The Sun.
London, England, 1855-06-22 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 1855.

At twenty minutes past one o'clock this morn-
ing, just before the rising of the House, the ques-
tion was put on Sir E. B. LYTTON'S amendment
relative to Administrative Reform. There had
been no pzevious discussion—a few members only
remained to witness the termination of the pro-
ceedings that had occupied the evenings of Friday
and Monday, and produced such intense excite-
ment not only in official circles, but throughout
the whole length and breadth of the land. The
enthusiasm inside the house had, however,
subsided for the time being. It was known that
Ministers had unconditionally accepted the amend-
ment, and that there would therefore be no division.
The whippers-in on either side had graciously
accorded "leave of absence," and the wearied
legislators had, with few exceptions, availed them-
selves of the permission, and hurried away in quest
of amusement or repose. The ominous question,
pregnant with the fate of so many Government
" ottvriers," was therefore put to " a beggarly
account of empty benches." It was anticipated
that it would have passed sub silentio. But not so.
One zealous red•tapist, like ACHATES, "faithful to
the last," still lingered near the tomb of buried job-
bery, and uttered a loud ani sonorous " no" at the
This ebullition of
question. deeply-excited feel-
ing, whether inspired by undue devotion at the
shrine of BA ccHus, or sorrow at the probable fate
of the younger children and daughters of the
oligarchy—attracted but little sympathy. A
hearty burst of laughter was all that the laconic
but heartfelt protest produced, and the amend-
ment, now put as a substantive motion, was
agreed to without a division. _ _ _

It is, as we have stated, impossible that any
body of men can be more firmly pledged
on any point than Ministers now are on the
great question of Administrative Reform. In
this instance " the good beginning "
has more
than half
accomplished the great desideratum so
rgently demanded. W 4 : faithfully promised,

at no distant period, "a careful revision of our
various official establishments with a view to sim-
plify and facilitate the transaction of public
business." There are no exceptions. None
can hug themselves in conscious security at
a supposed exemption from the common lot.
Every department and every grade, from
the highest to the lowest, falls within the
scope of the resolution —" judicious twits of
merit" will be introduced in every quarter, not
merely for the neophytes seeking admission
within the charmed circle, but for those who
have already penetrated to the innermost shrine
and becomo the very hierophants of the mysteries.
All " obstructions to the fair promotion and legi-
timate rewards" of merit must also be removed,
so that " the largest available proportion of the
energy and intelligence" of the country may be
secured for the public service. The widest field of
competition will be opened, and no man can ascend
a single rung in the ladder of promotion who has
not pre-eminently deserved the distinction.

Ministers have solemnly and deliberately
pledged themselves to accomplish this wonderful
reformation, and it will be for the sincere and
zealous Reformers out of doors not only to aid
and assist them in carrying out the arduous task,
hut to stimulate and encourage them should
there be any symptom of flagging, or any
relaxation of their efforts. As yet we have
only words—it is TOX et preterea nihi2; Deeds
must speedily be added, all framed on a
sound and judicious principle, and calculated to
advance the final victory over corruption and
jobbery. For this purpose the most complete
information must still be sought after, and every
appointment, and still more, every promotion,
closely canvassed. Never were the labours of the
Association more needed. "The pressure from with-
out" cannot be relaxed for a single moment, lest an
impression should be produced that the public
have again become apathetic and indifferent on
the subject, or that the newly-born zeal has, in
any degree, cooled. It may, for a time at least,
be impossible to banish nepotism. The monster
may occasionally rear his hideous head in some
of the departments ; but the instances will
be comparatively rare, and there cannot again
be so flagrant a disregard of public opinion as
heretofore. The man appointed or promoted
must be able to bear some, at least, of the tests,
and not altogether "a bad bargain" to her
MAJESTY. A searching exposure and unsparing
denunciation, in every instance, will, however
gradually, lead to further ameliorations, until
detur digniora, will be the motto fairly inscribed
on every official appointment. This will, however,
be a work of time acd labour ; we cannot hope to
attain perfection per saltin. Every valuable
result requires toil, and that muse be be-
stowed by the patriots who have so nobly
stepped forward, and they must still receive the
unanimous and cordial support of the country.
Above all, every voter must purify himself. He
must firmly resolve not to apply to his represen-
tative for any favour as to the price of the vote
he has given. How can he expect the man whom
lie expects to solicit Government on his behalf
to abstain from doing so on his own account, or
that of his immediate relatives and friends—this
wholesome purification, with the indispensable
preliminary of a real and thorough cleansing of
the Augean stables, and the introduction of " the
right men into the right places."

The laudable endeavour recently made by
some of the most distinguished writers of the pre-
sent age to 'waken the Literary Fund from its
long torpor to something like activity, has, we
grieve to say, as yet proved altogether ineffectual.
The Executive of that Society has been in a man-
ner hibernating, to adopt the humorous figure of
speech indulged in by "Boz," in season and out
of season, uninterruptedly almost from the period
of its foundation. It is still snoozing comfortably
between the blankets. With 30,0001. in hard
cash, and the title-deeds of other property to the
value of 2001. per annum, stowed away in its
strong-box, and the key under its pillow ! With
its old charter, primed and loaded with all man-
ner of detonative clauses and protective conditions
lying at its elbow in lieu of a blunderbuss ! It
still slumbers on, undisturbed even by the
" cold pig" so very unceremoniously adminis-
tered to it the other morning. by Mr. CHARLES
DICKENS, as Chairman of the Special Com-
mittee. " Beyond all question," as he him-
self protested while administering the dose to this
incorrigible Sluggard among our Charities, " the
Literary Fund has overslept itself." Neverthe-
less, energetic though his attempt to rouse the
delinquent from its long somnolency undoubtedly
was, it turned out on Saturday to be wholly in-
fructuous of the good intended by its originator.
Yet, in the very hour of disappointment, while
we are still lamenting over the failure of this first
effort to dissipate the dreaming and dozing of the
Literary Fund Executive, the most disheartened
among us may gain new hope from the assured
vivacity with which Mr. DICKENS declared at the
close of his animated remarks on the 16th instant
in Willis's Rooms, that because of the very profound-
ness of the lamentable trance into which that
Literary Fund Executive appears to have lapsed
—" It ought now to be knocked up, and, please
GOD, we must get it out of bed some way or
another !" Well—we believe this. But not yet
awhile. A very different course must be adopted
from that which was recently followed by the
Special Committee—if its members, and their well-
wishers (among whom we would have ourselves
enumerated) seriously hope to witness the expected
tableau of the Sleeper Awakened.

The well-intended effort made by Mr. C.
DICKENS and his colleagues altogether ap-
pears to us to have been too great, too
hurried, too much at random, to have ren-
dered it possible for it to prove in the end
effectual. Too much was attempted—so that
after all, in the haste and flurry, the " cold pig "
got scattered. The Report aimed at the achieve-
ment of an impossibility ; in other words, it sug-
gested the accomplishment by one machine of
what could alone be effected by the aid of several.
We cannot but regret an error of judgment so
remarkable that, because of it, nothing was gained,
for the simple reason that everything was at-
tempted. The Special Committee, iu fact, pro-
posed, through their Report, that not only
should the re-organised institution assume to
itself more comprehensively than ever the
character of an eleemosynary establishment, by
disbursing largely to needy men of letters
henceforth both loans and annuities, but that it
should at the same time undertake to combine
within itself the appliances at once of a club-room
and of a library—developing its energies, in fact,
by experiment after experiment, until it might
ultimately expand into a Hall or College for the
service of Literary men and the honour of Litera-
ture. 'Lord JEFFREY'S description of the analogy
liscoverable between the diverse capacities of the
steam-engine and the trunk of an elephant was
nothing to this. Rendinr, an oak and pick-
ing uP a pin by the same means and almost
in the same breath, were nothing to the miracu-
lous adaptability of the wonderfully incongruous
puwers proposed, by the Report of the Special

Committee, to be combined within the all-embrac-
ing purpose of the suggested " Literary Institu-
tion of Great Britain." An association the ad-
ministrative body of which would have, on the
one hand, to grapple with the calamities of a mul-
titude of sorrow-stricken applicants, and on the
other, to minister to the thirst of a crowd of
insatiable tea-drinkers, while endeavouring to
appease with intellectual food the appetites of a
hungry swarm of famished book-worms and raven-
ous gobemouches. No wonder the amendment
proposed by Mr. MILNES was carried by the
meeting on Saturday instead of the original mo-
tion proposed by Mr. DICKENS, that the Report of
the Special Committee be adopted—the amendment
favoured with this notable preference acknow-
ledging with gratitude the labours of the Special
Committee, and recognising the value of some of
their suggestions as subjects for further delibera-
tion : but, at the same time, rejecting the
advice that any new charter should be ap-
plied for, on the score that the proposals con-
tained in the Report involved an entire
alteration of the nature and intentions of the
Literary Fund Society, and that its means are in-
adequate to the attainment of the very incongruous
purposes we have already enumerated. No
wonder, we say, that an amendment so exceed-
ingly rational was carried—rather than a motion
so generously intended, but so injudiciously com-
bining in one scheme the incompatible projects of
a Library, a Charity, a College, and a Club ! It
was the old wonderful feat all over again—that
of " vaulting Ambition overleaping itself"—the
most astonishing of all known summersaults !
The Special Committee had success already
within its grasp—had it been content with re-
stricting its earliest efforts in the way of reform
to matters which would have necessitated no new
charter ; had it endeavoured to improve the Lite-
rary Fund Society in its strictly eleemosynary cha-
racter ; had it refrained, as yet at least, from any
inopportune attempt to expand a simply charitable
establishment into a manifold, or rather multiform,
institution rivalling at one and the same time the
French Academy, and the Book Society in St.
James's-square, and the Pall-mall Atheneum,
although sustaining meanwhile upon a larger
scale than ever its original character as a bene-
volent association.

Again, we cannot but earnestly express our
regret that the Special Committee should have de-
feated its own object so completely by the adop-
tion of a Report too daring to admit of its aim
being regarded as within the limits of immediate
practicability. Nothing could well be more ad-
mirable, more humane, more generous, than the
proposal, through the Report, of loans, instead of
gifts, to the literary applicant for secret assist-
ance. As to Mr. MILNES' objection that such
loans could never be sued for in a County Court
by a society undertaking " to do good by stealth"
—that of course ! The objection we venture to re-
gard as altogether valueless, seeing that loans like
these would be numbered amongst the most sacred
of all debts, namely, " debts of honour." And as
Sir EDWARD LYTTON, with a noble reliance upon
the purity and elevation of the literary character,
observed, on Saturday, we might confidently ex-
pect that ninety-nine out of every hundred of
these advances would be faithfully reimbursed.
However, it were idle to talk just now of the ad-
vantage of substituting loans for gifts as among
the benefactions to be hereafter diffused by the
Literary Fund Society, seeing that, fur a time at
least, the hope of instant reform in that Society
has been dissipated by the humane but mistaken
temerity of the Special Committee. Nothing is
left for us at present, thanks to that unlucky
over-rashness, except to await the dawn of some
just possible future, when the over-slept Literary
Fund Executive may at last be knocked up in
earnest, and, as Mr. DICKENS has reminded us,
"please GOD, we must get it out of bed one way
or another "—either to commit an involuntary
suicide by jumping out of windows, as the Bishop
of OXFORD suggested, or to bestir itself rationally
by setting its house in order betimes.

THE COURT.--•Iler Majesty and his Royal Highness
Prince Albert, and the youthful members of the Royal
famiiy, intend, according to present arrangements, to
leave Bucki►:gham Palace on the 9th proximo for Os-
borne, and it is said the Queen will stay a month at that
marine residence. Her Majesty purposes-to visit Paris
soon after the removal of the Court to London in August,
but the precise day is not yet determined on.
Yesterday the Lord Mayor and the Lady Mayoress
gave a sumptuous banquet " to the bishops and univer-
sities." Inthe forenoon a sermon had been preached at
St. Paul's, by the Bishop of Herefcrd, on behalf of the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts.

Yesterday the Earl of Eglinton gave a grand ball at
the mansion in St. James's-square. The guests com-
menced arriving at half-past ten, and continued to pour
in until nearly one o'clock, by which time there were
upwards of 600 of the elite of the aristocracy and fashion
able world present. Her Serene Highness the Hen-
ditary Grand Duchess of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, attended
by the gentlemen in waiting ard Lady Caroline Cust,
arrived at a few minutes past eleven o'clock, and waa
shortly followed by their Royal Highnesses the Duchess
of Cambridge and the Princess Mary, attended by Ma-
jor Home Purves and Lady Suffield.
FORGERY AND FRAUD.—Yesterday George Wheatland,
master of the ship Britain's Pride, was charged at the
Thames Police Court with obtaining. various sums of
money by means of forged bills. He was remanded
until Wednesday next.

MURDEROUS ASSAULT ON THE POLICE BY THE CRIMEAN
NAvviEs.—Yesterday nine na,vviei and a women named
Ann Maria Pooley were placed before Mr. Norton, at
the Lambeth Police Court, charged as above. The
policemen were so seriously injured that the prisoners
were reman:ied in case fatal effects should ensue.

FOREIGN SHIPPING.--A return moved for by M 7.
Wilson, M.P., shows that the sums paid, in the years
1853 and 1851, for the difference of rates and charges
due to corpoillt:ons, companies, or individuals for
foreign vessels, which, under treaties of reciprocity or
otherwise, are admitted into the ports of the United
Kingdom at the same rates of charge as British vessels,
amounted respectively to 44,478/. and 52,791/.
ASSAY OFFICES.—It appears that the slims chargeable
upon the public revenue in 1854, in respect of the local
Assay-office in York, Exeter, Chester, and Newcastle,
being an allowance of 1/. per cent. on the duty received
on plate, amounted to about 601., and the sums received
on behalf of the public revenue for the duly on plate to
6,112/.

A coroner's i- quiry has been concluded at Penkride,
by the committal of a quack doctor, named Thomas
Morris, charged with the manslaughter of two unfortu-
nate men, viz.:—Thomas Henshawe, a licensed vie.
tualler, and Joseph Day, a sheep shearer, and gen'ral
farm-servant, both residents of Penkride, who sought
the impostor's advice, and partook of his deadly decoc-
tions.

THE
concludedNOTTl N G
aAtM
.CoOt
nM
gE
aC A L
onCWLuesd.—nesld'aßyi:
CRICKET.—THE ELEVEN OF ENGLAND V. TWENTY-
m
TlDWaOtCh"waTs
the course fielding that bas been seen for m
courseof thedaythere somewas oaf
n a
tyhe),fi,enersst.
bowling The catches in
ca andtches made by A. Clarke were extraordinary in-
stances of cleverness, and were duly rewarded by several
rounds of applause. The final score was as follows :
Nottingham 118 and 57. The Eleven 101 and 25.
:0 f
—` you
Unitedo ud o
A QUEER OATIL—The following oath was administered
th
to a little boy, ten years of age, in the lowa Legislature,
States,
of
r
to support chosen to do
this state, and to fold papers to the best of your ability,
so help you God."
ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM.—A numerous meeting was
thedocuments
upconstitution
held in Sheffield on Wednesday, the Mayor, Mr. W.
Fisher, jun., in the chair, upon the subject of Adminis-
trative Reform. The first resolution was moved by
Mr. Fisher, sen., and expressed an opinion that the
disasters to which the country had been subjected in the
conduct of the war were attributable to the irresponsible
management of the various departments of the State,
and that a thorough change was necessary. To this
resolution an amendment was proposed by Mr. Saunders,
adding an opinion that there was a necessity for an ex-
tension of the franchise. The original resolution, how-
ever, was carried. The second resolution was to the
effect that the remedy for maladministration was to be
sought in the introduction into the State of enlarged
experience and practical ability, and that the meet-
ing protested against the pretensions of any section of
the community to monopolise .the functions of adminis.
tration. After a long discussion the resolution was
unanimously agreed to. A petition to the House of
Commons embodying the spirit of the resolutions was
adopted. The meeting was adjourned till Monday, on
which day resolutions will be proposed upon the subject
of the Conferences at Vienna,

~~=~~ .
'i~cJ