The Sun.
London, England, 1862-09-24 00:00:00

CRYSTAL PALACE.

LANCASHIRE AND QUEENSLAND.

The Bury Times publishes a letter from a work-
ing man who left Lancashire for Queensland some
years ago, and who is of opinion that the land of
his adoption affords valuable opportunities for the
relief of Lancashire distress. The following are
extracts from the letter, dated Ipswich,, Queensland,
July 14 :
The sun is still shining on us, and our home is still
the abode of peace, happiness, and contentment. We
are in the enjoyment of plenty, and our cornucopia
to all appearances is as full as ever. Of the solid
and substantial comforts of this life we have all we
need, and to spare. . . . lam still working—bard
as ever—earning my bread by the sweat of my brow,
and though the drops sometimes fall thick and fast,
yet I feel no sorrow, for my spirit—aye, and body
too—are sustaiaed with the fact that I am able to
earn enough for the wants of a numerous family
—that I can help to soothe and soften the old age
of my widowed mother at home, and besides all
this, to make a step or two higher up in the hill
of prosperity. There is one thing that affects my
mind very much, and that is the cry of distress at
home. The cry seems by every mail that reaches
us to be growing deeper, louder, and more extended.
It is heart-rending to hear it, but I am sure it must
be terrible—maddening to see it. And all this
for want of cotton. Well, I have the pleasure to
inform you again that the experiments of cotton-
growing in Queensland have proved a success. The
gentleman who has a plantation of 12 acres close
by my door tells me that it will pay cent. per cent.
On all sides there is a growing disposition to enter
into cotton-growing. One gentleman is about to
bring under cotton culture 500 acres. He is im-
porting African labour, or escaped slaves from
Canada. Our great cry is—We want labour ; we
have millions of acres of rich productive land that
can be turned to growing cotton, sugar, &a., but
we want human hands to do it. What, then,
ought to be done ? A bill has passed our Parlia-
ment legalising the importation of coolies from
India for this object—growing cotton, &e., but the
people are sending a petition home to the Queen
to disallow the bill, and at the same time suggest-
ing the advisability of sending white labour from
the distressed counties of Great Britain and Ireland.
This week 200 bales of Queensland cotton, grown
by white labour, have left our shores for England.
It could be made 2,ooo—ay, two millions, as far as
the c •pabilities of land and climate are concerned.
It is a farce to say that white labour cannot stand
the climate ; it does stand it, and accomplishes work
far more laborious than cotton growing. I do not
deny that it is hot, and for two or zhree months in
summer extremely so; but the clear, bouyan I'4
elastic atmosphere, the healthiness of climate, make
us bear up under it all with comparative ease. Our
heat is better to bear than your cold. You know,
and all that know me know as well, that I am not
a strong man, that I have been a pale-faced,
delicate creature from my childhood ; but I can
assure you in point of health this climate to me
is infinitely better than yours, and I am work-
ing almost every day in the year in the sun. These
are eight months of the year that are delightful.
Let therefore no one be deterred from coming to
these shores through fear of the climate, which I
believe to be one of the best in the world. The
temperate, the industrious, and sober, may come in
thousands; there is room and labour for all. When
I stand on some of the hills, and look on the ex-
panse of country that lies before me—unreclaimed,
uncultivated and wild, covered only by trees, and
then think of my friends in Lancashire—starving,
walking about idle, not from choice, but from ne-
cessity—a feeling of sadness comes over sue which
I cannot describe. Ever since I came oat here I
have been convinced of the capabilities of the
colony to support in comfort and prosperity millions
upon millions of inhabitants. I suggested, five or
six years ago, the idea of the Lancashire operatives
forming an emigration union. If that had been
done, how many hearts that are crushed and almost
broken now by poverty and suffering would have
been sharing our comforts, and rejoicing in our
' prosperity and our success ! And now let me ask
sou to send me the names and ages of any of my
friends who would like to come, and I will try to
raise the means to get them out. Starving opera-
tives of Lancashire, this is the land for you. Here
labour and good wages are to be had ; here boys can
earn as much as most men at home; here are no
poor or poorhouses; the greater part of the people
are freeholders, living on their own houses or on
their own farms', surrounded with the comforts and
necessaries of lite in abundance; and, so far as my
experience goes, I know of no class of colonists who
have been more successful than persons out of the
cotton-mills of Lancashire. If they pay their own
passage, they will get 18 acres of land given them
when they arrive, and 12 more at the end of two
years' residence in the colony. Those who are too
poor to pay their own passage, let them apply to
the Colonial Land and Emigration Office, West-
minster, for a free passage to these colonies. My
own opinion is that the Government ought to be
petitioned to send out all or such of the distressed
operatives of Lancashire as are willing to come.
Let them be sent out here to grow cotton ; let them
come in thousands, and soon the manufacturing
districts of England will be independent of Jona-
than and his niggers for ever.

THE NEW GAME LAW.

A magistrate, in a letter to a contemporary, says, "As you
may be interested in knowing how completely your predic-
tions regarding the new Game Bill have been verified, I send
you an account of the working of the new act in this neigh-
bourhood.
On a Friday morning, at 5 o'clock, three known poachers
are seen by private watchers returning home by a public
road with three lurcher dogs, and heavily laden, The
watchers have no right, under the recent Act, to meddle
with them. Twelve hours later a brother of one of these
poachers, himself also a known poacher, drives to the rail-
way station with a hamper, directed to a Lend. Al poulterer.
A policeman, by chance there, searches the hamper, finds
and seizes 10 hares and some partridges. Appearing on the
following 'Wednesday before the magistrates, the defendant
says he bred the hares, &c., in his yard—a simple impossi-
bility. As the police are unable to prove what lands his
friends had been upon, the defendant is acquitted, and the
game restored to him. Not being so sweet on Wednesday as
it was on Friday the defendant sues the police in the County
Court for damage; this case is pending. He entertains the
gang to supper, where they drink the health of the magi-
strates and of those members of the House of Commons who
refused to sanction that the poacher should prove an honest
possession. He tells the police that the supper is paid for
out of the fine he came prepared to pay, and that "they
can carry on the trade as well as ever." I know of one
check for £29, drawn by the same London poulterer, which
this defendant has recently cashed, and which was shown
to many labourers of the parish. Each member of the
gang subscribes so much a week to a fund, from which all
fines are immediately paid, without any inconvenience to
himself, whenever a conviction is obtained.
Does not this state of the law offer a sore temptation to
the honest and industrious labourer to follow the same
course ? He finds these men doing no work and having
plenty of money, while he must work hard, be laughed at
for doing so, and after all be much worse off than those
who, but for the Legislature, would be called, not poachers,
but thieves.

VABIE7IES.

(From Fun.)

Tun PACIFIC Male,—John Blight.
A QUESTION FOR FARADAY.—When the thermometer
falls, how often, on an average, does it break?
A CRACKED J.A.R,—John Arthur Roebuck is at
Vienna, making himself agreeable to that most amiable
potentate, the Emperor of Austria. So well does he suc-
ceed, that he is known among the courtiers as the" Honey
J. A.R."

A FRIEND AT A PINCH.—The Vice—at a charity

dinner.

PILING UP THE AGONY.—We read that, in com-
mencing the works for the Thames embankment, the first
pile was driven opposite the mansion of the Duke of Buc-
leuch. What a piece of fiendish malignity on the part of
he contractors, thus to pile up the agony on the unhappy
duke I _ _

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE.—There is no foundation for
the report that Ca'craft is now starting a paper under the
title of the Daily 11oose.
A RlDDLE.—(Dedicated to the School of Cookery.)—
When is ajelly like a dolly ?—When there's eyes•in-glass-
in it.

The Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs has pub-
lished a notice received from M, Rucker, Belgian Consul at
Riga, to the effect that the port charges on vessels there
have been recently reduced, especially on ships of large
tonnage,

Yesterday was a special fete day at the Crysta
Palace on occasion of Mr. F. Strange's annual

benefit. As usual on the day on which Mr. Strange
asks the suffrages of the public, several extraordi-
nary attractions were added to those which in gene-
ral are presented to the visitors at the Palace. In
the first place, weather of summer temperature and
brilliancy had succeeded the somewhat wintry in-
' fluences of Monday ; the grounds and gardens
showed to the best ath antage, and as the flowers
and trees have not yet begun to exhibit any of the
symptoms attendant on the tall of the year, the
primary step to a success was secured. In order to
compensate for the comparative shortness of the
deys an hour was stolen from the morning, the
doors having been opened so early as eight
o'clock, and almost at that hour persons began to
assemble, and by eleven there was a decided crowd,
which dispersed itself about the building and
grounds, finding ample sources of amusement and
enjoyment until twelve, when the orchestral band
,-)f the company played a selection of music, varied
by the admirable solos of the cornet-a-piston by
Mr. Levy. At one o'clock the band of the Hon-
, ourable Artillery Company was brought into play

La the Handel Orchestra, and at a quarter-past that

hour the Etoile Family, who appeared at Whitsun-
tide, went through their gymnastic exercises,
while at half-past one certain gymnasts of
another description, known as the Rocky Moun-
tain Wonders, exhibited " their marvellous feats."
The special entertainments were then inter-
rupted, about a quarter before three, when
the band of the London Irish Volunteers
performed on the second terrace. At three Mr.
Coxwell made an ascent in one of his balloons, the
privilege of short flights into the air having been
previously granted to such persons as felt inclined
to trust themselves to an elevation of a few hundred
feet. Then came M. Blondin, who made what is
called his " Niagara ascent" over the fountains ; and
at four o'clock there was a display of the whole of
the great fountains and waterworks. At half-past
four the band of the Artillery Company again per-
formed in the Handel orchestra, keeping in plea'sant
humour a vast crowd which had assembled in the
transept, the galleries, and every place from which
it was possible to see M. Leotard go through his
performance on the trapeze. More music by the
company's band and on the great organ occupied the
time till half-past six, when the entertainments of
the day were brought to a close. As is generally
the case on great fete days at the Crystal Palace,
the vast assemblage of persons of all classes and
degree, including a large per tentage of babies in
arms, was, perhaps, the most interesting feature of
the occasion. At half -past three considerably over
30,000 had entered the building, and as the trains
beyond that hour were still full to overflowing,
there could not, from first to last, have been less
han 40,000 people assembled. At five o'clock the

return to town was at its height, and at that hour
the approaches to the railway, inclusive of the long
avenue leading to the entrance staircase, were

blocked up by a more or less patient crowd awaiting
their turn for conveyance to town. A considerable
number of persons judiciously left the grounds by
one of the lower exits, and made their way to the
Anerley station, which is off the Crystal Palace line
a mile or two. There special arrangements were
made for the transit of such passengers as chose
that route, and they were comfortably conveyed
homeward with far less of waiting and delay than
those who remained to take the trains at the Crystal
Palace terminus, many of whom were necessarily
detained until a late hour, although every possible
facility was afforded for their accommodation—no
easy task under the circumstances.