The Sun.
London, England, 1869-01-20 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 20, 1869.

nation advanced in knowledge, in morals, in religion,
in government, in the arts, in social life ? Is there
any Indian nation at all ? There is none. With
all our military power, with all our mechanical
appliances, with all our moral efforts, we have
not succeeded in welding together the numerous
races that inhabit the country between Cape
Comorin and the Khyber Pass. We have not suc-
ceeded in making them love our rule, or in doing
more than offer us submission so long as we enforce
it. They still keep to their old religions, and Chris-
tianity has made almost no progress among them ;
they would even renew their old rites, such as
Suttee and immolation to Juggernaut, did we not
forbid them. They acknowledge that our government
is better than their own was—that it is more
equitable ; but they say that they prefer their own,
and would restore it if we gave them the opportu-
nity. At this very time a conspiracy is on foot
to bring about a new mutiny ; and Sir JOHN LAW-
RENCE leaves India conscious that this is the result
of his five years of just and conscientious govern-
ment ; conscious that were it not for our extended
railways and telegraphs, were it not that the charge
of our artillery has been taken out of the
hands of native soldiers, we should be exposed to a
renewal of the scenes of 1857. It is not a
satisfactory reflection that such efforts should have
such a reception. But let the departing VicEnoY
take comfort in the thought that he could not be
expected to remedy in five years the evil effects of
the policy of ninety. It will take a good many
LAWRENCES to undo the mischief wrought by only
one such governor as DALHOUSIE ; and there were
many like him.

command is likely to be extremely limited in its circle, and
if Robert Browning has to complain of neglect, he must
blame those defects in his own style and manner which
prevent him from either appealing to the popular sympa-
thies or catching the popular ear. The writer of the article
before us cannot be taken as a guide. His own style shews
very plainly that he belongs to the school of Carlyle and
Browning and other really gifted men who, having truths
to teach the world, labour to make them, it would seem,
as hard of comprehension as passible. Thus, speaking of
Wordsworth's "two simplicities" of style, as shewn
in his blank verse and in his lyrics, the critic writes
as follows :—" The one, in its simplification, may
seem to have thinned itself to a lisp, or discharged
itself of burthen almost into a blank ; and in the other, the
lashing of the tail that should by gradual spires intervolve
all into the due consummation of sense ecstatically rapt to
the giddy brink of nonsense, may have been too glaringly
manifest." A writer who could pen such a sentence
must certainly not be accepted as a representative
of the tastes or the requirements of ordinary English
readers. It is worthy of George Gilfillan. A very
interesting and able history of the progress of
Indian railways takes us from the heights of fancy to the
practical business of life. The vast importance of an
extended railway system to a country previously without
any regular or certain means of communication in parts is
strongly insisted upon, and the effect already produced by
the lines in full service is highly encouraging. Sometimes
the task of construction is one of enormous difficulty, as
in the case of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway,
carried across the Ghaut range in the neighbourhood
of Bombay—a line of precipices averaging in that
part 2,000 feet in height. The rivers are often as
formidable to the engineer as the mountains. The bridge
across the Sone consists of twenty-eight spans, each com-
posed of iron girders 150 feet long, and the whole length
is nearly a mile. Very picturesque is the motley group
assembled at an Indian railway station, and very charac-
teristic the flowery language in which the native passenger
appeals to the hard-hearted guard to be allowed to take
his luggage with him in the carriage, and so avoid the
heavy luggage dues. " Oh, protector of the poor,
what words are those I hear ? Behold this most
insignificant of parcels. It is absolutely less than nothing."
What would one of our English railway guards say if
addressed in such a fashion ? The importance of Indian
railways as auxiliaries to the Government must not be
overlooked among their other advantages. They are well
summed up in the concluding sentence of this article. " In
1857 Delhi was distant by at least a month's march from
Calcutta. To-day an army of men, in every way ready to
take the field, may be moved from one of these places to
the other in forty-eight hours—thanks to Indian railways."
A German novel, "The Amazon," supplies the material
for an entertaining paper, and due honour is paid to John
Bright as an orator in an essay on his speeches in connec-
tion with the late elections.

The Quarterly Journal of Science contains an article on
" National Institutions for Practical Scientific Research,"
and discusses a very important question brought specially
lunder the consideration of the British Association at its
last meeting by Colonel Strange and Dr. Mann. Colonel
Strange as Government Inspector of Scientific Instruments
for the India Department, and Dr. Mann as Superinten-
dent of Education and Special Commissioner of the
Government of Natal, are well qualified to form an
opinion as to the need for increased State action
in developing and assisting our knowledge of practical
science. So strongly and so successfully did Colonel
Strange plead his cause before the Norwich tribunal, that
a committee, comprising many eminent names,
was appointed to consider whether there existed
in the United Kingdom sufficient provision for
the vigorous prosecution of physical research. Colonel
Strange, at least, is in no doubt on this point, and in the
paper before us the arguments in favour of State interven-
tion are ably and lucidly set forth. Out of the general
conviction of the need for such intervention have arisen
State observatories for astronomical research. It is not
possible for even the most ardent imagination to conceive
that the results arrived at in special departments by their
means could have been secured in any other way ; if, for
instance, the tables of the moon had been exclusively
contributed by a few private observers, and each following
his own independent method, instead of the work being
carried on under the direction of the Astronomer Royal.
"To the State is due all that has been done for preserving
in uncontaminated integrity the national standards of
length, weight, and capacity. What private or simply co-
operative agency could have F. ecured the result which has
been already attained at Bloomsbury and South Ken-
I sington? The influence for good of the School of Mines
in Jermyn-street is now widely recognised and accepted,
and that certainly is an establishment which could not have
been organised and supported otherwise than by the
State. The Kew Observatory, although not a State insti-
tution, is a very noteworthy instance on the same side of
the argument." It is further observed that the duty of
encouraging and prosecuting scientific research belongs of
I right to the older nations of the civilised world. The
Iyoung communities, who have to people vast tracts, to
subdue the wilderness, and to cultivate the desert, have
I their work marked out for them in another direction. Yet
one of our own colonies has recently set us a notable
example. Great Britain has at the present moment
not a single first-class telescope at work adapted
for the required investigations now demanded from
the rtifron-mer • while, thanks to the public spirit of
„
the Melbourne Government, an instrument of this class
has just been completed, at a large public outlay, for the
colony of Victoria. In an article on the great solar
eclipse of August is, it is noted that the phenomenon
stands alone in the annals of astronomy. The time of its
duration, nearly seven minutes at the maximum, exceeded
that of all recorded eclipses, and more than thirty genera-
tions of astronomers will come and go before an equal
length of totality be witnessed. We shall the more appre-
ciate this fact when we remember that the great eclipse of
1860, when the physical constitution of the red protuber-
ances was ascertained, lasted only 3 minutes, so that it is
not surprising the eclipse of 1868 should have excited
unprecedented interest in the scientific world. In a careful
review of the scientific progress achieved during the year
just concluded, the spectroscope plays an important part.
Some of the most interesting discoveries of modern
astronomical science have been effected through
its aid. The November meteors, which excited
so much attention the year before last, have been
decided by our observers to belong to belts of meteors
which move with planetary regularity within the limits of
the solar system. They are visible during a space of about
five hours, so that, as the earth traverses the meteor
stratum in space at the rate of 18,000 miles an hour, this
gives us an expanse of 90,000 miles more or less densely
filled with these mysterious bodies. Two other considera-
tions press upon the mind of the observer: first, the
thickness with which the central line of the meteoric
belt is studded with these luminous bodies, since within an
hour they have been counted by hundreds ; and, secondly.,
the evidence of the continuity of the meteor zone afforded
by the annual recurrence of the meteoric showers, though
the part traversed by the earth varies by millions of miles
from year to year.
.ilfeliora naturally turns to the two most pressing social
problems of the day—our increasing pauperism, and our
prison discipline ; and, equally naturally and very justly,
this representative of temperance views finds in the uni-
versal passion for alcoholic liquors the secret of our ever-
growing army of paupers. The more the matter is
inquired into, says the writer, the more apparent becomes
the connection between our drinking habits and the
development of pauperism. "It is not pauper colo-
nies, public works, arts, or working men's clubs that
we most want. Even as mere palliatives these would
prove useless. Nothing less than a change in our drinking
habits and the greater restriction of the drink traffic will
meet the emergency." It is always interesting to have the
views of an earnest and practical social reformer upon a
subject of such increasing importance. There can be no
doubt that intemperance is the greatest influence in pro-
ducing the pauperism from which England suffers so
much, though there can be no doubt that the
want of work is another real cause of distress.
The article on prison discipline gives a very cheering
account of the good which may be effected by an en-
lightened and reformatory system as opposed to a merely
primitive method. The former plan has been tried with
signal success by Mr. Edwards, governor of Devonport
Gaol, who has not only effected a saving of £250
a year in the charges of the prison, but has produced
a sensible effect on the number of re-committals.
Mr. Edwards foun-ls his system upon three principles :
first, that nothing shall be done for the prisoners that they
can do for themselves ; that all labour shall be remunera-
tive ; and that from every prisoner capable and willing a
certain amount of work shall be exacted. The work done
by the prisoners comprises an unusual variety. All the
clothes required for prison use are made, washed, and
mended in the establishment. The garden produces all
the vegetables required for the use of the prison absolutely
free of cost. Besides this, the prisoners do whatever car-
pentering, masons' work, and -sainting may be wanted,
while their other employments consist of oakum-picking,
sack-making, and mat and brush-making,. The mat-making
is the most profitable of these, though the governor never
finds any difficulty in disposing of his wares. Care is
taken that the prisoners shall never want remunerative
employment, and the shot-drill and crank are never used.
The governor's experience has shewn him that remunerative
labour is at once more punitive and more reformatory than
ordinary prison discipline ; and so fully are the local
authorities convinced of the superior excellence of his
system, that they make it a rule at Devonport not to
sentence criminals to hard labour, since by recent legisla-
tion the first three months of the term must be spent at
unproductive work. Mr. Edwards's plan for inducing his
prisoners to work well is very original and effective. His
rule is that every prisoner capable of work shall earn
the cost of his or her food. On their entry into the prison
he tells them what they have to do, and the consequences
of fttilure If they do fail, they are not confined in the
dark cells, which are never used at Devonport, but they
are punished, nevertheless. An adequate proportion of
the daily allowance of food is cut off, the full amount of
work being at the same time exacted. Mr. Edwards acts
upon the scriptural precept, "He that will not work,
neither shall he eat," and he records with
satisfaction that lie has never known it to fail.
A paper on " Almanacks, Old and New," is
appropriate to the season. It gives some curious
and entertaining particulars respecting the early
almanack makers, who were many of them more success-
ful in their ventures than they deserved to be. In alma-
nacks, as in other branches of periodical literature, there
is, fortunately, a marked improvement at the present
day.

LATEST INTELL LGENCE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

BELGIUM.

BRUSSELS, Jan. 19.

The bulletin of the health of the Prince Royal
since the 14th inst. has been published, according
to which his Royal Highneas's state has seriously
changed for the worse.

PORTUGAL.

LISBON, Jan. 19.

It is said that the King has received a telegram
from the Duke of Saldanha, in which he declines
the task of forming a new Ministry, on the ground
of the impossibility of organising a Cabinet which
shall satisfy both the King and the people. The
King afterwards summoned the Marquis La de
Bandeira, and charged him to continue with the
present Ministers. It is said that one of his first
acts will be the dissolution of the Chambers.

TURKEY.

CONSTANTINOPLE, Jan. 19.

The newspaper report that Mr. Morris, the
American Minister, had been recalled on account
of some disagreement with the Porte, has been for-
mally denied, and it is stated that the relations be-
tween the Turkish Government and Mr. Morris
continue excellent.

BOMBAY (HEAVY) MAIL
GIBRALTAR, Jan. 18.

The Peninsular and Oriental Company's steamer
Alassilia, from Alexaudria, arrived here to-day at
7 a.m., and leaves at 11 a.m. for Southampton,
where she may be looked for on the 23c1 inotant.
All well.

INDIA, CHINA, AND AUSTRALIAN MAILS.

MESSINA, Jan. 20.
The Syria passed through the Straits of Messina
at 5 o'clock this morning en route for Marseilles.