The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-25 00:00:00

Commence at 7.

MI S. S BATEMA N.-L E A H.-THI
EVENING and EVERY EVENING —3liss Bateman
Brill re-aprear in her great impersonation of the Jewish
ma den further notice. In order To give due effect to
t is most remarkable suues 4 of the season, eatire;y new
scenery by the celebrated ar.ists Messrs. Lansm and ,Sons,
.acid Thompson. New drcsscs and appo'ntments have ben
prepared for its production.—N. is. In consequence of the
nressing and numerous applications at, the Box-ofR e, ar-
mgements have now been made by which Seats m• y be ob-
tained a Fortuig,ht in Adv:,n.e.

ROYAL STRAND THEATRE.
Manager, Mr. W. H. Swanborough.
THIS EVENING, MY PRESERVER.
JB
Atter which, the I'a'cony S:ene from ROMEO AND
LIET. 3iisees Swanborowh and Wilton.
Followed by the Fifth Act of MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S
DREAM.
'Fig with the Great Burlesque ORPHEUS AND
mee 6w Mes.sr_s. Honq,,lNVood, Janies Fenton ; des-
uoorougn, Aisne Ilion, Hughes, &o.
Commence at 7.

11°YAL ST
x , JAMES'S THEATRE, under the
-,:ernent WPBST
crowded with% • , ER.
sticm,Ay ever„an,l. and fashi9p.— The greatly successful new
Farce. —Mr, i. 'ivaertlizieng.— 1 Ina week of a new Sensation
Amonqt the artist
n ,nies ot Mr. Be,jamis engaged will he found the popular
Frank :datthews, urnTlNebster, Mr. Charlei Mathews. Mr.
Toole, Mr. J. Clarke, Mr. Paul
Bedford, Mr. J. Robinson,'L. Mr, Asnley, Mr. J. Johnstone;
Mrs. Char es Mathews ,
Miss A. Cottrell, 3lis; pati" llPrbert, Mrs Frank Matthews,
Miss Wentwortn, and 348•Vti•rioisephs, Miss Patti Josephs,
EVERY EVENING, at 7. .../-?"C.
railed SHAKE HANDS : mr J.' farce, with a new sensation,
J:,i.Clarke, Mr. Ashley. Mr.
.Jainstone ; Miss Fanny
Pn and miss Patti Josephs.
At a quarter before 8, the sumessc
Esq., entitled 12 1 ti''' l new, Comedy, by
1. Bucking ham,
.ti r. I. lis.rles Mathews, Mr. P. SIEVES LINI.ii :
Montague; Mrs. Charles 15,1athews, urn, ~Mr. Ashley, Mr.
Miss A. Cottrell, and Mrs. Stirling. 3' rank Matthews,
After which, at 10, COOL AS A CIICumBE,
n. Mr. Charles
Mathews.
To conclude with UNDER THE ROLE . .
Mr. Ashley and
Miss A. Cottrell.

Commence at 7.

:SHALL ComPANY'S
L

COALS.—The LILL
CO
Direct from their own Collieries.
Marquis'.......26s. per ton. Double.. 2ls. per ton.
Deepo .... q 5. Nuts... 199.
"
............ .....225.
Well screened and delivered within five miles of their De-
pots, Virestbourne Park-road, W., and 17, South Wharf,
raddinzton,
Best Coke.
........ lss. per chaldron.
Terms cash.
JOHN SCOTT, Sole Agent.

?TIRE THIRD EDITION OF "T N
HE SU,'
Containing the Latest SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.
Jan to bad Every iivening: of

fir. GLLNIE, Nrws Aorxr,
No. 4, Connaught-terrace, Hyde-park.

LONDON, MONDAY, APRIL 2&, 1864.

..~ _._~

The Governments of France and England appear
to have been vying with each other on Saturday !
How accurately to define the general character of
their emulation with anything like courtly circum-
locution we find it difficult even to conjecture, And
this for the simp:e reason, that it would hardly be
other than the literal truth to say that they, the
two Governments, the Government of France and
the Government of England, simultaneously, but
quite independently, contrived to earry (shall we
not venture at least to hint the word ?)—absurdity

to the height of extravagance.
Here in England—as a fitting climax to the
extraordinary jumble of confusion resulting from
the very ultra-enthusiasm of the late Garibaldi
demonstrations—a Public Meeting was actually put
down and dispersed by the police, on Saturday
evening, upon Primrose Hill: or rather as we
ought now, we believe, to call it—Shakspere's
Hill. We are not very much in the habit, in Lon-
don, or for that matter in any part of the country, of
having Public Meetings of any kind dispersed. But,
at any rate a public meeting of the working men
of the Metropolis was on Saturday " put down "
as signally and unmistakeably " put down" as
if the Moral Baton of the Pelice (an innocent sort
of a cousin German to the Moral Dagger of M.
NIAZZINI), had, for one delightful interval (and of
all appropriate days that could have been selected,
upon SHAKSPERE'S Tercentenary !)—as if, we say,
the Moral Baton of the Police had, just for once
again, as in the good old times, got firmly into the
grasp of the very incarnation of Rampant Beadle-
dom ! Poor old Sir PETER LAURIE'S manes must
have been soothed and comforted, one might almost
'ancy with this "putting down" by the Police of a
Public Meeting—of all fine days in the year, nay,
In the century—upon the tercentenary anniversary
of the Birth of SHAKSPERE! Sa much for Govern-
mental doings here in London. Now, for the
companion doings over yonder in Paris —and
there, too, though occurring quite irrespectively of
our own—doings having reference directly with
the proposed celebration of SHAKSPERE'S Tercen-
tenary. Don't we all know what precisely was
the nature of those proceedings ? Can we possibly
relate them with anything like gravity ? They
amounted, literally, to the attempted suppression of
" Hamlet"—nay, of SHAKSPERS himself, meaning
his memory, or the commemoration of it. Some-
thing really and truly about equivalent to CANUTE'S
mandate to the sea-tide—a sort of an imperial ukase
against the Common Air we breathe, or against the
gleam of the Daylight. It is true the prohibition
of an intended Shaksperian Demonstration at Paris
was withdrawn by one of those second thoughts
proverbially said to be " the best"—meaning (more
grammatically to express it) " the better." Too late,
however, came the withdrawal, it would seem, for
the intending celebrators of SHAKSPERE'S memory
were too bitterly huffed by the previous prohibition
of their festivities I For, at any rate, one way of
another, they appear to have come to nothing,
or, as the popular idiom has it, they appear to
have come to grief. Nevertheless, if it is
asked what sort of thing it was the Imperial
authorities were dreading—the answer comes
patly enough, and, be it said also, absurdly
enough, through the columns of the Journal des
Debats, wherein appears a letter about SHAK-
SPERE, addressed to the prohibited French
meeting by M. VICTOR HUGO. A document
that for its ultra-hyperbolical extravagance has
hardly ever, we shoald fancy, been surpassed,
even in the land sacred to pretty tall talk-
ing, the favoured land, that is to say, of Stump
Oratory, Soft Sawder, and Bunkum I VICTOR
HUGO'S preposterous letter we give, as translated
from the original in tho Di:bats, in another part
of our impression of this evening. And it is this
sort of thing that the Imperial authorities, over at
Paris; were actually for a while bent upon sup-
pressing I Remembering that prohibition—at any
rate for the time being—there in Paris : and re-
membering, on the part of our own Government—
the putting down by the Moral Baton of the Police
on Saturday evening of a Public Meeting of the
Working Classes upon Shakspere Hill, late
Primrose Hill—were we not justified in
hinting, at the outset of these remarks, that
the Two Governments were vieiog with each other?
And that they were doing so at the close of last
week in a manner that, "not to put too fine a point
upon it," was very much, indeed, like—absurdity
carried to the height of extravagance ?

As to the public meeting putdown by the police,
here in London, o❑ Saturday—it had reference,
as we all know, not to SHARSPERE, but to the
spiriting away of GARIBALDI all of a sudden !
The spiriting away of GARIBALDI thus all
of a sudden—at the instance of several of his
more officious friends, conspicuous among them
one of the principal members of her MAJESTY'S
Government ! Occurring as this abrupt modifica-
tion of all GARIBALDI'S plans had done, quite un-
expectedly, just when the Deno-German Conference
was trying to begin its sittings—trying to, strange
to say, quite ineffectually, until GARIBALDI had
been summarily hustled out of the way—the
working men of London could not for the life
of them manage to swallow very readily the
assertion that GARIBALDI was constrained to go
away solely by reason of the precarious state
of his health. The working men of London being
all the more reluctant to accept that plea as one suffi-
ciently to accounting for so very sudden and startling
a transformation of all previously existing arrange-
ments—seeing GARIBALDI, as they did, in the midst
of them—lame to be sure by reason of his bullet
wound, but otherwise—the very picture of health,
lookiug in fact in every line of
.his bronzed, hand.
ome face just as well as possible. However—the
working men of London must at length abandon all
doubts o: this kind upon the subject. They must
recognise altogether thefallacy of mere appearances.
They must understand, however reluctantly, that
there could have been no help for it—that GARI-
BALDI'S hurried withdrawal from London, and as
soon after as possible from England, was just a
matter of life and death for him, admitting of no
alternative, of no hesitation whatever. The most
eminent 'professional authority in England has
at length given the Reason Why—GARIBALDI had
A BOIL ON HIS /atm ! That—as a reason—surely
is perfectly conclusive! No wonder--knowing
t. hat GARIBALDI HAD A BOIL ON HIS ARM—
no wonder, we pay, that so much alarm for his
health should have been excited ! No wonder Mr.
GLADSTONE and others urgently advised Ns imme-
diate deputue! No wonder the Police dr„rr forth

Perhaps in no part of our foreign policy is it
more difficult to rct wisely and well than in our
dealings with uncivilised nations. Certainly the
present occupants of the Treasury benches have not
found it very easy to steer safely through the com-
plications of European poll' ies, while the experience
of a past generation proves that it is often a dan-
gerous and delicate task to legislate for our colonies.
Our conduct in both these quarters, too, may pro-
duce effects of more immediate importance by
forming the plans of European war, or by provoke
ing the colonies to independent action, but in regard
to barbaric or semi-civilised countries we have less
of assured principle to guide our actions,we have to
deal with men whose habits of life, whose tone of
thought, and whose sense of justice and propriety
are so different from our own that it is frequently a
question how far community in their proceedings is
justifiable, how far inaction and indifference are
prudent. The much talked of policy of non-inter-
vention is difficult of application when English lives
are jeopardised, and English property endangered,
although for the honour of our nation and the duty
we owe to our own position, we are bound scrupu-
lously to avoid any participation in those acts which
are only too common in Eastern warfare, and which
accord better with the Chinese code of morals than
with our own. The English Government are placed
in a somewhat awkward position by the recent
events in China. The unsatisfactory termination of
the affair of the Anglo-Chinese fleet under the
command of Captain SIIERARD OSBORN was fol-
lowed so quickly by the disgraceful conduct of the
Futai at Soochow, that the public feeling was
strongly excited against the Imperialists and their
Government. It was felt that English aid was not
being treated with proper respect w hen it was notori-
ous that the recent successes of the Imperial cause
were entirely owing to the efforts of the foreign
contingent. Under these circumstances, Mr. LID-
DELL, onFriday evening, called the attention of the
House of Commons to the state of our relations
with China, and moved a resolution deprecating any
further interference on our part in the civil war now
raging is that country as impolitic and unneces-
sary. he hon. member, in support of his motion,
entered into a history of the last few years, object-
ing to the assistance, material and otherwise,
afforded by this country to the Imperialists, declar-
ing that we were in a great measure answerable
for the continuation of the war, and predicting
future perplexities of a very serious nature if the
present course were pursued. On the other hand
Mr. LAYARD contended that the result of the policy
hitherto followed had been an enormous increase of
our trade with China; that the accounts of tortures
and massacres had been greatly overdrawn; that
arms had been taken up to protect British inte-
rests; and that Major GORDON had done perfectly
right in returning to the service of the Futai, and
thereby preventing the capture of Shanghae. The
truth of the case seems to be somewhere between
these two opposing extremes, and we cannot but
regret that Mr. LAYARD should thus have given
official sanction to Major GORDON'S retention of his
post. The protection of the English trading com-
munity and commercial interests, the maintenance
of the treaty, and the opening of the ports, are very
different things from the energetic participation in
the Imperialist cause which bas been hitherto our
share. Mr. LAYARD'S reply to Mr. LIDDELL'S
accusations, although containing much sound sense
and plain fact, certainly contrived to mix up
Idlfferent things ; and it is impossib'c to say to what
lengths the Imperialists will go when English
influence has lost its power in ebr,-Uut,i, their
treachery and barbarity. Granted that the massa
sacre at Soochow has been greatly overrated—Mr.
LAYARD cannot deny the facts of the case, and the
sword of an English officer should have been no
longer drawn under a commander who had been
guilty of a direct breach of faith, and had made his
plighted word a snare to entrap the too credulous
enemy. It is highly improbable that the Taepings
would have attacked the British residents in
Shanghae, they would have feared the conse-
quences of such a rash proceeding ; but if they
had they have not hitherto proved so invincible
as to be regarded with abjttct terror. Captain
OSBORN, by a resolute adherence to th© stipula
tions of his original engagemc nt which Mr. LIDDELL
altogether mieconstrued, saved himself from a posi-
tion so awkward and unsatisfactory that we appre-
hend Major GORDON will, before long, deplore his
retention of it. If the protection of existing British
interests in China be the real and only aim of
our Government, let it be kept to in all straight-
forwardness and simplicity. It is idle to say
that such has hitherto4been the solitary aim, since
the safety of Shanghae did not necessitate the cap-
ture of Soochow. It will not be difficult to draw
a lino between guarding British life and property
from assault of any kind, and supply the Im-
perialist forces with material and leaders. The
opportunity for making such a change has certainly
been afforded by the conduct of the Futai towards
Major GORDON, and by the breaking off of the
engagement with Captain OSBORN. Much must,
of course, be left to the discretion of our officials
in those distant quarters, but if the rule be laid
down for their guidance that we are to preserve
our own from injury of any kind, and to keep aloot
from any local struggle, toe results would probably
be better and more satisfactory than in the present
entangled and perplexing condition of affairs.

It is very satisfactory to find that the proposal of
Lord DERBY, as to the introduction of " Working
Class Trains," has been agreed to. While according
due credit to the Government for their discernment
and willingness to forward this scheme, the chief
merit of the proposal must rest with the noble earl
who has devoted so mach time and taken so much
pains with the scheme. It is one which it is in
every sense of the word desirable to essay, and even
if it should not be found so effective in practice as
it is sometimes hoped, still a partial or moderate
success will be a great achievement, and an inesti-
mable boon. Lord DERBY explained the reasons
for propounding the plan, and stated the weighty
reasons which called for the remedy he suggested.
Certainly they are urgent ones, and though some
may deem it wise to decry them, it does not follow
that the fallacies they pretend to discover are at all
apparent, because there is a certain class of persons
who must always put some impediment in the way
of all improvements. The very notion of a change
is enough to put them on the alert, and anything
like a fundamental alteration in the arrangements
which concern the lower orders sets them quite in
a state of commotion. But these lovers of the stand-
still policy should reflect that in the ceaseless
changes which occur around us great inconvenience
is necessarily experienced by the working classes,
and evils, the extent and magnitude of which the
y
wealt h y
leapt cans qualified
contemplate, are borne by
those to endure the burden, or to
e as c ar scarcely
sustain the 1055,,,,5. To remedy the deficiencies thus
occasioned in the comforts and conveniences of the
' working classes by the immense increase of metro-
politan railways, it was absolutely necessary that

something should be done at once. The idea of
running cheap trains night and morning is an ad-
mirable one, and must in a great measure mitigate
the evil, and prove a vast advantage to all who now
suffer so dreadfully from the effects of over-crowd-
ing and its attendant miseries. L)rd DERBY has
besides the merit of having been the first to
bring this question of the railways affecting the
comfort of the working classes before Parliament
some years ago. It was then paid very little atten-
tion to, and many, indeed, averred that the noble
earl was making a great deaf of unnecessary fuss
about the matter. These wiseacres must ere this,
however, have disproved their aertions, and seen
reason to modify their expressions. Time and
experience have more than borne out the declara.
tions, and wrified the prophecies of the noble earl,
and where units complained, tens of hundreds now
murmur loudly against the grievous infraction of
their social right©, and the crud addition to their
inevitable troubles that have been brought about by
the development and spread of science in every
, the busy, the idle, the department. To the rich
foreigner, the traveller, and mony others, all these
increased means of communication serve to increase

their wealth, add to their amusement, extend their
employments, accelerate their arrangements, and
impart increased excitement to their progress. To
the poor they have added another burden to tic

load under which they had before nearly sunk, it
would never do to let it be arid, that while the

fame of our mechanical exploits excited the wonder
of the world, the first result vas that our toiling
artisans and our striving pcor in all directions
should droop and wither away under the inflictions

imposed upon them. Vain wll be our boast that
our capital is the emporium of the world, and affords
more speedy and numerous means of intercommuni-
cation than any other city, if these means of transit
have brought in their progress the means of spread.
ing disease end death among the lives of industry,
and the results of poverty. Those hapless victims
who would inevitably succumb to the insidious
attacks of fever and pestilence, "by the wayside
fall and perish, weary of the march of life," would
be the accusers who would rise up in judgment
against the selfishness and supineness of modern
reformers and regenerators, and blight all the
glory of their enterprise at its outset. Of
course, there will be many difficulties in
the way of carrying out all the details
of this, or any uther similar measure of such
an aggregate:extent ; but it is always something
very important to have made a start in the right
direction, and the French proverb ce West que le
premier pas qui coute is true in this as in many
minor instances. It must be a great relief to all
the more intelligent and more right feeling of the
classes referred to to know that they stand a
chance of possessing room to move in, and that
their families may grow up in the habits of order
and prosperity which cannot be obtained in cramped
localities, also they will enjoy a larger share of the
crowning gift of health, which is of more value
than wealth to the rich, but is to the poor a
sheet anchor of security. The Earl of SHAFTES-
BURY suggested that two trains should be run
every morning and evening to obviate inconve•
nience and ensure security in case of hindrance or
accident. It is seldom that a proposal affecting
entirely the interests of the working classes comes
before Parliament, and it is a matter of rejoicing
that it should have been met in a right spirit and
accorded that attention which all things that con-
cern the welfare of the great body of the people
should receive at the hands of the Legislature.