The Sun.
London, England, 1848-01-27 00:00:00

THE IRON TRADE.

The position of this trade remains unaltered, except
that several additional furnaces have been put out of
blast. The spirit of infatuation still prevails among
the workmen, and they continue to absent themselves
from the works, while the unabated stagnation of
business affords no prospect that the masters will be
enabled to give way to their demands.
The colliers and miners are also partially on the
strike, and a few disturbances have taken place in the
neighbourhood of Kingswinford and Dudley, by the
exhibition of violence on the part of the unemployed
against the more reasonable of their companions who
have returned to work. From the evident intention
to commit outrage, it was judged expedient, in one
instance, to send for the aid of the military, but the
mob having accomplished their ends of intimidation,
quietly dispersed.
We begin, however, to feel some apprehensions for
the prospects of our labouring population. The few
iron masters who hold stocks of wrought iron are
unwilling to part with them at the reduced rates,
while the general merchant and other orders are of a
nature scarcely justifying the manufacturing con-
sumers in purchasing at the former prices; although
their warehouses prove, as we predicted; quite desti-
tute of iron ; hence their workmen are daily being
thrown out of employment for want of materials.
Among the nail makers, especially, the deplorable
wretchedness that must ensue is fearful to contem-
plate. A respectable dealer informs us, that in col..
letting his small accounts through one district he
found in several houses the whole family huddled to•
gether without food or fire, their spirits completely
broken; and, instead of asking for his money, he was
constrained to offer his mite towards alleviating their
distress.

It therefore becomes a consideration of moral re-
sponsibility to each individual concerned, to lend his
assistance towards allaying the confusion that results
in so much wretchedness to his fellow-creatures; and
not to allow either pride or avaricious selfishness to
obscure his perception that the interests of the trade,
of which his own are part and parcel, have a claim
upon his cordial co-operation.
The propriety of taking the most stringent mea-
sures has been canvassed, and unless a speedy inti-
mation of some intention to resume their employment
by the puddlers, forgemen, coll►ers, and others, is ap-
parent, we should not be at all surprised to hear of a
resolution to blow out simultaneously the whole of
the furnaces in the district.—Birmingham Gazette.

THE GREAT SNOW STORM OF 1620.—The snow
fell during thirteen days and nights with very little in-
termission, accompanied with great cold and a keen
biting wind. About the fifth and sixth days the young
sheep fell into a torpid state and died, and about the
ninth and tenth days the shepherds began to build up
large F.J.mi-eircular walls of the dead, in order to afford
sonic shelter for the living; but the protection was of
little service. Impelled by hunger, the sheep were fre-
quently seen tearing at one another's wool with their
teeth. On the fourteenth day there was, on many a
high-lying farm, not a survivor of extensive flocks to be
found. Large misshapen walls of dead surrounding a
small prostrate group, likewise dead, and stiffly frozen in
th, it lairs, met the eye of the forlorn shepherd and his
master. Of upwards of 20,000 sheep maintained in the
extensive pastoral district of Eskdale Moor, only about
forty.five were left alive.—Gallery of Nature.

Yet even this distinction has its limits. The
French are no longer conciliatory when they are no
longer dependent. They are spoiled by power ; and,
strange as it may Seem they,:lose instead of gaining
influence by elevation. I remember to hare heard it
said by Meer gallium, who, measured by our standard,
was, out and out, the ablest man I met with
among the natives of India, and who would,
indeed, have been an extraordinary man in any coon
try in which he had been placed—l remember to
have heard him say, after ample experience of them
both, that the French made the better servants and
the English the better masters of the two. Let us
take what pains we can to retain that lofty position,
to which it seems, therefore, that we are properly
suited.

I am concerned to see that the resistance in Goom-
soor is still continued. In itself, it can be of no ul-
terior consequence ; but, as an example, every in-
stance of successful rebellion is to be deprecated. We
ought, in all cases, to avert resistance as long as we
can ; and when it does occur we ought to suppress it
as soon as we can.

__
While we are m etching, however, with solicitude
the influence which the intelligence from India may
have upon our interests at home, we must not be '
aegligent of what we are ourselves doing, or suffer-
ing to be done, to impair or improve our prospects
abroad. I regret to see the attempts which are still
being made to interfere indiscreetly with the religion,
or call it the superstition, of our Indian subjects. I
say indiscreetly, because I am persuaded that, be
our design as good as it may, the way in which we
are going to work is calculated rather to obstruct
than to promote it. For the same reason I regret the
recal of our contribution to the Indian temples. As
to any influence which that contribution may be
thought to have upon their support, we may be as-
sured that it will have none. They will not stand
one single day longer with the help of our contribu•
Lion, nor fall one single day sooner for the want of it.
But by what we are now doing we shall excite sus-
picionand provoke, where we ought
to appease, r
purpose,resistance.
The sacrifice of human life into which the Hindoos
are betrayed is earnestly to be deprecated. But it is
not in Pagan rites alone that that sacrifice has been
wantonly and prodigally made. There always have
been, and there still are, fanatics in every creed
and every country. Even we ourselves have not
been exempt from the contagion. Can we have for-
gotten what happened in our own crusades, or how
whole provinces, both in Europe and in Asia, were
strewn with the carcases of Christian victims ? And,
as far as sanctity of purpose is concerned, in what
respect are the infatuated Hindoos to be denounced
for the very same devotion, much as it is to be
de-
plored,
that we hold to have consecrated the en-
thusiasts among ourselves? We have grown wiser
since those days, and the Hindoos will grow wiser
too as they advance as we hare done, and as know-
ledge and reflection acquire dominion over them.
Let us pause, therefore, before we incur the risk of
retarding or averting that consummation by a pre-
cipitancy which can only defeat our endeavours to
advance it. Even if it be denied that any of the
votaries of a wrong creed are ever led right, at least
itof those of the right
creed are o
What reason is there for our shrinking from the
will
br
e aftdemniltetded wrong.
thatong. many
Pagans of India more now than ever we have done
before ? In what respect are either the Mahometans
or the Hindoos inferior to The professors of any
other creed b sides our own ? Or in what particular
do they lose in the comparison ? Neither the Ma-
hometaas nor the Hindoos ever saw or heard of
Christ, or were brought within the influence of His
example. They neither depreciated nor rejected
Him. On the contrary, the Rlahometans still recog-
nize the divinity of
pis mission ; only they deny
that it was a final one. They hold that it had been
announced in previous missions, and that it was com-
pleted in that of Mahomet. Whenever they do
speak of our Saviour, they speak of him reverentially,
as Hazrut Esau, the Lord Jesus. And as to the
Hindoos, it was not that having a choice to make,
they made a wrong one ; they had no choice, and
they made none. There was no option. The truth
are,
souchsafed to us ; and we
re; they already were before
was never revealed to them. If they are still in the
dark, it is because they never were admitted to the
instibl
still
lecause they have not received
light.otu,urst n:WhattSaviour'srev i l
eit
oh
ti they
scionh e vrA
what was Dever offered, and because, having been
born and bred where they have been and as they have
been, they are slow to abandon the ancient faith of
their fathers. Let it be remembered, too, that we
are ourselves both foreigners and intruders in that
country, where the Mahometans and the Ilindoos, as
far
at home.
astoimecan give a title, may hold themselves to
be
Are we not entitled to expect that the sun will
again appear in the East as it rose there ? and may
we not content ourselves in waiting for the appointed
time ? Whenever it may be decreed that ehe truth
shall be shed upon our brethren in. India, they will
discern it more calmly, more profitably, and, what
chiefly concerns us, more peaceably if they discern it
by the spontaneous exertion of their own faculties.
They are already in the hands of One who will en-

Tr N 7 JANUARY 27, 1848.

lighten them when He shall see fit ; and we cannot
do better, either for them or for ourselves, than leave
them to His good pleasure. For the present, whether
we contemplate the certainty of the end or the safety
of the means, it will be wise in us to trust to educa-
tion to work its own way, and to wait for it to pro-
duce its own result. As far as we presume to specu-
late on that result, though I hope and believe that the
inhabitants of India will all become Christians in the
end, it will still be a long while first, and we shall
hardly be allowed to remain there to witness the com-
pletion of the change. Even if we should enact the
part of lookers-on, it is not likely that we should have
any share in the ceremony.
I may probably be rebuked for fancying, because
I see differently from other and perhaps better men,
that therefore I see farther than they do. But I can-
not help fearing that I see more accurately when I
dread that without greater caution our projects, with
whatever good intentions they may be meditated,
besides defeating their own end, will lead in the re-
sult to disastrous consequences; and we may as well,
therefore, while there is still time, calmly contem-
plate the distinction between the ground on which
we shall in that case stand ourselves, and that on
which we shall place the Indians—the distinction, in
fact, between the attempt to impose religion and the
attempt to defend it. Sir J. Mackintosh says, in his
History of England, that " wars to impose religion
by force are the most execrable violations of the
rights of mankind; but that wars to defend it are the
most sacred exercise of those rights."—l am, sir, your
obedient servant,
Jan. 24. CIVIS.

FUNERAL OF THE REV. GEORGE

CLARK.

Yesterday the remains of this Rev. Gentleman
were consigned to their last resting place, in St.
Luke's burial-ground, Chelsea, with all the pomp and
circumstance of military honours. For the past 44 years
the Rev. Gentleman has been Chaplain to the Royal
Military Asylum at Chelsea, and during the whole of
that long period of service, he was highly appreciated
for the exertions he made in behalf of the interests of
the institution by all who had its welfare at heart. By
none was he more esteemed and respected than by
the boys connected with the asylum ; and from his
long period of service, and from the number of those
who had been placed under his care, it may be said,
that in all parts of the world where a British regi-
ment is stationed, the name of Mr. Clark is no un-
familiar one, as there is scarcely a regiment in the
service that does not contain several of those who,
in their youthful years, had been placed under
his tuition, and who still retain a high sense of his
kindness, and recollect with feelings of gratitude the
useful lessons he has imparted to them. His whole soul
was bound up in the asylum; so much so, that in the
month of April last, when he felt that his mortal career
could not in the course of nature be much longer
continued, he expressed a wish that he should be
buried in the ground set apart for the children of the
institution, stating that, as he had so long lived
amongst them, he should like to be buried amongst
them. Yesterday, on the occasion of his funeral, a
large number of the respectable inhabitants of the
place attended the funeral, as a token of respect to
the deceased. The funeral procession started from
the Asylum at one o'clock, and consisted of, besides
the family and relations of the deceased, the students
of the normal school, amounting to forty in number,
the boys of the model school to the amount of three
hundred, all the sergeants connected with the insti-
tution, together with the private friends of the de-
ceased. Mr. W. Cousens, the Quarter-master, and
Colonel Brown, the Commandant of the Hospital,
also joining in the procession. The boys' band con •
nected with the Asylum headed the procession, and
delighted all who witnessed by the admirable manner
they performed the pieces of music assigned thorn.
The funeral service was conducted by the Rev. Mr.
Dusatory, in the presence of a crowded assemblage,
who seemed to be impressed with a deep feeling of
respect for the reverend gentleman.

PRICE SD.

COST OF THE WAR WITH

MEXICO.

The following extracts from a recent American
paper,
alreadypresent a d
incurred
byesctrhiepto uinniteodf the
States'
enormous
invasion
cost
f
Mexico ,
The President's Message states, that " On the Ist
of the present month the amount of the public debt
actually incurred, including Treasury notes, was
45,659,659 dollars ; and on the 4th of March, 1845,
including Treasury notes, the public debt was
17,788,794 dollars ; and consequently the addition
made to the public debt since that time is 27,870,859
dollars." Thus the President, without positively
asserting it, evidently wishes to convey the impression
that the actual cost of the war with Mexico up to the
Ist instant, is less than 28,000,000 dollars. To coun-
teract this false impression of the cost of the unneces•
airy and unjustifiable war with Mexico, into which
the nation was plunged by the act of the Executive,
we present a few facts and figures, availing ourselves
Of the statements in an able article in the New
Orleans Comnfercial Bulletin. The following is a
recapitulation of the items :
The increase of the public debt, agree- Dollars.
ably to the statement of the President,
has been . .
The surplus in the Treasury, at the com-
mencement of hostilities, was
The additional surplus that would have
accumulated up to this time, under a
peace establishment and expenditure . 12,000,000
The further extra surplus that would
have accumulated, under the operation • •
of the tariff of 1846, agreeably to the
President's statement, of more than... 8,000,000
The Bounty Lands to the volunteers .. 8,000,000
The arrearages for pay due to the army
and volunteers, and for supplies, con-
tracts, damages, &c.
The sum required to replenish our
arsenals . . 4,000,000
The Pension List, estimated, on the
average duration of 20 years of life,
to the wounded and families of the
dead, two millions per annum ....... 40,000,000

Making a grand total of .... 123,870,859

A MELANCHOL-f'-S4ORY.

A singular instance of maternal affection, and me-
lancholy misery, occurred in this city a few days
since. A widow, who unfortunately for them, was
the mother of six children, found refuge in a dilapidated
dwelling in one of the lanes. The youngest of her
children fell ill and died. The whole family were in
a state of the utmost destitution, and the disease
rapidly mastered the young orphan's energies. A
coffin was begged. Coffin and corpse would have
been borne, perhaps without the mother's assistance,
to some graveyard near. But she had lived at a dis-
tance of many miles from this city, and in the burial
ground of her native place her ,friends were interred.
The distance was far, and as few would consent to
carry a coffin containing a stranger so far
i unneces-
sarily, the poor mother resolved to bear t herself.
She actually did so. She had it placed on her
back, and slowly and wearily she bore it away,
reached the graves of her kindred, scratched
a trench, we have heard, with her hands,
and thus consigned to the earth where she
wished they should rest the remains of her offspring.
She returned to her orphans. A second took sick,
died quickly, like the other ; like the other was
placed in a charity coffin, and conveyed in the same
way, by the unfortunate mother, to the same place of
burial, and buried in like manner by her own hands.
She returned again. A third child took sick, died
speedily also, was stretched in a coffin procured from
the charitable, borne away as before by the sorrowing
mother, and interred near to the other two by the
hapless poor creature's almost excoriated hands. She
returned a third time. A fourth child was ill ; fell a
victim as quickly as each of the others, was coffined
by charity, and carried off and laid by the mothe;
beside her three other children. She came back to
her wretched apartment. A fifth chileWas eized by
the malady, a fifth &ffin procured, a fifth wearisome
journey made alone by the mother, and a fifth body
consigned to the earth, there, at all events, no longer
to feel the pangs of disease, or the slow wasting pro-
gress of unalleviated hunger."— Limerick Examiner.