The Sun.
London, England, 1861-09-19 00:00:00

Government cannot possibly facilitate such 'work.
At the sameltime it does acknowledge that to im-
prove the roads and means of conveyance is its duty
and that all which the finances of the country per-
mit in that way shall be done.
More to the point is the complaint of the Asso-
ciation, in regard to the want of courts of justice
and the burden of the Stamp Acts. The land in
the cotton districts is chiefly held by poor ryots.
They need advances of money to enable them to
grow the crop. For this purpose a contract is ne-
cessary, and the Government requires it to pay a
heavy stamp duty, which makes it practically dif-
ficult to issue the contracts at all in the manner re-
quired. Then, when the contract has been made,
there are no courts all over the country to enforce its
observation ; hence the flow of English capital
among the cotton growers, is doubly checked—the
contract is heavily taxed, and when made, is
inefficient. The reply of the Government on these
points by uo means meets the case. To encourage
cotton cultivation, they ought at once to have
abolished stamps on cotton-growing contracts for
some years at least; and they ought to pledge
themselves to find means to enforce the contracts
promptly, and not leave cotton planters, as they
have indigo planters, to be victims of the roguery
of the most cunning race of sharpers in the world.
The land tenure is also brought before the Go-
vernment
again; The reply promises fairly, but
is not all that might be desired. There is much
timid old Indianism about it. We hope Mr.
LAING, with his business-like view of matters,
will put all this right. With the waste lands
the Government ought not to have a moment's hesi-
tation. Though the quantity relatively to alllndia is
small, it is absolutely large; and all that Europeans
would purchase, reclaim, and improve, ought at
once to be offered to them, and to natives too, on
reasonable terms. Then, with regard to the vast
quantity of the land of which the Government is
the landlord, and of which the land-tax forms so
large a part of the revenue of the country, it is im-
possible that it can enjoy the benefit of European
capital unless the land can be purchased and
possessed in fee simple. If, as has been repeatedly
suggested, the purchase money were never less
than would extinguish an amount of debt of which
the interest was equal to the tax paid by the
land, the Indian Exchequer could be no loser. It
would lose at most only the prospective or rever-
sionary benefit of any improvements made on
the land. But those improvements belong in all
equity to the improver, and shortsighted must the
Government be which did not see in the increased
wealth of the country the means of increased re-
venue from other taxes. An annual land tax,
fluctuating with what the cultivator can make the
land produce, is the most perfect instrument for
keeping the land ill cultivated which can well be
conceived.

The Indian Government repeats what it has said
before, that the Indian cultivator, in regard to the
growth of the plant, though not in the subsequent
case of the produce, has nothing to learn from agri-
culturists anywhere. To this the association de-
mur. They think the difference between 600Ibs.
per acre in America and 1001bs. per acre in India
more than can be explained by mere difference of
climate ; and that what has already been received
from India itself, under an improved system of cul-
tivation, proves that a great deal might be accom-
plished in that respect; and they reasonably trace
the miserable state of Indian agriculture to the
defective tenure of land as the chief cause.

The lovers of the startling and horrible, those
who prefer a melodrama at the Victoria to the
fineot comedy of SIIAKSPEARE; who turn from
questions which affect the destiny of nations and
the annals of science and industry, to pore over the
ghastly details of a cold-blooded murder or the
dismal records of some terrible catastrophe, will

have little cause to complain of the year 1861.
Public attention has been divided between crime
and disaster. We have scarcely recovered the
shock of one appalling accident before another
nearly as terrible carries desolation to many a home.
Our attention is diverted from a crime of unusual
daring and singularity committed in close vicinity to
one of the busiest thoroughfares of the metropolis
to another, in some respects, equally remarkable
in the higher ranks of life. Within the last few
days two officers in her MAJESTY'S service have
paid with their lives for the enforcement of a
trivial regulation, and murders of every kind have
been remarkably frequent. Notice has been at-
tracted to the deficiencies of our fire-engine system
by a conflagration of fearful magnitude, costing
not only wealth and property, but valuable life,
and the unusual number of lesser fires has been
everywhere commented upon. Frequent explosions
and accidents of various descriptions have fillled up
the intervals between the greater catastrophes,
while the very elements have swelled the list,
and the latest news brings us intelligence of a
gale so severe as to peril the largest vessel in
existence. Truly it does not say much for the ad-
vance made in either wisdom or morals in this
our vaunted age of progress.
Among all the extraordinary events of the
current year none perhaps have more forcibly veri-
fied the timeworn adage that " Truth is stranger
than Fiction," than the remarkable case which has
lately appeared in our columns, mid beside which
the romances of cruel uncles and lost heirs are tame
and uneventful. The actors in this drama are
members of a class which is generally supposed to
be raised above the level of ordinary temptations.
The lady who has been the victim of so much
suffering and anxiety, bore a name well
and widely known. Miss BURDETT married,
when only sixteen, Mr. RICHARD GUINNESS
HILL, the defendant in the trial before us. We
are not told what were the gentleman's private re-
sources, but, as he belonged to a wealthy family, he
was probably not penniless. His wife, however,
possessed a large fortune and a considerable estate.
Having been happily married for several years
without family, she, unfortunately, made a will in
favour of her husband in case of her dying childless.
This intention was, however, defeated by the birth
of the hapless little heir, whose brief life has
seen such strange vicissitude. Whether by accident
or design, the circumstances of his birth favoured
the wicked projects of his heartless father. He
was born at a wretched little country inn at a
distance from all friends and relatives. By what
means the treacherous husband succeeded in per-
suading his too credulous wife to entrust the child
to other hands we are ignorant, and this is ono
of the most astonishing facts in the casefrP.Acting,
however,with ablind eonfiden ce,which shemusthave
afterwards bitterly regretted, she gave the child in
charge to a girl of 14, the daughter of the woman
who was nursing her. The poor little infant, at an
age when the tenderest care is generally lavished
on the children of wealthy parents, was despatched
by a train, which arrived in London at midnight,
when its inhuman father was waiting at
the staTion. The conduct of Mrs. HILL in
despatching her infant, under such suspicious
circumstances, was certainly reprehensible, but it
is difficult to speak with adequate severity of
the proceedings of her husband. The most har-