The Sun.
London, England, 1870-05-25 00:00:00

HAILSTORMS,

The recent great hailstorm in Philadelphia was in some
respects remarkable, and did much damage, but it
has often been far exceeded in violence and destructiveness.
In Jackson, Louisiana, in 1834, a fall of hail not only
beat down houses and trees, but killed numbers of cattle,
although it lasted for only nine minutes. During a storm
in Germany, described by the Abbe Maury in a paper
read before the Royal Society in 1798, hailstones fell that
weighed eight pounds ; and there seems good evidence
that in the storm of July 24, 1832, at Tussi, a single hail-
stone was found that weighed fourteen pounds, and that
one at least passed through the roof of a house. Heyne's
grave statement that a hailstone fell in India during the
reign of Tippoo that was of the size of an elephant,
is incredible ; but that there have been many hail-
stones large enough to destroy the life of eithe'r
men or animals, is certain. During the early days of
California there was a story of a hail storm having killed
every person in a little mining camp in the mountains
save one poor fellow, who escaped, much bruised and
hurt, to tell the tale. Some meteorologists have supposed
that ships have been sunk by the sudden weight of these
frozen missiles, and that catastrophes attributed to con-
tact with mountains of ice have indeed been caused by
that substance, but coming from a vertical rather than a
lateral direction, _ _

Fortunately for mankind, hail-storms are commonly
not only limited in duration, but 'confined to very mode-
rate areas. That which visited Philadelphia does not
seem to have been heardof elsewhere. The great French
storm of 1788, considered, we believe, the most severe on
record, extended in two parallel lines—one of five
hundred, the other of six hundred miles in
length ; but the mean breadth of each was only nine
miles, and this instance is accounted altogether unusual
and phenomenal. Sudden changes of weather, it would
appear, ought, philosophically speaking, to produce these
storms, since they are occasioned by the rapid freezing of
the water held in suspension in a warm currrent of air on
contact with a cold current in a higher region. Still,
although our climate is so changeable, and the thermo-
meter so swiftly capricious, especially in the Spring—and
although hail-storms are in general more, frequent in
temperate than in tropical regions—we seem to escape
with a very small proportion" of them. Other regions
where the temperature is much more equable, the south
of France for instance, are on the other hand much
oftener exposed to these visitations. Our comparative
immunity on the Atlantic coast is perhapsdue to the ab-
sence of lofty mountains, whieh arc, found to be strongly
conducive to the formation of hail.—New York Times.

A fire occurred 911 the premises of Messrs. Firth,
Riley, and Co., cotton spinners, Brighouse, on Monday
morning. Great damage was done to the stock and,
machinery, and a large number of hands will be thrown '
out of employment.

A CONSTITUTION FOll ILLINOIS.
Illinois is repeating the often tried and seldom Pcfteo;
ful experiment of forming an entirely new constitut the
After unusually careful provisions for securing t0,,0f0
convention a non-partisan character, with a satisfa?b,l,
result in that respect so far as the balance of parties
concerned, we find the members in a constant stat,
division and with views so diverse that it is alreadY
• still'
covered to be practically' impossible to draw up an in I,ole
ment that can commend itself to the convention as a whole
or to the people of the State. In a Comincnwealtkvit to
one party is very strong, and can control the electlou,',o„
nstitini
the convention and be responsible for the co quo,
that is framed by it, there might be some expectation t
the results of its labours would be accepted by theplto
But in closely divided States where there is no 101:Y10,5
become sponsor for the new form of government I" the
been again and again proved that the people pref` '',.r the
old constitution, bad as it may be, to the new mritalic
inevitable defects that the examination' by Pirer•
speakers and the public press reveals,—Boston
t ser.

A CRUEL PREJUDICE. their
The medical gentlemen in Washington made„ 111)
e
minds lately that a physician who attends a uleciered
to whidh coloured people are admitted is thereby reo.ieso
unfit to attend any other sort of meeting. We be f,t,n• erlt
to lay before the Committee on Ethics a few Pe'", "these
points. A negro physician in the estimation of that
gentlemen is such a horribly objectionable person fhw
he contaminates any association to which he or anY:cilo
associates may be admitted. Not because he is a 1),,h.11.110,
we suppese, but because he is a negro. We'' egro
why not, rule out any physician who accepts be
patients ? If a sound darky is so bad, a sick one 1111z:rest
a great deal worse. If white doctors must only of
of
white patients, the coloured people willwant dec" "t-
-their own race. But those doctors, being refused `Tose,
tance to the American Medical Association, will, of CO so
have to throw up their diplomas and commit suicide•
at
the coloured people will not have medical der
all, and whenever they fell seriously ill it would be lief
ciful and politic to poison them out of hand for the rfitb,
of their misery and the preservation of the public 1170
That would settle everything comfortably.—. New
Tribune.

THE OPPORTUNITY OF VIRGINIA'
ero
A great effort is being made at this time by a P°.,sciists,
railroad and land company, backed by English capita of
to settle the cheap and partly-unoccupied lanclsee„
b
Virginia. Hundreds of thousands of acres have o 0
bought up, on a line of road from Norfolk right se.
• • up°
the State, and the plan is formed of turning in
rs er
them, on a grand scale, a number of English farmer'
German peasants, who have saved some caPit3Lt'bees
corresponding British Emigration Company has
~„00
formed in London, and there seems really at length bvd
to
chance that a tide of wealth is about to be direlie
the
Virginia,. in comparison with the value of which
discovery of a gold-mine would be insignificant o.lod,
Virginia is a State remarkably well known in .biliated
her natural advantages being perhaps better aPPreci.,de
there than here. Novels have pictured it, travelle „0,0
scribed it, and possibly the traditions of its attraebbo.
have come down from ante-revolutionary times.. 'on'
main associations in the North with the " ()Id Dollvie.
are with tobacco, Chickahominy fever, and General land
Few of our farmers are drawn toward it. But in Bale 4
it is known as possessing in all its uplands the asot
climate east of the Rocky Mountains, with large
openings, and almost the only region in America ivbrs,
hunting men can " ride to hounds," and for fold,
proximity to market, and cheapness of cultivated
almost unknown in combination elsewhere in the Tlnl See
The most ignorant have only to look at the maP
how close it is both to a large river, a good harbonr,oess
our greatest Northern cities. It is well known to Inves
much mineral wealth, and good judges believe that -tot
its exhausted lands can be renewed by fertilising, s° theft
if the greater proximity to market be estimated, tot
may produce as abundantly as most of the Oen
West. babli
Cotton, the great desolator of its soil, will now protoe
be mainly given up, and the present most PP" The
growth of the Union, tobacco, will take its plaee•mtion
English fully understand that its former evil rePot
as a " breeder of slaves "is entirely departed, and the
even the negroes are leaving it, not for more
North, as used to be dreaded, but for- a race
tropical climate,. and for districts where their, to
is more concentrated. The great charm, however,
region to English settlers, over the West is its vie on'
to large cities and the ocean, and its be
genial climate. A British farmer likes Who,
where he can occasionally " un up" to Was ill
ton or Baltimore, or some miniature London Of
America. He wants now and then to see the sights„ $
large town, and he does not like to live where it tail-etot
journey of two or three hundred miles to come in cl3l, be
with civilisation. He cannot bear "to pioneer ;woe
wants his stumps cleared, and fences built, and 3100
shingled and clap-boarded, and fields that at leas,l'aiyes
been broken by the plough and the harrow. He u"—Jon
the intense cold and the intense heat of the West, 3;ber.
the breezy uplands of Virginia he hopes to feel lel less
He fancies, too, that in an old country he will ",e.;ca'
liable to the attacks of his dreaded
enemy in 2A-L"
A e••
fever and ague. • tbis
The Swiss and Germans who are expected soon 111,0
State undoubtedly count with reason on planting PTfley
able vineyards on the slopes of the Blue Ridge• hicbb
know from good authorities that the only grape `:,tb,
makes a good light-red wine of the Burgundy staroP-Z, 0,1
Norton's Seedling "—is almost a native variety in t"i Ole
, Dominion ; and they can judge from the cheapness tber
soil, and the accessibility of markets, how profitable !Iwo
grapes or wine must be in the hill country of
Virginia. liter
If these English and Swiss settlers do in truteieso
and buy up farms, it will begin a new era for then:4dr
old State which once led the Union. All the fo';Dr
dreams of the Virginia rebel leaders of binding the, to-
merce of the Potomac and the Thames, and makincithisr
folk a second New York, will be realised, but in a he3Nj
form. The first State on the Atlantic will then le 101
agriculture, vine-culture, and mining, as she used raof
in politics and slave-breeding. The healthy p/IY.slq-sa0
the population will give them the sway in productian,o
Virginia will become a thousand times wealthier thaa be
ever was under the curse of slavery. Wealth toe
distributed much more evenly than it is here, for thee
0,41
basis of general prosperity is the division a theO
into moderate farms which must follow such an
gration.
The great obstacle, however, to the attainment
golden future is in the Virginians themselves. The tiro,
ing curse of a slave community, even after emancillare
is the tradition that labour is degrading. If these sor
foreigners, on settling on their new farms, discover, retll
a time, that they are looked down upon and s,efroie.):
despised by the natives, and classed with the iv oil
slaves, because they work with their hands, thedijot.o
become discontented, and either never be absorbtui
the population, or emigrate to regions where " s°l, that
open to them, and all are on an equality. It niaY •e'
a Virginian cannot change his nature, and alwal, oft
despise a man who does his own work. If so—if t"",ltbe
democracy has not yet persuaded the landholders lige'
old State, even after their terrible experience—then"
well to immigration, development, wealth, and all l'r°
in that region. elsed
The tide of European labour and wealth will f 111,404
where. The emigrant will go where he is respeetet pr.
the world is all open to him. Modern progress wire ar?
by the State. She will remain with an effete slasit sO
tocracy, an ignorant and lazy democracy, a woraiol
undeveloped mines, unfilled fields, and exhausted,ou tbt
Her position and wealth in the future depend tbs
manner in which she receives the first detachments, t 0
of labour which is marching with eager footster
wards her borders.—New York Times.

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BIRTHS.
Of Al'S3ocler
On the 22d inst., at 8, Taviton-strect, the Wife
Morley, Esq., of a son. f Od.
On the 23d inst., at 30, Westbourne-park, the Wife °
Evers, Esq., of a son.