The Sun.
London, England, 1870-04-19 00:00:00

--- CONSCIENTIOUS PARISH CLERK.

The Whitehaven Herald publishes the following letter,
sich it says was actually sent to his incumbent by the
clerk of a parish in the diocese of York, under circum-
stances which are sufficiently suggested in the document :
Dear Rev. Sir,—l avail myself of the opportunity of
troubling your honour with these blundered-up lines,
which I hope you will excuse, which is the very senti-
ment of your humble servant's heart. I ignorantly,
rashly, but reluctantly, gave warning to leave your
highly respectable office and most amiable duty—of your
most well-wished parish and place of my succour and sup-
port. But, dear sir, I well know it was no fault of yours
nor from any o° my most worthy parishioners. It was
because I thought I were not sufficiently paid for the inter-
ment of the silent dead. But will Ibe Judas and leave the
house of my G od, the place where His honour dwelleth, for a
few pieces of silver ? No ? Will Ibe Peter, and deny my-
velf of an office in His sanctuary, and cause use to weep
bitterly ? No ! Can I be so unreasonable as to deny to
ring the solemn knoll that speaketh the departure of a
soul? No ! Can I leave digging the tombs of my neigh-
bours and acquaintances, which have many a time made
me to shudder and think of my mortality when I dig
up the remains of some as I well knew ? No ! And
can I so abruptly forsake the service of my beloved
Church of which I have not failed to attend every Sunday
for these seven and a half years, save one ? No ! Can I
leave waiting upon you as a minister of that Being that
sitteth between the cherabim, and that sitteth upon the
wings of the wind? No ! Can I leave the place where
our most holy service nobly calls forth and says—and I
being a married man—" Let no man put asunder ?" No !
And can I leave that ordinance where you say—
" Thus and thus I baptize thee in the name of
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and be-
come regenerated and grafted into the body of
Christ Jesus?" No ! Can I think of leaving off cleaning
the house of God in which I take such a delight, in look-
ing down her aisles and beholding the sanctuary of the
table of the Lord ? No ! And can I forsake taking a
part in the thanksgiving of women after childbirth, when
mine own wife has been delivered these ten times ?
No ! And can I leave off waiting on the congregation of
the Lord, which you well know, sir' is my delight? No !
And can I forsake the table of the Lord at which I have
feasted for, I should suppose, full thirty times ? No !
And, dear sir, can I ever forsake you, who have ever been
so kind to me ? No ! And I well know you will not entreat
me to leave not return from following after you, for
where you pray there will I pray, where you worship
there will I worship • your church shall be my church,
your people my people, and your God my God. By the
waters of Babylon am I to sit down and weep, and leave
thee and my church, and hang my harp upon the trees
that grow therein ? No ? " One thing have I desired of
the Lord which I vi// require, even that I may dwell in •
the House of the Lord for ever, to behold the fair beauty
of the Lord, and to visit his temple; more to be desired
by me than gold : yea, than much fine gold ; sweeter
to me than honey or the honeycomb." Now, sir, this
is the very desire of my heart to wait upon you, which
I hope you will find to be my delight, which hitherto has
been, but I unthinkingly and rashly said I should no
longer' for which I have roared for the very disquietness
of my heart. Now, if you think me worthy to wait upon
you, please tell the churchwardens all is reconciled ; and if
not, I will get me away into the wilderness and hide me
in the desert in the clefts of the rocks. But I still hope to
be your Gehazi, and when I meet my Shunamite say, "All
is well. And I will conclude my blunders with my oft
repeated prayer—` Glory be to the Father, and to the Son-
and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now,
and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.' Now, sir,
I shall go on, with my fees the same as I found them, and
will make no more trouble about them ; but I will not—
I cannot—leave you nor my delightful duties,—Your most
obedient servant, G. G."

A Radical member of the North German Parlia-
ment, Herr Lebel, explains to his constituents in a
characteristic letter the reason of his having taken a holi-
day. He says :—" To-morrow I leave Berlin for the pre-
sent To stop here is a mere waste of
time and money. Since the beginning of the session
I have not had a single opportunity of speaking,
and am hardly likely to have one before Easter. I have
no inclination to ask permission to speak about trifles
—that is the business of the other parties. Besides,
the sittings are so badly attended, and the proceedings so
slovenly, that the members are penetrated with a sense of
their utter insignificance. Often there are many more of
them to be found in the restaurant and the reading-room
than in the Chamber, . , I will return only for the
third reading of the Criminal Code, when a number of
important clauses will be put to the vote, and an oppor-
tunity will probably be given for treating the matter from
our point of view."

HOAXING THE ROYAL ENGINEERS.—A. hoax was
played upon the Royal Engineers at Chatham on the
evening of Good Friday. A messenger arrived with
what appeared to be an authentic account of a fatal
affray between Royal Engineers and Royal Marines.
The scene of the reported encounter was an inn a few
miles from Chatham, called the " Hook and Hatchet,"
a favourite resort of soldiers and civilians at
holiday time. It was stated that in an encounter
between a number of men of the two corps—which
have no ill feeling towards each other as corps—four men
had been killed, and others severely wounded. A party
of Royal Engineers and an ambulance waggon, drawn by
four horses, were despatched to the scene of action—the
soldiers to put an end to any conflict, and the wagon to
bring home the dead and wounded. On arriving
at the inn it was found that there had been no conflict
at all ; that all was quiet, and not many people then at
the tavern.

COMMERCIAL EXPEDITION.—RecentIy the steam-
ship Danube, consigned to Messrs. Stoddart Brothers, of
Liverpool, was discharged at Liveroool, went in graving
dock and loaded a full cargo os bale goods for
Shanghai and Singapore, sailing on the eighth day
after arrival, taking out as part of her cargo yam spun
from cotton brought by her from Bombay, which port she
left on the 12th of February last. Unfortunately the ship
got ashore on Long Island, near Wexford, in going down
St. George's Channel, where it was fully expected she
would become a total wreck. However, she was got
off and brought back to Liverpool on the 2nd
instant, having sailed on the 30th ultimo. She went
into the Morpeth Dock, Birkenhead, discharged her cargo
into the sheds, hauled into Clayton's graving dock on the
3rd, had her repairs completed on the 13th, which included
part new keel, twenty-five new plates in the bottom,
ceiling and cement off and replaced, and ship repainted.
She then reloaded her cargo, taking a few additional bales
of cloth made from the yarns manufactured out of the
cotton the ship brought from Bombay, still further illus-
trating the facilities afforded by the Suez Canal in deve-
loping our commerce_in the Eastern hemisphere.

WHO IS. MASTER ? A correspondent of the
Times, signing himself " Lex non Scripta " urges the
Secretary of State for War, the Commander-in-Chief,
and the Judge Advocate General, not to continue
pulling so many different ways. Cfficers com-
posing courts-martial know not what to be
about, and as a result the public intersts
suffer.. The army wants to know, " Who is master?"
We should be very glad to satisfy this natural curio-
sity on the part of the army, but we are all in the
same state of ignorance as itself. Last year, as
the army probably knows, Mr. Childers hoisted his
own flag and commanded the navy. We know of no
reason why Mr. Cardwell should not follow the
same course. Let him go down to Aldershot, and
hold a review in the first place. There may pos-
sibly be some little ' collision at first between himself
and the Commander-in-Chief, but one or the other
must give way in the end—it will only be one of
those sham fights which are supposed to be so good
for the troops, and it will be interesting to see whose
word of command will be most readily obeyed. At
present the unfortunate army, in its doubt as to who is its
master, is much in the condition of a man with two mis-
tresses. It has its Stella and Vanessa and the terrible
part of the affair is that they both know of each other's
existence.—Pall Halt Gazette.
THE GAME Laws.—" The farmers and landowners
have taken to forming Chambers of Agriculture in every
county, and a cry for further legislation (on the game
question) is heard throughout them. The farmers almost
unanimously demand that ' ground game' shall be placed
entirely under their control, notwithstanding any con-
tracts to the contrary they may have made with
their landlords." We do 'not know where
the Times gathered this information . which
appeared in a leader on Friday ; but we have yet to learn
that the game legislation desired by the great majority of
English tenant fanners is such as would destroy liberty of
contract between owners and occupiers. That such a
strong remedy for excessive preservation is advocated by a
considerable section of the occupiers of land we are, of
course, perfectly aware; and we also know that a total aboli-
tion of the existing game laws would alone satisfy the de-
mands of another party on this question. But, at the same
time, the proceedings at Chambers of Agriculture, and at
other meetings where tenant fanners have expressed their
opinions, clearly shew that farmers are by no means
agreed upon forcibly seizing all the hares and rabbits by
the strong arm of the law. On the contrary, a pre-
valent expectation -is that continual discussion and
exposure of the evils connected with oppressive
game-preserving where it exists, will gradually bring about
a change in present practices; and another view which we
believe to be widely entertained is that the desired solution
of the difficulty lies in depriving four-footed game of any
special legal protection and privileges rather thap in
making a new game law, by which the Queen, Lords, and
Commons, shall arbitrarily settle who is to own these wild
animals, and who is to leave them alone.—Chamber of
Agriculture Journal.

GOOD FRIDAY RIOTING.—The Tillage of iN ewton-
on-Ouse, some ten miles from York, was on Good Friday
the scene of a disgraceful riot. Amongst the excursionists
were a number of youths, who were supplied with beer at
the village inn. A dispute occurred, and there was
a general fight, sticks and hedge-stakes being
freely used, and in the public-house some or
the roughs, taking advantage of the melee,
went into the beer cellar, and helped themselves to the
liquor. Another batch walked defiantly 'through the
village, and entered the rectory garden, where they pulled
up shrubs and flowers indiscriminately. A portion of the
-visitors had come by steamer, and as some of the more
orderly ones tried to get on board the vessel,
they were knocked into the water. The captain after
numerous solicitations cast off his moorings, and pro-
ceeded to York before the appointed time. Many who
came by water were thus left behind, and some mis-
chievous spirits amongst them amused themselves by
running down by the river side and pelting stones
at those on board the vessel. The result was that
a number of persons were injured, whilst the cabin win-
dows were all broken. The whole matter is to undergo
investigation, and protest is being made against " slipping"
such ruffians into a peaceful village, without the protection
which it is conceived should be afforded on such an
occasion by the Keserm of t!hp police, -