The Sun.
London, England, 1858-05-26 00:00:00

Professor

Library.
Cheirotheca

Bedell and Janitor

Proctor

Registrar
Provost and Senior Fellows .. Nil. 19 0

£36 0 0 £39 15 0
The royal commissioners unfortunately only had
before them the latter half of these staitiing facts
and figures—without a notion of the contrast that
would have been presented to them by their juxta-
position with the companion facts halfa centuryear-
lier—facts which were brought to light opportunely
by the researches of the " Dublin University"
contributor. Yet, with only half of the truth told
to them, the Royal Commissioners looking only
to the table of 1851, ask pertinently—" By what
authority is the method of distribution regu-
lated ?" And the reply coming, almost we bad
said, impertinently, " The distribution of the fees
is made by the authority of the provost and senior
fellows." No wonder, with such an extremely
cool rejoinder before him, no wonder at
all that the writer in the " Dublin University
Magazine " should have arrived at the
distinct conclusion that—" Publicity, in a word,
:mist be henceforth the rule in all educational
endowments." The security, beyonl all others,
will be—the public auditing of the accounts.
Under the glare of publicity we should not have to
deplore the monstrous insufficiency of the salaries
of the non-tutor fellows—coupled with the rapid
increase of the emoluments accruing to the mem-
bers of the Board, under every fluctuation of
affairs both public and collegiate. Aa increase
like that in the Professorship of Divinity—which
was 5001. a year in 1761, when held by a senior
fellow named BRABAZOY DlSNEY—which had in-
creased to 7001. a-year in 1790, when 114,1 by
another senior fellow named JAMES DROUGHT—
which had still further expanded into 1,2001. a-
year by 1814, when RICHARD GRATES, afterwards
Dean of Ardagb, was appointed to it—and which
had ultimately attained the value of 1,7001. a-year
by 1850 (namely, by the addition to it of the liv-
ing of Raymochy), when Dr. SINGER was inducted
into the vacant chair of the Professorship.
Simultaneously with which swift and steady ex-
pansion—there has been observable, on the other
hand, the miserable dwindling away of the
incomes awarded to the holders of the
minor offices in the University. The Professor-
ship of Botany, for example, having shrunk from
GOO/. to 2001. per annum I While the Profe&.
sorship of Oratory, which was 1001. a year in
1762 was reduced to 601. in 1847, and in 1850
to 351. (Irish). Time, surely, in all conscience, for
some strenuous effort at interposition with a view
to some sweeping measures of reorganization. Tue

signal for this ieform, we.rest assured, has now
been definitively given by the bold and honest
out-speaking of the Maga of the Dublin Univer-
sity. It is scarcely conceivable for a moment
that such an exposure can be very long survived.

Cleanliness is altogether too expensive—there-
fore dirt is infinitely preferable—according to some
of our Metropolitan ratepayers. They held a snug
little hole in-the-corner meeting the other day,
these advocates of economical filth, and there
passed two or three wonderful resolutions entirely
to their own satisfaction. Freemasons' Tavern
was their place of assembly.. They had a live
M.P. for a Chairman. They had two other M.P.'s
for his supporters. They had vestrymen who
proposed, and other vestrymen who seem' led
some of those curiously long-winded and involved
sentences called resolution, having either no punc-
tuation at all, or the most sparse sprinkling of
occasional commas, reading in point of fact more
like a specimen of the conversational powers of
Miss FLORA. CASBY than anything else with which
we are acquainted in the whole range of polite
literature. Everything in fine was perfectly cor-
rect and regular. It was admirably business-like.
It was as dull as ditchwater, but no matter—that
was only in keeping with everything else about it.
And the gist of this meeting—What about That?
Well, it was to all intents and purposes certainly
something really very extraordinary.
Any one might reasonably have supposed that
by this time, by the 'middle of the nineteenth csn-
ture, by the year of grace 1858, the absolute
nastiness, the notorious insalubrity, the stupilty,
the cruelty of transforming the noble and beautiful
river flowing through our eapitil into nothing
less unsightly or obnoxious than a loathsome
open sewer, would have been admitted unive,nall)
as a horrid undeniable truth—anywhere, every '
where, by everybody, nentine contradicente. But
! The supposition would have been errc-
neous. There is the Monster Evil under our
very windows,
-
ebbing and flowing twice in thf
twenty four hours
with the ebb and flow of tilt
ticia'
seen' and what is WCrEe than Clat, smelt,

• too, pestilentially, from far above Westminster-
bridge to far below the Isle of Dogs by all the
Londoners dwelling on either side of the Thames,
either in Surrey or in Middlesex. The fact is
one that "stinks in the nostrils" of a population
of 2,000,000. It is a perpetual manufactory
of disease that adds clearly and incontrovertibly
to the aggregate of the annual mortality. Yet—
in spite of the glaring evidence accumulated upon
this subject by all the senses—including even
that of taste among the wretched inhabitants of
London who are supplied with Thames water
but very partially filtered—there are men actually
amongst us who avow themselves to be yet un-
convinced as to the fact of the supposed contami-
nation of the river being in any way injurious to
the surrounding population Witness this the
public meeting referred to as having recently
taken place in Great Queen-street, in reference to
the Question of the Main Drainage of London.
" It has not been proved," said one of the reso-
lutions carried at that meeting, a resolution by
the way proposed by a member of the vestry of-
-0 most appropriate locality !—Shoreditch ; " It
has not been proved that the Thames exerts a preju-
dicial influence on the health of the metropolis !"
The reporter informs us, " This resolution, al-
though it encountered some little opposition, es-
pecially in reference to the non-prejudicial in-
fluence of the Thames in its present condi-
tion, was declared by the chairman to
be carried." Of course—that was the
reason of these amiable wiseacres having come
together. They were there as members of the
Know-Nothing Party, intent upon forwarding, by
the sheer weight of tho vie i;),,E-ditk or tneir own
collective stupidity, the grand Do-Nothing policy,
which has a marvellous fascination for the sticklers
for—what is that favourite phrase of theirs ?
Vested Rights—that, we believe, is about the
English of it. And so they come together now,
these wonderful men, not to end, but to per-
petuate what they call " the self-cleansing powers
of the river," and "to prevent the deposit of
mud in its channels and on its bank." How ?
by facilitating the access into the river of these
odious and obnoxious accumulations. The notion
of diverting the drainage from the river Thames
they are decidedly averse to—because it will impose
a frightfully enormous taxation upon the already
heavily burdened ratepayers." That is really and
truly the beginning and the end, the alpha and
the omega of their entire argument. We must
not dream of cleansing—as we call it—it is too
expensive. Besides the river is not so VERY nasty
after all—rather pleasant, perhaps, than other-
wise. And then the projected change, they
remind us, would involve the expenditure of
several millions sterling. Finally, they insist that
all the facts and figures they can bzing to bear
upon the matter " demonstrate that thi4 im-
portant question is not yet ripe for solutioa."
When will it he? when London is again ravaged
with the Plague? Perhaps theu it might be
admitted by them to be " ripe for solution."
Not certainly when the deaths in London every
week are only just a trifle over a thousand We
must show a yet more deplorable increase in the
mortality—and then, perhaps, we may dream of
putting an end to this monstrous and destructive
abomination.

Judging from the fruit display on either hand
all the way down Covent garden Arcade, one
might readily fancy, of course, that May is no
longer vernal but autumnal. Throughout the
country, however, far and wide, already at this
ear:y period of the year, the prospects of crop and
harvest may in a groat manner be anticipatml.
There aro the auguries strewn about us everywhere
abundantly—in the tender green of the wheat-
field, and on the boughs of the orchard, now that
the turf beneath them has been whitened with
the fallen blossoms. It is something more than
merely satisfact )ry to know that in almost every
particular these auguries appear now at this turn-
ing point of the year t ) be of a more than usually
auspicious character. With the one solitary ex-
ception of the plum, the fruit seems to have set
very plentifully. The pear, apple, and cherry crops
more particularly giving promise far beyond the
average. In the hop districts, although in many
places polling has been completed and tying hay
commence 1, the season is not sufficiently advanced
to justify any reliable calculations. It is reported
from all sides, however, that the shoots are every-
where hardy and rapid in development. The potato
unfortunately, in consequence of the- late winter
and the tardy spring, threatens—at any rate to be
precarious. It is eonjeetured that the roots will
scarcely have reached maturity before the season
when the dreaded blight usually makes its appear-
ance. Generally speaking, the grass crops are
magnificent, the pasturage surpassing expectation,
and the hay harvest being already upon the eve of
its commencement. Alread:r, moreover, the
cereals are growing with such unwonted rapidity
that the only anxiety is lest 1858 may take rank
among the great straw years—years when by the
very strength of the stalks the grain becomes
necessarily impoverished. Altogether, things are
decidedly " loJking up" among our country
cousins, the agriculturists. After the late commer-
cial crisis, the tightness of the money market, and
the inevitable dearth of empl Tment—these are
not surely trivial themes for general consideration.
They are matters that come home to us all alike.
They are topics to each amongst us of vital im-
portance. Therefore it is that even now we have
reverted to the prospective probabilities of good
crops of serials, of fruits, and of esculents, as to
expect:a►ions hardly less interesting to the town-
bred citizen than to the yeoman and the farm '
labourer.

ROYAL YACHT SQUADKULV INTELLI-
GENCE, 1:c.

(FROM. OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)
COWES, MAY 25.
The following yachts are in Cowes Roads :
Zoe, Lord Yarborough ; Lavrock, Lord Colville ;
Enigma, R. Franklin, Esq. ; Titanii, R. Stephen-
son, Esq , M. P. ; Alca, Capt. Philinore ; Irene,
E I ward. Cotrell Scholefield ; Ratiesnake, R. Duff;
Esq. ; 1.311 a Rookh, Vise-mint Bangor.
The following noblemen and gentlemen have
been at the Squadron House during ihe week :
Viscount Bangor, Sir Alex: B inrwrman /Bart.,
Richard Frankland, E•sq., Lord Colville, Captain
Ponsonby, Spencer de Horsey, Lord A. Fitzgerald,
Thomas Baring, E,q., Lord Sherbourne, George
Beatinok, Esq., M.P., Capt. Hamilton Right
lion. Henry Corry, Sir John Bayley, litrr., J.
Mixse, Esq., Capt. de Horsey, RN., Lord Gifford,
and F. P. Delme Rtdcliffe, Esq.

,
His R.)yal Highness Prince Albert leaves o,,b3rne
for Germany on Thursday.
As at present arranged, her Majesty and Court
will leave Osborne on Monday.

The Duchess of Inverness will give a gran,' ball this
evo'a!,g, at her apartment; in Kensington Palace.
IL'll'aohret:lCaf.rinu.,drontLe;:deofeon Albemarleont. and the L'iclie4 ui a
an i Augusta Keppel have arrived at 11, Grosvenor-
Huncaster have arrived at Almond's
aatel, in Ciiff.ird.stre.et, from \Varter Priory, York-
shire.
Lie Cnaucellor of the Ex:beeper and Mrs. assratli
have left town for LAngly-park, Slough.
The Gen. Benin de Veaux has left Claridge'a Hotel
hr Paris.
NEW VESSELS LARGER TITAN TL Z LEVIATIIAN.—The
vessels spoken of undar this head turn out to be only a
of barges honking on to each other by stem and
:tterrtg , the whole rank dragged] by a steam ves€l,
fhil is Mr. thurne's plan of I:idtj navigation for the
0 iental Steam Coi,s.-r:y. It is simply a
A at et rsilHay train.