The Sun. — 1853-10-15 (London, England)

GIGANTIC LOCOMOTIVE.—The Emancipation Beige says : --" The first trial of a locomotive, constructed at Seraing, to work over the steep inclines of the railway from Vienna to Trieste, has just taken place on the inclined plane of Liege. This gigantic machine, which weighs not less than 60,000 kilos., and which has ten wheels, went up the incline just mentioned with the greatest facility, having a great number of waggons sttacheil to it. The trial was perfectly successful." Major-General Napier is very unwell, and unable to mtinue his inspection of the troops in Scotland tlits week,  We have received by express, in anticipation of the Overland Mail, files of papers from Bombay to the 12th of September, and Hong Kong to the 24th of August. The accounts from Burmah are most unsatisfactory—the famine, though abating, is still very severely felt ; the troops are sickly and disgusted, and the country everywhere out of sight of our posts is literally possessed by large bands of robbers, who, there is too much reason to believe, are instigated by the Government of Ava, with the object of laying waste our new territory, and compelling its inhabitants to emigrate into Burmah Proper. As nearly all the intelligence we receive from Burmah consists of letters from the military officers quartered there; some allowance must of course be made for the colouring which it naturally acquires from the circumstances in which the writers are placed. Troops occupying a newly-acquired territory within the tropics are always at first extremely unhealthy and uncomfortable ; such was the case when Scinde was first occupied by our troops, and the same thing is happening over again in Burmah. The most healthy sites for barracks have not yet been discovered, officers and men are badly housed and ill-fed, and the exposure and hardships they have undergone begin to tell when once the stimulus of active service is withdrawn. They are separated from their families, harassed, perhaps, by a guerilla warfare, and deprived of many comforts which, though they might be considered luxuries in England, are here almost the necessaries of life to a European. Yet, after making all possible allowances for the animus of our military correspondents in Burmah, it must be admitted that the state of the country is as unsatisfactory as well can- be. The Rangoon correspondent of the Hurkaru writes as follows : "The entire country actually swarms with hordes of dacoits, who stop at no atrocity or cruelty in carrying on their trade. Their hands are against every man, and they scruple little about accompanying their outrages with murder ; in fact, I think their taste lies that way. The country is now in amost deplorable state, and insurrections and troubles may be looked for in plenty for an incalculable time to come, fomented and aided, possibly, by Ava influence and support. An officer at Shew-a-tong writes to the same paper, that the officers are sickened with ennui, and the `hope deferred' of getting out of this terrible place ; and the men, poor fellows, take to drinking, in the hope of drowning their despondency, and sink into disease. It is a dreadful position altogether, and, so far from any prospect of improvement, matters are daily growing worse and worse ; the means of civilised life are decreasing or disappearing altogether, and there is nothing left for the province but to starve or turn dacoits. They are here actually dying of hunger at our doors, although the officers of the 80th have, with true British feeling, a daily meal cooked out of their scanty resources for about 200 Burmese." The two following extracts are from the Englishman's correspondence