The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-17 00:00:00

rHE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 17, lEnt._

time, when nothing else of a serious nature has oc-
curred except Sir ROBERT PEEL'S portmanteau.
Mr. BROMLEY made a great impression by detail-
ing how completely Mr. BRIGHT had been answered
in one of his extravagant assertions the other day
at Birmingham, when he informed his hearers that
"as commerce waxed monarchy waned," and one
of his audience, who was well versed in history,
showed his mistake. The hon. member is sanguine
enough to think that in time we shall discover a
cure for both the cholera and the cattle plague, and
cited the case of the small-pox, which was once so
destructive. Whole cities were depopulated by this
fell disease at one time, and no remedy was known ;
but at last it was discovered ; and so Mr. BROMLEY
went on to say that we had every reason to suppose
it might be with the calamities now befalling us in
the shape of the cholera and cattle plague. " Pro-
vidence never sent -an affliction upon this earth for
which he had not provided a remedy ready to the
band of man. Take, for example, the case of the
bite of a snake in the forests of America : there
close by the haunts of that venomous reptile, the
rattlesnake, grows a simple weed which is a certain
cure, an instance of the Divine wisdom and good-
ness, of which man takes advantage according
to the light which is in him." Such is, at
all events, a better mode of discussing the subject
than those views which are too often adopted by
speakers on the question. Because we are not at
present in possession of cures and remedies for
diseases, it by no means follows that we never shall
be, and it is presumptuous for scientific and pro-
fessional men to declare that no one else can dis-
cover a thing because they cannot. Mr. BROMLEY
dwelt upon the importance of obedience to the pre-
cautionary rules laid down, and gave an instance
of the evils arising from their neglect. The other
day twenty cows were removed from a certain pas-
ture, and, in defiance of the law, were placed on
another lay of ground, and in consequence the whole of
them are since dead, and before succumbing to the
disease they imparted it to a great many others.
As the hon. member truly observed, no penalty can
be too heavy to inflict upon those who thus disre-
gard the rules drawn up for the public good. It
is indeed lamentable to hear of such wanton viola-
tion of needful sanitary measures. It is to be hoped,
however, that the publicity given to many serious
consequences arising from disobedience and neglect
will, in time, exercise a beneficial influence, and
impress those who stand so much in need of teach-
ing. There is no obstacle more difficult to sur-
mount, and no evil more overwhelming in its effects,
than the prejudices which obtrude themselves in the
way of all social reformers and rectifiers of abuses.
This affair of the cattle plague is, however, one of
so much magnitude that all minor differences should
be sunk, and selfishness not be permitted to intrude
into the matter.

The negotiations with Bhootan have turned out
a failure, which is not so much to be regretted, as
very little dependence could be placed on the pro-
fessions of the Bhootanese. Had any arrangements
been made it is probable that the terms would only
have been observed during the cold weather, and
that as soon as the unwholesome heat again favoured
the Bhootanese they would have assumed their old
airs of arrogance and supremacy. It seems, from
the particulars now furnished, that the Deb Rajah
is obstinately resolved to yield nothing. He de-
clares that he will not surrender the Dooars,
though he admits that he will not fight for
them. The sum of 25,000 r. would not, he
says, cover his expenses. The treaty, he affirms,
was voluntarily signed by Mr. EDEN, who was well
treated during his stay in the country, but he will
surrender the treaty if the English first give up the
Dooars. As these terms cannot be listened to there
is nothing left but a vigorous prosecution of hostili-
ties, as soon as the weather permits ; and we hope
that the work will be done effectually this time, and
the valuable lives of our troops will not be frittered
away in useless waiting. Famine has prevailed at
Aden to a most distressing extent, and the arrival
of the grain laden vessels was anxiously
watched for. There is little further news of a
prominent character from India except that
the official inquiry into the loss of the ship Eagle
Speed, in which so many unfortunate coolies
perished, has resulted in the dismissal of Mr.
VARDY, the pilot in charge, from the ser'ice. It
was certainly a case which:called for inquiry, and
for some open token of displeasure on the part of
the authorities, since the circumstances were most
painful, and the loss of life might to a great extent
have been avoided. Another of the leaders of the
mutiny of '57 has been tried in Oude and sentenced
to transportation for life. Happily the intervening
years have witnessed a greater change in India
than could have been anticipated by the rebels.

A very able letter on Canadian affairs, written
by one who is evidently conversant with State
secrets, has just appeared in the columns of a con-
temporary, and deserves the attention of every one
who has given any thought to colonial matters.
Among the charges too recklessly brought against
the Canadian Legislature and people of late has
been one of unnecessary delay and unwillingness
in dealing with the great question of the Confedera-
tion. The writer of this letter points out that the
confederation scheme was fully debated at the spring
session of the Canadian Parliament, when, after long
and careful discussion, an immense majority de-
cided in its favour, and voted an address to the
QUEEN, praying for an Act of the Imperial Parlia-
ment uniting all the North American colonies. This
was all that the Canadian Legislature could do, and
the scheme could proceed no further without the con-
sent of the maritime provinces, and the subsequent
proceedings of the Imperial Parliament. As we all
know, New Brunswick and its Fenian element
objected to a practice which would so greatly
strengthen the hands of the Imperial Government,
and the blame of the delay cannot certainly be laid
at the door of the Canadians. Having already de-
cided in favour of the confederation scheme in the
spring, it would certainly have been both foolish
and unnecessary to re-open the discussion during
the autumn sitting. We may hope that the New
Brunswickers, having already discovered their mis-
take, will at the next election send to their councils
representatives who will better consult the national
interests, and that, consequently, before long the
great idea of the Confederated Provinces may be
safely carried out in fact. But meanwhile it is most
unfair to blame Canada for a delay in which she
has had no part.

As for the talk about English money being
necessary, 'the Canadian advocate shows that
the only demand made upon England for
pecuniary help is for a guarantee for the loan
necessary for the completion of the Inter-Colonial
Railway, Canada, has already asked for an Imperial
guarantee, and obtained it, to the amount of a mil-
lion and a half sterling. This was for making canals,
and a sinking fund was established,by which means
the whole principal and interest has been repaid to
within £140,000, which final instalment falls due
next year, and for which ample security is held
by the Bank of England. Canada, therefore,
comes forward with a good character to sub-
stantiate her claim, and certainly England may
well assist her own children to the same

extent to which she helps strangers ; yet Sardinia
and Turkey, as well as India• and New Zealand
have already obtained the same favour without any
disparagement of their independence or their energy,
and Canada, as a young and but partially cultivated
country, is not to be censured for asking so small a
favour. As for the questions of internal improve-
ment, it is fair to suppose that the Canadians
know the ins and outs better than we do in this
country, and, although they may not show all the
enterprise or ambition to make the most of
their advantages which we may expect, we
must allow them time to become convinced
of the practical benefits to be derived from
the enlargement of the canals and other matters
of the kind. It is but fair to remember, that in a
country like Canada, all such operations are attended
with vast expense as well as great effort and incon-
venience on the part of the population, so that we
must not be surprised if improvements do not go on
at the rapid pace to which we are accustomed in the
Old World. Our Canadian fellow subjects have
many difficulties to contend against, and in weigh-
ing their conduct we should give them the
benefit of the doubt, especially since they have
shown themselves by no means deficient in the
principles of self-government and in loyalty and
attachment to the mother country.

LITERATURE.

Miss Braddon's New Work.

Sir Jasper's Tenant. By M. E. Braddon. 3 Vols.

John Maxwell and Co.

Another Novel in Three Volumes by Miss Brad-
don ! An eighth elaborate fiction in less than half
as many years ! A cabinet library of original tales
in four-and-twenty volumes dashed off currente
calamo by one hand, and that hand the fair hand of
a woman who is yet, according to " Routledge's
New Biographical Dictionary of Contemporaries,"
a year or two on the sunny side of
thirty ! Evidence, an this, as we take it,
of extraordinary industry, to begin with,—that
is to say, taking the very lowest, or, in other
words, the most matter-of-fact view of these
achievements in the way of rapid authorship !
regarding the 'production of all these eight ima-
ginative narratives, of all these four and twenty
goodly volumes of letterpress, as :a mere series
of feats of a purely mechanical or manipu-
lative character! Regarding them upon somewhat
higher ground, namely as tokens of intellectual
activity, they present to view a result, to say
the least of it, very remarkable. For, at any rate,
they are, in their very nature and treatment, thor-
oughly original. And, what is also well worthy of
note, not one of these Eight Works (in Three
Volumes each) by Miss Mary Elizabeth Braddon,
has been—either as a work of art or as a publisher's
speculation—a failure. Not one of the eight, is
there in point of fact, but has been a success. They
have every one of them passed through several
editions. They have gone the whole round of the
circulating libraries. They have been read, thumbed,
and dogs'eared, they have passed swiftly from hand
to hand, they have been bespoken ever-so-many
deep, so soon as the London book-box has brought
them newly down to the seaside-librarian's, they
have held their own as enthralling stories with the
very pick of the greatest and the most renowned
of our English novelists, whether past or present,
Sir Walter and Sir Edward, Charles Dickens and
Henry Fielding, Samuel Richardson and Makepiece
Thackeray. How long the popularity of these works
will continue is another question altogether. How
long the fame of any Novelist will survive his or
her own immediate generation, may be a matter,
rather problematical at the best. Saving and
excepting a very few, indeed, those namely of some
very rare and exceptional genius, we think hardly
any of the Novelists will be long-lived in the
popularity of their works, even, we might
go so far as to say, in the mere familiar
splendour of their reputation. Nevertheless,
the Novelists have for their consolation, and encou-
ragement to a quite contrary belief, the recollection
of this indisputable fact—that the very earliest
of their number or genus has ridden down to us
nowadays, and promise still to ride on in glory,
from a sufficiently remote antiquity, ;upon that
" Golden Ass" of his, that, for the sustaining of his
fair fame in authorship, has proved in its way a
very Pegasus Putting aside, however, altogether
any idle question as to the probable duration of
the popularity of this one or that one among the
throng of the more or less conspicuous novelists
who are among our own immediate contemporaries
—and taking into account simply the fact of their
present popularity as a matter about which there
can be no dispute whatever—it must be admitted;
we presume, as a circumstance quite incontrovertible
in its way, that among the Story-Tellers of Now-a-
days, Miss Braddon occupies a place clearly de-
fined and signally conspicuous. Critics may snarl at
her popularity, but her popularity cannot by anyone
amongst us be gainsaid. Critics do snarl at her—
instance only the other day a very one-sided and
and even spiteful diatribe upon " Miss Braddon and
all her Works," as though she had been a veritable
"diable en falballa," in the North British Review.
Yet, for all that, her books sell, they are read, they
are enjoyed—and, for the life of us, having our-
selves thoroughly enjoyed them as very pleasant
reading, we can't find that we are one bit
the worse for it—as the more captious among the
reviewers of our writer's narratives would insist
upon it that we ought to feel after reading them I
To talk of Miss Braddon as the originator of Sen-
sational Fiction, appears to us, upon the very face of
it, an absurdity. Was Godwin's Caleb W illiams,
we should like to know— not sensational ? Was
Maturin's Illetmoth anything else than sensational ?
Sir Walter Scott's Guy Mannering— was not that
sensational ? No—whatever may be said about it—
there were Kings before Agamemnon! Miss Braddon
as a sensational writer had her predecessors—and
thank Heaven for it! For a dull world, indeed, would
have been one portion of the world of letters before
her time, had fiction until the appearance of " Lady
Audley's Secret" been un-sensational ! Had
our libraries of fiction consisted of tun loads of
such dull and ponderous specimens of sensationless
imaginative literature, as, let us say, Henry Mac-
kenzie's " Man of Feeling," or as Plumer Ward's
portentously scholastic and priggishly intolerable
novels of Tremaine, and De Vere, and De Clifford !
Refreshing beyond all expression, as compared
with works of that highly proper character, are
tales that are at least readable, tales that, having
once begun, we needs must finish before putting
them down, like theso eight thoroughly
and delightfully readable tales of Miss Brad-
don's-1. Lady Audley's Secret ; 2. Aurora
Floyd ; 3. Eleanor's Victory; 4. John Marchmont's
Legacy ; 0. Henry Dunbar ; 6. The Doctor's Wife ;
7. Only a Clod ; and now, last but not least of
them all-8. Sir Jasper's Tenant. Hardly yet has
its title become familiar to us as a completed work,
when it is announced as in its Fourth Edition. As

pleasantly readable as all the rest of Miss Braddon's
books—and she has yet to write her first dull chap-
ter—Sir Jasper's Tenant is only now and then as
enthralling as the best of them. Not that it
can be said to be deficient in incident.
For, in point of fact, what have we to complain of
in that way, in regard to " Sir Jasper's Tenant,"
as the latest exemplar of the sensational school of
romance, so-called, now so very popular with the pre-
sent generation? We have a murder—in a wood—in
the twilight—the victim riding gaily to his death—the
assassin lurking in ambush ! We have an unfaith-
ful wife, as a matter of course ! And, equally as a
matter of course, the evil heroine of the tale is as
ruthless as Clytemnestra, as meretriciously handsome
as Jezebel, as cunning asßecky Sharp, as daintily ap-
parelled as, who shallwe say?-11roperatrice herself !
Again, as a sort of companion picture to the wrong-
ful impersonation of one man by another in Miss
Braddon's earlier tale of " Henry Dunbar," we
have, here, in this story of " Sir Jasper's Tenant,"
the wrongful impersonation of one woman by
another, and that too under circumstances if not
equally heinous, far more astounding in audacity.
For, the impersonation is one requiring for its

successful accomplishment, the baffling of the
sagacity of a husband in the recognition of his
own wife, or rather, it should be said, in
his recognition of her twin sister as that wife's
impersonator ! More in regard to the plot of the
story, it would be idle here to relate, certain as Miss
Braddon's new novel is, always, of ensuring readers
to itself, and not merely to the reviews of it. Rather
than attempt, therefore, any superfluous epitome of
the male of incidents making up the labyrinthine
involutions of the plot, we would insist upon it,
that abundant evidence might be culled from this
one work of Miss Braddon's of the fallacy of the
statement put forth by a North British Reviewer,
only the other day, when insisting upon it, that
the authoress of " The Doctor's Wife," the creator,
among others, of Mr. Sigismund Smith, the Penny
Novelist, had no sense whatever of the humorous !
In triumphant demonstration to the very contrary,
it would be sufficient, apart from all her previous
writings, if we were to direct attention to
two characters —to two creations —in this
her latest fiction —to Sir Jasper Denison
himself, and to Henry Augustus Dobb, the
brewer's clerk. Occasionally, in her mere casual
touches, our authoress shows a very nice sense of
the humorous, as where she sketches off—