The Sun.
London, England, 1839-10-22 00:00:00

THE HARVEST.

In our own provinces the harvest has been brought
to a close, with but here and there an exception in the
far north. The Wheat, it is said, will turn out badly,
but both Barley and Oats much better.
In some parts of Scotland corn is still out, and even
a little standing. With regard to Ireland, the Dublin
Evening Post of last Saturday says, the two last days,
as well as this, have been extremely favourable. Tf..3
Oats, we should think, will recover under the cheering
influence, and as there was a great breadth of this grain
laid down, we may confidently hope that there will be
not only a sufficiency for our own consumption, but
something to spare. As yet, however, no impression
has been made on our Corn Exchange.
The Southern Reporter from Cork of the same date
has the following intelligence :—During Tuesday night
and a part of Wednesday was boisterous and unpropi-
tious in the extreme. During the whole of Tuesday
night we were visited by a violent storm of wind and
rain, which continued without intermission up to yester-
day afternoon. Calamitous as this must prove to the
standing crops throughout the country, we fear that the
accounts from sea will prove still more disastrous. The
extent of the damage done has not, of course, been
yet ascertained ; but we are happy to add, that the
Bristol and London packets have arrived in safety ;
and the improved weather of last night and of this day
gives us reason to hope that such crops as have not
been irrepvrably injured by the devastating elements,
may yet be partially preserved.

MANCHESTER AND LEEDS RAILWAY.—
The success of this railway is beyond example. It, ap-
pears by a remark made by Captain Laws, R.N., the
general superintendant of the line, at a special meeting
of proprietors at Manchester, that they are actually car-
rying more passengers upon that part of the line already
opened (thirteen miles), than are carried upon the Liver-
pool and Manchester line. On Sunday last, the num-
ber of passengers upon the line was 3,520. We under-
stand that Mr. Edmondson's system of tickets works
admirably, and appears to meet every contingency. The
directors and proprietary are fortunate in having secured
the services of Captain Laws, R.N., who is a consider-
able shareholder. This gentleman, on a tour of ob-
servation to the North some months previous to the
opening of the railway, saw on the Newcastle and Car-
lisle Railway, how admirably the then imperfect ticket
system of Mr. Edmondson could be adapted to the im-
mense business which he anticipated upon the new line.
He immediately engaged Mr. E.'s services ; and by
allowing him every facility for perfecting his plans, has
got into operation a system immeasurably superior to
anything hitherto in use. The system is no less remark-
able for the rapidity and correctness with which it
enables the clerks to dispatch the business, than it is
for the great saving its economical management has
effected for the company. Captain L. also recom-
mended a low class of fares (somewhere about Id. per
mile) to be adopted, and standing carriages for the
reception of this class of passengers. The result has
shown how correct he was in his anticipations of success ;
and this will, we trust, be considered conclusive as to
the policy of adopting a low rate of fares upon other
lines.—.Carlisle Journal.

THE DIFFICULTIES OF AN EDITORe—AII
editor cannot step without treading on somebody's toes.
If he expresses his opinion fearlessly and frankly, he is
arrogant and presumptuous. If he states facts without
comment, he dares not avow his sentiments. If he con-
scientiously refuses to advocate the claims of an indi-
vidual to office, he is accused of personal hostility. A
jack-an-apes who measures off words into verse as a
clerk does tape—by the yard—hands him a parcel of
stuff that jingles like a handful of rusty nails and a gim-
let, and if the editor is not fool enough to print the non-
sense—" Stop my paper!
,I wont patronise a man that's
no better judge of poetry. One murmurs because his
paper is too literary—another that it is not lite-
rary enough. One grumbles because the advertise-
ments engross too much room—another complains that
the paper is too large ; he can't find time to read it all.
One wants the type so small that a microscope would
pleasehen all.
be indispensable in every family—another threatens to
discontinue the paper unless the letters are half an inch
long. One old lady actually offered to give an additional
price for a paper that should be printed with such types
as are used for handbills. In fact everycosumbpsacrreibderwhitahs
a plan of his own for conducting a journal ; and the
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TEETOTALISM.—A teetotal harvest supper was
provided on the Bth instant, at Bodmin, for labourers
who had kept their pledge. About 150 persons sat
down to a sumptuous repast, after dispatching which a
public meeting was held. Thirteen speakers (who
would have been followed by thirteen more, had time
permitted) bore testimony to the good effects of total
abstinence from intoxicating
.liquors during harvest.—
Cornwall Advertiser.

Sir Robert Peel's disclaimer of the opinions erro-
neously attributed to him in the columns of the Ob-
server, is seized upon by the Tory journals with an
avidity which bespeaks the general dearth of import-
ant topics. Nothing but the absence of really inte-
resting matter of debate could have occasioned this
simultaneous movement of the press, on one of the
most common-place and constantly-recurring circum-
stances which can be conceived. This " much ado
about nothing" affair may be briefly explained as fol-
lows :—The Observer of yesterday week asserted with
sufficient pomp and circumstance —" That certain
Protestants in Ireland had demanded to know in plain
terms whether the advent of Toryism was in reality to
be the signal for civil war in Ireland. That the
answer given on behalf of Sir Robert Peel was to
this effect—that it was required for the sustenance of
the Tory party to keep up and enforce the No Popery
feeling in England, but that there was no design of
pushing the exterminating principle in Ireland so far as
actually to excite rebellion. That it was added, that
the necessities of the party required such expedients, and
that in fact the end must be taken to justify the means
of deceit and falsehood by which it was brought about.
The Observer gave this statement, as it is said, " upon
the authority of persons who speak the sentiments of
Sir Robert Peel." Sir Robert Peel has in a letter to
the Observer positively disclaimed having had such a
question referred to him as is asserted in the
statement ; or that, " with his sanction or cogni-
zance, any such communications have been made,
any such explanations given, or language held," as
are given, on the authority stated, in the columns
of that journal. And here the matter might have
rested, but for the necessity which exists for the Tory
party to catch at any straw which floats accidentally on
the surface, and to cling to it with the tenacity
of desperation. Haply some more effectual aid may
reach them, ere they sink in the gulph which yawns be-
neath. A straw, though but a straw, is better than
nothing, And Sir Robert Peers letter, though in it-
self a trifle light, as air, may, by dint of puffing and
blowing, be raised into importance ; serve as an
occasion for employing some of those choice flowers
of Tory culture which are most abundantly used
when the subjects around which they are hung are
either too insignificant to attract attention, or too repul-
sive for the public eye to rcst upon them, without some
such veil, without exciting disgust. Sir Robert Peel's
letter, with the occasion which called it forth, is of the
former class, Sir Robert had an undoubted •right to
disclaim the matters imputed ; hut he had no right to
demand that the Observer should " declare publicly"
the authority on which the statement was given. The
Observer was bound to publish the disclaimer . it has
done so ; and declares " most solemnly" that the state-
ment was made on the authority asserted.

(From the Standard.)
A letter of Sir Robert Peel appeared in the Observer
of yesterday. The letter will itself explain the chal-
lenge that has called it forth ; but it may be proper
to premise, that the Observer is in an eminent de-
gree a Ministerial organ, being more frequently
than any other journal employed to forward the
views, and develope the purposes, of the Minis-
ters, as far as these purposes can be safely
communicated to the public. It may seem at the first read-
ing, that the falsehood of the Observer's statement was
too gross and absurd to deserve the contradiction with
which Sir Robert Peel has honoured it ; and certainly
nothing more grossly, more absurdly, or more self-
evidently false, was ever put into print, (of this, how-
ever, presently), but palpable and transparent as
the falsehood must appear, to any prudent
and experienced mind, Sir R. Peel nevertheless exer-
cised a sound discretion in branding it by the distinct
and manly contradiction which•bas just been read. It
is always unwise to pass by unheeded a circumstantial
and specific lie, such as that which the ministerial
organ was instructed by " authority" to promulgate ;
however clumsy the lie may be, many who can appre-
cate the rankness of the fabrication as a whole, may
still believe that there is something in the statement
which a party whom it seriously implicates hesitates to
explode by an absolute and unequivocal denial ; while
others—the young, the inexperienced, and the guilele.,s,
who, being pure themselves, are infidels to such monstrous
wickedness as calumnies like this—will take the unre-
futed falsehood for indisputable truth. We know not
upon what minds, or single mind, this lie was intended
to act ; credited anywhere it must work mischief—re-
ceived within the walls of the Palace, it would aid to
continue a delusion which the country has already had
so much reason to lament.

AN AWKWARD CUSTOMER.—On Wednesday
evening last, about seven o'clock,
it
a bull, which was pro-
ceeding along Lord-street, took into his head to walk
into the shop of Mr. Rennie, hair-dresser, perfumer
&c., whether With the intention to have his natural
locks dressed, secundum artem, or to procure an arti-
ficial substitute for them, must remain a mystery, as
the gentleman himself did not vouchsafe any very ex-
plicit information as to the object of his visit. He,
however, walked into the parlour,iin which Mr. Rennie
adonizes his human customers, but before he had time
to take a chair or even to look about him, he was fol-
lowed by his driver, and shown to the door, without
having done the slightest injury,—a fact which deserves
recording for the honour of the Taurine species, inas-
much as the saying " a bull in a China shop" would seem
to throw an indiscriminate censure on the whole body.
It appears that a bull can behave himself like a gentle-
man in a hair-dresser's.—Livopool Chronicle.
NARROW ESCAPE OF A MAN AND HORSE
—Between twelve and one o'clock on Thursday night,
as a horse and cart, belonging to Mr. Oliver, of Fare-
ham, were on their way home from Salisbury, the driver
fell asleep, when the horse wandered from the main
road at Alderbury Shoot, and got into the River
Avon, down which it proceeded a distance of four
hundred yards till it reached Longford Castle. Here
the coldness of the water awoke the man, who, as may
be readily imagined, was in a great fright. Seeing a light
at the Castle, he called out lustily for help, and his cries
reaching Lord Folkstone's ears, his Lordship obtained the
assistance of some of the domestics, and, placing himself
at their head, procured a boat, and rescued the man
and horse from their perilous situation. The river in
that spot is full of holes, and the water was, owing to
the late heavy rains, unusually high, so that it is almost
a miracle that they escaped drowning, since the horse
had got entangled under one of the arches of the bridge.
Nothing could exceed Lord Folkstone's zeal and anxiety
to render every assistance. He was the first to enter
the water, nor did he leave it till all was safe. The man
and horse were taken care of at the Castle till the
morning, when the poor carter departed, expressing a
grateful sense of the kindness shown, and wondering at
his narrow escape.—Salisbury Journal.
Yesterday was the anniversary of the brilliant vic-
tory of Trafalgar, and of the lamented death of Lord Nel-
son, who was killed on board his ship, 1806. It was also.
the anniversary of the death of Smollett, in 1771, one of
our best novel writers, whose felicitous description of
those naval characters which he pourtrayed, was never
equalled by any other writer.

A LABOURER'S CHILD STARVED TO DEATH•
—An inquest was held on Monday week, at Stanton
St. Bernard, Wilts, on the body of Samuel Cox, a lad
about 10 years of age. It appeared that, very early on
the previous Friday morning, the lad, accompanied by
his father, left Broughton with a flock of lambs, for the
purpose of going to Shaw farm, In Overton. It rained
during the greater part of the day, so that they were
soon completely drenched. They had no refreshment
before starting. On arriving at Melksham, they shared
a small quantity of bread between them ; and at Shep-
herd's Shore, 11 miles further on the road, they had
half-a-pint of beer. This was all they had during the
day. Within a mile or two of Shaw farm the rain in-
creased so much that the poor boy begged his father to
take shelter a little while in a skilling on the down. This
the father consented to do ; but after remaining for
some time he was desirous of going on. Not so the
poor boy, who continually said—" A little longer father !"
till at last the parent, yielding to his entreaties, stopped
in the skilling all night. At break of day he repeatedly
called to the boy, to prepare to go on, but without
effect ; the boy replied, " I am very unwell I" At length
the father took him in his arms, and discovered that
he was dying; and after holding him for two hours he
breathed his last. The body presented a miserable ap-
pearance—the bones of the poor lad almost protruding
through the skin. He was quite emaciated, and ap-
tPheraoruegdhatshief hineclheamdenbceyenofhtahlef weather,anVdertdhiect—wapntiwolf
the proper necessaries of life !
Si: Francis Chantry visited his native place,
Norton, last week. During his stay, we understai d
Sir Francis selected a place in the village Chureli-yard
for a family mousoleum. The ringers, as usual, wel.
coined the distinguished sculptorlby a merry peal on the
Church bells.—Shejield Iris.
An attempt to establish a Flannel Market in
this
_town was successfully made on Tuesday, when
from 400 to 500 pieces of flannel, of all qualities
were offered for sale in Mr. Newton's Circus-yard, and
the greater part sold, at prices equal to any else-
where. The Flannels were chiefly supplied from Llan-
gollen, Newtown, Glynn, Weston, Pool, Llanfair, and
Church Stretton, and formed a very fair assortment ;
and purchases were extensively made by dealers and
drapers from London, Birmingham, and the chief towns
around.—Shrewsbury Chronicle.