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¦ wretched indigenous cotton-of Hindostan , as now . yielded "by badly cultivated fields , might in a short time be tnrown into commerce in formidable rivalry with ' the "best crops of America . It has been clearly showD , however , that reduced assessments are not in themselves sufficient to accelerate and extend the supply . They have rather tended , as in the Deccan , to encourage a slovenly system of agriculture , and to glut the market with low-priced grains . Rentals and taxation will fall lightly on . the natives when their lands
increase in value , when the fifty per cent , of available soil , now lying waste , is . "brought under the plough ; but it is worse than useless to attempt the development of a cottontrade with our Oriental ports until adequate machinery and convenient roads and canals have been constructed to improve the native system of agriculture , and to facilitate inland transit . Above all , superior qualities of cotton must be introduced . The indigenous cotton , lias a short , weak , and generally
impoverished staple . On this subject a wellinformed and suggestive writer remarks : *—• " The American cottons grown in India are larger yielders than tlie indigenous cottons , and give a greater proportion of wool to seed ; and hence it follows , that were even the prices of indigenous and exotic cottons equal , it -would be more profitable to gTO-w exotic than indigenous in India . That there is but a limited , demand for ordinary Indian cottons in the English markets , and that were one million bales imported ( of common Indian cotton ) it would have no sale at all , its staple being inferior . "
"We may add that when the British Government sold a quantity of Dharwar- New Orleans seed cotton and the best native Khandesh , both cleaned , prepared , and sawginned for the English market by Government servants , that although the native cotton sold in Bombay at fifteen or twenty per cent , higher than the Dharwar New Orleans seed , in consequence of the native cotton being extravagantly lauded by its advocates , its purchasers lost fifty per cent , on it when it got to Manchester , the Khandesh best native selling there for 3 i < L , the Dharwar New Orleans seed at 6 £ d . per lb .
Successive experiments have proved that New Orleans and exotic cottons can be raised by ryots , as ordinary crops . "What then remains to be done ? Apathy and indolence are charged upon tlie natives of India ; but indolence , and apathy seem to prevail elsewhere . Perhaps it will not be until they have only a month ' s supply of cotton in their warehouses that one manufacturers will remember the half-cultivated fields of a vast empire in the East , open to their enterprise , and capable of supplying their whole demand
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A UNITED SERVICE AMENITY . The Duke of Cambridge is a very popular Cominauder-in-Chief . He deserves his popularity . He has already done good work , and promises , to all appearance sincerely , to do more . But he waa very unpopular at the United Service Institution last "Wednesday . He had convened a meeting of officers to consider the most appropriate means of erecting a public memorial of Lord Harbin qe . There was a crowded meetingbut
, no Duke of Cambridge . The gallant gentlemen assembled were kept two hours in expectation , with nothing to do hut to look at Sir William Fenwioic Wilmams . Ultimately tlio crowd in the Club-room dispersed in a very orderly manner , as United Service crowds generally do ; but tho heroic bosoms beat with a little irritation causod by " the contemptuous forgetful ness" with which his Royal Highness had treated them . Surely it -was worth while to send a messenger with
the information that his Eoyal Highness would be unable to attend . But no : —for t wo hours the originator of the meeting was e xpected , and he never came .
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There is no learned man "but will confess h . e hath much profited "by reading controversies , his senses awakened , and his judgment sharpened . If , then , it be profitable for him to read , why should it not , at least , be tolerable for his adversary to write J-Muiok
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CONVICT-CONVERTS . ( To the Editor of the Leader . ) Sib , —A disgraceful immorality is constantly exhibited whenever a convict is hanged . I do not now refer to the drunkenness and theft amongst an idle crowd , but to something worse than this , because those "who are guilty are religious men , or , at any rate , pretend to be so . No sooner is it known with certainty that a man has murdered a couple of children or a wife , or ended his career as professional villain by beating in a man ' s skull with a life-preserver , than he becomes an object of special anxiety to the Church . All her artillery is brought to bear upon him . He is regularly besieged night
the biggest . The reason why we do not like to act an this way is that we have a theory upon eternal punishments , which divides the future world by an impassable partition into two great compartments , one of -which is filled with the lost and the other with the saved . Now , people very naturally revolt from the thought of burning a man for ever . It is all very well to condemn men to perdition by thousands and millions , as is done in the pulpit every Sunday . That is easy enough . We are condemning imaginary thousands and millions , and do not realize what we are doing . But when the Rev . A . has to stand face to face -with the maa B ., he naturally shudders more at sending that one poor flesh and blood felon to- hell than he does at sending thither all those infidels and atheists over whose
awful fate he grows so eloquent every Sabbath . What , then , is to be done ? The theory must be saved , and the human instinct saved , "too ; and so we can do nothing but declare both to the true . There is a hell , "but the convict is not going there . The mediation of Christ , Sec . &c . Now- if we are content to say that the Greafc Future is in darkness except so far as present analogies throw a dim light forward upon it ; if we say that the only thing we knoio is that crime ruins here , whatever it may do hereafter , we shall then feel that we are not launching the murderer into a sea of fire , but into the unknown world ; we shall be silently saying -that lie is too bad for us to mend , and so we commit him to his Maker . This would be sincerity and true religion just on the occasion when it is most wanted . Yours truly , W . H . W .
and day "by a storm of addresses , exhortations , Scripture readings , and prayers , and then , after a time , in nine cases out of ten we are told that the efforts of the worthy clergyman " had a most beneficial effect" upon the wretch ; that he was observed to be frequently perusing his Bible or sedulously repeating hymns . Occasionally , as was the case with a man just executed for cutting the throat of the woman with whom he had cohabited , the murderer will shake hands with and kiss his attendants , hoping to meet them in heaven . We will not stop to inquire why all this ' attention should be shown to such a reprobate when thousands more hopeful than he are perishing bodily and spiritually every day .
Perhaps , though , the care may not be genuine . Perhaps the poor felon is delivered over to the parson before execution much in the same way as his body is sometimes delivered over to the doctor afterwards , and for the same reason , because subjects on which to operate and refresh one ' s skill sire scarce . However , this we do not care to investigate . We merely ask , is it not a monstrous thing that it should be publicly preached in this manner , that by some ecclesiastical hocus-pocus or legerdemain all tlie laws of nature can bo controverted , that by some religious juggle a devil can be transformed into a saint , and in a 'hey , presto ! ' whisked out of hell into heaven ? The magic is complete . We see the prison-gates .
close on the fiend—and a darkened , miserable , sinsteeped , fiend he is , too—and then , in a trice , they open again , and , by a most Wizard-of-the-North-like transformation , we arc presented -with a humble , pardoned angel , with his seraph wings almost budding . We simple people are utterly at a loss . We know that it takes us months , and sometimes tedious years , to save ourselves from a single crime . We know full well what every step which we take heavenward costs , and that , poor fools , we are ready to weep with delight when , after long toil , we have climbed near to those " shining table-lands to whicli our God Himself is Sun and Moon . " What must be our astonishment , then , to see heaven taken at a
flying leap ; to discover that by some covenant a whole life of vice can be effaced by the momentary assent of the understanding to a few propositions . Comforting truth this , for a besotted crowd to know that a twisted , useless career can be unravelled and rewoven in an hour or two before death ! And the evil docs not end here . Hypocrisy and cant , like a Nebuchadnezzar image , are openly set up on the scaffold and paraded before the multitude . The people know it is all a sham , and when an honest man attempts to teach them afterwards sincerity and truth , he finds that the ground lias been cut away from under his feet by those who have publicly executed these noble qualities along with the nvxxdercr . People learn to laugh at virtue , telling you
that it is all cant , and that the clergyman talks about all that . Who can toll how much of the infidelity of the masses has been caused by the infidelity of religious men ? It would be fur better to dispense with the services of the clergyman and all these religious theatricals . Wo should then in effect be proclaiming the great doctrine that crime renders a man such a slave , that nothing we can do in a fortnight or month can have any influence on his character . We should not , then , rob the execution of half its horror by the softening thought that most likely repentance and the mediation of Christ have procured salvation . Neither would imposture be branded with the Church ' s approval , nor would the mob below have an additional opportunity for fortifying itself in the belie 1 ' that of all humbugs in the world religion is
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THE MOON'S ROTATION . ( To the Editor of the Leader . ") Sir , —Mr . William Kenward , for I will not stoop to imitate his discourtesy , would never have been troubled with any letter from me , had he in his first letter to Mr . Best been leas discourteous and more argumentative . His attempt to bring in question the " mental state" of Mr . Best , and say tha . t he , Mr . Best , would find the " straw to present always the same end to his nose , " was a very poor substitute fora series of geometrical proofs as an answer to those of Mr . Best . Is Mr . William Kenward still so obtuse as not to perceive the difference between true axial motion
where the centre of that motion is -within the revolving body , and that species of revolution so lucidly proved by him in his experiment of the bason , &c . Is he so wedded to the old dogma as to ignore all that has been said relevantly on the other aide of the question . In all scientific questions , ought not the establishing of truth to be paramount to that of a victory ? As to whether I am in a " quagmire" in asking the real question at issue , I appeal not to Mr . Kenward , but to tlie reading public . I perceive that he has glided into the same error as Lieut . Morrison , in confounding velocity with axial rotation .. In the name of common sense , what two things can be more dissimilar ? Is it not possible for a shot propelled by
gunpowder from the cannon's mouth to progress without revolving ? And is there anything very revolting to our understanding to suppose that the moon revolves round the earth without turning on an axis within herself , somewhat like a suspended ball swung round the hand , the swung ball having no true axial motion within itself . Yet , to an observer , at a right angle to the motion , the ball makes similar revolutions to tliose made by the " bason" in Mr . Kenwaxd ' s experiment . Some people seem so affected with the idea of the immense velocity of the earth through space , it being G 8 , 0 OD miles an hour , that they appear bewildered , and icady to imagine any tortuosity of movement .
No rational evidence has yet been advanced by the pro-uxial-rotatory theorists to account satisfactorily for th& moon at all times presenting the same face to the earth . Yours respectfully , John Taylor .
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Can India grow Cotton of a sufficiently good Quality to competo with tho Produce of the United Statea ? " ( Woodfall and Son . )
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C IH THIS » K » ABX 4 IKNT , A 3 AIA OPINIONS , HOWBVER EXTREME , ARE ALLOWED AN EXritESSrON , TUB EDITOR NECESSARILY HOLDS HIMSELF KESPONSIBLK FOX HONE . ]
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Febsttary 7 , 1857 . 1 THE LEADER . 13 $
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UiKTiis , DicA'ms , and Marriages , in Australia . — The number of births registered in the colony during tlie last ten years—viz ., from 1846 to 1855 inclusive—¦ was 40 3 59 O males , 39 , 432 females . Tho proportions of the respective sexes in each 10 , 000 "births were , in ten years , 5072 males , 4928 females . Tlve death . 9 registered during tho same period numbered 18 , 429 males , 12 , 368 females . The avorage mortality of males during 1851 to 185-5 was 1 to Gl ; that of females 1 to GG . The net gain to the population by the excess of births ov « r deaths was : — 1846-50 . 1851-55 . Total . Birtha 35 , 614 ... 41 , 408 ... 80 , 022 Deaths 11 , 883 ... 18 , 914 ... 30 , 797 Kxcoas of births ... 23 , 731 ... 25 , 494 ... 49 , 226 Tho number of marriages returned from 184 G to 1850 woro 7814 ; during tho next five years they numborod 12 , 185 , being an increase of 4371 , or 5 G percent . Tho numb « r of births , deaths , and marriages in tho colony last year averaged daily—births , 2 8 ; doalha , 11 ; marriage 3 , 8 . —Sydney Herald .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 7, 1857, page 133, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2179/page/13/
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