The Sun.
London, England, 1870-02-04 00:00:00

rnE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY VENING, FigBRUARY 4, 1870.

sturdy hands to till their soil and hew their forests,
and develope their illimitable resources ?
Such was the question virtually proposed to Mr.
GLADSTONE, yesterday, by the deputation from
the National Emigration League, and though the
Prime Minister's answer was, after the fashion
of such replies, vague and uncommunicative enough,
the facts laid before him were such as must, we
may hope, make some impression. The Duke of
Manchester, who introduced the deputation, referred
to the recent inquests on men who had died of star-
vation in the prime of life. Mr. TORRENS, M.P.,
brought forward statements which exhibited an
awful amount of distress, existing just above that
boundary line which divides the pauper from the
poorer labourers. Dr. FRENCII, of Liver-
pool, has said that the people round him are
not earning more than 10s. or 12s. a week. What
does that statement imply for a family ? One of the
workmen at Messrs. CUBITT'S said he hated the look
of the yard, because of the hundreds outside the
gates waiting for work they would never get.
Turning from the report of the deputation
to the record of the Police Courts, we
find an additional instance. An employer of labour
waited yesterday on the magistrate to point out the
wretched condition of some of his men whom he
could not possibly employ longer ; they all had
families, and had been forced to sell their chairs to
get coals. The magistrate ordered them some slight
relief from the poor-box ; but what arc they to do
when that is spent ? There are hundreds, there are
thousands,in a similar predicament. What is to become
of them? The coroners' inquests perhaps can answer.
We may be told that no one need starve under our
Poor Law, but, setting aside every consideration as to
the manner in which it is applied, is it the interest of
England to pauperise her respectabla workmen ?
The rates are so heavy that they are al-
ready crushing down the poorer householde'rs.
Are they to be made heavier in order
to give Mr. LOWE a few more figures
in his Budget ? Over the seas—east, west, north,
and south—lie widespread, thinly-peopled lands,
where the men now standing hopelessly idle, or bur-
dening their fel!ows, may " give the lips they love
unbotrowed bread." They may become in their turn
customers and benefactors to the old mother-country,
for, in spite of Earl GRANVILLE, it is indisputable that
a large proportion of our commercial wealth flows
from our colonies. What is it that stands in the way
of making the excess of one country supply the want
of the others?

THE report of Dr. LIVINGSTONE'S death is CUS-•
,tredited on all sides. Plausible as the story looked, the
oalance of probability rests decidedly with the evidence
adduced against it. Sir RODERICK 3luncinsoN shows
tt to be all but impossible that the traveller could have
reached the point at which he was said to have been
killed. Whilst at Ujiji he wrote for a supply of boat-
men and goods, and Dr. KIRK, in a despatch from Zanzi-
bar, dated October 2nd, expresses his intention of
forwarding these necessaries. Supposing he had
lent them off at once. Dr. LIVINGSTONE could not
have received them before the middle of December,
since it takes two months to communicate between
the coast and Ujiji, in the interior. How, then,
zould Dr. LIVINGSTONE have reached the Congo, and
have met with his death at a point in the interior
from which intelligence could not be brought
to less than three months, for we are
told in the letter by Captain COCHRANE that
the disaster occurred ninety days' journey from
the Congo ? Still more serious doubt is cast upon
the report by the testimony of Messrs. GRANT,
BRODIE, and Co. They have in their possession a
letter from a Portuguese trader, describing the
murder of a white man for " bewitching" a
native King. This letter was received by
the Messrs. GRANT some weeks since, and
the event to which it refers is represented as occur-
ring so long ago that Dr. LIVINGSTONE could
not possibly be the victim of the superstitious natives.
Now, the story told by Captain COCHRANE was
brought to the West Coast by a Portuguese trader,
and it accords precisely with the narrative in the
letter to the Messrs. GRANT. In all probability it
Es the same account. The melancholy story of
Captain COCHRANE is therefore discredited doubly.
Sir RODERICK MuncuisoN shews that Dr.
LIVINGSTONE could not have penetrated so near
the West Coast, and the City firm bring
very strong evidence to prove that if a white man
was killed by the natives, he could not have been Dr.
LIVINGSTONE. The great traveller's progress through
a perfectly unknown country will be watched with
much anxiety, but there is as yet no ground for posi-
tive armreher.sion.

A meeting was held at Norwich to-day to promote
the abolition of University tests. Sir Willoughby Jones,
one of the chairmen of the Norfolk Quarter Sessions.
presided.

A telegram to the Hudson's Bay Company says it
is reported that Riel is a prisoner at the Red River Terri-
tory, and that the authority of Governor Maotavish is
restored.

The announcement recently made of the appoint-
ment of tho Rev. A. Willis to be Bishop of Madagascar is
somewhat premature, and that the matter is not yet defini-
tively settled.

The Prince and Princess of Wales, accompanied
by Princes Albert Victor and George, and Princesses Louise,
Victoria, and Maud, and attended by the Marchioness of
Carmarthen and Colonel Teesdale, will arrive at Marlborough
House (his afternoon from Gunton Hall, Norfolk.
The Dublin Daily Express of to-day says :—" We
understand that a medical gentleman in this city has been
warned, on peril of death, not to pay any more profes-
sional visits to a lady who is the owner of property in the
county Meath, and who, it appears, is unpopular with her
tenants."

It appears from a letter written by General
Fraser to the Glasgow herald that there has been some mis-
take about the "identical cane" of Lord Lovat, the recent
sale by auction of which was the other day made the occa-
sion for regretful comment. General Fraser says that the
historical cane handed upon the scaffold to his (General
Fraser's) paternal groat grandfather, Wm. Fraser, of Ford,
is, together with other relics of Lord Lovat, now to safe
keeping at Avondale.

The friends of Santi Nistri, the German tailor,
who was recently found dead under somewhat suspicious
circumstances at Hauwell Asylum, have offered a reward of
£lOO for information showing how tho deceased received the
injuries which caused his death. It may be remembered that
the deceased had 13 of his ribs fractured, and the jury were
of opinion that the injuries were sustained after his admis-
sion to the asylum.

Captain Sherard Osborn, managing director of
the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company
(Limited), announces that by a cypher telegram from Bom-
bay, dated Jan. 30, 1870, 6.35 a.m., he has learnt that the
Great Eastern hoisted her number off Cannamore on the
Malabar coast the previous evening. Cannamore is 480
miles south of Bombay, and the ship was not therefore due
until the morning of the Ist February.

Mr. Shirley Brooks is lying seriously ill at his house
in Regent's-park. Overwork and an access of gout had un-
favourably prepared Mr. Brooks for the cold of last week,
and o❑ Wednesday week (after presVing at tho Punch
dinner, in tLo aY.ence, from illness, of Mr. Mark Lemon)
Mr. Prooks was .9, ized with spasms and shiverings, which
prostrated him. His medical adv;sers report favourably of
the case, Lul, have strictly forbidden the least attention to
business or the rcceptiou of vi:itors.
The death is norm-weed of Sir Edward Cecil
B:ssltop. The deceased, who was the eleventh harona,,
was a son of the Very Rev. Sir George Bisshop, the eighth
baronet, dean of Lismoro and archdeacon of Aghadoe. Ile
was born in 1826, and succeeded his brother, Captain
George Curzon, of the 12th root, in 1865. He was ap-
pointed a cornet of the North Devon Yeomanry Cavalry,
in 1839. He was married in 1847 to Mary, daughter of
Admiral Taylor, of the Brazilian navy, but loaves no issue.
The family of Bisslitkp canto from Gascony with Henry 11.,
and wore noted as being firm Royalists, and suffered much
in puree and estate. Sir Thomas Bisshop, who bought the
Parham estate in 1591, had the Anew Qj EficesiTivg Queen
iYhg clinodia the tresi halL

LEPUTATION TO MR. GLADSTONE ON
- EMIGRATION.

A deputation, representing the National Emigration
League, and others interested in the question of emigra-
tion, waited on the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, at his
)1B cial residence, in Downing-street, on Thursday afternoon.
Amongst those who attended were his Grace the
Duke of Manchester, Lord George Hamilton, M.P.,
Mr. ISPCullagh Torrens, M.P., Mr. Charley, M.P.,
Sir E. Dennison, Mr. E. Wilson (Melbourne
Argus), Captain Bedford Pyra, R.N., Mr. Edmond Beales,
IX. Mr. Gladstone received the deputation, in company
iith the Right Hon. G. J. Goschen, Pred lent of the Poor
Law Board.

The DUKE of MANCHESTER, in introducing the deputa-
tion, said it came not only from the English League, but
represented many classes, including working men. He
sympathised entirely with its ob:e;ts. He believed it was
an imperial duty to assist emigration in the manner it
would be proposed, and that the benefit conferred would
not be merely temporary was shewn by statistics recently
issued by Mr. Eddes. These were compiled from official
documents, and from them it appeared that the area of
the colonies was forty-four times that of the United
Kingdom. The population was only two to the square
mile, while that of the United Kingdom was 245, so that
to make the population of the colonies as dense as ours it
must be increased to five thousand millions, which would
not be readily accomplished by emigration. The colonists con-
sumedour manufactures at the rate of £6 per head, while
othernations only did so to the extent of a few shillings per
head ; so that to put people who were now almost paupers
in a position where they would be such large customers to
the mother country, would be a great advantage to the
country. But this was a matter of Christian duty as well
as- of political advantage. The men an behalf of whom
the deputation pleaded, were anxious for work, and it was
almost wicked to suggest, as had been done, that they
should be kept at home starving until capitalists found it
convenient to employ them. (Hear, hear.)
Mr. JENKINS, hon. secretary of the League, presented a
memorial from a meeting at Exeter Hall. He stated that
it set forth the general distress of working men through-
out the country, and boldly affirmed that the distress was
...so great as to. demand the-interfention of the Govern-
ment. It proceeded to set forth a remedy—State aid to
emigration. Mr. Jenkins added that he had received
letters from many hundreds of persons in the country
proving how widespread was the distress. Amongst these
were communications from Aberdeen, requesting aid for
the emigration of 100 families ; from Birmingham, stating
that hundreds of persons were applying for assistance to
emigrate ; from Clifton, where the curate had already sixty
men in his emigration club; at Redhill, where fifty men
had only yesterday banded themselves together for
purposes of emigration, and in fact from the various agri-
cultural and artisan districts. The League repu-
diated all imputations of socialism or communism.
Mr. WCULLOGII TORRENS, M.P., who next addressed the
Premier, said that nothing but an overpowering sense of
necessity would have induced the deputation to trouble
Mr. Gladstone at such a season. There were present mon
of all classes and opinions, lay and clerical, and they
threw themselves on the kindness of the Government,
hoping that they would be received in the same spirit. In
support of the statements which had been made he would
say that ho had lately heard Mr. Morley say that he, as
a manufacturer, never recollected employment to
be so scarce. The poor's rates were rapidly increasing in
London. But the distress was not merely metropolitan. In
Manchester in the third week of January, 1869, there
wore 3,511 persons in receipt of relief ; in the corres-
ponding week of this year, 4,200. The difference in the
cost was £578 per week last year, and £7lO a week this
year. Another very suggestive item was the number
of typus patients. Last year they were forty-
five and now seventy-five (Hear, hear.) He had given
some attention to the question of illness created by
poverty, and he had not words to express what this
increase of contagious disease implied. In Liverpool, as
the right hon. gentlemen well knewf the bulk of the
labouring population was of the unskilled kind. He
wrote to Dr. Trench, the experienced head of
the Sanitary Department in Liverpool, a few
days ago' on this subject. In reply Dr. Trench
wrote: "You ask me as to how the people
live. My answer is this : Wages are nominally for these
rough people 3s. 6d. a day. But they get only half-
time, and the ordinary average wages on whicll they rim
with their families ranges from 10s. to 12s. per week.
Well, the man who could bring up his family even
decently, to say no more, in Liverpool on 10s. was a very
clever fellow. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Torrens strongly urged
the claims of the working classes to assistance from the
Government in this matter, and recommended that the
opinion of Parliament should be taken. All he asked now
was that there should be a grant of money for free pas-
sages, and for loans to emigrants.
Mr. GEOBOE POTTER, as representing working men,
said millions of them were anxiously watching for the
reply of the Government.
Sir WILLIAM Dzsrsusost testified to the willingness
of the Colonial Government to receive—not the
sweepings of our poor-houses—but such labourers
as the deputation proposed to send out.
Mr. GLADSTONE, in reply, said: The Duke of Man-
chester, Mr. Torrens, and Gentlemen, We have listened
with great interest to the expression of your opinions
upon a subject of such deep importance as the
distress of the people. 'Whenever it prevails, it must
necessarily be a question which has the very first
claim upon the attention of the Government; and it is
their duty to study to the best of their power all prac-
ticable and available means for relieving it; and listen
with great attention and respect to all suggestions with
regard to any particular form that a process of that kind
rs.ay assume. In that spirit we desire to receive the repre-
sentations you have made, and so far from complaining of
the character of those representations, I should rather express
—and lam sure Mr. Goschen will concur with me—my
thankfulness to the deputation for having placed before
us proposals of wide scope and great importances, though,
as you -yourselves admit, of very considerable difficulty,
yet at the same time in a clear and definite form,
Mr. Jenkins has spoken on the part of the deputation
and I should like to ask if the pamphlet sent to me
expresses the views generally of those who are present.
("No, No.") It is simply, then, an expression of individual
opinion. I should like, also, to ask another question.
There is no doubt about the character of this deputation ;
as 'Mr. Potter has said, although it was unnecessary, it
does not represent any narrowclass or section, but it is, as I
understand, a London deputation.
Mr. JR-N=2.N said the deputation originated at the Exeter
Hall meeting, and other gentlemen explained that the
League represented all parts of the country.

Mr. GLADSTONF.: IS it composed of London gentlemen
only ?
Mr. BRALES: There are some gentlemen here from the
country—Mr. Eastbrook and Mr. Charley.

Mr. GLADSTONE: Oh, now I understand. We shall take
care to make known to our colleagues these proposals, and
this will be received in a respectful spirit. I cannot
say more than that. And whatever conclusion we may ar-
rive at will of course be governed by the best view we can
take of public affairs. I had requested Lord Granville to
be present to-day on the part of the colonies, for be, as
Colonial Minister would necessarily have much to say on
a question of this kind, and no small part of any measure
which will be undertaken would fall on his department; but
I am sorry to say that he is prevented from being present
by ill-health. There is another member of the Govern-
ment who would require to be consulted—(a laugh)—
especially upon this matter of investment of publia
funds which has been suggested, and that is our right
hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
(Laughter.) He will, I am sure, regard the question
in the same impartial spirit, with a sense of the great dif-
ficulties attaching to it, and with a desire to overcome
them, and with the firm intention to make a fair exami-
nation and consideration of the whole matter, and arrive
at the conclusion which shall be best. (Applause.)
The deputation thanked the right hon, gentlemen and
withdrew.

Later in the day a conference, presided over by Sir W.
Denison, was held at the House of the Society of Arts,
John-street, Adelphi, on the subject of Government Aid
to Emigration. Amongst other speakers, Mr. Eastwick,
M.P., advocated such assistance being given, and
condemned the present Poor Laws as tending to produce
pauperism.

A YOUNG WOMAN SUED FOR BREACH OF PRO-
nnsE.—A dockyard labourer at Leith has obtained
£3 2s. ed. damages from a young woman who had promised
to marry him, and to whom he had entrusted various sums
of money for the purchase of household furniture. The
pursuer said that the defender not only refused to marry
him now, but that when he visited her house he found,
instead of " preaching and praying' a scene of " drinking
and singing," and the company enjoying themselves at 1 is
expense.

CAUTION TO MINERS ON STRIKE.—A number of
miners have been charged before the magistrates at
Morpeth, with absenting themselves from the service of
Messrs. Barkas and Co., of Widdrington Colliery, without
giving proper notice. The defendants had been regularly.
engaged, but it was contended on their part that tl.e
masters, by their conduct towards the men, had not
fulfilled the terms of the agreement. The magistfates
ordered the men to pay 108. each as compensation to their
masters, and the amount of the cots,

rAitiS CORRESPONDENCE,

TIIITIISDAY.

The [Corps L4gislatif has rejected M. Grevy's amend-
ment, empowering the Chamber to call upon the army for
its defence by 21T against 42. The whole of yesterday's
sitting was devoted to the discussion of the internal regu-
lations of the Chamber, the chief points of debate
being the amendments of M. Dreolle and M. Grevy. The
latter supplied the only interest of the discussion, and rau
as follows :--" The police of the Corps Legislatif and of
the enclosure of the palace belongs to the Pre-
sident. The Corps Legislatif determines the amount
of the military forces necessary for its security, and has
the right to dispose of them. The civil authorities and
the military commanders are to obey their orders."
M. Grevy appears to imagine he is living under
Republican institutions, for lie reminded his
hearers that the princiide he claimed for the
Corps Legislatif had been enjoyed by the Assem-
bles Nationale and the Assembles Legislative. He
explained that he did not demand the power of calling
in the army for protection, with a view to the possibility
of an eateate, but rather in case there should be a colli-
sion between the chief powers of the State. Would it not
be a misfortune, if in such a case the national
representation, that is to say Law and Liberty;
was left defenceless ? The Left loudly ap-
plauded this sentiment, and were not less gratified by
a passing observation of M. Grevy's, " when the last touch
is put to that system of Parliamentary Government of
which we have heard so much, but of which we
have yet to see the foundation." M. Picard put
in a word which ores ted fresh excitement. " We
have as yet," said he, "only the panygeric ; we have not
even the Parliament." M. Grevy reviewed the several
objections to. his proposal, and said, in reply to the charge
of offering needless defiance to the Government, that it
was part of the duty of a Legislature to be defiant.
He did not wish to awake painful memories, but such an
objection compelled him to remember that the Legislative
Assembly perished for a lack of being defiant, and because
she refused the arm offered her. It was her last fault, but
she paid dearly for it, and France paid with her. There
were loud protests from the Right, but marks of approval
from the benches round the orator. M. Segris, the Minister
of Public Instruction, declared, in answer, that constitu-
tional liberty could only be established by mutual con-
fidence. He denied :the possibility of a conflict
between the Executive and the Legislature, and protested
on behalf of himself and his colleagues that when they
intended to re-establish liberty they did not intend to do
so in opposition to the Empire, or without the Empire, but
with the Empire. M. Jules Favre lent his powerful sup-
port to the amendment of M. Grevy. lle contended that
as the public functionaries had the right of requisition
demanded, the Chamber had surely an equal right ; and
while he admitted that every one was desirous of preserv-
ing a good understanding, they ought to provide against
possible dissensions in the future, M. Segris had denied
such a possibility, but could they agree with him
under the existing regime, and with the unfor-
tunate tendencies of the Cabinet? Was it as
philosopher or as statesman, as theorist or as
Minister of Napoleon HI. that he offered such a
guarantee? Until they possessed the constituent power
they were nothing more than a body existing on tolerance,
and their existence depended on the will of
one man. The Ministry afforded them no security,
and the assembly which should be the first power in the
State held but a secondary place. Other language of a
similar character was used, and M. Guyot Montpayroux
declared that it was a disgrace to France that the Repre-
sentative Chamber should be at the mercy of a Senatus
Consultum.

The decree on the prefectoral appointments has met with
many adverse criticisms, and surprise is expressed that
some prefects have been maintained who are as much
compromised as those who have been dismissed. Some
of the journals attributed the late appointments
to Orleanist influence. The Torlement asks if
the Orleanist reaction is to take possession of France,
and if the democratic, Liberal, and parliamentary Empire
i 3 to have in its service men who prefer it to any other
form of government. A fatal hour has arrived, in which
the Empire and Demcciacy are driven into a corner. M.
Masson is now Prefect of the Nord, and if the Duke
d'Aumale disembarked at Dunkirk to overthrow the
Emperor, what would this functionary, the friend of the
Orleans family, do? 7ha Pays refers to the new nomi-
nations, and considers that the most unexpected and in-
comprehensible is that of M. Masson to the Prefecture of
the Nord—one of the most important in France.
Napoleon used to say to his Prefects of Lille, on naming
them, "You hold the key of France in your hands." The
Constitittiomte/, which had hitherto kept silence, has come
forward to oppose the general character of the nomina-
tions. It says that the Ministers abandoned to the
attacks of the Opposition the prefects who had contributed
to their triumph. In every case, whether in promotions
or renewals, people desire to see a manifestation of
liberal spirit, but in this instance the desire has
not been gratifiel. All legitimate hopes are not satisfied,
and all merits are not recompensed. In the choice of the
Government we may see the traces of unworthy influences,
and obstacles aro allowed to stand in the way of Adminis-
tration which should have been got rid of without delay.
M. Diener, who was dismissed from his office as justice
of :the peace, at Eischuriller, because he had not exerted
himself with sufficient zeal in the cause' of the official can-
didate, has written to refuse the far less important post
which was assigned to him. He says that he will not
submit to be degraded because he did not exhibit a certain
amount of electoral courtesy