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

THE KAFIR WAR.

SPIHIT of the PUBLIO JOURNALS.

John Russell to tell the country what he infers from
these p: emises.
HERALI).--,-By man's unhallowed instrumentality,
" requiescat in pace" has been turned into mockery.
There is no peace for mere humanity, even in the grave.
Day after day, from one end of the metropolis to another,
the awful plague-cry seems revived in a modified form—
" Turn out the dead, turn out the dead." The spirit of
D. foe seems to hover over London, and to glory in im-
peliing its authorities to realise and reossv some of the
horrors of his semi-fictitious narradve. A powerful im-
pulse eviscerates our churchyards. Some insane rest-
lessness summons old and young—the mouldering
skeleton of the last century and the fresh corpse of the
present month—huddles them all together, and carts
them off to Kingsland or to Battle-bridge. One day
a trader in death who battens upon burials is found
to cram his dark and putrefying receptacle until
it bursts with repletion--the next, a city church-
yard or a pauper burial-ground) is irreverently
disembowelled, the grave renders back its dead, and
the accumulations of years are transported to
a distance. Sex and age, social condition and
personal identity, are utterly confounded. The ideas
generated by such a picture may be painful and irritat-
ing,—the mere perusal of such a desecrating decription
may be at once awful and disgusting; but what are
these compared with the reality of its performance?
A skull in the waste grounds at Islington, an arm at
King's cross, a foot at St. Giles's, a trunk at St. Pan-
cras, the remainder anywhere, horror and loathing
everywhere. The latest exhibition we chronicled on
Thursday. If the workhouse at St. Giles's requires en-
largement, the dead pauper makes way for the living.
An infirmary, a dispensary, a casual ward, waiting-
rooms, bath-rooms, and other offices being required,Rhe
pauper churchyard is allowed by mere inadvertence to
furnish a site. Souse old sheds are demolished, and as
the foundations for the new buildings are gradually ex-
cavated, the ghastly remains of defunct humanity are
extensively uncovered. Fetid gases are liberated in a
state of powerful concentration—the diffusion of aerial
foulness proceeds with the unchangeable rapidity which
physical laws prescribe and natural science reveals—the
miserable tenements of surrounding poverty are per-
meated with the odours of putrefaction—and the cham-
bers of the half-starved mechanic are filled with the ele-
ments of typhus. Public indignation echoing the whispers
of common propriety, which could scarcely fail to rise on
their own lips, at length compelled the guardians of
the poor to exhibit some amount of decency. The ex-
humated remains, we learn, were sent for reinterment
to the St. Giles's Cemetery, in the St. Pancras-road, in-
stead of being any longer diffused in the rubbish of waste
lands, to become the playthings of itinerant infancy.
But after what fashion was this compromise with their
duty effected? Black boxes, of any convenient size or
shape, into which we are told some twenty bodies were
indiscriminately thrust, furnished the machinery of trans-
portation. In the meantime the excavation makes pro-
gress, and the evolution of pestiferous gases proceeds
apace. If the moral sense and decent feelings of hu-
manity recoil at the history of this loathsome transaction,
we earnestly trust that the consequences of its publicity
will be neither temporary nor personal. Under the cir-
cumstances, it may be asked what could the authorities
at St. Giles's do, beyond that which they have effected ?
The answer is manifestly this—suspend or abandon
this excavation of the dead to make room for the
living pauper. Our complaint is, not that St. Giles's
workhouse and its churchyard are worse than other
places, but, what is far more important, that other places
are no better than St. Giles's. If a man builds a house,
nay, if he erects a wall, or removes a partition, the
Buildings Act and its public officer are instantly on his
back. A heavy fine teaches him that individual liberty
must yield to public safety. But what district surveyor
interferes with the ploughing, and probing, and disturb-
ance of churchyards ? What officer of health exists on
whom a notice of impending desecration could be served ?
What public functionary augments the speed, and main-
tains the decency of some imperative removal of the
dead, when that lamentable necessity arises .? There
is, in truth, no such person. Why we are so ill
provided let our lawmakers answer ; with them the
disgrace rests—with us the disgust remains. " The
honour generally due unto all men," says Hooker,
" maketh a decent interring of them to be conve-
nient, even for very humanity's sake :" how much more,
then, are we called upon to disinter them decently.
What right has any body of men to aggravate the horrors
of dissolution ? The unimaginative minds of the vast
majority of our population inseparably associate death
with burial, but it has been reserved for the present
generation to connect the ideas of dissolution with the
indefinite terrors of wholesale body-matching. The
Morgue and the Catacombs of Paris are as nothing com-
pared with the unblushing deeds committed in London
churchyards. In a city where so little outward respect
is exhibited for the human form in a condition of phy-
sical decay, men still wonder that amongst
the lower orders living brutality is rife, and
crime is invested with no terrors. With what
excupable scepticism must the ignorant and the
dissolute regard the doctrine of a future state
and a superintending Providence, when they see that
which was just now the residence of an immortal
soul become the object of unrestrained insult and revolt-
ing desecration—when the funeral rites are scarcely for-
gotten, the mourning garment scarcely worn out, before
those rites become a mockery, and that garment a dis-
gusting reminiscence. Sorrowing relatives remember
that they laid the mortal remains of their lost friend in
the grave of his fathers ; can they say the next week
where those remains are then ?—even the dead travel.
But the voice of public opinion, if once loused, will be
found to possess no temporising utterance ; the groan
from noisome prisons met the ear of Howard not in
vain ; the iron fetters of slavery encountered the eyes of
Clarkson not bootlessly ; the spirit of military flogging
quailed under the gaze of an independent press ; and the
desecration of the dead, if encountered with one tithe of
the same earnestness and determination, will expiate its
atrocities with equal certainty and completeness.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.

(From the South AfricanConzmercial Advertiser, Aug. 8.)

TIMES.—A meeting at a Mechanics' Institute is now-
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 soiree at the Bradford Institution to pass without
comment, had it not been f,r 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,

"The last war with the Katirs cr;mmenced about the
middle of December, 1834. On the 15th of April a
colonial force reached the Kei river, and crossed it,
threatening llintza for having abet:v(l or given refuge to
the enemies of the colony. At that date the Gaika chiefs
were in the Amatola mountains.

" The Lieutenant-Governor's proclamation declaring
he present war is dated 31st March, 1846. On the 21st
fuly a colonial force reached the Kei river, and crossed
t, and denounced Creili, Hintia's successor, for having
.betted or given refuge to the enemies of the colony.
Che Gaika chiefs are in the Amatola mountains.

" From the middle of December to the middle of April

is four months. That was the time required by Sir 13en-
lamin D'Urban and Colonel Smith to raise and organise

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

an army of about 5,000 men, an'd to ibrce their way to
the Kei. From the-Ist April to the 21st July is some-
thing less than four months, and that has been the time
taken by Sir Peregrine Maitland and Colonel Hare to
raise and organise an army of about 10,000 men, and to
force their way to the Kei.
"In the former war the Kafirs in Lower or South-
Eastern Kafirland professed to be friendly, and even
assisted the troops in the field against the Gaikas. In
this war these Kafirs have been the most active and dan-
gerous of the confederated barbarians in checking the
operations of the troops, and in crippling the columns or
divisions, by cutting off supplies.
"In the former war the Kafirs were contemptibly
weak in musketry and horses. In the present war they
have exhibited in the field an amount of force in both
these arms, at first sight, justly alarming.
"In operating in a barbarous country, where all sup-
plies must be brought from the rear, the main difficulty
of a commander is in feeding his troops, and especially
his horses ; and' this difficulty increases in a Much
greater proportion than the numbers he has to feed. It
may be easy to feed 5,000, when it would be difficult to
feed 6 000, and next to impossible to feed 10,000.
" It is the same thing with the raising of forces from
a population scattered over a vast country like this
colony. Sir Benjamin drew his levies chiefly from the
eastern districts, nearest the peene of action. Sir_Pere-
grine, requiring a larger force than those districts could
afford, had to wait till the farthest west sent up their
contingents, from a distance of 600 miles by land.
"Itunaming only the two governors and commanders-
in-chief, the heads of departments, officers, and men,
with whom and by whom they act, are by no means
excluded from their share orreputation. In dealing
with an enemy, armed with muskets, which, howeverill-
managed, are still formidable, almost every operation is
obstructed in a bushy country, by the necessity of large
armed convoys on every occasion, where the assagai
would have been despised.
" Taking all things together, then, it appears that the
Commander-in-Chief in this war has encountered incom-

indulgence of froward self-conceit or impertinent garru-
lity than that which is prevented 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 the heedless audience react upon one another to
propagate and promote erroneous opinions, or inaccu-
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 form-nate
neighbours. Nor will such an effort, 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, but 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

parably greater difficulties than Sir Benjamin D'Ut ban
had to contend with, and that he has achieved the same
success in about the same time. Now, all know the mili-
tary character of Sir Benjamin D'Urban, a high trained,
long experienced, and most accomplised officer in every
department of service. And all teen know Sir Harry
Smith, what sort of a thunderbolt he is, v.ith a horse
under him, and an enemy in front. It is no small
honour to Sir Peregrine Maitland to say, that on the
same field, under greater embarrassments, he has crushed
a stronger adversary, and extended his conquest to the
same river in an equal or shorter space of time. And
this is the plain truth of the case.
" The main division, of the army, three in number, are
now concentrating on the Amatola mountains, where
Sandilli and the hostile Gaika chiefs made their stand
last war, and where their people and cattle are supposed
or known to be placed fur defence at present. Sir Pere-
grine, with Colonel Somerset, is on the Buffalo stream,
near to where it issues from those ravines. A letter,
dated Fort Beaufort, 29th July, gives the following
sketch of affairs in that quarter :
" The campaign was resumed on the 25th, Sir An-
dreas' (Stockenstrom's) division taking the lead. On
Saturday of the above date, his division broke up camp
at the Gaga ridge and bivouacked at Block Drift that
night, whence they marched to the Chumie Station on
Sunday night.. Four hundred. of the Kat River burghers,
under their officers, Groep, Botha, and Cobus Free, left
on Sunday night to join Field Commandant Joubert's
force, 800 strong, and that ofMr.Joseph Read, 600 strong,
at Gaika's Peak, all to meet Sir Andreas' own force at the
Chumie Hoek, where there are said to be an immense ren-
dezvous of Kafirs. Sir Andreas has new about 2,800 men
under him. Kat River, at the request of the inhabitants,
had been placed in his division. Captain Sutton has been
left in charge of the settlement, a service of the greatest
importance, as that is a gate through which the Kafirs
might rush into the colony, should they, as on former
occasions, shrink from the front and re-appear in the rear
of the invading forces. I was told by an old commander
under the Hottentot chief Boesak, that 'on Vau der
Walt presenting himself with an overwhelming force, he
called his head men together, and said, " We can't meet
him on equal terms. Don't attempt to engage his forces.
Disperse and attack in large parties their homes; plun-
der, and that will disconcert, divide, and disperse his
command." This was done and had the anticipated
effect.'

Lord Mjrpetli 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, compel one to regret that the minds both of
the speakers and their hearers had not been previously
trained in schools of severe disicpline 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 ton aspirations of Lord Morpcth,
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 Sciu'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.

" The following from Sir Andreas Stockenstrom's
camp is interesting :--‘ Religious worship is statedly
kept up in Sir Andreas' camp. A gentleman who spent
a night in it says, that the camp appeared to him to be
divided into eight or nine sections, in each of which re-

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
_ _

ligious worship was held night and morning, Sir
Andreas attending in person. At four o'clock, a herald
plays on the trumpet a tune to the hymn, Praise God
from whom all blessings flow,' when all assemble at
their various sections to praise the Author of Life
and the Lord of Hosts. The services are conducted
either by the commandants or church officers (elders
and deacons) who are in command. When he heard the
(ti
eQp manly voices of the Boers singing God's praises, it
reminded the narrator of the Great Protector's Iron-
s, s'nglnc, the
side ' •
High God! In—thel.he enemy
battle, and aar,-,
onsucthc:ss
100th Psalm as they marched to
in the name of the Most
Governor'ss camp there is the same
nobleon
s. reliance
Ainyunporleymnerol,,tunlerthaenird disposer of
nati
ut4ble accounts are still received from Waterloo
Bay (on the east bank of the Fish River) respecting
the capabilities of that place for landing and shipping
goods. A fair landing-place at that point is in effect
the foundation of a town and the founding of a settle-
ment equal to any in Southern Africa. It will bring out
the resources of some 10,000 square miles of territory,
already inhabited by perhaps 150,000 souls. The mouth
of the Buffalo River also is probably approachable, and
the river St. John's, beyond the Kei, with some other
indentations of the coast, may soon. be made to open the
whole of the vast territory between the Cape and Natal
to trade. Supplies have been landed from the Sophia,
at the mouth of the Kowie, and the Sophia and British
Settler were in that river.

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 theit 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
mEiudrsotpoefina
world-wide competition fur the raw material of life
.to
his
tory—a disaster that enjoins
.every effort
.within the
bllsoalnudteloyuuthniedxaums unexampled Bthreitivsheroyr
s-
afesrteerstaa
and minimise our consumption—at such a crisis. to be
power of the State to maximise our supplies o f food,
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 disitilleries
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. rarticular care taken by the
State to keep out a little corn from a famine-stricken
people; particular care likewise talvan by the State to
waste a great deal. Why, why:, is this but a State pa-
tronage of famine? Here we have actually the law of
the land, armed at all point,;, 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
lwds
evlt
lcye
be
es
tthatoof
sufficienttpfooeorm permit
i tingteiahct taeetsnosi
bamt
necessary
ebanritdomri
endowment of a national enemy. The memorialists " be-
lie
haticinto
sdmui
sbicotsruii eisrmst
einpnioetrt,eht
Isiyfnrgeefverle(e,rosmyst
every country by the vessels of every nation or flag, and
to allow our distilleries and breweries the use of sugar
and molasses, without reference to the vessels which
have already brought, or may hereafter bring them to
us." We await, with a confidence that would preclude
anxiety if time were no object, the decision of the Go-
vernment
its
the extremely simple question now sub-
mitted to tsprudence and humanity. Lord John Russell
is in possession of the inference which, arguing from his
facts and on his principles, working men and capitalists
have alike drawn, as to the present duties and responsi-
bilities Of her Majesty's Ministers. It is now for Lord

FRONTIER.

In the Graham's Town Journal of the Ist August
details of successful operations on and beyond the Kei
river are given. The Governor is now giving a practical
reply to the lay critics by whom his delays have been
so sharply handled. Having drawn up his forces from
all parts of the colony, and amidst dreadful difficulties
secured provisions for them, he has in the course of
two or three days swept Kafirland from the Buffalo to
the Kei, performed a bold and startling inroad in
Kreili's country, and is now seen enclosing, on three
sides, the whole tribes of the Gaikas in their last strong-
holds among the Amatola mountains, from which their
principal chiefs already sue for peace. Peace they can-
not have. Mercy is what will be granted, the country
having been formally taken possession of by the insulted
and outraged government of the Cape. Sir Peregrine,
with a large force, was near the gorges of the Amatola,
on the south-east side, on the 28th July, and an express
had been sent to Fort Beaufort, directing an immediate
movement of Colonel Hare and Sir A. Stockenstrom, on
the western and northern sides. By this time it is highly
probable that the final blow has been struck.

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 abmyve 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 lewd to considerable
inconvenience to travellers. About it 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 name 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 ssmi-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 tes the disaster was known there. All the subse-
quent trains yesterday were more or less delayed. The
length 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 hear, 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 tails, the contractor having entered into an en-
gagermnt to construct the line, and keep it in repair for
thre years after the opening.
REFORM YOUR WASHING BILLS.--A correspon-
dent of the Budder professes to have made a " very
careful estimate" of the laundry expenses of the metro-
polis. Ile computes them at five millions per annum !
He proposes that the necessary and expensive lavations
of linen, &e., 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 p4lic 20 per cent. on the washing bills, or
—should the ' careful estimate" prove correct—one
million per annum.

THE SUN, LONDON. SATUADA Y EVENENG, OCTOBER 17, 1846.

GOVERNORSHIP OF BOMBAY.
On this subject we have received the following polite
note from the Hon. Member for Wolverhampton :
" Mr. Villiers presents his compliments to the editor
of the Morning Herald, and begs to inform him that he
has not been appointed Governor of Bombay, and that
he has no reason for believing that such an appointment
is intended.

" Travellers' Club, Oct. 15, 1846."
We are very sorry if this bo so, for two reasons:—
first, for the sake of Mr. Villiers, who is a gentleman,
a man of talent, and a consistent politician ; and, se-
condly, for the credit and character of Lord J. Russell's
Government. That there has, however, been a talk of
such an appointment for more than a month past in
every club in London—in Brooke's, in the Reform Club,
and in that very Travellers' whence he dates his letter—
no man knows better than Mr. Villiers himself. There
is seldom smoke, says the proverb, without fire, and we
do not believe the appointment was so generally talked
of without some warrant and foundation. That Lord
John Russell, who has always been friendly towards and
intimate with Mr. Villiers, creditably contemplated such
an appointment within a very recent period, we verily
believe, though we may not be in a condition to prove
the fact legally in a court of justice. It will be observed
that the denial of Mr. Villiers is more diplomatic than
distinct or express.
Mr. Villiers is a lawyer of some twenty years' standing,
and he will thoroughly understand us when we say that
he neither traverses nor avoids with convenient certainty
all the material allegations of our statement. He merely
says that he has not been appointed, and that he has no
reason for believing that such an appointment
is intended. But he- does not say that it was not
intended to arpoint him to Bombay at any time in
the past month of September. Still less does he
say that no intimation of such appointment was at any
time given to him. We adhere to our previous state-
ment, that the appointment was contemplated. Why it
is no longer contemplated is best known to the Whig
Government. Perhaps that Government can safely count
on the vote and support of Mr. Villiers, and therefore
may postpone his claims till a more convenient time,
while it may be urgently necessary to conciliate Sir
Robert Peel by the appointment of Lord Dalhousie or
Sir George Clerk. Lord Dalhousie is, unquestionably,
a man of talent and a good man of business, and so far
is well fitted for the appointment ; but we can see no
reason why Mr. Villiers should be held to have a less
preferable claim than the man of all work of Sir Robert
Peel, the " cannie" manager of cannie Scotland. Mr.
Villiers is not a paid patriot—nor a sordid agitator like
O'Connell and the stipendiary staff of the League—nor
a doubtful ally—nor the henchman of an opponent ; and
he, therefore, will probably have his honour and virtue
for a reward, and go without the goverment of Bombay..
—Herald.

RECEIPT FOR BOILING RICE.
70 THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
Sin,—Should you deem the annexed receipt for boiling
rice, and the modes of using it as human food, worthy
of a place in your newspaper at the present juncture of
the ascertained failure of the potato crop, I should be
glad if you gave it publicity. Rice so prepared has
constituted a part of my daily food for the last thirty
years ; I have found it nourishing and agreeable : its
preparation after two or three trials will be found easier
by the cook than that of boiling a pan of potatoes.—Your
obedient servant,

ROBERT WISE.

Allonby, near Carlisle, Oct. 14, 1846.
RECEIPT FOR BOILING RICE.—Put half a pound of
rice into a quart pan with a lid, to which add a pint and
a half of cold water; boil it over a brisk fire, keeping the
lid on, and in from ten to fifteen minutes from the time
it is placed on the fire the rice will have absorbed or
boiled up all the water; it must then be taken off the fire
(as it is apt to burn if left' on after all the water appears
to be gone), the pan must then be placed on the hob, or
near the fire for ten minutes longer, when the rice will
be found to be quite dry and fit for use, all the grains
separate, but swelled out and quite soft. If kept warm
in the pan, with the lid close on, it will still be found as
good and fit for the table an hour or more after boiling
as it was ten minutes after it was first taken off the fire.
The chief attention necessary is to be particular in
taking it off the fire as soon as the water is all boiled
into the rice (as at that stage it is apt to burn), and to
keep the lid close on till used, as the steam greatly as•
sists in softening it. Half-a-pound of rice so boiled will
swell out and quite fill a quart pan, and other quantities
in like proportion.
Rice boiled in large quantities of water, requiring to
be strained through a cullender before using, in order to
separate the rice from the water, is a waste of its nutri-
trious qualities, and renders the rice insipid : such
water so strained in the East Indies and China, is called
congy water, and it is prescribed by medical men there
as nourishing food for convalescents, invalids, and sickly
individuals ; such water is, in fact, rice-gruel.
Boiled rice, as a substitute for potatoes, may be used
as under :-
1. The cheapest and simplest seasoning for boiled rice
is salt ; hundreds of millions of human beings in East
India and China subsist on rice and salt only; the latter
are strong men.
2. The next superior seasoning is a little salt and
pepper, boiled in water separately from the rice, and
used by pouring it when hot on a plate full of hot
boiled rice.

3. The next in quality is to add to No. 2 a few slices
of onion and a little butter, and boil and use as above.
4. Add to No. 3 a few slices of fish, or flesh, or fowl,
and boil and use as before (with or without onion).
5. Add to No. 4 a little curry powder or spice, and
boil and use as above (with or without onion).
Or, on a soup plateful of hotiboiled rice (prepared as
per receipt), pour a couple of lightly boiled eggs, to
which add a little cold butter ; mix these together, and
use with fish,ftlesh, or fowl, prepared agreeably to palate;
this will be found substantial and agreeable food.
Or, a soup plateful of rice (boiled as per receipt)
mixed with a little milk, sugar, and spice, will be found
light and agreeable food, either hot or cold.

DEATH OF THE RIGHT HON. SIR BROOKE TAYLOR,
G.C.H.—This aged knight, for many years a distin-
guished member of the British corps diplomatique, died
on Thursday last, at the venerable age of 70, having
during his career represented the British interests most
satisfactorily at the courts of Berlin, Munich, Hesse
Cassel, and Wirtemburg. The deceased for some time
back suffered from bodily illness, and, owing to his ad-
vanced age, no hopes had on any occasion been held oat
of his ultimate recuvery. He was a native of the county
of Kent, and was the third son'of the Rev. Edward Tay-
lor, of Bifrons, in that county, by the sister of Thomas
Watkinson Payler, Esq., consequently he was brother to
the late Lieutenant-General Sir Herbert Taylt.Nr. His
birth took place in the year 1776. At an early period
Sir Brooke entered the diplomatic service of his country.;
in 1822, while Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Pleni-
potentiary at the Court of Prussia he received the
Guelphic Order from George IV.; and on being removed
from Munich to Berlin, in 1828, was sworn in a Privy
Councillor. Sir Brooke possessed some property at
Elstree and a mansion in Eaton-place ; at the latter he
died. He never was married. By the demise of the
Right Hon. Gentleman an annual pension of 1,3361. re-
verts to the public purse, he having enjoyed that yearly
income nearly twenty years for his diplomatic services.
RUMOURED LOSS BY FIRE OF ONE OF THE HALIFAX
AND BOSTON STEAMERS.—A rumour prevailed in town
this week to the effect that one of the splendid Canard
line of steam-ships, plying between this port and Boston,
had been destroyed by fire at sea. We should not have
noticed this but for the repeated personal applications
which have been made to us on the subject, and we have
the less agitation in doing so, being in a position, as we
now are, to give a direct negative to the alarming re-
port. On Saturday last, a mercantile house here received
a note from Dublin, stating that the captain of a vessel,
which had put in there, on the Bth, through stress of
weather, had reported that, on the 27th ult., in the At-
lantic, he had seen a large steam-vessel on fire, he being
at the time not, in a position to render her any assistance.
It was, of course, naturally supposed that the vessel
alluded to must have been the Hibernia' which sailed
hence on the 19th ult. The Cambria, however, has
brought the gratifying intelligence that the Hibernia
arrived at Halifax on the Ist instant, and, as the other
steamer of the line at sea, the Caledonia, only sailed
hence on the 4th inst., of course she could not be tlie
vessel seen on the 27th ult. Supposing the report to have
any foundation at all, the vessel could not have been any
of the Liverpool steamers.—Liverpool Mercury.
FLTAL FIGHT -BETWEEN TWO BROTHERS.—At
Steeple Claydon, Buckinghamshire, on Thursday,
Thomas Shirley, a young man of that place, was killed
in a fight by his brother. It appears that Thomas and
John Shirley, sons of a labourer, were, with two com-
panions, drinking late on Wednesday night. They
quarrelled about some gin, and a fight ensued. They
fought near the village pound for about an hour and
tx
half, and about seventy rounds, when Thomas, the elder
brother, fell, and on being taken to his father's cottage,
he was found to be dead. -
TESTIMONIAL TO THE RAILWAY PROJECTOR.—
We are much pleased to observe that Mr. Thomas Gray,
the interesting author of the railway system, is now
likely to receive a share of the honour and the more sub-
stantial benefits due to him, inasmuch as a subscription
for a befitting testimonial has been fairly set afloat in
the city where he dwells, and where he must be there-
fore best known, namely, Exeter. It is to be hoped that
this will be but the central nucleus of a wide-spread re-
cognition of his services.—The Builder.
Mu. BRIGHT AND THE MANCHESTER REFORM
ASSOCIATION.—Yesterday noon a meeting of the Reform
Association of Manchester, at whieh Alderman Callen-
der presided, was held for the purpose of receiving Mr.
Bright's answer to the request ;made to him by the
Association to allow himself to be put into nomination
for the borough, in the room of Mr. Philips.. Mr.
Bright's letter, which was read by the chairman stated
the writer's perfect readiness to become a candidate for
thy' suffrages of the electors at the ensuing election. It
was afterwards resolved that a general meeting of the
Liher.ll electors of the borough should be held at the
Free.ti 'fide Hall on the evening of Wednesday, the 28th
instant, ,for the purpose of presenting Mr. Bright's reply
'to the constituency, and a committee was appointed to
make the necessary arrangements.
ROYAL BLREVOLENCE.—The whole of the chesnuts
grown upon the royal domains in the Great Park at
Windsor have been placed at the disposal of the paro-
chial authorities for the purpose of their being sold and
the proceeds applied towards the relief of the poor of the
parish, in any way which may be considered by the
churchwardens and overseers most conducive to their
comforts during the approaching winter. The quantity
already gathered amounts to upwards of six hundred
bushels. At the present market price of chesnuts it is
expected that they will realise at least one hundred
pounds. A large quantity still remain to be gathered
and it is expected, when the whole aro bQUStaI, there will
very nearly one thousand bushels.