The Sun.
London, England, 1866-02-16 00:00:00

therefore we gladly witness, in. the large majority
against his amendment, a sign. that members of the
House of different political. views unite to put
down such hurtful tendencies.
Further on in the evening tht Government were de-
feated on Mr. HUNT'S amendment, " prohibiting the
total removal of cattle until the twenty-fifth of
March, and the hon. member purposes to follow
up this suggestion by a string of exceptions to the
general rule. Sir G. GREY was against this propo-
sition, because he said that it would be so
difficult to supply " dead meat" to the great
centres. Mr. LOWE spoke very much to
the point, for he said that the question to be con-
sidered was how far the House should embody
these regulations, instead of leaving them to the
local authorities ; and the hon. member further
impressed upon the House the necessity of dealing
at once with the subject, because time is precious,
and we cannot be too careful as to how
we employ it. " We may be able," said Mr. LOWE,
" to improve the opportunity, but it can never be
recovered if lost. If we do not get the disease under
by the middle of April, prepare yourselves for a
calamity beyond all calculation. You have seen
the thing in its infancy. Wait, and you will see the
averages, which have been thousands, grow to tens
of thousands, for there is no reason why the same
terrible law of increase which has prevailed hitherto
should not prevail henceforth." Captain JERVIS
very truly stated that there would be no difficulty
in carrying a supply of dead meat for the
London market, because the great railway
companies would be able to provide for
the emergency. Lord ELCHO'S observations were
also much to the purpose, when he declared that
unless the amendment was agreed to the bill would
not be worth the paper it was printed upon.
Within the last few days he had attended two
meetings of a most influential character, and the
principle of this amendment was affirmed by both
of them. There were gentlemen representing the
railway interest of England and Scotland present
at one of these meetings, and they all declared that
they would undertake to bring up any amount of
meat to the towns, as fish, a much more
delicate substance than meat to deal with,
was carried now, if the removal of live cattle were
prohibited entirely." So far it may be considered
that the bill has progressed even more rapidly than
might have been expected; but the great importance
of the subject has induced the leading members on
both sides of the House to form a neutral ground
on which they may meet and discuss the question
calmly and comprehensively. This is as it should
be, and we trust that the public will appreciate
the strong sense of duty thus manifested by
the new Parliament. It is only to be re

gretted that the House did not meet
before Christmas, because so much time has been
lost ; but it is useless to revert to the past, and the
only thing now to be done is to make what use we
can of the present. So far as we can judge from
experience and observation, the bill, as at present
amended by Mr. HUNT'S proposal, offers a decided
check to the progress of the disease ; and should it
not work effectually, it will be easy during the ses-

sion to make further arrangements, if, unhappily,

this fatal disease should not be stamped out before
the close of the sittings of the House.

There has been for some time past a growing
feeling in the public mind that the wandering and
destitute classes, who come under the head of casual
paupers, stand in urgent need of some better and
more humane treatment. The experience of the
" amateur casual" has only confirmed the prevailing
impression of the general discomforts and hardships
of the legal shelter provided for the houseless, while,
large as is the number of our night refuges, they
prove constantly unequal to the demands upon
them. It is undoubtedly a difficult question, since
there is as much reason to guard against the en-
couragement of vice and idleness as there is to avoid
the risk of neglecting the really needy. With-
out doubt a large proportion even of the
latter owe their distress to their own improvidence
or intemperance, their own faults or those of their
immediate relatives. But there is one class whose
necessities appeal most powerfully to our sym-
pathies, and against relieving whose necessities the
most rigid political economist can hardly venture to
protest. The crowds of hungry, homeless, un-
friended children who haunt our courts and alleys,
call powerfully for aid, for unless a helping hand
be held out to them they have no prospect before
them but a life of beggary or crime. They have
either no parents, or parents, who from vice,
cruelty, or intemperance, are unwilling or unable to
help them. How are they to learn a trade—to ob-
tain any kind of decent employment? Who will
give them a chance ? Who will take a boy without
friends, without character, in any capacity what-
ever? They must go on roughing it, living how
they can, and where they can, picking up scraps
to-day and fasting to-morrow, sleeping now at this
workhouse and now at that, now under a railway-
arch or a scaffolding, till they reach an age when
such a seed-time brings forth its natural fruit, and
the childhood of idleness, beggary, and evil asso-
ciation, gives us the thief and criminal of every
degree. Society pays dearly enough for these
neglected children in the long run only unfortu-
nately it does not pay at the right time. A tenth
part of the amount expended on a professional
thief or burglar out of the public purse would, if
laid out in childhood instead of in manhood, give
the country a decent citizen instead of a perpetual
burden. These homeless children may truly be
ranked among our dangerous classes, for their
future is full of danger to themselves and to others.
Their number is large enough to allow for a vast
surplus in spite of the many Christian and philan-
thropic efforts to establish refuges, reformatories,
and industrial schools. In these admirable institu-
tions the children are taught a trade, a fact which
puts in a greaty measure their life into their own
hands, for a good workman can find plenty of op-
portunities—if not here, in the colonies. The men-
tal and moral training given in these schools sup-
plies, as far as possible, all the deficiencies of their
neglected childhood, and the only matter for regret
about the refuges and schools is that there are not
more of them. There is still a large crowd of these
homeless boys wandering night after night about
the metropolis, and some of our earnest-minded
philanthropists have set themselves seriously to con-
sider what can be done for them. Partly with the
view of inquiring into their real condition, partly
with the hope of enlisting a larger amount of sym-
pathy on their behalf, they assembled a num-
bereiries,of houseless and destitute boys at the St.
I them s a
Refuge on Wednesday evening, giving
good
night's lodgings The
and payment for their
tion
was a
sufficient
egumaarannnteerefor of thethe
actualinvita-
destitution of the boys assembled, if indeed their
miserable appearance The announce needed any such testimony.
neent of the supper was sent round to
the different workhouses to be made through the
Masters to the inmates of the casual wards.
Those
who responded to this appeal were between
150 and
200, a much lower number than was, anticipated
f;
but the fact was that a very great proportion
thow whom the notice reached were afraid to come,

fearing a lecture or the police. Still there was a
crowd assembled round the doors of the refuge long
before the hour fixed upon arrived, and it was a
crowd pitiful to see. Hunger, squalor, disease, in
all their forms, were in that dismal little assembly,
representing in their rags and wretchedness the sins
of others. The story which was gathered from
some of them, after their hearts had been gladdened
by a better supper than they had eaten for many a
long day or night, was substantially the same. The
greater part were orphans, many did not know
whether their parents were alive or not, most were
beggars, some were thieves ; most of them got their
night's shelter when they had one by one gone the
weary round of the different London workhouses,
and sleeping in the casual wards ; those who
brought tickets from the ward they had slept
in the night before, declaring they had had
nothing to eat since they left it. 'Whether
they were so or no, they were lean and
hungry enough to bear out any such statement ;
and the unanimous shout they gave when they saw
the slice of pudding which finished their supper
was touching, from its proof of the childishness
which belonged to their years, but which their faces
contradicted. Nothing more was attempted than
temporary relief. A few kind words from the Earl
of SHAFTESBURY and other leaders of the movement,
a good supper, and 4d. each for a night's lodging,
were all that could be given for the moment ; but it
is surely a question not only for our professional
philanthropists, but for the community at large,
whether their necessities do not demand something
more. It is no light thing that we let hundreds of
children grow up in the very midst of our metro-
polis without religion, without learning, without
the means of earning their bread. How do we ex-
pect them to live? They will answer the question
for us in a very unsatisfactory manner if we do not
do it for them, and we must remember that the evil
perpetuates itself. Those best acquainted with the
subject have told us, on conclusive grounds, that
ignorance is the great parent of crime, since the
proportion of educated criminals is very small ; and
since the establishment of reformatories and the
efforts made by ragged schools and other means,
the number of juvenile criminals is steadily
diminishing. But while these figures in one
sense are gratifying and encouraging, they
do not lessen, but rather add, to our
responsibility, since if we endeavour to enlighten
the ignorance we are wilfully perpetuating the
crime. If the cure for a deadly disease is, humanly
speaking, in our own hands, are we not answerable
for the fatal consequences which willinfallibly ensue
from its neglect ? It is a question for every citizen
to ask himself each in his own degree. Let each
do what he can to remove this great and crying evil
from our midst, and we shall not long be able to
gather such a little army of desolate outcasts from
the very centre of the wealth and civilisation of the
richest and most populous city in the world.

At a very late hour last evening, at the close of
a long debate, a measure of considerable importance
was introduced into the House of-Commons and
read a first time. Mr. CARDWELL obtained leave
to bring in a Bill to make provision for the Govern-
ment of Jamaica—a task which at this crisis is one
of no ordinary difficulty. The Legislature of
Jamaica, it will be remembered, passed an act for
the amendment of their own Constitution ; but,
subsequently, finding that the Imperial Government
was willing to undertake the responsibility, they
subsequently adopted the wiser course of placing
themselves entirely in the hands of the Crown,
and leaving the form of their future govern-
ment to be settled by impartial authority.
The question is so difficult in all its aspects,
the present condition of the colony so unsettled,
and the very defects of the existing representa-
tive system so great, that it would be almost im-
possible for the colonists at this juncture to orga-
nise a good and efficient constitution. The diffi-
culty would undoubtedly have been enhanced by
the conflicting interests, the rival parties, and the
double governorship. We in England can hardly
believe it possible, at first sight, that representa-
tive institutions can fail to work well, but on a
closer scrutiny it is easy to understand
that, with less than 2,000 qualified electors
cut of 440,000 people, and with so large a
preponderance of blacks among the population, the
Legislature entirely failed to meet the requirements
of the island. Indeed we know from local accounts
that at least one of the Houses was regarded as more
mischievous and obstructive than beneficial, and, in
fact, it was clear even before the outbreak, that the
whole political system needed a thorough reorgani-
sation and amendment. The fortunes of Jamaica
have shown a rapid decadence, and its pub-
lic and private credit have alike deteriorated
with surprising quickness, although it possesses
every element of wealth and prosperity. In
tranquil times it might perhaps have been
possible for the colonists to have reformed their
own constitution, though, from local influences,
interests, and prejudices, the case would always
have been difficult, but under existing circumstances
the task would have been almost impossible. Mr.
CARDWELL proposes to provide for Jamaica in the
first instance a Government similar to that now in
operation in Trinidad, doing so by Order in Coun-
cil, for a period of three years. This is a wise pre-
caution, as by that time the heat and excitement of
the moment will have passed away, and men will
be able to judge calmly how far the form
of government is adapted to the colony,
what is really the position and what are the
wants of its people, and what change or improve-
ment it will be advisable to make. There was of
course no discussion on the introduction of the bill,
which was read for the first time without any op-
position; and we trust that, should it commend itself
to the general feeling of the house and the public,
no factious opposition will be allowed to interrupt
or retard its progress.

A VOLCANO IN THE OCEAN.—PLYMOUTH, Wed-
nesday.—The ship Orient, 1,032 tons, Capt. John
Harris, the arrival of which with a cargo of wool, &c., has
already been announced, sailed from Adelaide Nov. 10,
rounded Cape Horn, Dec. 13, crossed the line Jan. 15, and
spoke Jan. 12, lat. 5 S., long. 27 W., the ship Queen of
Nations, 65 days from Callao, for Queenstown ; 13th, lat. 3
S., long. 28 W., signalled a ship supposed to be the first
pendant 1,498, the Canova ; Feb. 9, the ships Eurydice,
from Liverpool for Bombay, the Ravensbourne, and the
Danish bark Dorie Roderson, standing to the westward,
wind south-west. When crossing the Pacific the Orient
experienced light north-west winds and light easterly
winds with calms. No ice was seen there, but some was
observed off the pitch of the Horn in 58 south. Moderate
northerly winds prevailed in the South Atlantic. The
south-east trades were met in lat. 19 S. and long. 15 W. ;
they were very light. The equator was crossed in let. 30
west, and good north-east trades were found in 3 N. and 33
W. Light northerly winds prevailed in and about the
Tropic of Cancer. On Sunday last, when such severe
weather prevailed from the metropolis to the Land's-end
the Orient was off the Isle of Wight, and Capt. Harris's re-
port says, " One of the heaviest gales struck us, in fact it
was a hurricane ; there was little hopes of safety ; we lost
much canvas and the ship laboured frightfully." On Friday,
November 17, at 7 15 a.m., when in lat. 51 44 S. and long.
160 49 E. with a moderate wind from north-north-west
and a clear sky, the '
ship commenced ringing the bells and
trembling violently as. if she were passing over a rough
bottom in shallow water. Than instant all was confusion on
board, as the crew and passengers thought she was settling
down. The violent trembling last two or three minutes
with nothing visible. Sounded the pump-well and found
no water ; and sounded over the ship's side with the deep
sea lead, but found no bottom. The conclusion arrived at
by all on board was that the shiphad experienced the effects
of a submarine TOlO2lO.