The Sun.
London, England, 1857-05-28 00:00:00

s/uN,
,LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 28, 185 7;

CEJA

MTE,

LIE.

Leasing
I,ompantes

Closing Prices
this day.

Business
this day

TO THE EDITOR OF THE BIM

We mentioned a fortnight since the progress ef-
fected by the dw:eity Commissi.m. It has dimin-
ished crime some eighty per cent. • In some Zillahs,
it may be said to have ex ing.uished it. In others,
where dacoity was lately so rife that every man of
property went to sleep in doubt whether he should
not be a puper by the morning, a gang robbery is
almost a phenomenon. Few, however, who read
those bare statistics have any, idea of the ob-
stacles the Cornrnib.sir,n has to encounter. Re-
cent t;ials have Oren the public some idea of
the obstacles whirl impede the English police.
In the great bullion robbery• the thieves dis-
p' ay ed au ahility almost amounting to genius Their
accomplices embraced men of high rtspectab liry,
belonging to a class which by its habits alone seems
almost t ) defy suspicion. Yet we doubt if Pierce
and Agar were more subtle than Ramcoomar • and
Jem Saward, barrister and fence, member of the
Inner Temple, and receiver of stolen goods, was a
fool compared with Anondo Kash.

Sir,—On Saturday last, you published, by re-
quest of Mr. W. W. Carus Wilson, an extract froin
a review, containing he says, " a complete answer
to the statements regarding his father's charitable
llls itutions." '
The statements referred to are, I presume, the,
following :—That the'unhealthy situation of Cowan
Bridge, unwholesome food, exposure to cold, &c.,
enfe.-bled P.e girls and predisposed them to disease;
that fever broke out among them ; that ab ut forty
of them suffered from it ; that- the surgeon, who
was called in, condemned the girls' daily food
by the expressive act'on of sp.tting out a portion
of it wh;ch he had takeri in order to taste it ; that
the school was removed to a new situation and a
committee of management appointed.
Now, let us examine the Complete answer,"
and see how these charges are disposed of. And,
first, the reviewer assumes that theSe
_statements
rest solely on the testimony " of one who, when
but a child of nine, left the establishment." A re-
ference, however, to " The Life of Charlotte
Bronte," will show that this is a false assumption.
He praises the situation of the school, " ou Mr.
Carus Wilson's property, half a mile from Casterton-
hail, high and healthy ;" but he has not the can-
dour to state that this description applies to 'he
present site, and not to that referred to in "Jane
Eyre."
He eulogises Mr. Wilson's liberality, but omits
to state that funds are• raised from the public for

Ramcootnar was a philosopher, and one of no
mean brain. He had probably not studied Edgar
Poe's detective stories, but he had arrived at
the conclusion of Rlgar's hero Dupuis. Man
and particularly man of the police specieS is go-
verned by habit. Crimes habitually occur in a cer-
tain way. Therefore when a crime is discovered,
the police always pursue it on the presumption that
it has been committed in the habitual manner, and
the moment a link in the chain is ;ost are hopelessly
at fault. Ovally dacoities in Bengal are committed
by men of the same caste. They can trust each
other better. They excite less observation while
travelling. They can keep up a more per-
fect surveillance over each other's acts. Darogahs
as " practical men" are well aware of this fact, and
therefore whenra dacoity takes place, use this as
their datum of inquiry. There were so many men.
Who has seen a gang of so many men of one caste ?
Moreover, if one is caught, all the remainder are
expected to be nearly of one caste, and ac-
cordingly the darogah's duty is narrowed to
that caste, to his infinite comfort. Ramcoomar,
however; . as we have said, was a philosopher.
Relying on this invincible chain of habit he fot med,
his gangs of widely different castes. He collected
three goalas from his own village, a Kyburt from
Hooghly, two Chundals from Mshomedpore, two
Booyan coolies oft the railrold, a Mussultuan
from Bimpore, some Bagdees and Harees from the
country round. The receiver was a Seukra, and
the spy an oilman. It will be obvious to any one
acquainted with Bengal that an informer's story
descr,bing Lich a gang as this would be regarded as
simply ludicrous.
Acting on this assumption, Rarnciomar, the in-
stant he wag out of jail, recommenced his lucrative
trade. Three dacoities were committed within six
miles of the Commissioner's house without a clue io
the perpetrators or a trace of the property. The
Commissioner, his deputy, and his agents, were
equally at fault, and the gang might have enjoyed
months of impunity but for an accident. , They
had taken 1750 rupees in hank notes from a Ba-
boo's house. They had the temuerance to wait
three months, but at last one of the notes was
presented, the bearer seized, and the note traced to
a moodee's shop. The moodee, though a Bengalee,
invented so poor a lie that ho was arrested. Once
within the Commissioner's grip, the truth began to
ooze out. A casual remark caused the arrest of
six more, and in a few weeks the most scientifically
organised gang in the country was broken up.
Anoudo Kagh was a mild Hindoo. He was of
good caste, and regarded by his neighbours as
thoroughly respectable. He 'did not, it is true,
keep a gig, but he did perform those ceremonies
which are in Bengal what the gig is in England,
the palpable evidence of respectability. He was
an old man with that hale active look which is so
rare in India, and which always prepossesses
Englishmen. This man was not so much a Sirdsr
dacoit, as the Ahithopel of the entire dacoit
frarernity. His true character was 'some-
what wrangely revealed. The joint magistrate of
Baraset had received information that a gang
of auspicious looking men had gone out to
commit a dacoity to the eastward. They were
headed he was told by an " old Kaet." The
roads and ghauts were watched, the guards
doubled, and the joint magistrate himself was all
on the alert. No dacoirs however appeared, when
just as the official fervour subsided, intelligence
was received of a' dacoity in the house next to
that occupied by Anoudo Kagh. The magistrate
proceeded to the village, and be first person he met
was the " old Kaet." Anoudo at once confessed
that he had invited the Dacoits, that they had
refused to go further, and so he had given them
a neighbour's house to plunder. He was dis-
believed, but compelled to give security for
good behaviour, a little precaution which theiudge
as a matter of course disallowed on appeal. He
was subsequently convicted of another offence, and
then the whole truth came out. He was profes-
sional adviser to no less than four dacoity clubs.
His plan was to send out two of his relatives
into service to persons reputed to be of
wealth. If the report proved true, Anondo
directed his bands to the attack. If false, the
relatives extended their inquiries into the neigh-
bouring families, always alighting at last upon the
richest. Meanwhile Anoudo deemed himself safe.
The gangs never knew whence their orders were
received, and, although he was mentioned in many
confessions, no trace of his identity could be dis•

the support of the establishment, which Mr. W.
W. Carus Wilson modestly calls his " father's
charitable institutions."

He makes no mention, whatever of the condem-
nation of the food by the medical gentleman, of
the fever which scourged the school, and thenonFe-
quent change of site, and reformation of the estab
lish ment.

But, surely, the l ady superinten dent "whose able
letter appeared in a review," will supply the gentle-
man's omis,,ions,, and in her " long and complete
answer to the a.sertions in Jane Eyre," make some
reference to this eventful period in the existence of
" the clergy daughters' school." She does no such
thing, t.t least as quoted in the review.
She eulogises Mr. Wilson ; asseverates her own
impartiality ; refers to her apostacy from her
Church, and expatriation from her country ; makes
a somewhat erroneous statement respecting Mr.
Bronte's family ; hazards some conjectures about
the intent-ons of the author of "Jane Eyre ;"
and lays before us a bill of, fare at Cowan Badge
—" meat, vegetables, and puddings daily in
abundance." Very good, Madam I but what
about the ccoking that spoiled these provisions ;
boiled the puddings in unclean water ; compounded
the Saturday's nauseous mess from the fragments
accumulated in a dirty larder during the week ;
and too often sent up the porridge, not merely burnt,
but with offensive fragments of other substances disco-
verable in it ?

The Reviewer. says " the whole of this letter Mrs.
Gaskell must have seen, as she quotes one sentence out
of it word for word." 'Whether Mrs. Gaskell has seen
this letter, I do not know; but if the Reviewer will
refer to the "LifP," vol. i., page 78, he will find that
Mrs. Gaskell quotes from a letter which she bad herself
received from the same lady, who evidently in both
instances used the same form of expression—identical,
however, in only three words, "bright, clever, little"—
in zeference to the same chil. May I not justly retort
the charge of disingeniou•mess on the Reviewer ; who
must have known this, when he aecused Mrs. Gaskell of
making a garble .1 quotation ?
"Jane Eyre" was published in 1847; Lowood
was almost immediately identified with Cowan
Bridge, yet "the Lady who was superintendent in
1824" was discreetly silent for more than seven
years, until, in fact, the author was laid in her
grave. So were Mr. W. W.,Carus Wilson and the
Reviewer,, for aught I know. Their present pro-
ceedings are merely an illustration of a very old

To the day o f her death "Currer Bell" maintained
that the picture drawn in "Jane Eyre" was, on the
whole a true picture of Cowan-bridge school, as
she knew it by experience*; that the institution was
subsequently improved she knew, and stated in the
same work in which she had exposed its former
mismanagement. .
I am told that the Reviewer, referred to in this
letter, has, with exquisite taste and Lreat charity,
alluded to the closing houro of my wife's life, de-
scribing them as painful. Painful indeed they
were, but not in his serve of the term. On this
subject I would say to him, " Who art thou that
jndgest another? Judge not that ye be not judged..
First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and
then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote
that is in thy brother's eye."
Trusting to your sense of justice to give this
letter a place in your impression,
I am, Gentlemen, your obedient servant,
A. B. NICHOLLS.
Haworth, Parsonage, May 20th, 1857.

M. THURNEYSSEN AND THE CREDIT
MOBILIER.

The following communication regarding the fail-
ure of M. Charles Thurneyssen, is from M. Isaac
Pereire, the President of the Credit Mobilier Com-

parry :

" Paris, May 25,
Sir,—ln announcing the failure of M. Chas.
Thurneyssen, you have referted to the Credit Mo-
bitter, and have also stated that he was connected
with me by relationship and business transactions.
" Your good faith has been imposed upon by
statements emanating from malicious motives, for
M. Charles Thurneyssen has never had any busi-
ness connexion with me or with the Credit Mobi-
lier. He was never at any time mixed up with the
operations conducted by that establishment, nor a
director of railway companies or other inuustrial
undertakings.
" The insinuations therefore regarding the Credit
Mobilier are without fouudatien, nor have they
any better basis as respects myself. Although a
cousin of M. Charles Thurneyssen married one of I
my nieces, he can scarcely be looked upon as my I
relative ; and I have never had social intercourse
or business transactions with him. I regret that
this abuse of the privileges of the press should
render it necessary for me to enter into my private
affairs ; but I feel bound to add that on one occa-
sion I rendered a service to M. Charles Thurneys-
sm, solely out of regard to his family, and that I
have suffered in consequence. About three and a
half years ago I 1.-nt him 500,000 f. to extricate him
from the embarrassments into which he was plunged
by speculations in land, and that sum is still due
fro me.
" His uncle, M. Auguste Thurneyssen, whose
declining years are enibitwred, and whose'fortune
is largely diminished by this painful event, is one of
the most highly esteemed and respected men iu
Paris. He was formerly a banker, and connected
with the house of Stieglitz, and for the last 20 years
his name has been associated with these of the most
respectable English and French capitalists as u
director of the principal railways. Like his son,
M. George Thurney.seu, it is only as a creditor
that he is connected with his nephew's failure,
which, deplorable as it is, does not possess the ex-
aggerated importance which has been attached to it.
"I doubt not, sir, that, having given currency to
reports so unfounded, you will give equal publicity
to these explanations. Every one has a perfect
right to form his own estimate of the Credit Mobi-
lier as an institution, but it is an abuse of that
right, and one unworthy of the English .press, to
• connect that society with events to which it is com-
pletely a stranger, and to attack it through its ad-
ministrators, who are at.least entitled to some con-
sideration from the position they occupy in public
esteem.—l am, sir, your obedient servant,
"I. PERIERE."

covered.
These two stories are sufficient to show the
class of men with whom the Commission has
now to deal. It is not the dacoits themselves
who are so formidable. They can be kept in or-
der by mere terror. It is the leaders whom it is
imperative to arre4, whose ingenuity is equal to
the otganisPd force arrayed against them, and who
can raise new gangs almost from the ground. It
is the respectable _thieves who really puzzle the
police, and if some of the evidence recorded before
Mr. Ward is correct, we must strike among the
peerage as well as the bourgeoise. Next week we
hope to point out an obstacle .to the Commission
more important and more dangerous even than the
astuteness of the dacoits.—Friend of India.

M. Francisco Travassos Valdez has been appointed by
the Portuguese Government arbitrator to the mixed
British and Portuguese Commission at the Cape of Good
Hope foi the adjudication of slave questions. M. Val-
dez has hitherto held a similar office at Angola, and is
favourably known in literary circles in Portugal as the
writer of some able productions on the slave trade,
where he was the first to draw attention to the discoveries
of Dr. Livingstone in Africa, and to their probable effect
on that abominable traffic. M. Valdez'e father, Lieut.-
General Count B irnfitn, is well-known as the chief of
the staff of the late Dom Pedro, and as Prime Minister
to the late Queen of Portugal.
THE PARLIAMENTARY OATHS BILL.—The following is
the form of oath to be taken hencetoith (in all cases) in
lieu of the oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjura-
tion, viz. :—" I, A. 8.. do swear that I will be faithful
and bear true allegiance to her Majesty Queen Victoria,
and will defend her to the utmost of my power against
all conspracies and attempts whatever which shall be
made against her person, crown, or dignity, and I will
do my utmost endeavour to disclose and make known
to her Majesty, her heir? and her successors, all treasons
and traitorous conspiracies which may be formed against
her or them ; and I do faithfully promise to maintain,
support, and defend, to the utmost of my power, the
succession of the Crown, which succession by an act
entitled An Act for the further Limitation of the
Crown, and better securing the Rights and Liberties
of the Subject,' is and stands limited to the Princess
Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and the heirs of her
body being Protestants, hereby utterly renouncing and
abjuring any obedience or allegiance to any other per-
son claiming or pretending 10A right to the Crown of
this realm ; and I do declare that no forjgu prince,
person, prelate, state, or potentate bath or ought to have
any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or
authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, directly or indi-
rectly, within this realm. So help me God." The act,
however, will not affect the form of oath prescribed
for papists by the Reman Catholic Relief Act (10th of
Geo. IV., cap. 7).