The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-17 00:00:00

filE SUN, LONIiQI, SATURDAI, DECENIBER 17,

THE IRISH CHURCH.

The Synod of the Archdiocese of Armagh resumed its
sitting on Wednesday, the Lord Primate presiding.
Before commencing the business of the meeting, his Grace
announced that he had received £250 from the Bishop of

Durham; being the half of his subscription, with a promise
that £250 would shortly follow for the Sustentation Fund.
In his letter, the learned prelate expressed the greatest
interest in their progress. The Primate said. he bad a
letter from another English bishop, advising them to make
no appeal, or allow no appbal to he made, on their behalf
to England till May, inasmuch as•the English people had
already given £500,000 f(ir the sick and wounded, and as
in every diocese in England, within the next two months,
large sums must bt collected for school • funds to enable
them to purchase the schools. The writer who made
this suggestion re-echoed the. assurance that had come
from other quarters of the very great interest which the
bishops and clergy of England take in their success.

EXTRAORDINARY SCENE AT A FUNERAL.
On Thursday, at the Dewsbury Borough Police-court,.
John Grady was charged, at the instance of the local
Burial Board, with creating a disturbance in the
cemetery on the 7th instant. A man named Anthony
Fox was included in the charge, but he did not
appear. It was proved that on the above day the
Rev. W. R. Kenny, Roman catholic priest, vexed
at the conduct of the defendant and other mourners—
they were all intoxicated—struck him with an umbrella.
Grady immediately knocked the priest down, and the
latter, on rising, proceeded to the mortuary chapel to
perform the burial service. This over, the coffin, was
ordered to be taken to. the grave, but Fox would not
permit it, and he had to be removed. He came up again,
obstructed the passage of the corttge, and was then
struck. by Grady. The two men fought, and, not to be
behind hand, some of the women, all more or lees intoxi-
cated, had a "set to," and the scrimmage was Continued
while the interment was taking place. Mr. Breary, who
represented the Burial Board, said that was the first:case
of the kind they had had, and therefore they did not wish
to press for a heavy penalty. Defendant was fined 40$.
and costa, and a warrant was ordered to be issued against
Fox.—Manchester Guardian. •

LORD LAWRENCE.

The election of Chairman of the London School Board
is an event of far too much importance to be pasSed lightly
by. Many particulars more or less accurate of the career
of Lord Lawrence have been published, the most impor-
tant point in connection with them being the mistakes
made apparently by confusing the actions of his lordship
with those of his brother, who, like himself, won fame and
renown in India. Lord Lawrence, member, of the
London School Board ' , ref esenting- Chelsea is the
fourth son of ' Colonel Alex. Lawrence, who was
a soldier of distinction under Marquis Corn-
wallis in the Mysore Campaign, and an heroic combatant
at Seringapatam. He had four brothers; all, of whom
were soldiers. One pf them, Henry, fell in th 4 success-
ful defence of Lucknow, and his loss was monrned by
every 'Englishman. John Laird Mair Lawrence, now
Lord Lawrence, was born on the 4th of March, jBll, and
' was educated chiefly at the High School at Derry, in
Ireland (since called Foyle College, from the river Foyle,
.up which came the Protestant ships and smashed "the
boom"). Here he was a schoolfellow of the rioted Sir
Robert Montgomery, Lieutenant-Governor of the Pun-
jab. On leaving. school he was presented with a civil
appointment in India, known as a writership,
but he evinced much., opposition to koceeding
to that country unless in a military capacity ; but
j,at that juncture his brother Henry returned hpme sick
with fever, after, the Burmese war, and his experienced
narrative had much
,effect in removing this ida. He
accordingly started in 1829 to occupy the pest of 4ssistant
1-to the Resident of. Delhi, one of his coadjutors tieing, Sir
Charles Trevelyan, afterwards Governor of Madras. He
soon left Delhi and proceeded to the districts, aii/ay from
Europeans, where he was throWn upon the natives' for
help, obedience, usefulness, success, and even syinpathy ;
and there obtained his training in Indian life. 14 worked
hard and made his subordinates. do likewise, laying up a
store of knowledge of all kinds—official, jndiciA social,'
agricultural, commercial; learning, in fact, to know the
races whom, by God's Providence, he was afterwards to
be called upon to rule. After ten . years of this work
he returned to England for three years' holiday, was
married, and returned to his duties happy and invigorated.
Ile resumed his work on the eve of very perilo'.is times..
In the winter of 1841-2, a British force of 5;000 men,
with three times that number of camp followers, were cut
to pieces between Cabul and Jellelabad, a disastr which,
united with the inherent justice of the retributi in, gave
the first decisive blow to English prestige in. I dig, and
sounded the key-note to the disasters of 1857. n 1845,
the Sikhs burst across 'the Sutlej with an ftrmy of
perhaps 100,000, and then came the famous exploits of
Lords Hardinge and Gough, which resulted in, the loss
of some 6,000 killed' and slain, including the ."foremost
man in India," George Broadfoot, and caused th 4 transfer
of John Lawrence to the Punjab on the earnest recom-
mendation of Lord Hardinge and Sir F. CurJrie, then
foreign secretary. From 1846 to 1849 John Lawrence
remained Commissioner of the Trans-Sutlej States (the
rich Jalundhur Doab, and the hills adjoining, running up
the borders of Thibot, yielding a revenue Of about
400,000 a year.) His task was to change the entire
system of government therein from that of the ; Sikhs to
that of the British, and thus incorporate the new terri-
tory with British India ; and he effected it in these three
years with masterly ability. In particular, lie commuted
the whole land-tax from payment in grain to payment in
cash, in the face of native popular opinion, but to the
, ultimate satisfaction of the agricultural classedra solid-
and substantial administrative triumph. It is noted that
he. was least successful with the feudal .chiefs, his brother
:Henry being more at home with them ; but it, must be
admitted that no branch of Anglo-Indian government
presents more serious difficulties than the question what
to do with the aristocracy. In 1848 the Sikh army again
contested with the British, and, after a severe struggle,
the Punjab was annexed to British India in March,
1849, and the new province was ruled by a Board .of
Administration, consisting of Henry Lawrence, as presi-
dent,
with John Lawrence, Mr. Mansell, and aftewards
Mr. Montgomery. In 1852; Henry Lawrence withdrew,
and the sole charge of the Punjab was , given to John as
Chief Commissioner, an office he held for five years,
during which his labours were immense both to himself
and his subordinates. . • Then came the calamitons events
Of 1857-8, when 100,000 Sepoys revolted front English
rule and again •set up the Mogul Dynasty in Delhi.
.British rule was then convulsed from sea to mountain.
It was clear that Delhi must be regained or British India
would be lost. The Governor-General of India at Cal-
cutta and the Governors of Madras and Bombay were
'shut off, and everything depended upon the( Punjab.
.At such a crisis the Punjab stood firm and faithful ;
poured down from hill and plain the flower of its
'native chivalry, and the best of our .generals,
with the choicest blood of both succeeded in
recapturing the ' historic capital -of . India, , and the
then ruler of ' 'the • Punjab was John Law-.
rence. And, accordingly, it is not surprising that hon-
ours were heaped upon him in rapid succession. The
Times of October 23, 1858, startled all England by pub-
lishing at full length some minutes .of Sir .Tilin Law-
rence's on " the Christian duty of this country in. the
government of India." They discwised many ipoints of
administration open to objection; but their utterance
was most clear and spirit-stirring on the old English ' sub-
ject of an open Bible. - 'He stated that, in his judgment,
" the Bible ought not only to be placed among the college
libraries and the' school books, for the -perusal of those
who might choose to consult it"—(as had hitherto been
the neutral practice)L--" but also it should be taught in
class, wherever we,- have teachers fit to I teach it
and• pupils willing to hear it." Nor was thil all. Sir
John closed his despatch by as fine, manly, and English
• a confession of political- faith as we know of iin public
records.. - The following extracts give the pith of it :
" Sir John Lawrence has been led, in common with others,
since the occurrence 'of the awful events of 1857, Ito ponder
deeply on what may be the faults and shortcomings of the
British as a' Christian nation in India. In considering
topics such as those treated of in this despatch,' he would
solely endeavour to ascertain what is our Christian duty.
Having
,ascertained that, according to our erring lights
and conscience, he would follow it out to the nttermost,
undeterred by any consideration. If we address ourselves
to this task, it may, with the blessing of Providence, not
prove too difficult for iv.
does entertain the earnest belief that all those measures
which are really and truly Christian can be carried out in
India. not only without danger to British rule, but, on
the contrary, with every advantage to its stability."
When, in 1859, John Lawrence returned to his native
' land, lie was presented by the Bishop of Louden with an
'address of congratulation signed by nearly 8,000 impor-
tant Persons, including three archbishops, twenty bishops,
twenty-eight temporal Peers, seventy-one M.P.'s, and
nearly 200 mayors and provosts of cities andboroughs.
The honours conferred on him were the dignity of K.C. B.
a- baronetcy, a seat in the new Indian Council and on her
Majesty's Privy Council. The East Indian Company, as
one of their final acts of power, granted from the
revenues of India a pension of V 2,000 per annum for two
lives. On the formation of the Order of the Star of India
he was made K.S.I. At the end of 1863. he' succeeded
the late Lord Elgin as Viceroy Governor - General
of India, an ' aPpointment which gave great satis-
faction in India,. and which 'he held with the
greatest good: effect until , his ' retirement , in 1868,
when he was raised to the peerage as Lord X.awrence.
His lordship has received the honorary degrees of D.C.L.
and LL.D. from both Oxford and Cambridge. ' Since his
return to England lie has been :the .consistent helper and
advocate of -every truly Christian undertaki4-, and has
taken a•most lively interest in missionary and educational
enterprise in the country where he won his fame and
renown. The. difficulties of his course 'may be estimated
from the sketch of Indian life given by Lord Stanley (now
Lord Derby) in 1859, addressing the students at Addis-
combe, when lie remarked, " Everything in Asia, public
safety, national honour, personal reputation, rests on the
force of individual character. For a European gentleman
• in India there is,' strictly: speaking, no private life.. He is
one of the ruling race; he is one of the few among the
many ; he is one of a population of some 10,000 strong
among more than ten times as many millions."—Record.

TEE GREW OF THE GARADOC.— The boat con-
taining- the remainder of the crew of the Caradoc, bound.
from Liverpool for Singapore, which foundered after colli-
sion with another vessel on the Bth inst.,. was picked up'
by the steamer Egyptian, the beingen subsequently
transferred to the bark Janet Fabers, and landed safely
at Dublin.

THE EXPLOSION AT WITTON.—MonE DEATHS.—
From the many lingering sufferers at the Hospital death
has removed two more. Jane Johnson died at three o'clock
on Thhrsday afternoon, and Lucy Hilliard at ten o'clock
at night. Twenty-one have now died since Friday last,
and the ease of many more is hopeless, In one ward
there ere five poor women in a painfully critical condi-
tion, and there seems but little hope of their surviving
long.

The New York Tribune, writing of the reported
arrest of George
.Francis Train at • Marseilles, asks,
" Lives, or lived there ever a man with such an immense
talent for breaking into gaol 'as our eloquent friend ?"
The Tribune says that Train grows great upon im-
prisonment ; that he dotes upon, persecution ; and that
to .be "severely let alone" would cause him intolerable
anguish.

THE WAR.

THE SIEGE OF PARIS.

TEMPORARY CALM.

Herr Wachenhusen, of the Cologne Gazette, says that
the last few days before Paris have been " intolerably "
calm. " Only at times the soiesan boom of one of the big
guns of tile forts is heard, especially at night, as if they
were disturbed by horrible dreams. It is possible that it
is done to quiet the Parisians, and to shew them how
well they are guarded, for any sensible purpose is
not to be attained by such foolish cannonadiUg. Upon
Mont Valerien though, or in the redoubts, a new gun
of very long range must recently have been placed in
position, a shot from which fell the.day before yesterday
within 1,500 paces of Prince Charles's residence at Ver-
sailles. It may possibly be only a model upon which
others are being constructed. The way in which our
parlementaire was recently complimented back is said to
have annoyed the King very much, and his merciful
views 'are greatly changed in consequence. It is there-
fore possible that very shortly more energetic steps may
be taken against the Parisians. We may expect a sortie
during the next few days towards Mention, the exposed
position of which General Trochu has long had his eye
upon."