The Sun.
London, England, 1855-10-29 00:00:00

R 3YAL OLYMPIC THEATER.

TIM EVENING,

Will be presented PLOT AND PASSION. Characters by Messrs.
F. Robson, Emery, G. Vining, Leslie, J. H. White, H. Cooper, and
Franks ; and Mrs. Stirling and Miss Bromley.
Followed by CATCHING A MERMAID.
To conclude with A BLIGHTED BEING.

ROYAL LYCEUM THEATRE.
Lessee, Mr. J. H. Anderson, 18, Norfolk-street, Strand.
Increased Attractions, and success In equal ratio
THIA, AND EVERY EVENING, at Eight o'clock,

Will Se presented, with entirely New and Magnificent Appoint-
'vents, MAGIC and 7kIYSTERY, in twelve acts, arranged In two
parts, by Professor Anderson.
After which, the startling illustrations of Spirit-Rapping. HALF-
ILNI-fIOUR Wllll THE NPIRITA, being the most surprising an,'
Interesting series of experiments ever given within the walls of any
theatre.
103,000 persons have visited the Lyceum already to see the Great
Wizard of the North.

Prices of admission:—Prlvate Boxes, 11. Ils. 6d. and 11. Is. ;
Orchestra Stalls, 43.: Dress Boxes, 3§. ; Upper Boxes, 2s. ; Pit,
Is.; Gallery, 6d. No Half-price. Box-oflice open from 11 to 5
daily.

°rand 3forninT Performance ou Saturday N•xt at Two o'Clock.
Doors open at Half-past One.

ROYAL STRAND THEATRE.
Under the direction of Mr; Payne.
THIS EVENING.
Will bo performed THE DAY AFTER IHE WEDDING:
Alter which, SAM PATCH.
Followed by NITOCRIS.
To conclude with SIMPSON AND CO.

ASTLEY'S ROYAL AMPHITHEATRE.
Lessee and Manager. Mr. Win. Cooke.
Coeval with its excitement is the prodigious success of the new
Spectacle. Desfening acclamations attend Mr. J. H. Cooke's mlra-
c aloes " Flight of the Bridges."
THIS EVENING.
The new Spectacle de Guerre, The FALL of SEBASTOPOL !
After which the improved SCENES in the CIRCLE, with Mr. J.
H. Cooke's astounding feat, the Saut du Pont, or Flight of the Bridges.
To conclude with an incentive to cachinnation, in a Humorous
FARCE.

Box-office open from Eleven till Four. Stage Manager. Mr. W.
. Equestrian Director, Mr. w. Cooke. jun.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

MI6 DA.Y—Morn 4 min.aft. 4—Evening 23 min. aft. 4
To-HORROW—Norn.4I min.aft. 4—Evening 4 min. aft. 5

THE WEATHER.—SUN OFFICE, Oct. 28.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.
51—highest since noon yesterday.
47—lowest this morning and during the night.
53—this day at noon.
BAROMETER, 29'78.
WIND, N.N.E.—Light, with dull, cold weather.
OCTOBER 29.
53—highest since noon yesterday.
48 --lowest this morning and daring the night
52 --this day at noon.

BAROMETER, 29'50—falling.
WTNP, N.N.E.—Light, with dull weather, and sligh
rain in the morning and afternoon.

reb , •

LONDON, MONDAY. OCTOBER 29, 1855.

Archbishop WHATELY may be regarded as the
founder of our system of Criminal Reformation.
He it was who first promulgated the benevolent
principle that'convicts ought to •be kept in dur-
ance until such time as they should have asserted
their right to be again set at large—earning anew
the forfeited title to be free, by continuous good
conduct and sustained industry while undergoing
the penalty of incarceration. It was Captain
MACONOCHIE, however, who acquired for him-
self the glory of having developed this seed-
truth, so to speak, into one of our grand, over-
shadowing institutions. It was under the aus-
pices of Captain MACONOCHIE that the theory of
the great Christian Philosopher was enabled to
ripen and expand into the scheme of the Practi-
cal Philanthropist. We are now actually gather-
ing the fruits of it in the Ticket-of-Leave System,
about which opinions are just at this period so
very numerous and contradictory.- Are those
fruits good or bad, sweet or bitter, poisonous
or beneficial ? This involves one of those great
social problems demanding, if possible, instant
solution. Gran the question be answered satisfac-
torily? Our authorities say, Yes. Popular pre-
judice declares to the contrary.. Who shall de-
cide ? What can be selected as -the ground
upon which to arrive at a deliberate and
dispassionate conclusion upon a matter of
this vital importance to the general com-
munity ? There are • the statistics fur-
nished by the Annual Report, made by the
Directors of our Convict Prisons, relating the re-
sults of the last year in regard to prison discipline
and prison management ! If we are to accept
these statistics as definitive upon the subject under
consideration, we must perforce acknowledge our-
selves convinced of the wonderfully good effects of
the new system, inaugurated by the 16 and 17
Vier., cap. 99. However, on the other hand,
there are very different particulars requiring to
be borne in mind no less sedulously, particulars
forcibly thrusting themselves upon the notice of
the
population from day to day, almost, it might
be said, at times, from hour to hour—through
the records of our courts of law, from the highes I
to the lowest, from the " flimsy" of the penny-a-
ners in our police-courts to the notes of the
ort„hand writers reporting either succinctly or
in elaborate paraphrase through the columns of a
daily newspaper. Judging from these unsystem-
atic ed facts, statistics untabulated, and even, be
t said, as yet unaccumulated into one impressive
aggregate—we should be compelled to question
the accuracy of the esti •
mate formed by the
organisers (and therefore, of course, the apologists)
of the new system ; in other words,
the already.
mentioned Directors of our great Can vict
E stahlishments. According to the latter it would
appear that little more than one per cent. of the
convicts discharged conditionally upon the Ticket-
of-Leave System, disappoint the hopes cherished
by the more sanguine of their tg guides, philoso-
phers, and friends," the gaol chaplains, at the
Period of emancipation. According to the un-
believing "profane," the mere spectators of all
thatbas been •of
going on late, not merely within
the precincts of Dartmoor, Brixton, the Hulks,
111illbank, Portsmouth, Portland, Parkhurst, and
PPentonvai_
but in the back slums of• our great
cities, in the
• Thieves'- rookeries of our metropolis s, in
lane and Q.
lu-?.lley, in the Torn-all-Atonesof
moral liOndon and
Westminster, in the foulest 'dens,
moral a
and ers of the ca •
pital and the
provinces—according to the
fists, and the readers or ;
at
t;
Judgment of .Tourn. al-
journ the-new Ercher,lB
set on foot for the reclamation of
titude, has not, by any means c°ll*lt mul-
proved thus ai

,triumphant. The impression abroad for some
time past undoubtedly is, that the Ticket-of-Leave
System—noble and admirable beyond all doubt
as a theory—as a practice is little better than a
very frightful experiment. That is the popular
belief, or, call it if you like, prejudice. Is
it a reasonable conclusion, viewing the
matter at once by the light of the annual
Report of the Directors of our Convict Prisons,
and by that furnished to the public at large by the
Fourth Estate, of which we ourselves are among
the diurnal representatives. Colonel JEBB, speak-
ing for the Directors over whom he has long pre-
sided with such consummate ability as permanent
Chairman, has recently supplemented to the last
of his blue books, that for " 1854," being a sub-
stantial volume of some 400 pages octavo, an ex-
planation as to the working of the Ticket-of-Leave
System, presenting his matured estimate to his
' fellow-countrymen through the medium of an ex
tended communication addressed to the most emi-
nent of our contemporaries. Opposed to the un-
deniable statements put forth thus authoritatively
by Colonel JEBB, and to . the force of which we
how with all respectful submission, with all that
unstinted credulity and implicit reliance which
are the due of a public servant as distinguished
as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of our
Convict Establishments—there still remain the
no less undeniable "facts" of crimes again and
again perpetrated by Ticket-of-Leave ruffians
let loose upon society cut-throats and
cut-purses, burglars and footpads scoun-
drels doubly-dyed with the guilt of hypo-
crisy and dissimulation, and who have only
assumed the mask of religion for .a while in order
that they might again be at freedom to outrage
the laws of GOD and Man indiscriminately.
Upwards of three thousand Ticket-of-Leave men
have been already enlarged, it now appears, since
first the scheme of penal servitude was applied to
convicts retained in the United Kingdom. A
little over two thousand others still remain "on
hand" to be dealt with in like manner during the
next year or two, until Such-time as the original
" stock" shall have been entirely exhausted. A
pleasant prospect enough, it must be allowed, for
those who have already been dismayed by the
manifold offences perpetrated by the amiable pre-
decessors of those two thousand gaol-birds yet to
flutter out again upon the world—their wings a
little clipped, it may be, by the surveillance of
the police, but their talons still capable of almost
•Iny amount of lawless plundering and brutish de-
struction. Unsophisticated specimens of what
may have been meant by Mr. TENNYSON in his
hideous glimpse of—
" Nature, red in tooth and claw with rapine."

It is a grand but terrible experiment, that is
the truth of it, this novel and daring scheme
of reforming criminals byaffurding them premature
opportunities of returning to their evil ways !
Let us put the matter in a homely fashion to the
apologists of the Ticket-of-Leave System, just as
it appears to ourselves, viewing the whole of that
system dispassionately. Suppose some wonderful
contrivance, some wonder-wokleing piece of mecha-
nism were constructed for the curing of—
" Blindness and lunacy, lameness and leprosy !"
after the fashion of the famous machine repre-
sented by the father of Peter Simple—the ma-
chine for modifying, by pressure upon certain
bumps, the arrangement of any one's phrenologi-
cal development. Suppose this miraculous, me-
chanical, or chemical mire for curtain of " the ills
that flesh is heir to" were set in motion in some
great public place of resort—sap' in Trafalgar-
square. Suppose the blind, and the mad, and the
lame, and the leprous, to the number of three
thousand and odd, were one after another sub-
jected to its mysterious and magical manipu-
lation. Suppose the cures, the positive cures,
affected were to the number of 80 or 90 per cent.
—the calculation actually put forward by the
apologists of the Ticket-of-Leave System, as to tht
average of those permanently reformed under its
operations. Suppose, however, that beyond all
this—while every hundredth unfortunate expe-
rimented upon had his miseries aggravated fright
fully by the effects of the working of the machine—
suppose we say that in addition to this aggravation
of evil every now and then to individuals brougb t
under the influence of the Wonder-Worker, it,
the Wonder-Worker, were every now and then tA,
be liable to terrific explosions. Suppose these ex-
plosions scattered destruction to life, limb, and
property among her MAJESTY'S innocent lieges
going about their ordinary avocations in the neigh-
bourhood—killed a man crossing Parliament-
street, knocked an eye out of the head of another
sauntering along the Strand, set fire to a house in`'
St. Martin's-lane, and so on through any number
of sections in the great chapter of accidents.
Suppose all this—and you have supposed what
may seem very extravagant no doubt, but what is
at the same time strictly and literally analogous
to the terrible and extraordinary experiments
now taking place publicly in the very midst
...
of these densely-populated Winds with a view
to the cure of the intellectually blind and
Mad, the morally halt and leprous. Experi-
ments which are proving every- day disastrous to
numerous unoffending passers-by in the general
multitude.

The theory of the Ticket-of-Leave System we
regard as eminently entitled to our admiration.
The principle in which it originated we revere as
one exquisitely beautiful in its benevolence. Its
purpose we regard as a purpose of sublime
benignity. The aspiration of which it is expres-
sive we cherish as we would even cherish those
diviner aspirations born from the celestial wisdom
and beneficence of Christianity. Yet the practical
experience of this system, theoretically so ennobling,
so humanising, so philanthropical, we are com-
pelled by the sheer force of reason to consider one
that has proved, in many respects, most signally
deplorable. Insomuch that we are fain to thank
HEAVEN for that announcement made the other
day by Colonel JEBB in his very masterly state-
ment, written almost as much in exculpation as in
this formidable wit,
th
atail
scheme enaalready
of cehxapllkaendatioount—o
h tot
un-
doubtedly generous and humane, but no less un-
doubtedly dangerous and destructive, experi-
ment.

•,;-

than one, a most was, in more ways
The admission of the Austrians into the
ill-
advised,Prin-
cipalities
if not a treacherous, step. Mark-lane
feels the effect of it, and our loaf
is probably a
penny, or at least half that, dearer for it. These
niggardly bullies, who hardly dared to come in
sight of the Russians' backs, who merely
ventured
to walk in when the latter had walked out, can
yet unprofitably consume the produce of the
country, paying for it, when they do pay, in
worthless Austrian paper. They lessen thus the
exportable produce of the country, while in a mi-
litary sense they only recompense the Allies with
mischief. The Provinces, notwithstanding the
War, have had, according to the ' most reliable
accounts, splendid crops. Part of these is eaten
by the Austrian locusts ; but, worse than that,
part, and the immensely larger part, is detained
by the position in which Austria places those ter-
ritoiies. She obtains liberty for a few of her own .
ersels to quit the Danube, the Vessels or the

cargoes being those in which her subjects, or the
beloved Greeks, are in some way interested ; but
the trade is not that on which shipowners, even
of neutral nations, can venture with confidence.
Hence the abundant supplies which might be ob-
tained thence for Western Europe are in danger
of being wasted on the spot. They are at least
not available to general commerce.

This arises from the command which Russia
still retains of the mouth of the Danube. The
three principal mouths of that river are the
Kilia, most northerly ; the Sulina, of which all
heard at the beginning of the War as the chief
one for navigation ; and the St. George's, more
southerly. By the Treaty of Bucharest in 1812
Russia filched all these, with Bessarabia, from Tur-
key, and fixed her boundary along a smaller
mouth still more southerly than St. George's.
Ever since then she has been employed in ob-
structing by mudbanks and quarantine, and now,
in addition, by gun-boats, the navigation of this
noble river. She has had the double object in
vie w of driving the trade of Odessa, and of ren-
dering the navigation impracticable to the armed
vessels of Turkey or her allies. She commands
some hundred and fifty miles of this all-important
section of the river. She holds, in fact, thegates
of its trade, and always disposed to close them ;
it suits her now to bolt them. If aware that
France is needing the corn of the adjacent
countries, and that French demands raise the
price of wheat here, she will be even more strict
than hitherto. From Reni, where the Pruth de-
bouches into the Danube, and up which former
river the Russian gun-boats are said to shelter, all
along to the sea she has strand batteries, it is
said, at suitable places. While Ismail, celebrated
at once for the bravery of the Turks and the
sa►agery of SIIWARROW, stands not very far from
the inland commencement of the Kilia mouth,
after it has left the Sulina mouth. Ismail is of
course the strength of the Bessarabian territory
on the Danube ; no other place could resist the
gun-boats of the Allies for many hours. It lies,
however, out of the present main course of the
river, and though its capture by land and water
would not probably be very difficult, the principal
mouth would be open as soon as some Lady
Nancy, or even gun-boats of six or seven feet
draught, had moved up as far as Reni and the
Pruth. When once the Wallachians saw the
Allies on the river their corn would be brought in
vast quantities to its shores. Security would
immediately create an active trade, and the
markets of London, Paris, and New York would
feel the result sensibly by the spring.
Like all other operations in the present War
its difficulty has been increased by our past mis-
management. If, instead of letting Austria take
bail of Turkey not to attack Russia on the Pruth,
we had even advanced a million of money to push
Oscan PACHA. with his victorious army forward to
that river, we should not only have prevented Se-
bastopol from receiving its first and most important
reinforcements, but should have kept together the
noble and efficient army of Oxon PACHA, and
have either seen him master of the Bessarabian
side of the Danube, or have rendered it very
easy for us to make him so. All our policy, alas,
at that time was to spare Russian territory I Our
Ministry could never conceive the simple and prac-
tical idea of opening the mouth of the Danube by
restoring it, under guarantee if it pleased them,
to the power which had always kept it open while
it was hers, and wresting it for ever from the sel-
fish barbarian who began to close it the instant
he began to possess it. Nothing was thought of
but the genuine Whig scheme of a mixed commis-
sion, with, of course, some ELLIOT. or GREY, or
Rtrssra.L, or some protege of the clique as one of
the commissioners. We have no doubt that the
expenses of the said commissioners would soon
amount to the interest of the money requisite to
conquer all Bessarabia from the Danube to the
Dniester, perhaps to Odessa.
When the importance of liberating the Pro-
vinces from their Russianising and oppressive
occupants is considered in connection with the
importance of a thoroughly open trade with the
Danube, it is evidently high time to take a deci-
iive step. The Provinces are now fully able to
defend themselves by their own militia. Let
Austria be told then to attend to her own busi-
ness, to disband these troops, as she did those
which ought to have confronted and detained the
Russians in Poland, and to spare her bankrupt
Exchequer. She has given us no help in the
War at all ; her professed help has only, resulted
in enabling Russian regiments to quit Bessarabia
and Poland for the Crimea ; for the Provinces
she did not move a finger, but seized on them as
the fruits of OMan PACHA'S bravery and skill.
She has no title to remain there an hour longer,
and if told so, of course in suitable style diplo•
matic, by the Allies, out she must go. In our
view there is nothing in the present state of
things so ignominious to the Allies as the reten-
tion of the Provinces by their visibly treacherous
ally Austria. It is a policy also 'as suicidal as it
is ignominious. For our honour's sake and our
interest equally let the Allies see to it that the
provinces are left to their own government, and
that the Danube be cleared of Russian gun-boats
and batteries to its very mouth.

It is now seen by the country, and by univer-
iities and schools, that the first instalment of Ad-
ministrative Reform, at least so far as may be
tfforded by the instance of open competitive exa-
minations for the Indian writerships, have been
completely successful in their first stage---that is
to say, candidates of good general qualifications
have been secured on the one hand, whilst on the
other bad men have been kept out. Nepotism
and political jobs have been excluded ; the repre-
sentative body, the East India Directors, have
been relieved from the corrupting influence of the
canvassings of between one and two hundred fami-
lies and of their constituents, and left to devote

themselves to their true duties. But it is due to
India that care be taken that she should have
value for what she pays ; and she will not have

that value in merely general qualifications. Now,
then, comes the second stagc—that which upon
the general qualifications shall superinduce the
special administrative qualifications of which India
is the most in xeed. 'We. early pointed out what
appeared to be the obvious deficiencies of the
scheme wrought out as the course of instruction
for the second stage by our great. word painter,
MACAIILAY. As might have been exp ected,
he provided a scheme in which his own elegant
accomplishments were the most prominently pro-
vided for. The Indians might well say, and it is
our duty to say it for them, "For us those qua-
lifications are of little worth, in our stage of civi-
lisation ; oar necessities are more stern." They
might point to the Right Ron. Gentleman as an
example, and ask, "Of what use were they to
England in its War Secretarial, when he himself
held the aißee of Secretary of War ? Of what
use, by the mere fact of a person of such
brilliant,
qualifi-
cations holding the office to glom over a system of
ee except by
for the purpose, misplaced, p:
corrupt jobbery
and waste ?" Whilst he was
composing epics, and ancient - ballads filled with
fine sentimfints of Roman soldiers, our own sol-
diers were .massed together in
wretched barracks,
and vast sums were being paid.away_as pensions