The Sun.
London, England, 1868-09-07 00:00:00

NOTHING INIPOSSIBLE.

4 AMARELLA, restores the Human Hair
to its pristine hue, no matter at what ago.
iNO. GOSNELL and CO. have at length, with the aid
of one of the most eminent Chemists, succeeded in perfect-
ing this wonderful liquid. It is now offered to the public
in a more concentrated form, and at a lower price.
Sold in bottles, 3s. each ; also 55., 7s. ad., and 15s. each,
including brush.

Bed 1;411 Wharf, Angel-passage, 93, Upper Thames-
street, London. E.C.

Ep 4
a SUIT

LONDON, MONDAY, SEPT. 7, 1868.

On Saturday the busy thoroughfares of London
presented a most unusual appearance, and the most
careless foot passenger could not fail to be struck
with the singular vacancy of the roads. There was
unwonted ease in crossing from one side to the
other, even in those busy arteries of city life which
usually present a very alarming array of vehicles to
bewilder the unwary or the inexperienced. The
most timorous old lady from the country could cross
Ludgate-hill, and even pass the rubicon where half
a dozen great highways gather round the Bank
or St. Paul's without many hairbreadth
escapes ; and an uninitiated stranger, sud-
denly plunged into the vortex of London life,
would have supposed that the Saturday half holiday
extended itself into a whole one very faithfully and
generally observed. If the stranger had that

morning arrived from the country, however, he
would very soon have been enlightened. All this
• 1112 owing to the cabs. The unwonted absence of
cabs front the streets was the cause of the compara-
Lve quiet and ease of the traffic—the cause, too, of
unmeasured annoyance and inconvenience to some
thousands of persons who had nothing whatever to
do with the relations between railway directors
and cab-drivers. This is the absurdity and
injusice of the case. Most strikes are foolish

enough, and bear hardly on the innocent as well as
on the guilty, as when the families of the men on
strike have to suffer for a dispute over which
they have no control. But, at least, ordi-
nary strikes are aimed at the real offenders.
The hands of a factory, for instance, strike
work, knowing that the owner of the factory
will lose money and credit if his contracts be not
fulfilled; knowing, too, that so long as his works
aro idle his income is at a standstill. But
the cabmen's strike is directed against the
public generally, not against the railway
directors or companies at all. Exalted as is
the idea which a London cabman evidently feels of
his own importance in the social scale, it is almost
too much for him to believe that he can stop the
railway traffic of the day. Persons intending to
travel by certain railways will make their arrange-
ments previously, and very few, we may be sure,
will abandon their intention of travelling or change
their route from the north-east to the south-west
to fit in with the requirements of the cabmen !
The inconvenience is intolerable for the time, but its
very extremity will work its own cure. The railway
companies have fifty appliances which they can
turn to account, and the cabmen could not have
done them a better service than by putting them-
selves so clearly and manifestly in the wrong. The
railways, after all, supply but a small part of the
business daily done by the cabs of London, espe-
cially by the non-privileged vehicles, and whatever
the cabmen's ground of complaint against the bye-
laws of the companies that has nothing to do with
the public at large. Very certainly the directors of
our great railways do not listen to the public bid-
ding. If they did they would not raise our fares
to such exorbitant heights, and pay a little more
regard to the safety of our lives and limbs.
There are always besides two sides to a question,
and so far as the Great Western Railway is con-
cerned Sir DANIEL GOOCH has his answer ready.
In reply to the representations of a deputation
from the cabowners on Saturday, Sir 11..G00C11
said that the existing system had been found to
give satisfaction to their passengers, and it would
seem to the cab trade also from the number of
applications for privilege to work the station. The
public, according to Sir DANIEL Goocu, prefer the
privilege system, as it secures them cleaner and
better appointed cabs. The Chairman of the
Great Western had a stronger argument on his
side, when be referred to the cab strike itself, and
plainly said that he did not think that they would
have the same security for a proper and efficient
supply of cabs at their station under an open sys-
tem, and it was their duty to see that the valuable
property entrusted to them was not depreciated by
such contingencies as the present. If report speaks
truly, it is to the cab strike of 1853 that the cabmen
owe the existence of the privilege system. The
railway companies, who had nothing whatever to do
with the origin of that strike, suffered so much in.
convenience that they resolved henceforward to
employ cabs under their own influence. If they
were to grant the demands of the cabmen
now they would have no security that next
year some fresh cause of complaint about
the licenses, the rate of fares, the inspection, or
something else entirely remote from themselves,
would not take all the cabs off the ranks again, and
leave their newly-arrived passengers lamenting
after their luggage ! Cabmen, like railways, are
public servants, and though they are allowed a cer-
tain degree of independence they arc bound to
fulfil their contracts to the public. It is not to be
tolerated that we shall create and sanction mono-
polies which oppress ourselves, and unless we can
secure more regular and reliable service we shall have
to consider whether the continental system does not
possess advantages which our free and unrestrained
competition of private enterprise fails to secure us.
Sir DANIEL Gooch intimated to the malcontents
that the directors had in contemplation to form a
Railway Cab Company if the pressure put upon
them continued, but we must not forget that rail-
ways can play the tyrant too ; and in fact in this
whole matter of locomotion the passenger and the
fare have rather to obey the voice of an irrespons-
ible master than to look for willing and obedient
servants.

Among the many legal and administrative re-
forms still needed in India, we are glad to find that
one of a very important character has been fairly
introduced. The tenure of the land, which is in
more than one country boasting of a simpler and
more practical code than British India—the source
of endless complications and embarrassments—has
proved in Oude the occasion of grievous injustice.
Some idea of the hardships possible under the old
law may be gathered from a decision recently given
by the High Court of the North-Western pro-
vinces. This decision affirms that every tenant
with a right of occupancy makes himself
liable to an ejectment if he should dig
a well of the rudest kind without obtaining the
landowner's permission. As this is the case even
under the act passed nine years ago for the benefit of
the cultivator of the soil, we may guess how mat -
ters stood in the old days of unquestioned Talook-
dar supremacy. Sir JOIIN LAWRENCE, who is
alwa3 son the side of justice to the oppressed, has
bestirred himself vigorously in procuring a better
state of things. He found, indeed, upon careful
inquiry, that there was no such thing as tenant right
in Oude; but, nothing daunted, be proceeded to ob-
tain from the Talookdars the necessary concessions.
These they have made, feeling compensated for the
acknowledgment of the tenants claims which they
have made by the guarantee of their own rights in
the form of a deliberate legislative enactment. By
the Oude Rent Bill, now formally passed into law,
tenants will henceforward have the right to obtain
compensation for unexhausted improvements. At
first sight this concession does not seem to be very
wonderful, but it is remarkable as introducing a
new order of things, and striking a powerful blow
at the old feudal system under which oppres-
sion and injustice were only too possible.
It is important, too, in a moral as well
as in an economic sense. Anything which
tends to raise the native cultivator, to make
him feel that he to has his rights and his duties is
a great gain. Self-respect and confidence in the
justice of the national authorities arc valuable aids
to civilisation, and the new relations established
between the land owner and the land occupier in
Oude will tend, we need not doubt, to the ultimate
interest and benefit of both. One-third of the
tenants are declared to have occupancy rights, and
will be duly registered, while the other two-thirds
will be, as we have said, entitled on removal to
claim compensation for unexhansted improvements.
We congratulate our Anglo-Indian reformers on
having achieved so valuablo a success, and we hope
it will be the forerunner of many similar changes.

Sir LAWRENCE PALE and Lord COURTENAY at-
tended a meeting of the electors of the polling dis-
trict of Sidmouth. They appeared as candidates
for the division, and explained their views on the
subjects that chiefly engage public attention just
now. Sir LAWRENCE PALE assured them that the
part he had taken for fourteen years in Parliament
must be the guarantee of his good faith, and took a
retrospective glance at the political e►ents of the