The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-19 00:00:00

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE.

Commissioner Alvah Crocker, in his report on
the Hoosac Tunnel, strongly urges the necessity of
a railroad up the Deerfield valley, eight miles be-
yond the mouth of the tunnel, in order to open the
vast timber tract now inaccessible, except for a
short time in each year. A contract for lighting
the Hoosac tunnel has recently been awarded to L.
I. Fisk and Co., of Springfield.
The Wall-street Journal, alluding to the freight
rates of the Union Pacific Railroad, says :—" The
Government contract for carrying freight from the
terminus of the Union Pacific Railroad in Colorado,
South and West, has been let to a Leavenworth
firm of freighters at $1.83 per 100 lb. per 100 miles,
as fast as the railroad is completed. The same
freight is carried for 38 cents per 100 lb. per 100
miles. This contract is the largest given out by the
Government, and has been carried heretofore by
Wells, Fargo, and Co. It amounts to over
poomo per annum, as it includes all fuel and
stores for the military and Indian outposts
in the territory lying West of Omaha." About
the Central Pacific it adds :—" At the Cali-
fornia end of the Pacific Railroad, tunnels, mostly
through the solid rock, succeed each other at in-
tervals of a few miles. Taking the road from
Sacramento, the first tunnel is at a distance of 76
miles, through Grizzly Hill, among the lower un-
dulations of the Sierra. Like all the rest, it is 18
feet high and 16 feet wide. Its length is 500 feet.
The second is 300 feet long ; the third, 300; fourth,
100; fifth, 100; the sixth (the great Summit tunnel)
is 1,659 feet long; the seventh, 100 ; eighth, 375 ;
ninth, 216 ; tenth, 509 ; eleventh, 577 ; twelfth,
342 ; thirteenth, 870 ; fourth on the Truckee, 128 ;
and the fifteenth, 80."

FATAL BOAT ACCIDENT.—A tradesman named
James Peters, aged 52, and his two sons, of Portscatha,
Cornwall, were drowned on Saturday evening a few miles
from Falmouth to which port they were towing a large
balk of oak. It is believed that the boat fouled the tim-
ber, and that its sida or stern was then stove in. The
two sons were very good swimmers, and as the accident
must have happened a short distance from land, they
doubtless perished in their endeavours to save their
father.

DAVID GARRICK'S PARENTAGE.—This future
Roscius was not altogether an Englishman. His grand-
father, the founder of the familys a far as England was
concerned, was originally Do la Garrigue, a Huguenot of
Bordeaux, forced to fly from France in 168.5, to-escape
the storm then sweeping over the reformed church ;
Madame de lit Garrigue, or Garric, following some
months later, hid in the hold of a small fourteen ton
skiff, belonging to one Peter Cock, of Guernsey. In
that piteous plight she remained a month, tossed about
in heavy gales and fearful tempests, in peril of her
life by shipwreck on the one hand, or by ecclesiastical
zeal on the other, should she fall into the hands of
the authorities. It was not until a year and a half
after their own flight that they received their little son
Peter, the future lieutenant of dragoons, and our David's
father: the persecution of the moment extending even to
babes and sucklings, on the principle of crushing the eggs
of the cockatrice betimes. In fulness of time Peter made
a love-match; about as imprudent as love-matches gene-
rally are. He married Arabella, the daughter of a certain
Reverend Mr. Clough, a vicar-choral of Lichfield, and her-
self the daughter of an Irish mother; and thus in little
David's veins were mingled the three streams of French,
Irish, and English blood, affording good tracking-ground
to the ethnologist, and first-rate elements for dramatic
talent and steady success.—Dickens's " All the Year
Round."

There seems to be a probability that next year's exhibi-
tion of the Royal Agricultural Society will be held in
South Lancashire or its neighbourhood. The Manchester
and Liverpool society, with a view of obtaining an
acceptance of the invitation, have passed a literal resolu•
tion. It has been determined, in case of the Royal society
coming within this district, to abandon their show for 1869,
to give £5OO towards the expenses, and to assist in making
the royal show a success. The Royal society is left to
settle the place of meeting.

The arrangements for the Queen's visit to Aldershot have
been completed. Her Majesty will proceed from Windsor
to the camp, by road, to-morrow morning, will partake of
luncheon at the Pavilion, and will return to Windsor in
the evening. There will be no great staff in attendance,
but only some ladies and officers of the Household.
During the Royal visit the troops will be inspected by her
Majesty, but it is doubtful whether a review will be
bold.
Norman AT TUNIS. —A lady recently returned from
Tunis, writes:—"l want money to send to Tunis to our
Consul tieneral there to save some lives, for the famine is
very terrible, and the poor, patient Arabs are lying down in
the streets and dying of hunger. I have seen them, so I
know it is true and there is no exaggeration. They have
had two years of no rain, and, besides, a plague of locusts ;
they have lost every means of living, and I have seen
numbers of them daily too much exhausted and too near
death to be able to rise to buy bread with the money given
to them. I have seen babies in arms with faces like old
men's, so pinched and drawn with hunger, and the skin 611
shrivelled on their poor little bones. I saw the Irish famine,
but it was not nearly as bad as what I saw at Tunis. There
is famine also in Algeria, and we saw much misery there ;
but France is very rich, and France is doing a great deal
for her Arabs. At Tunis, the Bey is the Government,
the Bey is poor, and the whole country and all classes and
the ad
are
suffering cruelly."

The Social Science Association have again had the ques-
tion of compulsory education brought before them, this
time by the Rev. T. Fowler, who has read a paper on the
subject. The essayist, commenting on the opposition
offered by the English people to compulsion in any form,
said the feeling which prompted it was " an odd combi-
nation of patriotic pride, genuine love of liberty,
and perverted sentiment." The opponents of compulsory
education were, however, daily becoming fewer in number.
The rev. gentleman was in favour, first, of compelling every
district to provide schools sufficient for its need ; and
second, of obliging the parents to avail themselves of the
schools thus provided. It would be a great step if the
House would appoint a commission to inquire into the best
means of carrying out a plan of compulsory education.
He would proceed by degi-ees, until a system wer,
organised under which a boy on leaving school should be
compelled to obtain from her Majesty's Inspector, a certi-
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