The Sun.
London, England, 1862-05-19 00:00:00

RAILWAY BILLS.

On Friday, in Lord Stanley's committee, the bill
of the Drayton Junction Railway was withdrawn.
The bill to enable the London Railway Depot and
Storehouses Company to abandon the making of the
proposed new street and railway under it in con-
nection with the Metropolitan Railway and the
new City meat-market, on the ground that those
objects will be adequately accomplished by the
Corporation of London and by the Metropolitan
Company's proposed improved railway communica-
tion with the intended market, and the extension
of their line to Finsbury-circus, has also passed
through committee ; together with the bills of the
South Leicestershire for deviations, and the Lon-
don, Chatham, and Dover, for an extension of eight
miles between Walmer and Deal, and to raise a
further sum of £200,000; and the Hatfield and St.
Alban's.

The bills passed in committees of the Lords in-
clude the Frosterley and Stanhope, for deviations
and to raise £6,660 ; the Edgeware, Highgate, and
London, for a line of eight miles from the Great
Northern, at the Seven Sisters'-road, via Highgate,
Finchley, and Hendon, to Edgeware, and to raise
£293,000, the Great Northern subscribing £73,000 ;
the Aberystwith and Welsh Coast and Dovey Re-
clamation Company, for an embankment in con-
nection with the railway along the estuary of the
Dovey, and to raise £133,000; and the Waterford
and Passage Railway.
THAMES EMBANKMENT.—At the sitting of this
committee on Friday, the Hon. Mr. Cowper in the
chair, the chief witness examined was Mr. Pownall,
land valuer, who stated that a large proportion of
land to be reclaimed from the river by the construc-
tion of the embankment and the removal of the mud
banks will be appropriated to public promenades
and building purposes. Beginning at Whitehall-
stairs, where the land is of great value, it was pro-
posed to be lot off in building-leases ; but from
Hungerford-market up to Cecil-street, Strand, it
would be laid out for public purposes, as well as
along the route to Waterloo-bridge. That in front
of Somerset-house would be acquired by the Crown,
who would likewise take a portion of the ground
between Whitehall and Westminster-bridge. The
wharfs between Waterloo•bridge and the Temple-
gardens and Blackfriars would be taken, and the
owners compensated. The land to be reclaimed in
front of the Temple-gardens would be given to the
Temple, on condition that it should be devoted to
promenade purposes. The site to be reclaimed on
the properties of the Duke of Northumberland and
the Duke of Norfolk would probably be built on
and partly surrendered for the benefit of the public.
In front of the City Gas Works and below the
Temple towards Blackfriars-bridge docks would be
constructed in conneetion with the embankment,
and below Blackfriars-bridge it was proposed to
carry a viaduct 70ft. wide, with dock accommoda-
tion for the numerous wharfs. The property along
the river side, in witness's opinion, would be greatly
enhanced in value by the embankment.

THE FRENCH PRESS AND ME
EXHIBITION.

The following extracts from the Teneps will be
found to have all the charm of novelty. The ar-
ticle from which they are taken is from the pen of
M. Sherer, one of the leading contributors to that
paper; and it records the impression made on him
by the Great Exhibition. M. Sherer admits all
that can be said about the vastness and irregularity
of London, its sombre aspect, the want of quays,
the ugliness of its public buildings and meanness
of its monuments, and generally its deficiency in all
those things with which Paris abounds ; but he
adds :

"This impression will wear off a little, and the
stranger will not fail to be struck by the moral
grandeur of the prodigious population of London.
I do not allude merely to the numerical amount of

the people, but to their activity, to the industry
and labour which produces this vast wealth, and to
the wealth which labour disseminates everywhere.
The Thames may not have magnificent quays, but
it is lined with warehouses in which are stored the
products of a hundred nations; and it is covered
with ships whose masts mingle in the horizon with
countless chimneys and steeples. After some time
this city, if it do not give us the idea of beauty, will
inspire interest. In the absence of regularity it
has a marked physiognomy,, and we should not be
astonished if the stranger found in it a charm which
he will look for in vain in more majestic and con-
summate symmetry."
M. Sherer warns the visitor to the Exhibition
that he will be disappointed if he expects to find
military displays which form the grand feature of
continental cities :

" The Frenchman who goes to London will cer-
tainly see fewer uniforms than in Paris ; and the
soldiers he may chance to meet, pacifically armed
with a small cane, will seem to him contemptible
by the side of our fine troops, our Chasseurs with
with elastic step, and our Zouaves at once terrible
and picturesque. Here again, however, reflection,
without diminishing admiration for our incompata-
hla army mill onno -modify hi%
Lord Palmerston estimated the other day the troops
for the defence of the United Kingdom at one-sixth,
at most, of those that in France maintain order and
protect our territory. What does this mean ? And
which of the two countries is the more highly
favoured—that which, from its geographical posi-
tion, is obliged to keep up a great permanent army,
or that which, protected by the ocean, can leave to
agriculture and trade hundreds of thousands of
hands which we take from them ? Our military
force, perhaps, cannot be seriously diminished; but
the necessity we are under of yearly drawing away
from our fields and our manufactures 80,000 men
in the flower of their age, may be a necessity we
must regret though we reconcile ourselves to it,
but it is not a cause of superiority and of pride."

On the Volunteers M. Sherer remarks:—

" We shall be surprised if the institution of
Volunteers, after having, perhaps, suggested to
the foreign spectator some of those jokes which
our neightours themselves do not spare their
citizen soldiers—if, we repeat, this army, springing
up, as if by enchattment, from thd ranks of an in-
dustrious people, did not fill the hearts of our coun-
trymen with a fe(ling of respect and admiration.
The motto adopted by the Volunteers, Defence,
and not defiance,' indeed a noble device worthy
of a high civilization. After the spectacle Ns hich
France presented iY the great revolution, rising en
masse, and rushing to defend her menaced fron-
tiers ; after the menory of those 300,000 men, who,
with naked feet aid without bread to eat, deaf to
base alarm, hurledback all Europe coalesced against
us, we know no mere glorious example than that of
the British Volunt)ers. They are not a mere Na-
tional Guard such Is we have had, to do the duty
of mounting guaid. The volunteers constitute a
real army. They Lama to military training. They
learn to muceurcand to be skilful labarpshootere.

us reflect a little on the tiresomeness and fa-
tigues of such-a service, on the time they take up,
'on the derangement they cause in business, on the
perseverance they require, and we must admit that
the example England gives to the world supposes
the existence of the greatest civic virtues."
The English possess more than even the French
the material of a great army, from their early habits
and their manly exercises

"Every Englishman who respects himself begins
his day by plunging into the Eurotus—we mean
the cold bath, which fortifies the soul as well as the
constitution. He would feel that he was wanting
to himself if he did not give two or three hours to
a walk or a ride across country. If his means
and his occupation permit him ever so little, he will
mount on horseback, hunt, or handle the oar. He
has learnt from an early age how to fight, not as
we do, with shut eyes, and flinging by chance his
arms round his body, but in a rational manner,
using his fists at once to parry and to attack. He
is aware that in a contest with a cabman or a shoe-
black he will have the upper hand because he has
more skill ; and he thus exhibits the pacific assur-
ance of a man who trusts only to himself. We have
often thought that the noblest present our own
France could receive, the most efficacious means to
regenerate and strengthen our youth, would be the
introduction among us of some national sports like
that of the English cricket. It is an exercise that
excites emulation, requires force and address, calls
into play every physical aptitude, invites to whole-
some fatigue and to the open air, and prepares
vigorous bodies for vigorous souls. Without frank-
ness,' said Walter Scott, 'there is no virtue; and
without courage there is no frankness.' He might
have added, ' and without force there is no courage.'
We affirm it in the most positive manner, the
Englishman is a magnificent specimen of human
kind, and it is cricket which has made the English-
man what he is."

M. Sherer admits that to a Frenchman the in-
equality of ranks is distasteful :

"To be just, however, that feeling should bo
tempered by these two reflections. The first is,
inequality of rank does not in England imply
inequality before the law. The highest peer in the
realm may be brought before a police court just
as a hackney coachman. Secondly, inequality of
rank not only is compatible with liberty in Eng-
land, but the English aristocracy from the most
remote times, as in the present day, have ever been
the support and defence of the liberties of the na-
tion. Now, if liberty and inequality be not incom•
patible, it is certain that of these two conquests
of modern society the first is the greater, the more
urgent, and the more indispensable. The people
who from their passion for equality would sacrifice
it to liberty, would moat assuredly give up the
reality for the shadow."
M. Sherer concludes thus :

"England is the classic land of liberty ; and for
this reason it is a holy land—a land which more
than one exile has turned to with gratitude. We
do not now speak of political institutions, but of
civil liberty, of the respect for the rights of all—
of independence of exertion, of the space left open
for individual action, of the mildness of the laws, of
the fewness of regulations. Elsewhere, regulations
are the rule; elsewhere, liberty exists only where
it is expressly stipulated; but in England it is
liberty which is everywhere, and always supposed.
Elsewhere civil life is encircled by a network, in-
visible but inextricable, of restrictions ; but in
England every man speaks, teaches, prints, meets,
associates, builds, travels, exercises his calling in
industry and commerce, fills the professionii, carries
out all his designs, without hindrance from any-
thing whatever but the equal right of his neighbour.
For the truth of what we say, we fearlessly appeal to
all who have crossed the Channel. They may
find England monotonous, its climate sombre, its
towns ugly, its inhabitants stiff, its institutions
Gothic ; they may grumble and find fault as much
as they please, but there is one thing they cannot
deny, and that is that it is in England the man who
loves liberty can breathe most freely. France and
England are two great schools open for the instruc-
tion of the world. In the one, more importance is
given to the perfection of the product ; in the other
more importance is given to the happiness of the
producer. In France a more scientifically combined
action attains with precision results more co-ordi-
nate. In England, power is less concentrated, but
it is more energetic, and more full of life. What is
great with us is the thing ; what is great with our
neighbours is the man. In France, the State is
everything, and the citizen little. In England, it is
quite the contrary."