The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-09 00:00:00

irritated, a madman like Herr Von Bismark to drive
both to extremes, and English Princes accepting
orders at the hands of a Prussian King, the horizon
on every side seems visibly closing in.

THE " LONDON REVIEW" ON POPE PIUS IX.—
COURAGEOUS ALLOCUTION ABOUT POLAND.—The
thunders of the Vatican have once more broken over
the head of an Emperor. The Pope, moved no
doubt by a high sense of duty, and by a profound
feeling of indignation at the wrongs inflicted by
the Czar upon the Roman Cathelie. population of
Poland, has just delivered a very remarkable allo-
cution it a tonsistory held at Rome. The unani-
mous voice of the civilised -world will echo the
charge which 'nos solemnly brought against the
SoverPe;gn of Rustia.—that, after having driven his
subjects to insurreetion he is now endeavouring,
under the pretctt Of suppressing the rebellion, to
deprive them of all that is characteristic of their
nationality, or endeared to them by political or re*
ligious feeling. Considering the persecution which
hes undoubtedly been exetelsod in Foland against
the priests and professors of the Roman Catholic
religion, his Holiness would undoubtedly have been
wanting to his position had he not joined in that
general protest, which seems to be all that the world
can offer, by way of stemming the tide of ruthless
oppression. This allocution is not without political
importance, for it tends to keep alive in Roman
Catholic countries the animosity whichrecent events
have excited against Russia. Nor is it unmarked by
a degree of political courage, for which the Pope
deserves full credit. It will not be forgotten at
St. Petersburg, and if ever the question of main-
taining the temporal power comes up for discussion
amongst European statesmen, it will probably exert
a material influence upon the policy of Russia.
Pius IX. could not be blind to this probable effect
of his address : and he is therefore entitled to the
praise of having at least dared and risked something
for the sake of the unfortunate Poles—praise to
which no other European sovereign can put forward
the slightest claim.
THE " EXAMINER" ON STREET NUISANCES.—
We have to thank Mr. Bass for bringing in a bill to
protect the public against the noisy nuisances now
infesting the streets. The existing law requires
reasonable cause for the removal of vagabonds
playing on grind organs, or brass instruments of
torture. But magistrates differ as to reasonable
cause, and Justice Midas is of opinion that no one
can have reason to complain of the sweet sounds
from a decayed hurdygurdy, or the alternations of
grunts and squeaks of a brass band, Another
magistrate thinks only sickness or mathematics
reasonable cause. A third holds the right opinion
that the streets should be kept to their right uses—
traffic,and that there is reasonable cause for stopping
the conversion of them into orchestras, or we should
rather say, places of abominable discord. What
Mr. BASS proposes is to extend protection to serious
occupations which will not bear interruption ; but,
as Sir F. Crossley observed, people have a right to
something more, and ought to be allowed to live
in the houses they pay for in peace and quiet. Be-
cause a householder happens not to be a calculating
machine, he is not to be tormented with noises from
daybreak to midnight. He has a right to as much
quiet as consists with the necessary traffic of the
streets. There is a time for all things, and the
choicest music intruded upon the ear at every hour
of the day would be intolerable, much more so the
drone of hackneyed tunes by decayed organs, or the
grunts and squeaks of a herd of filthy German
swine. Unhappily, nature has provided no defence
against this crying evil. We can shut our eyes
against disagreeable sights, we can stop our noses
against bad smells, but cannot stop ourears against
the assaults of discordant sounds. The sense of
hearing is completely at mercy, and no mercy is
shown it in this vast, ill regulated town. In Paris
street music is suffered on no pretext, and if people
choose to have it it must be in their houses or court-
yards. And our own Legislature has admitted the
principle that some consideration is due to the ears
in suppressing the dustman's bell ; but what was
the annoyance of that bell to the detestable noises
that have succeeded it ? and the bell was not ring-
ing every where from sunrise to midnight. The
street nuisance is defended in Parliament by two
lineal descendants of Midas, Sir John Shelley and
Lord Fermoy, and on Mr. Bass's motion the latter
brayed a bray that the attempt was to suppress
street music, and to interfere with the recreation of
the people. The people, in the common sense of
the word, have no interest in the matter. The brass
bands and organs, the Savoyard and German vaga-
bonds, are not to be found in the alleys and courts,
but in the squares and handsome streets. The Ger-
man gangs are not paid in pence, but in silver and
gold. It your wife or daughter is on a sick bed, or
your mother dying, you cannot buy her quiet at a
less price than half-a-sovereign. The organs are
more moderate in their extortions, in proportion as
their power of annoyance is less, but you must pay
both, and all day long. There is a gang of Ger-
man boys that has carried extortion to great per-
fection by having instruments excruciatingly out
of tune, Their activity is as great as their discord
is intolerable, anti they make themselves herd,
detested, end dreaded in every part of the town.
Yet there are people who mistake even this per-
formance for music, and who reward and encourage
it, so that the trade is doubly profitable, chiefly
by extortion, partly by ministering to a vulgar,
vicious taste. A musician, noticing that
the band by which he was tormented al-
ways played its false notes in the same places,
called the leader into the house the other day,
gave him wine, complimented him on the good
playing of his band (whereat he looked uneasy), and
added, I have especially admired the skill and re-
gularity with which you introduce your discords.
" Ala," said the street bandmaster with a knowing
look, "zat is our business. It is by zat we live." A
Persian Ambassador on his first visit to the opera
was in raptures with the band when tuning the in-
struments, but when they commenced the overture
to "Figaro," ho said, " This is poor stuff indeed, but
what they commenced with was celestial music."
There are folks with this sort of taste, and who
really like discords when they pierce their dull ears
with a sharp shriek. Some of the Germans, it must
be admitted, play well, but the greater number are
mere horn-blowers, or else they know that it mat-
ters not for profit whether they play well or ill, for
that certain ears aro well pleased with bad as with
good music, and that others are to be tortured into
buying off their tormentors. It is curious to ob-
serve the pelts of the town of which complete pos-
session is taken by the nuisance-mongers. Aristo-
cratic Dover-street is devoted to them—organs,
brass bands, disgusting fellows with blacked faces
grimacing and bawling negro melodies, are to be
found in that unhappy street at all hours of the day.
We have a suspicion that there is something more
than extortion in this disgraceful phenomenon, and
that Fermoys and Shelleys abound in that locality,
and do not care to disguise the long ears that have
come down to them, and attest the ancient quarrel
with Apollo.
THE " SATURDAY REVIEW" ON PRINCE NAPO-
LEON.—Prince Napoleon enjoys a very curious
position. He has all the advantages of the empire,
and none of its drawbacks. Purple and fine linen,
the obsequiousness:of courtiers, and the admiration
of all whose admiration is stimulated by interest,
surround him from morning to night. And yet he
can do and say what he pleases. If the worst comes
to the worst, and he has been very indiscreet, he has
only to feel a scientific ardour, and set off in his
yacht on some exploring expedition, till his rash-
ness has been forgotten. He is a man who has strong
feelings, and strong likes and dislikes, who chooses
his associates as he fancies them, and espouses heartily
a cause to which he attaches himself. And yet, how-
ever dangerous may be his friends, and however
compromising may be his opinions, he still can speak
boldly out, and utter words which no other royal
person in Europe could utter without giving offence
and seeming false to his order. He is a democrat,
almost a red democrat,and he talks as democratically
and as red as he likes without any one stopping him.
Various causes combine to give him this position.
He is an able man, and is said to be the only human
being of whom the Emperor is afraid. Then he re-
sents one side of Imperialism in a very marked way
and helps to persuade France and Europe that, in
one sense, the Emperor is nothing but a crowned
democrat, The Emperor has far too much sympathy
with his cousin to wish to dissociate himself wholly
from a speaker who is, to some extent, the chief of
the revolutionary party. Perhaps the Emperor
knows that much of what the Prince says is imme-
diately set down as mere vapouring, and he may not
be sorry to contrast the importance which is attached
to everything he himself says with the indifference
that is frequently bestowed on the strongest utter-
ances of his cousin. Perhaps, too, the Emperor likes
to use the Prince sometimes as an instrument by
which he may gauge public opinion, and chooses to
encourage or permit the extravagances of his cousin
in order that he may know how far there is any
substantial change creeping over the surface of
French political thought. But at the same time the
Prince holds an independent position of his own. He
is not the mere passive tool of the Emperor. nor is he
the mere impotent mouthpiece of cleverer and
more unscrupulous democrats than himself. He is
allowed to say what he does because it would be so
hard to stop him without causing a rupture
in the Imperial family, which the Emperor is
anxious above all things to avoid. The Prince, too,
knows what ho is about. Ho sticks by a set of
ideas which have already some power in Europe,
and which may have more. He is all for what
Garibaldi calls the fated cause of the peoples. And
his very position gives him a weight, when he
talks about fated causes, which no other adherent
• of fated ceusea can have. For no one can be quite
certain that the Emperor is not speaking through
him, and a very alight accident might make it of