The Sun.
London, England, 1860-09-07 00:00:00

THE SUN.

LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPT. 7, 1880.

We shall not be surprised to learn by Monday
of GARIBALDI'S triumphal entry into Naples. The
news of to-day report his arrival at Eboli, in the
Gulf of Salerno, while other accounts state that he
has actually entered that city. Naples is said
to be tranquil—just like Vesuvius before the
outburst of fire and fury. It may be
that the presence of GARIBALDI will so far assure
the people that their only demonstration will ex-
haust itself in commingled joy and intoxicating
enthusiasm—for the transition from such a state
of stupor and fear to one of freedom will be so
overpowering to an excited people that they will
forget themselves in the rapture of their giddy
delight.
The KING that was—is said to be resolved on
trying the issue of battle. Even cowards are
brave in extremity, as rats will attack when
pressed in a corner. But will his army fight for
the Royal Refugee, who, other accounts say, is on
the point of fleeing to Gaeta, and there take ship,
leaving all the beauties of a bountiful nature behind
him for ever. Shame and despair have so
unmanned him—if he ever was a man, that
could have acted so unlike a man—that
he knows not whom to trust, or on whose
counsels to rely, Ile is even afraid of himself—
such is the effect of moral degradation.
Nor is the King of NAPLES alone in his troubles
—his relative the Emperor of AUSTRIA is in a sad
et fix" with his Hungarian people. He professes to
give a Constitution while at the same moment he
tries to bewilder them with a semblance for the
real gift. Such trifling will only redound to his own
confusion—for people of late have had their wits
quickened not only by the wrongs of the present
but by the recollections of the past. Men
may forgive, but they will not and cannot forget.
The Iron has pierced too keenly into their souls
ever to permit the wounds of oppression to heal.
Indeed, the Eastern part, of Europe seems to sym-
pathise with the West in its liberal longing for eman •
cipation from despotic as well as priestly Tyranny.
Fanaticism in the one ease rouses the dormant
energies of some, while a holier aspiration stirmi-
lates the endeavours of others to acquire that inde-
pendence which is the natural inheritance of man-
kind.

A week of the finest harvest, when up till that
time all things had threatened us with ruined or
damaged crops, is, indeed, matter for congratulation.
This is, indeed, just the eighth day on which,
around us not, a shower has fallen. The tempera-
ture has not, indeed, been very high. The earth
must have become so much cooled by incessant
showers, and must have imbibed so little solar
heat during the summer, that it can hardly do its
ordinary Autumn part towards increasing the
warmth of the atmosphere ; and even this week we
have had in the daytime a good deal of cloud, 'as
well as much very cheering sunshine. There has,
however, on most days, been a pleasant breeze,
just enough to aid in ripening corn and drying the
soil, without being inconvenient to workmen.
Altogether, we have been favoured with as fair a
week of harvest weather as we could desire; and
as a contrast to the almost ceaseless showers of
previous weeks it is most cheering.
Throughout, indeed, the Perseveringly wet time
preceding, most farmers told us, that if they could
but now have a dry time, they should have as good
a harvest as ever. The wheat was in many places
very much laid by the heavy sudden showers, but it
was laid, for the more part, too late to sustain
much injury, to the kernel, which had been fully
formed. This makes a great difference to laid corn.
We remember a farmer once taking us over a large
field of wheat, on a stiff clay soil, which was then
nearly ripe, but which had been laid so fiat that
there was scarcely a spot in the field on which
you could not walk on the fallen corn as
easily as on a pasture. He afterwards told

us that that field furnished the best crop in
point of quality, as well as quantity, he had ever
grown on his farm! From what little we have
personally seen and heard, as well as from all re-
ports, we are inclined to hope that, except in the
fen districts, something similar will be general
throughout England. The light lands, too, the
chalky and sandy soils, will yield, in consequence
of the wet, hardly ever excessive to them, consi-
derably above an average. .

The crops of summer corn, barley especially,
have sustained more injury; oats not so much, as
they are hardier ; but barley is a more tender
plant, more affected, perhaps, by extremes of wea-
ther than any other. It is also sooner over-
-which the wet has so largely
powered by weeds,
developed ; and even becomes of double growth in
the same field. It is also a crop, the deficiency in
which, for brewers' purposes at least, is
not so easily made up from abroad ; foreign
barley being rarely equal to that from
which the better English malt is made. We may
expect therefore that the best English barley will
be scarce and dear next year; but this, though we
could wish it otherwise, is not to be compared with
a failure in the wheat crop. Root crops have been,
of course, rather benefitted in the earlier period of
their growth by moisture, and they have now at-
tained a vigour which will enable them to
flourish and bulb soundly and well, should even
a long dry season be before us. The only thing
against them has been the difficulty of keeping
down weeds ; a difficulty chiefly felt where old lazy
habits of farming havenot introduced the horse hoe.
As we were favoured with very fine weather just
in time to save a splendid crop of hay; and as the
second crops of grass and hay must also be un-
usually abundant, we may confidently look forward
to a full supply of animal, as well as cereal food in
a reasonable time.

The effects of only a week's fine weather are being
quickly felt both in the money-market and the
Corn Exchange. Prices become nominal, or recede.
The buyer is again getting the advantage every-
where. Less money will be wanted to purchase
foreign corn, and our manufacturers will find more
at their command at home. And, though
full supplies of new English wheat will be unusu-
ally late, the harvest being four weeks on the average
later than usual, yet old stocks and large supplies
of foreign corn will enable us easily.to meet the
difference: It is not a little remarkable that two
of the countries from which we generally derive
large supples—Russia and the Western States of
America, are earlier than usual with their har-
vest ; indeed they have both suffered from
hotter and drier weather than usual.
We believe that large supplies additional
to its own growth will, after all, not be wanted by
France, probably none by other large continental
States ; we may therefore hope that before long we
shall have the pleasure of noting that the prime
article of human subsistence has fallen very con-
siderably.

It is hardly credible how much our existence
may depend indirectly as well as directly upon
the weather. For a time the distress of
Coventry weavers, the lower wages offered,
the strike, and all its miseries, were
charged to the COBDEN Treaty. It appears,
however, that the French ribbon weavers are as
short of orders as our own ; and it now turns out
that the wet weather has actually lessened the de-
mand for ribbons for summer dress ; rain has stopped
the looms of Coventry ! It must be added, we fear,
that that fickle goddess Fashion has also
done her part in the inhiehief. She hati rseeu
fit in her caprice to require less ribbon
for the trimming of bonnets. We fear, however,
the straw plait makers of Bedfordshire must im-
pute their sufferings and want of employment
almost entirely to the weather. It has been most
unpropitious to a demand for their manufacture.
One thing should result from such warnings as
that of the panic in which all our agriculturists have
been so recently involved. We have spent much
thought and skill in improving cultivation—plough-
ing, manuring, sowing, cleansing the land, have all
been the subjects of much study and improvement.
We are also got as far as reaping with greater rapi-
dityhy machinery—but there we have stopped. In
a climate like ours, which may permit us to gather
in our crops without the slightest damage, but
which may also render it almost impossible to har-
vest them—the harvesting in any weather—is as
great a point as any. We inserted a letter of
Mr. WAKLEY'S on the subject a few days
ago. It is one we have often thought
over ourselves; the practical difficulties are very
great—much greater than Mr. WAKLEY supposes.
The corn must be free indeed from weeds, and the
barley free from the grass which is commonly sown
with it, to be dried sufficiently for the stack or the
barn by such dessicating processes as he describes.
We at least should fear so. All plans that can be
suggested resolve themselves apparently into varie-
ties of two modes—forcing air, heated or not, through
the wet corn—and some Caeap method of covering
sheaves in the field which shall protect them from
wet, in such small quantities as give scope to the na-
tural effects of the open air, Farmers must consult
our mechanics in regard to one scheme—our tent
cloth manufacturers in regard to the other.

The record of the Prince of WALES'S progress
through Canada is highly gratifying to readers in
this country. The warm reception everywhere
given to the representative of his Royal mother
shows not only the affectionate respect with which
she is regarded by an classes of her subjects, but
the willingness of the Canadians to recognise Eng-
lish sovereignty. Times are changed since Lord
Noßrn's Cabinet vainly endeavoured to exercise
over the vast provinces of the New World the
authority with which they raled the citizens of
an English town. The stormy days of WOLFS and
MONTCALM have passed away, and the close
vicinity of the greatest Republic of the world has
not shaken the allegiance of the Canadians to the
mother country. It must be highly interest-
ing to the young traveller thus to mingle
with a population speaking in his own
tongue, yet differing in so many respects
from his compatriots. The wonders of nature,
too, in a land so richly gifted, cannot fail to have
impressed him with a new sense of sublimity and
beauty. The great cataract of Montmorenci,
which he lately visited, is one of the
most striking spectacles on the whole northern con-
tinent ; once seen it can hardly be forgotten. If,
according to the poet's immortal line, " A thing of
beauty is a joy for ever," surely those who have
gazed upon the torrent of waters rushing down the
long inclined plane which precedes the fall, and
then shooting over a perpendicular rock 250 feet in
depth, returning in clouds of snowy spray
which the sunbeams illumine with ti e
glittering hues of the rainbow, must
retain the memory of that gorgeous spectacle even
among the smoky atmosphere of cities and the
dreary monotony of civilisation. The celebrated
flight of Natural Steps in close proximity to the
cataract and the gorge where the waters of the
Montmorenci sweep into the noble river of St. Law-
rence, must also have impressed the royal spectator
with a sense of the magnificence of nature in the ,

New World. - Such scenes enlarge the mind of
the spectator scarcely less than association with
the denizens of another country, and assuredly the
PRINCE will regard with more interest and will
better appreciate the character of these Canadian
colonists over whom he may one day rule,
from his present sojourn among them. One
specially interesting feature, among the roatine of
presentations and ceremonials, was the address
offered to the Prince by the hierarchy of the Roman
Catholic Church in Canada. The splendour of the
coup d'cril in the hall of the University is described
with enthusiasm by the spectators of the ceremony,
and this token of good feeling and religious tole-
ration, let us hope, impressed on the mind of the
Prince the secret of the true strength of the
British rule—toleration for the principles of others,
combined with a consistent maintenance of its
own, and a recognition of the claim that all who
acknowledge its authority possess, too, its impartial
and ungrudging protection.