The Sun. — 1869-01-09 (London, England)

ISABELLA—scared at the tidings that her hour had come, and that Gen. PRIM, among others, was advancing at the head of a large body of insurgents. One after another these candidates have been, set aside as unsuited for the emergency, or at any rate as distasteful to the mass of the very people it was being proposed that they should bo  AMONG the social questions which have been discussed during the present off season co-operation has come up. It might have been thought that such a history as that which we describe in another column, the history of the realisation of what was sarcastically called " the weavers' dream," would have effectually settled the question as towhether co-operative societies can be made successful commercially. Yet this is by no means universally admitted. Mr. DIXON, one of the members for Birmingham, mentions that where one society has succeeded ten have failed. The cause of the failures which he assigns shews that there is no necessity for them. That cause is simply the want of proper management. Men have formed an association to supply themselves with certain articles, but having no knowledge as to the best means of purchasing these articles, have bungled, and the result is that the members of the association are worse off than they would have been if they had atill continued to pay the grocer the high prices he demanded. Yet the difficulty was susceptible of an easy remedy. It was necessary only to obtain the services of some competent man as a manager, and all would have gone well. It may be argued that in that case the co-operators might just as well have kept to the grocer, since he was nothing more than a competent manager, doing for them the very work which they wanted done. But this is not so. The grocer who ' has a large shop expects something more than the remuneration which would be given to a manager. Not only would he need a higher payment for his time, but he would expect a profit on his capital, and it is just this which, under the co-operative system, goes into the pockets of the purchaser instead of into that of the seller.  The Archbishop said,--" Two things, my brethren, never die—the loveliness of nature and the Church of God. Go by the road that winds along the shore of Thrasymene, and you trace alone in the pages of history the outlines of the mortal agony of the Roman legions, snared in that fatal pass, and dying in thousands in the deadly conflict. Go there now, -and where the battle raged you see nought save corn, and wines, and olives ; where the legions fought and fell the vinedresser prunes his stock and the peasant drives his oxen, and only the sunshine of heaven is reflected in the silver lake. Not a stain or rift remains on the earth to tell the tale of blood and strife and mortal anguish. The undying fructivity of the earth has swept away every trace of the past. So, of the combats the Church has waged ; no stain, no mark remains save piety towards her combatants and defenders. The cause for which St, Thomas fought, and the principle for which he shed his blood, are fresh and undying. He died for the liberty of the Church of God, for her prerogatives, and the heart of the Church retains a vivid remembrance of her faithful soldier. To-day, my brethren, we are met to honour his feast. Bccket's crown is desolate. There is no festival chant in Canterbury, and it is sad to think that in the place of his martyrdom no memory is made of it. But here afar, in Rome—Rome which he so loved, and for which he died--amid the glories of the Holy City, and under the guardianship of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, we are met to celebrate his memory. The theme is so wide and so varied a one that I disspair of treating it save in bare outline. Two lines of historians record the actions of men—the historian who writes in the spirit of the Church, and he' whose hired pen deals With human acts according  A correspondent sends to us a description or a scene at Euston Station, the metropolitan terminus of the London and North - Western Railway, which he says should make every lover of his country " blush from head to foot." A detachment of soldiers who had served in India, and were on their way to their headquarters in Manchester, were brought into the station to be forwarded by that train ; but the process of getting them safely seated and sent off was almost more than a match for the patience and energy of the officers in command. Nearly every second man was under the influence of drink ; and as every soldier in such a predicament was sunk in the sot, the exhibition was painful in the extreme. Caps were mis&rig, coats were torn, and every sign of military smartness and discipline was `conspicuous by its absence.' Some of the more boisterously inclined, when locked in the carriages, climbed out at the windows ; one man had to be bound hand and foot and thrust under a seat, and another man attempted suicide while in the train. Yet (our correspondent continues) these men had spent years in India ; many had undergone great hardships and perils ; and all were on their way to get more money, which would be wasted in similar excesses. " Surely," exclaims our informant, " these gallant but weak-minded fellows could have been kept, during their transit through London, from thus degrading themselves and the service•they represent; and surely the new Secretary of War has a splendid field of reform open to him in devising, if he can, some plan by which the British soldier c in be protected against his most seductive but bitterest enemy—intoxicating drink."