The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-01 00:00:00

n 1 SUN, LAu.N. WEDAESi) 3117 VEINIAG, itiNE 1, 18G4

speed than nine or ten knots. This is, of course,
no fault of the builders, but rather a crotchet of
the Admiralty. Mr. REED, the Constructor of the
Navy, exercises great influence, and although he is
undoubtedly a man of considerable talent he seems
entirely to forget the interests of the Nary in car-
rying out his own pet projects. He has certainly
succeeded in constructing ships of only one thousand
tons, capable of carrying four•and-a•half-inch
armour plates, and drawing only some fifteen feet
of water—namely, the Enterprise and the Research ;
but in so doing he has limited their speed to under
ten knots. These vessels carry 400-pounders, and
would be, no doubt, formidable antagonists, pro-
vided the enemy would consent to give them battle
on their own terms, but they could neither overtake
a flying fee, nor avoid an action with La Gloire or
any other large and swift cruiser. This is a great
mistake, and we trust that the trials of El Monas-
sin and El Toussin, or whatever their Christian
names may be,will prove that it is possible to com-
bine strength, speed, and light draught of water;
and if this desideratum be once established, public
opinion will compel Admiralty prejudice and inte-
rests to give place to common sense and activity.

Reformers will be disappointed at the prefatory
apology which Mr. GLADSTONE has thought fit to
prefix to the issue of his famous speech on Mr.
BAINES'S motion. They thought they had gained
an important auxiliary—one whose eloquence in
the Senate and whose influence in the Cabinet
would prove of material assistance in smoothing
away those unaccountable obstacles that always
seems to intervene between Whig promises and
performances. The conversion of so distinguished
a member of those half•and-half Liberals, of which
we have only too many among our public men, was
hailed with acclaim by genuine Reformers, and as
much importance was attached to the unexpected
adhesion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the
Liberal side on the debate and division respecting
Mr. BAINES'S measure for the Extension of the
Franchise, as if some part of the scheme had actually
become lacy. But, alas, for these sanguine antici
pations and confident rejoicings ! The valiant
leader, who was to rout the forces of the enemy,
seems very much inclined to retract the steps he has
already taken, to surrender the point which he has
gained. Instead of bringing up an unexpected
reserve on another occasion, he is much more likely
to appear on the opposing side, or at best to hover
mid• way between the combatants, while he exhausts
all the resources of his subtle logic in showing ro the
bystanders the pros and cons belonging to each party.
Our quick-witted friend Punch was apparently very
near the truth with his formidable pencil. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer has made a false start
and come back again to the starting place, but we
very much question whether by his return he has
improved his chance iu the race. Is it that he
really thinks it is, as his pictorial mentor tells him,
too soon for a profession of democratic principles,
or is it that he was unprepared for the importance
attached to his words, and, consequently, dis-
inclined to support them unqualified ? It is cer-
tainly strange to find a man like Mr. GLADSTONE
attributing to the heat of the debate the expres-
sion of his views on a question like the franchise.
The particu:ar passage in his speech which Mr.
GLADSTONE thinks it necessary to qualify appears
to be a vary just and moderate one. In it he
maintains that exclusion from the franchise
should only be based on two grounds—the unfit-
ness of the non-elector, personally, and the possible
political danger arising from his admission. These
two reasons comprise all the arguments upon which
objections are based, and it is difficult to see what
other grnnnds (lan be stated fur the most wholesale
exclusion of classes• Personal unfitness is the
objection of the prudent Liberal ; constitutional
disturbance and consequent political danger is the
argument of the Tories. The manner in which
Mr. GLADSTONE endeavours to qualify his state-
ment, to prune away its dangerous Liberalism, and
to retain his position among the quasi supporters of
Reform on the Government benches is more in-
genious than satisfactory. A proposition of seem-
ingly wide scope is often, he tells us, reduced by

large exceptions to narrow limits ; and he evidently
wishes us to infer that his proposition belongs to
this class. It is as well, perhaps, that he says inci-
dentally, that these " large" exceptions are also
" scarcely definable," since even his subtle skill
might be puzzled to define them. Of what nature
are these exceptions ? Are we to exclude from the
franchise on accaunt of particular trade, or profes-
sion, or even creed ? Are we to restrict the exer-
cise of the right of voting to those classes who have
hitherto taken part in the representation. But if,
on such grounds, we might reverse many of the
most enlightened measures of modern times, and
even in these cases personal unfitness or political
danger must be tha real objections. If we are to
accept an educational test, or a warrant of character,
as security, it is personal unfitness that must ex-
clude the unsuccessful applicants. If we make pro-
perty or rental the rule of admission, we are desirous
of preserving the preponderance of power in the
hands of the wealthier classes and of avoiding
political disturbance, Mr. GLADSTONE says, truly
enough, in defence of those wholesale statements
which he is now inclined to qualify, that the oppo-
nents of Mr. BAINES'S measure assumed in
their arguments against it, that the present
limitations of the franchise required no
defence but were to be accepted without in-
quiry. Such is certainly not the opinion out of
doors, and judging by the faint and feeble manner
in which Parliament represents the popular feeling
about Denmark and Prussia, there is need of a con-
siderable alteration in the number or the character
of our constituencies,. Perhaps the least satis-
factory passage in Mr. GLADSTONE'S preface is that
in which he declares that he spoke chiefly in respect
to the past, and that neither time nor reason per-
mitted him " to attempt the solution of problems of

real intricacy, which belong wholly to the future,
and which are little likely to become practical
except for another generation. Certainly our re-
forms are likely to be only theoretical as long as we
have a Whig Cabinet at the helm ! But these
questions do not belong exclusively to the future;
they are pressing for a solution, and, Sphinx-like,
will be the ruin of the Statesman who cannot, or
will not, answer them. It would have been better
for Mr. GLADSTONE'S reputation had he boldly
stood by the principles he upheld in that eloquent
address which reflected so faithfully the sentiments
of a large body of the public. By his flinching
from his colours he will not regain the confidence
of those whom he has startled by his outspoken
advocacy of the ppular sentiments, but he will
forfeit the respect which might have been his had
he boldly maintained his ground and yielded to the
claims of right and justice, that which must here-
after be ceded to the exigencies of political
expediency.

THE MONTMORENCIEB AND THE TALLETRANDS.
—An Imperial decree has conferred the title of Duke de
Montmorency on young Prince de Talleyrand. The Mont-
morency family and their collateral branches—the Roche-
foucalts, the Beauffremonts, and the Rohan-Chabits—have
lost no time in applying to the competent tribunal for what
we would call a rule nisi, calling on the Prince to show
cause why he should not be prohibited from assuming a
name to which be has no claim, and which, not being in
abeyance, it is not in the Emperor's power to give. 'MM.
Thifaure, Berryer, and Andral are to support the rule.
There is also a rumour of a duel between the head of the
house of Montmorency and the Prince de Talleyrand,

LITERATURE,

Charles Dickens's New Story.

Our Mutual Friend. No, 2. Chapman and Hall.
Another delghttul number here introduces us to
several new characters. Every one of them—no
less by name than by nature—intensely Boz-like.
'three chapters are here—entitled, iespectively,
" Boffin's Bower," " Cut Adrift," and " Mr. Wegg
looks after himself:' This last-mentioned person,
Silas Wegg to wit, being that very tonL;picuous
wooden-legged Greenwith-pansioner-looking man,
seated at a little; table, on the alreadylfamiliar green
cover, etotlionsly reading a book, with Vat) aid of a
bottle and a steaming glass of grog. Mr. Wegg in
in affect is a stalf.teeper—crippled by accident—a
" literary man with a wooden leg," who vends fruit
and gingerbread to the infantile lieges of the Crown,
by way of eking out for himself a precarious subsist-
ence. The hardest little stall of all the sterile 8! ails
in London, his is said to be thus humorously----" It
gave you the face-ache to look at his apples,
the stomach-ache to look at his oranges, the tooth.
ache to look at his nuts !" The idiosyncracy
of the man is wonderfully imagined and described.
His identification of himself with the establishment
of " Our House" es part and parcel of it—his con-
ceiving to himself all the ins and outs of it—his
subtle adaptation of various salutes to the passers
of distinctive names to the
differentbyis p
inmatesor apportioning "
Oar Hotise"—his habit of
" taking a powerful sight of notice," as he says of
apoo
himself—all these minute traits, whims, oidities,
characteristics of the man, are touched in with the
inimitable hand of the Master Humorist. The very
coiner of the street ia which he passes the chief part
of his existence—don't we know it ? "A howling
corner in the winter time, a dusty corner in the
summer time, an undesirable corner at the best
of times. Shelterless fragments of straw and paper
got-up revolving storms there when the street was
at peace ; and the water cart, es if it were, drunk or
shortsighted, came blundering and joltieg round
it, making •it muddy when all else was
clean." The introduction to each other here—in
this bleak desolate howling wilderness of a corner—
of Silas Wagg, the stall-keepor aforesaid, and of
that rhinoceros-like passer-by, who turns out to be
the inheritor of much of the countless wealth of ad
Harmon, theD ustraan millionaire (this thick set man
of wealth and aigcnr being entitled—so like a Boz
character—Noddy Boffin 1) the introduction to
each other, at the street corner, of Silas Wegg
and Noddy Bi.ffin, is molt laughably recounted
throughout. Wegg becomes reader to Boffin, at the
rate of a crown a-week—reader to Baffle, of " Gib-
bon's " Decline and Fail." Hence the smock-frocked
clownish fellow on the green cover, who is gozing
evidently in wonder at the classic frieze with the
basso-relievo illustration of what the wooden-
legged-man is reading. Above, in the right corner
of the green cover, is Mrs. Boffin, a highflyer at
Fashion, it appears, who robes herself habitually
in a low evening dress of black satin, with a sable
velvet turban and plumes. The menage of the
Bower by the dust-hills is the oddest thing ima-
ginable—'' Boffin's Bower" that is ! In arriving at
which place of destination Mr. Wegg has consider.
able difficulty. Thanks to which seeming inacces-
sibility on the part of the Bower, we are told of the
old stall-keeper's wonderfully ludicrous encounter
(as follows) with—

single descriptive passage that we should be tempted
to quote as a specimen of brilliant writing. His
forte lies almost exclusively in the record of imagi-
nary conversations. Of this fact, the new number of
his current serial story affords in itself the amplest
evidence.