The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-25 00:00:00

Elt 25-, 1840.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
" Roman grandeur" commonly
ascribed to the subterranean constructions of London
in general, and the almost Flemish purity claimed for
the City sewers in particular, by obsequious reporters
to the Common Council, are day by day disproved
by fresh disclosures, which betray alike the foul
condition of the sewers themselves, and the corrupt-
ness or inefficiency of the local authorities by which
they are administered. The police, employed at Mr.
Simon's instance as domiciliary inspectors, have
lately it appears been mainly instrumental in bringing
to light the underground horrors of the City. A va-
luable report from the Chief Commirsioner of Police,
read at the last meeting of the City Commissioners of
Sewers, and published at length in our yesterday's
paper, shows that the police inspectors have visited
no less than 14,000 out of the IG,OOO houses situate
within the precincts of the City. They have brought
their lanthorns to boar with great effect on the dark
caves and noisome cellars of the City; and the flashing
bull's-eye has shot its prying gleam into the hitherto
unexplored recesses of many a noisome vault, black
and pestilential as that pit in Tower Royal, which
Mr. Deputy Lott picturesquely designated as a
" yawning gulf." These scattered rays the press,
with its broad reflectors, must now collect and con-
centrate, so that the inhabitants of the City may be
enlightened as to the hidden dangers which lurk in
the very ground on which they tread, and judge how
far the men who for so many years have neglected
or approved such abominations, and who still, be it
remembered, uphold the horrors of intramural
slaughtering and sepulture, deserve to be entrusted
with the guardianship of the public health. The first
thing that strikes us in reading the Police Commis-
sioner's report on the results of the late domiciliary
inspection is the total number of the nuisances dis-
covered. Of these we count no less than 12,432,
distributed among the 14,000 houses ♦isited, and
exclusive of 366 out-door abominations. This total,
it is to be observed, includes only the most crying
grievances, and such as offend even the dull senses of
the sufferers themselves, inured as they are to stench
and squalor. Thus, cesspools only count as nuisances
when burst, as in thirty instances, or when crammed
to the very brim, as in 223 other cases. Privies
within the houses are not accounted nuisances except
when situated in cellars, as they were found to be in
no less than 4,608 cases I Pools of 'stagnant water
on the premises—drains absolutely choked up and
useless—polluted water-supplies--cellars filled with
putrefying rubbish, or, horrible to tell, actually
employed as cesspools I—such are a few samples
of the nuisances admitted to figure in Mr. Harvey's
black list; such are the abominations which for
years past have been glozed over in smooth
reports on the cleanliness and salubrity of the City ;
such are the disclosures in the teeth of which the
Common Council are still bold enough to maintain
that, since 1832, they have done all in their power—
and all that could be reasonably expected—to protect
the City against fresh invasions of pestilential
disease. The conclusion, we think, must force itself
on every unbiassed mind, that the sanitary affairs of
the City require an administration more active and
enlightened than that which can be given, in the in-
tervals of their business, by a council of traders; men,
doubtless, very worthy and useful in their way, but
habitually averse to sanitary innovation—utterly
blind to the ulterior economy of broad and compre-
hensive sanitary measures, however costly at the out-
set—and numbering, it may be, amongst their body
more than one proprietor of the squalid tenements
which it is sought to purify. This view is strongly
corroborated by a comparison of Mr. Harvey's report,
just cited, with that by Mr. Haywood, the City sur-
veyor, which was read at the same meeting. To
judge by this latter document, one would take the
City for a perfect paradise of purity. During the last
sixteen years our " Roman grandeur," we are told,
has been extended by no less than 23i miles of new
sewers ; the last open ditch has been covered in ; and
not a single gully hole remains untrapped. Who,
reading of such labours as these, can fail to be struck
with the administrative ability of the City
Commissioners, and the vastness of their sanitary
enterprises ? What generous soul does not burn
with indignation against those who, with us, charge
the City authorities with neglect and incapacity, and
dispute the policy of confiding collective interests to
any other than a central management ? These
lively emotions, however, are somewhat counterpoised
and calmed when we find, on turning to the other
report, that of the 16,000 abodes in this balmy Eden,
2,526—0 r nearly one in seven—were found by the
inspectors to be actually unfitted for human inhabita-
tion by noisome stenches, resulting from bad drainage
and the like. And so, all the way through, the
Police Commissioner's report neutralizes the glowing
statements of the surveyor. The glory of Mr. Hay-
wood's trapped gullyholes and " two miles of new
sewer within one year," is dimmed by Mr. Harvey's
hundredfold reports of intolerable " stinks from
gratings ;" thousands of horrible cellar-privies stand
in abatement of the honour due to a few hundreds of
private drains laid down ; and the gratitude with
which we learn that the intramural slaughterers have
been registered, is checked by the reflection that
this registration leaves the horrors of Smith-
field and its slaughter• houses not only una-
holished, but positively defended and maintained.
Those who real, some tu o years since, the engi
neer's report on the excellence of the City sewer-
age, and who now peruse Mr. Haywood's " satisfac•
tory" statements, will be reminded of the Tooting
child farm, which was visited monthly by parochial
guardians, who at each inspection duly recorded their
official " satisfaction" in the books; till suddenly the
plague burst forth, and revealed, too late, how easy
the conscience of a local board may be, and to what a
mockery we trust our health when we confide it to
parochial guardianship. We do not, however, deny
that under the pressure of public opinion, roused by
an immense calamity, and seconded by the strenuous
efforts of the press, the Common Council are bestirring
themselves at length, and have met by some partial
measures of abatement the most crying of the City
nuisances. Let them cease to gloze over in one-sided
reports the notorious filthiness of the City ; let them,
instead of practising a mistaken parsimony, at once
carry out, on a liberal scale, the great principles of
sanitary reform ; and then they may count on receiv-
ing at our hands a support as sustained and energetic
as our previous strictures have been frequent and
severe. We shall feel ourselves disarmed—and that
with infinite pleasure•—so soon as we see the City in a
fair way to be sweetened, and the terrible Destroyers
that lurk in its foul recesses finally hunted out and ex-
pelled. To this end we hold the permanent sanitary
organization of police, as suggested in the Commis-
sioner's report, a very important means. The moral
character of the police would be raised, their influ-
ence with the people increased, and their utility for
the maintenance of order greatly augmented, by this
coupling of beneficent duties with their functions,
heretofore exclusively penal. And, just as standing
armies, by a progressive transformation from offensive
to defensive, have come to be employed in maintaining
the equilibrium which it was formerly their office to
disturb, and may indeed be regarded at present as a
sort of international police; just so, and by a like
transformation, the domestic police of towns will, we
trust, be employed more and more for the prevention
of those crimes which it has been hitherto their duty
only to detect and bring to punishment. It is, indeed,
this substitution of prevention for cure which mainly
characterises the modern sanitary movements ; and in
proposing to engraft on our system of police a prin-
ciple so salutary and so humane, the Chief Commis-
sioner has our entire concurrence. The recent ex-
periment fully proves that the utilization of the police
for sanitary purposes does not at all impair their effi-
ciency as a repressive corps. We have only to pursue
and complete the transformation thus auspiciously
commenced, and our policemen may become to the
social body, what our doctors are daily tending to
become to the individual man—the watchmen and
conservative ministers of health, rather than the mere
combatants of declared and too often incurable disease,

THE PARISH OF ST. MARTIN AND THE PROPRIE-
TORS OF EXETER llALL.—Yesterday a special petty
sessions, pursuant to adjournment, was held in the
vestry-room of St. Martin•in-the-Fields, to hear the
appeal of the proprietors of Exeter Hall, against their
assessments. The magistrates on the bench were Cap-
tain Bagge, in the chair, E. E. Antrobu;, Esq., J. S.
Brooking, Esq., and W. H. Marriott. Mr. Grain ap-
pealed against the assessment of the rates on behalf of
the proprietors, and stated that for the past year the
gross receipts amounted to 4,2001. whilst the expendi-
ture extended to 2,5001., leaving a balance of 1,7001., as
the rateable value of the property. Mr. Le Breton con-
tended, that from the unquestionable success which had
attended Exeter Hall, the parish authorities were per-
fectly justified in increasing their rates from 1,500/. to
2,5001, it appearing from the accounts that had ,been
audited, that since the assessments made in 1843, the
success of the concerts had augmented the income to
more than 1,1001. After considerable discussion, their
worships consulted together, and at length the appeal
was confirmed, with costs. The vestry broke up.
TIIE SUrPOSED CASE OF CATALEPSY.—The coroner's
inquest respecting the death of Mr. Byron Blythe, at
Bristol, terminated by the jury, after hearing some
further evidence in addition to that already published in
71w Sun, returning a verdict that the deceased " Died
from malignant cholera."

An accidont occurred on Saturday last to :Richard
Bremridge, Esq., M.P. for Barnstaple, who was hunting
near Yuulstou with the North Devon hounds, when, in
riding at a stiff pace, the bit of his bridle broke, and
his horse galloped off without restraint. Mr. B. con-
sulted his safety by throwing himself from the saddle,
by which, however, he sustained some severe bruises,
and fractured a small bone in the hand. 'Rumour had
exaggerated the accident, and much concern was evinced
in town at what was feared to be the unfortunate fate of
the worthy gentleman, which was relieved on the true
particulars becoming known. We are happy to state
that, after being detained to his room for a day or two
in much pain, the Honourable Member is now doing
well.—Devonshire Chronicle.

THE INDIAN CORN AND MAIZE
IN ST. JAMES'S PARK.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
Sra,—This Pyrenean Maize was pulled up on Oct.
9, 1849. The plants from the American seed remain
standing in their growing state. The above sorts of
corn have been cultivated here this year on two small
plots of ground, of about ten yards square each, in
Jrder to ascertain whether it can be profitably grown
in the soil and climate of England.
The seed, it i 3 said, was sown early in the spring,
in one of the royal gardens, and was planted in the
park early in May on that fine maiden soil—one plot
in the highest state of cultivation, abundantly sup-
plied with manure; the other 'equally so, less the
manure—in rows about 2k feet apart, and about six
inches asunder in the rows. Soon after, at the proper
time, it was moulded up with a hoe, similar to po-
tatoes, and so soon as the ear or pod was grown to
about one-third of its expected size, the top of the
plant was cut off within two or three inches of the
ear, in order that the corn might receive the full
,benefit of the soil, the sun and the air; yet it was not
;it maturity, or judged sufficiently ripe to pull up for
harvesting before Tuesday, the 19th of October.
The seed, understood to be principally from the
Pyrenees, was supplied by a Mr. Keene, a respectable
farmer, lately residing there ; but there were also a
few plants raised from American seed. Both sorts
seem to have been planted on each plot, apparently to
test their difference; neither of which were at ma-
turity before the aforesaid date, but the Pyrenees
took the lead in ripening, and kept it.
Mr. Keene, from a pamphlet published by himself,
writes as follows :
" The Pyrenean corn, or forty-days' maize, is 'from
an estate in the Pyrenees where the average tempe-
rature is very little higher than it is in this country,
and the experiment in St. James's Park has been suc-
cessful, there being now upon the ground a fine healthy
crop.
" The seed was sown late in the season, but its
growth was marvellous, averaging one inch a day for
the first sixty days. The flowering stalk began to
shoot from the sheath about the fortieth day from the
time of sowing [query planting, being myself present
at that time]. and in a little more than 120 days it
was ripe as it now stands in rows, with the flowering
stalk cut off about an inch higher than the cob [it
bears only one] containing the grain.
"It is calculated that bread can be made from pure
maize flour at the costof a little more than a halfpenny
a pound. The bushel of maize weighing 601bs. will
yield 1001bs. of bread, while on an average an acre of
land will produce 48 bushels of flour.
" The success that has attended the experiment in
London, and those made simultaneously in other parts
of the south of England, show that the plant is suited
to our soil and temperature."
Notwithstanding Mr. Keene's extensive knowledge,
practical experience, and most flattering report of the
progress of this Pyrenean maize, and though I regret
to feel obliged to differ in opinion from such great
authority, I cannot refrain from expressing my be-
lief that this experiment is a decided failure. For
looking at the richness of the land—land within my
recollection and observation that fattened the ox of
George lll.—cultivated on the most scientific prin-
ciples by most able hands from the royal gardens,
aided by this beautiful year of vegetation, together
with ten successive weeks of the finest harvest wea-
ther almost in the memory of man—with these facts
before my eyes, and with all due deference to the
high authority who introduced the experiment for so
laudable and praiseworthy a purpose as the public
good—when I consider the soil, the culture, the
summer, and, above all, the lateness of this crop be-
fore it arrives at maturity even sufficient to be taken
under cover to harden and perfect, how can I come
to any other conclusion than that the seed from the
latitude from whence this came does not suit " the
soil and temperature " of Great Britain sufficiently
to be cultivated advantageously ?
If the cultivator would be pleased hereafter to fur-
nish the public with the exact number of square yards
in each plot, together with the exact number of pints
of corn grown thereon, distinguishing the different
sorts (if any) and weight, that would be a great fact
towards enlightening our understanding in this matter.
This Pyrenean maize was pulled up, and
tied up in bundles of about the size of a common
wheatsheaf, containing about eight to each plot of
ground, with a truck standing by, for the purpose of
taking them under cover to dry and perfect. The
superintendent being present, very obligingly pre-
sented me with two of the ears of the Pyrenean
corn, so that I am able and willing, and shall with
much pleasure give a few seeds to any agricultural
applicant who wishes to try to raise this sort to a suc-
cessful issue, and which shall be forwarded by post,
free of expense.
Query—Had this been a damp summer, such as we
occasionally experience, of what value would this Py-
renean crop have been, beyond feeding cattle with it
from its green state ?
Again, admitting Mr. Keene's statement, that the
Pyrenean corn bears but one cob, and produces six
quarters of flour an acre—where is there an Eng-
lish farmer to be found, who would grow this sort
of late, uncertain crop, so doubtful of arriving at
maturity, when an acre of the same sort of park-like
land would produce him (without the manure) up-
wards of four quarters of wheat (or an abundant crop
of almost -any other grain), which, with the straw,
would be of nearly double the value of the Pyrenean
crop at all times, and under all seasons ?
The late Mr. Cobbett's American corn I have culti-
vated in my garden at Grove Lodge, Winkfield,
Berks, which proved more satisfactory. I have no
interest whatever in this undertaking beyond the
public weal, and I am, Sir, yours respectfully, nearly
at the end of my 78th year, and an old agriculturist,
&c., &c.

W. P. NEEDHAM.
28, Lambeth square, London.

STEAM FROM JAMAICA, via NEW YORK
(From the Jamaica Conservative,-,Sept. 20.)
There can be little doubt that British interests must
suffer in every way from the newly- projected line of
steamers between this port and North America. The
length of time occupied in a passage home by the
British steamers has long been a source of much
complaint—not because the vessels employed were
slow, or because the accommodation was not suffi-
ciently good, but because, with different arrange-
ments, the same ships could prform the work in a
much shorter space of time. In opposition to this it
may be argued that the traffic between England and
Jamaica is not of so much importance as to warrant
a change of plan which, if less expensive in itself,
would prevent communication with other islands, or
render indispensable the building of new ships. Be
this, however, as it may, America, being in a position
to offer greater advantages, must almost monopolise
the passenger trade between this port and England—
an event which cannot fail to injure this branch of
the commercial interest in the mother country. A
passenger who leaves Kingston in the British steamer
—say on the 24th of September—arrives in England
about the 20th of October, which is an average pas-
sage, making the duration of the voyage from 25 to
26 days ; while by the American line of packets, a
passenger leaving Kingston on the 19th of September
arrives in New York on the 25th, sails for England
on the 26th in one of the Cunard steamers, and ar-
rives in England on or about the Bth of October, thus
completing the passage in 19 days. It may be, and
has been, done in 15 to 16 days.
The next item for consideration is the comparative
expense of either route, and here again the Americans
have the advantage.
A first- class passage in the American boat
from Kingston to New York costs 75
dollars, equal to .. £l5 12 6
A. first-class passage from New York to
Southampton in one of the Cunard's
boats costs .. .. 20 0 0

Total cost from Kingston to Southamp-
ton by the American line .. 35 12 6
By the English line a first-class passage
from Kingston to Southampton costs... 52 0 0

Difference in favour of the American boats 16 7 6

A second-class passage by way of the
United States costs—
From Kingston to New York, CO dollars 12 10 0
And a first•class passage from New York
to Southampton • • • • • • 20 0 0

Total from Kingston to New York ... 32 10 0
A second-class passage by the English
steamer costs, at the option of the tra-
veller, 451. or .. .. ... ... 40 0 0

Difference in favour of the American line . 7 1b00a,05
In point of accommodation, the American boats
as
would seem to have a decided advantage, inasmuch h
have
many important points overlooked by the
Americans.
We
been sedulously attended to by the
..ew.gaw
do not, of course, allude to the gingerbread,
decorations which ostentation msany in-
stances, have spared to gool taitimeel-gbu't there is in the
'substantial comfort
American boats, for
of a retiring roomineboxoaaasmPoefi too warm, too cool, or
red a British steamer, if the
rainy weather. On
vessel be within the tropics, or if there be wet weather,
the passengers must either endure the wet or heat or;
deck, or they must retire to the rude half-deck
(where there is not even a seat provided for them),
unless they prefer the solitude of their berths or the
warm dining saloon, where a smell of yesterday's
dinner ever seems to linger, as if in anticipation of the
coming meal. On board the American boats, on the
contrary, there are neat and comfortable lounging-
rooms, hung with mirrors and protected by sash win-
dows. These chambers are capable of accommodating
about 80 people at a time, and are a delightful resort
after meals, when the spar deck is either too warm or
too wet for pedestrian Qurcise. this arrangement
alone is a consideration.

-- -
How it is that the Americans can afford to run
their boats cheaper than the English matters little in
the present inquiry—even now, we think the rates too
high for a six days' passage, and we have no doubt
that when Kingston shall have been made a regular
berth for these boats the fares will be considerably
reduced. We would also suggest that the steamers
should leave here on the 18th instead of the 19th of
the month, in order that their arrival in time for the
departure of the Cunard boat may be insured.

RAILWAY SHAKE MARKETS.
BRISTOL, OCT. 24.
STOCK EXCHANGE.—The share market was not so ani-
mated today, and but little business was transacted. The
sales are—Great Western, 55—Ditte, Quarters, 1214 dis.—
Midland Stock, 6 per cent., 1•:0.
LIVERPOOL, Ocr. 24.
STOCK EXCHANGE.—The share market was very firm
to-day at the quotations. The transactions were as follow :
Lancashire and Yorkshire, Fifths, 65/s dis —Liverpool, Crosby ,
and Southport, 33/4 dis.—London and North-Western, 111 IA
—Ditto, New Quarters, 11s. 3d. p.—Ditto, Fifths, 114 p.—
Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincoln, Preference, 10%—Mid-
land, 47—Ditto, Halves, 2114 dis. South-Eastern and
Dover, (No. 4), 6 York, Newcastle, and Berwick (G. N
E. Purchase), 514 dis.
BIRMINGHAM, OCT. 24.

STOCK EXCHANGE. —The transactions to-day were as
follow :—London and North-Western, New Quarters, % p.—
North Staffordshire, 8% dis.— Shropshire Union, 3% dis
—South Staffordshire, 4 1-16 dis.
YORK, OCT. 23.
STOCK EXCHANGE.—The transactions to-day were as
follow :—North British, Preference, 5 ex in.—York, New•
castle, and Berwick (G. N. E. Purchase), 21/2—York and
North Midland, 19.

GLASGOW, OCT. 22.
STOCK Excumvatt. The transactions to-day were as
follow :—Glasgow, Kilmarnock, and Ayr, 48 —Ditto, Halves
( No. 1), 6Y4— North British. Quarters, 50s.