The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-06 00:00:00

LONDON DISTRICT TELEGRAPH.

The report of the directors states that the accounts show
a steady increase in the income of the company and a con-
siderable decrease in the general working expenses for the
half year. The property has been maintained in efficient
working order. There are now 79 offices open in London
and the suburbs belonging to the company, besides which
messages are collected for this company's stations at most
of the other telegraphic offices in the United Kingdom and
the Continent. The directors have reason to believe that
public confidence increases in the working, and that, as a
rule, the business is satisfactorily performed.

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.

ROME CIRCUIT—CROYDON, AUG. 5.
CROWN COURT.
(Before Baron Channell.)

Joseph Hawes, 40, was charged with the wilful murder
of his wife, Sarah Hawes.

Mr. Sharpe conducted the prosecution. The prisoner
was defended by Mr. Ribton and Mr. Oppenheim.
The facts of this case have appeared within the last few
days.

Although the pi isoner was charged with the serious
offence of wilful murder, the case was opened as one that
only involved the crime of manslaughter, and the death of
the deceased appeared to have arisen out of an affray that
took place between her and the prisoner, she being at the
time in a state of intoxication. It appeared that the pri-
soner was a labouring man, and that he and his wife and
five children occupied a back room at No. 84, Upper
Ground-street, Blackfriars-road. ' The circumstances con-
nected with the transaction were not established very clearly
by the evidence, but according to the testimony of two
women, named Chatfield and Beagin, who lodged in the
house, the c prisoner came home from his work be-
tween six and seven o'clock in the evening of the 16th of
July, and at that time the deceased was at home, and
there was very little doubt that she was the worse for liquor.
Very soon after the prisoner went to his room a quarrel
appeared to have taken place between him and his wife,
and there were sounds as of blows and falls, and the de-
ceased was heard to call out " Murder!" The two women
referred to went up to the prisoner's room, and they saw
the deceased lying upon the ground across the fender, but
when they endeavoured to go into the room the prisoner
closed the door against them, and said he would serve any
man or woman who interfered in the same way that he
served his wife, and he at the same time made use of
a foul expression to the deceased, and told her to get up,
and she muttered something in reply which was in-
audible. The deceased continued insensible from this
time until her death, which occucred a very few
hours afterwards. The prisoner had, in the interval, left
the house, and he was found by a police-constable narned
Mansfield at the Windmill public-house close by, and upon
his telling him that he must take him into custody upon the
charge of murdering his wife, he replied " It is all through
drink. She drank half a pint of whisky off at a draught. I
went out to get half a pint of beer, and I saw my second
child crying, and told her to tell her mother to get up, and
she said she could not speak." The prisoner afterwards
said, " God bless her, I would not hurt a hair of her head."
-Upoß the body of the deceased being examined, a number
of contusions were found upon her face, and there was also
a slight wound upon the left temple, which in the opinion
of Mr. Coppin, the surgeon, was cauded by falling against
the fender, and he also stated in cross-examination that
several of the injuries that he observed upon the person of
the deceased, and which were, undoubtedly, the cause of
death, might have been caused by falls, although he at the
same time said he was of opinion that they must have been
caused by blows and falls conjointly. It also appeared by
the medical testimony that the brain of the deceased was
diseased and presented appearances of her having been ad-
dicted to habits of intemperance. There was no doubt, how-
ever, from the facts of the case, that the prisoner had been
guilty of very brutal violence to the deceased. _ _

Mr. Ribton made an earnest appeal to the jury on behalf
of the prisoner, and he contended that in the first place there
was no positive proof that the death of the deceased was
caused by blows inflicted by the prisoner, and that there was
no evidence to show that he had struck her at all, and
secondly, he urged that even supposing they should come
to the conclusion that the prisoner did strike the deceased,
and that her death was the result, that the offence did not,
at the utmost, amount to a higher crime than manslaughter.
The learned Judge having summed up, the Jury retired
to deliberate, and in about half an hour they returned into
court and found the prisoner guilty of manslaughter.
His lordship, in
doubt that the prisoner had caused the death of his wife by
very brutal violence, and the only circumstance in his favour
passing sentence, said there could be no
was that the act did not appear to have been premeditated.
The jury had therefore very properly convicted him of man-
slaughter only; but, under all the circumstances, he felt it
to be his duty to order urn to be kept in penal servitude fer
10 years.

Thee:Wilson, 23, was charged with feloniously wounding
Richard Wakl en, with intent to do him grievous bodily harm,
and also with intent to murder him,

Mr. J. Sharpe conducted the prosecution on behalf of the
Treapury. The prisoner had no counsel.
The prosecutor in this case is one of the warders of the
Woking Convict Prison, and the prisoner was a convict con-
fined in that prison, under a sentence of three years' penal
servitude, at the time the offence was committed. It ap-
peared that on the 16th of April the prisoner was in one of
the wards of the prison, called the knitting-shed, in the
charge of the prosecutor, and according to his evidence the
prisoner, who is a cripple and walks with a crutch, without
the slightest provocation, raised the crutch with both hands,
and struck him a tremendous blow on the head, which
knocked him down and rendered him insensible, and he was
about to do more violence upon him when he was seized by
one of his fellow-prisoners, who held him until assistance
arrived and he was secured.

The prisoner, when called upon for his defence, said that
the warder was always "at him," and would not leave him

alone, He also said that he had been in the infirmary of the
prison for a considerable time, where they me him codliver
oil and gentian, in order) as he stated, to create an appetite,
and when he came out the prosecutor recommenced his old
practice of annoying him in every possible manner ; and on
the day in question he pulled out his staff, when he thought
he was going to strike him with it, and he said he hit him
with the crutch in self-defence.

The prosecutor was recalled, and in answer to questions
put by the learned Judge, he declared that there was not
the slightest truth in the story told by the prisoner, and he
said that he did not even know the prisoner was in the ward
at the time he received the blow from him.
The jury found the prisoner guilty of wounding with
intent to do grievous bodily harm, and he was sentenced to
four years' penal servitude, to date from the present time.
A man named Reed was indicted for attempting to cut
and wound another man, with intent to kill him. •
The case was of a very painful character, although, hap-
pily, no injury had been inflicted. When the prisoner was
arraigned yesterday, he pleaded guilty. Ins counsel, how-
ever, suggested that there was some doubt as to his state of
mind, and this morning he was placed again at the bar, and
the surgeon of the gaol was 2,alled, and stated that to the
best of his belief the prisoner could understand the nature
of the charge and the evidence, although he was subject to
aberrations of mind, which left him lucid intervals. Upon
this, _ _

The learned Judge left it to the jury whether the prisoner
was of sound mind, so as to be able to understand the charge
and the evidence.

The jury found that he was. He was again called upon
to plead, and
The learned Judge explained to him the nature of the
charge, and that it involved an intent to kill, upon which
The prisoner said he did not certainly do the act with
that intent, and there he should plead not guilty.
At a later period of the day the case came on for trial.
Mr. Best conducted the prosecution; Mr. Lilley and Mr.
Laxton appeared for the defence.
The prisoner, who is still a young man and had enjoyed
a very good character, and had been, it appeared, a preacher
among the Primitive Methodists, had been acquainted for
some years with the prosecutor, and it appeared from the
cross-examination that the prisoner's wife had left him,
and that this bad preyed upon his mind. It was something
with reference to this which gave rise to the occurrence.
The prisoner, it appeared, had married while he was young,
and had lately taken proceedings against his wife in the
Divorce Court ; and it seemed from the cross-examination
that the prisoner, somehow or other, connected the prose-
cutor with the misfortune of his marriage, and meeting him
in the streets made one or two stabs at him with a knife,
and cut his coat, but happily was prevented from doing any
injury. He said at the time, lam not a boy of 17 now, but
a man of 28. The prosecutor's wife, who was present at the
time, swore that the prisoner said he came all the way from
Woolwich to kill her husband, and that, though he had
failed with steel, he should succeed with lead, and he re-
peated this before the police.
The knife was produced, but was quite blunt. It was a
glazier's putty-knife.
Mr. Lilley, in addressing the jury for the prisoner, sug-
gested that he had been stung to madness about his wife,
and was suffering under an aberration of mind at the time
he did the act.

The surgeon of the gaol was called, and stated that, in
his belief, the prisoner had no aberrations in his intellect,
but he talked so wildly on religious matters that he thought
he was not quite right in his mind on these matters. He
also talked about his wife, and appeared very excited, and
was rather violent. He spoke about his wife and " the
lawyer."
Cross-examined by Mr. Best—He talked wildly on reli-
gious matters, but might have been sane on all others. He
spoke of the prosecutor as having introduced his wife to
him, and he ascribed all his misfortunes to him. He said
she had been living with some " Scripture Reader."
Another witness gave the prisoner a good character as
connected with temperance meetings, and as a quiet in-
offensive man. He seemed very much affected about his wife,
and was always speaking about her. The witness went to
see him in gaol and asked him how he came to do such a
mad act, The prisoner said that the Lord Jesus Christ had
sent him to do it, and he wished he had killed the prosecu-
tor, as then be should have gone home to his Heavenly
Father. He said he had commenced proceedings against
his wife, but that the lawyer had refused to go on any fur-
ther without morn money, having already had all he had.
The learned Judge said this was not the proper course of
evidence. The proper inquiry—to raise the defence now
suggested—would be whether the prisoner knew the nature
of his actions and was in a such a state of mind as to be re-
sponsible.
The witness being asked this question, said he hardly
thought the prisoner was in such a state of mind.
Being cross-examined by Mr. Best, the witness said he
had met the prisoner chiefly at temperance meetings,
Mr. Best—Well, he could hardly have beea otherwise
than quiet at those meetings, could he?
The witness said no, but he seemed always quiet in his
disposition.
He spoke always of his wife, and said, as he
could not have justice by law, he thought he would get it
on the man who introduced him to her.
Another witness gave the prisoner a good character, hav-
ing known him for years ; and stated further that he had
gone with him in search of his wife, and had found her in a
house with another man,
who put his fist in his face. The
prisoner had said again and again that ,the prosecutor had
persuaded him to marry the woman, knowing her to be a
prostitute.
Another
gave prisoner a good character,
stated h
spoke of his wife he was not the same
tat witness,wh when
b e who
person. He said also that the prosecutor had led him into
the marriage.
Another witness gave similar evidence.
The prisoner's brother, who gave evidence of the same
character, stated that the prosecutor had said that he be-
lieved he might have intercourse with the woman whom he
had recommended to the prisoner as his wife.
Mr. Best, in reply on the part of the prosecution, urged li
that the evidence for the defence not only showed no insane
delusion, but went quite to disprove it, because it went to
very serious and somewhat compli-
e must request their close and careful
showsaidThi
et realh leaador
nr
ea dsassumed
u :rationalaned h grounds for the feelings he entertained.
dJudge,a
in summing up the case to the jury,
cated character,
attention to it. They would observe that the indictment
was,
" attempting
did not, and could not, charge a wounding, for, in fact,
none was inflicted;
to wound, with
re-
solved itself really into " intent to kill ;" and if the
prisoner used the knife without any intention to kill,
the
he could not be convicted upon this indictment. But
icteidnt;ent and
to So charge
that the case
the law also laid it down that, however serious the offence,
if the man at the time of the committal of the act did not
know its nature, he must be acquitted on the ground of
insanity. That is supposing there were all the requisites of
the offence except the possession of a sane mind. The
question resolved itself into the two•fold question, whether
the prisoner attempted to wound, and with intent to kill.
That is, in short, whether he used the knife with that intent.
If he used the knife without that intent, and with any
other intent—as/ for instance, to frighten and terrify the
prosecutor -- he was entitled to an absolute acquittal. But, if
he used the knife with the mind and purpose to destroy life,
then there would be the offence charged, unless he was in
such a state of mind that he was
not
master of his actions
and was under such delusions that he did not know that he
was doing what was wrong, and in that case he must be ac-
quitted on the ground of insanity. The law on that subject
bad been maturely considered and laid down in the House
of Lords in Macnaghten's case, and the result was as he had
stated ic. The learned Judge then went into the evidence
with the utmost care, especially with reference to the pri-
soner's state of mind, as to which he told the jury the ques-
tion was whether he was in such a state of mind at the
time he committed the act as to be able to know right from
wrong and to know that he was doing what was wrong.
The evidence of insanity, he observed, was somewhat slight,
and the great question was, were the jury justified that the
prisoner used the knife with intent to kill ? If, however, they
thought he did so use it, they must consider whether, hav-
ing that intent, he did not at the moment know that it was
a crime. If they thought that he had the intent, and was
responsible for his actions, of course they must find him
guilty. If they thought he had the intent, but was not in a
state of mind to know the nature of his actions, they must
acquit him on the ground of insanity. If they thought that
he had not the intent they must acquit him absolutely.
The jury considered their verdict,and, after some minutes,
found the prisoner not guilty on the ground of insanity.
The learned Judge said he would be detained in custody
during her Majesty's pleasure.

(Before Mr. Baron Bramwell.)

A man named Jeffery was charged with cutting the
throat of his landlady.
Mr. Laxton appeared for the prosecution.
The facts were very simple; the only remarkable point
was the absence of apparent motive. It appears that the
prisoner came home as usual, met his landlady, accused
her of laughing at him, and then forced her head back and
inflicted two gashes on her throat, one four the other two
inches long and half an inch deep. She became insensible,
and remembered nothing further till she found herself in
Guy's Hospital.
The prosecutrix was called, and corroborated all the facts
opened by Mr. Laxton.
The constable who apprehended the prisoner said that ho
made a statement to the effect that prosecutrix laughed at
him, and he cut her throat with a clasp-knife, which ho
produced.

The surgeon of Guy's Hospital was called, and deposed
,o the nature of the wounds,

The prisoner made a statement to the effect that he was
drunk at the time, and remembered nothing about it.
The learned Judge directed the jary that drunkenness
was no excuse for the crime, but, as the crime was appa-
rently without motive, they would consider whether or not
the prisoner was of sound mind.
The jury, after a short deliberation, found the prisoner
guilty of rounding with intent to murder.
Baron Bramwell said that the case was of so peculiar a
nature that he would consider the sentence.

The prisoner was then removed to Horsemonger-lane
Gaol.

NORTHERN CIRCUIT.—ArrLEBY, Aug. 4.
Mr. Justice Mellor arrived at this ancient borough at 11
o'clock last night from Lowther Castle, where his lordship

and the bar had been entertained with the usual princely
hospitality of the Earl of tonsdalc.

The commission was opened immediately on his lord-
ship's arrival.
This morning, after attending Divine service, his lord-
ship took his seat in court soon after 10 o'clock, and charged
the grand jury.
There were no civil causes, and the calendar contained an
entry of seven prisoners, five of whom are women—one
charged with the murder of her illegitimate child, two
charged with concealment of birth, and the rest charged
with various larcenies.

Agnes Pattinson was indicted for the wilful murder of her
infant female child at the parish of Windermere, on the 2d
of April last.
Mr. Fowler and Mr. Campbell Foster prosecuted. The
prisoner had no counsel.
It appeared that the prisoner, being pregnant, went into
the Milnthorp Workhouse to be confined in February last.
She was confined of a fine female child on the 13th of
March, which had the peculiarity of being born with a large
quantity of long black hair on its head. The prisoner re-
covered, and on the Ist of April she left the workhouse
with her child, having been cautioned by the matron, Mrs.
M'Gowan, to take great care of it. The child was then
healthy and well, and was dressed in some child's clothes
given to the prisoner by Mrs. M'Gowan, some of them the
property of the workhouse, and marked. On the afternoon
of the 2d of April, about 3 o'clock, the prisoner, carrying
her child, called on a female acquaintance of hers named
Abbatt, and said she was going to Staveley. There she had
a cup of tea, and showed her child's head of hair to Mrs.
Abbatt, and seemed kind to the child. At 7 o'clock that
night she was met near the Windermere station, where the
railway has an arch creasing the road to Bowness, by a man
named Park, who noticed her, from her appearing tired in
her walk, carrying a small bundle, but no child. This was
about four miles from Mrs. Abbatt's house. About nine
o'clock she called at a farm-house, and sent in a message to
one of the farm men servants named Dacre, wanting to see
him, and asked him to set her on her road to Town End.
He did so, At that time she had no child and 'no bundle.
He had first known her six months before, when she was
pregnant, and he had then joked her about her state, and
asked her if a cough she had was a breeding cough. On this
occasion she coughed, and said, "I have still got the breed-
ing cough; I have not had one, and it is still to get." She
went to a farm house at Ossett Head as domestic servant,
and was there on the 13th of April, when one of the railway
porters, wanting to take a short cut from the Bowness-read
to the railway, went up the embankment, and on his way
found a bundle concealed under some laurels. He carried
it to the top of the bank, and there he and the station-mas-
ter discovered in the bundle the dead body of a female in-
fant. A doctor and the police were sent for, and the body
was examined, and a post mortem examination made. There
were no outward marks of violence, and the internal organs
were all healthy; but, on examining the head, it was dis-
covered that a triangular piece of bone, about half an inch
across it, had been driven in the brain, the skull having
been fractured. This injury had caused the death of the
child, and it must have arisen from a heavy blow with some
blunt instrument, or from a fall from a height on a hard
substance. 'No mere fall from a woman's arms could have
inflicted the injury, taking into consideration the yielding
nature of an infant's head. inquiries caused the prisoner to
be taken into custody, and two days afterwards a small
bundle was found in the garden of the Rev. Mr. Lowndes,
of Windermere, which abuts on the road, within 300
yards of the place where the body of the child was
found. These clothes and an old cape, which was
wrapped round the body of the child when found,
were identified by Mrs. M'Gowan as those which
she had given to the prisoner, and the body of the child
was also identified by her as the prisoner's child from its
long hair and general appearance. On being confronted
with Mrs. M'Gowan the prisoner denied at first that she
knew her, or that she had ever been in the Milnthorpe
Workhouse, or had had a child. Mrs. M`Gowan took her
by the hand, and said, " Oh, Agnes, you should tell the
truth." The prisoner then burst into tears, and said, "I
should not have done it, pr I should not have done so, had
my father not turned me out of doors and turned his back
I on me three years ago."
This was the case for the prosecution.
The prisoner wished to have a counsel assigned to speak
for her, but the case being over,
His Lordship asked her what she wished to say to the
jury?

The prisoner, who is a fair, little, sulky looking girl of
about 20 years of age, said she let the child fall as she was
getting over a stile, and it died afterwards in her arms.
She did not like to give herself up to the police, but took
the body and placed it where it was found, as near to the
police-station as she could.

His Lordship most carefully summed up the evidence,
and told the jury that he could not at that time take upon
himself, without the prisoner's previously expressed wish,
the responsibility of assigning counsel to defend her, when
a single incautious question arising from insufficient instruc-
tion might lead to most serious results.

The jury, after but a short consultation, found the prisoner
guilty, but recommended her to mercy.
His Lordship then assumed the black cap, and bidding
the prisoner not to be led away by false hopes, but to pre-
pare for the solemn fate that awaited her, passed upon her
the awful sentence of death in the usual form, directing her
body to be buried in the precincts of the gaol.
For a great number of years this is the only charge of
murder that has arisen in this county, and the fate of this
wretched 3 oung woman seemed to excite a most painful
impression in court.

This case finished the assizes.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

POST,—We have a confident belief that the blus-
ter of the Federal Government will produce a very
salutary effect in Canada. The authorities at
Washington say that the conscription which has
already deluged the streets of New York with blood
is intended not as a means of augmenting the
armies now engaged against the South, but as a
menace to England. The force proposed to be raised
—300,000 men—is to be kept at home merely for
the purposes of drill and general military organisa-
tion. The excuse offered by Mr. Lincoln and his
friends was never suggested until the people of Ne
York had forcibly resisted the draft and set at de-
fiance the power of the Federal Government. In-
sult to England has always been a favourite stroke
of policy with American statesmen. It was suc-
cessful at the time of the Oregon and Maine boun-
dary disputes; it was not resented during the Rus-
sian war, when the alleged enlistment of a few
Germans in Pennsylvania induced the President to
break off diplomatic relations with this country ;
but Mr. Lincoln, if he be wise, will recollect the
Trent affair, and the prompt and ample retribution
which Lord Palmerston required and exacted. The
excuse is that England, during the present contest,
has not adhered to that principle of strict neutrality
which her Majesty's proclamation announced ;first,
by permitting Confederate cruisers to be built in
English ports; and, secondly, by permitting British
subjects to carry on with the enemy of the United
States trade in articles contraband of war. The truth
is that the North has no ground of complaint on
either score. If the decision in the case of the
Alexandra be not good law, the appellate tribunal
will set the matter right; and with regard to con-
traband trade, the American cruisers and courts
have a remedy in their own hands which they cer-
tainly have hitherto applied with considerable
vigour and success. As the British Government
is content to believe that the American
prize courts will administer justice in
accordance with international law, the Fe-
deral authorities are guilty of a piece of
offensive bluster, when, anticipating a further hos-
tile decision in the case of the Alexandra, they sae
that they will treat that decision as a casus belli.
The probability is that Mr. Lincoln would never
have said a word about England if the draft had
not been successfully resisted in New York, and
when that question is settled we may for a time
hear nothing specially offensive to England. But,
in the meantime, the chronic jealousy and dislike
which the United States have ever displayed
towards this country ought, as we have observed,
to act as a warning to Canada. It so happens that
the people of Canada, blessed with an amount of
liberty and prosperity which seldom falls to the lot
of any community, appear to think that, in the pre-
sence of complications which possibly may never
arise, they are bound to pay no regard to those mea-
sures of self-defence which their exposed and ex-
tended frontier render absolutely necessary. In the
war of 1812 the people of the Province gallantly
and successfully defeated the invading armies of the
United States, and we believe they would do the
same if war should again unfortunately arise. But
there appears to be a disinclination on their part to
lay out any money to provide in time of peace
those means of security which, in war, constitute
the cheap defence of nations. The Canadians seem
to think that the duty of defending the Province
belongs exclusively to the mother country. They
arc qalte content to have a large British army sta-
tioned amongst them, because " thereout they derive
no small advantage ;" but they will incur no ex-
pense in organising the militia or in forming volun-
teer
corps. The state of the military defences in
British North America is quite insufficient to meet
any incursion which might be made from the
United States. In consequence of the Trent out-
rage, which occurred at the end of 1861, a strong
force was despatched to British North. America,
and has since remained there. It consists of two
battalions of the Guards, several regiments of the
line, several batteries of artillery, and a detach-
ment of engineers. The active militia force
consists of about five thousand men, and there
are about sixteen thousand enrolled volunteers
in various states of efficiency. The sedentary
militia, about
180,000, exist only on paper. The
available force, therefore, is about 12,000 regulars
and 21,000 militia and volunteers, making a total
of little more than 30,000 men—a force totally in-
adequate to defend the lake frontier of the Upper

Province. In spite of the urgent appeals of the
Colonial-office, the Legislature of Canada has re-
fused to place the militia of Canada on an efficient
footing. As the Canadians have net sympathy ,vith
the North, the present aspect of affairs on the con-
tinent may induce them to show a little of the
spirit which animated their fathers in the w,e of
1812. Prudence as well as self-interest should lead
them to adopt this course. We may add that it is
the bounden duty of the Home Government to look
to the naval defence of the Province. On the inland
seas which stretch from Lake Superior to the St.
Lawrence there is not so much as a gunboat or an
armed steamer, while the Americans profess to have
in their ports a flotilla which at any time would give
them command of the lakes, and render access to
Canada a matter of comparative ease.
HERALD.—To till the earth is the most ancient
occupation of man, and the inevitable destiny of a
large portion of the human race. Let trade, krßanu-
fact urea, and commerce accomplish what they may,
agriculture is ever essential to the sustenance and
comfort of the innumerable familiesof mankind. The
staff of life is found in the furrows of the field, and
the sharpwitted denizen of the city is dependent
for muscle, bone, and brain upon the patient labour
of the seemingly dull and ignorant peasant. Cities
may rise and flourish, but in the very height of
their glory, as well as in the bud and springtime of
their history, they are dependent on the culture of
the soil for the stamina and lifeblood of their popu-
lation. The chemist comes to the trader, and the
clerk, the merchant, and the millionaire, and de-
clares that whatever may be the keenness of the
intellect, the polish which civilisation gives to
the manners, or the amount of material wealth
which may be at the disposal of the citizen, the
mortal part of the man is built up of materials " of
the earth earthy," and that, after all, the million
dwellers in the city are but dust. It may
be very bumbling, but it is important that man
should " know himself" in a physical as well as a
moral sense. The most delicate beauty in Mayfair
or Belgravia—so far as her corporeal frame is con-
cerned—is but a cunningly contrived compound,
comprising so many pounds of carbon, so many pails
of water, so much phosphate of lime, and sundry
chemical ingredients, which Faraday may exhibit
in phials and boxes. And all this animal frame is
perishable, perpetually melting or crumbling away,
as surely as so much salt or sand, To keep the
structure in repair food is essential. Man lives on
air as well as bread, and the milliner who shuts up
her work people to sleep or work where the air is
confined and vitiated, as surely starves them as
though she gave them a miserly allowance of food.
But even this air, of which sanitary reformers say
so much, is in many respects an agricultural pro-
duct. The breeze which circulates through the Lon-
don streets was half an hour ago travelling over the
green fields which lie to the windward. The used-
up air of the metropolis goes floating away to lee-
ward, and loses its carbonic acid among the herbs,
and trees, and hedgerows of the country. As an
insular people the English may give all the credit
they can to the sea, but to the smiling country which
surrounds the hives of British industry are we mainly
indebted for the exhaustless supplies of pure, re-
freshing air which keep our erowded cities from
utter stagnation, corruption, and death. But more
directly still are we dependent on the country for
food. Some of us were lately alarmed by being told
that the vegetable mould was becoming exhausted,
and that the earth was about to refuse us her increase.
We are now told, as we have been told before, that
as the town is fed by the country, so is the country
to be fed by the town. A debt has long been accu-
mulating in which the country is the creditor.
Forced loans from Peru are to be tolerated no
longer. Cash payment from home resources is now
insisted upon as the truest economy.. The sewage
of towns, rich in the elements of agricultural pro-
duce, is no longer to be thrown away, into the sea
or elsewhere, but to be carefully collected and
duly repaid to the broad acres from which the
towns are fed. This debt, honourably paid, is
to make Englishmen henceforth independent of
foreign supplies. Justus Von Liebig declares that
Great Britain is large enough, if we take arable sur-
face of the land, to produce all the corn and meat
necessary for its inhabitants. Good news this for
John Bull. But, as the shrewd philosopher ob-
serves, " the manufacturers of the dealers in manure
are on a principle inimical to the utilisation of
sewage, and in the battle which is being fought
they are the inimical army whose forces should be
on no account underrated." Happily, the learned
Liebig has found a sop for these hungry manufac-
turers and dealers. It would have been a difficult
thing for Gillott to have proved that the introduc-
tion of steel-pens would be found favourable to the
old goose-quill interest ; but Liebig succeeds to ad-
miration in showing that the manufacture of arti-
ficial manure will be promoted by the utilisation of
sewage. The baron has hit the blot. He knows
well enough that the sewage is wanted by the
agriculturist, that it is the very pabulum which our
fields demand. But there is an obstacle:in the way.
That obstacle is not a mere engineering difficulty,
as Mr: Thwaites would suppose, but is simply the
old stumbling-block which for a time has tripped up
many a noble enterprise. In short, vested interests
stand in the way; the personal, pecuniary interests
of sundry individuals engaged in the preparation of
certain chemical manures, which only partially
supply the wants of the farmer and the real neces-
sities of the country. The Metropolitan Board of
Works, as the tribunal before whom the question
is now brought, appear to be ear-wigged by the
artificial manuring interest, and the nation is in
danger of being robbed of the enormous value re-
presented by the 266,000,000 tons of metropolitan
sewage annually cast away. This must not be, and
Liebig happily shows that it is not to the interest
of any party that such waste should be perpetuated.
The baron's argument is simply this; that town
sewage is rich in ammonia but deficient in phos-
phoric acid with less of the ammonia. It is to he
remembered that the phosphoric acid must
be provided, or the fields will not render their
proper return to the tillers of the soil. Potash
and ammonia are both readily obtainable from the
sewage ; while the manufacturer cannot readily
command them apart from this source. But the
phosphates, in which the sewage is deficient,-can be
easily extracted from bones by the manufacturer,
and we have only to add to the town sewage that
which the manufacturer is able to supply, and we
at once obtain a compound exactly adapted to the
wants of the farmer. The metropolitan sewage
would annually require nearly £200,000 worth of
superphosphate, by which arrangement the money
value of the sewage to the farmer would exceed a
million of pounds. And it should be observed that
the value of the sewage is in this case determined,
not by any mere theoretical standard, but by a com-
parison with guano, the elements and practical
value of which are alike known. It is not only for
the ratepayers of London, but for the nation at
large to say, whether, under these circumstances,
the sewage of towns shall any longer be suffered to
flow away as a mere nuisance, instead of being
made conducive to the interests of town and coun-
try. It may be hoped that even the " inimical
army" which Liebig dreads will now be pacified,
and, in view of the £191,628 per annum in the case
of London alone for superphosphate at five guineas
per ton, will lay down its arms, and go on with its
proper work, content to take its rightful share in
promoting and enjoying the general prosperity.
Certainly, in his recent letter, Liebig has shown
his knowledge of the world, as well as his intimate
acquaintance with chemistry and agriculture.
TIMES.—The annual slaughter of excursionists
has now commenced. The season may be considered
to open on the Ist of August, and this year the
public have not had to wait long for the first casu-
alty. On Monday evening five persons were killed,
and some five-and-twenty others were more or less
injured, on the Lynn and Hunstanton Railway,
about two miles from the former town. The imme-
diate cause of the accident was an unhappy bullock,
which had strayed on the line. This is the second
accident which has happened from such a cause.
Strangely enough, the danger of cattle straying on
the line had been thought of by one of the opponents
of the railways before these means of communica-
tion were yet in being. George Stephenson was
asked by an adverse committeeman, " Suppose a
cow gets in the way ?" " So much the worse for the
cow," he replied. The greatest men are sometimes
wrong, and the obstacle which George Stephen-
son thought would be cut to pieces by a rail-
way train without the passengers perceiving it has
now on two occasions thrown carriages off the rails
and produced fatal accidents. In the present case,
we cannot but thing that there was neglect. With
no wish to raise an outcry against the company or
its servants, we must form this opinion from the
facts reported. In the first place, the animal ought
not to have been on the line at all. It had been
already shown that the bones of cattle are strong
enough to resist even the wheels of a railway train,
and the company was bound, not only out of regard
to its neighbours' property, but the lives of its
passengers, to take care that there were such fences
between the fields and the line as should be effectual
barriers against any intrusion. " It is said," says our
report, " that cattle have been found on the line
! more than once before, and that when a party of
officials, brought by a special train from London,
visited the spot at 3 o'clock on Tuesday morning,
they found horses on the line. The fence between
the line and the grazing land at the spot where the
accident happened was not much above a foot high,
and the dykes were quite drys; Here is quite
enough to convict the company 8 management of
negligence in attending to the safety of their line.
But if the accounts received are correct there was
an actual warning given of the danger from this
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