The Sun.
London, England, 1860-04-09 00:00:00

TILE FRENCh TREATY.

There is a well-known Joe Miller which occa-
sionally finds a resemblance in serious action. A
traveller at a cross-road was relieved to see a mem-
j.ber of the Society of Friends approaching. " This
is the way to York, isn't it ?" he asked. To which
the other replied, " Friend, first thou tellest a lie,
and then thou uskest a question." This has been
the course of proceeding adopted on the so-called
commercial treaty. The treaty was concluded on
Jan. 23, in a most despotic manner, nobody even
knowing anything about it except the high contract-
ing parties • and on March 24—two months after—
the Board Of Trade is sending letters to the various
Chambers of Commerce throughout the kingdom,
not only asking questions, but even suggesting
that the several chambers shall send delegates to
Paris to negotiate the very clauses of the treaty
which were supposed to have been negotiated two
months ago. For our own part, we must confess
ourselves utterly mystified. As we were never in
the secret of the treaty, so lve are not awate, even
to this day, how the matter stands, and whether
there be any treaty at all, except that England has
surrendered all she had to give. Our sensations
are those of a garrison which has been informed
that a capitulation has been concluded on most
advantageous and honourable terms, but sees itself
let mit by detachments and committed to bondage.
We want to know when the other side
of the treaty is to appear, and what it is.
We are all now such out-and.out Free-traders that
we should have been quite ready to give up every
duty we have taken off, in pure generosity, without
stipulating for a return. That would at least have
been a grand idea, and we might have shamed the
French, if shame has not departed from them, into
something like re3iproeity. llui we were not per-
mitted to be generous. There must be a considera-

Len. We most be bArt (-Tors and linekstas, ei“l,
for certain State reaons, we mui-t appear what
Napoleon called us—a nation of shopkeepers. That
indeed was a libel, and if ever on the face of the
earth there was a people that did everything tierots
a -eounter, and brought everything, human and
divine, to the measure of a franc, it is our specious
neighbour and ally. But we were to belie our real
character and to put on a disguise, for the purpose
of bringing ourselves down to the level of Frciie!i
institutions and the Fiend' character. Well, we
did. We put on blouses and beards, we cropped
our hair close, and we looked as like Frenchmen as
we could. For form's sake, and to gratify the Em-
peror and his Court, we pretended to sell what we
were giving. What we gave has now pretty well
passed out of our hands. As far as it is concerned,
we are in the case of the countryman who has sold
his horse, and lost both it arid the purchaser for
an hour, still expecting the latter to return and pay.
When are we to have that handful of country notes,
however dirty and greasy ? The only imitation as
yet of the purely nominal price, which was all that
we expected from France, is a set of questions cir-
culated by our Board of Trade, intimating that if
people expect to get any concessions from France,
in return for au almost absolute surrender of all our
equivalents, they had better go to Paris and try to get
them for themselves. The treaty being thus more
than two months old, and matters being ripe for pre-
liminary inquiry,the Board of Trade wants to know
what are the articles upon which a reduction of duty
below a maximum of3o per cent.would be specially ac-
ceptable,and whether our manufacturers would prefer
the duties to be ad valorem, or the ad valorem rate
to be assumed as the basis of specific duties, and
what have been the average prieeofa: ticyleesstfeoirlitabye,
last six years. The answers returned by the Bir-
mingham Chamber, which we published
articles,
such a
do not speak favourably for the feelings of that
town
theet
l
subject.
andtubing, sheeting For half-manufactured
they recommend
duties to be charged by weight.
articles, commonly included under
"hardware," are so various, thetitle
Manufactured
of
they say, that no ave-
rage value can be given, and a scale of specific duties
is therefore impossible. A duty of 30 per cent., or
specific duties at this rate, they consider fatal to all
hopes of trade with France, and they appeal to the
state of our trade with Belgium, which at a much
lower tariff takes very little of our hardware. As
for the proposal of deputies, they are of opinion
that, as the branches of trade are infinite, and
nothing will be done in France in any of them
under the treaty, such a mission would he nugatory.
The people of Birmingham, therefore, it is evident,
expect to get nothing under the treaty, but cheap
wine, brandy, and silks, for themselves and their
wives, if their trade with other countries will en-
able them to purchase such luxuries. The treaty
they consider to be more finally and irrevocably
concluded than its authors and framers supposed,
and think that the new swarm of small negotiators
invited to assist at the details would find the crumbs
left for them very few, small, and dry. Indeed, we
don't see what other conclusion is possible. We
have done a good thing in lowering our own duties
if it turns out that we can do without them; but as
for any return of this civility from France that is a
delusion, and the sooner our manfaeturers open
their eyes to the fact the better fiir their own
comfort at least. It is in vain to ask whether
this is the sort of treaty that Mr. Cobden
thought he was making, because the treaty is
not yet made, in the opinion of Government; and
our manufacturers find themselves asked to make it
inas etsh e geny
eral,
e rt able,
was
not made at once and outright, by regular dip-
lomatists,
of whom England possesses and main.
treatyfortheymetsetloves.
be made, The
andwe wonder
re oinnclyre
main-
tains a legion. What and where are all these men,
that we should have had recourse to others utterly
unversed in the ways of diplomacy, and evidently
not able to distinguish between the beginning, the
Cdoobd notn
. who
Cobden
middle, and the end of a treaty,,
r and
even know a treaty when they see 't P
supposed hinellifha t making a treaty when he was
surrendering
should have formed our side
and, now that the fact is too plain,
.
i ais ;
l
manufacturers are requested to go to Paris
of the
Britishhbargan
and mend matters if they can. So far the profes-
sional diplomatists have a triumph, for Lord Cowley
probably considered himself superseded by the
arrival of an ambassador extraordinary in the great
apostle of free trade. The officials are not the only
people who exhaust their art in knowing how not
to do a thing ; for, if the object was to give a fresh
opening to British manufactures by the increase of
a direct trade with France, that has not been done.
When Parliament re-assembles it would be desir-
able that we should hear, on authority, what is the
state of this " Treaty," and how far France is bound,
for the French will certainly not give us one per
cent. or one sou more than they are obliged by the
letter of their bend, and it is a new principle that
our manufacturers are to address themselves for
relief, not to their own, but to a foreign Govern.
meat.---Tines.

THE SUN.
LONDON, MONDAY, APRIL 9, 1860.

It sounds very satisfactory when we are told that
the Postmaster-General has appointed a Commission
to inquire into the working of the Circulation De.
partment. It "sounds" we say—but decidedly is
not—satisfactory. It is nothing better than a
round-about illustration once more of a very old
make-believe. Ie Roi s'antuse ! The Post-office
examines itself. Its supposed censors or at least
inquisitors are its own nominees. It is a proceed-
ing to all intents and purposes just about as absurd
when applied to the case complained of, as it would
have been_ in the instance of the famous Crimean
disasters if the Commissariat Department, let us say
for example, had been allowed to nominate with-
out even naming the individuals of its own selection
the Commissioners who were to examine into the
deficiencies and slim tcomings of the said depart-
ment ! Here are the Post-office authorities them-
selves actually appointing their own unnamed
Commissioners ! We don't know in the least who
these Commissioners may be. We are left just
blindly to take for granted that they are compe_
tent persons to enter upon the task of this investi-
gation. All that we know about them is simply,
as we have observed, that they are selected, that
they are appointed by the Postmaster-General and
his advisers, by the Earl of ELGIN or by Sir Row-
LAND HILL, the Earl of ELGIN'S Chief Secretary.
Now, a commission of inquiry so appointed cannot
possibly be of any practical use whatever. Its

proceedings cannot influence public opinion one jot.
It can neither " command success" nor yet "deserve
it." The whole thing is little better than a waste
of time in the elaborate performance of
,a farce that
no one outside the Great National Letter-Box in
St. Martin's-le-Grand can ever be expected to care
two straws about. As a contemporary has very
admirably put it, in summing up the entire case
anew, of the Public generally versus the Post-office,
or, at any rate, the Circulation Department—lt
should be borne in mind especially, that " The
Post-office is not charged with corruption, malver-
sation, or waste. It is not even accused of mis-
management in the ordinary sense of the term, for
it would perhaps be impossible to give the public
better service on the same principles or out of the
same means." No—the charge preferred is nothing
whatever of this kind. All that is maintained
as a distinct accusation against the Post-office,
or at any rate against its Circulation Department,
may be epitomised by saying " That the introduc-
tion of the penny postage system has rendered the
accommodation at the command of the establish-
ment utterly inefficient, and that the desire of
saving a large surplus for the national revenue has
prevented such an employment of the resources of
the department as would have put things straight
again." As our contemporary very accurately
insists :—" The natural result of such conditions is
stamped' workmanship. The Post-office, instead
of welcoming any new demands upon its services,
as a national establishment ought to do, evades its
duties and curtails its work. Some of its proper
business it shifts on to the shoulders of its cus-
tomers; some it altogether refuses." The par-
ticular charge—to descend from generalities—is thus
specified :—" Newsletters," says our chief morning
contemporary, " or newspapers have suffered most
of all. For some years past there has been a steady
desire on the part of the Post-office authorities to
shut us out of the letter-box. The question of the
newspaper stamp was worked by gentlemen to the
general disadvantage of newspapers altogether.
Every fresh arrangement brought us some fresh
disability, till at last comes the naked proposal to
deny us any special recognition, and to treat our
daily issues just like carriers' parcels or ordinary
books." It is against this that we have been for a
long while past strongly protesting—and against
it we shall continue to pretest until the matter
shall have been, as it surely must be, remedied.
The Post-office is no longer up to its work. In
order to pour a surplus into the Treasury it shirks
its own bounden duties—it refrains from doing
what it should have done long ago, what it should
continue to do (more or less) perpetually. It does
not—to be plain—keep pace with the expansion
and multiplication of our national requirements.
Its central structure needs considerable enlarge-
ment. Its aggregate number of "hands" requires
increase: Let it use its own money, as it ought, in
carrying out its own duties—before contributing
one sixpence to the Exchequer ! Applying the
duty of the Post-office system in its relation to the
expansion of the Newspaper system, we say
distinctly, absolutely, and advisedly of the for-
mer, as it affects the latter, that it ought
to " grow with its growth and strengthen with its
strength!" Which it notoriously does not—and
has not done. To constrain it at last to the tardy
performance of this among other neglected duties,
we insist that the Commission of Inquiry into the
working of the Circulation Department ought to be
conducted outside and apart from all the Post-
office influences. It ought, in point of fact, to be,
in one word, Parliamentary.
One consideration alone, in regard to the necessity
for this expansion i❑ the working of the Post-office
system, opens up an immense field of conjecture to
the imagination. It is a consideration suggested in
the course of an admirable article (given elsewhere)
in a recent number of the Mechanics' Magazine—an
article about " Cheap Paper and Cheap Postage."
It is this :—" The distance over which mails are
now conveyed within the United Kingdom by
railways, coaches, carts, foot-carriers, steam-
packets, and boats is about 140,000 miles per day !"
Having mentioned which fact, the writer in the
Mechanics' Magazine adds :—"Who shall say what
it will become when the restrictive and heavy hand
of prohibition shall be removed, and the Post Office
be thus allowed its full development and legitimate
mission ?" We are fain to believe that this sug-
gestion must surely, upon second thoughts, be too
much for Sir ROWLAID HILL—For we cannot
easily make up our minds to regard the author of
the Penny Postage System—now that he is, really
and truly, one of the very few Right Men in their
Right Places—can by possibility persist, in any
way, in being (what must surely be his very anti-
podes or antithesis), an Obstructive !

Our attention has lately been directed to a very
painful case which has, we learn, created much
excitement in the neighbourhood of Sher-
borne. It appears that a young girl named ELIZA-
BETH HODDER, a domestic servant, was attacked,
while in service, by an infectious fever. The doctor
recommended her immediate removal from the
family, who had no accommodation for her, having
already a sick servant in the house. He went to make
inquiries at the Union, and found on personal inspec-
tion that there were only between 70 and 80 people
in a house designed for 240, and consequently there
that she
was ample convenience, for her admission. It seems
was admitted but was soon after removed.
At whose door the cruelty lies is not stated ; but
-1 this poor girl, suffering from a dangerous fever,
" was taken," to use the words of the physician
who attended her, " when certainly not fit to be
removed so far—a distance of about five miles, to
a cottage which had not been inhabited, except by
night, I was told for several months ; standing in a
swamp, surrounded on three sides by a stagnant
ditch, one of the windows of the room to which
onethe
poor girl was taken, opening immediately over
of these ditches, the exhalations from which are
freely admissible through the casement that will
To this miserable locality the
not nearly close."
wretched sufferer, by the wise and humane decision
of the Board of Guardians, was conveyed ; the
result being, as Dr. WILLIAMS says, that
Neare
v she
"almost necessarily died in a few days."
not surprised that warm and general indignationseald
should be felt in the neighbourhood. We h
recommend that the rate-payers of the district
express their sentiments pretty plainly to the
parochial authorities on this matter. Surely the
Union should have a sick-ward, with pro-
per accommodation for the isolation of in-
fectious disorders. That a poor girl afflicted
with a dangerous disease should be bandied about
from one place to another because the accident of
her being in service deprives her of a lodging, is a
thing not to be tolerated in a heavily taxed coun-
try like ours. The parishioners have a right to
demand that the case should be immediately and
stringently inquired into, and we trust they will
not neglect their duty in this matter. In addition to
the inhuman treatment of the sick girl herself, how
great is the risk incurred by keeping those having
infectious disorders in crowded places of business.
The doctor recommended her admission to the
Union after having ascertained that none of her
relatives could take her, excepting the inhabitants
of this miserable cottage. Her other friends in

Sherborne had no room in their houses, but an aunt
said she would take her in if she had a bed to place
her in. This aunt is the washer for the King's
school, and a large quantity of the linen was then
in the house,a fact which as Dr. WILLIAMS points
out, might have had most dangerous consequences
in spreading the contagion. The case adds another
instance, if any were needed, to the urgent necessity
that exists for some alteration in the management
of our Unions. As at present constituted they are
too often a disgrace to a people professing humanity.
It would be well if a part of the time, exertion, and
money so liberally bestowed on charitable institu-
tions were directed to the purpose of making our
workhouse system a little more what it should be.
The plan of refusing to admit anyone not born
in the parish is simply absurd. If a man is
born in the North of England, and in
the course of years settles in Dorset or Devon
where unforeseen circumstances reduce him
to utter destitution, he is expected, forsooth, to
make a journey of two or three hundred miles be-
fore he can obtain relief. And, in very many in-
stances, people may not be certain what parish is
theirs. In a case of severe illness the obstacles and
difficulties put in the way of claimants for admis-
sion, bad enough in health, become positively
barbarous. We do not envy the feelings of those
gentlemen who ordered the removal of the unfor-
tunate girl. To send aqufferer from fever to such
a locality as the one described above was simply
signing her death warrant, It is a disgraceful
transaction, and if a poor girl, honestly working
for her own support, is to be liable to such treat-
ment in case of sudden and severe illness, the less
we say in future about our national justice and
charity the better.

A pleasant prospect has just been drawn in de-
licate perspective by a very few but sufficient
touches ofan ingenious pen in the Lancet—a delight-
ful prospect for all of us unhappy Londoners,
during this next midsummer ! It is worth looking
into at once—if only to see whether there may not
be yet time for staving off the threatened evil.
Everybody who chanced to be in London during
the dog-days of 1859, will only but too well
remember the foul stench reeking from the
surface of that great open sewer bisecting the
capital of the British Empire—once upon a time
a noble and beautiful river called the Thames !
Well—remembering that stench—we are now in-
formed by the Lancet (which gives its reasons for
the statement) that that bouquet will be as nothing
to what we may expect this summer ! The Lancet
says :—" The Board of Works have committed
many grave blunders ; they are about to extin-
guish these by one which shall be immeasurably
greater. They are advertising for thousands of
gallons of perchloride of iron, by which they
mean something else." Perchloride of iron as a
disinfectant has been proved to be a dead failure !
Yet the Board of Works—mistaking it for another
fluid—are advertising for perchloride of iron, that
they may pour it into the Thames, with a view to
its disinfection and deodorisation ! How the blunder
originated the Lancet very clearly explains as follows:
*Warned by the unutterable stench of the Thames
during the past seasons, and seeking means more
efficacious than those hitherto employed, which
converted the water into a peculiarly uninviting va-
riety of sanatory lime soup, the Board had called
into council two eminent chemists, Dr. Hofmann
and Dr. Frankland, whom they invited to select,
from a shoal of schemes submitted to the Board, a
deodorising process combining both efficiency and
economy. Of those proposed the name was legion.
After rejecting the proposition of Mr. Kottula for
dosing the river with salt, and with others for gal-
vanising the astonished waters, and treating them to
electrie shocks, these gentlemen reported that only
one fluid possessed that combination of qualities
which could warrant them in recommending it to
the Metropolitan Board of Works for the deo-
dorisation of the London sewage.' " The
Lancet goes on to observe—" The agent was
that described as Dale's muriate of iron,'
which far surpasses any other in its imme-
diate action and permanent effects.' Its supe-
riority in immediate action arises from the small
quantity which is needed of the fluid, for five drops
effectually deodorises a gallon of fcetid sewage; or
half a gallon suffices for 7,500 gallons of sewage, as
Drs. Hofmann and Frankland report. Next, in the
facility and rapidity of its application, and in the
agreeably pellucid condition in which the deodorised
water is subsequently left. Finally, whereas sewage
deodorised with lime or chloride of lime (the next
best agents) becomes offensive and putrid four days
after treatment, that treated with Dale's fluid re-
mains permanently deodorised. Probably it may
also be said that it is disinfected, for the iron salts
appear not only to deodorise but to precipitate the
organic matter, which is likely to act as a ferment.
Hence the completeness and permanence of the deo-
dorisation. The reporters confirm all that has been
alleged in these respects concerning Dale's fluid ;
but finding it to contain an excess of perchloride of
iron, they fell into the grave chemical error of speak-
ing of it through the latter part of their report as per-
chloride of iron !" Here is the error. And now, lo and
behold, " The chemical blunder of the reporters has
been magnified by the Board into b. sanitary blunder
of the greatest magnitude. The fact is, that the per-
chloride of iron did not come under the notice of
the reporters at all ; they reported throughout on
Dale's fluid. The perchloride of iron has compa-
ratively feeble powers of deodorisa tion. The Board
are advertising for thousands of gallons of a fluid
of the properties of which they know officially no-
thing ; they are asking, in fact, for what they do not
mean, and will get what they do not want. The
result will be, that thousands of pounds will be
wasted, and the Thames will stink worse than
ever." That is the pleasant prospect we have alluded
to. It is enough to empty London of all who oan
leave it, through the mere terror of the an ticipa
tion.

In order to testify their admiration of the spirited
conduct of M. Ducisanloup, Bishop of Orleans, in his litiga-
tionbuwtiiotuhs_,thtpheanSindieiti/e and the heirs of his predecessor, Bishop
Rousseau,
euhave each received
tr.
his
itis of Orleans have, by voluntary con-
were
lawexxproose.s.
ThlSnls.eßegrernyetiremanend M.at
minds. One of the anything in the shape of remune-
ration,essful prosecution is, subsequently induced to change their
upon as the head of the jlti
first declined accepting
results of that ill-advised and unsuc-
cessful
in France.
M. Dupanloup is now looked
but
c BEULAH SPA HYDR° PATSHIC ESTABLISIIMENT.—
The reputation which Beulahenjoyed in the last cen-
tury, on account of the medicinal properties properties of its mineral
waters, appears destined tobnersn only perpetuated, but
greatly
ysfuinl
by being the locality of a
cted hydropathic establishment
craenadsewdeilnl-nfunntudrue ye
In no place is such an institution
than in the neighbourhood
s
of
0 more needed
vast population is so deeply absorbed inn,
thewhere its
conflict
of various interests, and where every nerve is strained
to the utmost in the eager competition in which it
is necessary to bear a part. To those engaged lt d b in profes-
sionalhe or mercantile duties in London, Malvern, and other
hydropathic establishments, are too far removed, and to
them it will b 3 a grateful announcement that within a few
minutes' ride by railway, or other conveyance, there exists
an elegant and commodious building, in the midst of spa-
cious grounds, and in one of the most commanding spots
in the neighbourhood of London, to which, after the close of
the labours of the day, they may retire, and enjoy the full
benefit of medical supervision and advice, and of those
various descriptions of baths which experienced practi-
tioners may recommend for their use. Except in very extreme
cases, the hydropathic treatment does not preclude the
patient following his ordinary pursuits and avocations, and
it is one of the greatest recommendations of the Beulah Spa
that it enables a man to attend to his professional or other
duties, while at the same time undergoing a curative pro-
cess. The site of the building and grounds is in Upper
Norwood. Its proximity to the Crystal Palace, and its
easy accessibility from London, are also advantages which
ought not to be overlooked in estimating the value of Dr.
Ritterbandt's saniterium.