The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-21 00:00:00

than repressed, and altogether through the length
and breadth of the land universal indignation was
expressed, and general astonishment prevailed re-
garding such an anomaly of justice and perversion
of discipline. Lord CARNARVON is foremost among
those who essayed most strenuously to divest this
complicated case of some of its difficulties, and to
adjust in some measure the unevenness and, irregu-
larity of the mode of carrying on affrAirs at our
penal institutions. His lordship has nc,w presented
the report of the committee engaged in investigat-
ing the details and inquiring into the workings of
prison government. So far as it goes it appears to
be a very excellent proposal ; but of course in this
instance, as in all similar cases, some obstacles have
to be overcome, and some opposition must be ex-
pected. The remarks made relative to hard labour
are very appropriate, and furnish a striking argu-
ment to those who have been gradually decreasing
this necessary part of the prison programme, nnt:l
for all intents and purposes it might as well have
been discontinued altogether. Also due reference
is made to the importance of giving sufficient in-
dustrial work, a point which is now sadly neglected.
The amount of " trade instruction" is, it appears,
very limited. This is a great pity ; and, consider-
ing the immense sums that are being constantly
frittered away for expenses connected with the
prison ostensibly, but of which many prisoners do
not reap the benefit, it is aggravating to think that
means are being neglected whose adoption would
be potent to serve, and might prove puissant to save,
some of the unhappy class who are thus thrown
into prison without, perchance, the power or op-
portunity of gaining their livelihood. In a refor-
matory sense there is nothing more calculated, in a
worldly sense, to bring about the desired end than
to impart instruction in some trade. It stands to
reason that the prisoner who quits confinement
with some trade at his finger's end, some labour
that he is capable of performing handily, must be
in a better position, and have a fairer chance of
finally settling down into a steady, or, at all events, a
reputable member of society, than he who comes
into the world again to saunter in idleness and roam
listlessly about, until he proves surely and sadly in
his renewed offences and reiterated sentence that
idleness is the root of all evil. Too muoh attention
cannot be given to this branch of the subject.
Without going to far as to predict that due regard
to this necessity will reform or reclaim the majority
of those under restraint, it is certain that some must
benefit greatly by the attempt, and that many may
be improved by the incitement, and encouragement
thus held out to them. The recommendations here
made for arranging a progressive scale of labour
seem to answer very well the twofold purpose to
which all prison discipline should tend, of repression
and encouragement. The hard work stringently
enforced must prove of salutary effect, and the pros-
pect of amelioration will give that hope to stimulate
and encourage without which human beings will be
slow to exert themselves in any sphere. The objec.
tions urged by the committee as to reduction in the
hours set apart for rest seem most reasonable. The
notion of allowing ten hours is almost prepostercus.
It would be difficult to find many persons engaged
in any avocation, or every among those who pursue
a career of pleasure, who sacrifice so much time to
repose, and to sanction such a proceeding in cases
where rigorous and hard measures should be the
ruling principle, is very objectionable. Then more
strict rules are requisite as relates to the books pro-
vided for entertainment. That instruction be con-
veyed to their minds is very essential, and in some
cases a little relaxation is good, but works that are
commonly styled " interesting" should be sparingly
doled out. The purpose of prison li e should be to
render existence within its confines irksome to the
best behaved of its inmates, and painful to such as
prove refractory. To provide to any extent what
is the worst enjoyable occupation of an intelligent
mind is a perversion of right and justice that cannot
be countenanced by those who are bringing these
prison details prominently forward, and whose duty
it is to apply the searching tests of truth to their
practices, and to let in the floodlight of publicity
where circumstances have too much impeded a
general knowledge. The high rate of diet most
justly calls for reduction in this department. The
allowance of meat is explained by some persons to
be necessary to compensate for the influences of
prison life, but the Committee very pro-
perly suggest that the same amount of nutri-
ment can be imparted by less palatable
means of nourishment. To increase the in-
consistency of this dietary arrangement it
is shown that those prisoners who are convicted
for trifling offences are given a diet that is very
low, while the men convicted for two years and
upwards arc at once allowed a much better ration
of food than falls to the lot of the labouring
classes. It is highly requisit that the plan sug-
gested for making a progressive scale of diet be
adopted at once, and carried out effectually. Of
course there will be many difficulties in the way
of putting these plans into practice, but surely it
cannot be said by the most obtuse or obstinate
dissentient to the views of the Committee that
the subject under discussion is not worth the
time and the trouble that have been devoted to it.
The commission of crimes will never cease while
mankind walk the earth, but their frequency and
their universality does not diminish their fearful
effect on human nature, nor detract from their
hideousness in the sight of GOD. The more care
and caution that prevails in the institutions that
are set apart for criminals the greater chance
there must be that evil will be diminished, and
vice, to a great extent, restrained. It is evident,
at any rate, that to afford prisoners the advantages
that are denied to those struggling under the
pressure of adversity, or breaking down beneath
the weight of poverty is a cruel perversion:of power
from its legitimate use, and cannot fail to be at-
tendedc by the most grave and grievous consequences.
i
this excellent suggestions that are embodied in
ths
much for them
the
report of the Committee are not received
with due at
be tention by the authorities' there will
to answer for hereafter, when
question
will be taken up by the Legislature,
and dealt with a u brooks no dela
ra
y,
atimarily as a national evil that
a ca
its important issues. nnot stand trifling with

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mision to inquire into various Was.. O.
most
the
inquire into
-mils Cemaiuffon
r.nanagement of the Inns
matters
of,,d
carried amidst a very general a
motion was one for a commission
the system pursued in the T
:noting the study of law and • . art for pro.
revenues applicable, and the means
jurisprudencel the
a systematic and sound ta:ii.loTyftoor
secure
students, and a satisfactory test of fitness for admix_
sion to the bar." 'This commission emanated in a
unhappily and unfortunately, was
report which,
never carried into effect, and we suppose was lost
amidst the din of war, as it came out in the autumn
of 1855, towards the close of the Crimean war, for
nothing has now been beard of the report for many
years. The benchers of the Inns of Court are still
contented to go on calling men to he bar with
Merely eating so many dinners and attending so
many lectures. The bar, as we pointed out on
several occasions in former leading articles, sands

alone from all other professions and places of public
emolument as regards allowing people to enter its
lists without undergoing an examination. What,
we should be glad to know, can there be about
legal studies which distinguishes them from other
forms of human knowledge and intellectual acqui-
sition ? If clergymen are wanted, we examine
them. What would be thought of a proposition for
admitting all candidates to holy orders who had
partaken of twenty dinners per annum in a parti-
cular building especially devoted to so sacred a pur-
pose, and who had just attended one year's lectures,
they themselves having been asleep all the while ? As
a gastronomical test, the game might answer ; but as
any evidence of theological acquirement it would
certainly break down. So in medicine. Would the
public willingly dispense with the slender security
afforded us by the examinations at the Apothecaries,
Hall, at the College of Surgeons, and at the College
of Physicians ? In the Navy officers are examined,
if they wish to qualify for appointment in the
Steam Marine ; in the Army, candidates for com-
missions, even in the line, must submit to certain
inquiries into their intellectual fitness for discharg-
ing the duties of their rank. To draw the analogy
still more strictly, attorneys are examined, and very
strictly examined, not only previously to their ad-
mission on the Rolls, but articled clerks are ex-
amined during their articles, by what are now
termed intermediate examinations, as well as being
subjected to a sound preliminary examination, pre-
viously to being articled, and without which no
young man can now become an articled clerk. But
all the education a man requires for the purpose of
being entered for keeping terms for the Bar, is to
be able to write his own name. There can be no
foundation, in sound reason, for this exceptional
privilege of the Bar, and the sooner it is abolished
the better, not only in the interest of the public,
but of the barrister himself. It is said to be a great
hardship that a young man who has passed the
whole of his life, from his fourteenth to his
twenty-fourth year, in the process of examination,
should again be called on to submit to an exami-
nation. The answer is, that no blame must
be imputed to the elder profession of law,
if candidates for admission into their mysteries may
have chosen to spend the earlier portion of their
lives in submitting themselves to tests of intellec-
tual qualifications in other pursuits. When the
question is as to mortgages and contingent re-
mainders, it is of very little avail that a man should
have been examined many times at Oxford in the
Scholiacists upon ARISTOPIIANES, or at Cambridge
in the differential calculus. There is simply no
kind of connection between the two cases. In the
interest of the young barrister himself, of the man
who has no attorney connection, nothing, in short,
but his own merit and his own exertion upon which
he may rely, we can conceive no more fortunate
circumstance than that an opportunity should be
given him for displaying his capacity and talent at
the very outset of his career. At present there is
nothing for it but a friendly attorney, "or to wri▪ te
a book.'' The friendly attorney must remain a
constant quantity, while Bar arrangements remai▪ n
as they are; but, surely, the notoriety obtained by
gaining the first place in an examination as to
general legal capacity, when the period of pupildom
has just expired, must be of far more value than
any reputation which can be gained as the author
of a legal treatise. Really good works on Law and
Jurisprudence are few, very few, in number ; while
with regard to mere compilations,
digests, and
reports, they are so numerous that authorship, as
far as they are concerned, has ceased to possess any
real value.

The highest place in a well organised examination,
conducted as university examinations are conducted
with honours for students who aim at high attain-
ment, and more ordinary degrees for those whose
purpose may be answered by a common pass, must
be of vast importance to a young man. The exam
mination itself would give a totally different tone
to the profession, in the course of a few years, and
help to produce a race of learned jurists who should
regard law, not as a mere question of bread and
cheese, but as an intellectual pursuit, to be entered
upon and adhered to with loftier views and more
worthy objects. There is one point which in former
articles on this subject has not been sufficiently in-
sisted upon; it is a great mistake to suppose that a
large proportion of those whose names are enrolled
upon the Bar List of England ever intended to
practice the law as a profession. Those persons,
therefore, who object to the introduction of legal
examinations, on the ground that they would not in
all probability produce a better crop of barristers
than the present voluntary system, establish but
little, even if they succeed in establishing their
point. The English Bar has for a long time been a
nursery for aspirants in the various branches of the
civil service. The most usual clause in an act of
Parliament requiring certain appointments to be
made is that the appointments in question shall only
be given to barristers of a certain standing. Be it
remembered that sincethe appointment of the commie-
sion to enqu:re into the arrangements'of the Inns of
Court and Chancery in the early part of theyearlBs4,
nearly 10 years ago, access to all the civil appoint.
ments in the country has been closed to all who
have not produced the certificate of having passed
an examination ; under the present arrangements
the qualification of giving divers public appoint-
ments to barristers of so many years' standing is a
mere mockery; but it might be made something
very different if all candidates were required to give
proof of diligent study in various branches of Law
Jurisprudence, before they were admitted to the
honorary and honourable title of Barrister-at-Law.
Finally, We would say to the Bar of England, that
the only way they can avoid the result which they
most seem to dread, namely, that the attorneys
should oust them from their honours, is by giving
plain proof of superior education and attainment.
If they are to be held as worthier tha❑ attorneys
they must show themselves to be so by raising their
own standard of education and intelligence.

The usual monthly meeting of the General Com-
&ate° of the Central Relief Fund gave rise on
Monday last to a very interesting discussion. In
the first place, Mr. MACLURE'S Report confirmed
the gratifying intelligence which had previously
reached us of the gradual decrease of pauperism.
Up to the 26th ult. the returns show a considerable
increase of employment in the cotton mills and
manufactures of the district. The number of reci-
pients of relief during the nine months of the cur-
rent year show a gradual but decided diminution,
and although the Committee think it advisable to
wain the public that there is reason to anticipate
considerable fluctuations, we way accept the exist-
ing state of things as a source of thankfulness for
the present and of hope for the future. It is con-
sidered that in some cases, where the area of relief
is reduced within narrow limits, the whole relief
h ao fulfilled
should be transferred to the Board of Guardians.
The Central Committee, while making this sugges-
tion,t
at the same time take the opportunity of ex-
pressing
he
vcreditablemthaneinreorffiince.T
which thehe
task lo
has
cal
certainly been no easy one, and if we bear in mind
committees
the thousand conflicting ' influences, the difficulties
to be overcome, and the serious nature of their
duties, we shall readily ad • ma that the gentlemen
who voluntarily undertook a task of such labour

and responsibility, and carried it out with such un-
flagging energy and disinterestedness, are entitled
to a very high meed of praise. There eau be no
doubt that the system of sub-division of labour,
which these local committees enabled to be put in
practice, assisted materially in the relief of the
distress. Indeed, it would have been almost im-
possible for any plan of centralised authority, or
superintendence, to have worked satisfactorily,
so as at once to guard: against all the frauds
and impostures of the undeserving, and to secure
the relief of every real sufferer. On the principle
of the postscript to a lady's letter, the appendix to
the report was perhaps the most important part,
seeing that we had gathered the main facts as to
the decrease of population from the statistics given
at the weekly meetings. Mr. ASHWORTH, who
has carefully compiled much valuable information
respecting the cotton trade, furnished a paper
" On the Prospects of the Cotton Supply of 1864
over 1863," in which he arrived at the most satis-
factory conclusions. He anticipates a total increase
of 610,000 bales over the supply for '63—the sup-
posed addition raising the amount of labour required
from three days weekly to four days and a half,
thus increasing the working hours one-third. The
principle quarters to which he looks for the esti-
mated increase are India and Turkey—the former
being set down for 350,000, and the latter for
200,000. The Turkish correspondent upon whose
information one part of this calculation is based
went so far as to anticipate an increase of 250,000
bales from that part of the world ; but Mr. ASH-
WORTH has thought it more prudent, in considera-
tion of the recent damage done by locusts and
other casualties to reduce this amount, and has,
therefore, only allowed for the quantity above-
named. The Egyptian increase is allowed by the
least sanguine to be fairly placed at 100,000 bales,
notwithstanding the damage done in some quarters
by the unusual extent of the overflow of the Nile.
The stoppage of the railway traffic from the same
cause will retard the transmission of the Egyptian
cotton to this country, nevertheless it is there, and
may be safely reckoned on. In Italy the Govern-
ment, as in Turkey, has taken active steps in pro-
moting the growth of the staple with considerable
success—it being only in our own colonies that the
Government thinks proper to look coldly on the
movement. From Queensland and other parts of
Australia we are told it is premature to expect a
large supply. it would not have been quite so
premature had the authorities encouraged instead
of checking experiments some years since. Africa
is preparing to contribute a fair supply. In addi-
tion to the store looked for from Egypt, Natal, and
the West Coast, and the River Gambia are all
making efforts to supply our needs. South America
and the West Indies also form a prominent feature
in the reckoning—the Paraguay Government, as
we have previously heard, going so far as to pro-
mote a cotton company ; while the Argentine Con-
federation is also using every exertion to encourage
cotton planting. Coming last, but not least, to India,
where from some unhappy prejudice the authorities
refuse to believe in the capacities of the country
for cotton growing, Mr. ASHWORTH'S estimate of
350,000 bales increase is by some regarded as too
" It is impossible," he admits himself, " to
estimate the effect which so large an accession as
£20,000,000 sterling in one year may have in stimu-
lating the production of cotton in so fertile a
country as India and with so industrious a popu-
lation:, On the other hand there unquestionably
exists,
as was afterwards observed, considerable
uncertainty as to the actual state of affairs in India.
Mr. PLATT, of Oldham, who ex pressed his belief
that Mr. ASHWORTH'S estimated increase was
below rather than above the mark, at least so far
as regarded Egypt and Turkey, observed that it
was somewhat singular that while they could speak
with comparative confidence of Turkey and other
Places, all parties were at sea with regard to India.
" Somehow or other," remarked this gentleman,
repeating what we have often said, " they had
never yet been able, unless within the last few
weeks, to impress upon the rulers of the country
that India could produce useable cotton. The con-
sequence had been that there had been no Govern-
ment efforts made in India, like those of other
countries, to grow cotton. The same speaker after-
wards mentioned as a well-known fact that magni-
ficent cotton had been grown in India from New
Orleans seed. The committee showed considerable
hesitation in adopting the appendix as a part of the
report, feeling that a good deal of weight was
attached to the expression of their opinion, and
being naturally reluctant to mislead the public
with delusive hopes and expectations. One gentle-
man in particular, Mr. MASON, subjected the
appendix to a most severe criticism, disputing
almost every one of its conclusions. Indeed, he was
disposed to view the matter so much en noir, that if
Mr. ASHWORTH'S estimate be considered too sanguine
Mr. MASON'S calculations may be taken as too
desponding. After all his depreciatory criticism,
however, he contented himself with striking off
100,000 bales from Mr. AsetwoßTifs sum total, and
consequently, notwithstanding Indian deficiencies,
the exaggerated expectations from Asia Minor, and
greatly increased exports, Mr. MASON allows us to
hope for an increase in the current year of 610,000
bales. At the worst, therefore, our prospects are
rapidly mending, but although it is certainly wise to
hear both sides, and to be moderate in our expecta-
tions, it is only fair to remember that Mr. ASH-
WORTH'S calculations are no visionary possibilities,
but are founded on the statements received from
our consuls in the several countries referred to, and
communicated by Earl Itussem, to the Cotton
Supply Association. His figures are therefore
based on the estimates of what has actually been
possibility be accomplished. Of course such done in those places, not what might by some happy
con-
clusions are by no means infallible, and bearing in
mind their inevitable uncertainty, Mr. ASHWORTH
tells us that he has in every instance allowed for a
smaller supply than the one stated. It is a notice-
able fact in connection with this question, that the
amount of American cotton received this year shows
an increase of 33 per cent.—a startling fact for the
blockaders. The Cotton Supply Association has
done good service in distributing seed and cleaning
machines in all countries supposed to be favourable
to the cotton growth, and their efforts have met
with most encouraging success. Cotton has been
received, we are told, from upwards of fifty new
Places, while the rapid increase of the crop in some
of the old quarters has been already alluded to.
With such statistics before us, who can help re-
gretting that such efforts were not made ten years
hack, instead of waiting till the hour of need to
begin looking out for fresh sources of supply

Three Golden Rules of Good Humour.
As PROPOUNDED BY THAT MODERN DEMOCRITUS OF
OURS, DEAR, DELIGHTFUL TOM HOOD.
I. Never meet trouble half way, but let him have the
whole walk for his pains
11. One of the pleasantest roads a true-born Cockney can
go is that leading from Dullage to Grinnage I
111. The best fence against care is a Ha I Ha

The ship Sebastian Cabot, which was disabled in
the Channel, has arrived safely off Waterford. The pre-
mium ranged from 30 to GO guineas. On Friday several
risks were taken at 25 guineas only on her total loss. On
Saturday the prices dropped down to the nominal premium
of 20;