The Sun.
London, England, 1860-06-28 00:00:00

down it, the feat appeared so utterly impracticable with any
chance of safety. Imagine a rope extended from the top of
a rock at least 500 feet high,lo a pole some 2,000 feet from
its base, and some idea may be formed of the undertaking.
A great concourse of people of both sexes were assembled,
all in their holiday garb, and the man who was to slide was
swinging round at the end of a long plank fixed on an up-
right pole as a pivot."

Let not the public believe that Mormonism is the
ne plus ultra of religious absurdity or extrava-
gance ; unless the hill people have clearer heads
than their western brethren they must be per-
fectly dazed regarding their relationship.
_ _

" It has been thought that in the hills several brothers
sometimes marry but one wife amongst them, who is com-
mon to all. This odious practice does exist to some extent
in Koonawur and some other states, but is certainly not the
case in Gurwhal. This belief has doubtless arisen from
the fact that ix this, and most other hill countries, a bro-
ther's wife is not looked upon at all in ihe light of a sister,
and intimacy with an elder brother's is not considered at
all criminal. A younger brother's wife, on the contrary,
is treated by most as a daughter-in-law. A wife's sisters,
again, are treated with almost as much familiarity as her •
self, and intrigues with them, though fined as severely as
others by the authorities, are not looked upon as so deserv-
ing of censure by the people themselves; indeed, a man
would be thought ungallant if he did not pay some little
attention to his wife's sister. The relationship caused by,
these customs are rather curious. A sister's chil-
dren only are a man's nephews and nieces, a
brother's being called sons and daughters. By the same
rule a woman's nephews and nieces are brother's children,
only her sister's being sons and daughters. A child calls
its father's elder brothers big fathers ; their wives being its
big and little mother. Its only uncles are its mother's own
brothers, and its aunt its father's sisters. Cousins are all
brothers and sisters, that relationship being unknown, and
there being no word for it in the language."

The Long Run. A Novel. By Henry Owgan,
LL.D., author of " Out on the World," " My
First Romance," &c. Booth, Regent-street.
We here meet in an unpretending form with a
most interesting tale, which displays some power-
ful scenes of life, and which has a great variety of
incident to render it readable. There is a strong
undercurrent of romance in its composition. It
begins peacefully enough in a smiling and sunny
village "on the soft soutnern coast of Ireland where
it begins to bend round towards the west." In this
tranquil place dwelt the chief characters of our story.
Charles Everton, the hero, is•a high-spirited youth,
who early evinces a daring disposition that is sure to
make for itself a way in the world. His brother .
James is the exact opposite, cold, cautious, and
selfish. The contrast exhibited by these two is
really remarkable. When Charles returned from
India renowned far and wide for his prowess and
skill, the mean relative who refused to lend him a
small sum to start with out of his hordes was al-
most ashamed to face him. As often happens, those
who seem the most adroit are suddenly entrapped,
and the way in which the Swyvels caught him un-
awares is most amusing. He deserved all the life-
time of petty persecutions and grievous annoyances
that afterwards befel him. Mrs. Vandeleur is a
very well delineated sketch ; she would have done
for a tragedy queen, with her majestic bearing and
her dark hatreds. It would, however, have been more
satisfactory had she not in her sweeping condemna-
flaw included the innocent with the guilty. Poor
Sir John Stopford had committed no sin against
any one ; on the contrary, he had been very much
ill-used by Miss Linton, who had no right to marry
him to suit her own purposes of aggrandisement,
and then to treat him as she did. It was a just
retribution to the Lintons, whose conduct was sys-
tematically base from the commencement, and
whose long years of ill acquired riches deserved to
come to a sad conclusion. Louisa Linton is well
drawn as a selfish girl, who stifled the feelings of
her heart, and determined to crush-down all senti-
menr to make a grand marriage. She worked out
for herself a sad fate ; her passions were
checked by prudence, not subdued by prin-
ciple; hence, in the struggle, of life they
soon rose again in a surging fury she could
not restrain. Few lives offered a more pain-
ful warning as to the culpability of avarice and the
harm of self-indulgence than that of this beautiful
young heiress. The conclusion of the story is
rather too abrupt, and it is too bewildering to
the mind—rather too much of the Continental
school of romance—to learn in four or five pages
that Herbert was engaged to the widow, his first
love, but that she died suddenly. Afterwards, that
Lord Crenella, meeting a fatal accident while hunt-
ing, Herbert engaged to marry his widow, with whom
he had long had an acquaintance, and to whom he
had been of signal service at a trying period of her
life, when he was totally friendless. Apart from
these slight drawbacks, we find much to entertain
one in this little volume—some sad, many stirring,
and several admonitory scenes of life. Charles
Everton had many a hard day to pass, and many a
bitter suffering to undergo before he reached the
proud position in which we leave him. " The.
Long Run" is decidedly a brilliant sketch of life,
and an effective exposition of some momentous
phases of humen nature.