The Sun.
London, England, 1868-08-14 00:00:00

TO TIIE EDITOR OF TRE TIMES.

Sir,—The letter from the Secretary of the London
Society of Compositors in your issue of to-day
evades the only question of interest to the public.
If the matter were simply a small dispute between
ourselves and the society we should not have in-
voked the powerful aid of the Times. Mr. Self has
not invaliJated a single statement in our letter of
the 10th, nor attempted to deny that he ordered
the society hands in our employ to give in notice
because we would not pay for some pages which
had been set up and paid for in some other office.
The public will now understand tbat a trade
society is capable of making such a demand, but
incapable of saying a word in defence of such a
proceeding.
Mr. Self says that all that the members of his
society have done, or intend to do, is to give us
notice because they cannot agree with us. lie
must know that this is utterly false. Mr. Self
cannot deny that he and his committee sat again on
Tuesday evening last, and had some of the non-
society men in our employment before them, and
offered them inducements to leave U 3.

The word " rattening," which has aroused the
ire of Mr. SAf, we take it means the doing anything
to put a stop to the work of an obnoxious employer ;
and the ordering away of workmen by a society,
and offering bribes to induce the rest to leave
is, to our thinkirg, doing what little they can
to bring our work to a stand, and is as much rat-
tening as cutting the driving bands of our machines.
The public will not have forgotten what came out
in the Sheffield inquiry, that at the very time
Broadhead and his miscreants were holding indig-
nation meetings at the atrocities, those atrocities
had been comaiittel by friends of their own selec-
tion, and paid for by themselves out of the funds of
the union. Whether the R.aquet-court Committee
have a " capacity" for such things we do net say ;
but, notwithstanding their secretary's testimony to
their merits, we must still adhere to our opinion—.
formed after some 16 years' experience—that they
aro very.small men with large ideas of their im-
portance and their power. If we shall have in-
ducel any other employer to estimate their influ-
ence and their supposed powers of mischief at their
true value, we shall have attained the object we had
in view in writing to the Times.

We should have thought the fact of work having
been diverted into the provinces and to the Conti-
nent was too notorious to be questioned. There is
scarcely a publisher in London who has not sent
work in one or both of the directions stated ; and if
Mr. Self be really ignorant of this, it is another
instance of how little he is familiar with what is
going on in the world outside of Raquet-court.

Your obedient servant;,
August 13. 0. and Co.

THE DROUGHT.

The drought of is will be long remembered
by tillers of the soil, more vividly, perhaps, be-
cause of their losses and their gains. Abun-
dant crops of wheat and hops will not alto-
gether compensate the farmers for loss of pasture,
turnips, and maugolds, and the gardeners will
scarcely find in a great store of potatoes (which
of all kitchen garden crops have alone with-
stood the drought without serious harm), a
satisfactory balance for the total or partial loss
of almost every other crop. Making full allow-
ance for the respective values of the subjects
cultivated, and the relative areas over which
loss or gain may be spread, we are inclined to be-
lieve the losses of the
_;gardeners will prove to be
more serious than (he loss to the farmers by the
drought ; but the farmers' loss will be more largely
felt, and mill tell with more lasting effect upon the
fortunes of the country.
Two important subjects claim attention now :
how to preserve what we have in the form of
vegetation, and how most rapidly to obtain recom-
pense for our losses. As to the first point, we
again advise that watering be performed as much
as possible in the after part of the day, and
that everything in the nature of a mulch be made
the most of. We have secured many good crops of
vegetables this season by this plan, and in several
instances the only stuff we could obtain for mulch-
ing consisted of green weeds ; and, strange to say,
weeds have grown this season, thistles and cheuo-
podiums especially.
It is highly probable that we shall shortly have
an abundance of rain. The spirited cultivator will
be ready for it when it comes ; the sluggard will
of course be too far behindhand in his work to ob-
tain the greatest possible benefit. Ia the garden this
is a good time for sowing turnips, endive, spinach,
cabbage, cauliflower, winter onions, lettuces, and
almost every kind of saladiug. A few rows of the
earliest sorts of kidney b !au a and peas may be risked
with a fair prospect of success. On the farm the great
anxiety is for winter and spring feed, and such useful
things as ~yi:lter beaus, rye, winter vetches, cabbage,
rape,stubble turnips,and Italian rye-grass should have
attention, as the circumstances of the farm, and
especially as the nature of the soil, may require.
Immense quantities of green food may be raised,
should rain occur quickly, provided active and pru-
dent measures are resorted to for making the most
of the few advantages now within reach.—Gar-
dener's Mugazine.

DEATH OF A BARRISTER FROM SUNSTRoKE.—The
death of Mr. W. M. Thouips'on, of Edinburgh, ono of the
eading advocaLs at the Scottish bar, is reported at the
early ago of 37. He had passed a session of unusual ac-
ivity, aud had gone to Lucerne for relaxation; wheia he
was suddenly carried off by sunstroke.