The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-14 00:00:00

friendly feelings towards this country are well known:
When speaking in the Senate on the subject of the
Alabama claims, he distinctly refused to regard England
as other than a friendly Power ; and at Sheffield the other,
day he gave the most generous expression to his sympathy
with our country. The simple fact that a statesman who,
makes such avowals has been sent by the President of the.
United States to take the place of Mr. Adams, with,
instructions from Mr. Seward, is full of significance.-

Hence—though it may be erroneous to profess any actual.
knowledge of Mr. Reverdy Johnson's instructions—his
antecedents and the circumstances of his appointment

are such, that we may confidently expect the best results
from his diplomatic efforts.
The lodger franchise seems likely to give some trouble
to the revising barristers. The difficulty, says the Stan-
dard, is, not with the lodger usual, but the lodger excep-
tional ; with those who are, as it were, on the fringe of
the new franchise, on the border land of distinct territories,
having something in common with each, and something

different from either. At Dublin a question arose with

respect to occupiers of a house wholly let out in tenements,

in none of which did the landlord reside, either by him-

self or by his agents, places to which ho had a right
to go as far as the outer door, but in which "he
would be a trespasser if he attempted to walk in with•
out leave." We may observe that this description can
scarcely be considered correct, as in that case any single

tenant in a house of twelve or twenty rooms could by
merely refusing leave to enter, prevent his landlord from
collecting rents from the other eleven or nineteen.
One would think that every such letting implied
a condition that the landlord might enter the hall
door and go up the main staircase at all reasonable

times, or certainly he would find his houses very
undesirable property. But this does not affect the prin-
ciple of the decision. Mr. Purcell, when announcing the
conclusion at which he and his colleagues had arrived,
said that if they had held otherwise all the occupiers of
tenements would be lodgers, and none would he entitled
to be rated. To us it seems that the question was practi-
cally settled by the ruling of the Court of Common
Pleas in " Stamper v. the Churchwardens of Sun-
derland," in which case the wording of a special
section of the last Reform Act was held to disentitle
the occupants of such tenements as had not previously
been separately rated from claiming to be put upon the
ratebook, so as to acquire the franchise by personal rating,
the clause being apparently intended to provide for that
very numerous class upon whom collectors would 'call in
vain for rates of a few pence, and who therefore com-
pelled Parliament against its will to retain something
more than a shadow of the otherwise abolished compound
householder.

Speaking of the terrible news from South America, the
Post observes that during the last twelve months the
western side of South America has been subjected to con-
vulsions of nature more or less violent. These seem to
have culminated in one of those terrible and disastrous
earthquakes in which whole towns and populations
instantaneously disappear, and the face of a country
is changed. There have been not wanting indica-
tions that some such great convulsion was at hand.
The unexpected outbreak in the Sandwich Islands,
the repeated shocks upon the neighbouring coast, the
furious disasters in the West Indies, and the fierce and
continued eruptions of Vesuvius, all pointed to a certain
accumulation of hidden force which was seeking, as it
were, at every possible vent to escape from its own pres-
sure, and more or less certain to do so with violence,
according to all previous experience, either upon the
European or American continents, or upon both. The
blow has come at last ; and we may be thankful,
indeed, if Southern Europe wholly escapes - for such
periods extend over great areas of space, and, as
we have seen, over a certain area of time. Let us
hope, however, that this accumulation of subterranean
force has for the present exhausted itself. Its efforts have
been very terrible in effect. Whole towns destroyed,
whole populations swallowed up, and the life, the wealth,
the labour of years lost in a moment ! Since the destruc-
tion of Lima in 1746, when nearly twenty thousand per-
sons perished, or the worse earthquake in Panama some
half century later, when upwards of forty thousand lives
were destroyed, there has been nothing so terrible and so
extensive in South America during this century.
So far as it may be possible to judge from the meagra
and hasty particulars which came in with the earliest
announcement, the Times says it must feel disposed to look
upon this convulsion as one of the greatest magnitude. The
word " earthquake " can hardly be mentioned without
recalling to the mind that one of the calamities
of the same description in modern times of which
we have the most minute and authentic accounts--
we mean the earthquake of Lisbon of 1755.
In that occurrence a multitude perished which
was variously computed at from 30,000 to 60,000
persons. The loss of life in Calabria in 1857 and the fol-
lowing year was also estimated at 22,000 to 40,000 ; while
12,000 were said to have been lost at Caracas in 1812, and
no less than 5,000 in the town of Quito in 1859. Unless,
therefore, we go back to the dark ages for the catastrophe
of Antioch, in the year 526—the most disastrous on
record, in which 250,000 persons are said to have perished
—or to some of the great convulsions in Java, of which we
have not sufficiently accurate information, we shall have
little hesitation in placing the earthquake of 1868 among
those which involved the greatest sacrifice of human
victims.

It is the opinion of the committee on Scientific Instruc.
tion, as embodied in their report, that technical and scien-
tific instruction is greatly wanted in all departments of
industry, this instruction to be combined with practical
experience and manipulative skill. With these latter quali-
fications British workmen are well supplied ; but " the
facilities for acquiring a knowledge of theoretical and
applied science are incomparably greater on the Continent
than in this country," such knowledge being based on au
advanced state of secondary education. The subject,
says the Herald, is one which cannot be safely neglected.
All the witnesses before the committee agree in believing
that "the economical necessity for general and scientific
education is not fully realised by the country." Most of
the evidence shews that so far as foreign countries are
gaining on us it is due to the preponderance of certain
educational advantages. Other causes doubtless con-
tribute to the result, more particularly the absence of
trades-union restrictions abroad ; but it is clear, according
to the best evidence obtainable, that the foundation of
industrial prosperity consists in the proper schooling and
training of the working-clasrpopulation. This, too,. may
strike a blow at trades unions, for the greater the intel-
lectual development among the working classes the stronger
will be the demand for that liberty which is essential to all
intellectual progress. Every day the proof is becoming
clearer that the intellectual and the industrial are not
so far apart as our forefathers seem to have thought they
were.

The railway companies are adopting a plan which for
some years past has been tried but with comparatively
indifferent success. They propose to carry out as far at
possible the consolidation of their debenture debt into
stock. The last crisis, says the Daily News, has shewn the
danger of having open floating liabilities, which at the
beginning of 1866 amounted to the enormous suns of about
ninety-eight millions sterling, falling due at certain inter.
vals, and, as it soon after proved, almost impracticable of
renewal in times of financial emergency. The loss and
inconvenience then experienced by some of the best rail.
ways in the kingdom showed the absolute necessity of
modifying the terms upon which this debt was contracted.
The advantage of substituting a fixed annuity for a flue.
tualing and uncertain charge, combined with getting rid
of the ..I,ligation to repay the principal at perhaps a most
inconvy,iient moment, was too obvious to be overlooked.
The pr.r 'dent bad long since been set by the analogoul
1-4-wee liou (A the Government in finding Exchelnet
Lam. - - - •