slightest
and most unforeseen causes may lead to their defeat
and ruin. We had our own experience iu ti.e tre-
mendous disaster of Saratoga, undertaken, it might
he thought, under auspices far more promising than
the expedition of Sherman ; in the ruin which over-
took the colunin of General Braddock, and in the
fsilure of the e pedition against Quebec by the
brave American General Montgomery. It will be
strange, indeed, if the army of General Sherman
should arrive before Savannah, after such a march
conducted under such difficulties, in condition to
attack and storm a town so well fortified and so
strenuously defended ; and, if not, it is difficult to
conceive a more embarrassing position than that
Gen. Sherman will occupy, with a wasted and weary
army, a strong town in his front, and an enemy
fighting on his own ground in his rear. We do not
say that Sherman will not overcome all these ob-
stacles. Any one of a hundred contingencies of
which we have no knowledge may over throw all our
calculations, but arguing from the usual result of
similar enterprises, from the well recognised prin-
ciples of the military art, and from the spirit which
the South has never failed to show in less seriocs
emergencies, we cannot see the grounds for that
tone of overweening confidence with which, the
Northern press hails the commencement of an ex.

pedition $o novel and hazardous, in which a genera/
abandons one base of communications without'i :
far as we can see, any very clear or definite idea
w he is to find another. We are inclined to.
agree with the New York Tribune that the results o
Sherman's expedition cannot well be estimated toot
highly, but we are not at all confident by which °f
the belligerents that estimate ought to be made.
HERALD.—Au appetite for horrors is a characte
riatic of the ignorant and brutal. That the modern
newspaper addresses itself to such, as well as to ttlie
more enlightened class, is evidenced pretty clearly
by the eagerness by which those narratives
crime which jar upon the refined taste as Lunch 6
they shock the moral sense are sought after by,
multitudes of its readers. The criminal annals 0:
.
such a country as this are repulsive enough, it to
true, hut there is little that is melodramatic eh"'
them, The motives which impel to outrage are
lowest and must sordid, the execution the me!'
commonapluee and vulgar. There is no romantic
interest in an English murder, no tragic dignity
attaches to the perpetrator like that which. snr"
rounds the hero of a Greek drama. No migntY
ghost of Agamemnon drives his son to avenge
him, no Electra stands beside him, but some acorn;
plice steeped like himself in debauchery, vice, an°
stupidity; the Chorus is represented by the reporters
and the detective police; the Eumenides by Jude
and jury, the sheriff, and the hangman. Tae ue,
tails of the tragedy are disgusting, insipid, 1011"::
some, An unfortunate old man is done to death
to
a railway carriage, an old woman in a lonely 064..
tage is found mortally wounded, a putrid corpse 1;
discovered in the Essex marshes. The motives c't
the crime are a watch and chain, a few shillings, (If
even a few pence. And thousands night and ru°rti,:
ing devour the whole miserable history, in whte'
there is not one redeeming point, one trait of ";
mance, which to peaceful firesides might suggesa
the thought of heaven, brings home the reality °I
the hell which is stalking abroad. And yet Per'
haps it is as well that no possible halo of poetri
surrounds the British felon. The novelist 0411.°11
make him interesting, nor can the advocate, sct.l,,'
all his eloquence, move us to pity him. No SOl3l
Iles holds him up as an object of the vengeance
the gods, no ./Eachylus points to him as the sr
pointed instrument of Fate. The police reports
leave him where he should be, in his nakedness Be'
foulness. It is otherwise with the picturesque fet"a
detta of the Corsican, with the atrocities of I?"
Italian brigand or the mountaineer of Albania,
These men, in their becoming costumes and beau!'"
ful scenery and surroundings, with their ewartni
black-eyed women who encouraged them to tllO
crime, their statue of saint or Madonna to Wilt°
they pay their devotions, seem to study murder
as a fine cot, and not unsuccessfully. They are tbb
chosen subject of the painter—the theme in wbtc
poet and novelist take equal delight. The very 0111 c"
of unusual horror which surrounds their schiev. ei;
ments, the extraordinary fiendishness with whic
they perpetrate their atrocities, seems to renlole
them from the ordinary category of vulgar mu"
derers. In the South, where the sun strikes hotter
hn d the passions are fiercest, man seems more like
an angel in his gentler feelings as he is more liket
a devil in his moments of wrath, than the inhabitand
of the North. It is from the" land of the cypress t!°
myrtle" that a tale has been brought to us dal
the last few dap which in its unequalled horror a°
tragic completeness, seems to rival, if not to outd.°l
any story of vengeance and murder to he found 1:
the annals of aecient or modern times. In Turkel;
the country which our statesmen make from 51;
to year such frantic efforts to bolster up against t'l-t
ruin which seems to threaten it, it seems Oa
murder is a luxury reserved for those in high place,
In the family of the ruler of that rapidly eivilist%
state there are Royal personages who, under cert'llo
circumstances, regard assassination rather as a Vlrtt
than as a crime. Towards the close of the- reign ()t
the late Abdul Medjid it was darkly rumoured OA
the male child of one of his daughters was strA:
Bled by
.the eunich as soon as born, in accordant
with a time honoured usage of the Turkish Collra'a
If Abdul Medjid, in offering up his children seemed
to invoke upon him and his the curse of the Atrin."di
one of hisdaughters has not been slow in imitatd,ll3
another hideous precedent of Greek fable.
Sultana Djemila, daughter of the late Sultan, and
niece of Abdul Aziz, is now in her twenty-00°4
year, and it may be supposed in the fulness of 11,,'e
charms. She was married to a rich subject of 0,4
Porte, Mahmoud Jeiladin Pacha, over whotn P.O
seems to have tyrannised to her heart's content. 1110
not usual for a Pasha to content himself with
.11,1310
wife, and if this miserable Turk, with this terrlv,,o
Roxana in his harem, occasionally sought the sn'efe't
of other charms, and had even the bad taste to pre,:j
them to those of the Imperial sponse whom he e
been commanded to wed, we cannot much blame
him for it. Among tho evil passions which rllleo
in the unhealthy hotbed of harem life, the P05.1a°4
ofjealousy had developed into a fury in the 0110
of the neice of the Sultan. It was not long le ift
want of an object. There was a beautiful 0,40
whom the Pacha was supposed to prefer to his 51'110
lawful wife. One day the Pacha entered the
dining room where it was his custom, in accordatie
with Turkish etiquette, to dine apart from 0
women. The Sultana was found reclining 01/00
divan in the room. He made a low obeisance' de
was his duty, to the Sultan's daughter. She ,to
him proceed with his dinner, and continued he
watch him, languidly and haughtily, like ttlf
stealthy, soft tigress that she was, as the unhsPlia
husband took his accustomed seat at table. to
ordered the servants to remove the cover, but t"„i,
hesitated, trembling. The Sultana reproved th.f°lo4
and told the Pacha to remove it himself. Ilfae
it, and beheld such a banquet as Medea set steed
Jason. On the dish before him was the gcli bTti
of the favourite, still beautiful in death. tiot
Sultana had caused her to be decapitated a 01‘
morning. The Paella took one look, and fell 06
a corpse. The Sultana Djemila was avenged'