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

SIR JOHN PAKING7ON ON AMERICA.

At the dinner, which took place in the Town-hall
in the evening, the Marquis of Salisbury presided,
and was supported by the following noblemen and
gentlemen :—The Earl of Vernlam, Lord Delawarr,
Sir E. B. Lytton, M.P., Mr. Giles Puller, M.P.,
Mr. Abel Smith, M.P., Lord Eustace Cecil, &c.
The usual loyal toasts haring been proposed,
Mr. SIIRTEES proposed " The Health of the
County and Borough Members."
Sir E. L. B. LYTTON on rising, was received with
loud and continued cheering. He said—My Lords
and Gentlemen,—ln rising to return thanks for the
honour you have just conferred upon me and my
colleagues, I am reminded that the first occasion on
which I took part in the public affairs of this
county was at an agricultural meeting similar to the
present, held in this very town, and in the room
in which we are now assembled. When I look
round, I see among the younger generation still
many faces with which I then first formed an
acquaintance, and owing, I presume, to the salu-
brious habits and peaceful conscience which belong
to agricultural pursuits, I see amongst those faces
so little of the wear and tear of time, that I could
almost fancy it was yesterday when my health was
first drunk by the farmers of Hertfordshire. Yet the
years which have elapsed since that day have wit-
nessed events so stirring that they constitute one of
the most remarkable epochs in the history of the
world. Gentlemen, before I come to the subject to
which I shall afterwards address myself, let me
pause for a moment, and consider what those events
have been. Since then France has undergone three
revolutions—the fall of the Constitutional Mo-
narchy, the stormy interlude of a Democratic Re-
public, and the restoration of a milder Empire. The
old rulers of Lombardy, of Tuscany, and of Naples
have disappeared, and the map of the world has
been altered to admit of the introduction of the
kingdom of Italy. Austria, long the haughtiest
representative of the principle of absolute mo-
narchy, has commenced the experiment of Con-
stitutional Government, and Russia has laid the
foundation of a new policy and social existence
in recognising the value of free labour, and
abolishing the institution of serfdom. China has
opened her ports to our merchants, and her
capital to our ambassadors. We ourselves
have gone through the calamities of war in the
siege of Sebastopol and the suppression of the In-
dian revolt, and we have been twice reminded this
evening that the great Republic, which boasted a
superb exemption from the perils and the evils
which beset ancient States and monarchical forms
of government, has been violently rent in twain ;
and whatever may be the issue of that struggle, in
which we see at present only a lavish expenditure
of blood and treasure, still there is no dispassionate
bystander who can believe that the Union can ever
be restored, and no far-sighted politican who can
suppose that the curse of slavery can long survive
that separation, of which it is the most ostensible,
though not the only, nor perhaps the most powerful
cause. (Hear.) Such important events, all leading
to effects so vast, and so permanent in their relation
to the advancement of the human race, have pro-
bably never before occurred within so short a space
of time as that which has elapsed since I first ad-
dressed you in this room. After referring to the
progress of agricultural science, the right hon. bart.
continued—Now I see that, in the agricultural
meetings that have taken place elsewhere, great
stress has been laid by eminent speakers upon the
importance of utilising the sewage of towns for
agricultural purposes. Lord Derby, who is himself
a high agricultural authority, has done much on
this head, first by the very remarkable speech he
lately made at Preston, in which he stated the re-
sults of the experiments made at the Wellington
College, according to the plan of the filter or tank
invented by the late Prince Consort ; and, next, he
has done much by the prize he has offered to any
company which shall utilise liquid manure of the
sewage of any district comprising 4,oooinhabitants.
(Hear.) Mr. Gladstone, also, with that acuteness of
mind accustomed to seize the strong points of any
question that he takes up, has directed his attention
to a means of producing wealth which, though it
is sufficiently familiar to some other countries,
has been very singularly neglected in our
own. Why, my lord, I remember, when I
held the Colonial seals, the toil and trouble that
it cost to get a very scanty supply of guano from
some distant island, while, all the time, close
at hand, a few of the sewers of London were casting
into the Thames more than half a million sterling
worth of manure, more valuable for the general pur-
poses of agriculture than that guano which ships
were fitting out to bring home, in order that it
should be retailed at a price which rather fitted it
for the dealing of an apothecary than for the fields
of a farmer. I say that at least half a million was
thus thrown away in some of the sewers of London,
and I believe that to be a very narrow estimate of
the real waste that is constantly taking place ; for I
find that in Flanders, where I was the other day,
the value of the sewage is estimated according to
the numerical population in towns at so much a
head, viz., £1 7L, and in Belgium it is estimated
still higher, so that, taking the population of Lon-
don at 2,000,000, there is upwards of two million of
the national wealth exclusively devoted to poison
the waters of the Thames, and to add to the dis-
eases of our metropolitan subjects. We might upon
this question take a lesson from China. Every one
knows the extraordinary rapidity with which the
Chinese bring the very worst soil into cultivation ;
and the enormous crops which they take from, com-
paratively speaking, a handful of land have been the
wonder and the admiration of all travellers in that
country. What is the secret of the Chinese P Why,
their main secret consists in the utilisation of the
sewage, and the proverbial fertility of Belgium is
attributable to the same cause. It is, however, not
only in the metropolis that this waste goes on, but
also in the rural towns, though I can say without
compliment that there isin the rural towns a greater
energy and a more just and intelligent desire to find
a remedy for the evil than seem to be manifested by
city aldermen or metropolitan boards. Considering
the number of populous towns which there are in
this country I do say that I wish we could find a few
enlightened, enterprising Enlishmen to enrich its
population by
sell, and farmers by
manumreawnuhriochwthhieothotwhneys wwoouulldd gladlygladly
purchase. Until some such system is adopted we must
fall back on our old friend, farmyard dung. I suppose
we Mlle agree that Professor Levi is right, on the
whole, when ho says that the art of all real repro-
ductive husbandry is in the skilful application of
manure. I recollect that David Hume, the philoso-
let si
ms aaytse,l
yallno theot
haeprp aorbajteucst
iraonenet haofhs uis
ooprth. oepuru'rrspGaoyossveenm than the administration of justice, or in
other wor.,wse,lll:einstahyos,
samothan tmhaenosuoprphoortmoifgthhtesaly2
the vast apparatus of our farms
judges.
ultimately no other object or purpose than the
hthaastultthime
distribution of justice to the land, or in other words,
in the application of that manure which may give
back to the soil the nutriment which it takes from
it, or supply those nourishing properties which na-
ture has neglected to restore. Eight hundred years
ago there was a very learned dispute whether or not
the earth was an animal; but I think we have now
discovered that the earth is so far animal that it re-
quires to be fed and win not be starved. There is a
very remarkable instance of this mentioned by a
great practical agricUlturist. In certain districts of