The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-16 00:00:00

rebellion. Although no longer able to command,
he accompanied the Imperial army which besieged
Nankin, and it was he who really took that city.
The Chinese owe to him the recovery of their empire.
It must be admitted that these services have been
handsomely acknowledged by the Government of
China. The Pekin Gazette has followed the career
of this officer victory after victory, and he has
received all sorts of quaint titles and high military
grades in the Chinese service. On the other hand,
he has been often left without money to pay his
troops, or rations to feed them, and he has had
ample means of knowing how difficult it is to
prevent an Imperialist force in China from degene-
rating into plunderers by sheer necessity. Ward and
Burgevine were not without excuse for even their
worst acts if such excuse can be found in the faith-
lessness of their Chinese superior officers, and in the
destitution among their followers which the miscon-
duct of these officials occasioned. Whatever may be
the credit due to Colonel Gordon for his skill and
gallantry in the field, he deserves much greater credit
for the higher moral qualities which enabled him to
refrain from acts of resentment under unmerited ill-
usage, and to hold in hand a European staff recruited
from a low class of Europeans and a barbarian soldiery
who were generally unpaid and often ill-fed. This was
what very few men could accomplish and what nothing
but a high sense of professional honour, and a deep
feeling of responsibility for the character of his coun-
try and his service, could have given even to Colonel
Gordon the strength of purpose to carry through.
Post —The Lord Chancellor introduced into the
House of Lords an excellent bill ; it was a bill to per-
mit any man who feels himself capable of holding his
proper place in the affairs of life to deal with his at-
torney as he would with any other professional man
with whom he has business relations, in which the law
does not consider itself bound to interfere. Solicitors
at present must be paid by a fixed tariff, calculated
on so much a folio, or so much a letter, &c. ; in fact,
they are the penny-a-liners of the learned professions.
In settling with your attorney, time, thought, skill,
integrity, despatch, and all the higher qualities of a
professional roan, are of no account, but as dust in the
balance ; the weight of gold must be equi-poised by
folios. The system results in a matter occupying a
month, which might be done in a week—in the con-
veyance or deed when drawn up being unintelligible
from its diffuseness to all save the practised hands,
instead of being easily read over by the owner when
he wishes to refresh his memory ; and, la 3tly, in the
employer never knowing when it may please the
attorney to finish off the matter and close up the run-
ning account. On the other side the solicitor f eels him-
self degraded. He is not paid according to his merits
or his work, but according to his supplies of paper and
the glibness of his clerk's pen. To condense, to bring
science and accuracy to bear on the draughting of a
conveyance or other document, would be to work
very bard to deprive himself of pay. Not only has
he no inducement to shorten, but he is compelled to
lengthen, if he would remunerate himself in the pro-
portion which is his due. Hence the solicitors who
think and understand are in favour of the bill, but
the Lords, who don't think and don't understand
(although they would be the greatest gainers), met
to the number of 44 and rejected the bill at the bid-
ding of certain law lords, who dislike change, and
who gave them no reasons, but just told them to do
it. We dislike harsh comparisons, but a very close
analogy to all this may be studied in events going
on across the Atlantic. An advancing liberator pene-
trates the Southern wastes proclaiming freedom to
the slave, learning to the untaught, and security of
property to those who as yet have none. The un-
heeding blacks, blindly attached to their former
owners, neither understanding nor studying his pro-
clamation, fly from the marching emancipator,
cower beneath their old badges, and resist to the
death. We are struck with amaze and wonder ; but
look close at home, and as strange a sight is there.
The Sherman of the British Senate, the great Legal
Conqueror and Abolitionist, advances right into the
law jungle, and introduces to the enslaved lords
and landowners a prospect of emancipation, liberty
to the client, understanding where all is now dark
and difficult, small costs where now it is almost all
costs ; such he proclaims. But no ;as the crack of
the whip fascinates the one, so does the crackle of
the folio the other. The mass is indifferent, and
flies without an attempt to listen, and the few who
lurk near the battlefield range themselves under
their drivers and fire off their old-fashioned blun-
derbusses into the very face of their would-be bene-
factor. But the recoil of these antiquated weapons
hurts very much ; and it is very silly, because you
personally dislike the Danaans, to refuse the good
gifts they bear you, and, what is worse, to deprive
of these good gifts the outside public, who don't
dislike anybody in particular. The thought of this
reasonable bill having been thrown out by the sheer
force of inertness of the Peers, without a single real
argument being brought against it, only gives Mr.
Bright and his.,f ellow-revolutionists a good case
against the House of Lords.

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE.

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MONMOUTHSHIRE.

The half-yearly meeting of this company was
held at Newport yesterday ; Mr. Crawshay Bailey,
M.P., in the chair.

The report, an abstract of which has appeared in
The Sun, was taken as read.

The CHAIRMAN having briefly moved its adop-
tion,

Mr. CARTWRIGHT called the attention of the pro-
prietors to the accounts, and the prominent recom-
mendations in the report. He disapproved the pro-
ject for the purchase of the Brecon Canal, and asked
upon what terms it was proposed to make the pur-
chase. The accounts showed an increase in the
earnings of the line for the half-year, compared with
the corresponding half-year of 1863, of £5,885, but
it appeared that nearly £3 000 had been expended
in obtaining that increase, and inasmuch as the office
and certain other expenses were permanent and
fixed, whether the income increased or diminished,
he thought theincrease of expenditure was too large.
They had been told by their chairman that the cost
of entirely relaying the permanent way would be
£34,010, but he (Mr. Cartwright) had estimated it
at a much higher figure, and the rate at which they
were now proceeding justified his higher estimate.
They had already expended £34,000 out of the ex-
pense account, and had also applied £12,000 from
the reserved fund in the relaying of the line. With
this money 31 miles of line had been relaid, and they
had still 51 miles more to relay. (Hear, hear.) He
found also that 3,000 tons of rails and a large quan-
tity of sleepers had been ordered. That could not
cost less than £23,000, besides the other items of
expenditure in relaying.
Mr. BATCHELOR thought Mr. Cartwright took
too gloomy a view of their affairs, and that the
carrying out of the Ebbw Vale and Cardiff Junction
project might be obviated by this company adopt-
ing a conciliatory course of policy towards a cer-
tain large company using the line.
The CHAIRMAN agreed with Mr. Batchelor that
Mr. Cartwright had taken a most gloomy view of
their affairs.. He then showed that by laying by
£4,000 every half year their suspense account of
£34,000 would be paid off in four years. He gave
the reasons for buying the Brecon canal. That
company could reduce its tonnage rate (which was
now id. per ton on iron) to one-fourth, or one-
eighth, or one-sixteenth of a penny, and, as this
company was bound to carry at the same rate as the
Brecon canal, they might lose £3,000 to £4,000 a
year by them. They had, therefore, agreed to pur-
chase the shares in that canal at £25 per share
(£lOO paid), which would amount to about £25,000,
and to pay interest on the Canal Company's debt.
The report was then adopted, and a dividend at
the rate of 61 per cent. per annum was declared,
payable on the sth of April.
A vote of thanks to the chairman closed the pro-
ceedings.