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

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, MAY 5, 1864.

meat altogether, for, as Mr. NEWDEGATE very been witnessed among the same party since
forcibly remarked, we are now convinced of the the war against the French Revolution ;"
inefficiency of our present system of secondary and what did that feeling arise from ? He is very
punishments, and also we are compelled to keep ready to enlighten us. " History will not mistake
among us the most evil-disposed of our criminals. the meaning of the loud cry of triumph which burst
Certainly it seems hoiding out a premium to crime from the hearts of all who openly or secretly hated
to hand over the murdered to the tender treatment liberty and progress, at the fall, as they fondly sup-

of our modern gaolers, and to permit the man
fresh from the perpetration of the worst of crimes
to become an inmate of the establishments where
far more comforts are permitted to offenders
against the law, than are ever accorded to starving
supplicants, or can possibly ba enjoyed by honest

posed, of the great republic." History, before she
expresses an opinion as to its origin, must first hear
the loud cry of triumph, which is not yet audible to
English ears. In truth there is little enough to
triumph about. The American war has, thanks to
the partiality and pusillanimity of Ministers, been

poverty at home. To do this would be to deprive
hundreds of the last check that seems to protect

henceforth productive of a good deal of humiliation
to England, but very little triumph. Neither have

their lives from the attacks of savage brutality, or
the ee,igns of deliberate ruffianism. It is quite
idle to say that the fear of death does not exeruise
a deterrent influence over the minds of these law-
less characters. It is well known that the notion
of convict prisons can hold out no debarring
agency, for the men have been known to laugh
at the very mention of these so-called peni-
tentiaries, but which are really more akin
to the refuges that give opportunities to the
felon to recruit his strength, and when the brief
time of his probation is over to go on his way re-
joicing to undertake fresh exploits. Lord H.
LENNOX'S amendment was much more reasonable.
He proposed to inquire into the justice of inflicting
the same penalty in all cases, and also into the
present system of commuting the sentences. This
latter feature of the case is most deserving of notiee.
It is quite defeating the ends of justice to pursue
the practice that has been lately in vogue, of acting
without any fixed plan or purpose in as important
an act as that of reprieving one under sentence of
death. On the whole the suggestion of Mr. NEATE
appears to be the most expedient cne that can be
devised under existing circumstances. It seems to
meet the requirements of the case in the most com.
prehensive style, and to give an opportunity for
rectifying the blunders and remedying the defici-
encies that now exist. Sir GEORGE GREY spoke
at some length on the question, and on this occasion
displayed more savoir faire regarding his subject
than he often does. There was much force in the
arguments he adduced against the demands of Mr.
EWART, and, altogether, he aeemed very fit to deal
with the question. It was wise on his part to
defer so much to popular opinion on this topic as to
agree to the appointment of a Commission. Nothing
can be more short-sighted than to persist in putting
off the evil day of inquiry until a more fitting op-
portunity, and such a course of policy always
results in failure of the most complete character.
It is high time that the who',e system of our penal
servitude be thoroughly revised, and it cannot much
longer be put off. It is also very desirable that
more consistency be observed with regard to the
infliction of capital punishment, so that there may
not be the same disquiet and discussions concerning
their infliction as was apparent in two or three
cases last autumn and winter. It must in a great
measure detract from the salutary effect that should
be produced, if the disaffected think they have got
hold of a grand ease of injustice against the
authorities, and where such unequal exercise of
justice is displayed as was apparent last year, it
will be impossible to prevent the feeling gaining
ground. One of the chief points to which the
Commission ought to direct their attention is the
new notions that have gained ground respecting
insanity. This subject should be vigorously dealt
with and the most arbitrary rules laid down, so
that it may be quite impossible for any mistakes
and misrepresentations to occur. If once the idea
becomes prevalent that the rich criminal enjoys a
comparative immunity, and can alwsye at a pinch
be bought off by the deuterons devices of relations
who prove lunacy to be existing in the family,
there will be an end of all the majesty of justice
and the solemn effects which its exercise should
produce. Because the principle of capital punish.
ment is upheld, there is no reason why the advo-
cacy of that theory should shield the errors that
have crept into its practice, and which materially
detract from the efficacy of its working. To con•
found the uses and abuses of a system is a fatal
error, and has caused the ruin of many a cherished
scheme and the downfall of many a goodly social
structure. Mr. ROEBUCK very properly exposed
the fallacy of Mr. GILPIN'S argument, that innocent
persons were likely to be convicted. This is never
now the case, and all the mistakes are made on
the other side. There are hundreds who are always
on the alert if a criminal is sentenced to undergo
the extreme penalty of the law, bat very few trouble
themselves to consider the claims of those who are
the victims of these barbarians. Surely their case
is the most deserving of the two, and they have a
more righteous cause to advocate. It is satisfactory
to reflect upon the solution of the difficulty that
has been arrived at in the present instance, and it
now remains for those interested in the matter to
watch the progress of the Commission, and to trust
that they will exercise due care and vigilance in
the exercise of their arduous endeavour.

English sympathies been enlisted so warmly on
either side as to call forth a passionate, much less a
frantic excitement. It was a considerable time after
the breaking out of hostilities before the English
public, closely as they watched the war, took part
with either combatant. The origin of the war is too
vague, its object too indistinct, to awake the sym-
pathies of a peace-loving people, who would have
warmly entered into a struggle whose motto on
either side was pro aria et furls. As time went on
and the character of the conflict was better under-
stood, Englishmen realised the idea that commer-
cial self interest was at the bottom of the Union
fervour of the North, and that the South, after long
chafing under the democratic dominion, was deter-
mined to try her fortunes for herself, They grew
gradually to sympathise with a gallant resistance
in an unequal struggle; to feel that the men who,
without army or navy, trade or agriculture, held
their own with such indomitable resolution, were
truly of kindred blood, and became disgusted with
the faction, the greed, and the hypocrisy of the
North. If there are Englishmen so averse to free
government as to rejoice in American troubles, they
had better seek their source of enjoyment North
than South, rather in the cells of Fort Lafayette
than at Richmond or Charleston. Professor GOLD.
WIN SMITH, with his singular gift of representing
as virtues the very vices that claim our censure,
tells us that in the North "personal liberty has
been secure to a degree unequalled, I venture to
assert, in so fearful an extremity, to a
greater degree than it was here under PITT, in
an extremity far less painful." That history,
upon whose veracity the Professor reckons so
much, must certainly have been strangely careless
in recording important facts, since we cannot recall
an instance of Fox's followers being sent over to
Paris, VALLANDIGHAM fashion, or being summarily
expelled from Parliament for the expression of in-
convenient opinions; though, if report be true,
such an event occurred in the American Congress
not many weeks since. Yet the Opposition of those
days was certainly not backward in declaring its
views. England is, however, out of favour with
our author, and he attributes to our landowners the
darkest political vices of the feudal age. They
have no sympathy with freedom, no respect for a
country where all classes are fairly represented and
share in the benefits of government alike. Their
feelings are all on the side of the haughty slave-
holder who tramples his fellow creatures under his
feet and boldly proclaims his crime. "He was,"
says Professor GOLDWIN SMITH, " sagacious as
well as bold, and knew that a fierce denial of the
Rights of Labour might touch a fibre of latent
sympathy in revolutionary hearts." If we contrast
this with the picture of " Freedom and Slavery
;rappling in mortal struggle for the possession of
the New World," we have the summing up of all
the arguments adduced in favour of Northern
supremacy. Unfortunately for the success of all
this eloquence thcra is a sturdy common-sense cha-
racteristic of Englishmen, common alike to peer
And peasant, which cannot be convinced that it is
virtuous to countenance a thing when it is in your
favour, and to denounce it when it turns to your
disadvantage. Englishmen cannot see the disinte-
restedness of proclaiming abolition just in those
barters where it cannot be enforced, and being
conveniently blind to the iniquity of slavery so far
As loyal Unionists are concerned. They cherish a
wicked suspicion that if Northern ports were once
more to be made the medium of Southern produce,
or, what Professor GOLDWIN SMITH calls " the fell
alliance between the slave-owning aristocracy of
the South and the Democratic party in the North,"
were reinstated in full force, we should hear very
tittle more about the horrors of slavery, and the
" domestic institution" might go on much as these
evil-minded Southerners liked. So far as the steam
rams are concerned, which our author regards as a
matter of such serious import that their escape from
the Mersey will involve England in an American
war, the question as it at present stands is rather an
awkwierd one for the Federals. Possibly, when
this pamphlet was penned, the author was unaware
of the singular revelations as to certain documents
connected with the rams. The evidence which
shook Earl RUSSELL'S nerves, which winged Mr.
SEWARD'S fury, and which " in the simplicity"
of his heart an English law officer accepted as
genuine, has been proved to be decidedly, unmis-
takeably, inconveniently false. If only the mistake
had not come out until after the trial ! But as it
has so inopportunely come to light, perhaps the
advocates of the North had better let the matter
alone, at least until an English court of law has
examined into it a little more closely. Meanwhile
the Federal cause has certainly gained an enthu-
siastic advocate—only, unfortunately, eloquence
and earnestness will not always gain the day at
the bar of public opinion, when the whole weight
of the evidence is on the other side.

It is never very difficult to make the worse ap-
pear the better cause so long as you have all the
argument ycuraelf, and accordingly Professor
GOLDWIN SMITH, in setting forth his views upon
the American question,* finds it easy enough tolde-
monstrate to hia own satisfaction the immense supe-
riority of the North, to exhibit their patriotism,
morality, humanity, self-devotion, and high prin.
ciple of the Federals, individually and collectively,
and to paint in darksome colours the tyranny, the
cruelty, the treachery, violence, and insolence of
the South. He is arguing on paper, and it is very
easy to take assumption for evidence, and opinion
for fact, under such circumstances. Indeed, it is to
be questioned how far either fact or evidenceiwould
influence the opinions of a gentleman who gravely
informs us, while recapitulating the virtues cf the
North, that humanity has a foremost place among
them. He confidently assert that this civil war has
so far been, on the part of the North, without
exception, the most humane in history. Such a
theory has, at least, the merit of originality, the
doctrine not having been hitherto propounded, and
the submerged wastes round Vicksburg, the bomb
shells thrown on the hospitals of Charleston, and
the dictatorship of General BUTLER are to most
persons convincing arguments to the contrary. The
famous proclamation of the latter, Professor GOLD-
WIN SMITH cites as evidence in support of his case.
Had there been great actual cruelty, he says, there
would never have been euch a fuss about mere
words. What can be said when. we have to deal
witilso
careabiea special
pleader
that he makes his
adversary's
support his own. Our author is
not, however, above the common resource of per-
, plexei advocates, and is very ready to point his
moralwithv
classes.holesa ie
wholesale abuse
wofouhlids own country and
her dominant
h
that we hold Ireland as a
conquered State u
sbelieve
kept
under by the sword. He would have us think that
our upper classes are in favour of Southern inde-
pendence, because of their dark and secret hatred
to freedom in all its forms. lie says that the Ame
rican crisis " has kindled among the reactionary
party in this country,a passionate and almost fran-
tic excitement of feeling such as has not

We lately alluded, in a leading article, to the
present state of legal education for students about
to become barristers-at-law, both as regards the
recent examination lately appointed prior to ad-
mission as a student, and the present examination,
or rather mode of allowing students to be called to
the bar without undergoing an examination at all,
or else running into the opposite extreme, and ex-
pecting too much from those who aim at honours
and distinction, and who have the energy and in-
dustry not to be satisfied with a nine years' atten-
dance at lectures, or else in a barrister's or pleader's
chambers, as the case may be. About nine years
ago, as we all know, there was established the
system of appointing civil servants of the East India
Company by free and open competition, not at-
tempting Lto regulate, Lbut absolutely excluding
the principle of patronage altogether. After well-
nigh ten years' experience of the said examination,
we can speak most favourably, and we also see that
this examination has had the most marked and
beneficial effects upon the general state of education,
inducing a spirit of rivalry among our universities
unknown before, and laying the foundations for
exertions which must result iu the elevation of the
intellectual standard of each, in remedying de-
ficiencies, and placing education in the hands most
competent to conduct it. The scientific departments
of the military service have also been thrown open
to free competition with results equally beneficial to
all schools and all universities throughout the king-
dom. In the last century examinations were com-
pletely at a discount, and in fact were almost like
ass, the metropolitan police, and railroads, things
wholly unknown and concealed in the womb of
time. The great change between the present and
the past generation consists in this, that the former J

* "Letter to a Whig Member of the
Indepen-
dence By Ciolcivah Smith. Macmillan,

is lenient to the school boy, and spares the rod, but
inflicts great severity on the young man, and spares
not his nerves; the latter, while it was over indul-
gent to the young man, spared not the extremities
of the school boy. Merit, as the only ground of ap-
pointment,and examination as the only test of merit,
are now admitted principles. This being the state
of public feeling and opinion, the representatives of
the Inns of Court produce, three times a-year,
their system of examination. They also, like the
East India Company, the Secretary at War, and the
public departments, have something to giee away.
They have been intrusted with the responsible and
honourable duty of admitting those whom they shall
think worthy to practise in the courts of law, and
to undertake a vast number of offices of fitness, for
which their certificate of admission is the only test.
The same obligation which binds a bishop to lay
hands suddenly on no man extends to these bodice,
to which is committed the power of admission—a
high and responsible office. We ourselves
know an instance, about half a century ago, of
a young man getting ordained by simply telling
the bishop he was the nephew of a dignitary of the
Church, and had been educated at a public school
where his uncle, the aforesaid dignitary, had been
head master. It would be worse than idle to ask
if such a state of things would be tolerated in these
days. But it all the more tends to sweep away the
last vestige of a bad state of things belonging to a
corrupt and bygone ago. It is not very difficult to
point out how scandalously the benchers of the four
Inns of Court neglect their duty, and how utterly
unfit they are to have the power of calling men to
the bar. The system of the Inns of Court is to pro•
pose to those who choose to submit to it what we
doubt not is a fair and searching examination, and
even—as we pointed out in a recent leading article
—too far in many respects, but to have it entirely
optional to candidates whether they will be exa-
mined or not. In order to induce them to be exa-
mined bribes, in the shape of studentships and re-
missions of terms, are held out; but if these induce-
ments fail it is quite competent to the student, by
attending a certain number of lectures, or even this
latter he may now since the commencement of the
present year, Hilary Term, 1864, escape, if, as we
have already pointed out, he chooses to pass a year
in the chambers of a barrister, conveyancer, or
special pleader. We can imagine no scheme more
discreditable or more inefficient than this. An
examination is not a good thing of itself, not an end
but means to the attainment of that end. Far
be it from us to assert that the man who comes out
highest at an examination either at Oxford, Cam-
bridge, the London University, the Inas of Court,
or Trinity College, Dublin, will make the best
practising Barrister either at Cnambers or in Court,
but examinations are adjuncts and very useful and
powerful adjuncts too. The use of an examination
previous to a call to the bar would be to ascertain
that every student, before being called, possessed at
least the minimum of qualification which may be
reasonably expected from a member of a learned
profession. To the highly qualified student the
examination is a mere form, but to a student of
inferior qualification it is a serious but most useful
ordeal. To be of any use at all an examination must
be universal, for otherwise it does not succeed in its
main object, that of fixing the standard of the pro-
fession, and ascertaining a point below which no
man's qualification who has once been admitted into
it can possibly fall. Apply these principles to the
practice of the Inns of Court. If a student be
highly qualified, that is possessed of much more
than that amount of qualification which would
justify his admission into the profession of a Bar-
rister, if, in fact, examination would be to him a
mere useless form, many inducements are held
out in order to persuade him to undergo it.
Candidates are likely to have recourse to it just
in proportion as such recourse isunnecessary. Those
who are examined are not thinking of their call to
the bar, but of their scholership or remission of terms.
Wherever the test is applied it will be in a case in
which it might be dispensed with, but by mixing
up the studentship with the examination, and
making the examination optional, the benchers
have in fact provided that the student is not neces-
sarily the best man of his year, but only the best of
those who are willing to compete. Take now the
case of the inferior student, the person against
whom the profession and public ought to be pro-
tected, to whom the test of an examination is a for-
midable reality—an obstacle requiring the strenuous
exertion of all his faculties to overcome. For men,
supposing them to bo gifted with the most ordinary
degree of self-knowledge, there will be no examina-
tion at all. Tu what end should he submit himself
to be examined. Ho has not by the supposition the
remotest chance of obtaining a studentship or any
other distinction, and all he can possibly hope for is
the questionable honour of being plucked, and that
in an examination to which he was not called upon
to submit himself. Ii is the public iuterest that such
persons should be strictly examined. It is their
private interest that they should not.
What worse
can be said of a system than that it puts public and
private interest in opposition to each other, and
leaves every interested party to decide the question
for himself. We once more take the liberty of
warning the depositaries of this public trust thus
scandalously abused, that they are presuming
too
puulic.
far on the patience and apathy of the
We would entreat them to call to mind
the days of GEORGS IV. In the days of
GEORGE IV. Lords and Commons then held
with fancied security the absolute control over the
representatives of this country. The annual motion
for Reform in Parliament had come
to be a mere
form; but they were suddenly oused from their
false confidence, and almost before the smoke had
drifted away from their burnt rick yards they were
forced to strip themselves
power of nomination. And so we would ask the
benchers of the Inns of Court, whether they flatter
the belief that political
themselves that that page of history must stand
without its parallel. Can you cheat yourselves into
of their long cherished
than ignorant barristers, that though a rotten
borough privations are less endurable
come to the conclusion that the condition, can ?
in their present most disgraceful
Thinking men have, with marvellous unanimity,
could not be endured, the lons of Court,
narrow and imperfect law and jurisdiction amongst us arises from the
deplorable state of
dis-
qualifying them alike from laying down sound
in a congenial
prin-
ciples, or applying them, when laid down,
education of our lawyers,
Court, who have been trusted with,
not entirely,
are mainly, if legal education,
grossly abused the care of,
spirit. For this theanldnnhsavoef
revenues to the responsible. Legal
difficulties may prevent the restitution of their vast
de-
signed, and from which they 'hav,e been diverted to
the purposes of architecture and gastronomy ; but,
assuredly, no long time Will elapse before a board
of Legal Examiners, unconnected with the Inns of
Court, is appointed, without whose certificate no
one shall be allowed to practise at the bar, and who
shall merit by their ability and integrity that
public confidence which the Inns of Court have so
justly forfeited. When stripped of the power of
calling to the Thar, and reduced to the position of
the keepers of taverns and boarding-houses, the
governing bodies of the inns of Court will probably

become alive when too late to the dangers of their
psition, and perceive how impossible it will be to
retain in their owr, hands any longer those reve-
nues, of the last excuse for retaining which, the
superintendence of education, their own misconduct
has deprived them.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

[REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.]

THE WAR IN JUTLAND.
COPENHAGEN, MAY 4.

The Dagbladet of to.d.q says :
" The enemy is placing Fredericia in a state of
deknce, and the town is being strongly garrisoned.
"The enemy occupies Kal6 and Abeltoft."

THE ITALIAN GOVERNMENT AND
GARIBALDI.

TURIN, MAY 4 (Evening).

In the Chamber of Deputies to-day the Minister
of the Interior, in reply to speeches from several
members of the Opposition, stated that it was not
for the Government to declare its intentions respect-
ing General Garibaldi and his party, but that it was,
above all, necessary to know how the general and
his party intended to act. The Minister defended
the policy of the Government, and proved the neces-
sity of seizing the arms and money in order to pre-
vent painful occurrences. After the journey of
Garibaldi to London, after the eulogy bestowed by
Garibaldi on English institutions, and the respect
paid by the English nation to the Queen and the
laws, the Minister hoped that nobody apart from
the King and the Government would speak in the
name of the country, or pursue a policy differing
from that of the Government, and in opposition to
the constitution.

The speaker then explained that the policy of the
Government was based upon an alliance with the
Western Powers. He demanded a vote of confi-
dence in the Ministry—a vote confirming their
policy, and reserving the initiative in accomplish-
ing the Italian empire at Rome and Venice to the
King and the Parliament.

SPAIN,
MADRID, MAY 4 (Evening).

The Government has received information ei
fresh victories of the Spanish troops in Saint

Domingo.
The Epoca says—" The Government has no wish
to put down political banquets, but it will ener-
getically suppress all excesses contrary to the laws."