The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-02 00:00:00

REMARKS,

Atmospherical pressure is generally uniform and high, an Increase
since yesterday having taken place at all stations except at Valencia.
In the N. the difference shewn in the last twenty-four hours is three-
tenths of an inch. but the change in southern districts has been of
less extent. Since last evening a slight fall has occurred at stations
in the S.W. Temperature has fallen in the S. and E. of our islands,
but has risen in the N. and W. Moderate westerly winds generally
prevailed yesterday. On our southern and western coasts the wind is
now very light and southerly, and calms are reported at places. In
the N. the wind continues westerly. The weather is cloudy in the
W., but it is fine on the other coasts. Fog and mist are reported in
places.

Lord Arthur P. Clinton, M.P. for Newark, has been
performing at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, for Frederic
Maccabe's farewell benefit. As all interests should have
a representative in the House of Commons, the gallant
Adullamite, if he be returned to the next Parliament,
can take theatrical matters under his special protection.
The present state of the law upon the performance of
stage plays and the powers of the Lord Chamberlain are
a Gordian knot which it will take an ingenious man to
untwist.

All Cardiff is en fete. In a few days the Lord of Cardiff
will come of age. The Scotch proprietor of this Welsh
town already has a history. His father, the second mar-
quis—grandson of the well-known Tory Minister whom
the subjects of George 111. so cordially detested—was a
far-seeing man. Being proprietor of all the land on which
the present town of Cardiff is built and all the adjacent
property, with its inexhaustible stores of mineral wealth,
he saw that these stores would never be of service to him
unless he rendered them more accessible. So he con-
structed docks and laid down railways, and the result is
that whereas in 1814 Cardiff was a poor town of 2,500 in-
habitants, it now contains 60,000 persons, and is the fourth
port in the United Kingdom. The late Marquis married
first Lady Maria North, who died twenty-three years
later without issue, and it was supposed that
his brother, Lord James Stuart, would inherit
his vast wealth. But the Marquis took it int(
his head to marry again, and his second wife,
the daughter of the first Marquis of Hastings, gave him a
son two and a-half years later. This son, the present
marquis, had rather tragical surroundings. his uncle, the
heir-expectant, died of disappointment ; and his father
died suddenly of apoplexy in the midst of the rejoicing
which celebrated the birth of the heir. Some years later
the child marquis became the subject of severe litigation,
in Chancery ; for his mother having died in 185 t
his relatives quarrelled as to who should bring us
the young Crcesus. Of late years he has been at Oxford,
where has given rise to much gossip through his aesthetic
coquettings with ecclesiastics and ecclesiologists of a very
advanced school. His secession to Rome has beet,
several times announced and denied. He has been fre-
quently seen at the Roman chapel in Oxford, and has, we'
believe, always given out that he has never joined the
Church of England. But whether he has actually left th(
Presbyterian faith, in which he has been brought up, for
the Roman, is still a mystery which will probably b(
very soon unfolded. The politics of the young peer art
just now as much a matter of speculation as hi:
religion. Hitherto the Bute influence has been used ii
favour of the Liberals, but it is now understood that it
will be thrown into the opposite scale, and Radical news-
papers, which saw without emotion the exercise of
" territorial tyranny " so long as it was used in Owl)
behalf, are denouncing it now that it is used against
them. As the 60,000 inhabitants of Cardiff are
all jtenants of the Marquis, they though,
like all the Welsh, strongly Liberal—probably elect
a Tory. It is said that the income sf the peer who is just
attaining his majority will be not less than £300,000.
Besides this he comes into possession of an amount that
has accumulated during his minority which must be
reckoned by millions. What this young nobleman will
do with his wealth becomes therefore a matter of almost
national importance. If it be true that we learn from
*other men more in the way of warning than example, there
re aye of, his .whooolenerbe will do well to stqcis.

THE TVAR IN BRAZIL.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug_ 7.
The Anglo-Brazilian Times contains the following
remarks on the fall of Humaita

After a siege of almost two years and a half
duration, and the expenditure of tens of thousands
of lives and hundreds of thousands of contos of reis,
the primary object of the Allied Powers engaged
in the Paraguayan war has been attained in the
abandonment of Humaita to them by its starving
garrison.

The importance of the event is great in a military
as well as in a political point of view. A secure
basis has been obtained by the Allies for their
further operations, and 40,000 men and 30 armed
vessels have been released to carry on the war,
„it
may be, through the length and brealth of Para-
guay. But can or will the Paraguayans resist to
such a stretch of desperation as to require the
operations of such a costly force for another term
of undefinable duration ?

We confess the difficulties which arise when the
attempt is made to estimate the extent of the re-
sources of the Paraguayans, or their temper for
enduring the terrible sacrifices of such a war. They
have hitherto shown the blindest devotion to their
ruler, the self-abnegation of fanatics, but will they
continue to manifest the same spirit of resignation
and obedience now that the lozs of their great
fortress has, admirably and long as it had been
defended, shown their weakness in power of num-
bers to contend with the nations he provoked by
his aggressions ? In ordinary cases the failure to
preserve such an important stronghold as Hu-
maita would be accepted as decisive, but fanatics
and fanaticism cannot be judged by ordinary rules,
and it may be that to forcibly subdue a resistance
which has called even Paraguayan women under
arms may yet consume more tens of thousands of
lives and more hundreds of thousands of contos in
many months of a dangerous internal warfare.

Let us consider what the Allies may have in such
a case to do.

With Ilumaita in their possession, Timbo and
the Chaco in general must be abandoned by the
Paraguayans, and, as far as is now known, no other
point upon the River Paraguay is fortified to such
an extent as to close the river to the passage of
armed vessels—above all ironclads—the only serious
obstacle being a battery just above the Teciquary.
But, in the rear of the river Teciquary, a river im-
portant as a defence and for its communication
with Villa Rica and the centre of Paraguay, works
have been found stretching from its mouth, and all
accounts agree that, beyond where the ironclads
could co-operate with the Allied army in attacking,
Lopez has ably availed himself of the leisure
afforded him by the long siege of Hu-
maita to raise new defences of a most
formidable character, and that even if these were
forced he has other strong positions to retire upon
in the direction of his arsenals and base at Villa
Rica. Of the difficulty of expelling the Paraguayans
from strongholds in their unknown wilds and
savannahs there have been three years' experience.
To follow them up and attack them in their inner
wilds, far away from fleet and base, must prove, it
cannot be denied, still more difficult, still more
wasteful of life, treasure, and time. But is it neces-
sary that the allies should undertake to carry on
such a disadvantageous and costly war to them-
selves ?

We have seen how many months Humaita, iso-
lated and weakly garrisoned, held at bay all the
forces of the allies. Now it has become theirs with
all its cannon, and its defences virtually uninjured.
With that possession of the rivers which the iron-
clads give, 4,000 men would render it impregnable.
If then the allies were to abandon further offensive
operations, were to confine themselves to the pos-
session of that important post to clearing Matto
Grosso of its invaders, to holding the rivers, and in-
viting the Paraguayans to come to terms of peace,
a single corps of the Allied army and half a dozen
ironclads and gunboats would suffice for all the
exigencies of such defensive tactics,which, throwing
all the difficulties of the initiative upon the Para-
guayans, would weary and exhaust them the more,
that they would be no longer spurred by the
thought that they were defending their own lares
from attack. With the quiet of reaction would
come reflection and longings for peace, which would
dlow the influence of reason to convince them that
in fighting against the aggression of the ruler the
Allies were animated by no feeling of hostility
to the people, and entertained no desig❑
against its independence and liberties. We
believe that his Excellency the Visconde
le Staborahy, previous at least to his accept-
ance of the chief executive power of the em-
pire, favoured views in regard to the war analogous
to those which we have just traced; and we appeal
to him, to him who must well know how impossible
it will be for the Brazilian nation to longer bear the
depleting expenditure of blood and treasure in the
Paraguayan war as heretofore it was waged to
carry out a policy which will avoid the ruin of the
nation and of those many important interests so in-
timately bound up with its prosperity. lle must be
also aware that the phase which the struggle has
been threatening of late to assume is such
that public opinion must force the Go-
vernments of Europe and North America
to interfere to prevent its wearing the characteristics
of a war of extermination, in which the Paraguayan
women will be involved, thereby outraging hu-
manity and disgracing the civilisation of the pre-
sent era.

The honour of the Brazilian nation has now been
vindicated by the fall of that fortress, which formed
the boast and reliance of the enemy, and which he
pronounced invincible. Let Brazil then rest con-
tent with a triumph which restores the lustre of her
honour, and let her avoid unpledging her reputation
in seeking further material triumphs. Let her
pause and rejoice in what she has achieved at so
great a cost, averting by a wise moderation the in-
crease of her internal difficulties and the creation
of outer complications, imminent, it is evident, in
view of the state of public opinion abroad upon the
arraying of Allied battalions against combatants of
the weaker sex.