The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-20 00:00:00

7 THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, NOVEAIBEI/ 20, 1861

on tie peculiarities of each, Mr. ADDERLEY remarks
'.sat his views expressed on this subject some time

ago accord with those of the last named authority.
It would appear that there is some ground for
awarding favour to this last notion, "Punishment
is not education." Doubtless, with thelbest inten-
tions, and animated with the most sincere endea-
vours to benefit the unfortunate individuals, who
are outcasts from society, most of the alterations
and modifications of the latter-day reformers and
prison worthies have failed completely and alto-
gether. It would be better to keep to the direct
object that should be in view all along, that of hold-
ing out some sort of terrorism to the delinquent,
instead of trying to be too comprehensive, and thus
failing in a way prejudicial to the prisoner and
hurtful to the interests of society. Indeed it may
be questioned if a due amount of severity would not
be the simplest and surest means of reformation ; it
would at all events hold out some deterrent influ-
ence, which at present does not seem to be done at
all by the philosophic views adopted, and
the philanthropic measures instituted to soften
down punishment until it becomes almost
a mockery to call it by that name. Mr.
ADDERLEY has very clearly explained his
notions on this all-important subject, and though,
doubtless, many will be disappointed at the solem-
nity and severity of his ideas, there is great truth
in his observations, and it would be well if more
attention were paid to his theories. Put into prac-
tice, our prisons and gaols might lose some of their
interest for those who are morbidly sensitive upon
the subject of severity to criminals, but they would
gain much in essential service to the country gene-
rally, and to other interests particularly. Surely
the definition here met with in respect to the right
nature of penal laws is a very correct one, namely,
that it should present " definite terror to the public
mind exceeding temptation to the offence." If this
effect were once given to the system of peual disci-
pline a very different result would ensue, and a far
greater proportion of safety would be felt by those
who are now i❑ constant apprehension of some out-
rage being committed at home or abroad. It seems
a hard thing to disallow the practice of leniency to
a great extant, but the right cosine is the one that
is always the wisest and the kindest, Mercy may
be shown with great advantage to the weak, the
tempted, and the penitent, but the hardened crimi-
nal should have a full measure of justice meted out
to him. Mr. ADDERLEY has announced his inten •
tion of setting forward his views, on the question
of secondary punishments being rendered more effi-
cacious, and doubtless he will bring to light same
notions worthy of attention, at any rate no harm
can possibly be done by calling notice to the sub-
ject, and much good may be effected by the general
discussion of the question. Much has been said
sententiously about a panic legislation being quite
absurd, but it is creating the evils referred to to per-
sist in delaying until all alterations and changes are
done in a hurry that defeats its own purpose, and
occasions universal confusion and ferment. This
topic of prison discipline is one of the chief social
questions of the day, and it ill becomes those who
shirk inquiry and procrastinate reform until the
evil assumes a magnitude that is appalling.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

THE SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION.
HAMBURG, Nov. 20.

Yesterday evening a meeting was attempted to
be held here by citizens of Hamburg and inhabi-
tants of Schleswig and Holstein, who had arrived
here for that purpose. They were, however, dis-
persed by the police in three different places, and
finally proceeded to the village of Uhlenhorst,
where the meeting took place.
Addresses were voted to the Prince of Augusten-
burg and the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
The Prince of Augustenburg was requested in the
address voted to him to place himself at the head
of the people.
Twenty-four members of the Holstein Diet
unanimously resolved yesterday to solicit the
Federal Diet for the most speedy protection of
the rights of the country. This request has
already been sent to the Federal Diet.
The other members of the Diet who were not
present at the meeting on account of its having
been prohibited by the police, have been asked to
sign this address.

CHINA AND JAXAN,
SHANGHAI, OCT. 9.
Major Gordon is before Soochow.
An attack on that city is imminent.
Reinforcements have been sent to Taitsand and
Quinsan.

The news from Japan is unfavourable. Armed
men are appearing at Nagasaki.
Prince Satsuma and other princes are preparing

LITERATURE,

Mrs. Jones's Evening Party. By Edmund Rout-
ledge. One vol. Pp. 156. Routledge and Co.
Since the earlier days of Albert Smith we don't
remember any more delightful prattling gay
capital bit of fun than this whimsical little
record of Mrs. Jones's Evening Party, by
Edmund Routledge. The heraes and heroines
of the domestic scene are precisely of the kind,
style, or manner of the imaginary creatures people-
ing poor Albert Smith's tales of frolic—some of it,
frolic, fast and furious. They are of the genus of
our old and young friends in " Christopher Tadpole,"
and the like. The incidents, here as there, consist,
for the most part, of practical joking. There
are, in each instance, frequent touches of
humour, sometimes of satire, but the latter always
perfectly innocent and inoffensive. Stout Mrs. Jones
with her Malaprop-lixe blunders in the way of
scientific mis-quotation good-tempered and
slightly hen-pecked Mr. Jones of the City and
Ciapham—lackadaisiacai Miss Tozer, the latter's
step-daughter—and hobedihoyish Jones junior, the
former's (that is Mrs. Jones's) stepson : all these are
very drolly and amusingly discriminated. Ditto
might be said of several among the motley guests
collected together for " the Party." Inatance, for
example, Mr. Flutter, the semi•idiotic joke-
maker, who is always poking fun at the
others, somehow, as one may say, with the wrong
finger! Mr. Plastic, with his conjuring tricks and
his Shaksperiau Puzzles, these latter the oddest
pictorial freaks of fancy well conceivable! Mr.
Stouter, the fat friend and intimate of the boat
Jones—that same intolerable Mr. Stouter, who is
perpetually thrusting into the conversation (apropos
to boots, or to just nothing in fact) allusions to his
crony, Old Wippermann ! Just as Jerrold's Job
Caudle used to be continually fretting Mrs. C. with
references, distractingly iterated, to his crony,
Prettyman! These and a few others make up the
personages of this comical, dramatical, fan-
tastical, whimsical sketch, in which the anima-
tion of the young writer never flags from the
beginning to the end of his amusing narrative.
Mr. Edmund Routledge is very manifestly—what his
young lady readers are quite certain to look upon
him as—a bit of a quiz. He has, clearly enough, a
lively sense of the humorous. He can write, more
over, whatever his theme, at all times quite unaf-
fectedly. His English version of the popular
French novelette about the Adventures of a Sporting
Dog, in every word of it (and we examined it pretty
closely throughout), was far more than merely satis-
factory. It was delightful indeed—as we took occa-
sion to intimate in these columns almost immediately
after its publication. He has, besides this, written
A capital little handbook about Cricket. He has
collected together two or three laughable mis-
cellanies, such as a small volume called " Hodge-
podge," and another small volume of " Jokes and
Riddles," what Lord Dundreary pronounces
Widd les ! Added to which, he is editing, or has been
recently and for some time past editing, and that
too very ably and pleasantly, indeed, a boy's
magazine—" Every Boy's Magazine"—a genuine un-
mistakeable boy's magazine, an illustrated periodi-
cal that, we feel certain, must be as greedily devoured
as nuts or figs by the boy-readers of it. A selection
of some of the funniest serial narratives published
in the course of its periodical issue, makes up, in fact,
this amusing sketch of " Mrs. Jones's Evening
Party." Several portions of the narrative are, each
of them, worth the cost of the whole collection; such
as " Valentine and Orson, or the Swell and the
Rough ;" as that ridiculous Mr. Flutter's " Fanciful
Roll of Riddles ;" as Mrs. Jones's Quaint Collection
of Queer Epitaphs; or, to crown all, as the " New
Drawing-room Burlesque." Nine illustrations are
scattered among the letterpress. The volume alto-
gether is just one of those books so safe to be tho-
roughly thumbed by the young people of the
household that the majority of its leaves will for
certain be dog's-eared long before Christmas.

Maple Hayes. A Novel. Three vols. Newby.
Although this story is improbable, even to the
verge of impossibility, it possesses a certain amount
of interest of the sensational kind. The author
has evidenced no inconsiderable ability in the
construction of the greater part of his plot,
and very considerable power, indeed, in
the delineation of the principal charac-
ter, Twenty years before the story begins, an
Englishman, travelling in France, has married
and deserted a village girl. After his departure,
stung by the taunts of her associates, the deserted
wife, ignorant of the name and whereabouts of her
husband, comes to England with her infant son.
Having some idea that her treacherous husband is
engaged in the pottery trade she opens a shop for the
sale of earthenware manufactures, hoping and be-
lieving that time will bring him to her door. In this
belief she " waits"—waits on for twenty years,
until her black hair is whiteued by suffering,
until she has become prematurely aged. The
character of this woman, and the intensity
of her fiendish craving for revenge, are very
powerfully described. One great blemish in
the tale as a work of art is—that our sympa-
thies are enlisted on the wrong side. The treacher-
ous husband, and not the deserted wife, becomes
the object of the author's tender interest, and the
poetical justice so ingeniously brought about and so
awfully awarded at the close of the history, is, to
say the least of it, very " one-sided" justice. As to
the episode of Esther's imaginary marriage, it is
impossible, and unnecessary, and ridiculous.

Cassell's Robinson Crusoe.—Defoe's master
piece is certainly just now putting our popular
publishers upon their metal in the way of
illustrative competition. Simultaneously with
the issues of complete editions superbly embellished,
the Messrs. Cassell, Petter, and Galpia are now
beginning with this initial instalment, the periodi-
cal publication in penny weekly numbers, of an
illustrated edition of " Robinson Crusoe" for the
million. Considering the price at which the serial
makes its appearance, it is everihing that could in
reason be looked for. Together with the first
number of it, there is given away a wonderful
" large engraving" (16 in. by 21 in.) a sort of
zoologiaal nightmare, entitled " The Hunting of
Wild Animals"—bisons, camelopards, emus, and
all kinds of other outlandish quadrupeds inter-
mingled with ostriches, &c., scouring over a wile
demean of Martineeque proportions.

Cassell's Natural Ilistory.—Another excellent
auxiliary in the working out of the self-education
of the multitude is here supplied by the Messrs.
Cassell, Petter, and Galpin. It is worthy of, and
indeed entitled to, what we doubt not it will earn
for itself, a wide circulation.

Thorley's Farmers' Almanac for 1864. Ward and
Lock.—A fourpenny almanac full to repletion of use-
ful, and some of it even to the general reader, interest.
ing information. There is no discernable indication
of haste or carelessness in the putting of this infor-
mation together. It appears to us to have been
well considered throughout. The following little
tabular statement as to the fluctuation of the
corn averages will be found of interest to all :
The averages deduced from the Lender. Gazette, for the
fifty-two weeks ending Michaelmas, 1863. were :—Wheat,
46s Sd per imperial quarter; barley, 34s 3d per imperial
quarter ; oats, 21s 9d per imperial quarter. During the
same period, the following abstract shows the dates of the
highest and lowest prices, with the difference :

s. d.
Wheat, Oct. 10, 1862 5l
Barley, March 13, 1863
Oats, July 10, 1833
Lowest prices. Difference.
s. d. s, d.
Oct. 2, 1863
July 24, 1863
Jan. 23, Oct. 2, 1863

. .
The following also, though the authority is not
given, has its attraction for most readers, but more
particularly for vegetarians :

WONDERS FROM CULTIVATION.
Thereis scarcely a vegetable which we at present employ
that can be found to grow naturally. Our wheat is a ficti-
tious production, raised to its present position by the art of
agriculture. Rice, rye, barley, or even oats, are not to be
found wild—that is to say, growing naturally in any part of
the earth—but have been altered by the industry of man-
kind, from plants not now resembling them, even in such a
degree as to enable us scarcely to recognise their relations.
The acrid and disagreeable aptun g ravoleus has been trans-
formed into delicious celery ; and the colewort, a plant of

scanty leaves, not weighing altogether half en ounce, has
been improved into cabbage, whose leaves alone bear many
pounds, or into a cauliflower of considerable dimensions,
being only the embryo of a few buds, which in their natural
state would not have weighed as many grains. Thepotato,
again, whose introduction has added millions to our popu-
lation, derives its origin from a small bitter root, which
grows wild in Chili and Monte Video.

The Metropolitan Board and Thames Em-

bankment Contract.

Yesterday the Marylebone representative vestry was
engaged for some considerable time in discussing a matter
arising out of some questions put to the members for
Marylebone at the Metropolitan Board, in reference to cer-
tain disclosures which have been made with regard to the
recent tenders and acceptance of contract for carrying out
the northern Thames embankment; Mr. Churchwarden
Hodges in the chair.
Mr. FILMER said he had given notice to the two hon.
gentlemen who represented St. Marylebone at the Metro-
politan Board of Works of his intention to put a question
to them as to the truth tut* certain allegations which were
going abroad in reference to the certain acceptance of con-
tracts for carrying out the Thames embankment. The
allegations were, that although Mr. Ridley had put in a
tender, which had been accepted, for the Northern Thames
Embankment at £495,000, Messrs. Baker for £495,600, and
Mr. Moxon for £510,076; and although Mr. Ridley, in
addition to four other securities, offered to deposit £20,000
in the hands of the boards, the chief engineer made
such representations that the board were induced
to reject Mr. Ridley and the others, and accept the
contract of Mr. Furness at £520,000, thus taking out
of the pockets of the ratepayers and completely throwing
away £21,500. That this amnia Mr. Furness had, on the
recommendation of the chief engineer, obtained the con-
tract for the northern outfall, at £164,000, when there
was a tender for £131,000, and that it bad transpired that
without the knowledge or consent of the Board of Works,
their chief engineer was to be or had been paid from this
same contractor a sum of about £15,000 as a per centage
upon some works being carried out by him at Odessa. It
was a most important matter to the ratepayers of the me-
tropolis, who would be the sufferers, if cent, actors were not
dealt with fairly and honestly at the Metropolitan Board,
and it was therefore the right of every vestry and district
board to know if there was any truth in these allegations.
(Hear, hear.)
Mr. NICHOLAY said as a friend of local self-government,
and one who was most anxious that the Metropolitan Board
should not lose the high estimation in which he believed
it was at present held by the public, he was fully pre-
pared to answer these questions. He deeply regretted to
say that from what had occurred there was no doubt
lout that the allegations were too true, It was true
that Mr. Ridley's tender for £495,000 was in the first in-
stance accepted; that in addition to other securities he
offered to deposit £20,000 in the hands of the board, and on
a doubt being expressed of his ability to carry out so great
a work, he answered that he should be assisted by the emi-
nent firm of M'Cormick and Sons. On the question being
put to the engineer as to his views, he said that Mr. Fur-
ness's experience and capabilities were such that ho had
greater confidence in him, and the board, acting upon the
opinion of their engineer, annulled the contract of Mr.
Ridley. He (Mr. Nicholay) had voted for Mr. Ridley
from first to last, because he thought him quite capable of
carrying out the work. It subsequently transpired,
through Mr. Bazalgette being made a defendant to a bill
in Chancery, that he was concerned with this Mr. Furness
is certain drainage works at Odessa, and was to receive
from him a per centage amounting to over £12,000. Now,
not only was this a startling affair, but it must be borne in
mind that Mr. Bazalgette received from the Metropolitan
Board a salary of £1,700 per year, in consideration that his
talents and time were to be devoted exclusively to the
service of the board, and that he was to take no other
works without their knowledge or consent. Here then was
a breach of contract, and when these matters came before
the board they were not only much grieved, but as•
tounded, and at the chairman's suggestion the whole
matter was referred to a committee to investigate. That
committee had not yet reported, and he (Mr. Nicholay)
had no desire to prejudge the question, but as the matter
had oozed out in a letter published in a local journal, and he
was asked the question, he felt it his duty to state the facts,
Iwhich could not be materially altered when that report came
forward.

Mr. D'IFFANGER said he was free to confess the circum-
stances which had come to light were deplorable and not
free from suspicion, but on investigation he thought they
would turn out not so black as they seemed. He was not
there to defend Mr. Bazalgette, but he could have wished
that the publicity had been deferred till after the pro.
ceelings in Chancery, as Mr. Bazalgette's statement would
then be upon oath, but that of S.r John Hare, who bad
filed the bill, was not. What had transpired was, that Sir
J. Rennie bad obtained the concession to carry out the
works for the sewage of the city of Odessa, and came to
Mr. Bazalgette. to ask him if he could recommend a contrac-
tor. He said yes, and recommended Mr. Furness, and there
was an understanding that Sir J. Rennie and Mr. Bazalgette
should have 4 per cent. between them out of the money to
be paid for the works, which was £747,000, or 2 per cent.
each. Sir John Hare, who was also concerned, feeling
aggrieved, had filed a bill in Chancery against Sir J.
Rennie, Mr. Bazalgette, &c,, and that was how the
matter came out. With reference to this contract,
although on the face of it it might appear that favou-
ritism was exercised by the engineer towards Mr.
Furness, the facts were that Mr. Ridley himself con-
fessed that he had never carried out works of such magni-
tude. Messrs. Baker refused to contract unless there
was an arbitration clause introduced; and Mr. Moxon
was not accepted, because (although the Metropolitan
Board did not loose a penny by it), having ruined himself
by his contract for the northern high-level sewer, they
feared the contract would be too large for him; and it cer-
tainly was not without suspicion that Messrs. M'Cormick
and Son, whose own tender was the enormous sum of
£633,727, should offer to join Mr. Ridley in the same work
for £195,000.
Mr. FREETR looked upon the whole affair as extremely
suspicious, and calculated to destroy all confidence in the
engineers. He moved a resolution to the effect "That the
members for Marylebone be requested to watch, at the
Metropolitan Board, the proceedings in regard to the recent
contracts for the Thames Embankment, and communicate
any information they think necessars, from time to time,
on the subject to the vestry."
Mr. SunRIDGE seconded the resolution, and it was carried
unanimously.