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

FEMALE EMIGRATION FUND.

The ninth party of emigrants sent out by the com-
mittee of this fund to different parts of the world was
dispatched yesterday, from the " Home" in Hatton-
garden. It will be remembered that New Zealand was
selected as the place of settlement for the last band of
emigrants, which sailed from Gravesend on the 29th of
January. That was the first occasion on which any of
those who have been enabled to emigrate by this fund
were sent to New Zealand, and as the feelings of the emi-
grants generally, in respect to that country are such as
to render it desirable to have advices from the first party
of emigrants before the dispatch of a second, the point of
destination has been altered on the present occasion, and
the good ship the City of Manchester, containing forty-
one of the female emigrants, will shape her course to the
shores of Australia. A few of the emigrants will dis-
embark at Port Phillip, and the remainder will proceed
to Adelaide. Upon landing they will at once be ad-
mitted to the Government depots, where they will be
taken care of until provided with situations; and at the
former port a committee of the resident ladies has been
formed, for the express purpose of supplying their little
wants, and attending to their comforts.
The party left then Home yesterday morning shortly
after nine o'clock, and proceeded by railway to Black-
wall. Here it was met by several members of the com-
mittee and their friends, including Lady Emily Dundas,
Mrs. Stuart Wortley, the Hon. A. Kinaaird, Mr. M.
Higgings, the Rev. Mr. Quekett, the Rev. Mr. Browne,
and others who shared in the desire to give and receive
the " emigrants' farewell." The morning was bright
and cold, and a strong breeze, blowing from the west,
imparted jUst sufficient agitation to the broad stream of
the Thames as to awaken painful forebodings of the in-
convenience which might be expected from the tossing
billows of the ocean. However nothing was to be seen
but contentment and good humour, and the time passed
along with unwelcome rapidity, until at length the river
steamer which conveyed the party from Blackwall
stopped alongside the City of Manchester, a noble ship
of 1,600 tons burden, which lay at her moorings off
Gravesend. The emigrants were not long in finding
their way to the place allotted to them, which is to serve
as their new" home" for the next four months, and they
were soon busily employed in making their little house-
hold arrangements. Their cabin is a large well-ven-
tilated apartment, in the after part of the ship, more
than seven feet in height between the beams. The
berths, each of n hich is adapted to bold two persons,
extend in a double range along both sides; and
down the centre of the cabin runs the table, set out with
an ample assortment of culinary utensils, Eze. After
the girls were all assembled their names were read out,
and they were told Cif into four detachments, which, are
to he under the direction of sub matrons, the whole
being under the general superintendence and care of a
head matron. It may not be uninteresting to mention,
that one of the sub-matrons is a girl of superior educa-
tion and refinements, the daughter of a gentleman who
formerlyho
formerly edited a country nexvqaper. She was dis-
covered in a state of abject destitution the .
neighbour-
hood of Vauxhhall, and was found, upon inquiry, be
in every way a deserving, object of the asEistance of the
committee. Printed rues for the regulation of their
conduct during
the voyage were then handed to each of
the emigrants, and they were afterwards addressed in
brief and suitable terms by the lion. A. &ia nad and

the Rev. Mr. Quekett, who adverted to the prospects of
a happier future which were opening upon them, and
exhorted them to bear with patience and mutual consi-
deration the necessary inconveniences of the voyage.
Nor were ti-ere wanting words of encouragement and
counsel fr,,m the ladies, whose kind and gentle tones
drew a warm response from the bursting hearts of the
emigrants. After the necessary arrangements had been
completed, an affecting farewell was taken, and the com-
mittee left the ship on their return to London. We should
not omit to mention that the City of Manchester takes
out in her a married surgeon of experience.

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. Ccbden knows this, so he never
takes up a cause without challenging a foe. The majo-
rity of tnankind 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 journals to do with the
" taxes on knowledge," except to pay them and wish
them removed? But Nlr. Cobden ingeni•-usly 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 seces-
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 are other taxes which press

more on the comfort, well•being, and progress of
the people, and are content to allow them pri-
ority. As, however, the question concerns us very
closely, we 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 not represent the feelings of the many, but of
the tow. 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. Aro his views on our foreign po-
licy end on the Ecclesiastical Titles Assumption Bill
popular? Nay, poll the mob, and will they assign to
taxes on kaowledge 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
—so 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.

Then, of course, comes the never failing comparison
with the American papers. There are ten daily papers
in Now 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 50,000 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 ethers
the delic,te 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 ma❑ 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 are 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
single American paper which satisfies him in its mode
of treating political, commercial, or social questions.
Such jeuinals may he amusing and gossipping, they
may be instructive to some Latent, 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.

Mier limiting himself to the subject of prices in the
comparison between the journals of London and New
Yolk, Mr. Cobden ventures to do more when he 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 politics 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 he would set up as our rivals. But when be 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 eny one of
them, plainly and explicitly, what are its opinions on the
subjects it usually writes about. We 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 menu
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 100 L or more,
arrives, perhaps, only 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 ono 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 oo-
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 thankra, s
souse
but even if we are to have fifty daily
of them perhaps publishing at noon, it wil! be_ parcr=si.
to come to some arrangement on this head,
expense. If
se
paper can subsist long on a monopoly of he will
Mr. Cobden will just give
dis-
cover that he has not eiiiebratheidstah
whole of the news-
paper question, and that the various e
comparisons he has
instituted between the daily papers
of the metropolis,
and other existing or imaginary rivals, are not alto-
gether fair. At least, as Sir Roger expresses it, " there
is much to be said on both sides of the question."

Rfri,N SHOOTING /T A. STEEPLECHASE.--A mart
from Manchester, set up a stand at, the
n)ammheadrn Greaves,
steeplechase 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, Staly-
bridge, was shot in the right side, breaking a rib. Greaves
was immediately apprehended, and the next day was re-
manded by the magistrate. Whitehead has been pronounced
out of danger.

MEETING OF MR. W. J. FOX'S PRIENDS.—On
Fcidety e 7.e.ring last, a r =emus rasa ing of Mr. Fox's
friends was he.d nt the h use f Mr. llolme, King's Arms,
I Man. John Platt, Esq., in the chair, at which the follow-
ing resolutions were unanim,uAy agreed to : —l. That this
meting pledges itself to support their preset trepresentative,
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 tutmes-,for 1501, and an acting committee
was formed to carry out the objects of the meeting.—
Manchester ,Examiner.

THE LADIES' CONTRIBUTION TO THE
INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION.
Some time since a few ladies thought prover to exe-
cute a carpet in needlework, as a specimen of the profit-
able employment of their leisure hours. They have
been assisted in their labours by a small committee of
gentlemen, who, with Mr. Papworth, the architect, pro-
deced a most beautiful design.
The carpet was exhibited last week at the Society of
Arts, end when the ladies assembled to inspect their
work it was unanimously pronounced to be sufficiently
good to be worthy of presentation to her Majesty. Mr.
Francis Fuller, the chairman of the committee, was
therefore d-puted to learn her Majesty's pleasure on the
subject, and the result was that on Wednesday he had
the honour of introducing the Misces 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-
dress read by Miss Lawrence, who Wll3 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 countrywomen.
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 source
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 offer this specimen of a
work of art fit for your Majesty's gracious accept-
ance."
[Here followed the list cf subscribers and executants.l
Her Majesty was graciously pleased to express her
acceptance of the carpet, and also her satisfaction of the
careful manner in which the ladies had executed the
work.
The carpet, 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 management
of a committee, Wyatt Papworth, being the honorary
secretary. The design by John W. Papworth, F.R.1.8.A.
14 A, Great Marlborough-street. The patterns painted by
and the work executed under the superintendence of W.
B. Simpson, 456, West Strand."