The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-30 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, JANUARY 30, 1862.

seam of all, from the bottom of that now fast flooding
coal-mine, from a depth of 100 fathoms from the
surface, all the miners, men and boys, one by one,
could have remounted by means of the rungs in the
ladders in the three narrow bye-shafts connecting
seam with seam—out of danger—to the light of
day—to the embraces of their affrighted but
relieved relatives. The whole mortality conse-
quent upon the snapping of the iron beam,
and the falling of twenty tons of metal, and the
crashing of the brattice into ruins, and the
stopping up of the single main shaft—the whole
mortality consequent upon this fearful complica-
tion of accidents might (in the very reasonable
contingency supposed) have been comprised in
the record of the five deaths resulting from the
destruction of the cage suspended at the summit
of the fracture in the up-cast shaft. Instead of
the whole of the remaining 199 miners below
being slowly, a whole week afterwards,
drawn up the deadly shaft one by one
as 199 corpses, they might within a comparatively
few minutes after the time of the accident's occur-
rence have clambered up the ladders in the three
little bye-shafts and leaped to bank unscathed. No
fear then of the mephitic stythe ! No call then for
that weary and desperate jowling through all
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, even in one or
two instances, by the furnace drift where the har-
diest colliers had pushed their way in a
last despairing effort, through the Sunday
following, when the last faint clang of the jowling
ceased.

As it is, just 200 men and boys were doomed
to a dreadful death because a rational pre-
caution against the chance of a notorious peril
had not been taken betimes, at a trumpery cost of
(at the utmost) £2oo—or, as we have said, no more
than £1 for every fellow-creature thus cruelly
abandoned to destruction ! A notorious peril we
have called it. And we have done so advisedly. For
the folly (to say the least of it) of the single shaft
system has long been seriously discussed in the
mining districts. From this time forth, however,
we may be certain that all discussion upon the
matter will cease. The Legislature will terminate
it. Of that we cannot entertain a moment's further
doubt. The session following, as rapidly as it does,
immediately upon the occasion of this frightful catas-
trophe at Hartley, will thence draw good out of evil,
and that too by necessity. Public opinion will not
tolerate the evasion of the difficulty. The Press will
not remain silent in the matter. The Home Office
even, as we have intimated, gives evidence of the
Secretary of State's readiness to take the initiative,
without his requiring any goad to do so, in calling
upon Parliament to secure to the mining popula-
tion—what they ought to have had long since—
the certainty of the safety accruing to them from
the double-shaft system--a safety •nly to be secured
through the double-shaft system.

" Not a cheer"—just so. Even the New York
Herald will now see that it was not Southern
Commissioners England wanted, but Northern
repentance of insult to our flag. There was a crowd
of curious persons, no doubt had we been
there personally we too might have been curi-
ous to see the physiognomy of the men who
will cost us at least twopence in the pound
income tax next year, or rather the men whom
the Yankees have made the occasion of
our having to incur that expense. Had the
Yankees taken two pairs of live gorillas from the
Trent, and the La Plata brought them back, there
would have been a far greater crowd to see the
honoured animals. But had the men been four
poor fugitive slaves, who had knocked down Mr.
LINCOLN'S United States Marshal, then escaped
and contrived to get into the Trent, to be taken
out again by hero WiLiEs—had these been brought
back in the La Plata—let Messrs. SLIDELL and
MASON know that Southampton would have cheered
the fugitives till the sound would have gone almost
across the Channel. Such difference would South-
ampton make between Commissioners for slavery
and hunted fugitives from slavery.
The greater our contempt for the advo-
cates of such a cause as that of a Republic
founded, by its own documents, on the Divine
Right of Slavery—the stronger the proof
we have given that we will not submit to in-
sult. Mr. SEWARD declared the grapes were
sour when he found he could 'not have them.
The men were ",unimportant," forsooth, although
he sent the James Adger across the Atlantic with
instructions to seize them when and where he
could. We too pronounce the men worse than
unimportant—they are missionaries of a slavery
gospel. Yet we insist on having them, important
or unimportant.
We wonder what our Northern friends will say to
our conduct. They will hardly know what to make
of it. Had the case been reversed, we may fancy
what an upstir there would have been in New York
or Boston on the recovering of two brace of Yan-
kees from the Britishers. Had they been male-
factors —no matter— they would have had
an ovation instead of a gibbet, and the living evi-
dence of England's humiliation, would have been
crowned with garlands, if they deserved rather to
be honoured with fetters. Some of the sensation
papers will, we fancy, be rather mortified—they
may have got ready sensation headings on the
"Exultation of England over America's humilia-
tion," and a roaring leader perhaps already in
type. One fact was certainly singular. The com-
missioners were to have come originally in the La
Plata on the 27th of November; they were in the
same vessel on the 29th of January, and that not
by design. The storm drove the Rinaldo, which
took them from port Warren, out of her course, and
she took them to St. Thomas's, there to meet the
very ship in which they should have sailed to Eng-
land before.

His Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge
visited his Majesty the King of the Belgians yesterday at
Buckingham Palace,

The Duke and Duchess de Coighe have arrived
at the St. George's Hotel. _ _ _

The Earl and Countess of Darnley left England
for the Continent yesterday, via Folkestone and BoulDgne.
The Dowager Countess of Essex and Miss John-
stone and the Marquis of Fontenelle arrived at the Pavilion
Hotel, Folkestone, on Tuesday last. _ _

Lord and Lady Muncaster have arrived in Paris
en route for Italy, where they intend passing the winter.
Lord Methuen has arrived at the St. George's
Hotel.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, accompanied
by Mrs. Gladstone and family, ;has arrived at his official
residence in Downing-street.
The Right Hon. William Hutt, M.P., and Mrs.
Hutt have arrived at 17, Eaton-place, from Gibside Hall,
Durham.

Mr. R. Peel has arrived at Farrance's Hotel from
the Deanery, Worcester.

Messrs. Rothschild have sent a donation of £2O,
in addition to their usual kind annual subscription, to the
National Lifeboat Institution, to help it to keep up in a per-
manent state of efficiency its 121 lifeboat establishments.
MONUMENT IN LIVERPOOL TO THE LATE PRINCE
ALBERT.—This subject came up at the meeting of the
Liverpool Town Council yesterday, a communication being
read from the Lord Mayor of London, calling upon the
Mayor of Liverpool to co-operate in the proposed national
monument to the late Prince Consort. The feeling of the
council, though in favour of a local monument, was opposed
to the subscriptions being sent to London. After som©
discussion a committee was appointed to take charge of the
matter, and the probability is that a resolution passed by
the council in 1851, to erect statues of her Majesty and
,the Prince at St, George's-hall, will be carried into effect,