The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-31 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

THE " LONDON REVIEW" ON THE EARLDOM OF
WICKLOW.—The reverses of fortune are not to be
compared to those which men bring upon them-
selves by their vices. If chance makes them penni•
less, they have still left their energies and their
self-respect. They can battle against the world,
though they are obliged to put off most of its come
forts, and can feel, even if they sink in the struggle,
that they have fought their right well, though not
successfully. It is otherwise when men involve
themselves in ruin by wanton folly or the indulg.
ence of degrading propensities. In the life of such
a man there is nothing to respect. We would
rather blot out all trace of him, and forget, when
he has gone his way, that such a being ever cum-
bered the ground. He has been an enemy to him.
self and to all who have come within his influence;
as well to those who have ministered to his vices as
to those who have suffered by them. He has been
a disgrace to his name and a scandal to the world.
And yet it may be that, with all this, the source of
his errors has not been so much an original
baseness as a softness of temper, an absence of the
sense of responsibility, vacuity of intellect, and
exemption from the necessity of labour. If the
uses of adversity aro not precisely sweet they are
far the most pare wholesome. There is an energy
within us which some way or other must bs em-
ployed. We may appease it by healthy toil of any
kind, or we may deaden its cravings by the indul-
gence of ourpassions. Wise men take the one course,
fools the other. Yet the fool's vices may have had
their origin in nothing worse than weakness, which
the necessity of labour might have fostered into
strength. If, in his last moments, the unfortunate
man who died last week in a brothel in one of the
lowest slums in the neighbourhood of Dublin could
have contrasted his death-bed and its surroundings
with his social sta•e, his opportunities and expecta-
tions, he might have cursed the hour which brought
him into the world with the certainty of most ,of
these advantages, and with the strong possibili
enjoying all at • If .one could slt\taignAtg
ones birth in what position in life We should be
horn, it would not show a defickney of judg-
ment to resolve on corning into the world
as did the fate William George Howard.
Many years before his death he was presumptive
heir to the earldom of Wicklow; and though, if a
man had the right to select to which out of a t-1(
earldoms he would like to succeed, it would not be
difficult to chcose a more attractive one then that of
Wicklow, it moist bo admitted Csp•ain Howard's
prospect of succession was not to be looked clown
upon. He was, to say the least, nobly born. It
the revenues which he had the strong probability
of inheriting were not immense, they were sufficient
to enable him to raise very large sums of money
from the Jews. When, some years ago, he came
before the Insolvent Court, his debts were stated at
little. if anything, less than £lOO,OOO. And this
enormous sum had been raised upon post obit bonds.
Yet in the history of this man we find not a single
trace of any feeling that he owed to himself or to
others the duty of living decently for a single day.
His associates were the lowest of the low, the vilest
of the vile. In the peerage he ranked as heir to
an earldom. In society the most abandoned and
despicable knew him and saluted him as "Billy."
And when last week he bade farewell to the world
he had scandilised, the historian of his last hours
was an " unfortunate" in whose arms he expired.
In such miserable companionship did the heir to the
earldom of Wicklow breathe his last—in the prime
of manhood, with hostages given to fcrtune, in a
wife who had borne him one child and was about to
bear him another. It would appear that, as if led
by the instincts which had debased him from his
early youth, he had left the roof which sheltered
wife and child to close his days in a manner more
befitting his antecedents than their society. He ,
had known the woman in whose house he died for
eleven months, and on the Tuesday week before
his death he took up his quarters with her. It is a
dreary narrative that we now learn from her lips.
He told her he had been ill. He complained of
cramps and diarrhoea, but would neither see a medi-
cal man nor take medicine. He would take whisky ;
and day after day he lay in bed drinking whisky—
sometimes a quart a day; and, when he found that
whisky did him no good, drinking brandy. During
the ten days preceding his death, he appears only
to have eaten one egg and one chop, but not to have
retained either on his stomach. Day after day his
cry was the same—" whisky." And so drifting out
to sea, the wretched man spent his last hour, till
on Wednesday week he became delirious, craving
to his last breath for drink. "He continued
wandering and delirious," says the unfortunate who
attended him, " up to the time of his death. It was
at half-past ten o'clock, and he had been asking me
to lift him out of bed all day. I had promised to
raise him up, and when I caught his hand to raise
him he said, Don't catch me•' I then put my
hand behind his back, but he said let me lie down,
and he fell back. I then heard something in his
throat, but I did not think he was dying. He died
then, but I did not know he was dead. I asked him
to speak to me, but he did not, for he was dead."
So passed the scion of a noble house. Had he been
born the son of ono of its labourers, he might have
had a better chance for the life of soul and body
than fell to him as the heir to its hononrs and re-
venues. Malicious he was not, nor an intriguer,
nor brutal, nor daring in iniquity, nor strongly
wicked. He was weak. Empty of brain, soft of
disposition, easily manipulated by the vicious, and
in his feebleness the most notably vicious of them
all. Poverty might have compelled him to labour.
He was born rich, and his rank overwhelmed him.
He possessed the means to distinguish or debase
himself. And of the two ambitions he chose the
latter.

THE "EXAMINER" ON SUBMARINE CABLES...-
Long submarine electric cables began six years ago
with the Atlantic cable. This extended to rather
more than 2,000 miles, with unequal depths, vary.,
inn from the height of an Irish round tower to that
of the peak of Teneriffe. It held together just long
enough to allow her Majesty the Queen of England
and the President of the then United, now the dis-
united, States to exchange compliments, and to
enable the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland to make a
knight of its engineer. It cost 1600,000, and of
the project as at present under renewal the cost is
estimated at a sum of £700,000. Government binds

itself to guarantee a dividend of 8 per cent on the
capital, " upon the completion and working of the
cable." How these very vague words may be con-
strued by lawyers we know not. If, 14 example,
the cable, which is of double the strength and size
of its predecessor, should work well for a whole
month and then snap and perish like its predecessor,
would the guarantee be effective? If it would, the
public will be burdened with an annual and per.
petual charge of £56,000 per annum. But the
guarantee would seem to apply equally to the sum
laid out on the first cable, for it is dated 1857, that
is, before this was laid, and in this case the annual
burden to the State in perpetuity, and no benefit
received, would amount to X 104,000! The tele-

graphic communication whico is to connect us with
India, and eventually with China and Australia,
begins with the Mediterranean cable, or that which
runs between Malta and Alexandria, of the length
of 1,550 miles. This has proved the most Success-
ful of all the long submarine cables, yet it has
snapped three times in three yea's, producing an
interruption of communication of 137 days by the
admission of its own engineer. The mete first cost
of this cable is said to have been 1;409,000. Next
comes the notorious Red &a cable. Tne cost of
this was £BOO,OOO, and the Government has gua-
ranteed on that capital an interest of 41 per cent.
down to the year of our Lord 1908. This cable has
proved a total failure, but we, our children, and our
grandchildren will hare to pay for the Itilure the
yearly sum of £36,000! We come, then, to the
Persian Gulf cible, which was to have completed
the communication, land and sea, between Thgland
and our Indian dominions. We do not know
what it cost, but in the estimated accounts for the
Home Government of India for 1884 we find it
credited with the handsome snm of 1;306,000. It
gave on the 24th of July last, and up to this day
has not been in operation. The cable, indeed, is
said not to be worth repairing, and the construc-
tion of an improved one is is contemplation. Sir
Charles Bright, its engineer, and one of the con-
troversialists in the 'limes, ought to have told us
ail_this when he was holding up the hope of a tele-
-S=P:ADAII.-Aug4kothwia":thtee-Yearel.,47,liZiiT -43
THE " SPECTATOR" ON ADOPTED CHILDREN.— here
is a certain absurdity which was going the round last week
of the lady who asked a Board of Guardians for " a child
only two years old, with blue eyes, and light hair, and a
complete orphan." One felt that the demand had been
dictated rather by sentiment than by genuine kindliness,
that the child was selected on the same principles as a doll
might have been, but the anecdote indicated a curious defi•
ciency in our law. The practice of adoption, so frequent in
the Roman and the modern Asiatic world, allowed by all
German laws, sanctioned by the Code Napoleon, has
never received in England and kind of legal recog-
nition. It is not opposed to our manners, is rather approved
by opinion, and is among the philanthropic an incident of
very frequent occurrence, but the law takes no notice of it,
provides no ceremonial for recording it, and imposes no
obligations upon those who attempt it. Yet it would be
difficult to suggest a practice which might be .proeuctive
of more general benefit to a society which like our own is
unfavourable to marriage, which throws the time further
and further back in every generation, and which allows in
the same family excessive inequalities of fortune. There are
thousands of old maids among us, well to do and excellent,
to whom the privilege would bring a new zest to their lives,
new interests, and new occupation, thousands of widowers
whose lives are passed in a sort of unwilling solitude, thou-
sands of married homes where the 'only thing wanting to
life is the sound of childrens' voices. There seems no rea-
son, natural or artificial, why a void due chiefly to the ac-
tion of an imperfect social system should not by that system
be filled up. Adoption of a kind is indeed already much more
frequent than the public imagine. Let any one of ourreaders
look round his acquaintance, and he will find cases where
children loft unprovided for have been brought up by rela-
tions, friends, and even strangers, with a kindness which
makes their circle at last almost forget that the children are
not their own. Indeed, the complete EUCCGSS of such ar-
rangements sometimes suggests a doubt whether "natural
feeling" is quite so strong an instinct as it is the fashion to
assume, whether it is not the relationship of intercourse
which begets family affection rather than that of blood,
whether a child does not love its mother as mach from its
reliance upon her as from any natural instinct beyond its
own control. Children love nurses more than their mothers
very often indeed, and the poetry thrown by all races round
the relationship of fosteremothegelw justification in fact.
Frequent as thelneident is, however, the law throws diffi-
culties in the way of a very positive k 4.: The adopted
child, for example, does not inherit un through a rela•
tionship other than the adoption, which*.l. iy seldom exists.
The tendency is of course to adopt rives, but they will
as often be the wife's as the husban -end in that case the
legacy duties 'are as heavy as IC2 adopted were utter
'strangers. So with the most just t,.,::::" pcdient of allforms of
adoption—the recognitionof a e
.. legitimate child, which
though,provided for in everyotbir*ntry of Europe, evenin
Calvinistic Scotkateeys inEngli9 IWwitliout any legal sane-
knwhatever. helegacy i Ili ty may be met by settle-
r- • . air ", r '. . , ._. .- -
s, autpeoplelarsrim • .t to sottla tatteakittpcomstr
even on their own children,—it impairs too much the
peasant stnse of possession and of choice. A still more
serious impediment is the difficulty or rather hie/ ossibility
of terminating the rights of the real parents. The natural
parents can always reclaim their offspring, at least up to
the ago of discretion, and wo know of a case m here that
power was sacrificed for their adopted children as much es
for their own. no lady who asked for a " complete
orphan" probably dreaded contact with vulgar or evil
relatives, but the fear that all care may be thrown away by
a sudden demand for tho child's restoration greatly dimi-
nishes the practice.

TUE "SATURDAY REVIEW" ON PItOGRESS,—As every-
thing is done by association in our days,eo there are compa-
nies of thinkers, in perhaps a new senee—psople who club
their ideas and throw them into a common stock, not on ac-
count of their identity of thought or aim, but es if with view
of realising the magic of numbers, the strength of an imposing
title, and of a united front against a common foe. Oae of
there companies has taken to itself the striking title of
Advanced Thinkers, with the motto "Excelsior," and
shows us what wonders can be effected by a name, not only
on these who hear it, but on its self-elected possessors—
especially if those who use it do not know its meaning, as
is the case both Mr LongU How and the Advanced Thinkers,
who ought to be, like Saul, taller than his neighbours. The
sense of fellowship arising from a common badge and title,
the concerted action against established ideas, seems to in-
duce in them a feeling of advance, of general successful
movement, which it would have been impossible for the
most sanguine member to entertain as a private solitary
thinker, and which is so far unreasonable that not one
brother of the community holds positively with another, or
believes in his panacea. As members of the company, these
men talk as though they expected some fundamental
radical change in human nature, and as if this change were
already at work; and they can so manage books and
figures that their accounts shall seem to prove it; only we
observe that the view is not an actuating one, and that,
in their private capacity, they have no more faith in
men than the rest of theworld. So we conclude that the theory
needs an association for its full development, with a ma-
chinery of commissions and reports; for no man of any
school, looking about him in a humble retail sort of way,
can make his conclusions fit in with theirs. We do not
positively deny the facts or deductions of the grand scale,
but we are unable to reconcile them with our personal cx-
periances, and we fail to perceive that the members
of the fraternity are more successful in this than ourselves.
It is a strange thing, if we think of it, that the world should
have reached this time of day, and that it shou'd be matter
of dispute whether it is immeasurably better or immeaear-
ably worse than when history first reveals it to us—the
disputants not being wholly at variance as to what is better
or worse. It really depends on a few points, not of the
essence of the question, whether wen pronounce the world
they live in to be miserably degenerate and vicious beyond
all former precedent, or a scene of perpetual improvement—
of fair performance, and yet fairer hopes. And it is, perhaps,
equally strange to the neutral looker-on that the feelings of
a partisan of either faction towards such specimens of
the world in dispute as come immediately before him
should be so little influenced by his theory, or influenced, if
at all, by a rule of contr. ry. Tho asserter of progress has
apparently arrived at his favourable conclusions in spite of
his face-to-face intercourse with mankind, and of a sour,
critical tendency that renders ordinary acquaintance dis-
tasteful; while the mourner over the world's degeneracy is
as likely as not to be a good fellow of the genial sort, who
gets on with everybody he meets, and is generally pleased
with his company. And this paradox presents itself so
often that we come to expect that every proclaimer of the
world's perfectibility will despise most people, and hate
some one or two with a particular rancour; while the
favourite of society, and the man who enjoys himself in it,
is pretty sure to be ono who sighs for the good old times,
and finds nothing in the moderns to compare with the
giants of the past. Dr Johnson, who lived in an age of
good fellows, had occasion to quarrel with this universal
tendency to exalt the past. "I am always angry when
I hear ancient times praised at the expense of modern
ones,', he says—a sentiment that might almost consti-
tute him a prospective member of the band of associate
thinkers, but that his grounds for his op nion would not
satisfy their more confident claims, and would reduce him
to neatrality in the contest. "There is more learning in
the world than. there was formerly," he goes on to say,
"for it is more universally diffused, We may not kre o a
Bentley or a Newton, but, more men know Greek and Lelia
and mathematics than formerly." Thus he believed in great
men of the past, though not in the past's general rupei iorit y,
and would have had something to say, wo doubt not, to Mr
Emerson's view that the world has not yet seen a Man, and
that it remains for the New World to produce him. II
ever, this anticipation of a pre-eminent and model man is
not a necessary part of the new hopes. The advanced
thinkers seem to look rather to a gradual assimilation, to
end in universal equality, There is to be no Saul in the
future towering above his fellows, for the whole host are
to reach Saul's stature. They are ready, in fact, to meet
their opponents with the admission that progress is fast
doing away with great men. 'I here will be no more
philosophers of world-wide fame, because all men will
be Aristotles and Bacons; there will be no more
learned men, because all will surpass Bentley and
Newton. We shall call no man saint, because ail
i will have passed cur preseut atandard of saiutahip. 11 we

cintitve; th6filin-aginition could, to say the least, take as
long flights ; they could think, and feel, and talk, and play
the man with any of their descendants, let the world last as
long as it may. They left names which will never be sur-
passed; and this is so universally granted that, to the great
majority of men, even to those who talk most of progress,
it would be a joke to compare any one they know with the
great men who have been. Extravagance is never felt to
have so utterly exceeded bounds as when the hero of the
hour is compared with some hero of the past, looking out
on us from the far misty distance. Even the boasters have
their moments of depression and compulsory homage,
like the French sculptor who, after proving to demonstra-
tion that his horses were in every respect—in beauty of
form, in anatomy, in atrangement-Zitnmeasurably supe;for
to the group of Lysippus, prose Iu upu., La., Y,pja a iossion
of unwilling candour, "Mais it Taut avower—it must--le
granted that those ugly brutes are living and mine are dead."‘-,..
Their own heroes they patronise as their own creation, but
what has stood the test of ages and achieved an enduring
name they know to be another sort of-thing altogether.
However, involuntary candour is a frequent visitant to no
one, and certainly one cause of the opiimiK's exaltation of
the present is a defective appreheueion of past merit; they
are too much occupied with themselves and their own'
views to realise the difficulties and the achievements (f pre.
vious, and especially remote, times. To such men as'
Theodore Parker all the thinkers of Chris ian times before
the Reformation are' merely puerile "shabby Africans,"
and the like. It matters not that these Africans gave the
cue to ages of thought; they fasten on same weak point,
which is-never hard to find, draw comparisons between
what doey know and what the ethers were ignorant of, and
conclude that every tiro of the present day who is well up
in its commonplaces excels St. Austin, not only in know-
ledge,
but in grasp and largeness of mind—is morally and
intellectually above him. And if, in some points, they
cannot prove any advance at all over the past—if the
noblest poetry, the grandest architecture, the art of ex-
pression in its heroic perfection, is not to be,fony4,- is
scarcely pretended to in our time—these are things which
"advanced thinkers" do not care for, take no neoount of,
and consider W 3 have -

Board -of Trade Returns,

The officiareturns relating to trade and navi4s;
-tion for the nine months ,ended the 30th September
have just been published. From these it appears=
the total declared value of the exports froni etik
United Kingdom -was £123,401,161 against
£104,294,713 on the like poriOd of 18643, showing:
an increase of £19,109,448, the increases is- most
perceptible in coals and culm, cotfon yarn,
cotton manufactures, earthenware, haberdasiberyP'''' 2-.1-**""
.an d' millinery, hardwares and cutlery, linen manu-
factures machinery sheep end 1amkta1.:...5
•

..;2, }
`v
A~

I princlpal articles were larger es regards raw co:-
ton, sheep and lambs' wool, fl LT, quicksilver, ecff,:.e,
brandy, tobacco, and wine. There has been a dimi-
ou!ion, ho -ever, in provisions, raw siik, tallow,
cocoa, wheat, barley, nrart fined sugar, and tea.
The shipping accounts exhibit an increase in the
amount of tonnage employed in the foreign trade of
the United Kingdom for the entries inward,, as also
for the clearances outwards, Iu the coasting trade,
however, for the same period, there has been a
slight decrease in the tonnage engaged for both the
entries inwards and the clearances outwards.

The Lord Mayor and the Charing-cross
Railway.

At the Lord Mayor's Court on Saturday, before Mr
Harelake, Q.p., as assessor, and a special jury, a compensa-
tion case which has been pending some time, Lawrence end
others v. the Charing-cress Railway Company, was heard
and occupied the whole day. Mr Bovill, Q.C,, and Mr H.
Lloyd were counsel for the Lord Mayor, and Mr Lloyd,
with whom was Mr Shiel, represented the company. The
claim was for two houses, Nos, 5 and 6, Cannon-street,
near Tnrnwheel lane, which were built in 1852 by Mr Al-
derman Lawrence, and let respectively at £350 and £450.
One was leased to Baron Rothshild and would expire in
1865,the other to a public company, and would expire in 1874.
The principal question raised was the value of the rever-
sion. All the witnesses admitted that property in the City
of London had greatly increased in value within the last
few years. It had " enormously " risen in price within
the "commercial area," and a question was mooted whether
the houses were within that area. Several witnesses de-
scribed the houses as worth respectively £650 and £B5O a
year. One was at the corner of Turnwheel-lane. On the
part of Mr. Alderman Lawrence the property was valued at
upwards of £30,000, the highest sum being nearly £30,700.
On the other hand, for the company the valuers estimated
the worth of the two houses from £21,000 to £21,6.)0,
including the usual 10 per cent. for a compulsory sale, Mr.
Hyde,:tho surveyor of the Charing-cross Railway, said he bad
purchased property for the South-Eastetn and the Charing.
cress Railway to nearly £3,000,000. He considered that
£21,641 was a liberal price for the property in question. In
a letter which was -read to the jury, addressed to the Lord
Mayor, Mr. Hyde said that in order to settle the matter and
on account of the "uncertain view which juries took of pro-
perty in the city of London," he offered a sum of £23,000,
The Lord Mayor, in answer, said that was not a fair value
for the increase in the price of property, and he would sub-
mit the case to a jury. Mr Lloyd entreated the jury not to
be led away to give an extravagant sum. His experience,
connected as he was with railway companies, as to compen-
sation claims, was a painful ono. Enormous sums had been;
demanded, and if property was to increase in value as it had
within the last few years, there were trades that could not
bo carried on within the city, as they could not give the rent
demanded. His opinion was, that property had now reached
its culminating point in the city—it had attained its apex,
and it must go down. He (Mr Lloyd) though: that at the
present time, when money was fetching 8 and 9 per cent.,
a gentleman would be glad to receive his money. Juries
had been in the habit of giving 10 per cont. to cover any
difficulty as to investment, but new there was a demand
for money, and large interest was to be obtained. He prayed
the jury not to give an extravagant price. A. very fair
offer of £23,000 had been made to avoid the present litiga-
tion, which was an expensive affair, but upwards of £30,003
had been demanded. Mr Bovill ridiculed the view taken by
Mr Lloyd, as to the culminating point in the value of pro-
perty and the means of investment at the present time. The
value given had been attained in the last 10 years, and was
increasing. It showed the great wealth of England, and the
largo sums made by commerce, The question was not what
was to be obtained for money at a month or so, which might
be 8 or 9 per cent., bat what it would yield as a permanent
investment in the funds, which would be from 3 to 31 per
cent. The learned assessor, in placing the cave before the
jury, contrasted the evidence given on both Bides, and told
them that the question was, what was a fair and liberal
compensation fur the property. There was nothing in the
Act as to 10 per cent, being given fora compulsory sale, it
had been the practice for juries to do so, and it was for t he u
to give the amount or any other bum. They had hoard of the
effer made by the company and the sum demanded—they hod
heard of the value put on it by respectable men on bath sides,
iron £29,000 and some hundreds to £30,700, and on the
other side to £21,000 and upwards. The jury retired, nnl
on their return assessed the value at i'25,100, including£loo
for fixtures.

'A call of L 2 lOs alive has be€n made by the
directors of the City Offices Company.

An accident occurred at the Theatre of Nirmes
(Gard) a few ennings since, daring the performance of the
" Pirates de la Savane." An actor who was performing
the part of Riberio arrived on the stage on horseback, when
the animal, being frightened by the glare of light, became
unruly and fell into the orchestra. Both the rider and horse
fortunately escaped unhurt, and the damage was limited to
thtt breaking of a tew music duke. The performance con-
tinued after a short interruption.

8.. E ATRE ROYAL, DRURY- LANE.-
Managers, Messrs. E. Falconer and F. B. Chatterton.
THIS EVENING, a new and original Farce, by Edmund
Falconer, entitled THE O'FLAIIERTY S. Mr. Edmund
Falconer; Messrs. G. Belmore, Barrett. Fitzjames, &c.; Miss
Ouctspeth, Miss E. Falconer, Mrs. 11. Vandenhoir, &c.
After which, at a Quarter to Eight o'clock, Shakespere's
Play of CYUBELINE. Mr. Phelps; Messrs. Creswe.k, 11.
Atarston, Walter Lacy, Rimund Phelps, A. Rayor G F.
Nevil,e, Fitzjames, &c.; Miss Atkinson and Mks Helen
L oors open at ha f-past Six —Commence at Seven.

TLIEATRE ROYAL, HAYMARKET.-
Lessee, M. Buckstone.
THIS EVENING, TOE SUN AND THE WIND.
After which, THE STRANGER. Messrs. Howe, Chip-
pendale, Farren, Compton, Rogers, Gordon, Braid, &c. ;
MetAarnes Beatrice, Keeley, Fitzwilliam, Moore, &c.
Followed by ON THE SLY. Messrs. Buckstone, Rogers,
Gordon, &c. ; 3lesdames Snowdon, Fitzwilliam, &c.
And OUR MARY ANNE. Miss H. Lindley.
To commence at 7.

ROYAL LYCEUM THEATRE.
Under the sole management of Mr. Fechter.
THIS EVENING, THE KING'S BUTTERFLY. Fan-
fan, the King's Butterfly, Mr. Fechter. Messrs. Ryder,Wid-
eicomb, Ch ‘rle4, M'lntyre, Garden, Raymond, Moreland,
c, itford, Collett; Misses Carlot a Lezlercq, 31. Ilenrade, E.
La,-enue, and B. Lavenue.
Frt„ceded, at 7, by NURSEY CHICKWEED. Messrs. H.
Widdie mb, Garden, Moreland, Collett; Miss Lavenue,3ll s.
lee.
Doors opt n at half-past G ; commence at 7.
The Box-olice open daily from Elev.n till Five.

•
TE
ZING'S BUTTERFLY.-LYCEUM
W, TFIEATRE.---Fanfan, the King's Butterfly, Mr.
'uEITER.—The most ,uccesstul Drama produced for
years.

ROYAL PRINCESS'S THEATRE.-
Sole Lessee and Manager, Mr. Geo. Vining,.
THIS EVENING, BORN TO GOOD LUCK. Faddy
O'Rafferty, Mr. Dominick Murray.
After which, THE STREETS OF LONDON. Messrs.
Vining, J. W. Ray, D. Fi her. D. Murray, J. Nelson, 11.
Forrester. H. Mellon ; Mrs. Henry Marston, Miss Emma
Barnett, and Miss Finny Gwynne.

NEW THEATRE-R() YAL,
Sole Proprietor and Manazer. Mr. B. Webster.
THIS EVENING, A SHEEP IN WOLF'S CLOTHING.
firs. Stirling and Mr. J. Clarke.
After which, THE HE AND CHICKENS. Messrs.
Billington, K. Phillips, Stephenson, Eburne ; Mrs. Stirling
and Miss 11. Simms.
To be followed by HIS LAST LEGS. O'C .llaghan (with
oGnqs`, Mr. John Collins, supported by Messrs. Billington,
Stephenson, C. J. Smith; Mrs. H. Lewis and Miss A. Sea-
=an.
To co: crude with DOING BANTING. Messrs. J. Clarke,
4tephenson, It. Romer; Mrs. II Lewis and Miss A. Seaman.
Commence at 7.

ROYAL ST. JAMES'S THEATRE.
man,:,c-r,er, Mr. Benjamin Webster.
EMINENT TiI_LENT AND COMEDY DRAMA.
Those celebrated artistes, Mr. and Mrs. C. Mathews, are re-
engaged.
THIS EVENING, and during the week, UNDER TIIE
ROSE.
After which, a new and orginal Comedy Drama, in three
acte, entitled SY BILLA ; or, STEP BY STE P. Mr and
Mri. Charles Mathews.
To conclude with Mr. Maddison Morton's New Comedy
Farce of WOOD. OCK'S LITTLE GAME. Mr. Charlei
Mathews, Mrs. Frank Matthews.

ROYAL STRAND THEATRE.
Sole Lessee and Manageress, Mrs. Swa.nborough.
THI i EVENING, JNLIMITE D CONFIDENCE.
Followed by, at Eight, MILKY WHITE. Messrs. Craven
Stoy le, James ; Mesdames Swanbor _ugh and Mande•s.
To eDnelude with MAZEPPA. Mesdames Raynham,
Simpson, .te.

COALS.—ne Lll,l, ESHAL L COMPANY'S
COALS.
Direct from their own Collieries.
11Larqui5'.......255. per ton. I Double.. 218. per ton.
Top 21s. „ Deep .225. „
Fell screened and delivered within five miles of their De-
pots, Westbourne Park-road, W., and 17, South Wharf,
Paddington, W., and Maiden-lane, N.
Best Coke
Terms cash.
JOHN SCOTT, Sole Agent.

METE THIRD EDITION OF " THE SUN,'
Containing the Latest SPORTING INTELLIGENCE,
Can be had Every Evening of
G. R. GLLNIE, NEWS AGENT,
No. 4, Connaught-terrace, Hyde-park.

THE LATEST' EDITION of " THE SUN"
supplied, as soon as published every Evening by
II ENRY BROOKS, Newspaper Agent, 24, Old Cavendish-
street, W.

'JIM' WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
T 21m.—Afternoon., 2h. 40m.
25. 50na.—Afterncon. 3c.10m.

•.,-t
,rl4t,oy 5111-
r L„14.44,
a ,

LONDON, MONDAY, OCT. 31, 1864.

The aspect of affairs in the Block Country is
vary black indeed. The temporery break in the
clouds, which a few weeks ago led the public to
lave for the return of peace and prosperity to the
dietrict, is completely at an end, and the men who
have resumed work on the masters' terms have
only, unfortunately, added to the difficulty by
provoking their more refractory comrades to a
breach of the peace. The riot at Bilston is very
greatly to be regretted, and the well-wishers of the
men must most of all regret the misconduct into
which their violence and imprudence have led them.
Nothing can be worse for their interests, or more
damaging to their cause, and nothing they could
do would give EO forcible an argument to the mes-
tere. The system of threats and intimidation to
which they seem now inclined, is most directly
opposed to the fair play which all Englishmen hold
in honour, and to the justice which the colliers on
frtrike are eo loudly claiming for themselves. We
ere surprised that the magiztrate, in spite of the
appeal of the prisoners' counsel, should have de-
cided that the very act of assembling for the pur-
pose of inducing men to leave off their work was
decidedly and unquestionably illegal. The resist-
ance made to the police in the execution of their
duty, and the stone throwing at the men employed
in Lord DUDLEY'S pits, were quite sufficient to put
the pei,oners beyond the pale of the law, and con*
sequently there is very little doubt that they will
be convicted of riotous conduct. But the actual
result to the nineteen or twenty involved in the
affair is of not so much consequence as its ultimate
efftct upon the thousands engaged in the struggle.
The little so called "court" at the office of the
stipendiary for South Staffordshire, was thronged
with listeners, and a large crowd, chiefly consisting
of colliers and their wives, stood outside for many
hours in the pouring rain unable to obtain an en.
trance. What the result of the investigation may
be remains to be seen, but there is little hope of its
mending matters. The colliers must very well
know that their acts of intimidation and coercion
are illegal, but the knowledge has not prevented
some serious outbreaks, although, on the whole,
their conduct has been remarkably orderly. The
worst of it is that from the condition of the trade
there seems little likelihood of the masters aban-
doning their position, which they may be justified
in holding by the fluctuations of business, but
which it is quite absurd for them to maintain on
the ground that they will not submit to the dicta-
tion of their meo. The relationship between em-
ployer end employed is not one for dictation on either
side. It is, or should be, a matter of mutual agree-
ment for mutual advantage, and each should fairly
s'e.te the terms on which he can do his share with
Profit to himself, and with justice to the other.
Where the spirit of suspicion gets in there is bag-
glingand grasping on both sides, and while the
man 13 too apt to fancy the master's share is all
profit, and to overlook the tremendous outlay often
i
neeess'!ry n these great trades, the master forgets
that it is as vitally
important to the man to get a
f it amount of wages as it is for him to receive the
fair market value for his coal or his iron, He would
lose by unfair competition and underselling, and we
should very soon hear him crying out for legislative
enactments to restrain them. But the ea" whose
motet screws him down to a hard bargain, or whoa)

An interesting affair took place at Nottingham
on Friday, when the prizes, and diplomas, and cer-
tificates were distributed to the successful candi-
dates. The Mayor alluded to the death of the
Duke of NEWCASTLE, who was only interred the
previous day. Tne death of the noble duke is
a great loss to education, and will long be felt
by those who take an interest in the subject.
Mr LOWE, having delivered the prizes and certifi-
cates to the successful candidates, made a ♦ery ins
teresting speech on the occasion, that appeared to
give universal satisfaction to all present. In the
first piece ho addressed some stirring and imprese
sive remarks to those who had that day been for-
tunate enough to receive testimonials of approval.
He urged them not to consider the success thus
gained as anything in itself, but only an induce-
ment to incite them in the way of progress, and
acquaint them with what they would have the
power of doing. In especial they should develop
a taste for reading, which is one cf the chief ad-
vantages a young man can assume. This is essene
Bally true, and the following passage relating to
the benefits of study and reading is worthy of being
fixed on the attention and impressed upon the
memory of all concerned, not only those imme•
diately connected with these institutions, but on
society generally " A young man who has formed
a taste for reading and study has a constant solace ;
he gets that which is likeliest of all things to keep
him from worse tastes and pursuits, a companicn
that will never desert him, an enjoyment in which
he can indulge without extravagance and self-ree
proach, while he is far from being a barren pos-
session, because among men of ordinary capacity it
is the greatest amount of reading which
one man has compared with another by which he
is distinguished from the crowd, and which con-
duces to his success in life." This is an admirable
account of a delightful study, and is very appro•
priate to those who are entering life, and forming
their tastes as it were. No better safeguard can be
given to those e:.posed to temptation than to train
in right principles, but to insure these taking
effect, and to give them the chance of being put into
practice, nothing is wiser than to inculcate the love
of refined and elevated occupation. Another thing
which these young men will do well to remember
was pointed out to them by Mr Low E, and this was
the importance of valuing their real acquirements
as solid and permanent acquisitions, and looking
upon their triumphs as momentary attendants of
the fact. The certificate is the guinea stamp, the
knowledge is the "gold for a' that." no right
hon. gentleman pointed out the necessity that existed
for these examinations, and wisely declared that it
was absurd and unwise for people to be continually
decrying. If people really know so much, there
can be no need for them to refuse to have their
knowledge tested, and the young man who declines
examination is not likely to succeed in life, as is
declared in these emphatic lines—

" He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small ;
Who dares not put it to the touch,
And win or lose it all."
All who really wioh to hale tho oubiturice of know.

VICES.—During the storm the terrible " butty" deprives of his hard-earned
li,'LEtßlie°pAarrs„SeaErßthe boats of the National Lifeboa stores, is not in a position to exact justice from
Institution say, dll7 persons from different wrecks on our
either employer or middleman. Union is strength,
waste. The Institution also expended' £13,819 3s. 2d. In
th,, same period on lifeboat establishments,
_additioneketdo
but if the combined resistance of fifteen or twenty
.c 1 351 Os. (d. as reward., for saving ,14 smpwr c
gm_
persons by its lifeboats, and other means.
The Committee of the Institution earnestly APPEAL to men is pronounced to be rash and suicidal, of what
the public for ASSISTANCE to enable them , to meet the
continued heavy demands on the Institution s 137 lifeboat avail would be the remonstrance of one or two
Establishments. Contrlbutionstare received by all the London
ffichard Lewis, labourers ? They would lose the little they had ;
'tilfelnntsgtubtlinonk,elB-1, Jag]
-bsyt r
ehe Secretary,
at t Adelphi.
other "butty' employed them. What, then, are
the men to do ? Are they to submit uncoil.
ditionally to every dictum of their masters, and to
be content to see their wages dwindling away to
nothing in the butty's hands ? If individual appeal
is fruitless, and organised opposition is illegal,
where is their resource ? It may be said that public
opinion will guard them from oppression, but public
opinion has already said pretty plainly that they
have been to blame in the present strike in refusing
to come to terms, or to make any effort to conciliate
the men, and we see as yet very little effect.
Rightly or wrongly, the men consider they have a
grievance, and therefore their obstinacy is not to be
regarded as a mere contumacious plot to extort
money. If the coalmasters and great employers of
labour generally- were to show a little more readi-
ness to investigate these complaints, whiah are not
always groundless, we should hear less of these for.
midable strikes, which are as disastrous to the in■
terests of trade and commerce as they are destrucs
tive to the welfare of the men. It is said that the
specie circulation in South Staffordshire is now at
the rate of a million sterling per annum less than it
was this time last year, and therefore the strike is
certainly not going on without cost. But the
masters prefer to lose than to appear to make
any concessions ; possibly they are afraid of a dan-
gerous precedent. If, however, they would
look more closely into matters they might
ascertain the truth of the men's assertion, that
both sides would gain were the butty done
away with. The evils of this system are manifold,
and have been insisted upon by every one who has
examined into the condition of the labouring classes.
Even novel readers can remember the vivid picture
drawn by the eloquent author of " Sybil" of the
miseries inflicted by the petty tyranny of the hated
little TOE and his father. But this, again, is a case
in which it is very difficult for the men to get their
rights. They declare that the butties defraud them
to a great extent by their mode of reckoning time.
They are paid for a day's work, for a half day's, and
for a quarter, but not for a less portion of time, and
therefore the butties frequently tell them to leave
the pit after working for two hours and a half, so
that they receive no payment whatever. A day or
two a week is commonly lost by the men, which of
course tells heavily upon their wages. Another
loss is, that they are entitled by the rule of the trade
to an allowance of a ton of coals for every 24 days'
work ; but the half and quarter days are not
reckoned, so that a man may work for a good many
months even without becoming entitled to his share
of coals. All this is very difficult for them to re.
dress ; they are powerless against the butties, from
whom alone they have any chance of employment,
and these obnoxious and oppressive rules are so
much the custom of the district that one place of
employment is as bad as another. Driven to such
extremes, the men find a way to help themselves,
which is extremely prejudicial to the interests of
their masters. They take powder with them into the
pit, and blast the coal instead of picking it, so that
while of course the work is done much faster, the
coal is shattered into fragments instead of beirg
picked out in large lumps, and its value is greatly
diminished. Such a system, even in a time of appa-
rent harmony and tranquillity, could not go on
without injury to both masters and men, and the
butty or middleman fills the enviable position of the
monkey with the oyster, and takes, if not like his
fabulous prototype, the whole of the profits, at least
a very great deal more than he has any right to.
If the South Staffordshire strike brings about a
final reform in these matters, the sufferings of the
men and the losses of the masters will not have been
in vain. If the difference is merely temporarily
djusted without any regard to the deeper grounds
for discontent, it will be bat surface work, and we
shall have to look to a Parliamentary committee to
do the work which the masters could and ought to
do for themselves.