The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-17 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, T ITE :,,DAY EVENING, JANUARY 17, 1860.

THE GENERAL LIFE AND FIRE
ASSURANCE COMPANY.

NOTICE is Hereby Given, That the FORTY-THTBD
HALF-YEARLY DIVIDEND, at the rate of Six per Cent.,
declared on the 11th inst., is payable to the Shareholders, at
the office of the Company, No. 62, King William-street, City,
between the hours of Ten and Four.
By order of the Board,
January 14, 1860. THO3IAS PRICE, Secretary.

INTERNATIONAL LIFE ASSURANCE
I
SOCIETY, 112, Strand, London, January 10, IE6O.

Notice is Hereby Given, That the HALF-YEARLY IN-
TEREST on the Capital Stock of the Society, at the rate of
Five per Cent. per annum, to the 31st December last, is now
Blue, and in course of PAYMENT at the Society's Office, be-
tween the hours of 11 and 3.

. EDMOND S. SYMES, Chairman.
142, Strand, London, W.C.

LAW LIFE ASSURANCE.
. Office—Fleet-street, London.
January, IA6O.
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, That a GENERAL
MEETING of the Proprietors of the Law Life Assurance
Society will be held at the Society's Office, Fleet-street, Lon-
don, on THURSDAY, the second day of February next, at
twelve o'clock at noon, precisely, pursuant to the provisions
of the Society's Deed of Settlement, for the purpose of re-
ceiving the Auditors' Annual Report of the Accounts of the
Society up to the 31st day of December last, and for general
purposes.
By order of the Directors,
WILLIAM SAMUEL DOIVNES, Actuary.

TEA: STRACHAN and CO.'s Strong rough
" Domestic" Black at 3s. 2d. per lb.-26, Cornhill, Lon-
don. E.C.

TEA. STRACHAN and CO.'s Fine " Inter-
mediate" Black at 3s. Bd. per lb.-26, Cornhill, Lon-
don. E.C.

TEA. STRACHAN and Co.'s Matchless
" Drawing Room" Black at 4a. 2d. per lb.-26, Corn-
hill, London. E.C.

DECAYED TEETH AND TOOTHACHE.-
HOWARD'S ENAMEL for stopping decayed teeth,
however large the cavity. It is used in a soft state without
pressure or pain, and hardens into a white enamel. It remains
in the tooth many years, rendering. extraction unnecessary,
and arresting the decay. Sold by all medicine vendors,
Price ls.

THE ROYAL STATION HOTEL, Paragon-
street, Hull, requires only to be visited to be pronounced
one of the most splendid hotels in England. The situation is
open and healthful, a few minutes' walk from all the public
buildings and places of business, and being connected with
the Railway Station, affords railway passengers arriving or
departing by every train day or night, the advantage of being
on the spot, and having their wants and wishes immediately
attended to.
The public should know that under the present manage-
ment they will find every comfort and convenience at the
same charges they are paying at the minor hotels. It has
accommodation for upwards of one hundred and fifty visitors,
is fitted up with every luxury an hotel can command, and is
so arranged for the advantage of every class of visitor, that
Beds can be had from is. to 2s. ; Private Rooms, from 2s. to
Is. ; Breakfasts, from Is. 6d. to 2s. ; Dinners, from 2s. •, and
all other charges of that moderate character which will give
satisfaction to every class of visitor who may pay the hotel a
visit.

The hotel contains Gentlemen and Ladies' Coffee Rooms ;
a special Room set apart for Commercial Gentlemen ; fourteen
Private suites of Rooms ; large spacious Rooms for Dinner
Parties, Public Meetings, Arc., kc. ; two first-class Refresh-
ment Rooms ; two Smoke Rooms ; Bath and Billiard Rooms.

A Night Porter in attendance.
EDWIN TAYLOR,

Proprietor a the Royal Station Hotel, Hull, and Crescent
Hotel, Filey. _

N.B.—TAYLOR'S CRESCENT HOTEL, fronting" the sea,
for Families and Gentlemen. It has accommodation for up-
wards of one hundred and fifty visitors. Table D'flbte at
five o'clock. Omnibuses and Cabs from the hotel meet all the
trains. Good stabling and coach-houses. Moderate terms.

ME METROPOLITAN BOARD OF
WORKS AND THEIR 21rEIV CONTRACTS.

It has often been remarked that when any build-
ing or great engineering work is to be let by tender.
architects and engineers seem to have no general
principle to guide them, inasmuch as there is almost
always a very wide difference between their esti-
mates. This has been especially the case with
the contracts of the Metropolitan Board of Works,
and it is a fact all the more extraordinary as the
data upon which parties proposing to tender are,
or ought to be, the same, every engineer or
architect being supposed to know the current price
of labour and the value of material, and to be
able to take out the quantities. It will not be
forgotten that after the first contract was let
for the great high level north sewer a question was
raised as to the accuracy of the quantities taken on
behalf of the Board, and an investigation discovered
that there were mistakes in favour of the contrac-
tor, and against the Board, of a sum equal to some
£30,000. This discovery at the time created a great
sensation, and imputations were freely bandied
about at the Board, but still it was generally be-
lieved that this huge discrepancy arose either from
mere negligence or from unaccountable inadver-
tence. The strong observations then made would,
it was anticipated, have prevented a similar occur-
rence when the next large contract was put out to
tender. This contract, however, was let last week,
and from the extreme difference between the
highest and lowest tender, amounting to some
£140,000, it would appear that a grievous mistake
has been made somewhere or other. Messrs.
Pete, Betts, and Brassey, now the largest contrac-
tors in Europe, put in the highest tender. That
this great house, however, who have undertaken
works to the extent of many millions, would have
made so egregious a blunder as £140,000 in a con-
tract of some £450,000 is beyond the pale of proba-
bility. The difference is, in fact, so startling that it
would be only justice to the unfortunate ratepayers,
before the contract is finally sealed, to cause an in-
vestigation to be set on foot, to see whether a simi-
lar error to the last may not have crept into the
calculation of the quantities, or into some other fun-
damental feature of the calculation. The Board may
object that this inquiry would entail an expenditure
of some hundreds of pounds, and that if the calcula-
tions should be found correct this would be so much
money grown away. Had the Board not committed
such an egregious blunder before, there might be
something in this argument. But public confidence
has been so shattered by the former exposure that
the ratepayers would cheerfully pay this compara-
tively small amount to be satisfied that they may
not eventually be losers to the extent of many
thousands. It might happen, too, that the person
who put in the lowest tender may have made a mis-
take in his calculations, and that he may find even-
tually that he cannot complete it, except at ruinous
toss. Therefore, the public might suspect that the
work would not be perfected in the strong and
effective manner which they had a right to expect,
though it is not for an instant supposed that this
would be the case, because, of course, the works
would be carried out under the superintendence of
proper efficient officers of the Board. But still men
would reason in the same way with respect to the
proceedings of a public board and large works as
they would in the case of an individual who had
entered into a contract with a builder to erect a
house at a price less than the prime cost of the
materials. The difference between the amount
of the tenders for the great works in question is,
supposing no mistake has been made by Messrs.
Peto, Betts, end Brassey, very much the same as
that of the builder and the private individual.
The discrepancy is so startling that the Board is
bound at any inconvenience, expense, or delay,
to investigate most minutely all the circum-
stances of the case. They must recollect that
the works carrying on are not to last merely for a
year
the wear and ea
ortwo,orevetnlr of centuries. A falsemove
now butareexpectedto
bear
now would be fatal. To save £lOO,OOO, or even
£150,000 might turn out to be the worst possible
pe cbolintoamb y; We
ard bafrlevqbur
Work
tse
ewv
ei lrlyi ng
er
etdoi
tgfi
ov
tthhee
bestM et rino-
-
tentions, and to admit that every allowance should
be made for the pressure that is put upon them by
their constituents, who naturally see with great un-
easiness large loans contracted for, large works en-
tered into, and other large works projected. But
still their duty is to see that the work is well done,
and even to risk whatever popularity they may
have in order that the ratepayers' money shall not
ba expended in vain. It would be doubtless pain-
ful and humiliating if they have made a second
mistake; but, like sensible men, they should meet
the diffieulty, if there is one, at once. They may
be quite sure that those gentlemen who have
unsuccessfully tendered will most scrupulously
and assiduously watch the carrying out of the
works. To such men, for instance, as Messrs. Pete
and Co. it is no trifling thing to make so large a
mistake, supposing that they have done so, because
whenever they put in tenders for other great works
their proposals will be looked upon with something
very like suspicion, not as regards the integrity of
the intended contractors, but as to their proneness
to make mistakes. An investigation is, therefore,
imperatively demanded,—Observer.

IVILIT;IRY ORGANIZATION.

(FRO3I THE TIMES' CORRESPONDENT LATE WITH
THE FRENCH ARMY IN ITALY.)
IV.

The character of the .old machine or automatic
military system can be best judged of by the

favourite comparison of the old school, according to
which war is like a game of chess—the commander
a kind of military Staunton, and the army under
his orders a collection of wooden or ivory pieces, to
be moved about according to the insight and will
of the players. Such being the beau ideal to be
attained, all endeavours were directed to deprive
the soldier as much as possible of all sparks of indi-
vidual life, and to make him as nearly as possible
resemble a piece of wood or of any other inani-
mate matter. He was chosen for his size, he
was dressed like a puppet, his instructions began
by making him forget how to use his muscles,
and teaching him how to move according to
certain proscribed rules. Having, after much
trouble, succeeded in stiffening his body, the soldier
was placed together with others equally stiffened,
and taught to move in a certain order. Every means
were used to impress him with the idea that he was
weak and helpless as an individual, and that his
safety lay in the narrow circle assigned to him.
In older to strengthen this conviction, the soldier's
life out of the ranks was subjected to regulations
analogous to those which were prescribed for his
movements in the ranks, and he was systematically
drilled to be dependent on others in every trifle,
never to think or provide for himself, but to trust
implicitly those above him. To carry out such a
system it was necessary to co-ordinate all the
branches of military administration in a correspond-
ing manner, so as to mako the mechanism complete.
Everything had to be regulated minutely, and a
complicated system of control to be introduced, in
order to make sure that all these rules would be
observed. As in the soldier, so in the administra-
tion likewise all individual exertion, initiative, and
responsibility had to be banished. Even the best
meant efforts in this respect were calculated to
create confusion, and the only road to salvation was
through routine.

It
is
just
to its abou t agreatest century since this system was
brought
perfection
in Prussia by
Frederick 11., and the Prussian army became hence-
forth
the model for all the other armies in Europe.
Tho French revolutionary wars and those of the
Empire introduced a new element into this system,
which, without changing the principle on which it
was based, modified it somewhat. Assailed by a
powerful coalition, the French Republic had to call
in the popular element. The old military organisa-
tion was upset, and there was no time to rebuild it
again, but the national spirit of the masses was
roused, and the Convention took advantage of
it. It substituted for the passive obedience the
equally blind impulse of the masses. The in-
discriminate compulsory conscription, the idea of
equality, and then of subordination of individual
interests to the common welfare, gave the in-
dividual soldier even less value than before, and re-
quired, if possible, a more severe organisation. It
was reserved for the genius of a Napoleon to adapt
the old system to the altered circumstances.
Both the original and the modified machine' sys-
tems were essentially calculated for centralised de-
spotic countries, but were so much against the very
spirit of free institutions that they could never be
but imperfectly introduced in England. The sys-
tem could only be carried, just far enough to im-
pair more or less the most valuable qualitfes of the
British soldier, without compensating for this loss
by any other advantages.
The soldier was drilled sufficiently into a machine
to become utterly helpless, when left to himself, but
the individual spirit was too strongly rooted in the
race from which he was drawn not to resist all at-
tempts made to break it down. Thus the British
soldier, whose brothers could penetrate into the
most inhospitable regions of the earth and endure
hardships and privations which no one else could,
got the credit of being utterly useless except for
actual fighting. and of wanting to be carried in a
litter to the battlefield. Thus it came that while
self-government was the pride of the Anglo-Saxon
race all over the world, the British soldier had to
be subjected to a more brutal code of discipline al-
most than the debased serf of Russia ; and yet in
spite of this severe discipline, or rather on account
of it, no soldier was more unmanageable and liable
to excesses. and none so prompt to get " out of
hand." In no army were there greater pains
taken to arrive at perfection in evolutions and
manual exercise, and the superiority of the Bri-
tish soldier was always evinced in the file fire and
the bayonet charges—that is, where his natural
qualities of coolness and boldness came into play.
The more perfect—that is, the more helpless and
dependent—the British soldier became, the more
was it necessary that the military administration, his
Providence—should be likewise more perfect; and
yet, owing to the institutions of the country and
to the:peculiar circumstances in which it was placed
the means for the end were beyond reach. The
complicated system required continual practice, and
English laws and English Parliaments would not
allow such practice. The principle of the system is
great centralisation, which was contrary to the
spirit of English institutions. The routine could
only be taught by years of training, and in England
patronage plays the most prominent part in official
advancement. Such being the obstacles in this
sphere likewise, only enough could be done to give
an illustration of all the defects of the continental
system, without attaining any of its advantages.
It was, in one word, an attempt to introduce a fo-
reign institution utterly unfitted to the genius of the
people, and the result could only be a failure. This
has been so invariably the case, that people have
begun to consider it as the inevitable beginning of
every war, and to console themselves with the idea
that somehow or other it gets right in the end.
And if it does get right in the end, to what is it
due but to the fact that the individual qualities of
Englishmen, and the power of the nation, are able
to triumph in spite of self-created difficulties, that
England is strong enough to bear the loss of an
army, and that the individual exertions of her sons
Compensate for the defects of the system? Read the
"Life of Sir John Moore," "The Wellington De-
spatches," " Sir William Napier's Peninsular War"
—they all bear witness to the long and herculean
labour which it took to break down the system. It
was the hardest fight in that long, hard-fought cam-
paign ; and if at last the British army became supe-
rior in everything to any continental army, to
what was it due but to a return from an unnatu-
ral routine and machine system to one more adapted
to the genius of Englishmen, which Sir John Moore
first conceived, and the Duke of Wellington per-
fected ?

Both these great men understood that it would
be a vain attempt to oppose lifeless machines to the
enthusiastic impulse of the soldiers of the first
Empire, and they worked, and succeeded, to make
the individual soldier and the single regiments
superior. They saw that it was folly to try and
imitate the powerful centralized military organiza-
tion of France, and they waged war against the
pedantry of routine until they had enforced the
great principle of individual exertion and indivi-
dual responsibility, and until every man " knew his
duty, and did it."

They took as th© first and most necessary condi-
tion of success the physical strength and material
welfare of the soldier. No trouble was too much,
no responsibility too great, to obtain this aim. The
anecdotes of the time show sufficiently the rigour
with which this subject was looked to. The official
routine, which allows no one to know his duty and
relieves every one from responsibility, was by de-
grees shaken off, and free scope given :to personal
exertion under strict responsibility, The material
thus ready at hand, it was put to the best use,
There were no Enfield then, but the British sol-

dier knew better than any other how to use his
flint lock, and his firing was superior to that of his
adversaries. At an epoch when movements of
masses were the fashion, Sir John Moore, who had
been in America, created the Light Brigade, which
became the model for all the later organization.
While in the French army the conscript was fixed
in his place, the British infantry had made skir-
mishing a science. It was the habit thus acquired
by the soldier of using his faculties which gave him
the consciousness of superiority, and which enabled
him, formed in a thin line, to face the heavy columns
of the enemy. He sought his support, not in the
" touch," but in his own breast, and it was this which
gave the boasted steadiness to the British soldier,
and which made his bayonet charge irresistible ;
and the result of this application of the true prin-
ciple was that at the end of the war the British
army and military organization were the best in
Europe.

People are justly proud of their Peninsular recol-
lections ; the only thing necessary would be to re-
collect rather the spirit which created that splendid
organization than those of the forms which, how-
ever perfect then, have become obsolete now. In
garding too anxiously these forms the spirit which
gave them life has been forgotten, and the routine
and machine system has revived almost as strong as
ever.

As far as the administration goes you have the
best proof in the Crimean war, where, up to this
moment, the responsibility could be brought home
to no one. This characterises the system better than
anything else. Everyone was, or thought himself,
hampered by official formalities ; most things were,
properly speaking, no one's business ; no one knew
how far his power went, and all had forgotten how
to act on their own responsibility. Every depart-
ment was in difficulties with every other depart-
ment, and the consequence was confusion in all.
Recall the Report on the Sanitary Conditi)n of
the British Army, and compare it with the general
mortality; look at a British soldier in full marching
order; compare the muscles of the finest specimen
of a Guardsman with those of any other of his own
class not a soldier, and you will agree that the very
basis of the Peninsular system—the physical
strength of the soldier—has been forgotten.
Go to Aldershott, or anywhere else, and see a
field-day. The chief business of the soldier, armed
with the deadly rifle, and knowing, moreover, how
to use it against a target, is to march past in slow
steps half distance, full distance, wheel, and wheel
round and round, and go through a greater or
smaller number of complicated evolutions very de-
lightful to the spectator, but utterly useless in war
against Minies and rifled cannon. You will see,
perhaps, some skirmishing, but it is nothing more
than moving in line a little apart with the sergeant
and his flag behind. Not one is taught the value
of a wall or ditch—only that of the straight line;
he must go back to his line again. These are some
of the forms of Sir John Moore's Light Brigade,
but the spirit is dead, except perhaps, in the regi-
ments which once formed it.

For England, therefore, to adapt its military
organisation to the spirit of the age is at the same
time to return to her own well-understood glorious
traditions, to reject what is contrary to her nature
and can never lead to success in the field.

It is to herself she must look for instruction,
follow her own genius, avail herself of her own
peculiar advantages, and dare to lead even in mili-
tary matters, as she does in most others.

IRELAND.

DUBLIN, MONDAY MORNING.
CHURCH THUNDER.

Archbishop Dixon, the Roman Catholic Primate,
has just issued a manifesto to the faithful of
Drogheda. It is, in effect, the sentence of excora-
muniaation upon the French Emperor, a prelimi-
nary notice of which was foreshadowed in the
speech delivered by the most rev. oucommunicator
at one of the recent pro-Papal meetings in his dio-
cess. For violence of language this outburst of
archiepiscopal wrath is so far without parallel since
the opening of the new chapter in Irish agitation.
What is yet to come a few day will probably tell.
The following is a copy of the document:—
"Dearly Beloved Friends,—On the late occasion
of our meeting to express sympathy with the Holy
Father I considered it my duty to make such ob-
servations on the conduct pursued by the French
Emperor since the commencement of the war in

Italy as were not calculated, I freely admit, to
create an impression favourable to his Imperial
Majesty, and that those observations were not dis-
agreeable to you may be learned from the remark-
able fact—peculiar, I should suppose, to our meet-
ing in Drogheda, among all the meetings lately
held in Ireland--that the only name received with
hisses at that meeting was the name of Napo-
leon 111.

" I avail myself now of the public press to call
your attention to the full confirmation which the
events of the last few days have given to the justice
of the sentiments which then found favour with
you.

" Some, even among our Catholic brethren in
this country, were disposed to censure us as exceed-
ing in se7erity towards his Majesty on the occa-
sion to which I refer. All such persons are now, I
should hope, undeceived. The Emperor has thrown
off the mask. By means of the letter which he
addressed to Rome on the 31st of December, and
which he has published in the 2lfoniteur, he stands
revealed to the world as the imitator of his uncle in
his treatment of the Holy See. The wretched
plausibilities with which that letter is interspersed
can impose on none.
" To find a parallel for the infamous address
which he makes to the Holy Father, let us imagine
a well armed captain of a gang of robbers, who,
placing his hand on the throat of some unfortunate
and defencless traveller whom he has seized, says
to him :

" You have, indeed, my dear friend, an ',incon-
testable right to your money ; but consider this—
I cannot permit any foreign or external aid to come
to your defence; you may yourself, if you please,
defend your purse; but I advise you not to mind
doing so; the easiest solution of the difficulty in
which you find yourself is, to give up your money
quietly to me; and, in return for this amiable con-
descension on your part, I shall guarantee to you the
secure possession of your clothes and your life.
You may range with safety, for many years through
these mountain passes, and you will place me and
the banditti who acknowledge my authority under
a debt of gratitude, which we shall ever cheerfully
acknowledge.'
" It is such an address as this which the Eldest
Son of the Church has made to the Father of the
Faithful. 0 ! how all good Catholics over the
world must be horrorstruck on reading that letter
in the Moniteur ! You will admit with me that
the appropriate residence for its author would be
the prison of Hats rather than the Palace of the
Tuileries. How I pity the chivalrous French na-
tion lying prostrate under the feet of such a ruler.
" But let us hope that a voice will yet reach him,
which by the awe that it shall inspire will have the
effect of paralysing the hand stretched out against
the Holy Father—l mean the voice of indignant
Catholic Christendom, which, rising above the ju-
bilation of the enemies of the Church over the
world, will fall on his ear in some such words as
these—

" ' Robber, take your hand from the throat of the
Vicar of Christ.'

" I am, dearly beloved friends, your ever faith•
ful servant,

" JOSEPH DIXON, Archbishop,
Primate of all Ireland.
" Drogheda, Jan. 15."
THE RUINED INTEREST.

The following is an extract from the trade report
of the Belfast Mercury of Saturday. The great
measure of 1846 was to have shaken the agricultu-
ral interest of Great Britain to its base, but iu Ire-
land—the grazing farm of John Bull—it was. to
have been shattered to atoms. It will be seen, how-
ever, that, as far as this country is concerned, far-
mers are still enabled to do a pretty safe bus, mess
in the midst of the general ruin of their class
" The gloomy predictions of Protectionist:s in
Parliament and in the press as to the ruinously low
rate of agricultural prices, should the great 'mea-
sure of free trade become the law, contrast very
strikingly with what those prices actually are, and
have been for some Sears steadily advancii ig to.
How confidently used it to be insisted upon tl iat, to
abolish the beloved sliding-scale, or even to i neddle
with any of its fanciful gradations, would ce rtainl,y

PRICE 4D. STAMPED, SD.

cause all the arable land of the United Kingdom to
go out of cultivation, as it would be impossible for
our farmers to compete in the growth of grain with
the more fortunate cultivators of Continental
steppes and American prairies. And then, as to
pasturage, matters would not be much better ; there,
again, foreign importations would drive us out of
our own markets, and the best beef, mutton, and
pork would be only worth in London or Liverpool
some 2d. or 3d. per lb., while about 6d. per lb.
would be the extreme value of the primest butter.
How all this has been falsified by the event every-
body, and especially those on set incomes, know
full well, and will, perhaps, become more apparent
to our readers, as it has to ourselves, when we give
the results of two or three recent sales which have
come within our knowledge. The first was by an
extensive grazier, who received for 40 heifers
£l,o4o—only think of upwards of £l,OOO for 40
head of cattle, Some of which sold at above £26;
but they averaged that sum. It may be stated
that they were bought only last May for fattening,
and have left a large profit to the feeder. The
other cases are where one small farmer sold a
lot of pigs at over 50s. per cwt., and another
some firkins of butter at cotmiderably above ls.
per lb.; both stating that they made up their
year's rent with little more than half the quan-
tity of produce which would have been often re-
quired during the palmiest days of Protection. And
this is the ruin which free trade was so surely to
have inflicted on the agricultural interest 1' "
MONDAY EVENING.
MR. MASSEY O'GRADY.

The following intelligence has been received in
Dublin this evening by telegram from Cork :

16 CORK, MONDAY.

" The Cork Examiner states that a letter has
been received in that city from a lady in the county
of Limerick, the wife of a stipendiary magistrate,
stating that the body of Mr. Massey O'Grady,
whose mysterious disappearance a short time ago
was announced in the public journals, had been
found buried, and that no doubt exists of the un-
fortunate gentleman having been murdered. The
letter adds that four men have been apprehended
on suspicion."