The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-02 00:00:00

and easy spread of Free Trade in Franco is mainly
owing, cannot fail to strike every Frenchman who
beliceee that, the new order of things is the right
one. The Enaperer is immensely ahead of M.
Thiers in his views on trade and finance, and in
France personal comparisons have a groat influence.
All those who are making money at Paris and in
the provinces, who find it twice as easy to be twice
as rich as they were ten years ago, look upon the
Emperor 03 the conspicuous man of their way of
thinking, When they think about M. Thiers at
all, they naturally regard him as a conspicuous
man of the wrong way of thinking.
and they congratulate themselves that they
live under the Emperor, and not under M. Thiers.
The mercantile community, and all the most
intelligent men who belong to it, adhere,
with More or less of sincerity, to the Em-
pire, because they know that any change
would hit them hard, and also because they think
that the Emperor under stands what they want, and
how to give it them. This tends, no doubt, to make
their adhesion to the Empire temporary and tran-
sitory, for an Emperor who was not up to his work
might be distasteful to them. But if adtansion
,to
the Empire is taken to mean simply a wish ta' ,t
Louis Napoleon may go on reigning, the adhesion
of the mercantile classes is sincere and profound.
Of course the Emperor has his subordinates—men
who help him, make suggestions to him, and some-
times correct him. There are, for example, M.
Feuld and M. Michel Chevalier, who have done
more to keep the finances of France straight, and to
get free trade fairly started, than any two men of
private station. But then they are avowedly
servants of the Emperor, and occupy the position
towards him that the permanent secretaries of our
Government offices occupy to their Parliamentary
chiefs. They are not what M. von Schmerling is
to the Emperor of Austria, the originators and
maintainers of a line of policy which their master is
barely able to understand, and wholly incapable of
working out. They are useful servants, and the
Emperor carries out, or manages to make it sup-
posed that he carries out, his views through them.
The whole literature of modern France is pervaded
by the influence of the industrial spirit, as indeed is
the literature of all modern Europe. Sometimes
this takes a bad form, and we have those specimens
of vulgar materialism which have disgraced the era
of the Empire. But sometimes also it takes a good
form, and expresses the hopes with which ardent,
enthusiastic lovers of their country and of all that
is best in it regard the future of France. That the
Emperor personally should be at the head of the in-
dustry of France thus allies him with many men who
have no taste for Imperialism in itself, and acts as a
powerful counterpoise to the dislike with which the
restrictions placed on writing and speaking are re-
garded. Despotism does not appear before the eyes of
Frenchmen in its naked deformity when the despot for
the time being is the representative of what many
men, who command the respectful attention of the
public, regard as in every way excellent. Nor is
it possible that this feeling should not be
strengthened when they turn their thoughts to M.
Thiers, and find that, brilliant as he is en debate,
and sound as is his philosophy when he contrasts
liberty with a military tyranny, he is still a pro.
tectionist, and thus stands aloof from the wishes and
hopes of all that is most stirring and ambitious and
intelligent in Fiance. The very existence of such a
Government as that of the Emperor forces men to
consider politics under their personal aspects, and
the prominence of M. Thiers in the Opposition
-ether's this natural tendency; and when poli-
' evstems are compared, it seems obvious
styti:
jeaeribs ,
nos . 'ter as commercial prosperity goes, is
that France, so 1,.._ her present leader.
gaining ground under -
ON THE CIVIL SEE-
THE "LONDON REVIEW ' , ieety's Civil Ser-
TICE.—The ninth report of her Me'
vice Commission has this week b issued. We
been
shall not trouble our readers with an ,;Tray of
figures. It is more important to note certain ::tets
which the examinations have brought to light.
First we find that out of 813 candidates who com-
peted for 253 superior appointments, such as clerk-
ships, 291 were found to be below the minimum
standard of a pass examination. Nearly all wno
failed broke down in ,the elements of education.
This fact is more significant when we observe that
out of 2,334 candidates rejected since 1856, all but
183 failed in orthography, hand-writing, or arith-
metic. The vast mejority are of course the sous cf
gentlemen eged from seventeen and eighteen to
twenty-five. Surely this result is highly discredit-
able to those who have had the charge of their
education. There is nothing in any of these
°ranches which, to a boy the most ordinary
capacity, shohld be unattainable. One at
least is purely mechanical ; the others simple
enough. A boy with common application
should grow into them, and no doubt would, if
instructors did their duty. Yet here we have up-
wards of 2,000 young men out of 25,000 candidates,
who have been rejected for deficiencies which would
be disgraceful in a lad who bad been brought up by
the parish. If they are unfit for the public service
on these grounds, for what are they fit ? Another
point to be noticed is the carelessness with which
testimonials to character are given. Really, there
is hardly any class of document which deserves to
be regarded with more suspicion than testimonials
of this kind. The commissioners annex to their re.
port a list of oases in which pereons of disreputable
character obtained nominations on the strength of
their vouchers. AB, for instance, had, under an-
other name, suffered 18 months' imprisonment for
forgery ; B C had absconded with funds intrusted
to him as adjutant and paymaster of a regiment,
and had been imprisoned for obtaining goods on
false pretences, yet " he produced an unusual num-
ber of flattering testimonials from well known gen-
tlemen occupying high positions, including two
peers and four majors-general in the army." We
cannot refrain from saying that the conduct of per.
sons who give testimonials without personal know-
ledge of those for whose characters they vouch, or
who, knowing them to be unworthy, conceal the
fact, is moat reprehensible. It is an injustice to the
public service—a wrong done to candidates whose
characters are meritorious, but whose testimonials
will henceforth be looked on with suspicion. Natu-
rally enough the commissioners refuse to set any
value on " written testimonials, couched in general
terms, and passing through the hands of the parties
interested." And in truth those who pen these
vouchers offend against morality. But the sin is
common; and men who would acorn to deviate by
a hair from truth in the statement of a fact con-
cerning theraseivej: out of a culpable easiness and
good nature set their ii ands to statements which are
grossly false, to oblige an inequaintance or help some
one they are anxious to serve.
THE " EXAMINER" ON THE CON.CERENCE.—The
Conference is laid up with the gout; gene to sleep,
propped up with Eider-down pillows and wrapped
round with blanket from the Saxon loom. it has
not, as Sir G. Grey explained last night, adjourned
sine die, though he was unable to say when it would
meet again. It has taken to its bed, but not for
good. We never expected much from the delibera-
tions of a body whose members have so little in
common, and in which the countervailing forces
were obviously so unequal. Assuming that France
and England are agreed in desiring to secure some-
thing like fair terms for Denmark, they are doomed
to encounter at every point a combination of adver-
saries flushed with the perpetration of successful
wrong,end animated, it is to be feared, with far
more of a comne:m spirit and purpose. The Court of
Vienna is said, indeed, to be anxious to see the war
ended in Slesvig before Gieribaldi can set out on his
next expedition from Capresa ; and well it may.
But just in proportion as the lanai: played by the
Austrian contingent in the past campaign has been
insignificant and ineffective, it now becomes difficult
for Count D'Apponyi to take a more moderate tone
in council than his Prussian or Saxon associates.
Prussia has got the lead, and means to beep it, if
arrogance and obstinacy can prevail. The darling
dream of the headship of Germany still haunts the
dynastic and bureaucratic minds of Berlin and
Vienna, and beguiles them equally from the path
of wisdom and safety. The Prussian King and his i
Minister are in the seventh heaven of exaltation at
having, as they say, by the almost unaided force of
Prussian arms, rescued the Duchies from a foreign
yoke Less than complete autonomy, Count Berns-
doi ff is instructed not to accept for them; and
Baron von Beust has composed his own instruc-
tions in the like spirit. But what does this im-
ply ? If it were only the independence of
provincial legislatures, in all matters merely
affecting Slesvig, Holstein, and Lauenburg,
severally eonuidered, the Danes would pro-
bably consent to it, in any reasonable terms which
might be laid down. They have virtually agreed
to do so by the revocation of the patent of March,
1863, and by the steps in concession subsceucety
taneu by them. But autonomy may be easily cone
structed to mean something more than this. Prac-
tically, if not theoretically, it implies a degree of
control over the local administration, capable of
being used most efficaciously as a means for putting
the whole mechanism of government out of working
gear. Without one common legislature supreme in
all matters of common interest, there could be no
permanent cohesion between States whose antece-
dents are so distinct, and whose feelings are so dif-
ferent. Christian IX. might be recognised by all
Europe as lawful King of Denmark, and Duke of
Slesvig and Holstein ; and, taught by bitter expe-
rience, he might do his best to trim the balance of
interests fairly and substantially, to let his German
subjects govern themselves in matters of religion,
education, and municipal la.w. But his beet would
avail little. After all that has happened, and in
the face of all the schemes and devices of German
absorption which we know to be afoot, we cannot
disguise from ourselves that the Duchies, if admi-
inetered by natiy es, ivnula be li-sble et any moment

to be alienated formally from the Danish monarchy ;
and if administered by Danes, to be kept in a state
of stifled disaffection hardly less perilOos to the
stability of the State, and much more dem oralising
to the people. In a word, autonomy mesans not
only what the late Mr. O'Connell used to En.'k for
Ireland, under the name of a Repeal of the Uri
but from the very nature of the case something i:L-
volving much more. In Ireland there was popullt
discontent, originating in difference of race, and foa-
tered by hostility of creed ; but the classes posseta-
ing property and intelligence were by habits and
sympathies more English than Irish ; no powerful
neighbours, speaking the same langua3e,was within.
sight or hearing; and the claims of no Pretender
filled the imagination or diverted the allegiance e
any section of the community. Yet politicians-.
of every complexion and degree in this country re-
sisted as one man the proposal of Irish autonomy,
upon the one plain and incontrovertible groundthat
it would be incompatible with the security and the
greatness of the realm. How, then, can it be ex-
pected that the Danes should agree to a settlement.
which would virtually settle nothing except the
certain and proximate di,smemberinent of theit
ancient State ?

Capture of a Notorious Burglar,

The police of Bristol have just succeeded in cap-
turing one of the most daring, acenmplished, and
successful burglars who in history has ever been
recorded. The prisoner's name is John Goodenough,
who for some time past has been the terror of jewel-
lers, silversmiths, and pawnbrokers in the south of
England. It was Goodenough whose booty was
recently discovered in Windsor Forest, and it proves
to be the same man who, within the last 12 months,
has committed several great robberies at Alton,
Emsworth, Gosport, and other places in the county
of Hampshire. The prisoner has assumed various
aliases from time to time, and when arrested at
Bristol (by the detective police, acting upon infor-
mation received from Superintendent Harvey, of
the Hants county constabulary, stationed at Gos-
port), he was known by the name of " Capt. Smith,"
and the furniture of his house was packed up in.
readiness for removal to another part of the coun-
try. Although somewhat below the middle stature,
Goodenough is a powerful and determined fellow,
and three of the officers who succeeded in effecting
his capture were wounded, cne receiving a severe
wound on the head, while a piece of the flesh of
another was literally bitten from his hand,and upon
the prisoner's person was found a six.barrelled re-
volver loaded with ball and capped, which there is
no doubt he would have used had he not been
adroitly seized when not aware that he was in the
company of a detective officer. On a previous
occasion, however, when an attempt was
made to capture him in another part of
the country, he held his assailants at
bay by the production of his revolver,
and managed to escape. The prisoner was brought
to Gosport, and has been committed for trial at the
assizes on three separate charges of burglary. Al-
though precautions were taken to prevent his
escape from the lock-up in which he was confined
for some days while under examination, Good.

enough made the attempt to do so. It appears that
some years ego Goodenough was transported for
burglary, and his reappearance created considerable

surprise. We believe, Lowever, that it has not yet
been ascertained whether he obtained a ticket of
leave or made his escape.