The Sun.
London, England, 1846-10-17 00:00:00

SPILUT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

THE NEW HOSPITAL AT BROMPTON.—Yesterday
evening a meeting of the committee of management of
the above institution, for the treatment of consumption
and diseases of the chest, took place at the Board-room
of the new building, Philip Rose, Esq., in the chair. The
usual routine business having transpired, it was stated
that the sum of 2,0001., bequeathed by the late Rev.
Henry Campbell, the uncle of the worthy chairman had
become available for the purpose of the charity, to which
had been added by Mr. Rose the sum of 100 guineas for
the necessary fittings of one of the wards as a temporary
chapel. Otho Hamilton, Esq., of Buckingham Gate, St.
James's, had also presented a handsomely painted win-
dow for the principal staircase; and James Green, Esq.,
a very choice and extensive present of Staffordshire ware
for the domestic furnishing of the hospital. The com-
mittee received the above announcement with the greatest
satisfaction, and thanks having been warmly voted to the
chairman, adjourned until Thursday next.
SUBSIDENCE OF A RAILWAY CUTTING.—During the
night of Thursday an accident happened on the Brighton
and Hastings Railway, which will lead to considerable
inconvenience to travellers. About a mile on the
Brighton side of Pavensey is a deep and extensive
cutting, through what the " navies " call a soapy
soil, but which is known to geologists by the nsme of
blue clay and green sand, and on Friday morning it was
discovered that one side of this cutting had gone down
during the night, in a semi-liquid state, entirely filling up
the hollow, and carrying the rails to the top of the oppo-
site side of the cutting. The first up-train was delayed,
in consequence, nearly two hours, it being necessary for
the passengers to alight, on reaching the spot, and walk
to the other side of the slip, and there await the arrival
of a special engine, which was dispatched from Lewes as
soon as the disaster was known there. All the subse-
quent trains yesterday were more or less delayed. The
tenth of the slip is about 50 yards, and the quantity of
earth which it will be necessary to remove has been
roughly estimated at .40,000 cubic yards. It will take,
we bear, five or six weeks to repair the road, and mean-
while a temporary curve siding will be formed for the
passage of the trains. The work has already been com-
menced by Mr. Wythes, the contractor, on whom the
expense tells, the contractor having entered into an en-
gagement to construct .the line, and keep it in repair for
thre years after the opening.
REFORM YOUR WASHING BILLS.--Acorrespon-
dent of the Builder professes to have made a " very
careful estimate" of the laundry expenses of the metro-
polis. He computes them at five millions per annum I
He proposes that the necessary and expensive lavations
of linen, &c., should be carried on on a large scale, and
that washing companies should be once more set on foot.
The certain effect of such establishments—if skilfully
conducted—would be to abolish the extensive and not
unamiable sisterhood of washerwomen, and to save the
metropolitan public 20 per cent. on the washing bills, or
—should the " careful estimate" prove correct—one
milion per annum,

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.
TlMES.—Anneeting at a Mechanics' Institute is irw-
a-days so usual an occurrence that it provokes but
little
general observation. And even the more ambitious of
these reunions present very little to attract attention be-
yond the limits of the immediate neighbourhoods where
they are held. We should, therefore, have suffered the
recent soirée at the Bradford Institution to pass without
comment, had it not been for the presence of Lord Mor-
peth, and the remarks which he addressed to the meet-
ing. Without giving our adherence to the creed of those.
who believe that Mechanics' Institutes are to be the
means of redeeming the human race from ignorance and
barbarism to knowledge and refinement, we must admit
that, under certain conditions and certain management,
they may be productive of real good. But they require
this certain management—they ought to be governed by
these certain conditions—to prevent them from being
perverted into ridiculous, if not pernicious, exhibitions.
There is, perhaps, no temptation more alluring to the
indulgence of froward self-conceit or impertinent garru-
lity than that which is presented to a fluent but ill-
informed speaker by the opportunity of addressing
a worse-informed and illiterate audience. In such a
case, vanity fans the flame of presumptuous sciolism,
and the follies or prejudices of the many are fostered
by the self-complacency of one. The flippant speaker
and tho heedless audience react upon one another to
propagate and promote erroneous opinions, orinaccu-
rate conjectures, which are more dangerous than utter
ignorance. But the case is far different when the
teacher is able, erudite, and impartial, the audience
docile, confiding, and unprejudiced. And there are few
more graceful kinds of intellectual condescension than
that which is manifested by a man of cultivated taste
who courts the opportunity of instructing the.unedu-
cated, refining the unpolished, and correcting the preju-
dices of the half-learned, amongst his less fortunate
neighbours. Nor will such an alert, in itself generous
and kind, be maimed of its strength or deprived
of its reward, if he who makes it add to
the natural gifts of talent and of taste the
artificial advantages of birth and rank. Those who
detest toadying and despise "flunkeyism " will yet
reserve a proper admiration for him who makes rank
and birth instruments for raising noble aspirations and
encouraging exalted pursuits. And even those who
profess a political detestation of all class distinctions
will become reconciled to them in the person of one who
not only does not disclaim, lnit proudly avows his con-
nexion with and devotion to the humanities of science,
of literature, and of art. Associations of this kind have
become among the facts of the day. They exist, and
they will continue to exist. The tone which they take,
the spirit by which they are guided, the maxims which
they evolve, pass into other assemblies and animate other
associations. They are only one form of that federal
propensity which is amongst the characteristics of our
time. The advantage, then—nay, the necessity and the
duty—of giving them certain tendencies, of infusing into
them certain principles, must be too obvious to require
any lengthy inculcation. When we recollect the facility with
which men are now-a- days leagued together for purposes
either social or political—either of good or evil—it is not
unimportant that in the minds of the masses the idea of
combination should be associated with the example of at
least one society where good order is observed, sound
knowledge imparted, and party prejudices repudiated. As
Lord Morpeth said, "It is most salutary to have some
common neutral ground, where all can equally at times
meet together without any restraint, save that of mutual
self-respect." The violent invective, the coarse person-
alities, the ludicrous but baneful exaggeration, the taste-
less and tawdry declamation, which have been applauded
at many public meetings, convened 'for great and useful
purposes, comul one to regret that the minds both of
the speakers and their hearers had not been previously
trained in schools of severe disiepline and sound taste.
That preparation of course is forbidden to the many,
still it may fairly be hoped that such meetings as these
will do something towards modifying that extravagance
of opinion, and violence of language, which often pro-
ceeds rather from the mutual repulsion of different classes
and the want of specific information, than from political
grievances or social oppression. If they merely -bring
together persons of different stations and occupations
—if they lead the man of rank, the student, and the
philosopher into the haunts of busy industry---:
they will have done much to consolidate the various
elements of our system, and to destroy the too frequent
but not inevitable causes of repugnance and antagonism.
And when once the ice is broken, literature or science,
or music, or amusement, will at least 'have the oppor-
tunity of proving their legitimate influences. We can
easily understand the Eton aspirations of Lord Morpeth,
when he looks forward to the time that some scholars
will introduce to the knowledge of the Bradford me-
chanics " the blind old bard of Scia's rocky isle."
Without, however, anticipating that period—perhaps not
a distant one—we may profess ourselves content with
hearing the " bard of all time," and " the minstrel of the
North" well read and well criticised in an assembly of
men who live by the labour of their hands. A multitude
which can applaud Shakespere and appreciate Scott
must cherish feelings of kindliness and humanity far
higher and stronger than the passions of party or the
jealousies of caste. A peer or a doctor of laws expound-
ing the philosophy of Hamlet and the pathos of " Mid-
lothian" to a congregation of mechanics, would present
a study worthy of remark alike to the admirers and the
assailants of our social system.
CHRONICLE.—If the Queen's Ministers continue
unconvinced of the necessity of instantly abolishing all
artificial aggravations of a calamity against which they
have already invoked both the prayers of the Church
and certain extreme powers of the 'State, they will soon
find themselves standing alone in their appreciation of
public perils, and their estimate of public duties. Every
day brings with it new appeals to the prudence and
sense of responsibility with which national opinion has
largely credited the statesman now at the head of affairs,
and summons them with a force and distinctness that
ought to be irresistible, to do the one thing which is
clearly and certainly right. - We may add, with all due
respect for the very respectable motives which are no
doubt at the bottom of an otherwise inexplicable hesita-
tion, that every day brings with it new rebukes to
the tardiness of a Government which neglects to put
its policy in agreement with its prayers, and indo-
lently allows a rather small proprietary, or delicacy,
to overbear the dictates of a transcendent ne-
cessity. Two or three days ago we recorded the protest
of the working-men of our manufacturing metropolis
against the continued maintenance of a system that
darkens their immediate future with gratuitous difficulty
and avoidable suffering and privation. Yesterday, our
columns contained like protests from the capitalists of
manufacturing industry, as represented in the Manches-
ter Chamber of Commerce and from the municipality of
one of our most important seaports. To-day, it is our
very painful duty to lay before the public, in a letter
which we commend to the most deliberate attention of
all classes of our readers, views of the condition and
prospects of Ireland, and of the absolutely incalculable
magnitude of the present and coming calamity, which
dismally illustrate the unspeakable national absurdity—
we know not why we should not say, the glaring na-
tional sin—of maintaining, in the face of famine, laws
made against an inconvenient and exceptional
plenty. We grieve to be obliged to say that
our knowledge of our correspondent's sources of
information, and our confidence in his judgment, compel
us to regard the statements of this letter as coming
nearer to the real truth, and the whole truth, of a mat-
ter which perhaps no man living is capable of yet com-
prehending in all its horrible integrity, than anything
which we have yet presented to our readers. One
almost despairs of saying anything that can strengthen
an argument whose force lies in an axiomatic simplicity
that really leaves the logic of advocacy nothing to do.
How shall one " reason" such palpable truisms as those
which our operative and our capital manufacturers have
now united in urging on the practical consideration of
her Majesty's Ministers? What need of justifying an
alarm that grounds itself on facts notorious to the whole
world—or of vindicating and enforcing a demand so
strictly within the line both of an admitted exigency and
a recognised policy? How describe the indescribable
self-contradiction and folly of praying one way and work-
ing another way—keeping up a barrier of certain
miserable shillings against the very food which we
implore Heaven to send us— helping our rivals in the
world-wide competition for the raw material of life to
forestall and outbid us ? In the very midst of a dis-
aster absolutely unexampled in British or European his- •
tory—a disaster that enjoins every effort within the
power of the State to maximise our supplies of food,
and minimise our consumption—at such. a crisis to be
still insisting on keeping up a little artificial scarcity and
dearth of our own invention, and more than a little arti-
ficial waste and destruction! In the words of the Man-
chester Chamber of Commerce—" Extreme scarcity of
food is inevitable ; if labour fail, that scarcity will be-
come famine. Prayers are directed to be offered up in
our churches to have those evils averted, and yet one of
our laws enacts, that whatever may be the price of
wheat, the smallest duty to be paid upon the im-
port of it shall be 4s. per quarter ; another law decrees
that food brought into the country by certain vessels
shall not be eaten at all by our people ; whilst a
third declares that nothing shall be used in our distilleries
but that which would serve as food." Well may the
memorialists talk of "conflicting and cruel anomalies."
This is burning the candle at both ends with a ven-
geance. Artificially diminished supply—artificially in-
creased consumption. Particular care taken by the
State to keep out a little corn from a famine-stricken
people; particular care likewise taken by the State to
waste a great del. Why, what is this but a State pa-
tronage of famine? here we have actually the law of
the land, armed at all points, fighting on the side of fa-
mine. We must note with approval, and recommend
for general imitation, the comprehensiveness of the
prayer in which our Manchester memorialists sum up
the demands that humanity and common sense now make
on the Executive Government of the country. We have
all been rather too apt to forget that the shillings,of the
scale are not the only form of the existing State
bounty on famine. The admirable memorial before
us most effectively suggests that something more
than " the look of the thing" requires the in-
stant extinction of this system of national patronage and
endowment of a national enemy. The memorialists " be-
lieve that to mitigate impending calamities nothing less
will be sufficient than to admit into our ports every'
species of food accessary for daily subsistence, free of
duty ; to permit it to be brought indiscriminately from
every country by the vessels of every nation or flag, and
ahnsclv
emo already lasses ,bwroituhgohutt,
orrefemreanycehotroeufttheer
bvreizlsthwomhictho
to allow our distilleries and breweries the use of sugar
us." We await, with a confidence that would preclude
anxiety if time were no object, the deciMon of the Go-
vernment on the extremely simple question now sub-
mitted to its prudence and humanity. Lord John Russell
is in possession of the inference which, arguing from his
facts and onhis principles, working men and capitalists
have alike drawn, as to the present duties and responsi-
bilities of her Majesty's Miaisters, It is now for Lord