The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-24 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 24, 1860

for goods traffic. The reeeipts for third-class pas-
sengers were 921 per cent. of the whole of tie
passenger receipts !—a result which could have
hardly been anticipated here, where we are so
accustomed to think of third-class Hindoos as cer-

tainly not having a penny to spare to save their legs.
The goods traffic, however, is actually gaining on
the passenger traffic, and seems likely to do so.
The Report of Mr. JULAND DANVERS, to the
Secretary for the India Board, shows that nearly
5,000 miles are arranged for, and in great part ac-
tually commenced. In one only, the Madras Rail-
way, of which however less thanloo miles are open,
have the receipts fallen below five per cent. on the
capital actually expended. On the East Indian
the return on expended capital has been £7 4s. 10d.
per cent. On the Great Indian Peninsula, £5 14s.
10d. But on the Madras only £2 ls. 84. Even
this last, however, would be but too thankfully
accepted by many railway companies in England
and elsewhere.
It is early yet to speculate on what the future of
India will be when Railways shall unite all parts,
bring down her produce to the coast, and open up
each district to the commerce of other districts and
of the whole world; while the electric telegraph
will render internal communication, and communi-
cation with the Ruling country itself, but the work
iof hours. But behind all these, and doubling their
value will be the Water Companies. India is pre-
eminently the land of abundant water, yet of
wasted water, and that where nothing else is
needed to convert deserts into gardens. We
speak without exaggeration. Over a vast
part of India the rains descend in torrents incon-
ceivable here—deluge the soil ; flood the rivers ;
create a temporary fertility ; and then flow away
to the sea; the surplus water would give India
several harvests in a year. The structure of the
hills present the required facilities for impounding
the waste :water, and diffusing it over the land
during the rainless months, and while the country
is one vast hothouse; while the rivers themselves
would be made to contribute their share. Rail-
ways, canals, and the telegraph within the tropics,
backed by irrigation to multiply agricultural pro-
duce threefold, present a picture of industrial pros-
perity, which reality as it must become, looks more
like a fable taken from the Arabian Nights, than
a fact founded on the calculations of sober truth.

Another great man has now found a fitting place
of sepulture in the Old Abbey at Westminster. As
more than one who attended the funeral ceremo-
nies on Tuesday last recalled only too vividly to
remembrance, within the narrow compass of the
first half of this year of grace 1860, no less than
three of our most eminent public characters have
there in that mausoleum of genius been interred by

the nation—three celebrated men, each pre-eminen
in his own peculiar department. There now repose
the remains of our great historian and essayist,
poet and orator, THOMAS, Baron MACAULAY.
There, too, repose the body of one of the very
greatest engineers of England, of Europe, of the
world, ROBERT STEPHENSON. There lies the
form—last but hardly least—of the most illustrious
architect of his generation, Sir CHARLES BARRY,
Knight and Royal Academician. Had he survived
but a few years longer he would doubtless, upon
the completion of his noblest masterpiece, have
received the additional honour of his elevation to
the baronetcy, in crowning recognition of his ser-
vices, by the SOVEREIGN. Such, however, was not
to be. Sir CHARLES has passed away from amongst
us before that fruition of his labours, labours which
would have rendered the titular evidence of the na-
tional appreciation of his artistic genius, hereditary.
A sudden and unlooked for death has deprived the
Crown and the country of the opportunity of thus
honouring the name of BARRY through his de-
scendants. Happily for the great architect's repu-
tation, his life was so far protracted that he can
hardly be said to have disappeared prematurely
from the midst of his splendid and protracted
labours upon that superb product of his genius as
an architect—the Legislative Palace at Westminster.
There, indeed, hard by his grave, overshadowing it,
overshadowing the loftyhall of RUFUS, overshadow-
ing the twin towers of that grand old Westminster
Abbey—is Sir CHARLES BARRY'S ornate and gigantic
monument. It is deeply interesting to remember
now that Westminster was both the birth.place
and the death-place of our great architect—there
exactly sixty-five years ago, CHARLES BARRY was
born, in the May of 1795, there he has been
solemnly committed to the grave in this May of
1860. And looking above us and around us in the
immediate precincts of that grave we have visible
reasons now for asserting that surely never yet has
any man so magnificently adorned his own
birth-place than Sir CHARLES BARRY has adorned
his down at Westminster. Scattered far and wide
over the metropolis of England—scattered far and
wide over England herself, are evidences of his
enterprise and ability as one of the most accom-
plished and versatile of those cyclopian artists
in stone called architects. Far away northwards,
in the metropolis of Cottendom is that classic
Athseueum of his at Manchester. Close at hand,
in Pall-Mall, stand side by side, those princely
and commodious club-houses—the Reform and the
Travellers' ! Closer at hand—within view from the
site of his last and greatest achievement, within
view thence, but for that unsightly (intervening)
block of houses to the south of Downing-street,
doomed, we will yet hope, to be razed to the ground
as de trop in the midst of our surrounding metro-
politan improvements—is the fascade of the Trea-
sury, as that fascade was, at length happily com-
pleted under Sir CHARLES BARRY'S direction.
But there, running south and west of both Hall
and Abbey in glorious and worthy companionship
with both, is the most memorable of all Sir CHARLES
BARRY'S architectural achievements, the colossal
and gorgeous Palace of our English Parliament.
An artist who could preside over the building up
of such an edifice may surely take rank henceforth
by right among our English Worthies. Living, he
was one of those whom Princes delight to honour.
Dead, he is still one of those whom a nation holds
in its remembrance. A memorial to a man like
BARRY is glaringly altogether superfluous. Inso-
much that it has already, not unnaturally, been
remarked upon the occasion of his interment, as it
was first remarked in the famous mural inscription
to the memory of Sir CHRISTOPHER WREN within
St. Paul's Cathedral—Si monumenturn quccris, cir-
cuntspice. Yet would we gladly see—now that
Sir CHARLES BARRY has gone from amongst us—
Ids effigy in marble added to those of our other
English Worthies adorning the halls, and corridors,
and vestibules of the great palace at Westminster.
A commission to one of our leading sculptors, we
trust, may be forthwith decided upon to this effect,
so that in after times the statue of the distinguished
architect of the whole structure may not be looked
for in vain—but that it may stand there conspice-
ously upon its appropriate pedestal as his " coun-
terpart presentment."
The farewell honours awarded to the remains of
BARRY on Tuesday last are worthy of the man, of
the locality, and of those who took part in the cere-
monial. There, as the pall-bearers, were the Chief
Commissioner of Public Works, the Right Hon. W.
COWPER, as the representative of the Government—