The Sun.
London, England, 1860-08-21 00:00:00

Perhaps:there is not one single department of ad-
ministration that admits of more numerous exploits

being achieved in it, than the department variously
known as that of Public Works, of Woods and
Forests, of Parks and Palaces. A whole world of
improvements lie open to the choice of the Chief
Commissioner. If he is a man of ambition, of
energy, of enterprise —he can satisfy ;the
promptings :of his nature at once, and estab-
lish for himself while so doing an eminent
and enduring reputation. Whatever he
puts his hand to he accomplishes in the way of an
actual improvement, small or great, remains thence-
forth substantially behind him, after he has quitted
office, as a monument of his administration. There
is every inducement to a Chief Commissioner of
Public Works to do Something Anything.
Vanity prompts him to action, among other noble
incentives. If this Minister in particular
wishes to acquire a name for himself—he has
every facility for doing so. The materials
are ready to hand—upon all sides—and in the
utmost conceivable abundance. There are evils to
be got rid of—there are benefits to secure. He can
—if he only resolves to set about it in earnest—
adorn the Metropolis en the one hand, and ensure,
upon the other, in a variety of ways, the comfort
and convenience of its vast population. Consider
only for a few moments even some among the
more conspicuous opportunities afforded for bene-
ficial action in this way to our Chief Commissioner.
There are the Thames Embankments. The
securing of these alone would constitute any Chief
Commissioner in perpetuity the Benefactor of the
swarming millions of people inhabiting London
and Westminster. Coupled with an energetic
development of the main drainage scheme, divert-
ing the sewage matter of the metropolis from the
river, would render the Thames once more the Silent
Highway—the noblest thoroughfare sweeping
through the capital—a source no longer of pesti-
lential diseases, but a broad channel of salubrity—a
current securing to the metropolis of England its
beautification and purification. A resolute Chief
Commissioner, putting his shoulder in veritable
earnest to the wheel of change in these two in-
timately, almost inextricably associated particulars,
might, if only in earnest, secure to London within
a reasonable interval of time—the accom-
plishment of the Main Drainage Seheme,
and the building up, on either side of the river,
here on the Middlesex side, there on the Surrey
side of the two noble, broad, majestic, parallel lines
of the Thames embankments. These embankments
—properly constructed, duly planted with trees—
might readily eclipse the sylvan vista of the very
finest of the Parisian Boulevards.
Subsidiary to this—perhaps the noblest possible
metropolitan improvement of all—subsidiary to this
there is the opening up freely to the public—with-
out any further traffic-stricture of a petty toll-gate
with its clicking-valve of a turnstile—the opening up
freely in this way to the public of how many of
our finest bridges ! Waterloo-bridge, for example,
the envy of CANOVA-or at least the object of that
great sculptor's unstinted admiration. The iron
bridge at Southwark, and so many of the other
minor bridges over the Thames above Westminster!
There are vacant sites, too, in the very heart of
our metropolis, tempting a really energetic Chief
Commissioner to fill them up with public works of
conspicuous utility and importance. The site of
the old Fleet Prison, for instance, on the east side
of Farringdon-street, for years past as much a
memento mori in its way as a caput mortuum.
Descending to mere minutiae, there is even a
vacant pedestal standing this long while in one
corner of the Finest Site in Europe—not spelt,
however, by any means the Finest Sight in Eu-
rope—beseeching the statue (equestrian, if possible)
of some one, of any one among our English
Worthies (if only by way of contrast to that royal
ostler, GEORGE the FOURTH, leading his charger to
water at the adjacent fountains !)—a vacant pedestal,
we say : imploring some statue, any statue that
might suggest itself as appropriate to the imagina-
tion of an enterprising Chief Commissioner.
Then there is the completion of Nelson's Column
to expedite—there is the fagade of the National
Gallery to reconstruct—there is the projected
Palace of Justice (say upon the proposed site
between Clement's Inn and Carey-street) to
raise from its foundations—there is the
long talked-of viaduct to build at Holborn
Hill there is Smithfield to turn to good

And then to remember the almost certain dimi-
nution of consumption, and the consequent diminu-
tion of employment. It is no trivial evil when every
individual of a family living on wages has to buy
some article of wearing apparel or some domestic
article less. What a tale does this tell at Manchester,
Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, Coventry even, and the
Potteries. There is no trade unaffected when even
the poor cannot possibly lay out on manufactures
what they have already been compelled to expend
through the higher price of food. Then follow short
time, lowered wages, and too often some Secretary
POTTER rises up and exasperates all the suffering
by getting his sub-despots to order a general strike.
The demagogue forces social suicide on those who,
left to themselves, would have experienced tempo-
rary privation merely. No terms of condemnation
can be too severe for the ignorant men, for it is
most charitable to believe them ignorant, who stir
up their unreflecting but naturally patient as well
as industrious fellow-men, in reality, to take ven-
geance by idleness on Providence for a bad harvest
and its inevitable consequences.

We may hope, however, for some good out of
the evil. At present our taxation is enormous—
unreasonable. More than seventy millions sterling,
besides borrowing for fortifications and for India, in
a time of profound peace, shows something utterly
wrong. The leaks must be found out and stopped.
We may go on very well with them when sailing
before the wind, but already the enhanced prices
of all provisions are telling fearfully on the returns
of our Board of Trade. They will tell yet more.
And if so, and if the rate of expenditure be kept up
through the year, the " elasticity of our trade'
will not save Mr. GLADSTONE from a deficiency
next spring. Then it will begin to be asked, in
sober seriousness, whether we are really obliged to
pay seventy millions for public purposes merely—
whether less than thirty millions will not suffice
to defend us, seeing France spends nearly ten
millions a year sterling less, to keep us all in a
fright ? And it will be asked whether we do not
pay too much for such 'whistles as CARDIGANS,
LL'CANS, and AIREYS, and featherbed field-mar-
shals, and all the glories of the Horse Guards ?
and whether at the Admiralty, the men who give
£365 each for anchors, which drag half a mile in a
storm, and reject those which never move in the
same storm, and cost but one-fourth the money, are
just the men to see us well served on the cheapest

:erms.

In many ways, a little check may do both go-
vernors and people no harm ultimately; the only
thing one feels much is the sufferings brought on
the poor. Would that it might teach them the
lesson of better providence ! The painful fact is,
that families living on wages, and paying no In•
come-tax, but earning twice or three times as much
as thousands who do pay Income-tax, the instant a
time of hardship comes have immediately to resort
to the pawnshop. This improvidence, together
with too general intemperance, are the ruin of our
industrious poor. Were they as economical as they
are industrious they would be the wealthiest ope-
ratives in the world, and they could cease work
without being ruined.

EXTRAORDINARY WEATHER.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE SUN.

Sin,—l have been requested to furnish you with a brief
statement of the extraordinary weather of the past three
months, in comparison with the same months of 1859.

Peg. Deg.
Greatest heat in shade, June, 1859, 80.4—June, 1860, 73.5
f/ PP July, 1859, 89.5—July, 1860, 77.0
PI PP Aug., 1859, 86.0—Aug., 1860, 73.0
Colder in 1860—June 6.9 deg.
), July, 12.5 deg.
If Aug., 13.0 deg.
In June, 1859, the temperature rose to 70 on 20 days.
June, 1860, » ~ 70 on 7 days.
July, 1859, » ~ 75 on 28 days.
July, 1860, PP „ 75 on 6 days.
July, 1859, PP /9 80 on 14 days.
July, 1859, II „ 85 on 5 days.
July, 1860, PP p, 80 on no day.
Aug., 1859, ~ 70 on 25 days.
Aug., 1860, ,9 „ 70 on 2 days.
Aug., 1859, Pf „ 80 on 6 days.
Aug., 1860, IP „ 74 on no day.
In June, 1859, the temperature was low; it reached 92.2
deg. in 1858, and 91 deg. in 1846 ; the two lowest years
being 1843 and 1852, when it only reached 77 deg., or 3.5
deg. above that of June, 1860.
In July the temperature reached 91 deg. in 1852, and
only 77 deg. in 1843, being the same maximum as in 1860.
In August the temperature reached 92.5 deg. in 1856,
and was as low as 74.5 deg. in 1845, or P 5 deg. hotter than
in 1860.

account somehow, anyhow almost we might say,
rather than leave in its present lamentable state of

_
total unadornment.
Instead of attempting to carry out in genuine
earnest any one of all which obvious, and some of

them urgently required improvements, our present
pattern Chief Commissioner has been directing his
immense energies to spoiling, as far as he can pos-
sibly contrive to do so, the most beautiful of all our
London "lungs"—more beautiful than any one of the

parks—Kensington-gardens ! Mr. COWPER makes

his Horse-ride—as the itinerant musician made his

violoncello—all out of his own head ! And we have

no reason to doubt that he could as truthfully as
the itinerant musician aforesaid, add that he has

plenty of wood left for many similar achieve-

meats. The perverseness with which the road in
question was originally made at Mr. COWPER'S behest

The temperature in 1860 fell to within 2.5 deg. of the
freezing point in June, to within 4.5 deg. in July, and to
within 9.0 deg. in August on the grass.
There has been a large amount of ozone.
In June, 1860, the amount of rain was about the average,
in July half an inch in excess; and in August already
nearly an inch beyond the average for the whole month.
In the last 40 days 35 have been rainy.
I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
E. J. LOWE.
Highficld-house Observatory, Aug. 19.

without anybody asking him to make it) has only

- ..
been equalled, it has even—if that be in any way
•• - -

possible—been surpassed by the stubborn obstinacy
with which he refries to consent to its removal.

A petition for its retention has been got up with

Meat effort, and signed (after much touting) by

o'ne or two thousand individuals. Another peti-

tion (addressed to the QUEEN herself and not to
her Chief Commissioner) has been signed on the

Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Marie
of Russia, with the Princes Nicholas and Eugene Roma-
noffski, attended by Count Stroganoff and a large suite,
have arrived at Claridge's Hotel from Torquay. Their Ex-
cellencies Baron and Baroness de Brunnow were present
to meet them at tho Great Western terminus, and accom-
panied them to the hotel.

other hand (pleading for the removal of the ride)

by front thirty to fort✓ thousand persons! Yet

the former little selfish class-plea is now being
advertised flagrantly—we should rather say
at once impudently—as having been eminently
successful! After which—the matter surely
cannot be allowed to rest quietly in its present
position: COWPER'S FOLLY—that is, the Horse
Ride—must be got rid of, and that immediately.

The Prince and Princess Hohenlohe Schilling-
furst and Prince William Hohenlohe have arrived at Long's
Hotel from the Isle of Wight.
His Excellency the French Ambassador and the
Countess de Persigny have arrived at Albert-gate House
from a tour of visits in Cornwall and Devonshire.
_ _

The British Trident, from Melbourne, has brought
gold to the value of £llO,OOO.

trollable feeling of this country would compel any How—rests now with the inhabitants of Kensing-
Ministry, be the consequences what they might, ton, Bayswater, Marylebone, Knightsbridge, and
to aid GARIBALDI against the odious Hapsburgs, the surrounding population.
should they attempt to interfere in behalf of the
equally loathed Bourbons. It would never be en-
dured that we should spend our blood and treasure
to prevent the oppression of the SULTAN and the
waning independence of Turkey, and that we should
quietly permit Austria to crush, if she could, the
new-born liberties of Italy. We have no objection
to the cry —" Germany for the Germans,"
as against a French invader ; but we
claim equal respect for the cry " Italy
for the Italians," as against the Empire of the
HAPSBURGS and the stick. Never again will
England and France permit the most brutal of
what are called civilised Governments to bastinado,
imprison, shoot, and hang every lover of freedom
from Verona to Naples. That day is past. The
sooner the doomed HAPSBURGS know it the better
—if, as was said by the prophet to another Royal
madman, "it may be a lengthening of thy tran-
quillity."

The third week of August, and harvest hardly
anywhere even begun. But yesterday we took a
hasty run through parts of four southern counties
—Middlesex, Surrey, Sussex, and Hampshire—
and uncut, for the more part green crops, here and
there turning colour more or less, were what we
beheld everywhere. The crops were, on the other
hand, frequently fine, sometimes very fine ; perhaps
they would, the wheat crops at least, have been
generally so, but the heavy storms have
laid many fine fields very much, and so
early that the weeds have risen vigorously
through, and the grain and straw must be materi-
ally injured. In the district we refer to harvest
must be a month later than a toles ably early one,
and a full three weeks later than the average time.
That prices should rise under such circumstances is
indeed no more than must be expected, and but for
the large importations we should certainly have
had by this time something like famine prices, and
that with full supplies on the ground before our
faces:

Of course all our hopes for a favourable harvest,
and a winter with satisfactory employment for la-
bour, are centred in the weather of the next two
months, and in Him who " giveth the appointed
weeks of harvest." His hand at such a time as
this it were almost irreverence not to remember ;
probably there are but few whose minds can realise
the consequences of a general damage to our harvest
who have not frequently turned their inmost
thoughts with a silent aspiration to the Giver of
all Good. True, in this country no one needs to
starve. There is the workhouse for the needy.
But great—indeed often fatal—it the privation
which an Englishman and an Englishwoman will
ofttimes undergo before they will accept even out-
door relief. Till the independent spirit is once
broken, it is painful to think what individuals will
suffer before they will " go to the parish," and still
more before they will go into the house.