The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-01 00:00:00

fit and efficient representative of the widely-spread
requirements of a great nation, and this truth will
sooner or latter be proved as events develope theme
selves. Peace-at-any-price is not a doctrine which
is congenial to the genius of the English nation;
it is not that we are a warlike people like our con-
tinental neighbours, whose military ardour and
enthusiasm is their paramont influence and reigns
supreme over every other feeling; but there is
something contemptible in the notion of such a
thing, which a higheminded and superior people
naturally revolt against. It implies so much in the
background, such betrayal of confidence, relinquish.
meat of rights, and forsaking of friends, that it may
well be stamped as ignoble and unworthy at the very
outset. Oaly this very year we have seen this
false system prevail in high places, and this fatal
principle takes root in our administration, and the
consequences have been alike deplorable and dime
trous. The Conservative :demonstration at Roch-
dale may seem nothing to some, but it is by no
means positive that the sequence of the story is not
an important event in the chronicles of time. To
Mr COBDEN and his friends and admirers such an
affair may seem as the speck no bigger than a man's
hand, but those who saw the picture may discern
the likelihood of this adverse combination assuming
fearful proportions and eventually making itself felt
and seen in an unmistakeable manner before long.
Apart from the party tone which characterised the
meeting at Rochdale, there were many observations
made and principles enunciated which might justly
be said to be national ones, and to depict the cur-
rent of public opinion through the confines of the
land. Mr. BRETT, the proposed candidate in the
Conservative interest, made a spirited speech, in
which he denounced the policy of Mr COBDEN as
one fatal to the interests and prejudicial to the
principles which the community of this country
were prepared to uphold and pledged to support
alike by past associations, present convictions, and
future aspirations. So far the feeling and senti-
ment of the reflective part of the constituency will
go with him, and it is very doubtful if his opponent
will be able to gain an advantage over him. Mr
BRETT very properly laid great stress upon the new
foreign and colonial policy which the disciples of
the peace school advocate and will promulgate at
the first opportunity. These new notions advocate
the noninterference in all foreign questions, and the
abandonment of our colonies to.their own resources,
so that we may reduce our army and navy to the
smallest possible proportions, and thus decrease ex-
penditure. Mr.BRETT very forcibly observed that by
this means the credit and character of the country
would be seriously compromised,and our honour irre"
trievably assailed and tarnished. litho can tell to
what length other nations will go, when it is once
seen and ascertained for a certainty that England
has ceased to be a first-rate Power, intent on keeping
her rightful place, and determined to exercise her
just influence on other nations. The picture drawn
by Mr BRETT is indeed a lugubrious one, but it
is nevertheless very likely to be realised if
full scope is given to the views of Mr COBDEN
and his friends and supporters. When the prestige
of a people is past, of what avail are their old glories
and ancient prowess ? Let us sink to the level that
the utilitarians have prescribed for us; let us take
up their pusillanimous policy with strength and
spirit, and what will remain ? May we not
safely venture to affirm that there is every chance
of the worst forebodings being fulfilled, and the
direst prognostications realised. If the Baltic be.
comes a Russian and the Mediterranean a French
lake, what sort of a position shall we hold in Eu-
rope ? Again, if our colonies are not to be a source
of interest and attraction to ug, what place shall
we hold among the fraternity of nations ? We might
as well be blotted out of the map of the world. It
has always been our beast and pride that on our
empire the sun never sets, and why should this
feeling be no more powerful to prevail nor potent
to iefluence. Mr.BRETT brought the case home to
his hearers by saying—" Surely those who advocate
such a policy forget that if all these things were
to take place in Canada, Australia, and India,
there is not a home or family in England that
would not be deprived of some one who is near and
dear to it." Mr. COBDEN and his auxiliaries have
mistaken their vocation and missed their destiny in
their insane attempt to put all things on their own
level, and to make the sentiments and sympathies
of Englishmen accord to their views, as PROCausTEs
adapted his lodgers to the siza of his furniture.
Such a cause will not do, and the announcement of
such a policy in regard to affairs with the outward
world, will materially militate against any effects
that a more vigorous home policy might produce.
It will be a poor advantage if we remedy deficiencies
and rectify abuses that have crept in amongst
us, and then find out that we are nobodies after all.
It is idle to trust entirely to appearances, because
the great nations that flourished and fell before
our time were as great in their fancied security
until their doom came upon them, and they passed
away as if they had not been. All tends to prove
the truth of the saying, that "The record of all
earthly tales is but the sad rehearsal of the past."
It is the insidioas character of many changes that
constitute their real danger and destruction. Under
the specious pretence and fair-seeming semblance
of reform and retrenchment, the disciples of the
Manchester School are introducing changes into
our political state, and advancing the cause of a
social system that will undermine and deteriorate
the time-honoured and glorious Constitution of
England. It will not do to be deceived or
taken in, however fair or well-sounding the de-
nomination of the new regime. It is better to be
prepared for the emergency. If it is the intention
of this new school of philosphical politicians to bide
their time, and when Lord PALMERSTON has finally
disappeared from the stage of this world's per-
formances to inaugurate their anti-national and
un•English doctrines, then the sooner they are me.
masked the better. It is always easier to go forward
than to retrace lost ground, and the lovers of pro-
gress will do better to give their votes for the most
inveterate hater of reform, than to let in one dis-
ciple of the school which counsels the mischievous
policy of peace at any price, and reform at home
with loss of character and credit abroad. The elec-
tors of Rochdale had better be prepared for the
struggle, and manifest their determination to
oppose the principles of a policy which will under-
mine the influence and stultify the progress of the
country.

It is very long since any criminal trial has ex-
cited the keen and absorbing interest with which
all ranks and classes of men have followed the
details of the trial of FRANz MULLER for the
murder of Mr, BRIGGS. The painful circumstances
of the case had thrilled every heart, and amidst
the ay
allmithy universally felt for the family so
terribly and so suddenly bereaved of a cherished
relative was mingled a sentiment of general uneasi.
nese, since each felt the same disaster might have
happened to himself, and of indignation that such
a crime should have been possible in the very heart
of our well guarded metropolis. For a few days no
trace of the murderer was discovered, and it began
to be feared that the assaseinatiou of Mr. BRIGGS
would be added to the dark catalogue of crimes
which never meet their due reward 0., earth. The
unusual reward which was offered .or the appre-

hension of the criminal at length brought forward
I some important evidence, and as the love of gain
was probably the motive for the commission of the
deed, so it proved the accessory of its detection.
The circumstances of the trial, including the pursuit
and capture of MOLLER, and the singular but
'most convincing chain of evidence which
led to his conviction, were all of a nature
to keep up the public excitement to the
highest pitch. When it was feared that the sup•
posed assassin would elude justice the chase was
watched with intense eagerness, but when it was
learned that he was actually in the hands of the
police general relief was felt. All knew that there
was no danger of a hasty and incomplete convic•
tion—that all that skill and experience and judicial
seamen of the highest character could do
would be done to set the full details of the
case before an unprejudiced and conscientious jury.
Those anticipations have been fulfilled to the letter.
The care of his countrymen procured for the pri-
soner the assistance of eminent counsel, and the
whole case has been conducted in a spirit and with
a manner worthy of the impartial majesty of English
law. Never perhaps has justice held the scales more
fairly, never was her sword more carefully and
deliberately poised. No one who listened to the
clear and masterly summing up of the Lord Chief
Baron—a summing up worthy of his high repute.
tion as one of the ornaments of the Bench—could
have failed to be forcibly impressed by the nature
of the evidence against the unhappy man at the bar.
As the learned jadge observed, there were three dis-
tinct chains of evidence against him—that relating
to the hat found in his possession, to the hat found
in the carriage, and to the watch and chain. Each
of these was carried out with singular distinctness,
and the threefold line of defence set up entirely
failed to dispose of the evidence. The first plea on
behalf of the Prisoner was an assertion that the
charge against him was not satisfactorily proved—
a mere general defence. The second was that he
was physically unequal to the commission of the
act—an assertion which, considering the respective
ages of the partiee, and the fact of MrBRIGGs being
taken by surprise and probably asleep, did not
weigh much in his favour. The third plea, an
alibi, entirely broke do wn, the witnesses, untrust•
worthy as they were, being unable to give any
reason whatever for their assertions as to the time.
In fact, as the Solicitor-General justly observed, the
discovery of MULLER having been at Camberwell
about nine on the fatal evening was rather preju-
dicial to him than otherwise. All the other evi-
dence—of the hatters, of the jeweller, of MuLLER's
landlady, of the cabman and his wife—pointed
strongly against the prisoner, and was remarkably
unanimous. Little details, such as the lining of the
hat, the jeweller's box given to the child, and other
incidents fitted in with surprising clearness, MUL-
LER himself must have lost all hope as, one by
one, these condemning facts were elicited. He
has the satisfaction, if satisfaction there can
be to a man in his awful position,
that he has not been condemned undefended
and unheard, and that he has had all the aid that
legal ingenuity and forensic eloquence could have
given to the most innocent man. Bat nevertheless
his doom is sealed, and the unanimous voice of the
public unhesitatingly ratifies the decision of judge
and jury. There only remains the last scene in
(his appalling tragedy—a tragedy that has
brought home to the most thoughtless and light-
hearted the uncertainty of human life, and the
startling but familiar truth that in the midst of
Me we are in death. It is only to be hoped that
the catastrophe will induce greater care and cau-
tion in the management of our railway lines, and
that the single retribution which has in this instance
followed upon the crime may serve to deter others
from so dark a deed. For the murderer himself
there is nothing to be said, He has committed a
barbarous murder without provocation or induce-
ment beyond the mere sordid love of gain, and has
brought desolation to a happy home only, as the
event proves, to condemn himself to as ignominious
death. After the fitful and fluctuating manner in
which our criminal justice has lately been adminis-
tered, it is some satisfaction to the public that a
case of such vital interest to society should have
been so carried out in accordance with the old tra-
ditionary dignity of English constitutional law;
and it only remains for the public, while shudder-
ing at the guilt of the criminal, to echo that deep
but audible amen which murmured through the
vast assembly as the learned judge concluded the
delivery of his impressive judgment, by praying
hat the murderer might find that mercy from the
tribunal of Heaven which he has justly forfeited at
the hands of his fellow men.

The public wall learn R ith very great and gene.
ral regret that they have lost one whose gifted
pencil has for so many years delighted and amused
all classes. We have had this year to deplore the loss
of many able and eminent men, and now another
name is added to the list. JOHN LEECH is no
more, and the wonderful versatile hand which has
so often illustrated the foibles and fancies of our
social life shall no more provoke us to smile, even
at our own absurdities. The caricaturist, like the
satirist in words, too often plays an ungenerous part.
He exposes with merciless hand the weak points
of his victim, and is sometimes tempted to sacrifice
every kindlier feeling to the desire of achieve
ing an effect. No such charge can be brought
against the memory of JOHN LEECH ; and though
he has relentlessly exhibited in turn the absurdi-
ties of almost every class, he has never done it so
as to offend even their representatives. Perhaps it
was owing to the fact that his satires were general,
and not personal, that they were so entirely devoid
of malice. It was pretension of any kind against
which his wit specially directed its shafts, whether
in the .1 young England," who would fain be old
England, the faded belle, who would compete with
youthful bloom, the " Jeames," who aped the airs of
hie master, or the hapless devotee of field sports,
who only succeeded in exhibiting his deficiencies.
The fun Of his yearly almanac illustrations too,
was something inimitable by meaner pencils, while
the general literature of the day has lost one of
its most brilliant and successful illustrators. Mr.
LEECH'S death was as premature as it was unex-
pected. He was only 47 years of age, and had in the
hope and belief of those around him many more
years to come of active and vigorous life. For some
time he had been a great sufferer from irritability of
nerves, and was one of the foremost in the crusade
against organ grinders and street cries. The ex-
cessive sensibility to noise which hie friends laughed
at and he so painfully lamented, was, in fact, the
symptoms of more serious evil, and it would have
been well if, instead of roaming from house to house
and complaining now of the street mufha, now of the
sound of a neighbouring hammer, Mr. LEECH had
paused to ask himself why he felt these things so
keenly. The excessive irritability was a sure sign
that brain and nerves imperatively needed rest--
rest yhicb, if he had granted with a more prompt
and liberal hand to his overtasked powers, might
have spared his friends the bereavement, and the
public the loss, which they now bewail. It would
be well if other men of genius would take warning
and be less. indefatigable in the pursuit of their call-
ing, but the present loss is none the less great that it
might have been averted for a time, It is strange

that within a year LEECH should have followed
THACKERAY to the tomb ; strange that the two
gifted and distinguished schoolfellows should have
been so brief a time parted. They have alike left
names no less honoured in their calling than
cherished in their homes, and in this age, when
morbid sentiment and :extravagant pretension and
smoothfaced hypocrisy are only too common, we can
ill afford to miss those keen and quick witted cen•
sore who spared neither wealth nor rank, nor
power, when they found it trenching on the code
of truth and right.

Visit of the Metropolitan Board of Works

to Carlisle.

CARLISLE, Saturday Evening.

This morning the Metropolitan Board of Works,
including the chairman (Mr. J. Th waites), his secre-
tary (Mr Creasy), Mr. Freeman, chairman of Main
drainage committee, and about 25 members of the
Board, and accompanied by Mr Bezalgette, their
chief engineer, arrived at Carlisle to inspect the
works in operation here for the utilisation of the
sewage of the city. In the forenoon they proceeded
to the Town Hall, where they were received by the
Mayor of Carlisle, and a small deputation of the
Local Board of Health, and were joined by Mr
Lawson, M.P., Mr Potter, M.P., and other gentle-
men. They then proceeded to the Willow Holme,
near the main outlet of the sewage of the city,
where the works conducted by Mr Alexander
M'Dougall, chemist, Manchester, are in operation,
and that gentleman explained to the Board the
manner in which the sewage is applied to the land
he has in hand. As stated in The Sun last week
the area actually irrigated is about 60 acres. The
Board were first taken to a small engine-house,
near which is sunk a deep well, into which
the sewage is run, and where it is dise
infected. The process of the disinfection is
very simple, In two barrels, placed in a
covered house, carbolic acid, which is insoluble in
pure water, is dissolved in lime water, and then runs
into a third- barrel. This is the disinfecting liquid,
and it runs slowly into the well below, in which the
sewage is collected, and there it is mixed with it,
and then pumped into canals, which convey it on
the land. The general arrangement of these canals
was described in The Sun last week. A broad canal
is run round the field, which can be stopped up at
any point, and sewage diverted into movable iron
channels, from which it is shed upon the land. Mr
M'Dougall stated that the principal part of the
sewage of Carlisle is thus utilised. But the sewage
of one district of the town enters the main outlet
sewer lower down than his works, and that part is
not made use of by him. By the erection of another
engine this also could be made available for the
land ; but as the district in question is one in which
there are few water-closets, Mr M'Dougall does not
consider the sewage of sufficient value to warrant
the expense of an additional engine. Speaking in
rough numbers the population in the district of
which the sewage is not utilised, but is run into the
river, is about 7,000 or 8,000 ; while that of the
whole of the other districts of the town (all the
sewage of which is applied to the soil) is 22,000 or
23,0 A people. Mr. Dougall stated that there had
not been any complaints made of the slightest smell
from his land or works, and the Metropolitan Board
verified this by their own personal inspection and
observation. As the Board walked over the land
Mr. M'Dougall made some interesting statements
as to the effects of the application of disinfected
sewage to the land. He had found that, whereas in
paces where sewage has been applied in a petrified
state the finer grasses are destroyed and rank coarse
grass takes its place, the application of disinfected
sewage had not been attended with a like result.
The fine grasses were still preserved. Fears had
been expressed by practical farmers that although
they might do to depasture milch cows upon, yet
when these meadows come to be used for sheep
feeding, the animals would be ruined by the disease
of " flukes in the liver." Experience bad shown
these fears to be groundless, the deodorizer awing
as a preventive. Nor had any foot-rot been expe-
rienced. Indeed, the disinfecter being an anti-
septic, eny sheep slightly affected with foot-rot
were cured by being put into the irrigated land.
There is one portion of the land leased by Mr.
M'Dougall which is not irrigated. The stock are
free to roam over both portions of the holmes, and
it was found that they much preferred the irrigated
part ; indeed, they had to be penned on that not ir-
rigated if it was thought desirable to keep them
there ; and the board, by contrasting the colour of
the grass in the two parts of the land, saw how
sauch more luxuriant was the grass on that
which was irrigated. Mr. M'Dougall stated
that he considered the produce on the ir-
rigated meadows to be about four times as
great as that on the land to which the liquid
sewage is not applied ; and in some parts, where the
irrigations had bcen made more frequently, five
times as great. According to the plan usually fol-
lowed, the sewage is pumped on each section of the
field for four hours at a time, and as it takes about
four months to go over the whole area in this way,
each section is irrigated three times a year. Mr
Dougall expressed his opinion that the best wad
to make the application and sewage profitable would
be to cut the grass and carry it away for stall-fed
oxen, the manure of which should be taken away to
fertilise an arable farm where winter food could be
grown.

inctstpye,ctioli and learnt from the
i
of the works, the
butcher by whom the land s rented (Mr Moffitt
Board Having
returned u rn e finished
d
to their
th er
Hetherington) that he considered the application of
the sewage most bencfi-nal. Experience had shown
ie
him that it was twice as valuable to him as land
otherwise of equal value which had not been irri-
gated. The Board, who expressed themselves much
pleased with what they had seen, left for Edinburgh
in the evening, by the " Waverley route," and pur-
pose extending their tour to Glasgow.

EXCITING SCENE ON TUE COAST.—SHIPWRECK,
AND GALLANT RESCUE OF THE
most exciting
scene occurred at Cullercoats on Friday night. The wind
blow from the eastward; the night was pitch dark, and the
sea was heavier than it had been known for years. Between
nine and ten o'clock at night a thick mist came on, and just
about that time the villagers were ranch alarmed by observ-
ing a vessel close under the cliffs to the north of the village
burning lights, and upon rushing down to the cliffs they
noticed that the vessel was upon the rocks, in danger Of
momentarily breaking up, and the crew were shouting
for help, and burning tar barrels and torches to
attract attention. From the tremendous sea that was roll-
ing upon the shore it was impossible to get the lifeboat over
Cullercoats bar, and if the fishermen had succeeded in doing
so she would have speedily been dashed to pieces on the
rocks, Fleet footed messengers were despatched to the
coastguard stations at Whitley and Tynemouth for the roc-
kets, and speedily the officer at the former place was on the
cliffs with the mortar and apparatus. The greatest anxiety
was felt then lest the vessel should break up before lines
could be thrown to the crew, and
fishermen and fisher
women worked like horses, under the direction of the
coast guards, which were drawing up from Tynemouth
and other stations, to get the mortar into position,
extra gear being brought by Mr Byrne, the chief boatman,
and two lines were cleverly shot over the vessel. The crew
of the vessel fortunately knew how to use them. .A. hawser
was fastened to the mizzen rigging, life-buoys were got into
trim, and in a short time all hands, men and boys, were
hauled on to the cliffs amidst loud cheering. While the
people on the shore were thus employed the vessel was
rapidly breaking up. When the last man left her she was in
three pieces, and within an hour she had entirely fallen to
fragments, and was floating about the sea. Any delay or
want of promptitude on the part of the villagers in bring-
ing immediate help to the crew would have been fatal,
as they were just saved, and that was all. But the fisher-
men and noble fisher women and fisher lasses of Cullercoats
were not contented with simply twisting to save the pcor
fellows. In every direction women and lasses were bringing
warm clothing and refreshments for the half-perished men,
and they were removed to the inns kept by Mr Smith and
Mr Thompson, where every attention was paid to their com-
fort. The vessel proved to be the barque Warrior, of Sunder-
land, from Hamburg. She had missed Teignmouth
and having drawn to the northward, got embayed. :The
captain had his anohors out, but the vessel bad dragged
them and struck upon the rocks, about two hundred yards
from the cliffs —Newcastle Chronicle.

CARMARTHEN ELECTION.—The election for Care
marthen took place yesterday afternoon at 2 o'clock. Mr
William Morris was nominated by Mr Lewis Morris, soli-
citor, of Carmarthen. and seconded by Mr James Buckley,
of l'esayfai, Llauelly, There was uo opposition,