The Sun.
London, England, 1851-03-07 00:00:00

M ARC I-1 7, 1851.

" All communication between Fort Hare and the Koo-
nap was intercepted.
" A great many women and children were in the camp
at Fort Armstrong on the 31st of December, and num-
bers of the loyal inhabitants were flying there for pro-
tection, saying, We have no arms to protect ourselves
against the Queen's enemies and traitors. It was ex-
pected there would be sufficient force there not only to
protect the post, but to scour the country.
" We understand that Mr. Miller is authorized by the
Governor to proceed to Graham's Town immediately, if
he considers it necessary, leaving the next senior officer
in Cape Town to forward supplies.
"A letter from Alice, which we believe may be relied
upon, states that the Kafirs had spared all the women
and children of the military villages; our correspondent
had seen them all, and states that they were all ac-
counted for. But Mr. Snodgrass's son, who was taken
by the Kafirs on their way to Alice, was missing, but it
was hoped he would be still alive.

TAXES ON KNOWLEDGE.
(From the Times.)

One of the first rules of agitation is to find an antago.
nist. You cannot have a " run" unless you " find;" nor
is it easy to keep the table in a roar without a " butt"
for your jokes. Mr. Cobden knows this, so he never

66 LEVIES.

takes up a cause without challenging a foe. The majo-
rity of mankind are indifferent and adrift on almost any
subject that can be mentioned till they are provided
with somebody to be angry with, or somebody to laugh
at, or somebody to be beaten. They have only to ask
Mr. Cobden, and he will soon find them sport. Now,
what have the daily metropolitan jonrnals to do with the
" taxes on knowledge," except to pay them and wish
them removed? But Mr. Cobden ingeniously contrives
to represent us as monopolists " protected " by the taxes
on knowledge. Nine of his readers out of ten will go
away with the impression that but for these taxes there
would be such a competition as would swamp the five-
penny papers. As for these taxes, it is scarcely neces-
sary that we should repeat our opinion of them. We
are the largest payers in the kingdom, and we believe
that, as in the former reduction of the stamp duty, we
should gain immensely by their removal. We, never-
theless, think that there aro ether taxes which press
more on the comfort, well-being, and progress of
the people, nod are content to allow them pri-
ority. As, however, the question concerns us very
closely, VVP would rather not take a prominent part in it.
Others may if they think proper, and they will have our
hearty thanks if they deliver us from our, triple fetters.
But, we repeat, on no pretence whatever can the present
daily metropolitan press be implicated in the question.
inasmuch as it is the largest victim, or, perhaps it should
be said, the largest channel of taxation.
As the working man, says Mr. Cobden, cannot afford
to pay fivepence a day for his paper, a daily paper is the
luxury of the higher and middle classes; and we address
ourselves accordingly to the tastes and opinions of those
classes, and not to the mother wit and unsophisticated
judgment of the working man. 'The daily journals, he
says, do riot represent the feelings of the many, but of
the few. Such assertions, in our opinion, are more easily
made than proved, for there may be much colour, but
very little truth in them. Does the House of
Commons represent the opinions of the many?
Does Mr. Cobden himself? He has several times
expressed himself very strongly of one opinion
when the majority of Englishmen have been
decidedly of another. Are his views on our foreign po-
licy and on the Ecclesiastical Titles Assumption Bill
popular? Nay, poll the mob, and will they assign to
taxes on knowledge that foremost place in our burdens
which they occupy in Mr. Cobden's own mind? Again,
if a daily paper costs fivepence a day, it does not in
the average cost a farthing a day to each reader,
for every copy, we will venture to say, has more than
twenty readers. Any working man may get a sight of
all the daily papers at less than a penny a day without
having to drink his pint of beer at the same time. We
wish he could do it cheaper still, but so long as the daily
papers lie all day long in every public-house in London
—se long as the provincial papers, borrowing much both
in matter and opinion from the London papers, are
equally accessible, it is hardly fair to say that our readers
are not of the working class, and that we, therefore, do
not consult its interests and opinions. We must add
that there is something sinister in this line of argu-
ment. Under cover of a crusade against taxes on know-
ledge, Mr. Cobden seeks to disparage the daily papers
of the metropolis. They may have sins to answer for,
but this is not the proper occasion for calling them to
account.

" Mr. Badhan and Captain Ranier have obtained 140
men in the Riversdale districts, who, we understand,
will be shipped immediately from Mossel•bay to the
frontier.

" Mr. Southey has already succeeded in raising 100
men in the Swellendam division.

Mr. Field has raised 80 at Eliw, who are expected to
be in town to-morrow. Mr. Field has himself arrived in
town.

" Two hundred Hottentot levies have just arrived al
the barracks from Groeuekloof."

The following circular was dispatched on the 6th of
January to all parts of the country :
" Colonial office, Cape Town, Jan. 4, 1851.
" Sir,—Herewith you will receive a number of notices
inviting volunteers to offer themselves to serve against
the enemy in the present emergency.
" You will use every exertion to circulate these notices
by means of your field-cornets, and any other fitting
agency, with the least possible delay.
-' In order to avoid the inconvenience of leaving the
volunteers in your division to find their unassisted way
to Cape Town, you will apprise the inabitants that you
are authorized to approve, and to forward at the public
expense, in horse waggons if necessary, all volunteers
of the required description.
"It is not likely that men labouring under disease,
or unacquainted with the use of tire-arms, will offer
themselves; but should such men come forward, you
will, of course, reject them. A man who has not health
enough to stand fatigue, or skill enough to handle a
gun, is worse than useless at a time like this.
" If, in any case, yon could avoid the serious evils of
delay, by delegating to persons at a distance from you,
on whom you can rely, the duty of provisionally ap-
proving and forwarding the volunteers direct to Cape
Town, you will deem yourself authorized so to do.
"It is proper that I should impress upon you the great
importance of avoiding every species of expense which
can be saved without impairing the efficiency or delay-
ing the movements of the men; but every outlay calcu-
lated to secure the speedy arrival in Cape Town of such
fitting persons as can be obtained in your division will
be sanctioned.

" The bounty will, of course, bo paid here. For se-
curing regularity and faithfulness in regard to the dis-
bursements necessary to be made for bringing the men
from their place of starting to their place of embarkation,
Cape Town, you must engage some persons whose cha-
racter and competence recommend them for the duty to
accompany and conduct the removal of the volunteers.
" If fit superintendents can be found amongst the vo-
lunteers themselves, so much the better. To each super-
intendent you will make such an advance of money for
subsisting the men upon the road as you shall deem
sufficient, and apprize him that he will be required to
account for his expenditure upon reaching Cape Town.
The remuneration to be; given lor;the performance of this
service you will take care to make as moderate as possible.
"In conclusion I have to desire that you will, from
time to time, apprize me, for his Excellency's informa-
tion, of the progress you shall make in raising men in
your division.
"I must again impress upon you the great import-
ance of expedition.--I have, &c.,
" Jortx MONTAGUE. Secretary to Government.
" The Civil Commissioner of -."

Then, of course, comes the never failing comparison
with the American papers. There are ten daily papers
in New York, says one speaker, some of them a penny
a piece; one a halfpenny, and the best, we believe, not
so much as twopence. There is a penny paper, says
Mr. Cobden, which sells 30,000 copies a day.
But on one point he is silent. He says, indeed,
" Your reporting talent and general literary ability is
to be had at as cheap a rate here as in America;" but
he forbears to say that the American daily papers are
equal to the London daily papers. We leave to others
the delicate comparison of political opinions or literary
style; it is not our place to make the comparison, and
we observe that Mr. Cobden is equally content to let it
alone. We will confine ourselves to more tangible
grounds—to mere matters of business. No American
paper—halfpenny, penny, or twopenny, weekly or daily
—pretends to give a fair and accurate report of the pro-
ceedings in Congress, or of any meeting whatever, any-
where, on any subject, in the Union. All speeches are
reported in brief, and, what is far worse, with a strong
party bias; while reports of meetings are uniformly
" spiced" with slang for the amusement of the reader
and with an utter disregard of candour and veracity.
We say it advisedly, that the scrupulous fidelity, which
is almost a religion with the whole class of British
reporters, is unknown in America. If a man wants
his speech to be given to the world, we will not say
fully and accurately, but free from the grossest per-
versions and embellishments, he sends it whole to
a friendly newspaper, where it appears as a separate
article. Even in the best journals of the Union the de-
bates in Congress aro given in a sketchy, not to say
slovenly, manner. As for the original articles, political
or literary, we repeat, we leave them alone; but we
should like to see Mr. Cobden get up and point out a
single American paper which satisfies him in its mode
of treating political, commercial, or social questions.
Such journals may be amusing and gossipping, they
may be instructive to some extent, they may be very
useful, but they do not pretend to the same faithful
and historical character as the daily journals of this
metropolis. There is really no comparison between
them.

PORT NATAL.
Files of Port Natal papers and letters have been re-
ceived, and as the news from the Cape Colony may
cause some apprehension on the part of those who have
connexions at Port Natal, we think it well to state that
the distance between the two is, by land, something like
a six weeks' journey, and that there is not the remotest
communication between the Kafirs of the Cape Colony
and the inhabitants of Port Natal. The news from the
latter colony continues to be of a very favourable cha-
racter. " The season has just come round for the pay-
ment of the native taxes, and the cash poured in with
undiminished rapidity. The Government office was '
surrounded by company after company of natives, and
the clerks were fully engaged counting out and piling
up the various pieces of silver coin. Within a few
hours, the other day, upwards of 2001. was paid in."
And the papers say, " This looks well after a draft of
some 9,0001. last year." The ouerberg trade was also
very active, and no doubt was entertained of its being
extensively carried on, ivory and cattle being brought
to Natal and British manufactures taken in return. An
appeal had been made by the secretary of the Natal
Agricultural Society, for the purpose of securing con-
tributions for the Exhibition. bWe earnestly entreat
your co-operation in this essential step towards demon-
strating the real capabilities of our beautiful and salu-
brious colony, and thereby securing to her from the
parent State and our fellow-subjects, that amount of
attention which the colony really deserves, and which,
from her position and resources, she naturally demands."
In respect to emigration it is considered that its cessa-
tion could only be of a temporary character, and would
be certain to be only the time necessary to prepare for
new bands.

After limiting himself to the subject of prices in the
comparison between the journals of London and New
York, Mr. Cobden ventures to do more when ha comes
to compare us with our own weekly contemporaries.
They represent the opinions of the people better, he
says, than we do. " The daily press is not the exponent
of the wants and opinions of the working classes."—
" As far as I can judge, I must confess that the politics
of the weekly press are much sounder than those of
the daily press."—" I can only say that, looking
at the polities of the weekly press, they are
written as much to the purpose, and with equal talent,
as the daily press." Now, we will not be seduced by
Mr. Cobden into any comparison unfavourable to those
whom ho would set up as our rivals. But when he in-
sinuates, by comparison, that the daily papers do not
write to the purpose, and do not declare themselves as
honestly and plainly as the weekly papers, we beg to
ask him whether he has been himself so fortunate as to
impress the British public with a clear and uniform
idea of his own politics and "purpose?" We have heard
the greatest variety of opinion on the subject, and that
from many candid and intelligent observers. As to the
weekly papers of the largest circulation, we very much
question whether Mr. Cobden could tell us of any one of
them, plainly and explicitly, what are its opinions on the
subjects it usually writes about. Wo have read articles
in them which, so far from being " straightforward and
honest" at the expense of " fascination" and " learning"
—two qualities very properly made secondary by Mr.
Cobden,—did strike us as " fascinating in style and
learned in diction," but yet either saying more than they
meant, or meaning more than they said, and leaving the
mind in a painful state of uncertainty as to their real
purpose.
But in all these comparisons, as well as in his antici-
pations of a penny press, Mr. Cobden has left altogether
out of reckoning the most important element of our cost
and position, or our " monopoly" as he calls it; we mean
the enormous expenses we are at in our foreign corre-
spondence, in our Parliamentary and other reports, and
in every sort of intelligence. We should be afraid to
say what the copyright of every paper has cost us. Mr.
Cobden, however, is probably aware of the fact that no
attempt is ever made to protect that copyright from in-
vasion. Monopolists as we are, we allow all the journals
in the kingdom—among them Mr. Cobden's friends of
the weekly press—to appropriate as much as they please
—and freely do they avail themselves of this liberty.
Our " Overland mail," which has cost us 1001. or more,
arrives, perhaps, onfy in time for our second edition on
Saturday, and before it can appear in one of our early
issues we may have the pleasure of seeing it at full
length in the Sunday papers and a score or two pro-
vincials; not only with no share in the costs, but
often without even one word of acknowledgment. In-
deed, that is all the monopoly we have—the monopoly
of the trouble and the costs—the monopoly which a
sheep has in its wool and a bee in its honey. Now,
supposing the metropolis to have what one of these gen-
tlemen considers a proper proportion of daily papers—
not less than fifty; and supposing that all the other
towns in the kingdom are equally ambitious, has it oc-
curred to Mr. Cobden to inquire who is to pay for the
original copyright of the great mass of information,
such as reports and foreign news? At present, " base
is the slave that pays," and nobody even thanks us—
but even if we are to have fifty daily competitors, some
of them perhaps publishing at noon, it will be necessary
to come to some arrangement on this head, as no news-
paper can subsist long on a monopoly of expensn
Mr. Cobden will just give this a thought, he wile.news.
dis-
cover that he has not embraced the whole of t e
has
paper question, and that the various comparisons he
and other existing or imaginary
instituted between the daily papers. ofigthaerme entortopolis
rivals,
it. " there
alto-
gether fair. At least,
is much to be said on baosthSisriclle-s-ofrthepquestion."

A STEEPLECHASE.—A man
MATaachester, set up a stand at the
RIFLE Slloo:flrrioniG
namedodham Gsrteeaevpe
chase on Wednesday, for rifle shooting at
targets; and although frequently warned of ;the danger at-
tendant upon practising the sport, he stubbornly persisted,
and the result was that a young man, aged 17 years, son of
Mr. Whitehead, of the firm of Whitehead and Wild, Stalv-
bridge, was shot in the right side, breaking a rib. Greaves
was immediately, apprehended, and the next cay was re-
manded by the magistrate. Whitehead has been pronounced
out of danger.

MEETING OF MR. W. J. Fox's FRIENDS.—On
last, a rumeroul mee ing of Mr. Fox's
was held at the h use f Mr. liolme, Ring's Arms,
friendsF:ridgya ~evening
John Platt, Esq., in the chair, at which the follow-
ing resolutions were unanimously agreed to : —l. That this
meeting pledges itself to support their present representative,
Mr. W. J. Fox, at the next election. 2. That a subscrip-
tion be now entered into to promote the before-named object.
In accordance with the last resolution, gentlemen then pre-
sent put down their names for 1501, and an acting committee
was formed to carry out the objects of the meeting.
llfan,chester „Examiner.

the Rev. Mr. Quekett, who adverted to the prospects of j THE LADIES' CONTRIBUTION TO THE
a happier future which were opening upon them, and I - INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION.
exhorted them to bear with patience and mutual contd. I Some time since a few ladies thought prop. rto exe-
deration the necessary inconveniences of the voy age. cute a carpet in needlework, as a specimen of the profit-
Nor were there wanting words of encouragement and able employment of their leisure hours. They have
counsel from the ladies, whose kind and gentle tones been assisted in their labours by a small committee of
drew a warm response from the bursting hearts of the gentlemen, who, with Mr. Papworth, the architect, pro-
emigrants. After the necessary arrangements had been dated a most beautiful design.
completed, an affecting farewell was taken' and the com- The carpet was exhibited last week at the Society of
mittee left the ship on their return to London. We should Arts, and when the ladies assembled to inspect their
not omit to mention that the City of Manchester takes work it was unanimously pronounced to be sufficiently
out in her a married surgeon of experience. good to be worthy of presentation to her Majesty. Mr.
Francis Fuller, the chairman of the committee, was
therefore deputed to learn her Majesty's pleasure on the
subject, and the result was that on Wednesday he had
the honour of introducing the Misses Lawrence, Mar-
shall, Cubitt, Simpson, Witten, and Fuller, being a de-
putation from the lady executants, to her Majesty, to
whom the carpet was presented, and the following ad-
drees read by Miss Lawrence, who was selected by the
deputation to fill this office:—
" May it please your Majesty,—
"On the part of the ladies of Great Britain, we
humbly present for gracious acceptance a specimen of
the work that employs the leisure of our country women.
It was commenced with a wish that their skill should
have been represented at the Industrial Exhibition of
All Nations; but the opinions expressed of their work
have so far exceeded their expectations, that they are led
to trust it is not unworthy of your Majesty's favourable
notice.
"It is hoped that it illustrates an elegant branch of
British industry and taste, and that it developes a scurce
of manufacture which may afford employment to many,
especially to those on whom the hand of adversity has
been laid.
" The names of the ladies who have taken a part in
the work will be found in the accompanying list, and
their initials form the border of the carpet.
With deep and loyal feelings of gratitude for the
noble patronage bestowed on British industry, particu-
larly in the present year, we sal. this specimen of a
work of art fit for your Majesty's gracious accept-
ance."
[Here followed the list ef subscribers and executants.l
Her Majesty was graciously pleased to express her
acceptance of the carpet, and also her satisfaction of the
care tul manner in which the ladies had executed the
work.

The cerpet, we understand, will now be exhibited
under the following title:—
" Exhibited by her Majesty the Queen.—The work
of 150 ladies of Great Britain, under the mantgement
of a committee, Wyatt Papworth, being the hnnorary
secretary. The design by John W. Papworth,F.R.l.B
14 A, Great Marlborough-street. The patterns painted by
and the work executed under the superintendence of W.
B. Simpson, 456, West Strand."