The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-08 00:00:00

The Cotton Crop in the North-west Pro-
vinces of India.

The Calcutta Englishman of Oct. 26 has the fol-
lowing remarks npors the cotton crop of the North.
western Provinces :a--
From a report of the Board of Revenue' which we have
lately received, it appearo that after making every allow-
ance for the effects of drought and other drawbacks, the
out-turn of cotton this year is estimated at 2,000,000 of
maunds against 1,135,683 pumas in the previous season.
Of this amount it is supposed about one-fourth will be re-
tained for domestic consumption, and the remainder ex-
ported. The area under cultivation has increased upwards
of 50 per cent. The crops displaced are principally jowar,
bajra, pulses, lentils, and to acme extent wheat, but indigo,
rice, gram, and even sugar cane have been occasionally dis-
placed to make way•for the favourite crop. What is slid
more encouraging, greater care and attention are being
bestowed on the crop than formerly. "Men, women, and
children," says the report, °were continually to be seen in
the field, weeding, clearing, loosening the earth about the
young plants, and fondly contemplating the crop upon
which all their hopes are this year centred." There can
be little doubt that the secret of this change lies in the
fact that the crops are their own, and not, as formerly,
those of their Muhejuns. The absurd notion that the
ryot would not benefit by the increase of price has been
entirely falsified by the event. The first effect of the
high price was to free the rots from their Muhajuns;
and they are now able to dispose of their produce at the
market Wes. A continuance of such prices would soon
show how much of the apathy and indifference that were
formerly supposed to be innate and ineradicable was really
to be attributed to their perpetual indebtedness. With the
out-turn of cotton increasing at the present rate, however,
these prices could not possibly be maintained, even if the
American war were to last for ever. The native mann.
facture of cotton stuffs is everywhere much depressed,
and in the eastern districts the trade is said
to have almost entirely ceased. The demand
for European fabrics also has, as a necessary result of the
prevailing high prices, greatly diminished. Apart from
the manufacture of native cloths for sale, there is the
home manufacture, by producers employing native weavers
to work up their own cotton for domestic use, which we
have alluded to in a former article. It must not be
supposed that the report alludes to this when it
speaks of the manufacture of native cloths having
diminished. On the contrary, the official account from
several districts specially refer to this kind of manufac-
ture as having greatly increased, and thus fully confirm
what we said before en this subject. From Mozufilrnug
gu,, ch.t is a _considerable
quantity of home-made cloth manufactured by the pro-
ducers; this is found to be cheaper than buying cloth in
the bazaar. Cotton is spun into thread by tha women of
the family, and weavers are hired to make it into cloth at
so much a piece. * * There can be little doubt that
this " affects the consumption of ordinary made country
cloth." Again the Commissioner of A ra reports, "A
largo proportion, moreover, of the agricultural L.opulation
have their own field grown and house spun cotton manu-
factured in the country looms for home consumption, and
are thus in a measure independent of the general mar-
ket." The same course is we know being pursued, more
or less, all over the country where cotton is grown,
and will become gradually more general as long as the high
prices last. Tho reasons for this have already been fully
discussed by us. In some districts it appears that the con-
sumption of native has increased in comparison with Euro-
pean cloths. In Etawah, for instance, Mr Hume reports
that the high prices have reduced the consumption of
English cloth by 22k, and that of native cloth by only 11
per cent.

WEST ►SUFFOLK ELECTION.—The nomination
takes place to-day, at Bury St. Edmund's, Lord Augustus
Hervey will probably be returned without opposition.
FIRE.—A fire took place yesterday at Car-
penter and Sildeeley'e lockworks at Willenhall, near Wol-
verhampton. A cask of spirits of turpentine took fire and
burst, and Mr Sildesley and four workmen were seriously
burnt. The fire was confined to one part of the factory
and has been put out.
THACKERAY AND LEECH.—It is said that the
family of Mr Thackeray have expressed a wish that the
contemplated tribute to the memory of their relative and
John Leech, in the Charterhouse, should take the form of a
double instead of a single memorial, and that this will be
the first point to be settled at the meeting of Old Carthu-
sians on the 13th inst.—Guardian.
The Freeman claims Sir Thomas Henry, the senior
magistrate of the Bow•etreet Police Court, upon whom the
Queen has been pleased to confer the honour of knighthood,
as an Irishman. He is the son of the late Mr David Henry,
one of the eminent firm of Henry, Mullins, and 111‘Mahon,
by whom so many great public works in Ireland were carried
out, and brother-in-law of the him, member for Athlone,
Mr John Ennis.
THE MURDER AT SUNNING-HILL PARK.—Yes-
terday at 12 o'clock, at the Maidenhead County Sessions,
Frederick Croft, alias William Smith, the tramp charged
with the murder of Elizabeth Butler, at Sunning-hill
Park lodge, was again brought up on remand, before
Mtssrs C. Sawyer (chairman), J, Hercy, T. J. Hercy,
and C. J. Palmer, the sitting county magistrates. All
the witnesses were in court, but as no fresh evidence
was produced, the chairman, after some little consultation
with his brother magistrates, considered that the testimony
of the various witnesses previously examined was not sail-
cint to entitle the Bench to detain the prisoner any longer
in custody, and lie was accordinglr at once discharged. The
feeling, however, among the mob outside the court was so
strong that a little ruse had to be adopted by the police, in
order that Croft might leave the neighbourhood of the
county police station without being molested.
.~rrnsurt TV Jai‘v ss- Vous: a liTnu v
HALIFAX.—On Tuesday, at the Halifax Borough
Court, Thomas Drake was charged with attempting to
drown Eliza Wilson. Prisoner and prosecutor both lived
at Halifax. The former is about 18 years of age, and a dyer.
He appears to have been on terms of intimacy with
Wilson, and oa Tuesday morning met her and walked
with her along the canal bank. Near Caddy Field, and
while walking under a bridge, prisoner suddenly seized
Wilson and threw her into the canal. She was on the point
of drowning, when a man named Furness hastened to the
spot, and got her out of the water. Prisoner had concealed
himself close by, but seeing prosecutrix rescued, he rushed
forward and jumped into the canal. Two or three men,
who had been drawn to the spot, succeeded in getting him
out again,. and gave him in charge of a policeman, who had
been sent for. Prosecutrix sufficiently recovered to appear
at the court. The magistrates commended the conduct of
Furness in rescuing the woman. The prisoner was sentior
trial at the assizes.—Hatielaster _Examiner.

A peculiarly shocking accident, attributable solely
to intemperance, occurred on Saturday night, near
to West Hartlepool. Two labourers were staggering home
helplessly intoxicated, when they both fell down upon the
line of the Stockton and West Hartlepool Railway. The
daughter of one of the mon, a mere child, who was with
them, endeavoured to raise them, but was unable to do so.
The men had not been many minutes down before they
apparently went to sleep, and the girl became much
alarmed at the dangerous position in which her father and
his companion was placed. She did everything in her
power to arouse thorn from sleep, but was unsuccessful.
Seeing their increasing danger on a train approaching, she
in wild excitement ran towards the road which leads to the
house of her pare4ts, but had not proceeded far before the
passenger train dashed over the spot where a few minutes
before she had left her father and his companion. When
the child returned to the spot with het mother and some
neighbours, the .dead body of her father was found fright-
fully mangled. Toe other man had sustained a compound
fracture of the thigh.—Birmingham
MORE LOSSES AT SEA.—Yesterday a telegram
reached North Shields that the brig Resolution
had foundered in the North Sea, but that her crow were
rescued. Yesterday afternoon the Pearl, steam tug,
brought a shipwrecked crew into the Tyne. They belongoi
to the Swedish schooner Vitus, from Korsoer, with a cargo
of barley, fur Stockton. The schooner had foundered in the
North Sea on the 25th of November. and her crew, six in
number, had fortunately afterwards been taken off the wreck
by the brig Messenger, of North Shields, bound to London,
who brought them to Shields bar yesterday, and put them
aboard the tug. Yesterday, a large quantity of oats and '
pork saved from the wreck of the Stanley was sold by auc-
tion. The pork sold in two lots—ono at 30s, and the other
at 255, per cwt. The oats sold at 2a Gd per sack. A public
meeting was appointed to be held in North Shields last
night, to organise a volunteer force to assist the Coast-
Guard officers with the rocket lines in case of shipwreck
TEM CIRCASSIAN EX.ODUS.-0 nr Malta correspon..
dent has received the following letter from Larnaka (Island
of Cyprus), dated the 12th of November :—" You have no
doubt heard of the Circassians havirg been driven out of
their country, and a great number having arrived at Con-
, stantinople. The Turkish Government made a great many
of them soldiers, and also distributed a great number over
different parts of the Turkish dominions. Of these unhappy
exiles, 2,700 were sent to Larnaka in three small brigs, and
out of that number only 1,400 reached that place alive, 550
of whom were in perfect health. And it is reported by
masters of merchant ships that the sea was covered with
dead bodies, in fact, while at anchor off Lai mike. they were
seen to heave bodies overboard, although there was still lite
in them, to maks room for the rest to mvo about. They
were literally packed one upon the other, and suffered chiefly
from want of water. The Laziretto where they were quar-
tered presented a shocking eight—men, women, and children
nothing but skin and bone, dying at the rate of 20 a day
from exhaustion, end an eye-witness counted 15 dead bodies
in one heap on the beach. They were allowed a few pares a
day to obtain food, but required something nourishing,
which I suppose was not procurable. On the emigrants first
arriving here, a great number of the inhabitants assembled
on the beach to prevent their landing, haceviunlwgdethroeegainredt,
fttohhoeadyt
they were a ferocious set of people, &c., well armed, but on
u
ifindingm immediately
aot
eulty whathelp ea d horriblethem
ae mcno
ch ai condition otnh
they
yhy a
Several of the Turks have taken them as servants, and the
rest are being sent into the interior daily to work on the
farms,