The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-19 00:00:00

TH:ERMOMETER.

This morning.
This day at Two o'clock 63

Barometer-20.15.
'Wind—S. ; fresh, and cloudy, with rain.

dealings with us to be iusolent, turbulent, anal en.
czoaching. 'We have met such cond net alternately
with vacillation and with injustice, or rather with
mismanagement. In dealing with srich tribes care
should be taken not to leave room fur feiture dis
turbances, as in the case of the dispn,t bloek of
land. A strip of territory which intery -ened between
Taitamara Block and the settlement was a'elowed to
be claimed by the natives, whereas whatever flaw
existed in the earlier transaction, NV' Jell it had once
become a subject of warfare, and ties) and had been
conquered and reconquered, the i att;rvening space
should have been also occupied, if it was intended
to avoid further contentions. W e are, of course,
bound to act upon our principlJs, v ,rhatever construc-
tion may be put on them, 'but i t should never be
forgotten that savage tribes are :apt to mistake hesi-
tation for weakness, of which they are never slow
to take advantage. If, therefore, we hope to keep
them at a distance, and at once to preserve the in-
terests of our colony, and to spare the lives of the
Maories, we should take care that they respect our
rights and fear our anger. It is a most mistaken
kindness to shrink from takin ; decisive measures
at the outset of the strife, sine a by unwise vacilla-
tion and a timid and hesitath ig policy, outbreaks
a strong
that might have been easily r epressed w
hand at first, have be a sufferedhappily to
will
notgrow
into formidable wars. Such
be the case in the .present instance. Sir
GEORGE GREY, although one writer accuses
him of having procrastinated, conciliated,
and yielded until he had exhausted at once the
patience of the colonists and his own," is now
adopting measures whose vigour and promptitude
will, we may hope, speedily produce considerable
effect. Under the able leadership of General
CAMERON, an attack has been planned on the native
pah," or foil, which has been completely success- i
ful. The Maories have been dislodged from their
stronghold, many of them killed, and the colonists
have plucked up hope and courage under the pro-
mising aspect of affairs. The numbers of the con-
tending parties and the lists of the killed and
wounded appear strangely small after the whole-
sale slaughter of which we are continually hearing.
An encounter in which less than a thousand men
are engaged on both sides, and the deaths are
reckoned at four on the one side and twenty-four
on the other, does not appear at first sight to have
been of very formidable dimensions, and it seems
strange that the colonists should attach so much
importance to it. On further inquiry, however,
we shall find that the attendant circumstances added
very greatly to its consequence. It was the first
step taken in the actual warfare, and the natives
were completely outwitted. For once our men
succeeded in surprising them in their encamp-
ment, in spite of their keen watchfulness, their
quick wit, and the assistance of professed friends
of the colonists who haunt our quarters and pick up
what information they can. Means were taken to
elude the vigilance of such observers by mislead-
ing them as to our movements. Instead of
arriving at the native encampment after
much toil and labour to find the enemy
decamped, General CAMERON and his men were
able to take them by surprise; and exactly one day
month after the commission of the yet unpunished
crime the Maories were taught a well-merited les-
son, and defeated on their own ground. It was
necessary to surprise them, in order to prevent their
hasty retreat, it was also indispensable to take a
sufficient body of men to ensure the assaulters
against all risks. These seemingly incompatible
conditions have been successfully secured, and the
position in which the enemy had so strongly en-
trenched themselves has been wrested from their
The plan of the works constructed by these
natives was by no means despicable. Their party
assumed a position at the foot of a hill, with a river
in front, and honey- combed the ground around them
with zigzag r;fie pits. The storming party was
dlvided into two divisions, one of which went along
the road up the cliff from the beach, protected by'
the guns of the Eclipse; the other ascending the
river, :w hich they crossed there, rushing on the rifle
pits. The plan, which had been skilfully laid down,
was boldly carried out, and the result has infused
fresh spirit into the colonists. As a proof of the
danger and difficulty attending this species of war_
fare, we ar© told that when the encounter was sup.
posed to be over, a party of men were standing
carelessly over a pit in the ground that had been
covered by a hurdle, when a Maori from beneath
endeavoured to stab one of them. Oa further exa-
mination six natives were found concealed in the
pit, all of whom refused to yield, and consequently
fell in the struggle. The strife was short and sharp
for an hour—after the first attack all was quiet.
The natives were pursued ty a detachment of
skirmishers who, it is said, killed many of them, a
fact which must be taken into account in reckoning
the enemy's losses. A general enthusiasm animates
the colony. Volunteers are forthcoming in any
number that may be required, and the regular and
irregular forces act most harmoniously in unison.
We trust that the authorities will keep up the
spirit in which they have begun, and endeavour to
bring matters to a speedy close; for however much
they may deplore the bloodshed and expenditure
iwar, it
secure it
infsee p anroarb ep
or op
me
r tay
etrhatthneeitholedr
isni3nifuens
regime. Regiments are being summoned from
Australia, and an ironclad turret gunboat of light
draught is also to be forwarded from that country.
It is satisfactory to find that notwithstanding these
unhappy dissensions the fortunes of the colony are
thriving, and,that it is better able to contribute its
share of the demands of the war, both in men and
money than it was two or three years since. The
gold fields of Otago have greatly expeditedthede-
velopment of its fortunes; and,as the Auckland and
Nelson gold fields continue to improve European
enterprise is not likely to suffer itself to be checked
by Maori caprice or assumption. Au interesting
feature in the intelligence is the announcement of

t, e 77;
57
,^44

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19, 1863,

Non-intervention, if persisted in to an extremity,
becomes hardly less than a crime on the part of a
nation. The period arrives, in every contention
between armed belligerents, when—that conten-
tion becoming day by day more sanguinary, and
yet giving, day by day, clearer and clearer augury
of proving, so far as anything human can, in-
terminable—interposition becomes a solemn duty
on the part of powerful, on-looking non-bellige-
rents. To insist upon it that, under any and every
imaginable combination of circumstances, non-
intervention is the law of civilised nations, is, to
say the least of it, illogical. If ever, since the
hour of its commencement, this deplorable war in
North America has appeared to be utterly
hopeless as to its admitting of termina-
tion upon the battlefield —it so appears
to be, at this present juncture. The charm of its
definitive settlement through some crowning victory
won either by the Federals or by the Confederates,
seems more obviously than ever at this moment to
stretch away into a perspective so dim and remote
as to be altogether beyond the reach of vision.
Insomuch is this the case, that we are left wholly
to conjecture that that crowning victory is situated
far away in the vague hereafter, at some undefinable
interval beyond the vanishing point in the terrible
picture of the war now spread out before us.

The hopelessness of that fierce conflict being
brought to a close by the belligerents themselves,
in a manner would appear to necessitate the ultimate
abandonment by non-belligerents of the principle
of non-intervention. Sooner or later, in the in-
terests of humanity, in the interests alike of the old
and the new world, the interposition of Europe
between North and South—the striking up of the
bloody weapons by the potent wand of diplomacy,
and the calling for a truce and parley in the name
of all that is dear both to civilized man and to
Christian—does more and more appear to us a thing
inevitable. In those more and more outraged in-
terests of mankind at large, mediately and immedi-
ately in the respective hemispheres, we are beginning
to yearn every day more fervently that that inter-
position which we believe to be inevitable, at last
may be adventured upon sooner rather than later.
Reasons enow for this aspiration might be found
only too abundantly, by any one who listed to go
in quest of them, strewn in ghastly guise far and
wide over that bloody chaos of slaughter—the
utterly fruitless, and yet hideously destructive
battle field upon and around the now tainted
heights of Gettysburg. A. battle-field littered
over by forty thousand mangled victims
of the war, a struggle that lasted almost
uninterruptedly during from three to four days and
nights, and where four hundred cannon (200 on the
aide of the Confederate assailants, and at least 200
on the side of the Federal defenders of those heights
of Gettysburg) thundered, sometimes almost simul-
taneously, during many consecutive hours—a spec-
tacle so dreadful of its kind, and so absolutely boot-
less, as leading to no result one way or the other :
this last event of the war alone, this one isolated
incident in it, would really seem to clamour for the
intervention at last of European diplomacy. For
what is the diplomacy of Europe waiting ? For the
prospect of some natural termination to the war
itself? The struggle has now lasted, with varying
results, for more than two years past. The contend-
ing armies have been struggling to and fro, north-
wards and southwards, eastwards and west-
wards, in fierce and deadly strife—now in
one state, now in another. And now, after
all these vicissitudes of the war, after these
two years and upwards of its continuance—with
the fury of it still perpetually increasing—
now, in the Autumn of 1863, the war between the
Federal and Confederate States of North America,
appears to be further away from any prospect of
a conclusion than ever. Thousands, and tens of
thousands are perishing through it. Millions
upon millions of dollars are squandered upon it.
The se,called ministers of religion, like this
wretched Dr. TYNG mentioned in the Telegrams,
seem disposed
to hound on the North to the pro-
secution of an implacable war (as Dr. TYNE says,
d' to all eternity "), and this in the prostituted
name of Emancipation. In heaven's name, let us
)dope that some tardy
effort
may at last be made
towards putting an end to these dreadful abomi-
nations.

grasp.

an intercolonial exhibition which it is proposed to

hold at Otago in Sanuary next. It is to be open to
all branches of colonial ndustry, and to :such

The news brought by the last mail from New
Zealand is more encouraging than
might have been
expected. It could not be hoped that war had
been averted; and, indeed, it was
scarcely to be
desired, after the flagrant conduct of the m •
acmes.
The murder of the English soldiers in May last was
an outrage which no civilised Government could
pass over, and certainly Sir GEORGE GREY cannot
be accused of too great haste for war, when he
waited for such a catastrophe before he commenced
hostilities. Ia fact, the Governor has been censured
in many quarters for having shown too much in-
dulgence to the natives, and it is probable that a
due admixture of firmness and c ,nsideration might,
at the very instant, have prevented the outbreak.
The Maories ;are, undoubtedly, a troublesome
race to deal with. They are sharp-witted, and
possessed of a degree of civilisation which enables
them to oppose the assaulters with their own
weapons, while they maintain all those features of
a guerilla warfare which make a campaign against
savages so wearying and unprofitable. Presuming
on those improved notions of justice and humanity
which make Englishmen of the present day shrink
from exterminating the aborig!nes of their coloniea,
the Maaries have shown themselves in all their

articles of British or other origin as are likely to
benefit the colony. This is a sensible and spirited
proceeding, and speaks well for the prospects of

New Zaaland. We sincerely trust that the colonists
may be able to enjoy the gathering iu peace and

comfort, and that these vexatious end frequent con-

tentions with their unruly and dangerous neigh-
bours may long before that time be set finally at

rest.

chemist's shop, particular care should be taken
by some responsible person that all poisons are
safely locked up, so that no hurry or confusion
may lead inexperienced assistants into mistake s
that may terminate fatally. Whoever put the
wrong mixture into the bottle must either have
been very ignorant or very careless not to notice
time, by any means, that precisely
anything peculiar about it. It is
sniomtiltah fir
re et
acci-
dents have occurred, and yet it does n
produce greater caution on the part ofo not
hsoeseemem-
ployed in such matters. It is also a pity that
there is not a better knowledge among all
classes concerning the appearance of poi-
sons, since such information would guard
against many drc9dful errors that are
daily occurring. Had the lady possessed any
such knowledge she would not have drunk the
odraught, and if any of her servants had noticed the
m
of the mixture which was left in the
remains
ains
bottle when they were washing it, they might at
least have been in time to procure remedial mea-
sures for their unfortunate mistress. The other
case was that of a nurse giving morphia to an
infant instead of dill-water. The coroner who pre-
sided at the inquest made a most valuable sugges-
tion, to the effect that all bottles containing poisons
should have peculiar kinds of stoppers. By this
means the ignorant, who cannot read, and even
those whose eyesight is defective, can readily guard
against the commission of fatal blunders. The
fact is that too much care cannot be taken in all
matters relative to medicine, and the reverse is
generally the order of the day. It is very lament-
able to hear of so many untimely deaths occurring
from want of the commonest care being used on one
side and the simplest knowledge possessed on the
other. Until people will have the sense to perceive
that ignorance and bad management are at the root
of all these sad occurrences, they will never learn
how to prevent their recurrence. It seems strange
that with so many warnings before them they will
not seek to rectify the fatal errors so constantly com-
mitted by the adoption of the only means that may
serve as a remedial measure, and seek to obtain the
knowledge that will be of such essential service to
them.

It is quite time that some check should be put to
the dangerous practice of omnibus racing which has
lately become so much the custom. On Monday
an inquest was held at St. Bartholomew's Hos-
pital on the body of an omnibus conductor who was
run over and killed on Thursday last in Holborn.
It appears from the evidence of those who witnessed
the occurrence, that two omnibuses were racing
violently along towards the City, one slightly in
advance of the other. The deceased conductor
jumped off his board for some purpose, and was
almost instantly knocked down by the second
omnibus, and killed on the spot. On further in-
quiry it turned out that the conductor had got
down for the purpose of inquiring of a passerby if
she was going by his omnibus. It seemed also that
the unfortunate conductor was himself greatly to
blame, because he used no care when he descended
from his board. He was in a state of great excite-
ment, apparently, concerning the racing, and one of
the passengers by the omnibus in question stated
that he kept continually urging his driver to
greater speed. When they came opposite Fur-
nival's Inn, where the accident happened, he got
down, and then seemed only intent on the dan-
gerous sport in which they were engaged. He
went forward telling his own driver to pull across
the road. to stop the other omnibus, and at the
same time walked backwards so that he got in
the way of the second omnibus. Some said
that the driver of the second vehicle
might have pulled up quicker than he did,
and others that it was impossible for him to have
done so. This is a question very difficult to decide,
but it is certain that had ho not been proceeding at
so rapid a pace the accident would not have oc-
carted. The jury did not come to a decision re-
garding the conduct of the driver—some were for a
verdict of manslaughter, and some for a
verdict of a contrary character. It is
not the fault of one party more than
another in these cases of furious driving and reck-
less conduct. It is the system itself which is so
bad, and which cannot be too strongly condemned.

It is productive of innumerable risks to passengers,
as they are scarcely allowed sufficient time to get
in or out of the conveyances in consequence of the
conductors calling out and the omnibus starting
before they are safely settled ik.side, or fairly out on
the road. It is to be hoped that the whole of the
omnibus trade will take warning by this occurrence,
and not continue the fatal practice any longer.
There should be stringent laws in force against the
system, and the police should exercise a strict watch
until the practice is altogether put down. It is
impossible for either the drivers or conductors to
attend to their business properly while their
thoughts are engaged in a totally opposite manner ;
and the fearful risks that they expose themselves
to, as well as the danger to all the passengers, and
also the passers by, are convincing proofs that this
practice is a most obnoxious one, and it is strange
that more attention should not have been given to
the subject before by those empowered to interfere.

SCIENTIFIC DETECTION OF FORGEEIES.---The
methods used by the forger are different in charac-
ter and in degree. In some instances he imitates simply
the writing and signature of another person, as at the
detected
s thistf hai
bottom of a will, deed, or other document. This capacity
of imitation is possessed by few, and a quick eye may
soon be able on comparison of two specimens of writ-
ing to determine a real as distinguished from a forged
hand. The points to be observed in this research have
reference, first, to what is called the strength of tlw writing,
for no two hands bear on the pen with equal force;
next, as to the angle of each letter in relation to the line on
which it is written; thirdly, to the distance of one letter
from another; fourthly, to the angles of !he letters them-
selves; fifthly, to the way in which certain letters arc dotted
or crossed; and lastly, to the mode in which long letters are
Inaae to terminate. Assuming that in any given case where a
comparison has to be instituted there is so much difficulty in
the way that the naked eye fails to make the determination,
recourse is then to be had to eclargement of the writing by
means of a powerful lens. This enlargement brings out in
unmistakeable relief any differences which may exist between
two specimens of writing, and we ourselves knew of an
example in which the :also signature of a gentleman was
affirm on common observation that the signature was a ,
forgery. It is to be specially remembered, however, in
conducting
that t
combinationhn eo
dt i
sotni
distinction
nnorotiof
n d; ei vffbee
liar
et
nt
ifwc eos i
,dni
effavenerny-
e n
givenc e s are
case
u there n
inquiry,emarkt
is
to
a method,
he
himself having been unable to
Clough these may not be presented in each letter, the
evidence becomes decisive by accumulation of details, and
of course the more decisive according to the number
of points of difference. This is brought out very easily by
___e_--- a simple experiment. Write down on a piece of paper a
It is
-
single word twice over, then let another person copy the
much to be regretted that more care is first word in imitation, with the strictest attention to
not taken with regard to the sale of poisons, and details' To the eye the distinction between the words
also their due administration when purchased. from the same hand may seem as grtat as between the
Last week there were
two cases a very distrese• fu 1 magnifyingoriginals
an
glass,dtheimitation. Now, however, with a power-
two ofireeease the size of the first original
sgalyventenabetivme.es,latn\dviltlhetne
ink nature
•b, in which lives
were lost through
sheer carelessness d -
an ignorance. One victim
was a lady at Liverpoolb
i who sent to a chemist analyse
s aen de a
co
hf tuhye,
tchoopi:::lx. word,
Ir.
nd
t, s
for a blue pill and a black
the latter mixture the chemist sent laudanum.same hand, and although
draught. Instead of
pointfound
nt thatdifference. i n eve r y letterrf hbiys tathnheaerl eysai
er e
concluded,
oant
ellen:ids
et a four,
ti
u,
turn
essential t
o the
second word written
res
The servant who procured the medicine stated idsitffice
of the letters, the analysis will i
differences may
sam same, in
inpretsheentemd
aiinn,
in 8.1 thedetails.
the shop was all in Confusion, owing to some The detection of forged signatures by this mechanical
pyeicetl d to
character-
thatt he
Biz
alterations going on. The lady observed that
analytical method is so simple and soperfect in its results,
draught tasted very peculiar, bat no notice
we that we wonder it has not been universally adopted in legal
might
p
the
taken of the circumstance. Nothin4 unusual was investigations. By mathematical measurements it
be brought to such perfection as to be demonstrative, and
discovered until the next evenmg, when all as- to yield evidence far more valid than that of circumstances,
on which life often is sentenced. —te'ocial Science Revi:ow.. .
A 6TEAM STREET-SWEEPING APPeI.LITIJO ;2 lr-'
sistance was unavailing,. and she expired. In the
first place, durwg au unusu.d. arragemtnt or a preparation i
No or tho a:42l4Di; 91' L0i2(192.