The Sun.
London, England, 1870-08-06 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY MORNING, AUGUST 6, 1870.

OPERAS, THEATRES, AND AMUSEMENTS,

PRINCE OF WALES'S—A 7.30. Quite by Accident. M.P. Deares
Mamma.

QUEEN'S—At Seven, My Wife's Dentist. 'Twixt Axe and Crown.
VArDEVILLE —Cupboard Love. Two Roses. lion Carlos.

CHRISTY MINSTRELS. St. James's Hall, Every l fight, at 8 ; Wed-
nesiays and Saturdays, at 3 and 8 all the year round.
ZO LOGICAL GARDENS, Regent's-park. Open daily. (except Sun-
days). Admission, Is. ; on ,Vlondays, 6d. Children under
twelve, ild.

MADAME TUSSAUD'S EXHIBITION, Baker-street, from 11 a.m. till
3 0 p.m., and from 7 till 10 p.m. Admission, ls.; extra
6d.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE THIS DAY.
........48 after 8 I Afternoon..... .27 after 9

Morning...

-71 '
-1) 'OA
egg

MORNING EDITION

among the civilians.
According to the present system the humbler post
at the disposal of the Government are given to
applicants whose claims to consideration are in no
respect comparable to those who have served their
full time in the army with credit to them-
selves and satisfaction to their officers. They are
distributed in point of fact among the sons of shop-
keepers, whose votes are of importance to the repre-
sentative of some very evenly-balanced constituency ;
or they are awarded to the domestic servants of
influential politicians, permanent place-holders, or
important members of Parliament. No advantage of
any kind accrues from these unsystematic appoint-
ments, saving and excepting of course, to the lucky
recipients themselves. Systematise, however, in
the way proposed, the awarding of only a moderate
proportion of these comfortable situations in the
Civil Service, and the benefits secured thereby to
the public at large, will be of vital importance as we
have already indicated.
At a moderate calculation there are at least a hun-

dred thousand situations of the character alluded to,
at the disposal of our Administrators. Set apart
merely a moderate proportion of this considerable
aggregate, set apart merely a tenth of the whole,
and you would have 10,000, set apart a fifth,
and you would have 20,000, thoroughly disciplined
men in the humbler walks of the Civil Service as an
admirable and an always reliable Reserve to
fall back upon in times of great emer-
gency. As to the economy resulting from their
selection it wi►l be sufficient to adduce au extract
very aptly taken by one of, the more earnest
champions of the proposed innovation from
a parliamentary paper printed no further back
than the 11th of May, 1866, where on page
23 of the home accounts of tho Government
of India, a significant fact or two will be found

thus recorded—" For Office Keepers and Mcesen-
gers.—Number of men, 66; wages, £7,014, being
an average of £lO6 ss. sd. per man. For an equal
number of Commissionaires employed on similar duty
and at the scale of remuneration paid to members of
the Corps by the Admiralty and War Departments

the amount would be £3,432, or £52 per man."
The above calculation in fact shows that by an
arrangement of the proposed kind there would be a
positive saving of more than fifty per cent. in the ex-

penditure. We should be prepared to rest the claims o

our soldiers to consideration in the way suggested
upon those two grounds upon the ground
of their ensuring at one and the same time
a reliable Reserve and a certain Economy.
Added to those two, however, there is, as we have
already intimated, another and a very important
advantage certain to arise out of the recognition of
the claims of these military applicants—there is
the certain advantage that it would be at all times
a direct encouragement to recruiting.

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

EARL SPENCER AT DALLINA SLOE.

There are two occasions each year in Ireland on
which " The Health of the Lord-Lieutenant ".and

4. Im.lnmi," o;s: 171.7- r,....puouti, and On
each, his Excellency is expected to make a long
speech describing the progress of the country,
The Lord Mayor's banquet passed by, early in the
spring, and now the second national. banquet of the
year, that held. at Ballinasloe while' the great cattle
fair is being proceeded with, has taken place. In
his remarks, on Wednesday evening, Earl Spencer
congratulated the farmers that the value of Irish

cattle had increased in the year 1869 by nearly half-
a-million sterling. The trade of the United King-
dom amounted to. over £7,000,000 annually, and a
large share of this money was paid for Irish cows.
In Ireland, he thought, especial care ought to be
taken of stock this season, as the annual importation
to the British Isles of German cattle will, probably,
not take place to any great extent, and English and
Scotch buyers will, consequently, be driven to pur-
chase of their neighbours. In pigs, an important

item to the Irish labourers and cottiers, there had
been an increase in number of 367,468 in 1869, and
his Excellency stated his belief that the export
within the past few months had been brisk, and
much more favourable than in former years. Store
cattle, he was obliged to acknowledge, had diminished
in consequence of the unprecedented drought. His
lordship knew that in the midland counties of Eng-
land where grazing was much depended on, the loss
had also been serious. On his own farm the stock
had to subsist for several weeks on oil cake. The
remainder of Earl Spencer's speech referred to the
want of improvement necessary in Irish husbandry.
Farms of - all sizes, large and small, he saw were
terribly backward, very little manure being put into
the land. He also knew that thousands•of small
farmers dwelt in houses into which cottiers of other
countries would not put their beasts. In Irish county
banks there were 20 millions of farmers money
deposited. Remembering this fact, he thought too
much parsimony was shewn ; he heard, moreover, as
a confirmation of this view, that tenants in many of
the most miserable domiciles had respectable sums
of money stored in the thatch. The cultivation of
the country was not of the worst, and under the new
Land Bill everyone might look forward to its
becoming better.

have accumulated in favour of the proposition.
Hardly one has been educed in antagonism to it—
certainly none of anything like importance. It is not,
let it be understood, that the advocates of this change are
demanding for their clients anything like a monopoly,
anything like priority or precedence. All they
ask is that the military servants of the Crown
should be allowed their fair share of the good
things now distributed as a rule wholly and solely

offences of enlisting in the service of a foreign state,
of leaving her Majesty's dominions with such inten-
tion, of embarking under false representations, of
taking illegally • enlisted persons on board
ship, are punishable by fine and imprisonment.
l'he same penalties are incurred by building any
ship with reasonable cause to believe that it will
be employed inthe service of any foreign belligerent
or equipping or despatching such ship, or adding to
or changing .the war equipment of any ship in the ser-
vice of a belligerent. If any prize captured by a
vessel, built, equipped, or despatched contrary to the
provisions of this Act, be brought into British ports,
the original owner of such prize, or the agents of his
Government, may claim its restoration from the Court
of Admiralty. The last part of the bill recounts the
powers given to the several local and other authori-
ties to enforce its provisions, and gives an explana-
tion of the exact meaning of the terms employed,

factory explanation has been given. Professor Long-
more, however, in an appendix. to his " Treatise
Ambulances" says that the statistics, and the deduc-
tions drawn from them, are to say the least, very in-
complete, and in some respects calculated to mislead.
They shew the proportion of casualties, not to the
troops actually engaged: but to the strength of the
whole army of which the men engaged form a part.
The number of troops, too, brought on the field in
some battles is coinparatively limited, so that they
are a'l actively employed in the conflict perhaps for
several consecutive hours. At Waterloo, for example,
the 24,000 British troops were all exposed to fire,
and a large proportion of them were in repeated
close conflict with the enemy. Hence the ratio
of casualties in that battle was greater than that
of Konigratz. The number of men who form the
armies of the present time, is so enormous that it is
impossible for all the troops to be engaged in battle.
Professor Longman instances Solferino and
Konigratz, where there were respectively 298,358 and
427,160 men under arms.