The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-30 00:00:00

THE ARMY.

The following circular letter, signed by Earl De
Grey and Ripon, Under-Secretary of State for War,
addressed to general officers of Artillery Volunteer
Corps, has been received at Chatham garrison from
the War-office :

"I am directed by Secretary Sir G. C. Lewis to inform
you that he has approved the following regulations re-
specting the guns, gun ammunition, and artillery stores
supplied by Government for the instruction of Volun-
teers :-1. All guns, gun ammunition, and artillery stores
issued for the use of the artillery Volunteers, will, as hereto-
fore, be included in the store accounts rendered to the Field-
Marshal Commander-in- Chief and the Secretary of Stato
for 'War by the officers commanding the Royal Artillery
in the several districts of Grelt Britain; but these articles
will henceforward be committed to the charge of the
officers commanding corps of Artillery Volunteers, under
whose orders the non-commissioned officers of the Royal
Artillery attached to corps as instructors will act in the
capacity of custodians. 2. Officers commanding corps of
Artillery Volunteers are to communicate on all subjects con-
nected with the supply and disposal of guns, gun ammu-
nition, and artillery stores with the officer commanding the
Royal Artillery in the district in which their respective head-
quarters are situated, and must be prepared to afford him.
every information which he may require from time to time
to enable him to account properly fcr the stores included in
his return. 3, In the case of corps belonging to an ad-
ministrative brigade the correspondence is to pass through
the officer commanding the brigade,"

The large block of buildings being erected in
Chatham dockyard for the residence of the married
members of the metropolitan police force doing duty
at that establishment are so far advanced towards
completion that they will shortly be ready to be
handed over to the Admiralty by Messrs. Foord and
Sons, the builders. The building is three stories in
height, exclusive of the basement, and is divided
into three separate blocks. Each family is provided
with a commodious sitting-room, 16 feet by 15 feet,
and three large bedrooms, together with a waah-
house and watercloset on a level with the floors but
detached from the main building. Water is laid on
to every part of the building, which will also, be
lighted with gas. The interior of the building has
been arranged according to the plan introduced by
the late Prince Consort in the model cottages
erected according to his designs in 1851. Tho build-
ing, which is built of white Aylesford bricks, has an
imposing and very substantial appearance, the effect
of the exterior being improved by the line of the
centre block of building receding some slight dis-
tance, which gives character to the whole. The
entire structure has been erected from the designs
of Mr. W. Rivers, the principal director of works
at Chatham dockyard, under the immediate Elec.
tion of Col. G. T. Greene, the Admiralty superin-
tendent of public works. It is intended to charge
the police who occupy the building a nominal rent,
sufficient to pay a moderate percentage on the
outlay.

GUNS VERSUS IRON Snips—Mr. W. Fairbairn, in
tho course of an address delivered to the Liverpool
Social Science Asscciation on Friday evening said :—I may
venture to say a revolution is now pending over the desti-
nies of this and all other countries pending for security
on maritime constructions. It is obvious to every reflect-
ing
t conditions
experimentso fthe
future now
navy i n progress
of
Eat
n g
us i n the forms rm seesandr
from
con the d
person that the days of the wooden walls—on which
we
ffor so many years we rested for security—are numbered;
and w
Shoeburyness, that an entirely new era is bursting upon
Eng-
land. It is interesting to observe the fluctuations which
almost monthly take place between the vessels of attack
and defence. It is a contest in which 1 am personally
engaged, and, in connection with clearer heads than my
own have to draw conclusions and deductions which
may seriously affect the security and prosperity of the
kingdom. In this contest the Iron-plate Committee
are sometimes the winners and sometimes the losers;
but it must be admitted that our opponents, the Arm-
stronga and Whitworths, have recently had the advan-
tage; and the Iron-plate Committee being limited to the
weight that a ship can carry without destroying its effici-
ency, are rather at a discount in regard to the powers of
resistance. We are, however, in no way discouraged, as the
experiments disclose from time to time means by which
we may reasonably hope to best our antagonists. It may
be true that the construction of ordnance has not yet at-
tained its maximum force; neither has the construction
of ships, nor the powers by which they may be propor-
tioned to set the largest guns at defiance. That thy will
receive damage is evident, but I am persuade d that the loss
of life and the security of the ship will not be increased
(under certain conditions) to what it was in former tiii. cs
under the command of such men as Rodney, Duncan, :aid
Nelson. It is not for me, in this place, to state how this
should be done; suffice it to observe that our naval archi-
tects have to contend against shot of 3001 b. weight, that
may strike a ship with a velocity of 15,000 feet per
second ; and as this weight multiplied into the square of the
velocity gives the work done, or the damage done to the
ship, it therefore follows, according to the foimula deduced
from the experiments, that we have a force equivalent to
raising a weight of 467,192 tons one foot high in the, air.
Viewing the subject in this light, it will be seen that a
great deal has yet to be done before we can declare the iron
clad ship invulnerable, and before this new system renders
the British navy, as of yore, the terror of its enemies, and
the precursor of liberty and civilisation in every part of the
globe.

Importing tea without colour on the leaf prevents
the Chinese passing off inferior brown leaves as in the usual.
kinds. Horniman's tea is uncoloured, therefore always
good alike. Sold in packets
2,280 agents.

LONDON, TUESDAY, DEC. 30, 1862.

A French Final:l.:ler is perpetually more suo
looking forward a great deal further than into the
middle of next week. It has just proved so in the
instance of M. FOULD. His penetrating glance
reaches forward even to the close of the year after
next ! His latest Budget, though in many parti-
culars far less pretentious than its immediate pre-
decessor, takes into account successively the pro-
bable results of that predecessor ; the calculations
of the Budget next ensuing (that of 1863), the one,
that is, actually here under consideration ; and,
finally, the estimates of the ordinary and extraor-
dinary Budgets of 1864! A tolerably comprehen-
sive survey for any financier to take, under the cir-
cumstances—a survey at once retrospective, present,
and anticipatory ! Yet all compacted together, by
the skill of M. ACHILLE FOULD, within the narrow
compass of a few succinct paragraphs.

Supposing that our own great Master of the
Science cf Finance, the right hon. the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, were required to submit to
the scrutiny of the House of Commons in a
Committee of Ways and Means a cluster of budgets
thus portentous in the magnitude of their col-
lective scope—as surely as ever HEROD was out-
Heroded, GLADSTONE would inevitably be out-
Gladatoned. The annual speech of four or five
hours' duration would be lengthened into an ha-
rangue requiring the small hand upon the clock
confronting Mr. SPEAKER to make at the very least
the circuit of the dial. The elaborated oration
filling now, year after year, some fourteen or six-
teen columns of closely ccmpacted letterpress, would
expand in bilk to dimensions equivalent to a
thickish octavo volume or a moderately ponderous
quarto. A stray orange, by way of a parliamen-
tary lubricant, would be altogether insufficient for
the emergency—the refreshing Sevilles requiring
no doubt in such an emergency to be pro-
vided beforehand by the round dozen.
Here, again, as so frequently in other par-
ticulars they do incontestibly manage these things
better in France—according to the hackneyed
dictum of the Reverend Wag YORICK. So much
better do the French Financiers manage in the
way of epitomising their most iatricate statements,
that whereas Mr. GLADSTONE requires a crowd
of columns in which to explain the nature of one
Budget in reference to the national income and
expenditure in a single twelvemonth, M, FOULD
finds but very little more than one solitary column
sufficient within which to group together the
salient results, calculations, and estimates of three
or four Budgets linked harmoniously together!
After summing up the figures, distributed by him
with a skilled and masterly discrimination over the
years immediately past, present (as one may
say, seeing that the jour de l'an is now so close
upon us), and to come—le,, 1862, 1863, 1864,
—M. FOULD thus closes this his latest statement of
the actual Financial siniatiun of the Empire : ad-
dressing these eminently gratifying words, first
of all, directly to His Majesty the EMPEROR,
and then indirectly through his Imperial
MAJESTY, to the whole French multitude,
rich and poor—"W e may dismiss all idea of
the necessity of appealing to credit !" And,
as if that assurance were not sufficiently explicit
and emphatic, adding immediately thereupon—" It
is an assurance that I repeat with confidence to your
MAJESTY, and which will be welcomed with satis-
faction by the country." Doubtless. For it is an
assurance that speaks, of itself, most eloquently to
the hearts and pockets, or, as Lord BACON has it, to
"the business and bosoms," of all alike. The ex-
ttaorainary expenses that have weighed upon the
current year, the year just now upon the eve
°f expiring, exceptional expenses, such as those
ece"it
attdby the prosecution of the Mexican Ex-
pedition, luwe
alone, the Minister argues, pre-
vented the eattivn
the beginning ot
of
186 the finances of the empire at
de4itabtio Et completely normal con-
att '` is once This
result," however, he adds
, only aaja,,nd.
maintains with a confidence Beyond which, he
alone born from his
own absolute conviction, the
total of the fresh de-
ticuaney within the limits in
which it is
tat can be
braced does not exceed the resources now cm-
furnished by the floating debt, h
without
that debt
exceeding the proportions it has several James
tained during the last six years.” at_
()fits ,
ell Et moat
satisfactory and encouraging consideration.

It is undeniable, no doub!, that in ene important
particular M AcJIILLE FoLLD has been completely
"out" in his calculations. He himself is cote_
strained to acknowledge it. Confessing as much,
however, with as good a grace as possible. Accord-
ing to the hope expressed by him earlier in this
current year, a hope still clung to with exemplary
tenacity as recently as October, the Budget of 1862
at its winding up would leave the finances
Hof the empire at the worst in a state of
equillibriun]. If without leaving behind it
any surplus whatever, though but one of an
infinitessimal character, the Year of Grace, A

1862, thought M. FOULD before Midsummer, in-
sisted his Excellency even after Michaelmas, would
die out at length without at any rate any result as
unsatisfactory as a positive deficit—that rankling
sting left behind it, in flitting by so many an irri-
tating Bee of a Budget.
The actual result has unhappily proved
quite otherwise. There will, the once san-
guine but now perfectly candid Financier
himself acknowledges, he found at the close of
1862 not only a deficit, but a deficit as it happens
of 35,000,000—francs! however—not livres sterl-
ing ! Eight millions more, as the event proves than
had originally been anticipated as requisite
for the carrying out of the Mexican expedition !
Sixteen millions (again exactly double the
pro-Mexican increase) formed the supplementary
demand of the Minister of Marine, be-
yond his original estimate of the maritime re-
quirements of the year ! Eleven millions (making
up, with the last two items, the total deficit upon
the twelvemonth already specified, of 35 millions
in the aggregate) eleven millions being required for
premiums upon the exportation from France of
sugar extracted from beetroot. Like a skilled and
practised administrator, as he is, M. FOULD having
filled up an unlooked-for cup of bitterness for
France by pouring out these dregs of the Budget
of 1852—at once endeavours to take the unpleasant
flavour away from the national palate by
his still favourable comparison of the current
financial year with its immediate predeces-
sor, viz.-1861. Making a wry face enough
over the eighty-three millions already lavished
within 1862 upon the prosecution of the War in
Mexico, M. FOULD, with the deficit of 35 millions
lying at the moment fresh before him, still confi-
dently hopes for a surplus of no less than
110,000,000 in 1863. A whispered acknowledg-
ment, however, follows hard upon the heels of this
momentarily exhilirating vaunt, that, of course,
there will, probably, follow in due time the usual
string of supplemental credits year by year autho-
rised by the Imperial Legislature ! Truly—
"of course," It is a result this—judging
from the past—only perfectly en regle. And so
the confidently anticipated surplus, glowing and
ripening yonder in the distance, when approached
and culled and tasted, turns out to be no better
upon a nation's lips than the dust and ashes of a
deficit ! Financially, no less than socially and
morally—the Frenchman, like other men, "never
is but always to be blessed." And so it falls out
systematically it might almost be said, year after
year, that the nation, there upon that side of the
Channel, no less undeniably than Of late years
upon this—wanders perpetually onward through a
very quagmire of deficits in quest of that brilliant
but illusory Will o' the Wisp of a surplus always
wandering away, quite within view but never within
reach yonder in the hazy distance. Nevertheless,
while it is so, undeniably, alike in France and in
England—there is, at the same time, visible to all,
upon the opposite shores of the British Channel, a
rapid and wonderful development of the resources
of the two nations, an expansion, beyond all,
denial in the scope of their commerce and of their
general enterprise, and this ever in amicable rivalry,
in sound and wholesome competition. The Finan-
cial superstructure may, to the more timorous critics,
both in France and England, appear in many
respects too aspiring and ambitious, but there in
France, no less than here in England, they are
built up for the most part, we believe, upon
broad and solid foundations.

It will encourage rather than check the flow
of contribution to Lancashire, to know that it
proves fairly adequate to the emergency. Sacri-
fices and efforts on the part of the generous,
which fail of their object, are apt to be given up
in despair. We cannot, therefore, doubt that the
note sounded by Mr. GLADSTONE, in his speech
at Chester on Saturi.ay last, is the one which
will cheer us all on to action during the remain-
ing winter months. At the best the distress will
be great ; the greater, because distress is always
relative to position. There is reason to hope that
numerous families of the cotton operatives are
now receiving relief to an amount which, in some
agricultural districts, would be thought fair wages;
but this, to a family accustomed to live on double
or treble those wages, is felt as painful poverty.
Standing, as all contributors outside Lancashire
do, in the same relation to the whole community,
it seems harsh to say that the ploughman can
shift comfortably with ten or twelve shillings a
week for a family of five or six, while the cotton
spinners and weavers can barely exist on the same
pay. Such, however, is the fact. We all of us
recognise it when we have to provide for the
wants of families of the middle class and
upwards; and, in point of fact, these
operatives form one of the lower strata of the middle
classes. Curates and clerks by hundreds, we fear
we might truthfully say by thousands, have incomes
not exceeding, frequently below, the income derived
from the united wages of an entire operative family.
And then, unfortunately, these people, like most
others, spend their incomes. They spend them, too,
rather more freely than they need on generous
diet. Not required by their position to make the
appearance expected of the curate or the clerk,
and the peculiar nature of their monotonous work,
carried on in rooms of high temperature, creating
the desire or the need for stimulating and nutri-
tious diet, they spend their earnings largely in this
way. So far as our own observation and inquiries
have gone, the work-people of the cotton districts
were not remarkable for intemperance, but they
were remarkable for luxury in food. According to
their means they liked goDd clothing, on Sundays
and holidays especially; also furniture worth hav-
ing in their cottages ; but what struck an observer
or inquirer most was that, in the parlance sense of
the phrase, they " lived well."
We advert thus distinctly to this fact, because
we can speak of it from personal knowledge, and
because probably few of our readers are fully
aware of it. All the kind-hearted among us,
however, will at once feel that if it cannot affect
much the standard of relief which can be afforded,
it yet reveals the sharpness of the suffering endured,
and enhances the merit of the patience with which
it is borne. It would obviously be imprudent to
raise the amount per head of relief above the ave-
rage of agricultural wages ; subscribers in agricul-
tural districts might reasonably, in that case, re-
monstrate against being called on for contributions.
It should, however, be remembered that partly the
healthiness of agricultural work does not demand
such generous living as that carried on in towns
and factories, where the conditions of lire are more
la-
bourers is such as
enerwriling and depressing. But chit fly, we fear,
the competition for employment amongst farm la-
the smallest sum
Lan-
cashire sustained. To k
speakin
man on a iceei.
to have minced their wages to
on which life and health could be
It is
keep up, therefore, relief of Lan-
gd:sptiresangtothethis amount is not, properly
unemployed and the employed
unwillingly idlo
work when that h not be absolutely unfit for
coveted bl •
would take a long time, indeed,
a.
aunaerely taking care that the
cashire operative into a willing idler
have seen a private letter from
blessing shall return. It
, to convert the Lan-
cashire by
a rer •relief. We
leving officer's
wife, who had distributed a large parcel of
cloth.