The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

DAILY NEWS_—The bill for amalgamating the
City Police with the Metropolitan Police, intro-
duced by the Home Secretary last night, was not
formally opposed in its first stage. This would
have been a most unusual course, and one which, in
the case of a Government measure, could rarely be
justified. When the Government undertakes to
bring in a bill for a special object, it must be sup-
posed to act, not only deliberately, but on public
grounds and for strong reasons, and it is perfectly
right that these should be fully stated and dis-
cussed. It was hardly to be expected, however,
that a measure which has produced such intense
local excitement would be allowed to pass even its
Introductory stage without provoking some hostile
demonstration of a more or less formidable kind.
In anticipitation of this Sir George Grey felt it ne-
cessary to offer a rather elaborate explanation and
defence of the motives which had induced the Go-
vernment to bring in the measure. 'Without
assuming, which would probably be unfair, that the
Home Secretary's speech exhausts the Government
case on behalf of the bill, we must say that even as
a preliminary justification of so important and
sweeping a measure, it was singularly weak and
inconclusive. In defence of the proposed amalga-
mation the right hon. gentleman appealed almost
exclusively to authority, quoting the reports of
various commissions and committees of inquiry that
have at different intervals investigated the subject
during the last thirty years. Apart, however, from
the special reasons on which those reports rested,
such quotations are of little value, and from altered
circumstances many of the reasons which had some
force thirty years ago have none at all now. But
if mere authority is to decide the question, or even
to be appealed to asone of the elements of a decision,
the weight of authority in favour of local government
as opposed to centralisation is overwhelmingly deci-
sive. While the centralised system of the Metropoli-
tan force is at most barely 30 years old, the system of
municipal government which prevails in the City is
as old as the Constitution, as widely diffused as the
ju
stice
as and has always been regarded with
as one of the strongest safeguards of our national
rights and liberties. It rests on the intelligible
principle that the citizens whose lives and property
are to be protected having the most direct interest
in securing the efficiency and economy of the means
employed for this purpose, are the national guardians
and governors of local defence, and ought to have
the exclusive control of the municipal police. This
principle has worked well for a thousand years, and
is working at this hour with undiminished efficiencyi
in every town and city of the kingdom. It is, n
fact, the rule of our national police, the Metropoli-
tan or centralised system being the anomaly and
exception, only to be justified, or even tolerated, for
special reasons and under peculiar circumstances.
Apart from the appeal to authority the only argu-
ment urged by Sir G. Grey in support of the bill is
the limited area of the City, and therefore of the
municipal jurisdiction compared with that of other
cities and corporations. The right hon. gentleman
pointed out, what is no doubt perfectly true, that
the Municipal Reform Act, while enlarging the
municipal authority in other cities and boroughs of
the kingdom, which had outgrown their ancient
limits, and thus including the new districts with
the old under one local government, had left the
ancient boundaries and the local government of the
City of London untouched. This exceptional posi-
tion of the City in relation to the adjacent and out-
lying districts of the metropolis is, no doubt, true
as a fact, though, as Alderman Sidney reminded
the house last night, the case of the City was in
this respect hardly quite so unique as the advocates
of amalgamation represent it to be. The City of
Manchester, for example, partially surrounds
the borough of Salford, the dividing line run-
ning through a densely populated district, yet
each has its own police force, under the control
of a separate local government, and the plan of a
divided authority over a force locally continuous
works without confusion or complaint of any
kind, The city of Manchester has never at-
tempted, in virtue of its larger area, to usurp autho-
rity over the adjacent borough, and any such
attempt would, it may safely assumed, be
promptly and effectually resisted. But even allow-
ing the exceptional character of the city in this
respect to the fullest extent, it is difficult to see how
the fact of a limited central area can be used as an
argument in favour of the proposed amalgamation.
At first sight, indeed, it would probably appear in
the eyes of most unbiassed judges to tell the other
way. If throughout the enormous extent of the
metropolis the system of local self-government in the
matter of' police is represented in the limited area of
the City alone, this would seem to be a powerful
argument in favour of maintaining it in full vigour
and efficiency. But how the comparative smallness
of area to which a system admirable both in itself
and in its results happens to be restricted, should be
urged as a reason for its destruction, we do not
understand. Had Sir George Grey attempted to
show that the system was necessarily inefficient,
that it failed to provide the security for life and
property for which it was established, or was incom-
patible with the fu I enjoyment of this security in
the adjacent districts, his reasoning would have been
intelligible. But he brought no charge of general
inefficiency against the City Police. On the con-
trary, the Home Secretary's historical review of the
legislation and inquiries of the last thirty years told
rather in favour of the efficiency of the City Police.
When Sir R. Peel brought in his measure in 1829,
the City of London
was excepted from its provisions'
expressly because its system of local defence was so
grealty superior in efficiency to that prevailing in
the adjacent City of Westminster. The system in
both at the time was that of the old watch. Under
the new system, however, the Metropolitan force
soon became superior to the old City watch, and on
this ground, ten years later, Lord John Russell pro-
posed to extend the new system to the City. The
City, however, successfully resisted the proposal,

and at the same time wisely reformed its system of
defence by substituting a highly efficient police force
for the old watch. That system has worked so well
that for upwards of twenty years, until last night in-
deed, no attempt at amalgamation has been subse-
quently made. Now ii a system of government ad-
mitted on all hands to be admirable in itself, and
proved by a quarter of a century's experience to be
efficient in practice, is to be suddenly assailed, and
if possible destroyed, there ought at least to be some
strong reasons for such a summary proceeding. We
fail to discover any such reasons in Sir George
Grey's statement. The plea of economy recently
urged in some quarters he very justly dismissed in
a sentence as not only trivial but irrelevant. The
cost of the City police is the affair of the citizens,
and if they do not complain, if, on the contrary,
they are perfectly satisfied, it is idle for others to
urge that there is any grievance on this score. After
all, the only ground for the introduction of the bill
to be gathered from Sir George Grey's speech, is the
partial failure of the City police arrangements on
the night of the illuminations. It is quite true that
Sir George verbally disclaimed being influenced by
this motive, but it is, nevertheless, the only practi-
cal reason urged in support of the bill the Govern-
ment have introduced. 'We must say it appears to
us as unjust as it is ungenerous that any attempt
should be made to take advantage of the feeling
which the accidents in the City naturally produced.
The failut e of the arrangements made by the Metro-
politan police on that night was even more conspi-
cuous, though fortunately not attended with any
fatal result. It ought to be remembered moreover
that, only a few months ago, during the garroting
panic, the authorities who now rashly condemn the
City police, as rashly denounced the Metropolitan
force as utterly inefficient, and for all practical pur-
poses worthless. Temporary failure of this sort,
even if it can be proved, is no valid argument
whatever in favour of organic change.
POST.—In the strict sense of the word it would be
incorrect to speak of the intelligence which so
frequently reaches us from the other side of the
Atlantic as being American news. The American
nation appear to consider that a state of war is the
normal condition of a prosperous and independent
people, and that the industrial powers of the
population and resources of the country are best
developed by a state of things which affords the
most extensive field to speculative contractors.
Armies are levied, equipped, clothed, fed, and trans-
ported to distant regions with apparently no other
object than that of filling the pockets of the various
classes whose energies are called into operation in
order to effect those several operations ; for, when
once those armies have reached their destination,
they appear to be entirely forgotten. It must seem
scarcely credible to any in this country who has
taken the trouble during the past four months of
glancing at the American news, that, in the course
of that period, the Federal Government have had
simultaneously sent into four or five different regions
of the Southern States armies each of which was as
great as that with which we invaded the Crimea.
For information respecting the condition, the opera-
tions, or the fate of those armies the curious in-
quirer would search the filed of American journals
in vain. Not more than 60 miles from the Federal
capital is an immense army which at various times
has been known by the name of the river or the
place in the vicinity of which for time being it hap-
pened to be. At its creation, and when, like a
thunder-cloud, it was expected to sweep over the
South, spreading universal devastation,it was known
by the high-sounding title of the " Grand Army
of the North." Subsequently, when the sphere of
its operations became more accurately defined, it
was called the " Army of Virginia," and at one
period, when the fortune of war compelled it to re-
trace its steps, it became the " Army of Maryland."
Since the disastrous defeat of Fredericksburg it has
been known as the "Army of the Rappahannock,"
and with that title it appears determined to remain
satisfied. At recurrent intervals, when questions are
asked in New York respecting the operations of the
army, a sop is thrown to the public impatience in the
shape of an announcement that a forward movement
is in contemplation, or perhaps a few divisions tra-
verse the intervening distance between their canton-
men ts,Acquia Creek and the banks of the Rappahan-
nock, and then march back again ; or reconnaissances
are pushed up and down the river, and the Govern-
ment at Washington is gladdened with the intelli-
gence that several nests of rebel smugglers have been
discovered and their occupants dispersed. I❑ the
meanwhile, however, the army continues to be the
" Army of the Rappahannock," and the contractors
of New York grow rich upon its wants. The rebels
are daily growing weaker, and must shortly be
starved out, whilst the population of the North are
by the very same process becoming more and more
wealthy and prosperous, Why then should not the
war continue ? Why should not armies continue to
be fed and equipped at the public expense until
every citizen of the North has accumulated an im-
mense fortune in Mr. Chase's greenbacks. What
may be said of the army of the Rappahannock may
equally be said of those in the West and South-west,

We have the expeditions of the Yazoo, of Vicksburg,
of the Gulf of Charleston, independently of a few
minor ones which have not yet earned distinctive
names; but what any of them are doing remains
the profoundest of secrets. The bombardment of
Charleston, so long threatened, is week after week
regularly announced as having commenced. By the
last mail we learn that considerable excitement had
been occasioned by reports that the Federal troops
had landed in the vicinity of Charleston and driven
in the Confederate pickets. These reports, how-
ever, as usual, turned out to be unfounded. Every
contrivance which strategy could suggest for re-
ducing Vicksburg seems in turn to have been tried
and abandoned. A canal was cut which was to
have diverted the course of the Mississippi, but the
river only entered it to make it impassable with
mud and rubbish. We now hear that " all the
Federal expeditions intended to reach the rear of
Vicksburg by way of Sunflower River and the
Yazoo Pass have been abandoned." In Tennessee
the military situation is said to be what it has
long been, " unchanged." Whilst, however, the
position of affairs in the field continues every-
where unaltered, the report of tte committee
appointed to inquire into M'Clellan's conduct
whilst commanding the army of Virginia has
been published, and his inactivity w hen in that post
severely censured. We never entertained a very
high opinion of M'Clellac's qualities as a general,
but he certainly did infinitely more than his succes-
s sors. The check which he gave the Confederates
at Antietam, with an army hastily collected out of
the debris of Pope's " Grand Army," had the effect
of arresting the invasion of the Northern States, and
very probably saved Washington. Admitting the
incapacity of M'Clellan to direct the movements of
immense masses of troops, still a report censuring
him appears particularly ill-timed at a period when
inexplicable inactivity reigns everywhere. Why
new committees are not appointed to inquire into
the conduct of the present chiefs of the Federal

armies can only be accounted for on the supposition
that the Northern Government and the Northern

public have become reconciled to a state of passive
warfare. It must speedily suggest itself to neutral

States to consider hew long They can acquiesce
silentlj in a course which entails upon them the
heaviest losses without any corresponding advan-
tage. The Polish insurrection has for a time diverted
the attention of England and France, and more espe-
cially of the latter country, from America ; but in
the event of the disturbances in Central Europe be-
coming more serious than they at present are, the
" American question" could not continue to be re-
garded with the same placid indifference as hereto-
fore. The Government at Washington have heard
of the defeat and flight of Langiewicz, and have
shared the mistake into which some in this country
fell, in supposing the insurrection was at an end.

This they regretted, on account of the supposed
freedom it would give to the European Powers to

ntermeddle in American affairs.

A very little re-

fleotion, however, might have satisfied them that
European complications which might necessitate the

actives intervention of England and France would
equally strain to the utmost the resources of those
countries. Suppose, for instance, that thePolisinh
difficulty gave rise to a European war, neither
France nor England would willingly engage
hostilities with an important branch of their com-
merce crippled. A simultaneous war both with
America and with Russia would not of course be
France and England ; but the inte-
rest contemplated
thelatter countries in bringing the Ameri-
can
by
A
can war to a close tNould be redoubled, and the
earliest opportunity made available for, effecting
that object. The distress of the cotton manufac-
turing aistricts both of England and France is
steadily increasing, and the Government of the
latter country have afforded unmistakable evidences
of late that their patience is well nigh exhausted.
If the belligerents were making any progress either
one way or the other, or if the faintest prospect
were held out of the termination of the war at any
definite period, we might become reconciled to our
sufferings, and make provisions for those which we
might still be called upon to undergo. It is, how-
ever, the want of any basis for calculation, and the
conviction that the population of the Northern
States are drifting into a state of "chronic war,"
which may continue for an indefinite period, that
excites our apprehensions. We take no pleasure in
reading accounts of engagements in which the slain
are counted by thousands ; but still it is only by a
series of such engagements that war can be effectu-
ally carried out. For months past the North has
done nothing besides keeping the South, both by
land and sea, in a state of blockade. Such a course,
if persisted in, CcID never reduce the Confederates
to submission, whilst it must entail ruin upon the
Northern States and heavy losses upon the neutral
Powers of Europe.

INVENTION OF THE SEWING MACHINE,

BY ELIAS HOWE, OF MASSACHUSETTS.

In the year 1841, Eiias Howe, r, native of Cam-
bridge Port, Massachusetts, first conceived the idea

of constructing a really practical sewing machine,
A young mechanic, only 22 years of age, hardly
capable of supporting himself and those most dear
to him on his scant earnings, he laboured manfully,
in a little garret in his native town, at his self*
imposed task, during the few hours that were
spared to him after the ordinary labours of the
day were ended. He became enthusiastic, and
although, as he says, he could not davote hie
attention to the subject during his working
hours, he thought upon it when he could, both

day and night. lt grew upon him till he felt lin'
pelled to yield his whole time to it, and being pro-
mired assistance by a friend, he devoted himself
exclusively to the construction and practical Com"
pletion of his machine. The result was that in 1846
he perfected his first sewing machine, and. in order
to test its practical success, he sewed with it all the
principal seams in two suits of clothes. On the 10th
of September, 1846, he obtained his patent. In
Howe's original machine a curved needle, attached
to the end of a vibrating lever, was combined with
a reciprocating shuttle, for producing the lock-.
stitch. The needle had an eye near its point, and a
groove formed along the upper and under sides, to
allow of the thread lying therein and so passing
more easily through the cloth. The cloth was
attached to pins on the edge of a thin steel rib,
called a "baster plate," from the fact of its serving
the purpose of a basting thread in holding the two
thicknesses of material together whilst being
stitched. This plate formed a portion of the feed
mechanism for propelling the cloth; it was carried
along step by step by the teeth of a small pinion
which geared into holes made in the baster plate,
an intermittent rotatory motion being imparted to
the pinion by self-acting mechanism working in
concert with the needle and shuttle. This feed
motion was found to be defective in many respecter
and has since been entirely abolished in all sewing
machines. The cloth was held in a vertical
position against the side of the shuttle race by
a spring presser-plate at the part where the
needle entered. The shuttle was driven to and
fro in its race or groove by two strikers►
carried on the ends of vibrating arms, worked
alternately by cams. The most important few'
tures embodied in this machine were the
adaptation of suitable contrivances for imparting
the requisite amount of tension to the needle and
shuttle-threads, for taking up the slack formed on
the needle thread when the needle enters the cloth,
for tightening and drawing up the stitch, and for
supporting the cloth against the thrust and with-
drawal of the needle. Shortly after obtaining hie
patent in America, Howe sent over a machine to
this country, and disposed of his invention to Mr'
William Thomas for a trifling amount.
On the Ist of December, 1846, Mr. Thomas ob'
tained a patent for the machine in England, seee
after which Howe himself arrived here to assist
him in adapting the machine to the peculiar kind
of work required, namely, stay making. Howe does
not appear to have prospered here, for in the spring
of 1849, indebted to a friend for a steerage passage
home, he returned to America, poorer if possible
than when he left. He found his wife on a bed Of
sickness and in a state of utter destitution. Tell
days after his arrival she died. During his absence
in England his patent had been extensively ill'
fringed, and in 1850 he commenced legal proceed'
ings, and succeeded in every case in establishing
the validity of his patent. _ _

In the course of these proceedings a prior claim
to the invention of the sewing machine was set uP
by Walter Hunt, who was said to have constructed'
exhibited, and sold, in 1834 and 1835, shuttle et
lock-stich sewing machines, similar in all essential
particulars to Howe's. That Hunt had tried ble
hand at a lock-stitch sewing machine, and was tile
inventor of the shuttle or lock-stitch, there is oe
doubt, but it was never satisfactorily proved thi4
such machines were so far perfected as to render
them more than abortive experiments. The turning
point in Howe's career had now arrived, and fa'
tune soon began to smile upon him. In 1853 he
granted his firet licence, and in 1855 was enabled to
regain possession of the whole of his patent, which'
at one period he had entirely disposed of, in order
to meet the pressing demands that were made are
him. His patent rights being finally acknowledged'
and his patent prolonged for a term of seven years'
he now receives a royalty upon every sewing
machine manufactured in the United States, pre'
ducing an income of upwards of £50,000 Per
annum.—Social Science _Review.

COUNTRY MARKETS.

I,

LEEDS—TUESDAY.
The supply of English wheat only moderate, but a fal.
show of foreign sorts. The fine weather and a slow flou`
trade caused dulness. The sales were few, and prices ivelj
scarcely equal to last week. Other articles were unehang
in value.

MARKET HARBOROUGH—TUESDAY.
White wheat, 47s to 528 ; red, 43s to 46s per 36 WI:
Malting barley at 35s to 37s per qr. ; grinding, 28s to 3„L
per 30 st. Oats, old, 26s to 28s; new, 20s to 24s per w'
st. ; beans, 39s to 43s per qr.

SHEFFIELD—TUESDAY.
Red wheat, per load of 3 imperial bushels...l7s Od to 18s A
I 03
77
White
...20s Od to 21s 7
New red
...15s Od to 16s"n
)1 » 7
.
New white „ 1, ...18s Od to 190 LIA
Beans
...16s 6d to 1.9 s 71
Peas, per qr
Grinding barley, per qr 28s Od to 305 v.!
Od
I)
Malting ditto, ~ .....
36s Od to 400 A
Oats 2s2 Od to 270'
Flour, is 7d to 2s 2d per stone.

LIVERPOOL—TUESDAY.
At our market to-day there was a fair business, with,
tolerable attendance of the town and country trade, al.
wheat was in fair request at Friday's prices. Also a fair
business doing in flour, and full prices for America'
For oats and oatmeal the demand was better, at late pricer':
Indian corn firm, at 3d per qr advance on last week. f3,,,4
ley and peas in favour of buyers. Egyptian beans l'"
firm.

MELTON MOWBRAY—TUESDAY.
The following were the currencies :—New white w--heat•,
50s Od to 54s Od ; new red, 45s Od to 48s per 36 801:;
beans, 44s to 458 for old; new sorts, 38s to 41s per 38 for
barley, 35s to 39s for malting, and 27s to 30s per qr•
grinding; oats, 20s to 28s Od per 24 stone.
-4111

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