The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-07 00:00:00

The Weather—Sun Office, April 7, 1864.

TRERMOMETER.
This day at Two o'clock

Barometer-30.15.
Wind—E. ; light breeze, and fine.

HIGEI WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THIS DIT.-11orning, 2h. 21m.—Afternoon, 2h. 44m.
To4toßatow.-Morning, 3h. 3m,—Afternomi, 3h. 28a.

IvMarti
4_2,7 e

L°NDON, THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1864.

Of all the proud names which illumine our
English history, of all the laurel crowned chiefs
and victorious statesmen who have triumphed in
cimp or cabinet, on battle deck or in senatorial
struggle, there is none more brilliant or more
popuhtr than that of the great man who died at
Trafalgar. The profession of the seaman is of itself
especially dear to the English heart, and naval
heroes are Unilly regarded
with additional warmth
cZ admiration and sympathy; but there is something
in the character of HORATIO NELSON in its sim-
plicity, its frankness, its modesty, and its daring,
added to that especial genius for command which
elevated him to the very highest pinnacle dimness
and glory,which leaves him almost alone in his hold
on the popular regard, Sixty years have slipped
away since that memorable encounters sixty years
have passed since the supremacy of England was
unquestionably established on the seas, and the
nation was divided between rejoicings over the
victory and sorrow for the loss of its hero. But
though that epoch has seen the revolutions of a world,
yet NELSON and Trafalgar keep their hold unshaken
on the national memory. The glories of Waterloo
have not paled the vividness of the recollection,

and however wonderful the achievements of modern
science, the invulnerable mammoths, the death-
dealing guns, the invisible terrors of monitors and
steam rams, there is still an undefined notion in
the public mind that the palmy days of British
seamanship were the days of the Nile and Trafalgar,
that the true type of an English naval hero was the
dashing fearless hero who stood arrayed in his
" orders" on the deck at Trafalgar. Such being the
strength and endurance of the general feeling then,
it is natural to suppose that it has found
some expression. The most usual mode of
paying honour to a great man dead is to entomb him
in a costly sarcophagus, and raise monuments to
his memory. This has been done with NELSON, as
the interiors of our great cathedrals testify, but our
doings have stopped here. Our grateful recollection
of the services rendered, our admiration for the con-
queror's achievements has not induced us to seek
out more sentient tokens of his memory than stone
or marble. At this very moment there is living in
an English county, enfeebled by age and per-
manently incapacitated from work, an old sailor
who shared the perils of Trafalgar, who fought by
the side of the great commander, who saw him fall,
and was one of the four men who had the melan-
choly duty of carrying him off the deck which he
should never tread again. Surely the recollection
of such a scene and such associations give him some
claim on the national regard. A foreigner on hear-
ing that a survivor of that desperate strife still
lingered among us would naturally suppose that so
rich and liberal a country, so tenacious of its
national honour, so proud of its naval history, would
have long since placed the old sailor in a position of
complete independence. It would not cost so much
to provide for the wants of the old man, to give him
in his age the goerdon which his bravo youth fairly
won, to enable him to tell his tale of NELSON and
VILLENEUVE, of HARDY and COLLINGWOOd, of the
Victory and the Santissima Trinidada, without
thought of the future darkening the past, without
dread of a pauper's funeral or fear of wanting bread.
We cherish the memories of great men passed away,
we celebrate their centenaries, their tri-centenaries,
and a host of other festivals. We pay large sums
for trifles once belonging to them, for houses where
they have been born, or lived, or died, for
books they have corrected with their pencils, for
manuscripts they have left behind. But here is a
living being who cannot only remind us of the
glories of the past, but recall them viva voce to us;
who has the claim not only of having been closely
associated with one of our national boasts, but of
having himself shared, however slightly, in the
danger, of having taken a part, however insignifi-
cant, in the triumph. And each a man in our
wealthy England has no resource but the work-
house ! He must die in a pauper's bed, and be
buried in a parish coffin for lack of a few shillings
a week, while thousands are lavished annually on
pensions and sinecures, on ex-Ministers of State,
and supernumerary officials. And England has not
the excuse of ignorance. Three years ago an appeal
was made on behalf of this old man, when some
money was collected for him by subscription, but
the most careful management will scarcely spin £5O
out for ever in maintaining a poor bedridden old
man. Lady NELSON, in token of the name she
bears, allows him three shillings a week, but the
parish will allow him nothing ! It was not SANDI-
LANDS' fate to die in the hour of triumph, or to fall
beside his commander on the blood-stained deck of
the Victory, bat when the news of blended triumph
and disaster was wafted quickly homewards,
it would have been thought strau;ely in-
credible that any who took part in so glorious
a struggle, more especially one who was so
closely connected with the last hours of the hero,
should have to say that England outlived her gra-
titude. Yet in trophies, and testimonials, and me•
morials to those who need them not, we lavish our
means and attention ; and while we eelebrate a
three hundredth Shak3perian anniversary it seems
that a century has not passed before we have for-
gotten NELSON. Let us make some amends before
it is too late, and let a sufficient amount be raised
by private benevolence, or, better still, provided by
the Public Treasury, to ensure the old sailor's pass-
ing his few remaining days in comfort, to save him
from the last resource of vagrancy and destitution,
and to remove so disgraceful a reproach from the.
Government and the people.

The Marquis of CLANRICARDE de-derv" great
credit for the spirit with which lie has taken up
the subject of the removal o`.. the British consuls
:
in the Confederate States of America. The noble
lord very fully and fairly explained the leading
circumstances of the case, and they are certainly
such as call for investigation, and are altogether
of too important a nature, and too significant a
referejce, to be passed over in silence. From his
statements it appears that the Federal Govern-
ment, as usual, are very much to blame, and Earl
RUSSELL, with the prejudice and partiality that
ordinarily characterises him on this subject, de-
clared some time back that the Confederate Go-
vernment was to blame for the removal of the
Consuls. Lord CLANRICARDE very properly de-
nounced the language of the noble earl, and said
that he spoke in haste, and in anger, and that
the facts of the case did not bear the aspect
which he had put upon them. The charges
brought by the Federal Government against these
consuls that they had committed or sanctioned
illegal acts was most unfounded, and the best
proof that they went too far is that Eirl RUSSELL
himself acknowledged that in the case of Mr.
BUNCH, the Government of Washington had un-
justly taken away his exequatur. When the
noble lord, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs,
allows so much, we are full justified in assuming
much more. Another thing that undeniably presents
itself to our notice is that we heard no mention of
t his affair before, and certainly Earl RUSSELL did not
allude to it, when he discoursed upon the subject
some time back. A want of ingenuousness like this
on the part of a public functionary is very repre-
hensible, and must produce the most disastrous
effects on the feelings of those who analyse the
events in Coto when they are cleared from the mists
that Ministerial and official routine cast around all
important matters. The Federal Government must
have conceived a very low opinion of the spirit of
our Ministers beforo they presumed to interfere
with such impertinent conduct, or dictate terms
with such arrogant assumption as they have done
throughout the whole course of this protracted and
most disastrous struggle. When we read and hear
of thebombastic declamations and the grandiloquent
asseverations with which the Ministers and their
friends and adherents proclaim the grand principle
of non-intervention and descant upon the meritori•
ous management of our Cabinet, it naturally sug-
gests itself to the mind that there is a great deal of
clap-trap in all this fine sounding tirade of " neu-
trality." There never was such glaring want of
faith exhibited by statesmen as that displayed by
Earl RUSSELL and his colleagues in this affair of
the America war. Matters have gone so far that
the noble Secretary for Foreign Affairs has agreed
to the motion of the noble marquis, with 93 few
trifling alterations. This is a E eint gained,
at any rate, and many different reasons
will doubtless be given as aa Explanation
, of the somewhat extraordinary acquiescence,

Perhaps the noble lord thiaks he will gain some-
thing, or lose much in driving things to extremi-
ties—perhaps he knows that before the particulars
are duly ascertained or fully circulated it may not
be as an official character that he listens to the
animadversions that their perusal may call forth.
Whatever may be
.the real reason or the secret
motive that has actuated the noble lord in his con-
sent to the proposition, it is to ba considered as a
matter of satisfaction that we are to have the cor-
respondence of the affair put before us. There is
not much use in verbal declarations of any sort or
in mere assertions of the most positive nature.
Proofs are always required before conviction is
formed, and this is why at all times during this
session there has been such a marked reticence
displayed whenever hon. members have asked for
aoy detailed informatioe, or demanded any returns
of correspondence, &c. It is very satisfactory that
the affairs of the country should be conducted in
this manner, because the danger is that after a
stormy session and a series of bickerings and con-
tentions, intermingled with personal attacks and
awkward affairs, all will go on as before, except
that Ministers may become more reckless if pos-
sible, and still less inclined to conform to the re-
quirements which the feeling and opinion of the
public expect from them. Great credit is due to
those who, like Lerd CLANRJCARDE, come forward
and zealously advocate the cause of the oppressed,
and set forth the true reasons for such and such a
state of things. After the garbled statements, and
very one-aided accounts that we meet with in high
places, it is doubly necessary that private members
of both Houses of the Legislature should assume a
prominent position, and take upon themselves the
thankless task of opposing, single-handed, the col-
lective force of Ministerial phalanxes, and the
mighty array of those who always swear by the
Government, right or wrong. It is really difficult
to form a correct estimate of what might have been
attempted by Ministers in their infatuated pars
tiality for the Federals, if Parliament had not hap-
pened to meet when it did. As the surface of
events becomes more complicated, and the political
horizon becomes more and more threatening, we are
led to appreciate to a fuller extent, and to acknow-
ledge with a more hearty recognition, the benefits
and blessings of a representative form of Govern-
ment. Foreign States may be at the present
moment better regulated, and more efficiently re-
presented than we are; but it is a matter of chance,
and if the people do not approve or ratify this or
that decree it will, nevertheless, be carried out all
the same, It is otherwise with us, however, and
whenever the overtaxed patience of the public gives
way, and the much abused latitude always accorded
to the Cabinet is exhausted, the day of reckoning
will amply atone for all previous lathes and former
shortcomings. The spirit of a free people cannot
always be kept under, and the rights of the nation
to have its feelings and opinions represented in an
adequate form before the world must one day be
vindicated in spite of all the efforts of time-serving
and place-loving statesmen.

The social statistics of a busy thriving community
like our own afford a good deal of interesting
matter for consideration. The returns of births,
deaths, and marriages, the respective numbers of
the followers of different religions, the test of popu-
lar education afforded by the marriage-register, and
the actual strength of the population, are all points
of great importance which exercise a powerful in-
fluence on tne fortunes and prospects of our time.
the curious have, however, pushed their inquiries
still further, and have procured a careful and toler-
ably correct analysis of the occupations of the
people. This is by no meanq a profitless study,
and the information which it gives us is very inte-
resting. The task of arrangement and subdivision
is by no means an easy one, and gives rise to some
singular classifications—her Gracious MAJP,stry
and CALCRAFT, the hangman, being enrol:Led in the
same division—the professional cl:ess t It is true
that the QUEEN is ranked, as in duty bound, first
in the first department. 'chat of the Governmental
class, and that the
is styled t 1 solitary representative of what
)".; ancient office of executioner" closes
the last 11l the three subdivisions of the professional
clads. Economising Radicals will see with alarm
the advance of the Governmental body from
66,724 in 1851 to 87,350 in 1861 ; but
half the increase is due to the additional
numbers of those very useful and hardly-worked
officials, the police and the Post-office employes.
The military profession also shows a considerable
addition in the ten years, no less than from 85,818
to 131,944. This is a remarkable increase, consider-
ing that Volunteers ate not reckoned, since their
military business is subordinate to their other em-
ployments. The learned and artistic professions
furnish some curious details. Their numbers have
risen more than fifty thousand in the decade; mem-
bers of the clerical profession of all denominations
having increased, as have also physicians, while
surgeons and apothecaries have decreased, let us
hope, to the diminution of drugs and blisters; bar-
risters have added nearly three hundred to their
forces, while, happily for the world, attorneys have
remained stationary. The schoolmaster is certainly
abroad and preternaturally active, for sixteen
thousand teachers are added to the list. Of the
110,364 instructors now ranked under that head no
less than 24,770 are governesses, a forcible reminder
that it is high time that female industry found
other channels, We are not surprised to find fresh
recruits in the ranks of the votaries of music. The
old absurdity of the English not btiog a musical
people is now pretty well exploded, and year by
year the divine art affords employ went to more and
more. Signs of the times are also to be found in the
rising numbers of thecivil engineers,while the sudden
mania for photography has increased the numbers
of its followers from 46 to 2,534. Members of the
literary profession are reckoned at 3,580, but this is
by no means the limit of the bookmakers, since
members of any other profession may write books—
legal, medical, theological, Bcc. At the close of this
professional class are found some very odd confreres,
conjurors, ballad singers, and pugilists—though,
considering the pugnacious tendencies so frequently
displayed in public by disputants of various degrees,
it is somewhat surprising to find only 18 pugilists.
By far the largest class is that headed domestics,
whose numbers include women not engaged in busi-
ness, children, innkeepers, and those engaged in
providing board and lodging, besides the very large
item of domestic service. Nearly a million female
domestic servants were reckoned in England
and Wales at the last census, a num-
ber whose amount is positively startling,
showing more plainly than any words could
do the value and importance of an efficient training
being provided for so large a class, and the vast
amount of moral responsibility resting with the
heads of households. It is a sign of growing pros-
perity that 400,000 more servants should be enu-
merated in '6l than in '5l, but Bich signs are not
always infallible, since they sometimes tell as much
of love of luxury or display as of actual increase of
wealth. It is difficult altogether to account for the
great decrease perceptible in the agricultural cless.
It is possibly partly due to a different method of
calculation, possibly to the custom of reckoning all
the grown-up members of a farmer's family as as-
sistants. It is possible that the increasing energise

of the time have sent some of these out into busier
scenes, but when we find so great a diminution as
74,000 in this important class, it is time to look into
the cause. The industrial portion of the population
shows a rapid increase. Its respective numbers were
4,143,293 and 4,828,399 in the two census years,
and of this vast toiling multitude, the
hands that work, the feet that carry on that routine
work without which the thoughts of the head
would profit little, no less than 1,565,889 are
females, and more than 1,000,000 under 20 years
of age. How wise and just are the laws that limit
the power of employers when such is the case.
There is good reason to fear that plenty of opprcs
sion goes on even with all our precautions. Such
then are the component parts of our busy working
world. It is a time where there are but few drones,
and where those drones have little chance of dis-
tincion or success. Work, hard work is the secret
of prominence in English life, and the dole° far
niente of softer skies suits but little with our "black
north-easters." A study of this census paper is full
of suggestions to the social philosopher, sho wing
him how wide and various are the interests that go
to make up a great community, and how mistaken
and mischievous are the efforts of those who would
consult the interest or follow the bidding of any
one class.