The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-30 00:00:00

robbing them. The destruction of the city of
Columbia is, indeed, an awful instance of the crimes
which mien may commit when once they have given
theme elves up to fury and revenge. When the
mayo r had delivered up the place and entreated the
convieror to show moderation, it was the acme of
barbarity to adopt such a system of persecution and
extermination. This passage aptly represents the
state of things, " Your line of march can be traced
by the lurid light of burning houses, and in more
t han one household there is an agony more bitter
than that of death." It is a lasting disgrace to
any General that such should be said of
him, and any man who is alive to the sentiments of
honour will admit that these well-merited re-
proaches are far more damnatory to his reputation
than any defeats he may sustain, or losses he can
encounter through negligence or miscalculation.
General HAMPTON alludes to the treatment
of the female captives, and truly states
that the conduct of the Federal soldiers
is worse than that of the Indians. It is, indeed, a
sad theme to reflect upon this policy of the Federals,
and the more we reflect upon it the worse it is. How
can the Manchester school at all reconcile the policy
of their friends with the customs of civilised nations
and the usages of Christian people. Prejudice and
partiality can make people go a long way in
the pursuit of their purposes, but it must be '
infatuation indeed that can sanction the perpetra-
tion of real atrocity, or tolerate the vindictiveness
of vengeance carried to such an excess and pushed
to such an extremity as we witness it in the Federal
armies.

It is probable that one very great grievance
which has for the last few years pressed heavily
upon the industrial classes will soon be greatly
lightened. Not the least of the attendant evils of
the cotton famine has been the high price of one of
the most useful and übiquitous of domestic com-
modities ; a price, in fact, which has for a large
number of persons amounted to a prohibition.
Calico is so extensively employed for household
purposes that the families of the working classes
have felt its deprivation greatly, and even persons
of a higher station have suffered inconvenience.
Besides the high price, the quality of the costly
goods of the last few years has been con-
siderably inferior to that of the cheap calico
of old, so that after paying double or
treble the money of former days, the purchaser has
the satisfaction of finding that the " dress " or
stiffening with which it is whitened conceals very
poor stuff. It is therefore good news for all house-
holders and mothers of families, besides the larger
grounds of congratulation to the manufacturer and
the mill hand, that better days have dawned for
the cotton trade, and there is now on hand a larger
supply of cotton than there has been at Liverpool
since 1861. The stock on hand' in the week end-
ing last Saturday, the 25th, was 630,000 bales,
while the corresponding week of last year only
showed an amount of 307,410 bales. The first
quarter of this year has exhibited an increase of
more than two hundred thousand bales, an en-
couraging sign of the times; so that we
may hope that the darkness of the cloud
has finally passed away, and that we may now look
out for the dawn growing to the daylight. It will
be necessary, however, to bear in mind the lessons
of the past, and carefully to avoid the errors which
have occasioned so much anxiety and distress. We
must never again depend upon a restricted source
of supply, and we should hope that our merchants
and manufacturers will profit by the bitter expe-
rience of the last few years, and encourage the
cultivation in every favourable place. But there
will be the inevitable reaction attending reduced
prices to guard against. In India, especially where
the exorbitantly high prices have encouraged specu-
lation, the cultivators must prepare themselves for
the loss of a portion of their extravagant
profits. Even supposing the profits to be
reduced two-thirds, they would still, now
that the preliminary expenses are over, have ample
return for their labour, and it will be necessary to
convince them of this if we would avoid a collapse
of the Indian supply. We are glad to find that at
the recent meeting of the Cotton Supply Associa-
tion it was resolved that a deputation should wait
upon the Indian Council, so as to represent
the importance of adopting speedy measures to ren-
der India a more satisfactory and permanent source
of supply. The members of the association do
wisely to keep their attention fixed upon that coun-
try as one of our principal resources for the future.
It has been amply proved that the cotton
cultivation can be carried on to a vast ex-
tent and with great success ; indeed, so
various is the climate and the soil, that it
scarcely needed experience to decide upon
their capacities. As a source of profit and plenty
to both England and India, the cotton cultivation
can hardly be over estimated in importance, and it
will have the immense advantage of supplying
one of our principal manufactures with the produc-
tions of our own dependency.

All war is suggestive more or less, but the annals
of the American contest contain much that is alike
deplorable in itself and disgraceful to human nature.
This is the worst feature in the affair ; losses of life
and property may be sustained, and the consequences
averted, but so long as history records the actions
that have distinguished the Federal Generals, so
long will a lasting stain be affixed to their memo-
ries and to the country to which they belong. All
that barbarity can suggest, all that hardness and
harshness can devise, seem to actuate the course
pursued by these unworthy soldiers throughout the
whole of the war. The correspondence between
Generals SHERMAN and WADE HAMPTON is very
characteristic of the manner in which the war has
been waged by the agents and emissaries of the
North from the outset. It is quite revolting to
dwell upon the theme, but it is necessary to do so,
in order rightly to understand the case. A more
unseemly tirade than the communication of General
SHERMAN cannot be imagined, and if it were possible
to form a worse opinion of him than we have already,
this document would make us do so. He is, or else
pretends to be, excessively indignant respecting the
hostility displayed to " foragers," as if it was not
enough to arouse the ire of any one to behold the
havoc committed, and the devastation that is spread
around upon our smiling plains and fertile spots.
Retaliation, however, seems to console General
SHERMAN, and to make great amends to him for any
losses that may occur in the ranks of his foragers.
He threatens that he will revenge himself, and
boasts that as he holds about one thousand pri-
soners he can stand it as long as his opponent. He
then boasts of the right he possesses to exercise
forage, which he says is a " war-right as old as his-
tory," but even he is compelled to admit that there
are different ways of using the privilege. Certainly
he and his friends chose the most vindictive and un-
scrupulous way of doing so. General SHERMAN
goes so far as to admit that he has no doubt the
habit of collecting directly from the people is the
occasion of much misbehaviour on the part of his
men, but yet he says he cannot permit an enemy to
" judge and punish with wholesale murder." Who
so fit to judge as those who suffer from the conse-
quences of the depredations. The general defies
criticism, and, though he says he regrets the " bit-
terness" of the war, the eagerness with which he
defends it makes us doubt his veracity. He tries
the to quoque style of argument, which is the worst
form that can be employed. He says it might have
been expected, and that those who struck the first
blow ought not to complain for such " natural
consequences." It would be difficult to say what
could surprise us in the conduct of the Federals
after what they have done. One of the worst
episodes in their actions has been the treatment of
Capt. BEALL. The sad fate of this gallant officer
will long be remembered as ',.an instance of what
cruel men can do without provocation. Such
policy is alike unworthy of Christianity and
and furnish— es a solemn warning of
civilisation,
of the sin and danger of boasting. The Americans
have been for a long time vaunting their great
superiority, and now they are giving miserable
proofs of the falsity of their assertions. The reply
of Gen. HAMPTON is a very admirable one; he fully
enters upon the subject, and answers the charges of
his adversary with spirit and candour.
It is some sort of satisfaction to find anything
like a proper retort given to the self-sufficiency of
the Northerners, even if it can be productive of no
actual benefit. In Gen. HAMPTON'S remarks we
may trace much that is true and telling relative to
the course pursued by the Federals ; and we gather
from his expressions what are the sentiments enter-
tained by the Confederates relative to the conduct
of their fierce and relentless persecutors. The
General truly states that " murder" is the right term
to apply to the order which has caused the death of
so many prisoners. He further says that he has
ordered his men to shoot all those whom they catch
burning houses. This inhuman mode of prosecuting
the war cannot be too strongly reprehended, and
any severity of proceeding adopted in consequence
cannot be designated harsh or extreme. General
HAMPTON is very effective in his remarks concern-
ing the
course pursued by the ruthless invaders.
He asks, with proper retort, whether General
SHERM.CI includes in his " rights of war" the pri-
vilege to fire upon a defenceless city without warn-
ing, and to burn the houses of the cituens after

OPENING A GRAVE.—In terms of the remit to the
Sheriff of Banff to have the grave of the late Hans
George Leslie of Dunlugas opened to search for a parcel
stated to have been placed in the coffin at the time of the
burial, Sheriff Gordon had the grave opened on Friday last.
The Dunlugas burial ground is in the church of Alvah,
within three miles of Banff. The family ground is enclosed
by a wall, the masonry being carried several feet down-
wards into the soil of the graveyard. The Sheriff arrived
at the churchyard about 9 o'clock in the morning. Besides
the Sheriff, there were also present at the opening Drs.
Manson and Barclay, Banff ; Mr. G. Cumming, writer, Banff
Mr. Allan, solicitor, Banff ; and Mr. Crawford, S.S.C.;
Edinburgh. The parish minister and sexton, at the request
of the Sheriff and parties, were present to point out the
grave ; and we are glad to say that besides those officially
connected with the proceedings there were no other persons
present. Under the direction of the Sheriff, and after the
usual forms, the workmen commenced to open the grave.
The work was one of considerable labour, the coffin being
81 feet below the surface. When found the coffin was en-

tire ; it was raised to the surface by means of tackle erected
by Mr. Lawrence, mason, Banff, and, being placed upon an
adjoining gravestone, was opened. The remains were found
partially imbedded in a moist dark substance, and part of
the grave-clothes were to be seen. At first, and for some
time, it seemed as if there were nothing like a packet in
the coffin. On closer examination, however, and on touch-
ing the chest there appeared to detach itself from the left
side what had formerly seemed to form part of the body, but
what was not unlikely to be the parcel said to have been
deposited at the time of the funeral. It appeared to be
about 10 inches long by four inches broad, and about half
an inch thick. That it was parchment or paper, or indeed
what particular substance it might be, was not, at least at
first sight, very evident, the substance having an almost
Pulpy consistency. There could be little doubt, however,
that it was a packet of some kind or other, and on being
cw ea
sar
Allan.ye dl a
co
Tef
dht
ne e ea n
coffint vi
rie
Icovapa
ssi enveloping
lvomhs
ieacdtht, e
re
andc
beene wd a
ins hp etr
hdo
Neit
dhgeirdsa
grave, and
packet
covered, and the Sheriff then left for Banff, taking with
him the box and its contents. The operations occupied
from 9 o'clock in the morning till nearly 6 in the evening
Of course, we are not in a position to say that the parcel
found contains the deeds said to be missing, nor probably
will the full information be known until the Sheriff makes
his official report. The instructions from the Court of
Session, we may here recall, were to search for the parcel,
"and, if found, to examine the contents thereof, so as to
ascertain whether it does or does not contain the said writs,
or either of thorn, and to report the result of said search,
and if said writs or either of them are found, to transmit
the same, along with his report, to the clerk of this process,
Mr. Currie." From the term of the remit, it is evident that
the Sheriff would not have taken possession of the packet
unless he considered there was prima facie ground for be-
lieving that it contained the missing papers.—Banffshre
Journal.

A VERBAL DIFFICULTY.—IrritabIe Captain :
Your barrel's disgracefully dirty, sir, and it's not the first
time; I've a good mind to --. Private Flannigan:
,Shure, sor, I niver Captain (Irish too): Silence,
Air, when you spake to an officer !—Binh.

rnE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, MARCH 30, 186 k

EXHIBITION OF PAINTINGS.

By Ford Madox Brown,

At 191, Piccadilly—opposite Sackville-street.
Another and a very welcome proof, this really
remarkable Exhibition affords of the fact that Mr.
Holman Hunt's example is in a manner contagious
—his good example, we mean, in displaying his
pictures, apart from those of a crowd of other artists,
in a gallery of his own. Mr. Madox Brown has
gone, however, we rejoice to add, yet one step
further. Instead of opening to public view, on his
own account, a single isolated picture, such, let us
say, as " The Presentation in the Temple "—nay, in
preference to displaying merely a couple of paintings
such as the " Afterglow" and " London-bridge on the
Night of the Princess's Marriage," in companion-
ship with a work of art from another hand, such
as " The Last Day in the Old Home," by a
brother artist like Mr. Martineau—the gifted painter
to whose genius and industry are attributable the
one hundred works of art now on view at 191,
Piccadilly, has gathered together the labours of a
life-time, in illustration of the bent of his genius,
and of the scope of his industry. More than
that, even, he has—simultaneously with the
flinging open of the doors of this gallery—
issued from the press a very interesting and tho-
roughly manly pamphlet or catalogue raisonee, in
which he volunteers the expounding and never
once the trumpeting of his aim or object, now in
one, now in another, of these widely-contrasted
productions from his easle. Foremost in import-
ance among these 100, or, to be precise, these 99,
pictures by Ford Madox Brown—last in the cata-
logue, farthest in the gallery—is one of them, tersely
and most significantly as well as symbolically
entitled " Work," in many ways a very extraordinary
picture and one that we earnestly trust may yet one
of these days be worthily engraved. So much is
there in it of its own title, that the reproduction of
it in the form of an engraving, in a suitable style of
art, would necessarily be a very costly undertaking.
Cela va sans dire. Yet—the picture is really
worthy of it, at once as a first-class work of art,
and as an arch-portraiture. as we may say, in a
typical manner of—

" The very ago and bcdy of the time,
Its form and pressure."
" WORK," Mr. Madox Brown's undoubted master-
piece, was begun, as he himself relates, as many as
thirteen years ago, that is in 1852, in the well-known
suburb of London, of the High-street of which the
picture is the vivid representation, namely, the
High-street of Hampstead. It, was painted (as every
one may recognise) on the spot—the background
of the picture pourtraying the upper part of
the main street where it trails off towards the
Heath. Excavations, connected with the drainage
we may presume, are going on in the middle of the
roadway. A cluster of navvies make up the cen-
tral group—one of these navvies, a young fellow in
glowing health, glorious in brawn and muscle, in
stature and proportions, being the hero of the
scene, so to speak—certainly the very arch-type
of Work as it is familiar to men's eyes in the middle
of this nineteenth century. " Work !" as the
artist himself takes occasion to apostrophise that
Boon, not Bane, in a thoughtful sonnet prefixed to
his explanation of the painting thus entitled—

CAPE OF GOOD HOPE.

Work ! which beads tho brow and tans the flesh

Of lusty manhood, casting out its devils !
By whose weird art, transmuting poor men's evils,
Their bed seems down, their one dish ever fresh.

Ah me ! For lack of it what ills in leash,
Hold us. It's want the pale mechanic levels
Tu workhouse depths, while master Spenthrift revels.
For want of work, the fiends him soon immesh !

Ah ! beauteous tripping dame with bell-like skirts,
Intent on thy small scarlet-coated hound.
Are ragged wayside babes not lovesome too ?
Untrained, their state reflects on thy deserts,
Or they grow noisome beggars to abound,
Or dreaded midnight robbers, breaking through.
Around the British Excavators, in the middle of the
picture, there are varied groups enough,selected from
all ranks and classes of the population. Yonder
the picturesque tattermadalion with his basket of
groundsel and wild flowers! Here, leaning against
a tree, leisurely smoking his pipe, on the look-out,
with half an eye, for employment, is the tramping
Patlander with his larry. There the London street-
boy, the genuine gamin de L ondres, kept in order
(hardly !) by a motherly little sister, barely in her
teens, upon whom, nevertheless, in spite of her
youth, has devolved (by reason of poor mother's
death) the care of theyounger children--one of these
latter enjoying a suck at a bit of carrot in the absence
of the more luscious luxury of a sugarplum. A wealthy
gentleman—Mr. Brown suggests, probably an M.P.
and a Colonel—rides within view, accompanied by
his fair young daughter (both of them well mounted)
in the background. The policeman is there ; the
orange girl is there ; a couple of-middle-class ladies
(one of them a tract-distributor) are there—there,
too, in a wonderful portraiture—pencilled to the
very life—you can hear him bawling, " Beer,
ho !" with his hand clapped to the side of
his mouth, while you stand looking at the
picture—there, too, in a really wonderful por-
traiture, is the London Potboy ! Well to do,
comfortably dressed, sleek about his well-cropped
head, a bit of a buck in his slangy way, strong,
stunted, clean, though with the rainbow-tint-
ing of a late black eye, received, no doubt,
while preserving order in his master's tap-
room or bar drinking-place ! Finally—though
unnamed by the artist in his catalogue—
yet recognisable nevertheless upon the instant as
arch representatives of the intellectual workers of
the present age here in England—there are two
admirably lifelike portraits of the Reverend Mr.
Maurice and of Thomas Carlyle the celebrated
author—the man of letters and the working clergy-
man of the Church of England. Altogether, we
repeat, this is a remarkable picture, in the mere
purpose of it, as an exemplar of Work as it is
nowadays. In the manipulation of his wonderful
art----in the working out, as we may say,of work—
the artist, moreover, has afforded signal evidence,
indeed, of his extraordinary powers of observation
and of reproduction afterwards in form and
colouring of the varied phenomena around him,
for which he has shown so keen an eye. The
mere dashing up of the shovel-full of lime
against the screen, or sifter, is shown there
precisely as he saw it—not something like it,
so to speak, but the very thing itself. And so with
the meadow-plants in the creel of tho groundsel-
gatherer—the very material and texture of the pot-
boy's waistcoat—the sun-flecks showered from
among the green leaves upon the black coat of the
clergyman—and all the rest of it ! Here, in faot,
is Work—not in a typical sense merely, but in an
artistic sense also—the work of a true artist, of a
genuine lover of nature, of truth, of reality—
the work, too, of a very keen and yet of a
very gentle and sympathetic observer of his
fellowmen ! Elsewhere than in this one remarkable
picture—scattered hither and thither in various
parts of the gallery—are evidences of the like dis-
tinctive qualities of the artist upon whose works
we are here commenting rare gifts many
of them— yet hardly one among them a gift
but what he has also sedulously and most
laboriously cultivated, with a view to its wiser
and subtler application. How he has cultivated
those naturally fine gifts of his, the visitor may
see very readily in this Collective Exhibition of
the artist's works. He may recognise the course
of the development of the artistic career of the
painter. In Scripture scenes—in portraits large
and small—in historical groups—in landscapes—
some of these latter, one or two of them in particular,
being eminently beautiful. Instance this (No. 13),
a noble limning of " An English Autumn After-
noon." Instance, again, as affording accumulated
evidence of two or three of his qualifications, as an
artist true to the world as he sees it around him (No.
11) ,‘ 'The Pretty Baa-lambs." Speaking of which—he
says himself—very characteristically—that upon its
first exhibition " I was told that it was impossible to
make out what meaning I had in the picture."
Adding thereupon—" At the present moment, few
people I trust will seek for any meaning be-
yond the obvious one, that is—a lady, a
baby, two lambs, a servant maid, and
some grass !" Upon many others of the all-but
one hundred Pictures exhibited in this gallery we
would fain have commented here at no incomi,

derable length, as, for example, let us say, upon
(No. 14) " The Last of England," or upon
(No. 33) " Elijah and the Widow's Son," or
upon (No. 35) " Toothless." But—as it is
—our present purpose has been already ful-
filled, if we have evidenced, as we have here
striven to do, our recognition in Mr. Ford Madox
Brown of an artist true to his craft andto his country
—a painter racy of the soil, thoroughly original,
conscientious in his love of truthfulness and of reality
—one of those laborious, and gifted, and earnest cul-
tivators of art whom England ought to delight to
honour, the worth and value of whose career as an
artist Englishmen ought at the least to recognize.
Having said which, it is but justice to Mr. F. M.
Brown here to add, no less and emphatically, that
he is only known to us as an artist—that, in other
words, we know nothing whatever of him beyond
what any chance visitor to his gallery may there
learn about him from an examination of his works,
as they are now displayed to view at 191, Picca-
dilly.

FALMOUTH, March 29.

The Diamond Company's steamer Eastern Pro-
vince has arrived here. She left Natal, 7th Feb. ;
Algoa Bay, 19th ; Table Bay, 23d ; St. Helena, 4th
March ; and Madeira, 21st.

The Eastern Province brings 42 passengers, among
whom are Dr. Cotterill, Bishop of Grahamstown,
and family ; Colonel Bissett and family ; 15 bags
of mails, and a full cargo of wool, hides, sugar, horns,
ivory, ostrich feathers, skins, &c., together with one
case of silver plate and seven boxes of specie, value
£8,700.

The mail steamer Anglian left Table Bay on Feb.
17 with a mail for England, via overland route, and
37 passengers. The mail steamer Cambrian arrived
out Feb. 15.

In the colony it was still rumoured that the long
contemplated annexation of the little territoryknown
as British Kaffraria was not to take place at present;
and, secondly, it was declared that the Home Go-
vernment seriously contemplated the conversion of
Kaffraria proper, the western boundary of Natal,
into a convict station. Such proceeding on the part
of the home authorities would, it was said, excite
the greatest disapprobation among the Cape.
people.
The military scandal at King William's Town
had been further ventilated. The Supreme Court
had decided that the words alleged to have been
used by Lieutenant-Colonel White to Major Hare,
at the garrison ball in King William's Town in
May last, were not libellous as applied to Major
Hare.

The fall in the price of wool in the London
markets, advised by the last mail, was producing
disastrous results in the colony. One of the largest
shippers of wool in 1864 had stopped payment in
Port Elizabeth, with liabilities to the extent of
£lOO,OOO. Nearly 70,000 bales of wool were
shipped from the eastern province during 1864, the
loss on which is estimated at £200,000.
From Natal the accounts were encouraging. The
• cotton plant had suffered, but was recovering.
The difficulty in getting bills had caused large
consignments of gold.