The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-29 00:00:00

VIE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 29, 1888.

nagement that are chronicled as transpiring at
Helsingfors are of a progressive character they are
so far satisfactory, and that good results will follow
on even this minor attempt at enlightened policy
is certain. Patting aside the consideration of ulti-
mate consequences of the new organisation of things,
the Finlanders are rejoicing at the good things now
provided for them. It will be most fortunate if

they have no cause to change their happy mood for
a sorrowful one: It is to be trusted that policy
may induce their Russian rulers to persevere in the
course now commenced; and so, in waiting for a
better state of things, by that inducement they may
continue to enjoy as a favour what they should
possess as a right.

The usual budget of news from India brings us
little that is remarkable. The doubts as to the
identity of the prisoner now at Cawnpore with the
treacherous NANA SAHIB are not yet laid at rest,
and the conflicting and unsatisfactory nature of the
evidence does not offer much hope of a speedy set-
tlement of the question. The limes of India states
that his arrival at Cawnpore excited a good deal of
commotion, but that the interest which had been
awakened died out immediately after his arrival.
The people of the district, to most of whom the
NANA was of course well known, were unanimous
in declaring that the prisoner was not the veritable
culprit, and though, as the Indian journal observes,
their evidence is not entirely trustworthy, yet the
general indifference is certainly worth noting as a
feature in the case. The some paper, after referring
to the numerous instances on record, in which the
nearest relatives have been unable to recognise
each other after long-continued absence and ex-
posure, remarks that the mere fact of recognition
or its absence, by persons who had formerly known
the NANA, must not be accepted as conclusive evi-
dence, but there are other points in the prisoner's
favour. The fact of the English surgeon who for-
merly attended NANA SAHIB, being decidedly of
opinion that the prisoner is not the man, is cer-
tainly deserving of value, and it must be admitted
that his account of himself and his belongings is
not at all satisfactory. We need not doubt that the
greatest care and discretion will be exercised in
coming to a decision, and we may reasonably hope
that a little more time will throw some further
light on the matter. With regard to other matters,
the prosperity of India appears to be increasing as
fast as the most sanguine wishes could make it.
The statistics of import, export, and land rep enue
during the last ten years exhibit some startling
figures. The customs revenue of Calcutta
has risen during this decade from £950,807 to
£3,081,518. On the old principle of the ill wind,
the cotton famine has brought good to India, for
cotton has of course contributed largely to the
recent rapid increase of trade in Calcutta. Of the
whole increase of nearly £5,000,000 over the trade
of the previous year, cotton we are told claimed
one quarter. Until within a year or two back
Calcutta exported no cotton save to China, whereas
last year its exports of this particular staple were
valued at over a million and a half. Political eco-
nomists may, if they will, preach a sermon to our
manufacturers and our Indian legislators on this
text, and point the moral by showing them what
Lancashire might be if the point now gained in
Indian cultivation had been reached some five or

ten years ago. By next spring or summer we
may hope very considerable addition to our sup-
ply, but if the sources which are to keep our mills
at work full time in '64 or '65 had been forth-
coming in '6l and '62, might not English men and
women have been spared much suffering and Eng-
lish trade some loss ? It is worth noticing that the
greater part of the cotton exported from Calcutta
was grown in Northern and Central India, and
brought down by the Ganges or by rail. The
time thus gained is of importance, but still more
advantageous is the improved mode of transit, which
spares the cotton much damage on the journey.
When the systems of railway and water commu-
nication is fully developed merchants and culti-
vators will alike profit by the change. The tea
Plantations are also rapidly increasing in importance,
and the total value of the trade of India, not many
years since reckoned as one of our most hopeless
and unprofitable possessions, is now estimated at
one hundred millions sterling. Truly a lesson to
political pessimists not to despair of the fortunes of
a great country. And we must remember that even
now only a thirty-third part of all Madras is under
cultivation. Such is the statement of the Madras
Board of Revenue, which reckons 2k millions of
square acres under the plough, and leaves the rest
of the 84 millions to be accounted for, we presume,
by the right hon. baronet at the head of the India
Office. Yet of this small amount more than one-
fourth has been added within the last year. Let us
hope that this is an augury of a little more rapid
progress in the art of cultivation for the future.
The heavy rains have been more violent than usual,
and their season has been marked by unwonted de•
struction, and, still worse, by the progress of the
cholera in some districts. Sanitary officers are dila-
tory, and, unfortunately, epidemics will not always
wait their leisure. Military promptness is better
fitted to deal with such an adversary, and the plain
and sensible rules issued long ago by the Com-
mander-in-Chief have probably been productive of
much good in checking disease. It must be a great
satisfaction, no doubt, to those who fall victims to
defective arrangements this year to know that next
season many reforms will be in progress. Still,
" Better late than never" is the motto; and the re-
organisation of barracks, the appointment of
officers of health, and the bill giving despotic
sanitary powers to magistrates, 'will go far to
remedy that serious evil of excessive and pre-
ventible mortality which we are now compelled
to deplore. The general peace and prosperity of
our Indian dominions gives us leisure to improve
and consolidate our internal administration. Let
our statesmen look to it that they seize the oppor-
tunity and do all that lies in their power to atone
for past neglect.

REPRESENTATION OF BARNSTAPLE.—PoIiticaI
feeling is strong in this borough, but no candidate had
come forward, or public manifestation been made, up to
Monday, out of respect to the memory of the late member,
whose funeral took place in London on that day. The
names of several gentlemen have been named as candidates,
but the most popular individual likely to come forward is
Mr. Richard Bremridge, of Nowport (Conservative). The
Liberals have, however, resolved on producing another
candidate.

LUNATIC ASYLUM SECRETs.—Every art has its
secrets; the attendants in such madhouses as this
have been for years possessed of one they are too modest to
reveal to justices, commissioners, or the public; the art of
breaking a man's ribs, or breastbone, or both, without
bruising him externally. The convicts at Toulon arrive at
a similar result by another branch of the art: they stuff the
skin of a conger eel with powdered stone; they give the
obnoxious person a sly crack with it ; and a rib or back-
bone is broken with no contusion to mark the ex-
ternal violence used. But Mr. Cooper and his fellows do
their work with the knee-joint; it is round, and leaves no
bruise. They subdue the patient by walking up and down
him on their knees. If they don't jump on him, as well as
promenade him, the man's spirit is often the only thing
broken; if they do, the man is apt to be broken bodily as
well as mentally. Thus died Mr. Sizer in 1854, and two
others quite recently. And how many more God only
knows ; we can't count the stones at the bottom of a well.
—.Dickens's "All the Year Round," the new number pub-
lished to-day.

GARIBALDI is reported to be very closely watched
by the Italian Government, now that he is nearly restored
to health. The next shot, it has been sardonicallyremarlied,
will doabtlefe be ordered to be aimed higher.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

[REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.]

AMERICA.
(Per the Nova Scotian.)
NEW YORK, SEPT. 19 (Evening).
Intelligence received from Charleston to the 16th
inst. announce that General Gilmore is mounting
heavy guns at Port Wagner and Cumming's Point
to bombard Charleston.

CNMMERCIAL INTELLIGENCE.
Unfavourable rumours concerning the position of
General Rosecranz' army have caused a rise in
gold and exchange, which are now quoted, gold at
35 per cent. premium, and exchange on London,
1481. Money easy. Stocks steady. New York
Centrals, 1381 ; Illinois, 124; Erie, 1071.

THE POLISH INSURRECTION.
BRESLAU, SEPT. 29.
Fresh well-aimed detachments of insurgents have
appeared in the environs of Tarczyn, four leagues
from Warsaw.

The day before yesterday the commander of the
Russian troops in the palatinate of Kalisch held a
council with seNeral superior officers of the Prus-
sian army, relative to the measures to be taken to
paralyse the movements of the insurgents.

INDIA AND CHINA.
SUEZ, SEPT. 28.

The Messageries Imperialea steamer Imperatrice
arrived here to-day with India and China mails, 64
passengers, and 1,746 bales of silk.

The Peluso is expected at Marseilles on the 6th

October.

FRANCE.

PARIS, SEPT. 29.

The Moniteur of this morning publishes details
respecting the favourable impression produced on
the Japanese by the chastisement inflicted by
Admiral Juares on the Japanese forts from which
the Europeans were fired upon.
The Tycoon has sent the model of a flag which
belonged to him, with an intimation that his Go-
vernment recognised the right to foreigners to seize
any vessel which shall not hoist this flag.
BOURSE, Sept. 28.—The market has been mote
buoyant, and a fair amount of business done, at an
advance—Threes, for the Account, being now at
67f. 90c. The Railway Share Market firm. The
market closed as follows :
It per Centa. ...... 95 50 Italian Loan 74
Do. end month.... Do. end month —
3 per Cents
Do. end month.... 67 95 Do. end month....
Credit M0bi1ier....1213 75 Russian
Do. end m0nth....1215 Austrian
Bank Shares ..... 3395 Spanish Threes 52 60
Credit k oneier ....1300 Rome Debt

to the eye may nevertheless be rendered perceptible by
I the use of very delicate instruments, and which, though
quite insignificant as far as regards the daily operations of
commerce and even the ordinary pursuits of science, may
become considerable by being multiplied, and may conse-
quently have a sensible influence on geodetical and astro-
nomical inquiries."—(Page 29-30.)
" The inference from all the preceding facts and consi-
derations is, that neither the metre, nor any other linear
measure which may be substituted in place of the metre,
can with our present means of information be assumed with
certainty, and to the exclusion of all other quantities, as
the exact 10,000,000 th part of the quadrant of a meridian,
supposed to be measured from the North Pole to the
Equator. All such quantities must be taken as approxima-
tions, the same latitude being used in regard to them, as in
all ordinary oases of linear measurement; for it is to be
observed that minute differences must exist in all attempts
to compare the lengths of different objects. Euclid's
axiom," Things which are equal to the same are equal to
one another," is strictly true only of mathematical lines
and other imaginary quantities. In practice it is sufficient,
if the inequality is not obvious to the naked eye, and does
not go beyond reasonable limits. All parties can only make
it their honest aim to arrive at perfect exactness, but will
not pretend to have attained it, such a pretension being a
proof of nothing but their own ignorance."—(Page 37.)
I also attach importance to the remark in the same
pan'phlet (page 40 and 26 note), " that in case the rectifi-
cation of the metre should be rendered expedient by the
progress of discovery, the founders of the Metric System
themselves provided a remedy, not by altering the metre
itself, but by a change of the regulation, which fixes its
standard temperature. This temperature is now fixed
at Zero of the centigrade scale, which is the
temperature of melting ice. The consequence is
that ha daily use the rectification takes place
without any legislation at all. The warmth of the
hand, the heat of the atmosphere, or the superior tempera-
ture of most foreign countries will of themselves prolong
the metre so as to meet the objections of those who deny its
accuracy. It is only in rigorously scientific calculations
that the incorrectness of the metre, even supposing it to be
proved, can be of the slightest importance. . . . I
cannot find that this temperature is fixed by any positive
law, although it was applied under the authority of the
commissioners in constructing the definitive metre of 1799,
and has been maintained to this day. It appears that the
temperature may be altered whenever any sufficient reason
for the change is made manifest, and that the metric system
is in this respect self-adjusting."
It should be understood that the whole difference which
your author so strenuously condemns as rendering the
metric system worthless, is not more than the thickness of
a film of varnish at the extremity of any metre which may
be in use.
Let your author show us proofs of the universal adoption
of this " great argument." I find it not in the speeches of
Mr. Ewart and his supporters in the recent debate. I search
for it in vain in the report of bis committee printed in July,
1862, by order of the House of Commons, and in the answers
of all the witnesses, on whose evidence that report was
based. It does not occur in the " Inaugural Address" of
Sir William Armstrong, which you quote ; nor in the
Report of the Council of the International Association
,n February, 1858, nor in any of the tracts issued by that
association. In short your author's assertion is nothing
better than a dream.
I now come to a part of your article, which more imme-
diately concerns myself, and which it is the more necessary
to rebut, because its aim is not merely to destroy my own
reputation for common sense and veracity, but to overturn
at one stroke both the report of Mr. Ewart's Committee,
and the credit of the Metric System. You produce as an
opponent of the Metric System, the late Professor Play_
fair, of Edinburgh," whom Mr. James Yates, Secretary of
the International Association, with a recklessness rarely
surpassed, quotes as being the author of ' a most beauti-
fully written article,' in which he expressed a decided
Wish 'that the system should be adopted in this country."
The reference to my evidence before Mr. Ewart's Commit-
tee, query 498. I will remark, en passant, that lam not
the Secretary of the International Association. That office
has been held for some years by my distinguished and very
able friend, Professor Levi, who would probably have
answered were he not on the Continent, having been sent
to Berlin as a delegate to the Statistical Congress, and
having, moreover, informed me by letter, that the Congress
has unanimously passed resolutions recommending the
adoption of the Metric System, and, following in this, the
example of the Congresses held at Brussels, Paris, Vienna,
and London.
1 will now quote Professor Playfair's words in the review
referred to, that your readers may judge for themselves whe-
ther I was justified in stating to Mr. Ewart's committee that
the professor expressed the opinion which I have imputed to
him. The article in question concludes as follows:—" We
cannot finish our acconut of these scientific operations with-
out expressing our wish that the uniformity of measures
and weights were introduced into our own, and into every
other civilized country. The difficulty is not so great as
we are apt to think, when we consider the matter at a dis-
tance ; and to effect it requires in reality nothing but for
the Legislature to say it shall be done. As to the standard
to be adopted, though we think the pendulum would have
afforded the most c onvenient,yet when one has been actually
fixed on, and determined, that circumstance must greatly
outweigh every other consideration. The system
adopted by the French, if not absolutely the best,
is so very near it, that the difference is of no account.
In one point it is very unexceptionable. It involves

nothing that savours of the peculiarities of any country,
insomuch as the commissioners observe that, if all the
history which we have been considering were forgotten,
and the results of the operations only preserved, it would
be impossible to tell with what nation this system had
originated. The wisest measure, therefore, for the other
nations of Europe is certainly to adopt the Metrical Sys-
tem. . . . It would not be necessary to adopt their
names, which might not assort very Ns ell with the sounds
that compose the language of other nations. But the
Metre, by whatever name it may be called, ought to be
adopted as the unit of length, and all the other measures
of linear extension derived from it by decimal multiplica-
tion and division."
Your readers will now be prepared to find that I was
justified in what I stated before Mr. Ewart's committee

(Questions 499, 500), in regard to Mr. John Quincy Adams.
" Mr. Yates," you observe, " did not scruple to say that
Mr. Adams passes the highest eulogy, quite enthusiasti-
cally, on the philosophers who were employed in making
the measurement and devising the system." Let us now
hear Mr. Adams himself, whose book I handed to the com-
mittee. After a most instructive history of the labours of
the French commissioners and the correspondent proceed-
ings of the Legislature, President Adams thus writes :
" No apology will be deemed necessary by Congress for
dwelling upon these details which signalised the establish-
ment of the new French Metrical System. The spectacle
is at once so rare and so sublime, in which the genius, the
science, the skill, and the power of great confederated na-
tions are Eeen. joining hand in hand in the spirit
of fraternal equality, arriving in concert at one
destined stage of improvement in the condition
of human kind ; that, not to pause for a moment, were it
even from occupations not essentially connected with it,
to enjoy the contemplation of a scene so honourable to the
character and capacities of our species, would argue a want
of sensibility to appreciate its worth. This scene formed an
epoch in the history of man. It was an example and an
admonition to the legislators of every nation, and of all
after times." (Report on Weights and Measures, p. 590
Again, "If that universal uniformity so desirable to human
contemplation be au attainable perfection, it is now attain-
able only by the adoption of the new French system of
metrology in all its important parts. Were it even possible
to construct another system on different principles, but em-
bracing in equal degree all the great elements of unifor-
mity, it would still be a system of diversity with regard to
France and all the followers of her system. And as
she could not be expected to abandon that, which
she has established at so much expense, and
with so much difficulty, for another possessing, if
equal, not greater advantages, there would still be two
rival systems, with more desperate chances for the triumph
of uniformity. . . This system approaches to the
ideal perfection of uniformity applied to weights and mea-
sures, and, whether destined to succeed or doomed to fail,
will shed unfadiug glory upon the age in which it was con-
ceived, and upon the nation by which its execution was
attempted and has been in part achieved. In the progress
of its establishment there, it has been often brought into
conflict with the laws of physical and moral nature with
the impenetrability of matter, and with the habits, passions,
prejudices, and necessities of man. It has undergone various
important modifications. It ,must, undoubtedly, still
submit to others before it can look for universal adoption.
But, if man upon earth be an improvable being, if
that universal peace, which was the object of a Saviour's
mission, which is the desire of the philosopher, the longing
of the philanthropist, the trembling hope of the Christian,
is a blessing, to which the futurity of mortal man has a
claim of more than mortal promise ; . . . then. this
system of common instruments to accomplish all the
changes of social and friendly commerce will furnish the
links of sympathy between the inhabitants of the most dis-
tant regions; the metre will surround the globe in use as
well as in multiplied extension ; and one language of
weights and measures will be spoken from the Equator to
the Poles." (P.p. 47, 43.)
I roust be excused from following your author through
the sequel of his essay, more especially since his remaining
assertions are rather expressions of opinion than state-
ments of facts. The best judges may differ in regard to
the "balance of scientific evidence," the convenience of the
Metric System, the advantage of uniformity, the preference
due to a binary scale, and "the sublime audacity," the
" breach of good faith," &c., implied in the introduction of
a bill such as Mr. Ewart's. Also, the question respecting
the sale of grain and wine is too intricate to pursue into its
details in a letter, which may, even as it is, try the patience
of your readers. I will conclude by observing that I make
it a general rule not to answer anonymous assailants. In
the present instance I have deviated from my ordinary
practice, not thinking I was under the slightest obligation
to reply, but in compliance with the suggestion of a friend.
'JAMES YATES,

Lauderdale House, Highgate,
Sept, 18, 1863,

LITERATURE.

Stevens' Grade Lesson Books. Fifth Standard.
Pp. 220. Longman and CJ.

Already we have noticed the four prec?ding
volumes of this really admirable series of " Lesson
Books," a series especially adapted to meet the
requirements of the Revised Code. The " Fifth
Standard," here added to the set, brings out yet
more clearly to view Use excellence of the system
upon which the compilation has been made.
Another, the Sixth, Standard alone remains to be
published, and the series will then stand completely
before the public. As far as it goes even now, it is
already in one sense complete—complete that is up
to the point at which the course of tuition has, at
the close of these 220 pages, arrived. Throughout,
with the most scrupulous care, the brother editors
' of the series, that is to say, Mr. Stevens, of King's
College, and Mr. Hole, the head master of the
Loughborough Collegiate School over at Brixton,
have attended to the several requirements of the
Revised Code. While doing this, they have
notified to all such Teachers as may use these
Grade Lesson Books with due attention to
the official requirements alluded to, that the
reading lesons are intended to be car-
ried out as here given, namely, consecutively.
That the selected words, with their respective sig-
nifications attached, are designed to be learnt by
the pupil before beginning the lesson in which they
occur, and to which they are prefixed. And—among
other similarly useful little items of advice—
that the exercises in Reduction here given are
placed after those in Addition and Subtraction
advisedly. Even Tommy Merton, when first
he went, as a small high-bred dunce,
to good Mr. Barlow's parsonage, there to learn, or
not to learn, exactly as he pleased, in companion-
ship with honest Farmer Sandford's son Harry
—even little Tommy Merton might with the
aid of these Grade Lesson Books have astonished
Mr. Barlow in half the time required thus to
astonish him, by unexpectedly evidencing his
(Tommy's) suddenly acquired proficiency as a
reader. And many of the lessons here grouped
together for the boy student are to the full as in-
teresting as—while they are, beyond a doubt of it
(as thus given), far more rapidly instructive than
—the charming series of tales scattered through
the history of "Sandford and Merton," by Thomas
Day. Anyone, without looking into the book
under notice, may understand that it is actually
thus, as we say—upon our enumeration of some
among the various reading lessons here collected
together. Instance this, Eliza Cook's " Bruce
and the Spider,"Deniel Defoe's " Robinson Orusoe
Saving Friday," Professor Longfellow's " Village
Blacksmith," Charles Dickens's "Little Dombey's
Deathbed," William Longman's " Dinner at an
Old Manor House," Da Chaillu's " Infant Gorilla,"
Oliver Goldsmith's " Moses at the Fair," and other
admirably well selected fragments from a very
wide range of sterling and popular litexatare.

The Arts of Writing, Beading, and Speaking, in
Letters to a Law Student. By Edward W. Cox,
Recorder of Falmouth. One vol., pp. 328. Crock-

ford.

These very excellent letters of practical advice
are republished from the Law Times. They were
commenced, Mr. Cox tells us, with the purpose
only of imparting to law students some hints on the
art of speaking, which had been suggested to the
writer by experience and observation. Becoming
impressed with the conviction that to speak well it
is necessary to be able to write well and read well,
the learned author has enlarged his original design
by the addition of instructions in the arts of writ-
ing and reading. By so doing he has greatly in-
creased the value of his book, and he has also ren-
dered it generally useful as a manual of practical
information for others besides the Barrister and the
Member of Parliament. Mr. Cox's instructions are
remarkable for their sound common sense; for
example, how earnestly truthful are the following
remarks on—