The Sun.
London, England, 1844-12-17 00:00:00

LYCEUM THEATRE.

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aPt Os ZIT, S le
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tso.
White,l tte o
Mr. r t
hef
Commander
shipbuilder.
of Cowes, published in The Sun, by which a clear and
comprehensive statement is exhibited of the circum-
stances under which the sailings took place, from the
26th of November to the return of the squadron to port,
throws more light upon the trial sailings of the experi-
mental squadron of brigs than any other document
hitherto placed before the public. The striking supe•
riority of the Daring over the other vessels of the
squadron in almost every point of sailing is thus clearly
manifest, she having gained, in the words of the letter,
after a trial of six hours and a quarter, on the 28th of
November, "on the Waterwitch, 1,500 yards ; on the
Espiegle, 4,800 yards ; on the Flying Fish, 7,500 yards;
and on the Pantaloon, five miles!" Thus the Surveyor's
vessels in both squadrons have been dead beat at all
points. We are glad this important discovery has been
made in time (although late) to remedy in some measure
the shameful evil which has so long existed, through the
blind confidence reposed in a man whose qualifications
for
the important and responsible office of Surveyor of
the Royal Navy of Great Britain have proved of so very
indifferent a character. It is with regret we contem-
plate the expense the country has been put to in
experiments upon naval construction to further the
crotchets of the present Surveyor of the Navy, and
the irremediable evil which will accrue to the service
if such experiments are proceeded with. By expe-
ments we mean the aumber of vessels which have been
laid down upon the plans of Sir William Symonds,
and which have been suffered to proceed, almost to
the exclusion of the construction of vessels from any
other models, before one tithe of those by that officer
already afloat have been tried or even commissioned.
We sincerely hope the report is true that an order has
been dispatched to each of the dockyards to suspend all
labour upon Sir William Symonds's vessels. The Fly-
ing Fish was to have distanced, by long odds, r.
" swimming " competitors—she has been fairly tried in
the scale, and found disgracefully wanting. Of the
Pantaloon the less said the better. The Queen, we
hear, is to be lengthened, a la Fox ; it were better, we
think, to make a guard-ship of her at one of the home
ports than go to the expense of endeavouring to make
her an efficient sailing ship. The fact of the Queen and
Albion being ordered out of commission now that the
experimental cruise has proved them so little deserving
the crack names with which they are honoured, fur-
nishes grounds for severe comment upon the shameful
waste of the public money, so wantonly lavished in the
construction of ships which, when tried, prove so un-
worthy the service for which they were destined. The
question now is—who is to be responsible to the coun-
try tor this reckless waste—the Admiralty or their em-
ploye ? All men who know anything of naval construc-
tion have held up their hands against the palpable wan-
tonness exhibited by the Board of Admiralty in burdening
the country to such an unprecedented extent as it has by
the patronage of the Symondian principle to the almost
utter exclusion of any other for so many years. What
will now be done with the ships built by the present
surveyor ? And are the demerits of that officer to pass
without any other notice of them than that taken by
an indignant public ?
The Mercury tender sailed on Thursday, with seamen-
gunners, draughted from the Excellent, for the Superb,
80, just commissioned at Devonport. On her return she
will be dispatched with provisions to the relief of the
windbound merchantmen in the Channel.
The Hastings, 72, was towed out of the basin, and the
Magicienne, 44, and Locust steam-sloop towed in, on
Thursday. The Magicienae is to be brought forward
for commission.
On Tuesday morning, about six o'clock, two old con-
victs, named respectively Benjamin Shaw and John Hol-
den, quarrelled at breakfast, and Shaw having taken
Holden by the collar, the latter, who had a small knife
in his hand with which he had just cat some bread,
thrust it out to keep Shaw off, when the blade entered
his (Shaw's) thigh, piercing the femeral artery, which
speedily produced death from loss of blood, notwith-
standing the best surgical assistance was promptly at
hand. An inquest was held by the Admiralty Coroner,
Mr. G. Greetham, on Wednesday, and continued on
Thursday, when, after a most searching investigation,
the jury. were of opinion there was no intention to wil-
fully murder, and returned a verdict of " Manslaughter"
against Holden, who, since the sad catastrophe, has
been in a most pitiable and lamentable state of mind,
the circumstance having made such an impression on
him that his life is despaired of.
The Savage, 10, Lieutenant-Commander Bowker, ar-
rived at Devonport on Thursday. She left Gibraltar on
the 25th ult.
In Harbour—The Victprieuse flag-hulk, the Victory,
the Excellent, the Siren, the Nautilus, the Sparrow, the
Diligence transport, and Dwarf, Fearless, and Echo
steam-vessels.
la Dock—The St. Vincent, the Prince Regent, the
Victoria and Albert, the Vengeance, and Athol, late
troop-ship, fitting for surveying service.
In the Basin—The Neptune, 120 ; Magicienne, 44 ;
and Locust, steam-sloop.
At Spithead—No man-of-war.
The Siren, 16, Commander Smith, which arrived on
Thursday from the East Indies, brought home the sea-
men who navigated the Anson, 74 (convict depot), to
Hobart Town, and invalids from the Cambrian, 36,
Commodore Clads, one of whom, named Paddy, got
leave to go ashore, after being transferred to the flag-
ship on Thursday, and having borrowed some money
from an acquaintance, got intoxicated and into bad com-
pany, and is supposed, while insensible, to have laid down
on the beach, where he was frozen to death, or drowned,
as his body was found on Friday morning, between high
and low water-mark, on the Gosport shore. The Siren
INTERESTING DISCOVERIES AT NINEVEII.—The was only eighty days in making the Scilly Islands from
news of the progress of M. Botta's excavations at Khor- Trincomalee. Captain RoWley went out in the Fanny
sabad, near Mosul, Palestine, are always interesting. yacht yesterday, and mustered the crew, who were exer-
There are at present 100 workmen engaged thereon, and cised at general quarters, and underwent the usual in-
besides the walls, which are covered with sculptures and spection; after which the vessel came into harbour to be
inscriptions many antiquities of a peculiar and at pre- paid off, instead of at Plymouth, as anticipated.
sent inexplicable nature are met with. For example, The Emerald tender sailed on Friday morning with
under the large bricks, of which the floor consists, are stone provisions to the relief of the windbound merchantmen
repositories, which are filled with small clay enamelled in the chops of the Channel.
figures of men and beasts, without anything on the surface The North Star, 26, Captain Sir E. Home, is ordered
indicating the existence of such repositories, or there
The Illustrious, 72, Captain Erskine, flag of from Sydney to Hong-Kong.
being anything within them to explain their contents.
Vice-
In another place they discovered great rows of earthen Admiral Sir Charles Adam, was at Bermuda on the 23d
vases of a remarkable size, placed on a brick floor, and of November. Sir Charles had orders sent out to him
to dispatch a man-of-war to Cay Sol, to remove any
filled with human bones, and similar to those which
to form a settle-
and others are
have been found at Babylon, Ah was, and other places
Spaniards who may have attempted
in South Persia. The palace seems to have been totally ment there, as it appears Spaniards
plundered before its destruction, for neither jewels, nor
again
instruments, nor even the small cylinders so numerous lndiesi.ntruding on our colonial possessions in the West
in the neighbourhood, are anywhere found; merely some
The Royalist, 10, Lieutenant-Commander
bronze images of beasts (for instance, a very fine lion), ordered from Port Essingtoa g g,_
o Hong-Kong.
G. Ogle, is
have been discovered, as also a part of the bronze wheel The Spartan, 26, Captain the Hon. C. Elliott, was at
of a war chariot. But the most incomprehensible cir-
Vera Cruz on the 2d ult.—all well.
cumstance is, that the alabaster slabs with which the The Hyacinth, Is, Commander Scott, was at Bermuda
walls are cased, and which are covered with inscriptions on the 25th of November.
The Inconstant, 36, Captain Freemantle, was at Port
Royal on the sth of November, expecting orders to sail
in and
arrow-headedsculptures,
characters,e a bear o n the b
andac back, ,
certainly likewise, inscriptions
not
in
the
Assyrian, but in the Babylonian language. As it is for the Mediterranean in a day or two.
7thThofe
NRoovseet,nlb6e,r.Captain Sturt, was at Tampico on the
naturally not to be presumed that the architects would
The Driver steam-sloop, Commander Hayes, arrived
down the wall, it must be presumed that the slabs have
htiaovnes
wherebeen noso onefoo leiosuhlda as
atroe havenseaevne
tghrem w tthh eosuet ipnus
iclni 'npg-
at Trincomalee, from Bombay, on the 16th of September,
served twice, first belonging to a Babylonian palace, and which she left on the 19th, for Singapore.
afterwards have been transported by the Assyrians and A court-martial is ordered to be held on Tuesday on
board the Victory, 110, Captain Moubray, to try Mr.
George Bell's, mate of the Excellent, for disobedience of
foundfre freshly yo
ngtrhaev graven.
back, A
wt h
i present
would,sent no
indeed
b e
of
the have
greatest
interest, no Babylonian sculptures having ever yet orders and neglect of duty, by leaving the deck during
been discovered. Somo of the lately-found bas-reliefs his watch.
are especially remarkable ; for instance, one repre- A report is current here that Vice-Admiral Sir Francis
seating the siege of a town situated on an island ;
Austen will shortly hoist his flag in the Hastings, 72, to
the sea is covered with ships, the fore part of which relieve Sir Charles Adam in the command on the West
form a horse's head, and which are occupied in bringing India and North American station. Rear-Admiral the
the trunks of trees for the purpose of erecting a dam. Right Hon. George, Earl of Cadogan, is named as the
The water is covered with all kinds of marine animals— successor to the Hon. Jocelyn Percy in the command of
fishes, crabs, and winged sea-horses. The richness of the Cape of Good Hope station, and is reported as
the details, and the mass of sculpture which the palace shortly to hoist his flag (blue at the wizen) on board the
contains, are amazing, and it is incomprehensible how Vindictive, 50, now ready for the pendant.
so magnificent a building should have been so strangely The Bittern, 16, Commander Edmond Peel, was in
buried in the earth. The French Ambassador at Con- Simon's Bay, Cape of Good Hope, on the 20th October.
stantinople has not yet obtained permission from the The Fox, 42, Capt. Sir H. Blackwood, left the Cape for
Porte to send to Paris those articles of antiquity which Ceylon on the 4th October.
will bear transport, which says little for their interest The Hermes steam sloop, Lieut.-Commander W. Carr,
there, at a time when the'4English are removing whole left Bermuda on the Ist ult. for Barbadoes.
cargoes of antiquities from Lesser Asia to London.— The Harlequin, 16, Commander the Hon. G. F. Hast-
Augsburg Gatette. ings, and the Pelican, 16, Commander Justice, are hourly
A GUIDE TO SINGLH LADIES.—I. Beware how you expected at Spithead from Liverpool, the former with
accept an invitation from an industrious widow or an 7&0,000 dollars, and the latter with 1,000,000 dollars on
indefatigable old maid "to spend the day," especially board.
if she should add, "Come early, love, and bring your The following were the positions of the ships of war
on the East India station on the Ist of September :—The
work." Be assured that very soon after 'you arrive, a
heap of linen-drapery will be piled on the table, and Agincourt, 72, Capt. Bruce, flag. of Rear-Admiral Sir
you will be asked " just to run up a seam or two," and
T
then to ' fit on the boddice, like a dear." When that is Capt.hom Thomas Cochrane,n;
thC e Minden, mmde
an
20,r C
Maser-Commander hef ;the Iris, 2
16):
done, she will apologise for not having anything to Wellington ;the Alligator troop ship, Master-Com-
amuse you. If you are obliged to accept such an invita-
mender J. N. King ; and the Sapphire troop ship, Mas-
tion, be sure to ask your mama if you may ask Charles to ter-Commander Fittock.
fetch you home at night—" about nine. Write to him At Chusan—The Castor, 36, Capt. Charles Graham ;
immediately, telling him not to be a minute later than and the Wolf, 18, Commander Vyner.
six. 11. Should a similar invitation come from a young At Amoy—The Plover surveying vessel, Capt. Collin-
lady who is in your confidence, by all means take
son, C. 8., and the Young Hcbe tender, Lieut. J. Bates.
every one of Charles's love-letters ; you will find them PROMOTIONS.
very pleasant reading after your friend has shown you Mates—B. Patey (1838) and C. Pechell (1840), both
all her lover's presents, and told you all his secrets, 111. of the Excellent ; W. A. Manton, of the Caledonia ; G.
When you are invited to a diner de pretention, be sure to Ommaney Willes, late of the Cornwallis ; W. J. A.
dine very heartily before you start. As, however, Heath, of the Pique ; and R. W. Courtenay, of the As-
merely looking on is dull work, take a huge bouquet. prey, to the rank of Lieutenant.
This should emit an odour strong enough to spoil the Retired Commanders of 1816—J. M'Dougall, F. J.
appetites of the men who sit next to you, so that Lenori, and R. Jones (a).
they may have the more time to flirt and talk. Be APPOINTMENTS.
perfectly ignorant of the name of every dish ; for to be Captains—A. L. Corry (1821), to the Superb ; James
suspected of the smallest cognisance of cookery is dis- Hope (1838), to the Firebrand.
gustingly vulgar. Should any old-fashioned man ask ommanders—H. Smith (b), to the Rattler ; R. W.
you to take wine, give him a glance of unconsciousness, Pelly, to the Rose, vice Sturt, promoted.
and turn to one of your neighbours to ask what is Masters—A. M. P. Mackay, to the Superb ;J. W.
meant ? That explained, you may take up an empty Armstrong, to be registrar of seamen.
glass, and set it down again, bowing at the same time Surgeon—G. Caldwell, to the Ceylon, for service at
to the t pergne. IV. When you are going out to a Malta, vice Henning.
grand quadrille party, yon will, of course, be obliged Mate—W. H. Phipps, to the St. Vincent.
to wear a very expensive and very extensive dress ; Midshipman—ll. Clavery, to the St. Vincent.
stipulate, therefore, for the whole of one side of the Lieutenants—W. A. Fellowes, to the Superb ;W. P.
coach, that the skirt may be spread over it and not Johnson, to the Eagle ; J. P. Palmes and E. H. Alston,
be tumbled. Never mind getting your poor and un- to the Hydra ;G. B. Williams, to the Waterwitch ;J. R.
attractive cousin squeezed up on the other seat between Thompson, R. W. IL Alcock, R. Patey, C. T. Dench,
your two fat uncles. If, when you arrive, Charles should C. D. O'Brien, A. Barrow, 11. Lloyd, C. Pechell, H. W.
bore you, tell him you have made up your mind not to Courtenay, R. H. Risk, W. A. Munton, all additional, to
dance that night; but the moment he has engaged an- the Caledonia, for foreign service.
other partner, waltz away with the handsomest man you Paymaster and Purser—W. H. Dutton, the Hecate.
can get. Be handed down to supper, if possible, by a Assistant-Surgeon—J. D. L Donnett, to Greenwich
title, if it is only a captain. The next morning, when Hospital.
Charles calls, ask him how he dares show his face, " after DEVONPORT, DEC. 14.—0 n Friday afternoon, as a
his cruel neglect of you last evening."—Punele boat was proceeding to the Daedalus, 20, Captain
FATAL ACCIDENT.—A waterman, called Miller, M'Quhae, in the Sound, it capsized in the surf on the
on Monday afternoon last, whilst plying in the harbour, bridge, and all who were in the boat (five persons) met
accidentally slipped one of his paddles overboard, and in a watery grave.
endeavouring to regain it, the weight of his body heeled The Adventure transport, Master-Commander W.
the boat on her side, and precipitated the poor fellow into Roskilly, arrived on Thursday, from Cork, with victual-
the water. The accident was observed by the seamen on ling stores.
board one of the ships in ordinary, but assistance was The Snipe cutter, Lieutenant-Commander Raymond,
unavailing, as the body never rose after its immersion. It sailed yesterday with provisions to the relief of the dis-
was picked up in a short time by the exertions of an tressed windbound vessels in the Channel ; also the
officer of her Majesty's ship Stag.—Deeonport Jade- 1 Netley tender on the same generous errand.
pendent. The Daedalus, 20, Captain P. M'Quhae, was paid the

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE.

Signor Camillo Sivori commenced a short engage-
ment of two nights only at this theatre last evening.
To praise Sivori now-a-days is a work of superero-
gation. He is confessedly the first violinist in the
world—perhaps the first the world has ever produced.
Save and except his instructor, Paganini, there has
never been a violinist who could for one moment
stand a comparison with him ; and, as we said some
two years since, we prefer Camillo Sivori to Paganini,
inasmuch as he possesses all Paganini's; wonderful
powers of execution, with a finer perception of the
beautiful. As a mere violinist he is Paganini's equal—
as a musical poet he is his superior. He last night
gave us the first part of his Concerto No. 2, and
Paganini's burlesque variations in the Carnaval de
Venise. The concerto deserved that name better
than the generality of pieces so called, for Sivori
played clearly and distinctly a duet, at times a trio,
and, if we are not greatly mistaken, even a quartetto,
on one violin. The concerto was given with exqui-
site taste and expression ; and then, in the Carnaval de
Venise, how he revelled in developing the buffo powers
of his instrument. The very fiddle itself seemed to
laugh and enjoy the fun. One would have declared
that it was a " thing of life." " Vixere fortes ante
Agamemnona"—there have been great actors before
Sivori, but never until his time has there appeared a
man who has made a musical instrument act ; and in
his hands the violin becomes a very Garrick.

THE DEPLORABLE STATE OF
THE CHURCH.

We are, perhaps, anticipating our Contemporary
of to-morrow, when we venture to make a suggestion
to the Rev. Hugh M'Neile. The Bishop of Exeter,
after long coquetting with it, has, at last, openly
avowed his Puseyism, and proceeded to enforce upon
the clergy of his diocese the adoption of certain out-
ward signs and symbols by which it may be known.
The consequence is, that he has lighted a flame which
will very soon be felt from one extremity of the
country to the other. Some of the clergy arc obey-
ing the fiat of this spiritual potentate, some are not.
Now, from what is known of the temper of this
haughty prelate, it is certain that he will employ
every engine of annoyance and persecution against
the recusants. It is time, therefore, for every true
friend of the Church and Protestantism to be making
a forward movement to support and encourage them.
We call upon Mr. M'Neile instantly to put himself
at the head of such a movement in this diocese. Let
a meeting be called, and a loud and strong protest be
made against the proceedings of the Bishop of Exeter.
Nay, let something more be done. Let a subscrip-
tion be entered into to defray the expenses of the
litigation to which he is sure to put all who shall
dare to refuse obedience to his commands. There is
not a day to be lost. The danger is becoming too
imminent to be any longer trifled with. A strong
demonstration of public opinion may yet overcome
the madness which is at work ; but, to be effectual,
it must be made at once. Mr. M'Neile, we have often
opposed you. We now call upon you to act and to
lead. You have the energy and talent requisite for
the crisis, and we cannot doubt that you have the will.
—Liverpool Albion of Monday.

THE FULFILMENT OF SINDIAN
PROPHECIES.

" Sinde can never pay." " Sinde will be a per-
petual drain on the Company's treasury." So said
those who were supposed to be best acquainted with
the country.
Sir C. Napier, after paying the whole expense of
the civil government of Sinde, including an efficient
police force of 2,000 well-armed men, the half being
cavalry, has, up to the 31st of July last, deposited in
the public treasury 500,000 rupees, or 50,0001. This,
too, with a reduction of taxes !
Moreover, an English officer may now ride alone in
perfect security from one end of the land to the other.
The Governor of Sinde is a most extraordinary man
—the business he gets through is almost incredible.
He not only has to read, but does read, the pro-
ceedings of all trials, civil and military. He causes
his military magistrates, who are pushed in all direc-
tions, to keep diaries, with abstracts of all letters
written and received by them. These are sent to the
Governor weekly, and he carefully reads them. The
labour is great, but he thus knows the exact state of
every part of the country. He has the duties which
are involved in the command of 17,000 men. When
we consider all this, and that he has to carry on a
correspondence with the Governments of Calcutta and
Bombay, we may form some idea of the extraordinary
mental exertions of the Governor of Sinde.

Further, when we recollect that Napier has had his
leg broken by a musket-ball—his side grazed by a
cannon-ball—bayonetted in the back—cut down on
the head—his face perforated with a ball which car-
ried away part of his jaw—the calf of his leg torn by
a rocket—that he, out of thirty-four of his people
struck with coup de soled, was the only survivor—
that he has had a paralytic stroke—and is sixty-three
years of age, and is actively governing the country
he has conquered, we are perfectly astonished at the
man.—Naral and Military Gazette.

usual advance wages on Thursday, and is appointed to
sail to-morrow (Sunday) for New Zealand.
The Mercury tender arrived yesterday with the super-
numeraries for the vessels fitting here from Portsmouth.
The Pandora, 6, was taken into No. I dock on Thurs-
day, to fit for surveying service ; and the Daring, 12,
into No. 5 yesterday, to fit for foreign service.
The Canopus, 80, ordered to be expedited for com-
mission, will not be ready for the pendant these three
months at least. The report of Captain Armar Lowry
Corry, of the Firebrand steam-frigate, being appointed
to the Canopus, is erroneous ; that efficient officer is ap-
pointed to the Superb, SO, and not Sir C. Sullivan, as
first reported.
In Harbour—The Caledonia, San Josef, Superb,
Cruiser, Eapiegle, Mutine, Osprey, Flying Fish, Water-
witch, Pantaloon, Sylph and Mercury tenders, Tartarus
and Confiance steam-vessels, the Adventure transport,
and Goodwill, Delon, and Hamoaze naval lighters.
In Dock—The Daring, Pandora, &c.
In Barnpool—The Firebrand.
In the Sound—The Daedalus and Savage.

THE UNION HALL CASE.
ASSAULT WITH INTENT TO COMMIT A
FELONY.

"At Union-hall, a ruffian, described as mate of a mer-
chantman, was brought up charged with an act of fiendish
brutality, under the following circumstances :—He called
with a messmate on a poor woman, the wife of an acquaint-
ance of his, then away at sea ; and after being hospitably
entertained, in consideration of his intimacy with her hus-
band, the fellow repaid the kindness of his hostess by the
rudest and most scandalous conduct towards her; and in the
struggle she offered to them, the poor woman's right arm was
broken. For this assault and injury, the sitting Magistrate
sentenced the mate (his confederate being on a voyage and
not forthcoming) to a fine of 51., or two months' imprison-
ment. We hare not the Act before us under which Mr. Cot-
tingham pronounced this remarkable sentence ; but we suppose,
as a matter of course, that it was the maximum penalty in-
flicted by the statute under the circumstances. Our complaint,
therefore, must be, not of Mr. Cottingham, who must ad
minister the law as he finds it, but of the legislation which
has left him such a law to administer. Five pounds for the
serious and alarming and disabling injury inflicted by two
brutal cowards on a defenceless woman l"—Extract from an
article in The Sun, Friday, 6th inst.

AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS.
(From the Times.)
The address of the Sussex labourer which we insert
in another column is one of those genuine utterances of
fact and feeling which are sure to make themselves heard
in the greatest din of human voices. It is far too touch-
ing not to move the kind, far too substantially true not
to inform the candid. True, the feeling may be mixed, or
rather that mixture of feeling which all mortal griev-
ances give rise to, is here very little disguised. Or,
again, the philosophy may not always be sound. The
Sussex labourer may not have a very exact and definite
view of our social system, or of political economy. He
takes things in the lump. The landlord, the farmer, and
the clergyman are, in his ken, the gentlemen who make
the laws. He does not appreciate what are called the
great prizes of industry, whether parks or parsonages.
He is for putting his spade into every bit of waste land
in the country, and in the very face of unlimited foreign
competition would trench up the whole island from
1 Land's-end to John o'Groat's House. He does not make
due allowance for the lax economy and irregular hospi-
talities of gentlemen's households. To such objections
his address is doubtless open. But its main purport is
undoubtedly true, and confirmed by the experience of
everybody who has the means and the heart to inqaire,
or even to notice what he sees.
The poor man admits, that in the present state of the
market, his labour is not worth more than five shillings
a week. More than this, therefore, he certainly will not
get, as farmers do not give for labour more than its
worth; or rather they do not give seven shillings for
work which they can get done for five. Here, then, is
a simple fact. A man, his wife, and three children, five
persons, are to be maintained on five shillings a week.
There is nothing to modify this fact, no indistinct out-
line, no elastic feature of the case ; excepting only the
pickings to be got out of the wages of the two
boys, who have each to find everything on half-
a-crown a week. Out of that half-crown of course
they pay for their lodging and washing, and an occa-
sional sight of the cottage fire. But you cannot make
a park in a flower-pot, or a coal-pit in a coal-scuttle; so,
after a working boy has been half-fed, and half-clothed,
there wont be much over out of half-a-crown
a-week. When, therefore, a shilling a-week has gone
for rent, and another shilling for about as much fuel as
is burnt in an ordinary drawing-room fire, at this sea-
son of the year, by luncheon time, there remain three
shillings, thirty-six pence, for five persons. This is a
penny a-day for each of them. It wont stretch a bit.
If the father, to sustain the severity of the weather, the
weakness of his constitution, and the long pull of a day's
work, takes twopence a-day :out of the store, the little
ones must pay by a further halving of their half plates
of potatoes. The mother is in the like evil case. Then
there is the clothing of the whole five, a doctor's bill
now and then, and twenty other inevitable expenses. All
this is to come out of the extra wages of harvest, we
suppose ;—harvest I which perhaps, after weeks of
exhausting toil, leaves just thirty shillings towards the
discharge of long arrears
But this simple fact does not depend on the Sussex
labourer's testimony. It is an inevitable fact, a law of
the labourer's present state. If the farmer cannot or
does not choose to give him more than five shillings a
week, he must be content with it, or go to the work-
house, where he still will not see his wife and children,
except occasionally in the presence of the governor or
his deputy. Wisely or not, the old system provided for
such a case. Besides its general effect in raising the
wages to a living standard, it provided specially for ex-
treme degrees of poverty. It helped a man in so dire a
strait as having to house, feed, and clothe five wretched
beings on a crown a week. Now, on the contrary, there
are tens of thousands in this strait, unhelped, uncared-
for, unseen, unknown. There they must remain. What-
ever the commercial or political rights of the question,
such is the shocking, undeniable, unalterable fact ; and
the nation which has brought things to this pass, and
made the fact, is answerable for it.
Often and often have we heard at the lips of the rustic
housewife the very counterpart, the very words of the
" English cotter's Saturday night," as related by the
Sussex labourer. Some half-dozen scales of weekly ex-
penditure are before us, ascertained by careful inquiry a
dozen years back, on the disastrous eve of the new law.
We thought them scarcely credible at the time, but they
contain not a few articles of comfort or customary neces-
sity, which have no place in this newer Sussex budget.
One by one, we suppose, they have dropped out of use,and
ceased to be necessary.
We shall be told that the Sussex labourer has the
same chance as thousands who are burdened above their
strength. Perhaps we shall be told of the Irish cottier
or the Hungarian peasant ; perhaps reminded that a
fellow with so ready a pen can get more than five shil-
lings a week in London or Manchester ; that many a
better man hawks about oranges, or waters a cab-stand,
or does night work, without disturbing the public
peace, and ruining his own prospects, by writing let-
ters to newspapers. But, whatever may be the his-
tory of this individual labourer, we know there are
tens of thousands in his very case, and hundreds of
thousands only a shade better off, to whom it is simply
absurd and indecent to propose those transmigrations.
It is all very easy to say. by rote that any man can go
anywhere ; but take particular cases—go to this man and
that man, consider his habits and capacities, and hear
what he has to say, and you will see at once that it is a
mere impossibility. The English agricultural labourer,
once in for it, is that, and nothing more. There is not a
more fixed. unchangeable being in the world. This is
his most remarkable characteristic—his virtual serfdom.
Excellent, beyond all comparison, in his line, he is nothing
out of it—a fish out of water, a plough in the Royal Ex-
change. He is narrow-minded, bigotted, ignorant, in all
beyond his daily round of labour. The Russian serf,
who may become, and often is, a tradesman, a profes-
sional man, an artist, or a poet, is far more versatile and
helpful. The English labourer has utterly staked himself
and all his prospects in the narrow field of agricul-
tural employment. We hear much talk of vested inte-
rests, and nowhere are they more respected than in this
land of privilege and prescription. We should think it
indecent to remove a Cabinet Minister without a pension,
to unsalary an old employe of the Foreign-office with a
recommendation to the counting-houses of Liverpool, to
tell a bishop of thirty years' standing to get his bread
again by hearing little boys construe Esychylus, or to
draught our generals into the rural police. Yet scarce
is the Queen on her throne more rivetted to that one
only place in the State, than a labourer to his fields and
his tools. There he is, and there he must remain. The
labour market is no more open to him than " the empty,
vast, and wandering air." Whatever the mercy or the
justice of the Legislature may design for him, let it not
mock his humble views and powers with the suggestion
of impracticable, almost unintelligible alternatives.
And can we wonder if there is something rude
and gloomy in the tone these hard necessities have
inspired ? Is it strange if there is even a touch of
that " stupid malignity " which this poor creature
scarce ventures to repudiate, and is content to ex-
cuse ? The labourer seldom speaks. His intellectual
nature, as also his sense of suffering, has scarcely orga-
nisation. His expression is scarcely articulate. lie is
as the brute earth with which is his daily conversation. I
It moves but once a thousand years, and then to shake
and bury cities. Once in a century we hear its ominous
murmurs. When the rural spokesman does comes forth
he cannot fail to be something portentous, at once
dwarfish and prodigious. His looks are wild and strange.
He summarily moves the cause of labour against the
whole superincumbent world besides, against every
human power and ordinance, political, religious, social,
and domestic. He feels the reality and heavings of a
soul which claims a place in the universe which man
refuses. He only stops short of rebellion against Heaven
but at its very portals, and of treason against mortal
sovereignty but at the very footstool. It is in his mind
all against all—an earnest, small, and feeble perhaps, but
still a veritable earnest of a conflict which shall one day,
once for ages, be waged between the great divisions and
powers of humanity, when this or that law, this or that
,articular grievance, this or that political faction, shall
Lave been lost in distant antiquity.

THE HAGUE, DEC. 13.—The accounts received to•
day of the state of the rivers, announce that they are
for the most part entirely frozen over, and passable
on foot. The navigation in all is interrupted.
A 13row Ur.—ln our obituary will be found the
death of Mr. G. Durant, of Tong Castle ; and here we
may mention a rather singular circumstance that took
place on the occasion. In the year 1820 Mr. Durant
took legal proceedings against the first wife, and in con-
sequence of the jury having decided in his favour, he
erected a monument on an eminence on his estate at
Tong Knowle, to commemorate the event. The monu-
ment was a conspicuous object from the road from
Shiffnal to Wolverhampton, and resembled a church
tower. Immediately on his death being known to his
family, two of his sons, accompanied by twenty-nine
labourers, went to the place, and commenced excavating
round it to the depth of six feet t • after which they made
a hole in it, and placed 501 b. of gunpowder in a cask,
and 201 b. in another package, under the monument, and
at three o'clock in the morning of the 30th a fuse was
fixed to it, and set fire to, and in a few minutes the
monument was laid flat on the ground without any acci-
dent. The eldest son and heir to the estate died some
years ago, and on his death-bed he requested the younger
branches of the family, that as soon as their father was
dead, they would cause the monument to be blown up,
that it might cease to exist with the founder, and that
the memory of the scandalous cause for which it was
erected and he might perish together. The ruins were
visited on Sunday last by large numbers of persons,
many of whom came from a great distance. The Tong
Castle estate goes into the hands of the executors of th
late Mr. Durant, jim., who reside in Ireland, and will
have the management of the property until the heir,
who is now sixteen, attains his majority.—Shrewsbury
Journal.
ON DIT.—It is stated that Sir George Cockburn
is likely to succeed Sir David Milne, as Pc rt
Ad airal.—
I Plymouth Journal.