The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—It is a wonderful thing that a Govern-
ment which has been directed on the whole with
such wisdom as that of that of the Emperor of the
French, which has elevated the name of France
abroad, which has been the victor in two wars,

which has checked the progress of the great enemy

of Western Europe, andconferred national indepen-
dence and unity on one of the most gifted of races,
which has, moreover, given internal security to its
country and developed the wealth and industry of
France beyond all parallel of former reigns, should
li). so afflicted with the vices which beset official na-

ture that it often subjects itself to affronts it does
not deserve. Again the electors of Paris have pro-
nounced by immense majorities for candidates whose
chief recommendation is that they are opposed to the

system on which France is governed. The elections
of a few months since are still fresh in the memory

of the public, and now, on the occasion of two vacan-
cies for the first and fifth districts of Paris respec-

tively, M. Carnot receives 9,938 votes against 3,378
for M. Pinard, and M. Garnier Pages receives 11,721
against 4,641 fur M. F. Levi, one of the Paris Maires
put forward by the Government expressly to oppose
him. '1 he event will have perhaps little direct effect,
as the vast majority of the French population is
stanch for the Emperor; and whether the little
band of Liberals in the Legislative Body counts two
votes more or .ess can make little difference as to

the fate of any measure. But still it is important.
In spite of the great political revolution which 1851
brought with it Paris is still almost equivalent to
France. Though the policy of the Empire has been
to make the provincial feel himself as good as the
metropolitan, though the classes which are powerful
in the provinces, such as the clergy, the well-to-do
industrialists, and the landowners large and small,
have been especially courted by the statesmen who
now govern France, yet the traditions of 70 years,
and, indeed, we may say of a century or two, are
not to be obliterated in a short time. Though the

orators and men of letters who congregate in the

capital are not what they were in power, and are
even sneered at by the men of wine and silk and
iron who have grown rich in the provinces ; though
the Paris mob has found its master in an army which
would be ready in a moment to crash any repetition
of 1818 or 1830, yet Paris elections are events which
cannot fail to have a moral importance. The provin
cials know that whether the Parisians b., more en-
tightened than themselves or not they are, at any rate,
more independent of control and judge more com-
pletely for themselves. The elector is lost in a crowd,
and becomes therefore less exposed to the influences of
administrative personages. For the shopkeeper or
artisan of Paris the Prefect of the Seine is no terrible
potentate, and a Maire's frown is not a withering
influence commercially or socially. Wise or foolish,
mad theorist or shrewd man of the world, the Pari-
sian votes according to his opinions. The ballot
box, which affords little protection in rural districts,
is scarcely thought of in the capital as a safeguard ;
for, except a few timid fathers of families who do
not care to be "mal vu," everybody now says how
he shall vote and how ho has voted. Consequently
Paris may be held to represent fret public opinion
in France, and though provincials may have a
vague idea that people in Paris are never con-
tented and oppose every Government as a diversion
to their monotony, yet, when the defeats come one
after the other, a wise ruler will do well not to dis-
regard them.
POST.—The Stewards of the Jockey Club have
won the Cambridge Handicap, where we have been
overweighted with the heavy technicalities of the
law. They win one shilling damages and prove
their right to exclude whom they please from New.
market Heath. We thought it our duty to defend
"Argus" and the cause of the Press at any coot, and
we have fulfilled that duty. We did not choose to
allow, till tne law should so pronounce, that it was
in the power of the Jockey Club to inflict upon in-
dependent writers the punishment awarded to
blacklegs and rascally jockeys. It is now demon-
strated that such a power apparently lies in the
hands of an irresponsible tribunal. It :s a vain and
empty supposition, for the Jockey Club will find
that its attempts to control the Press are futile and
childish. We cm send a hundred gentlemen to
write under the name of " Argus" instead of Mr.
Willes, and can laugh at any attempt to exclude the
multiplicity of reporters. We only own ourselves
amenable t the verdict of our readers and the con-
s( quences of the law of libel. It was com petent to the
Stewards of the Jockey Club to have indicted us for
whatever false report or malicious writing we had
been guilty of. They did not attempt to do tnia. We
will not now recill the circumstances of a trial
before the Stewards of the Jockey Club, in which
"Argus" contended that the judges were biassed,
and that the verdict was unfair. We accepted at
the time the responsibility of that statement, and in
our leading columns we reiterated and proved it.
It by so doing we were in error, and were inflicting
ijustice, the Jockey Club might have prosecut,d
and punished the Morning Post. But we were quite
right, and the course of events proved t hat we were
right. The gentlemen implicated were acquitted
by the verdict of society of the blame which the
Stewards sought to attach to them, and the dis-
I,onour of the transaction recoiled on the heads of
the unjust judges. Under these circumstances the
hated and vexed beyond measure, did
Stewards, mf.
not think it benenthem to visit their spite, not on
...1
the Morning Post, whtlre they would have found an
g- th, but upon a reporter,
antagonist of some stren
whom they singled out as the object of their un-
worthy vengeance. They wrote: to Mr. Willes to
ask if he were the author of the letters signed
"Argus." Had he been cunning, and descended to
the level of those with whom he had to cope, he
would have declined to answer, but he repi:ed,
in
all good faith, that he was. They required an apolqrY
for his expressions, and he gave such explanations as
should have satisfied them. Nevertheless, the
Stewards chose to inflict on him the ignominy of
expulsion from Newmarket Heath. To that expul-
sion, we declined to submit, and chose to test
the power of the Club before we acknowledged it.
The law has now declared that, as lessees of the
Heath, the stewards have the right which they
claim, and to that decision we of course defer. The
Club have therefore the power to persecute indi-
vidual writers when they can find out who they are.
But they will be clever indeed it again they findour
representatives abandoning the anonymous charac-
ter of the Press, and offering themselves as personal
victims to hastiness and ill-temper. The letters of
" Argus" will be continued in the Morning Post
by Mr. Wiliest except from Newmarket, where he
is forbidden to appear, and the letters of " Argus "
will be written as trustworthily and honestly from
Newmarket by other gentlemen who will be de-
puted to act in his place. This is but a sorry result
for the Jockey Club to obtain. It was the Morn-
mg Post which offended them—the Morning Post
with whom tLey were angry—simply because they
were in the wron; ; and against us they are power-
less. Instead of bri.lging an action against this
Journal—feeiing theit. ‘,,,leakness, and acting only
as the weak and pusillani,_aous would do, they
sought to wreak their ill temi-:er upon an indi-
vidual, and, taking advantage of ,_be open deal-
ing and good faith of Mr. Willes, they seized the
opportunity which the technicalities of t:2° law
plac!:d in their power of inflicting upon hilt a
punishment as petty as it is contemptible. It has
been entirely the act of the Stewards, and we still
believe that a highminded body of gentlemen,
guided by English tradition and animated by the
love of fair play, would have been incapable of
ratifying the conduct of their Stewards had it been
submitted to them. The Stewards of the Jockey
Club, as the case stands, have inflicted a gross insult
upon the English press. We can confidently appeal
to the sympathy of our contemporaries and the
public. We assert the freedom of public opinion,
and deny that we can be controlled, and censured,
and punished by the arbitrary dictature of the
Stewards of the Jockey Club. Were we to do other-
wise we should betray our calling. On the condi-
tions tendered by the Stewards, were they enforced
by other authorities, a reporter could never report,
a writer could never comment on any public event
unless in compliance with the dictation of the
occupiers of the place which he happened to enter.
11(e should thus abandon all right to criticise magi-
strates, theatres, railways, companies, public meet-
ings, and the whole circle of general deeds and
actions. The absurdity is too great. The manner
in woich the press exercises its functions is obvious
and well known, and we think we are warranted in
saying, both for our contemporaries and ourselves,
that we have not merited the gratuitous outrage
which has been inflicted on English journalism in
the person of "Argue."

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