The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-31 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

THE "LONDON REVIEW" ON THE EARLDOM OF
WICKLOW.—The reverses of fortune are not to be
compared to those which men bring upon them-
selves by their vices. If chance makes them pennie
less, they have still left their energies and their
self-respect. They can battle against the world,
though they are obliged to put off most of its corn-
forts, and can feel, even if they sink in the struggle,
that they have fought their light well, though not
successfully. It is otherwise when men involve
themselves in ruin by wanton folly or the indulge.
ence of degrading propensities. In4the life of such
a man there is nothing to respect. We would
rather blot out all trace of him, and forget, when
he has gone his way, that such a being ever cum-
bered the ground. Ho has been an enemy to him.
self and to all who have come within his influence;
as well to those who have ministered to his vices as
to those who have suffered by them. He has been
a disgrace to his name and a scandal to the world.
And yet it may be that, with all this, the source of
his errors has not been so much an original
baseness as a softness of temper, an absence of the
sense of responsibility, vacuity of intellect, and
exemption from the necessity of labour. If the
uses of adversity are not precisely sweet they are
for the most pare wholesome. There is an energy
within us which some way or other must be em-
ployed. We may appease it by healthy toil of any
kind, or we may deaden its cravings by the indul-
gence of our passions. Wise men take the one course,
fools the other. Yet the fool's vices may have had
their origin in nothing worse than weakness, which
the necessity of labour might have fostered into
strength. If, in his last moments, the unfortunate
man who died last week in a brothel i❑ one of the
lowest slums in the neighbourhood of Dublin could
have contrasted his death-bed and its surroundings
with his social state, his opportunities and expecta-
tions, he might have cursed the hour which brought
him into the world with the certainty of most of
these advantages, and with the strong possibility of
enjoying all of them. If one could designate before
one's birth in what position in life we should be
born, it would not show a deficiency of judg-
ment to resolve on coming into the world
as did the late William George Howard.
Many years before his death he was presumptive
heir to the earldom of Wicklow; and though, if a
man had the right to select to which out of a dozen
earldoms he would like to succeed, it would not be
difficult to cheese a more attractive one than that of
NVicklow, it must bo admitted Captain Howard's
prospect of succession was not to be looked 6osrn
upon. He was, to say the least, nobly born. It
the revenues which he had the strong probability
of inheriting were not immense, they were sufficient
to arable him to raise very large sums of money
from the Jews. When, some years ago, he came
before the Insolvent Court, his debts were stated at
little. if anything, less than £lOO,OOO. And this
enormous sum had been raised upon post•obit bonds.
Yet in the history of this man we find not a single
trace of any feeling that he owed to himself or to
others the duty of living decently for a single day.
His associates were the lowest of the low, the vilest
of the vile. In the peerage he ranked as heir to
an earldom. In society the most abandoned and
despicable knew him and saluted him as "Billy."
And when last week he bade farewell to the world
he had scandilised, the historian of his last hours
was an " unfortunate" in whose arms he expired.
In such miserable companionship did the heir to the '
earldom of Wicklow breathe his last—in the prime
of manhood, with hostages given to fortune, in a
wife who had borne him one child and was about to-
bear him another. It would appear that, as if led
by the instincts which had debased him from his
early youth, he had left the roof which sheltered
wife and child to close his days in a manner more
befitting his antecedents than their society. He
had known the woman in whose house he died for
eleven months, and on the Tuesday week before
his death he took up his quarters with her. It is a
dreary narrative that we now learn from her lips.
He told her he had been ill. He complained of
cramps and diarrbaei, but would neither see a medi-
cal man nor take medicine. He would take whisky ;
and day after day he lay in bed drinking whisky—
sometimes a quart a day; and, when he found that
whisky did him no good, drinking brandy. During
the ten days preceding his death, he appears only
to have eaten one egg and one chop, but not to have
retained either on his stomach. Day after day his
cry was the same—" whisky." And so drifting out
to sea, the wretched man spent his last hour, till
on Wednesday week he became delirious, craving
to his last breath for drink. "He continued
wandering and delirious," says the unfortunate who
attended him, " up to the time of his death. It was
at half-past ten o'clock, and he had been asking me
to lift him out of bed all day. I had promised to
raise him up, and when I caught his hand to raise
him he said, Don't catch me•' I then put my
hand behind his back, but he said let me lie down,
and he fell back. I then heard something in his
throat, but I did not think he was dying. He died
then, but I did not know he was dead. I asked him
to speak to me, but he did not, for he was dead."
So passed the scion of a noble house. Had he been
born the son of one of its labourers, he might have
had a better chance for the life of soul and body
than fell to him as the heir to its hononrs and re-
venues. Malicious he was not, nor an intriguer,
nor brutal, nor daring in iniquity, nor strongly
wicked. He was weak. _ Empty of brain, soft of

disposition, easily manipulated by the vicious, and
in his feebleness the most notably vicious of them
all. Poverty might have compelled him to labour.
He was born rich, and his rank overwhelmed him.
He possessed the means to distinguish or debase
himself. And of the two ambitions he chose the
latter.

THE " EXAMINER" ON SUBMARINE CABLES.--
Long submarine electric cables began six years ago
with the Atlantic cable. This extended to rather
more than 2,000 miles, with unequal depths, vary.
ing from the height of an Irish round tower to that
of the peak of Teneriffe. It held together just long
enough to allow her Majesty the Queen of England
and the President of the then United, now the dis-
united, States to exchange compliments, and to
enable the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland to make a
knight of its engineer. It cost £600,000, and of
the project as at present under renewal the cost is
estimated at a sum of £700,000. Government binds
itself to guarantee a dividend of 8 per cent on the
capital, " upon the completion and working of the
cable." How these very vague words may be con-
strued by lawyers we know not. If, for example,
the cable, which is of double the strength and size
of its predecessor, should work well for a whole
month and then snap and perish like its predecessor,
would the guarantee be effective? If it would, the
public will be burdened with an annual and per.
petual charge of £56,000 per annum. But the
guarantee would seem to apply equally to the sum
laid out on the first cable, for it is dated 1857, that
is, before this was laid, and in this case the annual
burden to the State in perpetuity, and no benefit
received, would amount to £104,000 ! The tele-