The Sun.
London, England, 1862-06-10 00:00:00

SHEFFIELD CEMETERY DISCLOSURES.

Isaac Howard, the sexton of St. Philip's burial-
ground, was apprehended yesterday morning at the
Red Lion Hotel, Masborough, by detective-officers
Airey and Bray shaw. He had sent word to the
police of hi 3 intention to come to Sheffield by the
first train from the South yesterday morning,
having been staying at Bakewell and Derby since
the riots. The officers went to meet him at th:!
station, but he did not arrive by the early train, in
consequence of having been accidentally detained
at Eckington. Subsequently, hearing that he had
arrived at Masborough by a late train, Airey and
Brayshaw went to search the public-houses there,
and found him at the Red Lion. He came volun-
tarily with them to Sheffield, supposing they
had merely come to protect him from any
violence that might be offered on the way.
They, however, held a warrant for his appre-
hension, issued by the magistrates at the
termination of the inquiry on Saturday. Howard
appeared before the magistrates in support of the
application for compensation for the damage done
to his house, and Detective• officer Brayshaw then
produced the warrant, and applied to the bench to
remand the prisoner on a charge of having illege.ily
removed the remains of a child of William &leer-
man, of Philadelphia. Howard seemed much sur-
prised at the application,not having been previously
aware that be was in custody. Mr. Broadbent
applied on his behalf to the magistrates to admit
him to bail, but they declined to do so, Mr. A.
Smith remarking that that was quite out of the
question, as it was at present impossible to say
what charges might arise against the prisoner.
Howard was therefore remanded until Friday next.
He was evidently very nervous and excited, Howard
claimed £l6O for damages to his house, £2OO
damages to his furniture, and £l6 for money which
was in the house. Mr. Livesey applied for leave
to prove damage amounting to £2B to the freehold
of the cemetery ant buildings, and £l7 is. 6d, for
damage to the furniture, books, &c., in the vestry.,
The applications were formally taken, placing both
Howard and Mr. Livesey in a position to bring
actions against the oounty for recovery of the
16 damage.

THE GREAT BEDFORD LEVEL.

Every sovereign seems to have been anxious about
the Fens, and to have encouraged attempts to make
them secure. The first comprehensive endeavour
to unite embankment and drainage for the whole
morass, without partiality towards separate inte-
rests, was a century after the Martimas gale I have
spoken of. The works, costly and extensive, were
swept away within a year of their being fin isbed ;
and many then advised that the whole thing should
be given up as hopeless. In the reign of Henry
VII., Bishop Moreton made a new cut, which is now
a part of the river Nene: but the banks crumbled
down. So did other banks in the time of Elizabeth,
and of James I. In the next reign, the enterprise
was begun which introduced a new period in the
history of the Fens. The Earl. of Bedford, in the
He induced some
reign of Charles 1., was grieved to see Thorney
effort to reclaim the
Abbey on its hillock, surrounded by shallow waters
j?ofin.1811,0i0m0
inacraens.
whole region. His particular aim was to retrieve
his own lordship of Thorney but his part-
ners must have their inducements
also, The
demand was that they should
them 95,000 acresof have among
d. reclaimed land, in re-
turn for their expense
£lOO,OOO in three years and risk. They spent
number of accomplishedl a great
works which an
soon as they were finished.crumb.e.d down almost as
During the civil wars
of, the period, it was a common practice for either
party to cut the dykes when they could hurt their
enemies thereby ; and during the Commonwealth,
the whole tract lay as desolate as ever. At length,
the son of that Earl of Bedford took up the project
again, on the same terms that had been granted to
his father. He and his partners succeeded so far
as to obtain their 95,000 acres ; but they had spent
more meantime than the land was worth. The most
conspicuous sign of progress was, that an or3anit,a-
tion was now formed for the preservation of the
works. By a charter of Charles ll.'s granting, a
corporation of conservators of the Bedford Level
was appointed, and endowed with due powers—the
king appropriating for himself 12,000 acres of tho
95,000. For more than a century and a half there
I were small successes, and occasional great disasters,
owing chiefly to the mistake of making a great
number of small channel islands, where there was
not slope enough for little streams to flow away,
instead of a few large channels where the force of
a scanty in-
gathered waters would compensate fofrth
exis,
.n
cline. At last, within the. memoryffeoctuale clr g
generation, the true principles of. e egnage
and the retrieval
were proposed and acted upon ,
of the Fen country has been a
matter of pride to the
whole kingdom for 30 years. —6nee a TVeek,.

When Normans and Saxons had hf.,*!ome one
in England, the Fen district presented a changed
people
aspect once more. The swamps and innumerable channels
anti mudbanks had, for the most part, disappeared ; and the
waters were gathered into lakes and rivers of sufficient
depth to render the intervening soil solid and dry. In the
time of Stephen and Henry 11. the beauty of the region was
extolled. There were pastures and cornfields as well as
lakes, and woods with lofty trees. There were not only
blossoming orcharde, but no waste lands anywhere ; and,
as for the settlements in the reclaimed lands, each one had
a church so beautiful that that part of our island became
famous for them. If we, in our day, are proud of the
Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire and Norfolk shurrchflense,--ly
so large and noble, with their crocketed spires o
proportioned steeples—what must our forefathers
IFok have
country been
eight centuries ago? They gloried in their ;
and not without reason,—Onco a