The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-23 00:00:00

with complete success, and the forts were captured
with comparatively trifling loss on our side. The
Chinese, it is said, " stood to their guns very
fairly," which greatly enhances the triumph so
nobly achieved. Oa the 22d May the force had
commenced advancing up the river, the weather
being cool and the squadron in excellent spirits.
it was announced that 6,000 French troops, ori-
ginally destined for Cochin-China, where they
were about to exact vengeance for the murder of
some French missionaries, were on their way to
the Gulf of Pechelee. We fear, however, that
the news is too good to be true, and that 600 Fill
be found nearer the mark than 6,000.

At Canton there was an unsuccessful attempt
to rout some " braves" (1) who had established
themselves the mountains. It will be necessary
to await the details before any definite opinion
can be formed respecting the operation. Ning
Poo is in the possession of the rebels, and the
English merchants are on board her MAJESTY'S
ship Surprise. This, however, may not be in any
degree injurious to British interests.
The intelligence, on the whole, is very satisfac-
tory, although we must await more precise parti-
lars respecting the affray in the neighbourhood of
Canton before it can be deemed entirely so.

Nothing could be more completely satisfactory
than the answer of the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, in reference to the state of the public
revenue, in answer to the captious challenge of
Sir G. C. LEWIS. The ex-reviewer attempted to
show that the Right Hon. Gentleman had been
mistaken in his facts and figures, and also that
the task he had before him was not so difficult
as might have been supposed, considering that
the Exchequer Bonds were not to be renewed, and
the 1,500,0001. sinking fund abolished. He
was manifestly jealous at the fame of one who
had so completely cast his own pretensions into
the shade. He endeavoured therefore to show
that the estimates were exceeded, and that certain
unappropriated balances were made available.
Although there could be no doubt as to the
animus with which these matters were brought
forward, we feel obliged to Sir G. C. LEWIS for
eliciting so triumphant and satisfactory an answer
from the Financial Minister. He was indeed like
TROILUS in the hands of P.ELIDES--.

" Infelix puer atque impar congressus Achidli."
As our Transatlantic brethren would say, " poor
Corny was most catawampously thawed up, in
leas than no time." Mr. DISRAELI admitted that
the estimates were slightly exceeded, but have we
not had third, aye even fourth Whig budgets within
the same year, and when has it occurred, that at
the expiration of a quarter of a year or more, the
expenditure has been found exactly that which
was calculated on in the financial statement? Sir
G. C. LEWIS should have been the list to fling
stones, considering the fragile nature of the crystal
mansions dwelt in by Whig financiers.
But if the estimates were slightly exceeded—and
the existing state of affairs, combined with the
circumstances that have occurred since the open-
ing of the Budget, would have justified a far
greater discrepancy—it is satisfactory to know
that the revenue, up to the present time, has also
exceeded the estimate ; and that, if Mr. DISRAELI
were, according to Whig practice, to bring forward
even a second Budget, he would take it at a much
higher figure than he then adopted. The revenue
during the first quarter has been 223,0001. more
than he had calculated on. But this by no means
shows the extent of the improvement. The in-
crease on the first 18 days of the present quarter,
on the four great branches of revenue, as compared
with the receipts during the corresponding period
last year, is no less than 3G4,000/. So far, then,
from there being a probable deficiency, as Sir G.
C. LEWIS attempted to imply, it is probable
that it may not be necessary to renew
1,000,0001. of the Exchequer-bonds, the non-
payment whereof so greatly annoyed Sir G.
C. lams- Everything now looks well. The
prospects of peace are far greater than they were
six months since. The temperate but firm con-
duct of Foreign Affairs, in which bullying and
truckling are alike eschewed, has raised the
national character abroad ; while the judicious
administration of the finances has promoted domes-
tic prosperity. The explanations given by Mr.
DISRAELI will give unqualified satisfaction to
every person interested in the welfare of the
people.

However the long-vexed Question of the Main
Drainage of London may be ultimately settled
there can be very little doubt of it, that we have
already arrived at the beginning of the end of
that extremely foolish and disgusting system hap-
pily designated by a writer in household Words—
" Dirty Cleanliness." The nuisance has grown to
be one so utterly and irredeemably monstrous that
we have all agreed to get rid of it, literally, "at
any cost," and, also literally, nemine contradicente.
Parliament will be glad to pass any measures-giv-
ing the two Houses a reasonable hope of cleansing
so obnoxious a neighbour. The Government have
frankly pledged themselves to " their" part in the
Herculean, Augean, Stygian task of purification.
The Select Committee-men have seated themselves
heroically upon the brink of the infected flood,
stopping their noses with scented handkerchiefs,
and only occasionally taking flight from the scene
of their martyrdom when driven from it perforce
by some prenaturally odious whiff of the tainted
atmosphere. They have cautiously examined their
witnesses one by one, scientific and non-scientific.
They have drawn up their report, and laid it be-
fore Mr. Speaker. Authorities are vouchsafed
to Mr, Tn'wAITES and his associates that they
never dream of, even in moments to them the
most auspicious. There is, evidently, on all
hands, no lack of willingness to do what
has obviously become to every one absolutely
requisite. Namely, to cleanse that natu-
rally beautiful, but at tificially abominable
river, The Teal:Lica :—no Unger a stream that can
be called, even metaphorically, what it actually
was once, viz., The Silent Highway—a ludicrous
misnomer nowadays, now that the whole current,
from Battersea downwards to the Channel, abso-
lutely Smells Aloud !

But, How is the work to be accomplished ?
That still remains—like much of the contamina-
tion of the Thames—a problem for solution.
How—" that is the question." By embankments
on the Surrey side and the Middlesex, affording
the probability of a good " scour" at the ebb tide ?
By systematic deodorization ? By a careful sepa-
ration of the solid and liquid portions of the
sewage ? By the wholesale conveyance of that
sewage, through a subterranean channel, from the
direction of the river far away to the coast line—
beyond the chance of detriment to the metropolis
either through accumulations or exhalations?
By constructing a grand ship canal, as proposed
by Admiral SARTORIIIS, from a part of the coast
midway between Portsmouth and Southampton,
so as to ensure a more thorough scour of the
stream than could possibly result from the mere
formation of artificial gravel embankments ?
The choice presented is certainly ample
enough. One thing or the other must be
done. Why not adventure upon several
of these simultaneously ? 1u this wise ;—let us

direct the flow of the sewage altogether from
the Thames into an unseen channel, a subter-
ranean cloaca maxima—let us at the same time
beautify the capital and improve the river by the
construction of these long-talked-if embankments
—let us yet more derive all the advantages certain
to acrue from it when completed, from the forma-
tion of the ship canal already particularised. As
things are at present, it is worse than sinaply
ridiculous to talk of adorning the capital of the
British Empire—so long, that is to say, as its
teeming population continues to be bisected by a
monstrous open sewer washing backwards and
forwards with the tide under bridges, than which
the rest of the great cities of the world p 033033
none more eminently noble and beautiful. Pro-
perly arranged, there is positively no relson whr‘t-
ever why the water of the Thames should not be
as pellucid and translucent at Hungerford or at
Billingsgate, than at Mortlake and Twickenham.
; With our engineering skill, our energy as a people,
our wealth as a trading community, and our apti-
tude for combination and organisation, the
• Thames may, in two or three years, be cleansed
• thoroughly and permanently. Let us do it—
f (lost what it may-3,000,000/.-5,000,000/.
' nay, if it be requisite, 10,000,0001. !

We would call the attention of Lord STANLEY
to the facts detailed in a paper we extract from
the Friend of India, of the 33 of June, on the
sale of gills of seven years of age, confessedly for
the purpose of prostitution. Of the fact, and of
the nefarious intentions of the parties, there is not
a shadow of doubt. The evidence is the docu-
ments of sale registered in the Company's Courts,
and the candid confessions of the guilty parties,
who, it appears, almost assume the air of injured
innocence, so regular and legal do they consider
the practice to be. Indeed there seems to be ac-
tually some doubt whether the law may not be in
favour of these wretches; and whether it may
not be found that the " Old Regulations" do not
by implication legalise domestic slavery. They
prohibit only the " hawking of slaves for sale,"
and their "exportation," which seems, certainly,
to imply the lawfulness of sale at home and
otherwise than by hawking them. An Act of
1843, "orders that slavery be ignored, and that
it be no plea in a court of justice, but it does not
render it a penal act." The Mahommedan law,
indeed, which, it appears, must be resorted to in
this case, explicitly prohibits the sale of free-
born children ; but, the officer accused contends
that it is no sale, but a lease for ninety years,
which ho has registered, and such the deeds regis-

tered in our courts are, in point of form, although
the consideration for the lease of ninety years of
a girl seven years old is about five-and-twenty
shillings paid in cash. M. REGIS, the Governor-
General of Caba, and itmerican slaveholders
would doubtless be well satisfied with such leases.
The terms of one lease are given. They will
astonish all Englishmen ; and the astonishment
will hardly be less that such leases should
have been numerously registered in our
courts, for the last twenty years at
least, without the know:edge of English judges or
officials. A father, a Mahommedan, named
CHUND, " agrees to farm out his daughter to a
brothel-keeper, named Musstatur AMEERUN, for
ninety years, in consideration of Rs. 12-8,
received in cash ;" she may exact any kind of
service from the girl, for which she engages to
keep her in food and clothing. And children
born to her, male or female, are to be the lessee's
property for ever. These are the particulars of a
deed guaranteed by the stamp of the East India
Company, and enforced by its omnipotency 1 A
deed which, as the Editor of the Friend of India
truly observes, would " in any European country
bring the contracting parties in danger of
Lynch Law." Mr. TOOGOOD, the magistrate,
who made the discovery, is exerting himsel !
with the utmost zeal in this disgraceful business,
but so wedded to technicality is the Civil Service
of India, that he may be defeated in point of law.
[t is therefore every way desirable that the Home
Government should at once and authoritatively
interfere.

The Editor of the Friend of India wants " ten
words in Parliament." He is right enough.
Neither the old Directors nor the new Council would
dare refuse for a moment to promise immediate
action ; but we are confident that Lord STANLEY,
if appealed to, will engage to use the full powozs
conferred on him by the old Act or the
❑ew one to put down the horrible slavery now
brought to light. It is •as bad as anything in
American slavery in regard to the poor girls ; in
regard to the fathers worse. Of that, however,
on second thoughts, we are by no means sure.
There must be innumerable daughters sold by
American fathers for the same brutal purpose ;
not the less their daughters because they hold
their mothers as property, and because they are a
shade darker in complexion than themselves.

CO WES, ISLE OF WIGHT.-July 22.

ROYAL YACHT SQUADRON INTELLIGENCE.

(Frtoa OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

ARRIVALS.-July 15th—The Isis, W. Holladay
Conway, Esq., from the Channel Isles. 17th—
The Darwent, Charles Lee, Esq , from Southamp-
ton; and Columbine, Capt. R. H. Smith Barry,
from Lymington. 19th—The Zoe, the Earl of
Yarborough, from Weymouth. 20z,h—Petrel,
Philip Perceval, Esq., from Cherbourg ; and
Maria, A. H. Davenport, Esq., from Southton ;
the Anaconda, Philip L. Powys, Esq., from Ply-
mouth. 21st—Arrow, Thomas Chainberlayne,
Esq. ; Zara, Commodore the Earl of Wilton ;
Brilliant, George Holland Ackers—all from South-
ampton, the latter for Ryde. 22—Eugenie,
Richard Frankland, Esq., Queenstown.
SAILED.—JuIy 20—The Dream, George Ben-
Click, Esq., M.P.; and the Derwent, Charles Lee,
Esq., for Cherbourg.
YACHTS AT AND ABOUT THE STATION.
The Zara, Commodore the Earl of Wilton ; the
Cecil, the Marquis of Conyngham ; the Minstrel,
William Morgan, Esq.; the Alarm, and Lutwortb,
Joseph Weld, Esq.; the Gloriana, and Chesapeake,
Joseph Gee, Esq. ; the Firefly, Sir Henry Oglan-
der, Bart. ; the Arrow, Thomas ehimb.iiCyne
Esq. ; th© Wizard, William Delafield, Esq. ; the
Shark, William Curling, Esq. ; the Resolution, the
Duke of Rutland ; the his, W. H. Conway, Esq. •,
the Petrel, Philip Perceval, Esq. ; the Stella, Lord
Da'keith ; the Caprice, Lieut.-Col. Chas. Baring ;
the L2vrock, Lord Colville ; the Fair Rosamond,
the Earl of Gifford, M. P. ; the Atuaz)n, Sir John
B, Walsb, Bart., M.P.

THE ROYAL YACHT SQUADRON REGATTA.
On Monday, August 2d, 1858, his Royal Fligh-
ness the Prince Consorts Cup, value 100 guineas,
will be sailed for. It is. open to all the cutters and
yawls of the squadron.
On Tuesday, August 3d, the annual dinner of
the members of the squadron will take place at the
squadron-house.
On Wednesday, August 4th, her Maj, sty's Cup,
value 100 guineas, will b 3 s tiled for. it is open to
all the schooners of the Royal Yacht Squadron.
The Royal Yacht Squadron 131.11 will take place in
the evenAig, being the first in the new ball-room.
On Friday, August 6th, the Cup presented by
his Majesty the Emperor of the French will be
sailed for. Open to all the vessels of the Royal
'Yacht Squadron, excepting the steamers. All the
yachts ent?ring fcr the cups will be handicapped
according t) the principles adopted by the New
York Yacht Club.

THE SPANIARDS AT FERNANDO Po.—The following
is an extract from a letter dated May 3 :—" We are all
in an uproar here. A Spanish inan-of.war, with a new
Gavernor on board, several priestP, &c., arrived here a
few days ago, and the first thing the new Governor did
was to issue a proclamation prohibiting
any person
going to church or chapel excepting the Roman Catholic,
and no school to be al!o wed. This had made the people
here almost mad, for they are all Baptiste."