The Sun.
London, England, 1857-07-25 00:00:00

THE SU N, LONEON, SATURDAY EVENING J:trLY 25, I 7

perhaps, on investigation, it may be found
that there were faults on both sides.
Each has very ably vindicated their
own character and conduct, and the publications
that have taken place go far to prove that they
were thoroughly convinced that their own conduct
was full justified. We do not, then, allude
to this unhappy case as the advocate of
either party. We feel that each is entitled
to commiseration and sympathy. We only use
it as an example, to prove the necessity of
some adequate remedy being enacted. These noble
sufferers have, for more than half the allotted age
of man, led joyless and solitary lives, brooding over
what they believed to be their wrong?, and with-
out the most remote prospect of ever again
coming together. Surely it would have been
better for both their sakes, and on every prin-
cipie of justice and expediency to have provided
for the complete dissolution of the inauspicious tie.
We trust that every Liberal Member will be
in his place on Thursday next, and that such
opinions may be enunciated as will lead not
merely to the passing of the present Bill, but to
its further extension, and, above all, to the
establishment of full and perfect reciprocity
between the sexes, so that the injured party,
whether male or female, may obtain complete
relief. We have already stated our reasons
for believing that the new tribunal would not
often be resorted to by female petitioners, but if
the wrong be so great, the insult so irreparable,
that there is no chance of a reconciliation, we do
not see that the victim should be chained to a dry
and sapless log during her existence, and that
every prospect of happiness and houour should
be withheld.

What a mercy that the seasons know nothing
of politics. While we are quarrelling in the
Houses of Lords and Commons ; at the King's
Arms, Palace-yard, or the London Tavern ; firm-
ing and fretting alternately, with July glaring on
bricks and mortar, or with the last provocations
and irritations of prejudice and bigotry—all out-
side our seething and frying metropolitan world,
sunshine and showers are doing what they can to
make farmers good-tempered, and to cheer us, of
the town, with the hope of a cheaper quartern loaf.
A day or two's escape through one of the best
cultivated districts of England has just forcibly
reminded us that there is something else iu the
world than Indian Mutinies, Committees of Sup-
ply, Jew Bills, Divorce Bills, and the Dogged Days
of legislative bigotry. The dog days among the
corn fields and the dog-days in Loudon and West-
minster are, as many of our readers know—we
wish all of them did—very different things in-
deed ; and the former, beyond all comparison, the
better. To be crossed and thwarted, with the
thermometer at 80 degrees, no wonder that
senators snap and bite each other such nights
as these ! As to prejudice and bigotry
being ever cured while Fahrenheit ranges between
summer heat and blood heat, it is really out of
the question. What bigot could have patience
for it under such pressure upon mortal infirmity ?
Can't we, if ROTHSCHILD, RUSSELL, and DILLWYN
should not after all get through their business this
session, can't we contrive to send a Jew Bill to
the Lords in pleasant, genial spring weather, and
just take the chance of a smiling season ? Is it
quite fair every season to heat the tempers of their
lordships just when they hardly know how to
keep them, because the sun himself shines on
them from Cancer ?

Well, as we have said, let us be thankful that
the seasons are of no politics. Whether the Jews
are kept out or get in, whether the Legislature is
Christian or unchristianised, the president of the
seasons keeps on his course ; and we are most
happy to see that ho is discharging his duties
most efficiently as well as impartially. In
some parts we see straw rather short,
and barley, especially, ripening somewhat
prematurely, but respecting the wheat crop as a
whole, there can be but one opinion—that it will
be above the average. F onaers themselves, waiv-
ing their old and proverbial privilege., confirm the
testimony of our own eyes. Of course there is
the one uncertainty of a wet harvest ; for to the
last in this climate.of ours, we are kept mindful of
our dependence on Thu whom we do not wish to
forget. The harvesting arrangements of modern
farming do, to be sure, sornewhatlesson the risk from
wet weather ; and the perfection of modern win-
nowing machines, saves us from the " soft loaf"
invariably following a wet harvest fifty years ago.
Still, one of 'the great agricultural desiderata is,
some plan which will allow a whole field to be
cut in wet weather and placed under secure pro,
tection for drying. How can so much bulk be
covered from external wet and dried, if damp—
the agriculturist will reasonably ask. True, it
does seem impossible. So did steam threshing
and reaping machines, and other machines too,
within the recollection of thousands of farmers ;
and perhaps this generation may yet see us little
concerned about a wet harvest. Let but attention
be directed to the subject, let some very
cheap mode of temporary waterproof covering for
large spaces, or for numerous small stocks be de-
vised ; and some means be invented of cheaply
drying large and bulky substances, and the thing
will be done. Our " fickle clime" will then have '
little effect on Mark Lane when once the crops

have ripened.
Apropos of the country and agriculture, we ob-
serve that just now the Royal Farmer, and the
1,,yal Farmers have been entertaining and instruc-
ting themselves at Salisbury, with the Royal
Agricultural Society's show. The display of im-
plements is very much to the credit of both
farmers and manufacturers. The latter would
not make the coatly efforts they do, were there
not a rapidly growing demani for improved
machinery among the former. The farmers are
the consumers, who stimulate the inventors.
Boy])Ent's self-acting railway, combined with
BURRELL'S Fraction engine, seems to have per-
formed splendidly ; mounting a hi:l of some
length, at a gradient of 1 in 12, and
even 1 in 7, with great ease, and with
a total weight of seventeen tons ! All kinds of
machines for threshing and winnowing; for hoe-
ing, weeding, and even thinning turnips ; for
making hay or for making cheese ; indeed, for
almost every operation of husbandry were abun-
dantly exhibited. The two grand objects of agri-
cultural inventors are, however, the steam plough,
and the most perfect reaping machine. The for-
mer object is every year more and more likely to
be attained. Already, in the opinion of compe-
tent judges, the different patents comprehend ad-
vantages which, if they could be combined in one,
would be likely to place the steam plough along-
side the steam threshing machine, as an acknow-
ledged and indispensable agricultural implement.
Reaping machines are already sufficiently perfect
for use ; but we must again give the palm to
America in this department. A machine, bear-
ing the ambitious or the patriotic name of "The
E igle," for combined mowing and reaping, and
which had won a prize of 2001. after three days'
trial list year in Massachusetts, has won the prize
here also, for mowing at least. Its merit appears
to be simplicity. It dispenses with all the array
of cogged wheels which we see on similar imple-