The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-26 00:00:00

ANOTHER ACCOUNT.

A man wbo was present on the spot when the fire broke
out, and who remained till all was over, states that the first
alarm of fire was given by two young men who used to fre-
quent the house, and wiao happened to be passing up the
street at about half-past four o'clock. The landlord,who was
sleeping in the back bedroom on the first floor, got out by
the window. He had nothing on but his shirt, and seemed
to be half mad as he ran about the street, calling for some
one to help to save his wife and children. A crowd soon
collected, and a young man brought a ladder, by which
Mrs. Gaines= was enabled to get out at the window.
Nothing could be done for the other inmates, who were
all sleeping in the attics, as the fire had taken the
stairs, and thus cut off all ace-Isa to the upper part
of the house. The servant girl jumped out of the window,
and before doing so was heard to say, "Jump fur your life,
Tilley," to Matilda, the eldest girl, but the latter was afraid
to do so. When the fire engines arrived the house was one
mass of flame from floor to roof. There was a fair supply
of water and a stream was soon being thrown on the binn-
ing building both from back and front, but it was nearly an
hour, raid in the intense excitement of the moment appeared
to be many hours, before anyone could go into the building.
Many people volunteered to do so sooner, and the landlord
had to be held back by main force from rushing to what
would have been a certain death in a hopeless attempt to
save his children, but those in authority on the spot refused
to allow it. When the firemen could go into the building
the attic rooms presented a horrible sight. The bodies
were much burnt and charred, but from their appearance
there is reason to believe that the unfortunate people had
died from suffocation before the flames had reached them.
The first body brought down was that of the old lady visi-
tor, and then there was the baby, the girl Amy, the little
boy, Betsy, and Matilda.
It is easy to understand how the fire originated. There is
nothing left of the furniture of the back parlour, which is
directly opposite the staircase, from which it is only divided
by a narrow passage. When the people went to bed,a good
fire was left in this room, and a large kettle full of water
was placed on the hob, so that there might be warm water,
ready when they came down in the morning. It is evident
that the fire must have begun in this room, and at once
been conveyed the whole height of the house by the stairs,
which acted as a chimney to it

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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

HERALD.--Notwithstanding all that has been
written in the recent controversy upon the law of
entail and primogeniture, we are not aware that
anything has been put forward on either side ex-
planatory of that law. It may be useful, therefore,
to inquire what ifs erects really are, and what would
he the consequence of repealing it, Now, the law
of entail does not, as a great many even educated
people and nearly all uneducated people suppose,
enable any man to tie up his land in his family for
ever; that law has been abolished for centuries.
All that the law now permits is, that a man shall
tie up his property to a tenant for life, and after
his death to his sons successively, till the first
son entitled shall attain 21. That is the utmost
limit; for after the death of the tenant for life the
son then entitled may, on attaining 21, cut off the
entail, sell the land. and do what he likes
with the money; or keep the land if he
likes, and do what he likes with it. Nay
more ; if the tenant for life is living when
his son attains 21, the two, if they agree about it,
can cut off the entail, and sell the land or divide it
into as many shares as they like. So much for the
terrible law of entail. As to the law of primoge-
niture, it is simply that, if a landowner dies intes-
tate, and under no other circumstances whatever,
the land goes exclusively to the heir-at-law, a con-
sequence which every man may prevent, and which
nine-tenths of landowners, and ninety-nine
hundredths of all considerable landowners, do pre-
vent by making wills or settlements. How, then,
it would be asked by the anti-entail school, does it
happen that estates are perpetuated in the same
families for many generations ? Simply because
the owners of considerable estates almost always
like and choose to resettle their estates, when they
might sell them or subdivide them: Landowners
have a fancy for making what is called " an eldest
son"—or, in other words, they do not like their land
to be divided. Their taste may be very bad ; it
might be more patriotic—though we do not at all
concur in the opinion that it would—to subdivide
their land among their children, and so on from
generation to generation till we should reach the
blessed millennium of every man owning, as lord in
fee simple, his acre or his half-acre of land. We
are not going to discuss this question of political
economy. M. Chevallier, no mean authority on
such questions, has discussed the effects on agricul-
ture in reference to the law of France, which forci-
bly subdivides land ; and we will leave that ques-
tion where he has left it. But be the choice and
taste of English landowners good or bad ; be their
consequences beneficial or the reverse, it is the
choice and taste of English landowners, as a body,
to keep their lands together as much as their
circumstances will permit. On what ground then
should that choice and that taste be forcibly in-
termeddled with by law ? It is said the result
of entail is frequently suffering any privation to
younger children. Equally so is extravagant
living on the part of any parent; yet scarcely
even Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden would on
that ground ask for an act of Parliament to
confine the expenditure of every man within a
fixed limit. Then it is said that during minorities
the result of entailing is to suspend the power of
improving land, and to cause inconvenience to
tenants ; but that is the result of every minority,
whether under an entail or otherwise; and yet Mr.
Bright would scarcely propose that a man should
not be allowed to leave his property to children be-
cause they are under age. The great objection, how-
ever, made to the law of entail—and that is its real
sting—is that it tends to accumulate too much
power in few hands. But the same might be said
of the absence of any restriction upon the aceumu-
lation of money. A lord with 120,000 a year in
land is no doubt a very powerful person. But so is
a cotton spinner or a banker with half a million of
money, and yet though the Bright school appears to
think the law of entail should he abolished, in order
to prevent lords having £20,000 a year of landed
property, we never heard that they propose any
direct or indirect limitation of the fortune that a
cotton spinner may acquire, nor any compulsory
meddling with his right to settle or will it as he
please; end unless they c,tti show some very good
distinction between money and laud, some good
reason why merchants should be at liberty to keep
their fortunes in brick and landowners should not,
their warfare against entailing seems unfounded.
But there is another thing to be considered. Sup-
pose the power of entailing end the right of primp
geniture were abolished, while the taste of land-
owners continues the same, what would the aboli-
tion do ? Just nothing. Instead of entailing, a man
would by settlement or will give his eldest son his
land absolutely after his death; and the eldest son
would repeat the proceeding with his eldest son,
and so on, and the land would remain undivided
as much as ever-. So that really one must go the
length of saying that, for the benefit of the coin-
monwealth, we will abolish the, right of every
matito give his property as he likes, either during
his life or after his death ; we must make, as the
French law does, a compulsory division of land
on a man's death, it the object is to prevent the
supposed evils of lands being kept together in
masses. Of course, if that were the law as to land,
it ought equally to be the law as to money, for
there can be no good reason why a man should do
as he likes with his money, and not do es he likes
with his land. Both money and land, in different
ways, confer power on their owner; the mischiefs
arising from that power are just as much mischief
with regard to money as with regard to land. We
do not anprehend, however, that either the prophets
or the alumni of the Bright school would like to be
told, " when you die you can only leave half your
mill and machinery and half your money as you
lib—the other half must be divided equally be-
tween your children, whether you like it or not."
One word more, and we have done. It is quite a
mistake to suppose, as Messrs. Bright and Cobden
so often appear to do by their speeches, that the
desire of creating entails is a purely aristocratic
disease. Nothing is commoner than to find entails
of very small estates in the hands of quite humble
people. A man with a few freehold cottages almost
always gives them by will to his eldest son, or dies
intestate, so that he shall have them; he has no
mare notion of splitting up his humble landed estate
than a duke or a lord has, and as strict an entail as
we ever saw was mad© by a small country tailor of
land worth about £6OO.
ADVERTISER.—Thy Duke of Cambridge, in dis-
tributing the prizes to the cadets at Woolwich,
addressed to these young gentlemen some observa-
tions which indicate on the part of his Royal High-
ness a duo appreciation of the important duties he
had undertaken to discharge. He reminded the
young gentlemen who were about to receive com-
missions in her Majesty's service that they must
not consider their education completed—that when
they left those walls they would enter on a career
which demanded of them to continue their education
and endeavour to keep pace with the spirit of the
age. It was essential it they desired to be really
efficient officers to make themselves;, cquainted with
the improvements and discoveries that were con-
stantly arising. He knew many officers who had
made themselves truly scientific after obtaining
their commissions, and ho hoped that the cadets
present would on a future occasion emulate their
example. We regard this utterance from the illus-
trious Commander-in-Chief as highly appropriate
to the position of the officers in the British army in
the present day. There have been periods when this
address might have been regarded as a well-merited
censure on too many of our Beitiah officers rather
than as a word of encouragement to our cadets. Per-
sons ee,'atb were gentlemen by virtue of their rank were
singularly „:;n need of learning, but remarkably in-
disposed to lanCur for its attainment. Very scant
were their libraries, but quite large enough for men
who never intended to reid, whose days were spent
in the routine of the panne' ground, and in lounging
idleness, while their nights here consumed in the
orgies of the mess, The Royal erps of Engineers
ifficult to find
being excepted, it would have been 11
any class of gentlemen who were Ices acquainted
with the discoveries of science, or who Ist:3w the
value of a book, except as the means of whiling a way
the hour in which they were waiting for dinner
We have reached a much better era, and one in
which his Royal Highness is fully justified in
speaking of highly scientific officers who have be-
come so after obtaining their commissions. We
have in our army gentlemen, who, besides their
knowledge of the subjects essential to their profese
sion, are distinguished for their scientific attain-
ments, and for their literary eminence. Many of
them holding high positions among the most :dis-
tinguished authors of their day, and having ra
tributed largely to various departments
°I litera-
ntlemen
tare. It is nonnow as easy as it was for gee in
to find their way into the British army', a'
ugh favour
the some circumstances persons have
appoint-
id glad to find that
were very
pushed themselves into positiobn: they
unworthy to fill, and we shou
stances the standard
every where and in all circa
of
above its present
of attainment was] raised
ben uipued that while the star,.
low level. It may.the civilservice
dard is being eievat
ederivice will
the vaili,tarVhB have extended in partake of the im-
ments, every direction
competitive examinations
whichicd • of the Royal
Were corn-
since the
proven:lents
The timely observations
Duke are the mg of attention from the
fact which we n a few days since, that our
more deserving menced.
military, as well as naval strength,
measured by the amount is not now to 1)3
unt of our brute force, but by
the extent of our attainments
in the science of war-
fare. 'l'h© mill 4•
, the stance, the inventive skill of
the great European Powers have the elements now
actively employed in guiding them in the pursuit
of ascendancy, and there can be no doubt that in

any great struggle that may hereafter arise, the
superiority will be on the side of that nation whose
military and naval science has acquired the greatest
development. As we have said in reference to our
naval rivalry, the battle is fought in the dockyard
and in the gun foundry. So we may say in reference
to armies, that the foundations of victory are laid
in the military school and in the studies of officers,
and those who are assisting to give effect to their
ideas. We shall not be understood to fleoy the
necessity of personal courage and bravery is our
officers and men, as without these qualities the
most powerful implements of war would be forged
in vain. We know the value of the prudence and
spirit which distinguished every general by whom
a victory has been gained, and we know too that
bravery has always proved as necessary as skill.
We suppose, too, that we may be, in any future
engagements, somewhat on a par, in these respects*
with any nation with whom we may again come
into collision, or anticipate defeat as inevitable.
All these things we assume when we are speaking
of the necessity of military skill in our army ; but
all these things being present, personal courage,
good generalship, and numbers equal to the engage'
ment, it still remains true that we must expect to
fail if our skill in the art of war and its materials
should prove, inferior to that of the enemy. If we
allow their rifles and their cannon to be of a longer
range than our own; if we should employ on the
sea Warriors 1553 strongly clad; if on the field we
should be found relying on weapons which have
become in any degree antiquated ; if we should be
engaged in our experiments when the enemy has
successfully concluded his, we may calculate ea
defeat and disaster as certain. We have therefore
to regard the address of the royal Duke not only as
a wise and excellent recommendation which we WI
heartily commend, but as a fair exposition of the
qualifications which the officers of our army ought
to possess. We are as a people concerned deep 19
on this subject. We know by recent and very bitter
experience what it is to suffer the loss of our brave
countrymen, to have the flower of the British aril
mown down or left to perish from sickness and
disease in consequence of the inefficiency of those
to whom the conduct of our war with Russia wag
entrusted ; and if we are to maintain an army fer
the defence and honour of our nation in the
future,
we must have for its officers gentlemen who enter
the profession not for ease, or honour, but from an
enthusiastic love of its duties, and who spend their
time in diligent studies, that in the day of conflict
they may discharge those duties with effect.