The Sun.
London, England, 1857-05-25 00:00:00

LITERA.TURE.

A Visit to Salt take. By William Chair/less.
Smith and Elder.
This book will be attractive to the curious, as it
gives the description of the Mormon settlements by
an eye-witness. The author, who appears to pos-
sess cour ige and enterprise rare among travellers,
being desirous of crossing the plains to Salt Lake,
started off with a waggon train, as a teamster, en-
joying the idea of his novel poSliou, and then-w and
miscellaneous company he aloud mix with. His
flan ative gives us an entertaining4/ascription of his
journey, but the chief interost for most lead-as will
he found in his description of the Mormans.
The wanner of his arrival quite disarmed tae sus
picions of a people who have been so much written
against that they would most probably regard any
casual traveller as a spy. They gave the author a
' good reception, and appear to have left a favour-
able impression on his mind. He asserts that,
previous to his visit, they were to him but mere
shadows, and that neither before nor since his
return has he read any books on the sub-
ject, being desirous of
sgiving a true and un-
prejudiced account of what he saw there. Many of
them appear to-have been sensible intelligent men
according to his description, though how such
should have become converts to Mormonism is
difficult to understand. One man became a mem-
ber for the sage reason that a clergyman in Eng-
land refused to bury a relative without a fee. He,
therefore, as many wiser have done before, thought
that a cause must be in the wrong because its
advocates did not please him, and tried numerous
sects of Dissenters in the hope of finding one con-
ducted without charges. He beard that the ser-
vices of the Mormons were performed gratis, so off
he set without further inquiry. It is amusing to
find that this discontented individual, while declar
ing Mormon doctrine to be right, said that Mor-
mon wages were all wrong. He was a miner and
• refused to work for low wages, so lingered on half
supported by charity and half by occasional indus-
try. In Utah wages are scarcely ever paid in money,
and the recipient has to,, pay a heavy discount be-
fore be can obtain what he requires, for his wages.
A mechanic on a Saturday afernoon receives, per-
haps, 15 dollars-in notes. Money has always been
scarce, and is becoming still more so. The des-
criptions of the domestic life of the Mormons,
though divested of many of the horrors before told of
them, are not very different from former narratives.
The writer, though not, of course, countenancing
their doctrines, seems to intimate that their morals
and customs have been represented as much worse
than they are, and that there is such a thing as do-
mestic happiness among them. If any can find
happiness in such circumstances, it is a sufficient
evidence of their degradation. •It is humili ting to
human nature to see this great body of people,
yearly increasing in number, believing the most
contemp ible doctrines, practising the mast frightful
principles with apparent moderation and content.
And this large set lement of people, calculated in
1855 to include nearly 15,000 inhabitants, is not
drawn from remote or savage nations, but from
Europeans and Americans, those who would nut be
supposed so readily to abandon the purity of their
faith, the morality of their lives, and the rationality
of their understandings. It is a lesson for the sett-
sufficiency of the enlightened nineteenth century.
The author, on quitting Utah, travelled to Cali-
Fornia, and gives us a sketch of the troubled scenes
in San Francisco.

Stories and Sketches.

By James Pain.

Smith

and Elder.

This is an entertaining volume with the cm-
tents of which many readers of serial literature
have already made acquaintance. The papers, with
two exceptions, have appeared in the pages of
" Household Words" and " Claamberes' Journal."
The stories are interesting and the sketches lively
and numerous. The readers of "Household Words"
will remember the entertaining papers, such as "Ego
et Balbus," which have formed part of its contents,
and will be pleased to meet many of them in this
volume. The writer, though not displaying any
great or ununsal amount of talent, proves himself
to be an intelligent and agreeable writer.

Mind your Stops.
French in a Fortnight.

Five Hundred French Phrases.

Courteney's Dictionary of Abbreviations.
Reading,, peaking, and Action.

How to Celt and Contrive Children's Clothes.

The Embroidery and Alphabet Sampler Book.
Groombridge and Suns, Paternoster-row.

The above works are a few among a series which
is really remarkable, and which is calculated to be
of more practical utility than many more ambitious
works. Many writer., animated by the laudable
desire of instructing the uneducated of the middling
clas- es, have published works on different branches
of information, but very frequently they are either
too elaborate for ready comprehension, too expen-
sivi for limited means, or, above all, from their
size and pretensions they terrify the indolent and
unstudious reader. These objections cannot be
raised against Mr. Groombridge's little books.
They are so simply written that few • would be
puzzled. They are offered at a price that most
persons could afford, and the most idle or ignorant
reader, for idleness and ignorance are very fre-
quently united, need not be dismayed at the time
or trouble demanded for their perusal. The num-
bers mentioned above in small square paper pam-
phlets for sixpence and fourpeuce each, serve to
give a good general acquaintance with Punctua-
tion, French, Conversation, and Elocution, whit()
the industrious mother, of limited means, will
derive the most valuable hints and assistance from
ihe little book on children's clothes. The dic-
tionary of Abbreviations, too, is likely to be a
useful companion, and the einbroid-ry sampler
book offers extraordinary attractions to busy little
fingers. The juven le workwoman, besides the
introduction to the old-fashioned marking letters.
will find pictures and patterns of all kinds and
sizes, with a list of names for embroidery. It is
quite a fairy gift for little people, and will serve
to employ many a pleasant hour. There are many
other numbers of varying prices, but few of them
out of the reach of persons of moderate means.
Mr. Groombridge tleserves to meet with success
and encouragement in his laudable atteolat to
extend a correct knowledge of these sill: ple branches
of education, which are in every day requisition,
yet seldom properly known.

TRANSPORTATION AND PRISON DISCIPLINE.—The
third and last meeting at the Mansion-h ,use, to di• Cuss
these subjects, will be held to-morrow, at one o'clock.
EMIGRATION TO AUSTRALIA.—LIVERPOOL, Saturday.
—The clipper ship Ti: an, Captain Sears, of the White
Star line of Australian packets, sailed this morning for
Melbourne, with 650 passengers, and about 2,000 tons
of cargo of valuable merchandise on boord. The B
Nevis, of the same line, will sail on the 27th inst. with
ab eve 300 emigrants and a full cargo.
THE AMERICAN MAILS —LIVERPOOL, Saturday.— The
British and North American Royal mail steamship
America, Capt. W. J. C. Lang, sailed from the Mersey
this forenoon for Boston and Halifax, with the usual
weekly mails for the United States and British North
American provinces, 113 passengers, and a full cargo of
merchandise on freight. Tee Africa Royal mail steamer,
of the same line, with advice 3 from New York to the
13th ult., will likely arrive to-morrow afternoon.
CHURCH RATES.—A vestry meeting was held at
Beetles, Suffolk, on Thurdday, for the purpose of con-
sidering the propriety of waking a church rate. It
appeared that a rate of 2-0. in the pound was required
to raise 901., but the mayor moved an amendment, that
as it was probable that a bill on the subject would be
introduced during the present session, the consideration
of a rate had better be postponed. The amendment was,
after some discussion, carried.
EXETER HALL.—Last night the first of a series of
Sunday evening sermons, under the sanction of the
Bishop of London, was preached by the Bishop of Car-
lisle, iu the large room of Exeter-hall, which was
densely crowded. On the front row of the platform
were the Earl of Shaftesbury, the Hon. A. Kinuaircl,
Robert Baxter, Esq., M.P., and a number of other
gentlemen. The special service commenced by the
reading of the Litany and the singing of hymns selected
for the occasion, copies of which were printed and cir-
culated by the direction of thelspecial service committee.
The Bishop of Carlisle took his text from Romans iv. 3,
" What saith the scriptures I" and addressed the au-
dience for nearly an hour. The service concluded with
a hymn and the usual benediction.
THE DARTMOOR PRISON.—A. convict at Dartmoor
prison, named Curies M'Carthy, has just been com-
mitted to the Devon county gaol, at Ex,ter, on the
charge of assaulting and wounding, with intent to mur-
der, a warder of the Dartmoor convict prison. It appears
that the prisoner had grossly misc ,nducted himself since
he had been lodged at Dartmoor prison, and had ma le
three attempts to escape. A. few days ago he made an
attempt to escape by running away from the separate
cells when let out to wash himself, and he also took a
leading part in an act of insubordination in which eight
o her convicts were concerned. The prisoner, it appears,
assaulted the warder in question in a barbarous manner,
and afterwards, with eight others, made his way out of
the working shed with the intention of effecting his
escape.
ST. JAMES'S PARK.—The water, such as it is, supplied
by the water c,.moanies to the parks has hitherto cost
Government 1,6001. a year ; but a discovery has beer,
made during the recent alterations, which, it is supposed,
will effect a saving of one-half this Sure. In that island,
surrounded by the ornamental waters of St. Janie,.'s
Park, which the " Merry Monarch" named Duck Island,
and of which he once appointed St. Evrernont Governor,
there was found to exist a powerful spring, yielding
pure water in sufficient abundance to supply the whole
lake, and perhaps to prove available for other purposes.
From a well of 10 feet wide, sunk to a depth of 25 feet,
5,000 pitons of water a minute are now obtained ; and
it le ..ntidpated that a ,t 4.11
able. The water evidently comes from toe Teateee,
being filtered on its passage through a bed of sand two-
thirds of a mile in thickness,-06serren

Tilg SECBETARYSIIIP.

The appointment of Secretary of State for Ire-
land does nut appear to be much in request among
aspirants after office. Betore a csndidate was found
o accept it, in the person of Mr. H. Herbert, it
had been succ ssiwely offered to, and decbm d by,
dr. C. Villiers, Sir B. Hall, and Mr. Fitzroy. True
it is that two inedern Our ii, devoted to the service
of their country, offered to throw themselves head-'
lotig into teis gulf. Lord Palmerst n, however,
though almost despairing of the possibility of filling
tee appointment in any feasible way, humanely
saved both from such self-immolation. Sir R. Peel
he disiauded from the rash eeterprise as having
t• to much of the Donnybrook-fair champion about
him; 'Mr. M,nekton Manes, as being too thoroughly
steeped in the milk of human kindoess.
Under any circumstances the acting Minister for
the Irish Home Department must, for many years,
to come, lay his account with being kept perma-
nently in hot water. That might be endured by a
strong minded and thick-skinned man, provided
there were any reasonable prospect of being able to
do any good in the office. Butsituated as the Irish
Secretary is, under existing arrangements, this is
entirely out of the question. The Irish Secretary
is simply and solely a buffer between the English
Home-office and the Castle in Dublin. He is placed
where he is to be squeezed and mutilated, in order
to avert dangerous collisions between these pon-
derous bodies. The authorities of the Home-office
in Downing-street and the authorities in the Castle
at Dublin never can, by any, chance agree on any
scheme of policy. When the one wishes to move on,
the other is sure to insist on standing still or turn-
ing back. Now the function of the Irish Secretary
is to serve both, as one clerk sometimes serves two
economical and briefless barristers who occupy the
same set of chambers. If the Irish Secretary is dis-
posed to do the work of the Castle, he is snubbed
and ordered to 'keep quiet by the Home-office ; if
he iseager to carry out some plan of the Home-
office, he is rapped over the knuckles by the Castle.
He is kept in perpetual inaction, and then scowled
upon and scolded for doing nothing. Meanwhile
the public out of doors imputes to him all the Irish
establishment's multifarious sins of omission. Ora-
tors denounce him, newspapers write hini down ;
Tenant-right-leaguers, Repealers, Young Ire-
landers, the Parti-Pretre, and the Spoonerites, all
bellow against him with a forty-faction power of
lungs. Poor Mr. Henry Herbert ! We beg to
tender him our sincere condolence on the martyr-
dom which awaits him.
How the matter is to be amended it is not so
easy to say. One thing, however, is certain—that
the evil will continue to exist unabated so long as
the farce of a Vice-regal Court iu the Cas le at Dub-
lin continues to be enacted. One Irish Exticutive in
Dublin and another in Downing-street are incompa-
tible. The one m ust keep thwarting the other; or the
one must, by cnisenting merely to register the edicts
of tie ether, write itself down a sham. There can be
only one administrative Government in any State.
The existence of an Irish Viceroy is a perma-
nent protest that the Union is still incomplete.
Ireland varies so much in its social and civil condi-
tion flora the sister island, that a separate Depart-
ment in the Home-office for the transaction of Irish
business will long continue to be necessary ; and
at the head of this department there must be a Se-
cretary of S-ate for Ireland, subordinated to the
principal Home Secretary of State for the whole
Empire. But the 'lrish Viceroy, with his mock
Court, is a mere hindrance of business and source
of corruption. This is now pretty generally ac-
knowledged throughout Ireland—except in Dublin ;
and there, as was felicitously remarked 'he other
day by a weekly contemporary, the Lord Lieu-
tenant question is not a Cabinet, but a Tabinet
question. Some of the Dublin shopkeepPrs may
gain by the perpetuation 'of the Vice-regal office,
but all the rest of Ireland lose. In these days of
Administrative Reform Lord Palmerston might
have done' good service by availing himself of the
vacancy in the Irish Secretaryship to inaugurate
the abolition of that solemn, costly, and corrupting
sham, the Irish Viceroyalty.—Daily News.

MR. JOHN BRIGHT AND PARLIAMEN-
TARY REFORM.

The following letter has been received by Mr.
Alexander Laing, Hawick, in acknowledgment of
certain resolutions of sympathy with Messrs.
Cobden, Bright, and Gibson, on the result of the
Huddersfield and Manchester elections, passed at a
meeting held in that town some weeks ago. A
letter on the subject from Mr. Cobden has already
been published :
"Geneva, May 17, 1857.
"Dear Sir,—lour kind note, enclosing a copy of
the resolution passed at a public meeting of the
inhabitants of Hawick, reached me only last even-
ing. I lose no time in writing to say that lam
very glad to find that in your town-the cause of re-
form, free trade and retrenchment has so many warm
friends, and that you have understood and ap-
proved the policy which Mr. Cobden, Mr. Gibson,
and myself have supported in the House of Com-
mons. In the question of free trade little progress
has been made for some years past ; as to retrench-
ment, the word has become almost obsolete, and
the military expenditure of the country is now
nearly double the amount which the Duke of Wel-
lington and Sir R. Peel thought necessary in 1835,
al, hough we have no more territory to defend, and
although a large army is no 'longer necessary to
main,am tranquillity in Ireland. As to reform,
while almost everybody professee to be in favour of
it in some shape, the preparation of the particular
bill to be brought forward next year is left in, the
hands of a Minister whose hostility to every pro-
position for reform since the year 1832 is notorious
and undeniable. Whether on these three points to
which your resolution refers the country is in a
sat,-factory position I must leave t e friends of free
trade, reform, and retrenchment to decide.
" With regard to the promised reform let me
warn 37-,,u to look not more to the question of fran-
chise than to the other arrangements of the mea-
sure. It would be ea,y to double the number of
electors and at the same time to increase the aris-
tecratic influencl in Parliament. To give votes
without giving representatives in some fair degree
in proportion to the votes is but to cheat the people;
and to give a large increase of votes without the
security of the ballot will subject increased num-
bers of our countrymen to the degrading influences
which weal h and power now exercise so unscrupu-
lously upon the existing elect ,ral body. A mode-
rate measure, and an honest one so far as it goes,'
is far more to be d sired than one of great preten-
sions with some fraudulent scheme for defeating
the wishes of the nation. A dishonest apportion-
ment of members may effectually destroy a repre-
sentation ; and any trick to obstruct the free action
of majorities, such as that proposed in Lord J.
Russeli's last bill, should be strenuously resisted,
as calculated to undermine the very basis of repre-
sentative institutions, and designed only to cheat
the-people of that increased power which the bill.
would profess to confer upon them.
" Whether I shall ever again in Parliament sup-
port the policy you approve is extremely uncertain,
but I shall always retain a grateful sense of the
kindness which I have received in past times, and
at the present time, from the intelligent community
on whose behalf you have written to me.—Believe
me to be very sincerely yours,
" JOHN BRIGHT.
" To Alex. Laing, Esq., Hawick."

111 R. G. T. F. SMITH'S WEATHER PRE-

DICTIONS FUR JUNE. 1857.

To the 3d or sth of June, temperature cool for
the season. From the 6th to the 15th will be the
highest temperature attained during the month,
hot weather generating electric action, aud, as a
consequence, partial storms in several localities ;
the testimonies for rain are but few ; the humidity
of June will chiefly occur in the interim of the Ist
to the 14th, From 15th to 18th, if not hot, a
genial temperature. Fine weather prevails from the
22d to the 30th. From the 19th to the 30th the
sun's rays are refulgent, but a visible difference in
the temperature to that noted from the 6th to the
15th.

The assurances I receive of the accuracy of the
May predictions—in addition to the preceding
months—are conducive to their mility ; but, as
before observed, electricity and locality will ever
militate againstperfect success ; if an endeavour to
approximate correctness be appreciable with that
view they are submitted to the test of public
opinion.
Cheltenham, May 20th.