The Sun.
London, England, 1861-10-18 00:00:00

ment, late a warder of the House of Detention, and, I
on the motion of Mr. Wyatt, was referred back to
the committee to inquire and report, as it contained
specific charges of which the committee were not
aware. To this memorial were append() copies of
certificates from Dr. Lavies, of the H use of Cor-
rection, Westminster, who had opera d upon Mr.
Le Brument for a serious chronic disease ; and from
Mr. T. H. Mitchell, of Lowther Cottages, Holloway,
who had attended him, and also his wife. From
physical disability he was not able to continue his
duties as a warder.
Mr. WYATT said this petition contained certain
specific charges which had not been brought before
the committee, and he therefore moved that it be
referred to the committee to inquire into its allega-
tions and report to the Court.—Agreed to.

AFRICAN SOCIE7T-THE COTTON
SUPPLY.

BIRMINGHAM, :WEDNESDAY.
A public meeting was held in the Music-hall here
last, the object being to consider the effects of the
cotton " famine" on Manchester and Birmingham
industries, the best mode of procuring a supply of
cotton, and the opportunity which the crisis affords
of annihilating the slave trade, by establishing the
cotton industry in Africa.
The MAYOR presided, and among the company on
the platform were Lord Stratheden Campbell, Lord
Calthorpe, Lord Alfred Churchill, M.P., Mr. D.
Seymour, Mr. Alderman Sturge, &c.
The MAYoR read a letter from Mr. Bailey, M.P.,
expressing his regret at not being able to be present.

Lord A. CHURCHILL moved the first resolution
—" That this meeting emphatically expresses its
approval of the appointment by the British Govern-
ment of an accredited agent at Abbeokuta, and
trusts that the policy which dictated this appoint-
ment may be extended to the town of Rabba, on
the Niger, and to other important places as facili-
ties arise." In enforcing this resolution his lord-
ship dilated at considerable length on the signal
success which had already resulted from the ap-
pointment of the consul at Abbeokuta, and with re-
ference to the second point referred to in the
resolution, it had already received the serious
attention of the Government. The objects of this
society were, he said, extremely practical, and now
pretty well understood. They desired, in the first
place, to introduce such an alteration of system into
Africa as they believed would bring about a great
and beneficial change—physical, political, and
social, and they proposed to do that by introducing
there families from Canada who by their skill in
the various mechanical arts and sciences would be
in a condition to raise the African to a higher state
of intelligence and usefulness, and lead him on by
degrees to a state of civilisation equal to that of any
other race. The means to this end were by the ex-
tension of consular establishments in the interior of
Africa. This would place the country under the
protection of Great Britain, and, so protected, all
its cotton, sugar, tobacco, and indigo fields would
thrive under British enterprise ; a deadly blow
would be struck at the slave-grown produce of
Cuba, Virginia, and New Orleans; the supply of
slaves from the African coast would be cut off; the
Africans would be brought up to their true position
in the human race, and the whole world would
soon reap the benefit.

AND _RUSSIA.

TfIE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 18, 1861.

to the police as " Spuddy," was sentenced to ten
years' penal servitude about fifteen months since,
for a daring burglary and robbery at the business
premises of Mr, Carpenter, pawnbroker and jewel-
ler, Cannon-street, St. George-in-the-East.

A few nights since Humphrey was inveigled into
a most infamous house in the Back-road, Shadwell,
where many outrages and robberies have been com-
mitted. He was promised "a snug berth and good
treatment." He could not go to his ship, which
was in the Commercial Dock, Rotherhithe, and, to
use his own words, " any port in a storm would do
for him." He entered the house at a late hour of
the night, he was greatly fatigued, and somewhat
the worse for liquor. He was provided with a bed,
and soon fell asleep. He was soon stripped of every-
thing he possessed, and when he awoke and missed
his watch, money, silk handkerchiefs, clothes, and
pocket-book, he " sung out" loudly for the police.
He was ill-used by the people in the house, and
turned into the street, with nothing upon his per-
son except his shirt and trousers. On the morning
of the 4th inst., between eight and nine o'clock, the
prisoner offered the prosecutor's watch in pawn at
the shop of Mr. By as, a pawnbroker in Ratcliff
Highway. She was interrogated by Mr. Cunning-
ham, an intelligent young man, the pawnbroker's
assistant, and she said the watch belonged to John
Sullivan. Mr. Cunningham asked her what initials
were upon the watch, and she was unable to de-
scribe them. He immediately gave her into cus-
tody of a constable named Barber, 99 11, who found
upon her 15 duplicates relating to property on
which she had raised money at pawnbrokers' shops.
Among them were the duplicates of three gold rings,
and the ticket or memorandum of a monkey-jacket,
which the sailor valued at 355., and was pawned
by the prisoner for 12s. only, at the shop of Mr.
Child, pawnbroker, No. 216, High-street, Shad-
well, on the morning of the 4th instant. The
police recovered nearly the whole of Humphrey's
property, including seven new silk handker-
chiefs. His money was not found. The second
case against the prisoner was a very singular
one. A woman named Mary Ahearn, wife of a
convict, who has kept a house of ill-fame, wore
five gold rings on her fingers, and, like most
women of her class, was very fond of disphlying
them. One Thursday in August last she laid down
on her bed, at her dwelling, in Victoria-street,
Shadwell, very ill, and soon fell asleep. A woman
named Mary Ann Smith, who was called Sally
throughout the investigation, took the rings off the
fingers of her mistress while the latter was asleep,
deposited them in a purse, and put them in her
pocket. The prisoner came to Ahearn's house, at
half-past one o'clock in the morning, to purchase a
halfpenny candle, and entered into conversation
with Sally, who was seated in a chair at the door
of the house. Sally followed the example of her
mistress Ahearn, and fell asleep in the chair. When
she awoke, the purse containing the rings were
gone. Sally immediately waited on the prisoner,
and asked her if she had seen the purse and rings.
The old woman stoutly denied all knowledge of
either. Three of the rings were now produced.
They had been pawned by the prisoner directly
after they were missed by Sally. The assistants
of three pawnbrokers produced them, and they
were valued at £3. The other rings stolen at the
same time are still missing.
The prisoner said she was a servant in the house
where the sailor was plundered, and the watch and
monkey-jacket were given to her to pawn, and she
did not know how they were obtained. She found
the purse, containing the rings, in Shadwell.
Mr. Woolrych said the conduct of the pawn-
broker's assistant, Cunningham, was highly credit-
able to him, and he was glad to hear that the same
person had detained other offenders. He sentenced
the prisoner to two months' imprisonment and hard
labour for the unlawful possession of the sailor's
watch, road one month's imprisonment and hard
labour for illegally pawning the three gold rings.

MOROCCO.

THE UNIVERSITIES OF ENGLAND

are further informed that these free and fearless
spirits, animated by all the fire and confidence of
youth, are sent out into the world to leaven it, not
with revolutionary, but with Conservative, doc-
trines; and that the ancient institutions under
which these principles are maintained have actually
been likened to hulks moored in a stream, which
serve by their immobility to mark the swiftness of
the flood. When they hear all this, and when they
recall the democratic vagaries and the periodical
insurrections of the Universities which they have
got at home, they wish very sincerely that every
seminary in their dominions resembled Oxford and
Cambridge.
The history of all this, however, lies not in the
place, nor in the studies pursued, but in the social
position which the English Universities have insen-
sibly acquired. The students at those ancient seats
of learning are not made Conservatives ; they are
Conservatives before they come. What has always
preserved England from revolutions is that the
great body of the people have far more to lose than
to gain by such catastrophes, and our Oxford and
Cambridge men represent some of the most con-
tented specimens of a contented nation: They are
taken from well-to do and satisfied classes, and it
is the blessing of this country that such classes,
instead of being confined to a caste of nobles, per-
vade society from top to bottom. If the' Russian
authorities could have converted the University of
St. Petersburg into a seminary frequented almost
exclusively by students of fair social position and
moderate means; and if, for the satisfaction of the
necessitous or ambitious, they had provided ample
rewards within the University itself, there is no
doubt that St. Petersburg would have acquired a
great similarity to Oxford and Cambridge. So far,
the proposed taxation, though so small in its amount,
did point to some perception of the truth, but it is
obvious that the scheme could only have been car-
ried out at the cost of the institution itself. At pre-
sent the University of St. Petersburg is a most use-
ful and valuable seminary. If it does not exactly
shape the public mind, it does, at any rate, commu-
nicate excellent instruction to many who would
otherwise remain uninstructed. We have no ground
for supposing that if it forsook these functions it
would find the materials for discharging others after
the fashion of Oxford and Cambridge. We do not
suppose that Russia yet contains an immense and
contented middle class, w'rlich could profit by the
social as well as intellectual education obtainable at
a University framed on the English model. All these
things have yet to come. When they do come, the
desired University will probably come with them,
but in the meantime it is neither hopeful nor wise
to attempt a scheme out of keeping with things
around it, or to sacrifice to chimerical apprehen-
sions an institution which is contributing in no
small degree to the national progress.—Times.

EXPEDITION TO TETE COURT OF