The Sun.
London, England, 1869-03-16 00:00:00

TIIE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, MARCH 16, 1169.

as last night in Mr. FORSTER'S speech in the
House of Commons, the judicious application
of an educational endowment is described to be
the providing of School Buildings and the insuring of
a small income to the
.master just to start with—
leaving him, the master, to look for the bulk of the
remuneration from the success achieved by the
school under his management. Than which
—nothing surely can be more reasonable
in every way or more judicious. The lower
middle classes, and the upper working classes are
those the Vice-President of the Council is most de-

sirous of benefiting by the new organization and the
now rearrangement of this educational endowment.

The Government have an eye also through the bill to the
promotion of girls' education and to the multiplication
of day schools. Until the reorganization of theschools
shall have been effected, it is proposed that the in-

spection of them shall be postponed. Al.most imme

diately before the completion of his very able
and comprehensive address, Mr. FORSTER an-

nounced, to the general satisfaction of the
House, his readiness to refer the Bill to
a Select Committee. The intimation was most

welcome, and gave the swing of success to his closing
remarks—the second reading, after a brief discussion,

being almost as a matter of course carried.

xiotnrepmeetitlieonngttrhia
theTierlEecet
q
o
Sir
al
sn dr
e nc odn se
re itu einmtpcostliness
t that
reducing them within more reasonable limits.
any practical expedient should be adopted for
HENRY BULIVER has—perhaps not unnaturally,
has been
considering the large sum in which he
mulcted in defending his seat—complained that too
much facility has been given for the promo-
tion of these petitions. However that may be,
cheapness of procedure is certainly not one of the
inducements by which politicians are enticed into
this kind of hostilities. There is room for abun-
dance of economy before we make this sort of litiga-
tion a common luxury. In fact there is little doubt
that at present many election petitions which ought
to be. heard are not heard through fear of the
lawyer's bill. In other words, justice fails
• because it is dear. Under these circumstances
a remark made by Baron MARTIN during the trial of
the Salford petition is well worth consideration. His
lordship said that the reports of the trial given in tha
local papers were so full and accurate that it seemed
useless labour for him to take notes. There is no
doubt that he was right. There is no doubt that the
"judge's notes" are simply a useless relic of antiquity
which might well be dispensed with in this
rapid age, when the money value of time is
tenfold what it used to be. Everybody who has
attended a court of justice knows how slow is the
process of an examination ; how large is the amount
of time occupied by it compared with the amount of
space which it fills in the newspapers. This tedious-
ness is caused mainly by the necessity under which
the judge is now supposed to be to write down every
question and answer. Thus an election petition or a
monster case like the Saurin trial is protracted to
double the necessary length, to the great pecuniary
loss of the litigants.

Nor is this the only disadvantage of the present
system. Evidence taken in this disjointed way is
very unsatisfactory. An honest witness will often
be entirely discomposed when he has to tell his story
in fits and starts. A. dishonest witness will use the
pauses for patching up a plausible tale, which would
not have hung together but for the interval thus
given him. The judge also loses the opportunity of
keeping his eye on the witness, and thus is deprived
of one important means of forming his judgment as
to his credibility. The amount of physical labour
involved is by no means small, and the energies
which should be concentrated upon judicial duties
are in no little:degree dissipated in mechanical labour.
For all these disadvantages there is not the smallest
necessity. Professional reporters can always take
clown evidence as rapidly as it is given, and it would
require very little management for the judge and
the jury to be supplied with a verbatim report of
the proceedings within half-an-hour from the time
that it was given. A reporter, sworn to accuracy,
should be as much a necessary official of the
court as a juror sworn to a true verdict.
This little reform would not perhaps suit
Parliamentary counsel fond of handsome " refreshers,"
but all other parties would benefit by it. Election '
petitions would then be conducted at half the time
and cost, and we should no longer hear of 150 cases
postponed for a whole month because the moat tedious
trial of modern times stopped the way.

THE reply of the Duke of ARGYLL to the deputa-
tion on the growth of cotton in India suggests reflec-
tions which are at once melancholy and hopeful. It
is not creditable that our efforts for the improvement
of India should be guided by the measure of our own
needs ; but it is better that England's necessity
should be India's opportunity, than that the much-
needed reforms should be lost. There is no denying that
the great empire of two hundred millions of subjects
which is underour chargehas been comparatively neg-
lected. Its condition has immeasurably improved under
British rule, but the sum total of improvement is by
no means equal to the means at our command.
Indian affairs excite little attention in the
English Parliament and less in the country
at large. Indian reforms are slow in operation
and meagre in extent. But there is now much reason to
believe that theprogress of improvement will be mate-
rially accelerated. The advantage, it might almost be
said the necessity, of rendering India a great cotton-
growing country will give the work of improvement
an impetus which it would otherwise have been long
in attaining. The experiment of growing cotton in
India has now been tried for several seasons with
increasing success. The latest report from the Cen-
tral Provinces is in every way satisfactory ; the
preceding years, the
exports have been larger than in

wasted by carelessness or wilful misdirection
henceforth the endeavour will be to ensure their
being wasted no longer. With the Good Schools,
those well and wisely conducted, the Government
propose in no way whatever to interfere. The Bad
Schools alone are aimed at by the Bill now
passing through the Legislature. And the aim
is so true and so deliberate, besides which
it is directed against those Bad Schools with
such hearty goodwill, that we feel as absolutely
assured as we can feel upon a matter of this kind,
that there will be no escape whatever for the delin-
quent establishments. As the Vice-President of the
Council insisted very judiciously, the strongest
argument of all for ' reform of some kind
being adventured upon in regard to the distribution
and application of the ei'icational endowments is the
proved certainty, that where an endowment does no
good it does positive harm. his enforcement of this
truth went so far, in point of fact, that he
maintained that if those schools—the Bad
Schools—could not bo reformed, they must
be set aside altogether. Away with them, say we,
in that contingency. The mere remembrance of them
ought to be scattered and dissipated. Maintaining
the Good Schools and Reforming such of the Bad
Schools as admit of reform, and getting rid of the
others as entirely useless, as simply cumbering the
ground, the endowments, such as they are, or
rather such as they are proposed to be, will then, but
only then, be properly utilized : and by their proper
utilization Mr. FORSTER anticipates that, while the
number of boys educated will be largely in-
creased, the private proprietary schools will b
wholesomely stimulated. The proper use of
an endowment, Mr. FORSTER describes very
much as Mr. EDMUND YATES has recently defined
to be in the opening pages of his new serial story
now appearing week by week in Mr. CHARLES
DICKENS'S All the I ear Round. There in
those earlier chapters of " Wrecked in Port

production more scientifically managed, and the means
of transit have greatly improved. The want of rain
may do considerable injury to this year's crop, but this is
an accidental interruption. The proof that India
may be made a great cotton-producing country may
be accepted as complete. But in order to bring
about this result, many of the great works which are
needed for India generally must be undertaken for
this special object.
Most of these improvements were urged upon
the Government by the deputation from Lan-
cashire which waited upon the Duke of ARGYLL ;
and the Indian Secretary, for the most part,
gave a reassuring reply. A commercial element in
the Indian Council would be likely to give more
attention to necessary reforms than the Board
as at present constituted. The means of transit
both by land and water are improving, but much
more needs to be done. Most important of all,
the great work of irrigation stands almost
where it did. In this branch of improvement,
the most essential to the development of India's
resources, comparatively nothing has been effected.
Alike necessary for the proper cultivation of grain
and cotton and the preservation of human
life, the work of irrigation prevents an almost
boundless field for the energies of the Govern-
ment. The supply of water is not yet sufficient to

prevent a periodical recurrence of famine, still
less to ensure the general cultivation of the
cotton plant. It is now four or five years
since it was decided by competent authorities
that irrigation alone was required to pro-
duce Indian cotton of the best quality. But the
country yet remains almost wholly dependent upon
chance, not only for the success of its crops, but for
the prevention of the most dire calamity which can
attack the human race. The necessary work, if done
at all, must in this instance be done by the agency
of the Government. The Duke of ARGYLL, though
he returned a hopeful answer—and that is much from
a department which has hitherto been famous chiefly
for its obstructive genius—regretted that private
capital had done so little, and that everything had
been left to the authorities. The regret is natural,
but unavailing. Private -enterprise is not likely
to be attracted to India. The colonist who
leaves England takes his labour and capital

to unoccupied territory, which our Asiatic Em-
pire is not. The climate is unfavourable, the
country populous, and, moreover, the empire exists
already for the people who inhabit it. So far, the
Anglo-Saxon has not exhibited the slightest disposi-
tion to attempt a settlement. Private native enterprise
might be greatly encouraged by a better land tenure.
Under the present system the land is let and sublet
until it reaches the ryot after five or six removes.
The peasant works only for the benefit of
those above him. After the land passes through
their hands there is nothing left to the ryot,
and there is, consequently, no improvement
either of the soil, or of the method of agriculture.
If the waste lands which now cover many thousands
of square miles were let directly to the peasant, the
benefit to cultivation of all kinds would be great and
immediate. But, like all other Indian reforms, this
has been talked of and proposed, and yet remains to
be done. The work of improvement, however, even
after this, must be essentially a paternal undertaking,
corresponding to the nature of the Government.

There can be no doubt that it would repay in the
end.

•ifinyTt I_47,fir-
e%:4f-v

HER MAJESTY.

WINDSOR CASTLE, March 15.
The Queen, accompanied by Princess Louise,
walked and drove this morning.

LATEST INTELL [GEN CE

(REU"'ER'S TELEGRAMS.)

SPAIN.

MADRID, March 15.

In to-day's sitting of the Corks a motion was
introduced in favour of the establishment of civil

marriage.

The Minister of Justice opposed the motion, and
said that although the Government did not con-
demn the act of civil marriage, yet its establish=
merit by law ought to be accompanied by a series
of other measures. The motion was then with-
drawn.

The Cortes then resumed the debate an the pro-
positiun brought forward by the majority relative
to the appointment of four Special Committees for
the more expeditious despatch of public business,
which was postponed on Satureay, and which
will be continued to-morrow.

before the commis
Olozaga received
Commission deputed to re-
SioTnhoenrtehliegiocuosnqstuietsutti
Constitution.
suoenwor
to-day the bishops who to-morrow will be present
at the meeting of the
re-
present the ecclesiastical interests.

PORTUGAL.

LISBON, March 15.

The Portuguese Government has taken formal
possession of the South-Eastern of Portugal

Railway.

ITALY.

FLORENCE, March le.

The report of the Treasury up to the 28th
February has been published. According to this
report the national revenue:amounted to 1,733,808.63
lire, and the expenditure to 1,605,326,101 lire, and
the cash and notes in the Treasury to 127,854,762
lire.
Count Vitzthuin has arrived here,

FRANCE.

BREST, March 16.

The Transatlantic Company's steamer Ville de
Paris, from New York, arriv• d here at 6 a.m. with
89 passengers and $56,000
in specie.
BOURSE, March 13.—Three o'clock.—The market
closed as follows :---
41 per Cent.
End of month —
3 per Cent
End of month 7O 85
Credit Mobilier
End of month 283 75
Credit Foncier - 1495
End of month —

Bank Shares 2860
Its.l4an Fives 55 80
End of month —
Mexican Loan
Do. Bonds
Spanish Threes
.33
Home Debt 29
Deferred —
Cash
Orleans ........................... 952f
Northern .....
1162 f
Lyons and Mediterranean
Southern..... 6lBf
Western
Eastern ............
Sardinian
Austrian
Lombard
North of Spain .
Saragossa
.........
Roman

XLuLWAy

THE MARYLEBONE REFORM LEAGUE
AND ELECTORAL ASSOCIATION.

A reunion
.of the members and friends of the
above association took place yesterday evening at
the Crown Tavern, Cleveland-street, Fitzroy-
square, wlicn a numerous assembly met. Mr. W.
B. Ilenwood was in the chair, and Mr. W.
Morgan in the vice-chair. The chairman in
his address touched on the advanced pro-
gress of the country politically on the various
reform measures now being introduced in the house,
and on Mr. E. B-,..ales' resignation of the League,
and the dissolution of the League in consequence,
concluding by urging the working men to agitate
until not a vestige of class logislation was left on the
statute-book of England. Songs and recitations
followed, and the evening's entertainment, which
seemed to give satisfaction to every one, concluded
with the usual votes of thanks.

CORRESPONDENCE FROM PARIS.

(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

PARIS, MONDAY, March 15.
Politics are not particularly lively to-day. The Corps
fAgislatif has been employed upon the vote of money
(only £720,000) for the Luxembourg and the Tro-
cadero, but there is very little in this debate to
interest readers beyond the limits of Paris. The Belgian
affair presents no new feature. The Dutch difficulty
seems to be chiefly a creation of the Public; and as to the
Belgian dispute, nothing positive is known beyond the
fact that England has intervened and proffered her ser-
vices, with good effect. This is an important
step on the part of the English Cabinet, and
I can affirm that it is regarded as such
In diplomatic circles here. The prominent part
which England took in the late Conference, and her
prompt intervention on this occasion is accepted —I might
say throughout Europe—as an indication that the
laissez faire policy is no longer to be continued so rigo-
rously, and that England will watch events on the Continent
more closely than heretofore. The Prussian papers have
been amongst the first to point out this change of attitude.
This is the most positive, and, to English readers, the
most interesting feature of the Belgian question as it
stands at present. What effect the intervention of England
will produce, and how the peaceful solution which is deemed
so certain is to be brought about, are, so far, open ques-
tions. The balance of evidence as to the probability of
referring the dispute to arbitration or to a mixed commis-
sion inclines now in favour of the latter course.
The Emperor and the Empress, who is quite better,
have paid a visit to their sister "out of business," late of
the Pavilion Bohan, now of the Hotel Basilewski, in the
Champs Elysees. It is stated that the Empress will pass
the summer season at Enghien.
The twenty-seventh volume of the correspondence of the
First Napoleon has just appeared, and is one of the most
interesting of the series. It comprises the year 1814,
that is, the period of the last convulsions of the Empire.
Some of these letters bear witness to the anarchy that
was fast spreading throughout France when the fortunes
of the Emperor became more and more on the wane ; one
contains Napoleon's announcement with mock resigna-
tion of his intention to take up his abode in the Isle of
Elba ; another is his address to the inhabitants on quitting
the little empire at the commencement of the Hundred

Days. He says to General Lapi : "I am leaving the Isle
of Elba. 1 have been extremely satisfied with the conduct
of its inhabitants. I leave to them the care of this
country, to which I attach great importance (!)."
The weather has been very cold here of late, and we
have at length been favoured by a very tolerable fall of
snow, which, however, speedily disappeared. The sudden
change will not do harm to most kinds of agricultural
produce ; the authorities indeed affirm that it will do
good in retarding the too precocious vegetation. The
fruit trees may suffer a little injury, but this will be by no
means irretrievable if fine weather speedily supervenes.
The Prefect of the Seine has become the defendant in an
odd suit. The exotic flowers with which the public places
of Paris are ornamented in the summer are placed in
greenhouses belonging to the city in the winter,
but are, nevertheless, often lent for decoration purposes
'lt the Tuileries' balls, as well as at the Embassies,
Ministries, and churches. The florists of Paris complain of
unfair competition, on the ground that the Prefect by
lending these flowers is doing much injury to their trade.
Surely the florists cannot have a very good case. The
Emperor and his Ministers have a right to economise
if they can, and if the flowers sustain no harm, they
might as well serve for ball decorations as lie idle in the
greenhouses.

An inexplicable paragraph arpoars in the Independant
of Pau. It states that great indignation has been caused in
that neighbourhood by an attempt to do bodily harm to
the troops there by introducing dangerous substances,

such as crushed glass, &c., into their bread. One
soldier has died from swallowing half a needle, which per-
forated the intestines. The cause of this horrible pro-

ceeding remains to be explained.
The Journal Officiel is a decided " improvement for the
worse" upon the Moniteur. It is badly printed, badly
edited, irregular and erroneous. It seldom appears at the
proper time, and its conductors evidently think that a
delay of twelve hours is a matter of no great moment. It

is full of mistakes. Only this morning it came out with

an erratum of no less than three columns, this trifling cor.

rection being intended to give an intelligible account of a
debate in the Corps Legislatif, which had been previously
represented as a conglomeration of sheer nonsense. But

its special sources of information give it an occasional
value. One very interesting communication from Florence

has just appeared. It seems that the Minister of King
Victor Emmanuel's household has just made, at Hercu-

lo.ncum, a discovery of very great importance in an
a.rchological sense, in the excavations which he
himself directs, near Orvieto, on his own estate.
He has found numerous Etruscan vases of all forms,

and many of those known as Greco-Roman. They are in

raised work of the same kind as the famous one of ✓CIImx,
belonging to the Campana Museum, for which the Russian

purchaser paid the large sum of £2,000. Tl.e3e articles

are remarkable for the elegance of their form and the
purity of the drawing. The subjects, which are in bag-
_

relief, are mostly devoted to the labours of Hercules. II

is clear that a mine of historical wealth lies buried under
the deep ashes of Herculaneum.

A LADY PREPARiiva FOR Tl3li

MILLENIUM.

During the past week the contents of the residence of
the late Mrs. Thwaytes, in Hyde-park-gardens, London,
potable for her eccentric belief in being herself the ordained
earthly spouse of the Third Person in the Trinity, for
whose descent to earth to claim his bride and to live with
her through a millenium of love she perpetually
watched, has been sold by public auction. The
dispute as to the validity of her will, which occupied the
Court of Probate and Divorce for ten whole days, startled
everyone by the glimpses it gave of the private life of the
strange inhabitant of this dwelling, a woman possessed
with the idea of communion in body as well as in spirit
with the Deity. She had left her whole property to a
stockbroker and doctor, the latter the only visitor
admitted to her house, and then only on the bed of
death, and the claim of these two worthies was success-
fully resisted by Mrs. Tebbitt, the sister of the deceased.
It was proved that she regarded her husband as the devil
incarnate, and had refused to honour his memory with
mourning. Beyond this and her extravagant illusion,
which influenced every act, she deported herself as a
highly refined and cultivated lady. She was uniformly
dressed in the richest attire, as became her imaginary
destiny, and without any melancholy tinge of sadness
in her reveries, any misgivings of the realities of
her belief, enjoyed the good things of life. Her means
enabled her to give effect to her illusions in substantial
form. The apartments she prepared for the Divine
visitant were furnished most sumptuously, and, so far, to
adopt the language of Byron respecting Rousseau, she
" knew bow to make madness beautiful." Ite announce-
ment that the furniture of Mrs. Thwaytes's mansion was
to be sold excited more general interest at the West•end
than any private sale for years. Hundreds upon hundreds
of the aristocracy took advantage of the visiting days to
inspect the contents of the chief rooms. It was impossible
to discover in these rooms any trace of the peculiar idio-
syncrasy of Mrs. Thwaytes, except, perhaps, in the symbol
of the dove hovering here and there. Conspicuous
amongst the jewellery was a regal tiara, composed of
curiously-intertwined lilies, roses, rosebuds, and con-
volvuli, a tiara destined by Mrs. Thwaytes to deck
the head of the heavenly guest. She appeared to have
selected all the rest of the jewellery to deck herself
worthily as a bride. As appropriately corresponding to
the regal tiara, were two bracelets of exquisite workman.
ship, composed of 52 graduated stones. A large and, as
reputed, a matchless emerald, surrounded by brilliants of
the purest water, and capable of detachment, was to form
the centre of one or other of these necklaces. Her hair
was uniformly decked with an elegant spray, com-
posed of flowers and leaves of brilliants. These, with
three magnificent brooches en suite, and four small pendant
sprays, with a very beautiful Maltese cross and a buckle
in scrolls of perfect brilliants, formed a garniture de corsage
that could not fail to have excited admiration, if not envy,
in every fair beholder, as, arrayed in spotless white, she
waited, thus adorned, the celestial coming. The sum
netted by the sale was upwards of £lO,OOO.

Mr. Bars, M.P., is recovering from his severe

mess.

. Le Figaro says that a "scandal at Pan"
Its hen ereate•l by a well-known lord having left his wife,
u route for America, with a young lady of Now York for h:s