The Sun.
London, England, 1856-11-01 00:00:00

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with such a monster ? It wants government, yet
how shall it be governed ? A great city is a great
evil ; and, do what we will, we must expect the
bad to predominate—bad morals, bad manners, a
bad condition, bad air, bad water, bad manage-
n-ent, bad everything. Nevertheless, even what
is incurably bad must be governed, and the worse
it is the more it wants government. Ed hvenadthite.
-1.-I-, Titans we speak of called for discipline, and
Yet the difficulty is the same whether these
2,500,000 people govern themselves or are brought
directly under the Imperial Government. Hitherto
everything has been left to the smallest of chances.
Wherever there was an old rag of jurisdiction, a
half obsolete court, a corporation, a ward, a Lo.
rough, a parish, a district, a liberty, a trust, a
commission, an institution, a board, or anything
that possessed or could claim ten yards of high.
way or as many miles of watercourse, it was per-
mitted. to stand its ground and fight its way with
its thousand or more rivals. It was wholly im-
possible that anything great could he done in this
chaos of petty institutions, which, like the wars of
the Heptarchy, might be compared to the battles
of kites and crows. Successive Governments ap.
pear to have enjoyed a confusion and a consequent
disorder which did not touch their comfort, which
secured them from a rival legislature at their doors,
and left them at liberty for those foreign aid
colonial affairs which have been the mere con-
genial employment of most British statesmen.
At length the discovery was made that the wel- e4i4
fare of the metropolis ought not
mp
naltetobets hsaacrrieficaeccleotro.
imaginary apprehensions, n
dingly been made at a common municipal govern.
ment. These attempts have ended for the present in
the Metropolitan Board of Works, which, advanced
.as it may seem in comparison with its predecessors,
bears about the same proportion to a municipality am
the most uncouth, misshapen monster, in Cr) lake at
Sydenham, does! the higher animals of the living
creation. Its character is eminently experimental,
and as such it has not lasted long enough, and done
little enough, to be condemned for au utter failure.
It is experimental in its constitution, which is
elective, and all but democratical. Its composition

[PRICE 4D.. STAMPED 515..

Spirit of the Public Journals.

friroin, the Morning Post,)
The recent Indian mail announced that, although
preparations are continued on a large scale for an
expedition to the Persian Gulf, it is the general im-
pression—not merely among the public at large,
but in the best informed official circles—that the
Shah will yield at once to the demonstration that is
being organised, and that not a single transport will
thus be required to leave the harbour of Bombay.
We regret that nothing decisive has yet occurred,
as far as we are aware, on the European side to con-
firm so pleasing an anticipation. Ferroukh Khan,
the Shah's Ambassador—upon whose mission a cer-
tam stress has been laid in diplomatic circles, as
affording the probable means of a pacific solution
of the difficulty—has arrived in Constantinople ;
but up to the present time, as we learn by advices
from the Turkish capital, his deputation has been
wholly inoperative. The British Minister, indeed,
finding the Persian to be unprepared to concede on
the part of his Government the first indispensable
point—namely, the unconditional withdrawal of
the Shah's forces from Herat—has, it is said, very
properly refused to enter on any negotiations what-
ever, or even to admit the astonished Envoy to an
audiences It remains to be sen whether the En-
voy, frustrated in this first attempt to gain time
by negotiation, will still persevere in carrying his
protest to the foot of the Emperor at Paris, or whe-
ther, disabused at Constantinople of the hope of
French interference in his favour, he will rather
employ his influence in persuading the Shah to sub-
mit at once to the English demands. It Would be
flattering, no doubt, to the pride of the French
nation to be referred to as an arbiter in the quar-
rel between England and Persia; and, in so far
as may regard the questions of politlc sl law or
diplomatic etiquette involved in the present mis-
understanding, we can see no objection to the
employment of the mediatory offices of our
ally ; but the question of Herat is one which ad-
mits of no compromise and requires no arbitra-
tion. It concerns England, and England only. It
is, moreover, of such importance to India that the
British Government is determined to settle it, and
to keep the settlement of it in its owfs hands ; and
we thus earnestly trust that, amid the jealousies
and intrigues which now distract Constantinople,
M. Thouvenel may not be tempted to hold out to
Ferroukh Khan any hopes of French support in
discussing the Perso-Affghan relations, as those
hopes would infallibly prove delusive, and would
have no other end than to precipitate the evils of
war, which they would seem destined to avert.
It has been stated that M. Bouree, the French
Minister to the Court of Persia, who quitted Tehe-
ran on Ist Sept.' on leave of absence to Europe,
has been directed to return to his post, for the
express purpose of counselling the Shah to yield to
our demands, and thus to save his territory from
invasion ; and, if this bo true, we may still enter-
tain a reasonable hope of a pacific settlement. At
any rate, it is upon the cordial understanding of
the French and English Governments, in regard
to the Persian question, that the best chance of
peace depends ; for we cannot doubt that the di-
plomatic efforts of Russia will be exerted against
us, not merely because it is to her advantage that
Herat should become a Persian dependency, where
she would be authorised by existing treaties to esta-
blish a consul and his staff, but also because it
must be equally to her advantage that the British
invasion of the south of Persia should be carried
out, and the country should thus be weakened, if
not dismembered.
In the meantime the fate of Herat itself still
trembles in the balance. In June last, Esau Khan,
the Governor of the town, estimated the provisions
which he held in store at six months' supply ; but
authentic accounts, we understand, have been re-
cently received, which; state that all the ordinary
provisions were exhausted by the beginning of Sep-
tember, and that from that date the garrison had
been compelled to subsist upon horse-flesh, of
which, moreover, there was but a very limited
supply procurable.
The Persian general, it thus seems, imitating the
example of Mouravieff at Kars, had converted the
siege into a blockade, and was quietly awaiting the
day when decimated by famine, and desparing of
relief, the helpless Affghan garrison would, at any
rate, be driven to capitulate,' if not forced to sur-
render at discretion.

is as mixed as that of higher bodies, and its dis-
cussions, among' occasional indications of jobbery,
show some sense and information, together with
some violations of good temper and good manners.
It is experimental in the limited range of its sub-
jects, almost strictly confined to the paving, light-
'watering, and arterial drainage and sewerage,
and the health of the metropolis. On this point
the best that can be said of it is that it has dis-
cussed most, if not all, of the current plans of ar.
terial sewerage ; but, if it has come to no conclu-
sion yet, it must be said there never was a more
difficult engineering problem. It is experimental
in its powers ; it can only raise a certain amount
of money ; it is liable to have its measures voted
by the Government Board of Works, which appa-
rently examines them at its leisure, and in one in-
stance certainly has taken a month to pronounce a
veto tkat only needed a day. Though the metro-
polis is especially excepted from the jurisdiction of
the General Board of Health, yet it cannot but
feel the influence of that body. The Board of
Health, indeed, has not much of what is usually
called power, and enjoys but a shady sort of exist-
ence. It makes suggestions, pursues inquiries,
sanctions, affiliates, and communicates with local
boards, and concocts Parliamentary bills, which are
generally shelved from one session to another. Be-
tween these three Boards there is naturally some
confusion in the public mind. They are, however,
easily distinguishable. The Board of Health thinks;
the Metropolitan Board of Works talks; the Govern-
ment Board of Works does. This is no necessary
disparagement of the two former, since there is a
time for all thins, and thoughts and words may
sometimes be better even than deeds. The Go-
vernment Board of Works may be said to be of the
masculine gender, the Board of Health feminine, the
Metropolitan Board of Works neuter. As a cor-
respondent observed the other day, the first is
under the energetic monarchy of Sir Benjamin
Hall, and the last a republic under the mild presi-
dency of Mr. Thwaites, while the Board of Health
seems to possess as yet a highly Platonic constitu-
tion.

14416:.4.

1011111111§

It is tl.e experimental body, the Metropolitan
Board of Works, that just now ono feels the most
interest about. It cannot rest as it is, for thus far
it has been little more than a debating society.
The question is, can it ever bo anything else ?
What will it develope into ? Will it dwindle and
expire into the similitude of the Board of Health ?
Will it talk till its talk is no more reported ? Will
it advise, project, and prepare bills that never pass?
Or will it be fairly conquered, subjugated, and
finally absorbed by the Government Board of
Works, that now holds the rod over it ? Or,
without any change in its relations to other boards,
will it nevertheless acquire the habits of business
and the new powers requisite for larger. operations
and for a more regular plan of proceeding ? We
are disposed to view its present embarrassments
with the utmost indulgence. An assemblage of
ordinary tradesmen set to convey the drainage of
this huge metropolis out to salt water are not to
be judged harshly if they talk before they act;
and when ono roads of high, low, and middle levels,
tunnels under the Thames, non tubular drains a
dozen miles long, sewerage lifts of many hundred
horse power, storm vents, and all sorts of ope-
rations above, below, and between, one is only
too glad not to be a member of this over-
tasked company. But it is quite evident that
they must settle into something more like a
governing body if they would escape rude
interference. What would the House of Commons
be without her Majesty's Ministers, and its own,
copious code of standing orders ? When the Re-
formed Parliament met five and twenty years ago.
its enemies predicted the wildest disorder, simply
from the want of congruity and continuity in its
materials, as compared with the old House. There
was some confusion. Yet the conduct of the new
House soon elicited the admiration even of preju-
diced critics. The new members were, many of
them, at least men of business ; they bowed to the
standing orders ; and as for measures, there was a
matured policy and a prolific budget of bills in the
archives of the Whig Opposition. So they got
over their first awkwardness and went to work,
doing, however, by no means too much. The Me-
tropolitan Board of Works, as it appears to us, has
its destiny in its own hands. If it proves itself
equal to business and worthy of confidence, it will
most probably be intrusted with more work and
larger powers. Parliament is not quite the dog in
the manger that it seems to be. It is not from
choice that it monopolises so much business and
then leaves it undone. It would gladly commit
what it could to other bodies if it could trust them,
and cinch a body the Metropolitan Board of Work%
may finally become.

Certain portions of the press both of England
and India, convinced of the urgent necessity of
saving Herat from capture, and doubtful of the ,
efficacy of demonstration, or even of invasion in the
south of Persia, have complained of the lukewarm-
ness of the Indian authorities in not sending forth
Dost Mahomed Khan at once to the rescue ; but
such writers can know but little of the real state
of Affghan politics. So far from being able to ad-
vance on Herat, Dost Mahomed Khan has in
reality great difficulty in maintaining his position
at Candahar. He has to contend in the first place
with the great mass of the Parsee population, who
are to a man favourable to Persia, and who around
Candahar are equal to the Affghans in numbers,
while they surpass them in wealth, industry, and
intelligence. In the second place, he is fiercely
opposed by the partisans of Kohendil Khan's family,
which he has supplanted—these partisans compris-
ing the whole strength of the Candahar Baruckzyes
and most of the influential men throughout the
province. And, in the third place, his British alli-
ance has rendered him unpopular among the Doora-
nees in general, and aid which he might receive
from India, either in arms, money, or possibly
in officers, would be viewed by these powerful
nobles with the utmost distrust. The Dooranees,
no doubt as a body, are intensely hostile to Persia,
but they could hardly be induced to march four
hundred miles, from Candahar to Herat, to attack
the force of the Shah—not, it must be borne in
mind, for any additional object, inasmuch as Herat
having never come under the dominion of any
member of the family of Paindeh Khan, has no
community of feeling with Candahar and Cabul
—but merely at the bidding of a Power whom they
detest even more than they detest the Persians, and
in furtherance of a policy which they would neither
appreciate nor even understand. The assistance
which we are about to furnish to Dost Mahomed
Khan, according to the Indian papers, may be- of
use in enabling him to consolidate his power at
' Candahar ; but if we expect that he is to save
Herat, or to retake it from the Persians; or even
to protect its independence after we have oompelle d
the Shah to withdrew his forces, we are leaning on
a broken reed.

THE RECENT EARTHQUAKE IN THE
MEDITERRANEAN.

It is highly probable that Herat has fallen ere
this; it is almost certain that it must fall before
the anniversary of the fall of Kars ; but it is equally
certain, unless the peace of Europe should be dis-
turbed, that the measures which we aro now taking
in the Persian Gulf will compel the Shah's forces
again to evacuate the place (after committing pro-
bably the most frightful cruelties on the Affghan
garrison). The means to be adopted for insuring
the future independence of the principality is a far
more obscure, though not a less important, matter
for consideration. It is a matter which will have to
be regulated rather through Teheran than through
Candahar and Cabul, owing to the implacable
jealousy of the Affghan9, and which will tax to the
utmost the diplomatic ability of our Representative
at the Court of the Shah.

, O 25.
Intelligence continues to pour iuMAL fr TAs
omsuer ounding
and more distant countries which felt the earthquake on
the night of the 11th and morning of the 12th instant.
It seems to have been more sensibly felt in the interior
than in the seaport towns of the neighbouring islands
of Sicily. In Naples the shocks were severe and of
_long duration, and so likewise in Calabria ; but it appears
to have boen generated in Asia Minor or Syria, as, in-
deed, has been generally the case when phenomena of
this nature having any degree of intensity have been
felt in Malta ; with which countries, rather than si itk
the nearer land of Sicily, Malta in this respect corres-
ponds. At Rhodes the shock was felt at 2.40 Lin. on
the 12th, and was so violent that 50 houses and the
celebrated tower are reported to have been razed to the
ground in the town, and many others seriously
while the village of Trianda is in ruins, with a deplor-
able loss of life. Alexandria also felt it, and in Cairo
there have been casualties from falling houses and mosque
minarets. The duration of the shock throughout Egyptrees
is reported to have averaged 75 seconds, the timeAagdriap
with Malta. The Austrian Lloyd's steamerdes felt it
though distant fully 50 miles from injared,
on some new submar,ine formation.
Alexandria from Liverpool
English steamer, bound to .
so severely that all on board thoughtTltshhheee
slit.adAstitdrrueekw
mentioned port, got so strained by the and Malta, at a distance of 300_
and bale goods
sprung a leak, lost one of herraM
from out of the hold.
were pitched into the engineroo
of extreme heat, earth-
quake, thunder-storms, Malta b
n the ofEing, to which as
rains, and waterspouts i
brief space of a week, been sub-
jected,
heestewaar earth to
recently, and within the brief
its
annals,
and cannot but be
are unexampled
extensive
volcanic and volcanico•
lightning, squalls of wind, heavy
attributed to most. t
generating
the eastward,
the island. on in
i currents rtrheen bts"t'oe i s
theof
writer in the Malta illediterraneo thus
article on the weather, after speaking of
concludes his
galvanic action goinge?
successive thunderstorms arid of
earthquake and
the
heavy rains :
"Theatmosphere, in a word, paid back to Malta
with without f.' ndin or interest a g capitalisation the heavy
An eccentric
loan it had received, also Varough Malta, of electric
flaid from the volcano, just as Malta had restored its
own debt on the same account. The sum restored will
be invested in the new formations consequent on the
suppression of the volcanic action. The residue remain-
ing to Malta will be invested in the winter vegetation
and next year's crops."

(From the Times.)

Ancient mythology is full of the ignoble terrors
with which the race of Titans inspired the Olym-
pian deities. These deities themselves were but
an upstart race, who had usurped the thrones of
elder and more genuine godheads, so it was not
without the lessons of experience, as well as some
prickings of conscience, that they saw demigods,
the offspring of their own frailties, rising from
earth to heaven. Liese monstrous beings grew
some of them a cubic a-day, and exhibited a cor-
responding precocity of genius and ambition. As-
sailing the higher powers by violence and by fraud,
they inflicted injuries on the dignity of Olympus
from which it) cannot be said even yet to have re-
covered. So their Majesties determined to abate
the nuisance before it should get the mastery over
them. Accordingly, besides the exhibition of a
systematic jealousy, some of these formidable
beings they destroyed with lightning, others they
chained to snowy crags, or buried under burning
volcanoes ; sonie they sent below at once, others
they condemned to a succession of labours requir-
ing more than human strength and ingenuity.
The history is by no means to their credit, but it
is instructive, for the circumstances have been con-
tinually repeated, and the same parts acted over
again in every age. There is at this moment before
our eyes an example which might compare with
the story of any earth-born Titan of old. We live
in a metropolis which for the rapidity of its growth,
for its huge dimensions, for its energy and its en-
terprise, certainly has no match among the crea-
tures of time. Its increase baffles calculation.
The map bought last year is now obsolete, and
one that still looks new is an antiquarian curiosity.
The inhabitants already outnumber several
king-
doms, yet they are still mole remarkable for their
wealth and enterprise.s Our. What ito be done
annual increase ls the
- Population of a. gro.t
city.

BRYN MALLY COLLIERY.—WRRICHA3I, Oct. 30.—The
inquest on the victims of the inundation was formally
opened on Tuesday last, but, the inquiry into the cause of
the accident will not be proceeded with until nest week,
in order to enable the Government Inspector to examine
the mine before it takes place. All the bodies have by
this time been recovered and buritd, after having been
viewed by the jury.