The Sun.
London, England, 1857-09-25 00:00:00

- LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPT. 25, 1857.

• Every ono has heard of what have been em-
phatically and justly termed " the sinews of war."
As a respected contemporary some time since de-
clared, peace or war was decided not by generals
and potentates, but by some half-dozen elderly
gentlemen with spectacles on nose, and account
books in hand, who decide amongst themselves on
the reception that a new loan would be likely to re-
ceive on the bourses of Europe, and encourage or
suppress, according to the result, the ardent spirit,
in the would be belligerents. At first but little
is thought on this all important question. Auto-
crats and despots plunge into hostilities, with as
little forethought as sentimental young ladies
into matrimony. The former have just as vague
notions respecting making " war pay its own ex-
penses" as the latter have of " love in a cottage,"
and of the objects of their tender affection being
"willing to accept Government situations" when
thefew pounds available have been squandered on the
‘!ixildkig excursion. A stern law, however,
speedily dispels the pleasing illusions of Princes
and _of love-sick demoiselles. The former find
that "enthusiasm"
will not fill a military chest, or
provide pay -
an rations and means of subsistence
for their soldiers, about the same time, that the
latter discover that " love" will not liquidate the
butchers' and baker,: bills; and that although the
cottage moth may be very elegant fora small
juvenile responsibilities, the
family free from
stern demands of landlord anti tax-eolleetor must
be met with something more substantial than
either tears or kisses.
So it will be with the Indian mutineers. They
have thought* of nothing as yet but the destrue.
tion, under the most horrible circumstances, of the
"Fer;nghees." It was Fufficient that they could
slaughter officers, whose chief, if not their only
fault, was that they had Exhibited extraordi-
nary kindness towards their assailants, and degrade
and dishonour English women. Pampered and
petted as they were, with all their ridiculous
scruples recognised and respected, with ample
means that rendered them objects of envy to the
surrounding population, they turned against their
benefactors—ready to " rend the hands that
gave them food." But they had not calculated on
their available resources. The mock King of
Damn might promise double pay and double
allowances to every deserter ; but whence would
it proceed Y Where would be the " gold mohurs"
and shining "rupees" with which these ob-

ligations are to be liquidated The senile
candidate for the "Musnud " might pass
a few lakhs, or possibly even a." crore" of rupees
accumulated. But how long would the largest
conceivable amount supply the demands, and
exigencies, of these discontented spirits? Plunder
might for a time act as a useful auxiliary, but
what would the wealthy bankers, jewellers, and
shopkeepers of Delhi and the other disturbed dis-
tricts, think of such a course, which, however
pleasing to the military, would be by no means
agreeable to the civilian portion of the popula-
tion. Systematic robbery would speedily ex-
haust the fountains of wealth, and it is obvious
that, with an army encamped before Delhi, ordi-
nary fiscal resources could not be made available
without our organisation. We find it a hard task
to wring the authorised contributions from the
hard hands of the contributors, and for years to
come the mutineers could not obtain from similar
sources the means of support.

Large sums have unquestionably been taken
from the public treasuries. Many of the rebels have
secured considerable "swag," but it has been
what is termed, on their own " private hook."
They have not even sympathised with the " com-
panions of Jehu," who only robbed "for the good
of the cause." The rebel sepoys put the plunder
in their own pockets, and held it for their own
use. The miscreants who were killed, had gene-
rally large sums in specie on their persons, trans-
ferable by what is termed " the rule of thumb,"
but that does not fill the treasury or make up the
means for paying soldiers. " JOH.N COMPANY" has
Great Britain at its back. Our guarantee will
still be available. But the octogenarian quasi
MOGUL has nothing to look to. A rumour
was circulated that be had been hanged,
not as he ought to be, by a British executioner,
but by the mutineers. Such an event is by no
means improbable at any time, and each day must
increase the danger of the would-be King of
INDIA. The resources cannot be maintained, and
Xs. d., or perhaps we 'should say rupees and
annas, may prove no less formidable to the Ma-
homedan Pretender than the muskets and bayo-
nets of the avenging army, determined that the
slaughter of their countrymen and the degradation
of their countrywomen shall be fully and com-
pletely expiated.

Amidst all the horrors of revolt in India, and
all the dearth of legislative reforms at home—with
darkening prospects before us of the continuance
of a war income-tax, and of the probable delay
yet longer of the promised improvement of the
parliamentary system—we have at any rate the
immediate and substantial consolations derivable
from a magnificent harvest, and from crops (gene•
rally) of unusual abundance. It is a circumstance
at all times of importance, but at periods like these
(periods otherwise disastrous) it is, we may truly
say of the very last importance. A harvest
like the present comes to us in mitigation,
most opportunely. It yields the Nation at once
solace and encouragement. It inspirits us to bat-
tle manfully with the evils we are called upon to
o3ntend against simultaneously with the good thus
directly enjoyed from the bounty of Heaven.
And the magnitude of this good may be at once
more fully appreciated if it be only considered for
a moment how deplorably our present anxieties
would have been multiplied, if to the horrors of
war abroad, in India, in China, and until very
recently in Persia also, there had been added the
miseries of a deficient harvest—all this coming
moreover upon the very morrow of the close of the
Crimean conflict—a struggle as ruinously expen-
sive as it was, alas, fruitlessly sanguinary.
Everything considered it becomes, indeed, mat-
ter for earnest gratulation amongst ourselves that
—with no Reforms and plenty of Bloodshed—the
harvest generally all over the land is repaying our
husbandmen a hundredfold. From all quarters
the intelligence received in this way is a great deal
more than simply satisfactory. It is of a kind to
inspire us with gratitude and exultation. It is
much more than an average crop ; it is a crop in
many directions unusually plentiful. Sometimes
the improvement observable issimply one of quac-
tity—sometimes one of quality—sometimes (and
this frequently) of both together. It is the same
thing pretty well with the wheat crops, and the
oat crops, with the crops of rye and barley, with
the whole variety of cereal products collectively.
And as with the grain, SD, for the most part is it
with the fruit generally. Particularly in the
apple-growing counties—Devonshire for instae cc
—where the cider pressers give promise of affi cent
overflowings. Meanwhile our English vineyards,
such for Example as the beautiful hop gardens of
Kent, present a contrast more than ordinarily re-
markable to the great continental vineyards, where
the grape disease has still revealed a very deplor-
able prevalence. The yield of hops, generally
speaking, throughout the hop-growing districts,
being here of peculiar excellence, there of an
abundance quite extraordinary. Simultaneously
with these good tidings, there has come to us from
Ireland the happy intelligence of the almost uni-
versal disappearance of that destructive blight
among the potatoes, which, for some years past,
had really seemed to threaten the exterminati m
of that important vegetable. It yields one the
hope that that other serious scourge of vegetation,
already referred to, may prove, after all, one of
merely temporary duration—that disease of the
grape vine which has hitherto been so far spread,
and so virulent as to threaten the wine-countries
in the south of France, in Germany, and in the
Iberian peninsula, with universal desolation.
Consoled by a harvest so opportunely abundant,
England will now, we may rest
.assured, with
double energy and renewed determination, continue
resolutely to encounter and to conquer all her op-
posing difficulties. Drained though she has been
of 100,000,0001. by the late deplorable, because
utterly futile and bootless, war with Russia, she
will yet begrudge no additional war-expenditure,
however considerable, if by means of these new
disbursements through the Horse Guards, and the
Admiralty, and the Ordnance, and the Commis-
sariat, and the other War Departments, she may
only witness the evidences of vigour, promptitude,
and unflinching determination on the part of the
Imperial Government. Whatever recruits, what-
over money that Government may demand, they
will have at once yielded to them, without demur
by the country, and yielded cheerfully, if, in
return for this confidence iu their rulers, the
people only behold a resolute repression of the
Indian mutiny and a strong though t trdy rejoin-
der to Chinese f.insolence. Nothing more than
accomplishment; of time are do ehl ieve is
these
greatwan wanted for tale
enterprises.
And a very briefybo believe is wanted for the
accoinpitebment of bot
interval, please GOD, will be
amply sufficient to falsify utterly and egregiously
the drivelling mock-prophecies of the Univers
newspaper. It is not reserved yet for Mr. J.
MITCHELL, or any other of the ruffianly Irish
Sepoys to exult over the discomfiture of what the
Hero of the Pike once foamed at (with more of
alliteration than of eloquence) as "the bloody old
British Empire."

The Norfolk Parsons and Squires appear to
have taken rabbits under their special care. Not
very long ago we had Lord HASTINGS committing
labourers to prison for stealing rabbits from their

T FEE spy N, °WON, FIR IDA

own
editor w
wmhnloosnasw, afintd t allo
pub
bu
lit
sfihg hhtiisn go
pa dn
inoenl wo
fi t
suchhtll
Justice's justice. Indeed, his Lordship's violence
went so far that an indictment was actually pre-
ferred against him at the Norwich Assizes, and
would have been tried in Court but for a timely
apology from the rabbit-preserving peer. We
commented on the case at the time. It was one
of great hardship to the morally innocent
labourers, and in our judgment, as in that of
the Editor of the Norfolk News, the men were
legally innocent also, and were denied justice
simply because their means did not admit of an
appeal being made to a superior Court.
In the local journal just referred to, we notice
another rabbit case, and one in which we think
the men were treated very harshly, there being
some good ground to doubt, in this case also,
whether the law was not strained against them.
The special hardship of the case lay in the cir-.
cumstances under which the rabbits were killed,
even if the act were, by a rigid construction of
the statute, illegal. All England over there are
certain perquisites falling to the lot of labourers
in every department. Those who labour or
lounge in many a Government office pick up some,
but none are luckier in that line than ecclesias-
tics. From the Bishop, and his numerous
appointees, registrars, chancellors, surrogates,
and we know not what, to the rectors and
vicars, perhaps in some case to the very
curates, for whose spiritual-mindedness, as
well as for that of bishops, we pray de-
voutly every Sunday—to all of these goodly
perquisites are ever and anon falling; renewals of
leases and fines in the case of the Conferrers of
spiritual gifts, and what we call fees in the case
of the receivers of such gifts. And these perqui-
sites to the spiritually gifted are, as we know by
the Burial-ground struggles, clung to with an ex-
traordinarily tenacious grasp la five-pound note
also or a five shillings for a marriage, seems
to be duly appreciated ; and very grave does the
man in holy orders look if a well-to-do bridegroom
does not cross his palm with something for luck
beyond what he can legally claim. Something
over, to the tier of the knot, is expected for good
fellowship's sake, and on such a festive occasion.
We doubt not the Rev. T. J. BLOFIELD has often
thought with pleasure of some present for his
wife or daughters, if he have any, to be purchased
with the proceeds of a wedding windfall.
Now, the Rev. T. J. BLOFIELD is the owner of
some land at Floveton, St. John, which land he
lets to a Mr. JOHN BOURNE. On this land two
young men, JOHN SMITH and SAMUEL IVES, were
engaged in the hard but cheerful labour of har-
vest. They were mowing some oats. Now,
from time immemorial, if labourers would but
mow round a nest of winged game in summer,
they always expected to be indulged a little in re.
gard to the game that could run. They would
not perhaps chase a hare in the presence of the
squire or the gamekeeper if they knew it ; but if
the scythe disabled one, and " the poor thing was
put out of its misery," and lay under a labourer's
jacket till night, and was put into the
pot for his supper the next night, no rea-
sonable squire or farmer knew it, not even if he
had seen it. It was a harvest windfall ;
"a bit of luck for the poor fellow, who had not
meat too often," and so forth. But if a rabsit
came in the way, that was an acknowledged per-
quisite. A labourer would hardly think of an
apology for killing a rabbit in the barley he was
Mowing ; that was an acknowledged perquisite
of harvest ; perhaps he could not legally claim it,
but like the Rev. J. F. BLOFIFLD, by the extra
I marriage fee, he thought it m ould make a pleasant
treat for his wife and family, and custom gave it
him in the merry time of harvest.
But the Rev. J. F. BLOFIELD, however much
he may approve of wedding joys overflowing in
sovereigns for the priest, and silk and crinoline
for the females of his family, does not approve of
the toilsome but merry days of harvest providing
a chance hot meat supper for a labourer's family.
The smiling faces of little JOHN and SALLY count-
ing on a limb of rabbit next day—the pleasure of
" my missus" preparing the comfortable mess for
"my master" on his return from his next day's
tail ; and the comfortable anticipations of the
senior JOHN himself on his walk home, have no
charm for the man of wedding fees I Rabbits,
yes, even rabbits—the poor man's game by cus-
tom as old as the custom of bouncing wedding
fees—must no longer be even a harvest perquisite!
Labourers are first denied the right of killing them
on their own common allotment ; and then refused
the privilege of bagging one which the luck of
harvest, andof custom immemorial has given them.
Now, we submit that this is hard. The clerical
rabbit-owner does not wish to be dealt with ac-
cording to strict law himself when custom suits
him better than law ; ought he then to tie down

the poor labourer to the most rigid construction
cf the most execrable laws, still retained from
feudal barbarism in our present code ? Of the I
rev. gentleman referred to we know nothing.
We never heard his name before ; but we submit
to him that such rigidity in a clergyman is not
the way to win the hearts of his flock.
The case itself is soon told. Mr. BLOFIELD
set a man to watch the labourers (whom he had
told generally not to kill the rabbits) ; the man
saw two killed by the mowers. One it was shown
was wounded fatally, and accidentally, by the
scythe first ; the other was chased a little way.
But the men were not proved to have known of
the prohibition, which was of recent date ; and,
whether they knew or not, they were but follow-
ing the custom of harvest. They were not tres-
passing, but pursuing their lawful calling, aid it
was not shown in Court that they were men of
poaching habits. The 30th clause of the Act 1
and 2 Wm. IV., c. 32, under which they were
prosecuted, expressly mentions trespassing in pur-
suit of game ; but the Magistrates—game pre-
servers themselves, no doubt—decided, that
though not trespassing by being on the lands, they
became trespassers by going after rabbits ! A
nice point, indeed, of law—one of which the poor
men should certainly have had the benefit, as
they could not try it by appeal. Under these
circumstances the Magistrates fined the poor men
sixpence each, which with the costs made the total
penalty EIGHTEEN SHILLINGS each. Of course
no Norfolk farm labourer could pay such a sum
at once ; one week only is allowed them ; when,
if they cannot pay 6d. each for their guilt, and
17s. 6d. for the benefit of the Magistrates' Clerk
and other officers of justice to prison they must
go!

THE GREAT GLOBE, LEICESTER SQUARE.

DIORAMA. OF DELHI.

In addition to the attractions offered to the public by
Mr. Wyld, the spirited proprietor of this favourite and
instinctive exhibition, he has now added a splendid dio-
rama of the City of Delhi, a private view of which we
were favoured with this afternoon. It is impossible
to speak too highly of the beauty and accuracy of the
painticg—every spot rendered so painfully interesting
to the public being very vividly pourtrayed. The
lateness of the hour compels us to postpone until to-
morrow a detailed description of Mr. Wyld's latest
production, which will attract thousands upon thou-
sands -to the Great Globe • in Leicester-square. The
exhibition will be thrown open to. the public to-morrow
(Saturday.)