The Sun.
London, England, 1864-03-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

PECTATOR.—It needs little political wit to dis-
cover that the Ministry is shaking, and not muati
political arithmetic. There is no need to count
heads, that most dceeptive of all Conserva-
tive amusements, or even to watch the drift of the
local constituencies, for the House of Commons is
in that temper which always presages a change. It
is as fretful and nervous as a man who knows he
must quarrel with his colleagues, and is making up
his mind how to commence the disagreeable task.
Under those circumstances tie is usually over polite
to his true antagonists, as though hoping by some
lucky chance to avoid the approaching contention,
and relieves his inward annoyance by snubbing his
wife, disappointing his children, and roaring at his
dependents. The majority of the House of Com-
mons is just in that stage, secretly angry with the
Ministry, at least irritated with the Cabinet, but
still unwilling to break with it, and venting its
spleen upon everybody whom it thinks decently
safe to attack. It is fretted inwardly with the
management of the greatest affairs, but as yet it
has not attacked any one of the great departments.
Lord Palmerston is never heard without apparent
deference, and Lord Clarence Paget carries his esti-
mates with a rapidity which is almost a triumph,
the War Office has been let off without a division,
and even Sir Ghorge Grey has not been accused of
vacillation more than twice in one night. Tnere
is a nervous reluctance to vote whenever a vote may
prove important, and the way in which Tories slip
out before a division must be a daily heartbreak
to Colonel Taylor. But watch the house when it
can fume without producing the inevitable colli-
sion. See how it springs at any member of the
Ministry who has laid himself open to attack,
how it welcomes a personal charge, how hungry it
is for occasions which may justify the throwing of
eggs, how loth it is to let any plausible quarrel drop!
The sharp snub administered to Mr. Lowe only
whetted the appetite of the majority, and the last
days of the sitting before Easter were almost one
continued "row." Crowds don't pelt their favourites
or their favourites' friends, and all this stone-throw-
ing indicates the internal unpopularity of the Cabi-
net. The ft ugly ruse" may be deferred, but the mob
is in the temper to make it, and when it is made, no
censtable's baton will avail to defend the hustings.
This Ministry has to go, and it is a little curious to
trace the causes which have undermined its hold
over the house. The Ministry will, we believe, fall
for too many causes combine against it. Eat!
Russell's European policy has annoyed the country
nearly as much as his American policy hss sAtisfied
it, and Englishmen, even when humiliation is una-
voidable, never endure it patiently. Even if peace
is maintained, still, as a London verse-maker is
now singing, "Few on earth are the nations who
never will be slaves," and the country sees with
pained discontent that one of the few is, in spite of
Erl Russell, getting its throat slowly cut. After
men have been talked into argumentative coma
about Schleswig-Holstein, the fact remains that one
of the three Protestant States left on earth is being
dismembered, ann that. the English Cabinet has not
prevented it, and anybody who fancies that English-
men in their hearts like that does not understand
his countrymen. Then the Liberals have been in
power with a rare and short interval foe 17 years,
and have accumulated upon them the mass of indi-
vidual, clique, and sectional hatreds which slowly
accrete round every free government. The Tories
suffer too from their long opposition, for they
have now such a mass of people about them
who have been hungering for years, that the
cake will be too smell, fled they will be driven
to job audaciously, but then that is ail in
the future. The inevitable hatreds are further
increased by special personal animosities. flat
curious vein of hauteur, not to say insolence, which
underlies Lord Palmerston's bonhommie, and has
twice helped to defeat him, crops out in his special
subordinates, and of his immediate " men; Mr.
Lowe, Mr. F. Peel, Mr. Cowper, Sir R. Peel, and
Mr. Layerd, not one conciliates and section of the
house to the Administration. A whole party
despises Sir George Grey, a whole section frets at
r. Gladstone's determined will, and except Lord
himself, and sometimes Lord C. Paget,
-''sister who can soothe the house
All that, of course, tells
-hich is not pinched
-1 does not even
-:eg, and

Palmerb,,
there is not a Ili._

out of a fit of irritation.

very little upon the nation—..
by anybody except by Mir. Lowy*,
know that Mr. Gladstone has no follov,

that Sir C. Wood's ability is obscured by a Stat..
like capacity for irritating everybody about
But it does tell very heavily in the house, and when
a Ministry only lives by drawing over votes from
the opposite side, and carries economical votes by
a majority of one, the house becomes as
important as the constituencies. Finally the
Ministry suffers bitterly from the want of zeal in
Its supporters. Except the Annuities Bill, what
have they begun, or proposed to begin, or promised
that if permitted they will consider how to begin of
which the Liberal rank and file care to see the end ?
Simply nothing at all, and though students may
perceive the vast difference between them and their
opponents, and the majority of constituenciEs may
ba languidly willing to see them hold power till the
lull is over, still the mass of voters cannot be excited
into enthubiastic voting fir nothing at all, and when
parties are pretty equal and enthusiasm is dead the
attack has all the advantage of its momentum. An
appeal to the country will not, under such circum-
stances, modify matters much, and unless Mr.
Disraeli delights his enemies by an Ultratnontane
speech, or Lord Derby proclaims the moral duty of
always following Napoleon's lead, oe some wholly
unexpected incident occurs in foreign politics, it is
bard to see what is to keep the assailants from
carrying the fortress.

'SATURDAY REVIEW.—The nation heard with
heartfelt satisfaction, a short time ago, that there
was a probability that the Sovereign, who has been
so long for all practical purposes, withdrawn from
her subjects, would soon return to them again. The
public reception which her Majesty accorded to the
deputations of certain municipal bodies who ap-
proached her for the purpose of presenting addresses
of congratulation upon the birth of a Prince, seemed
to confirm this hope. But later incidents would
appear to show that it was premature. The con-
tinued delegation to the Prince and Princess of Wales
of those duties which hitherto have always been
fulfilled, when possible, by a Sovereign—and that,
too, at a juncture which to the Princess mast be one
of terrible anxiety—indicates that the Queen's long
retirement has not yet come to a close ; and, indeed,
arrangements have been formally announced within
the last few days which are obviously incompatible
with the residence of her Majesty in London during
any part of the present season. Rumours are even
in circulation that she will never hold her Court in
her capital again. Such a resolution, if it exists, is
a matter of grave political moment and may well
cause serious uneasiness. It is upon her Majesty's
Ministers, however, the responsibility must rest.
Cut off by her rank from unrestrained intercourse
with any section of society in this country, the
Queen cannot know what people are thinking or
saying in the busy world outside. She does not
enjoy the opportunities which fall to the lot of most
of us, knowing that the disposal and the duties of
life are regarded by others from a point of view very
different from that to which our own feelings or cir-
cumstances might incline us. But this want her
Ministers should supply. It is their duty to speak
to their Mistress with loyal frankness, and to ten
der advice which her whole past life assures us
would not be disregarded ; for a sovereign who has
in so many ways made the Court of England
synonymous with all that is of good report can only
need to be told of an unfulfilled duty. If the course
of events indicates that that frankness has not been
displayed, her Majesty's advisers ere incurring the
heaviest responsibility which conic' possibly fall
upon them. Seclusion is one of the few luxuries in
which Royal personages may not indulge. The
power which is derived :from affection or from
loyalty needs a life of almost unintermitted pub-
licity to sustain it. Human affections will not fasten
upon abstractions, and a Sovereign, however be-
loved, too long shut up from the public eye, may
become too much of an abstract idea. In England,
moreover, there is another reason which would
powerfully contribute to impair the influence of a
Sovereign who lived in perpetual retirement. In
this country, all classes, from the Prime Minister

down to the poorest petty juryman, do a great deal
of what is, practically, gratuitous labour for the
benefit of the State. The general consciousness of
self-sacrifice which is the result of this national
habit produces a very exacting popular opinion on
the subject of public duty. People usually fix the
merit which they expect in others at a point several
degrees higher in the morel scale than that which

satisfies their personal sense of obligation ; and if
their own standard is tolerably high, the standard
which they impose upon others rises in proportion.
Just as the most unsparing ascetics are also the most
pitiless persecutors, so a nation of which all the
more important classes are accustomed to
make many sacrifices in doing their public
duties hears with regret of sentiments
or feelings, amiable in thfmselves, which are
regarded as demanding the postponement of social
or official obligations. A tradesman who will take
no part in the charities of his borough, a country
gentleman who ignores his local duties, a large pro-
prietor who spends his time in Paris instead of
looking after his estates, are tried by a measure very
different from that wlrch would be applied to them
in:any other country. Both from the classes below,
them and the class to which they belong they in-
cur, if not disapprobation, something at least of
waning confidence. Kings and Queens are not
exempt from the same kind of criticism. The chief
duty of English Sovereigns, even in times when
they directed the policy of the country more openly

than they do now, was to show themselves, and to
be the centre alike of the pomp of the State and of
the gaieties of the well-to-do world ; and the hearti-
ness with which they performed this duty deter.
mined their popularity far more powerfully than
their moral qualities, or even than their political
tendencies. William 111. was greatly superior in
almost every moral quality to Cuarles 11., but there
is no question which was the more popular of the
two. George IV.'s unpopularity when he was gay
and fashionable was undoubtedly great, but it did
not approach in intensity to the odium which he
incurred in later years, when a growing taste for
luxury, combined with a dread of exhibiting his
faded charms, drove him to become a gastronomic
hermit. And the public instinct is right in this
matter. A Sovereign may neglect the administra-
tive part of his duties, and if he be served by com-
petent Ministers, the commonwealth will suffer no
damage. But no one can supply his place for the
purposes of representation. Hereditary monarchy
is upheld, in spite of many inconveniences which
attach to it, because the emotion of loyalty has been
ascertained by experience to be not only a cheap
defence of order, but one for which no substitute,
even tolerably effective, can be found. But loyalty
needs to be stimulated by external display, by the
pomp and circumstance of power, by all
the kindly feelings which personal intercourse
creates between Sovereign and subject. If a
Sovereign omits to keep it alive by such means, he
leaves unfulfilled that one function which no one else
can perform in his stead. 'ro say that the advisers
who fail to guard him against such an error are
only allowing him to prejudice his own position is
to speak of the matter much too lightly. They do
far more than this. They are not so much risking
the personal popularity of the Sovereign as bring-
ing into disrepute the institutions of which his office
is the keystone, and the permanence of which is in-
fluenced by the personal life of every occupant of
the throne.

EXAMINER.—To make up for the brevity of his
note on eternities, the Archbishop of Canterbury
has written a long pastoral letter to his flock, lay
and clerical, upon the theological questions mooted.
Perhaps it is not the fault of the Primate that he
dces not make clear the knotty questions he dis-
cusses, but certain it is that his explanations im-
mensely increase perplexity. For example, what
can be made of this passage, a maze of words and
phrases, in which the reader is bewildered and
lost

Lastly, if the Bible be " before all things," and no more
than the "written voice of the congregation," even though
that congregation shall have prayed to God that " by his
holy inspiration" they " may think those things that be
good," it will be at the utmost no more than the voice of
the Church, which cannot be adduced to establish doctrine
if that voice shall utter or "ordain anything contrary to
God's word written"--of the Church, which may not " so
expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to an-
other,"
There ic+ a break of light in this view of Mr. Wil-
son's opinions :
The sum and substance of thet which he labours re•
peatedly to establi-1 I cannot but consider as conveyed in
the following sentence :—" It may," he says, "be expressed
thus—the Word of G KI is contained in Scripture, whence
it does not follow that it is co-extensive with it." The
meaning fairly to be put upon these words I hold to be that
there are parts of H ly Scripture which are not the Word
of God, and this assertion I conceive to be entirely incon•
sistent with the articles, which identify the Holy Scrip-
tures and the canonical bocks of the Old and New Testa-
ment, with God's Word written, and thus make the one
co-extensive with the other.

But the main point is the Archbishop's advice
and direction as to what is and what is not permis-
sible in the way of inquiry, and th, results:

You may be induced to ask what is the degree of liberty
allowed to each of you, according to the mind of the
Church, in dealing with the Bible. The view I have taken
of the claim which the who:e of the Holy Scriptures has to
be treated as:the Word of God cannot interfere with the right
of discussing questions as to various readings or the ge-
nuineness of a dispute" test ; for this is no more than to
argue that a given text or reading is not a part of any ca-
nonical book. But such an argument on the part of a
c ergyinan is a widely different thing from his assertion
thst a portion of the Bible which he has acknowledged to
belong to a canonical book is not the Word of God.

There is surely something contradictory here.
The whole is to be accepted as the Word of God,
though parts of the whole may be questioned and
the authority denied! The Primate admits that
there are disputed texts, the genuineness of which
is allowable, nay, proper matter of discussion; but
if the conclusion fairly arrived at be that those
texts are not the Word of God, parts are thereby
rejected of the whole for whic'i acceptance and im-
plicit faith is claimed ! How is this to be recons
:!ed with reason and logic? If there are any parts
the whole that may be regarded as not genuine,
of :_niete admits there are texts open to
and the ls-1
not Mr. Wilson's proposition
this doubt, is
born® out, that the Word of God is
contained in Scripture, but that Scripture
may not be co-extensive with the Word
of God ; in other words, that Seripore may contain
passages net of Divine authority, or, as the Arch-
bishop would express it, not genuine ?
LONDON REVIEW.—Turf quarrels and Turf scan-
dals have been rather frequent of late. It is not
very long ago since we had the great "Reindeer"
case; and now we are called upon to witness a
grand struggle between the Jockey Club and the
Morning Post. There is something, we fear, in the
influences or associations of sporting calculated to
develop a spirit of contention in its followers and
devotees. The perpetual excitement of matches
impending or in course of settlement—the stimulus
of betting—the constant atmosphere of rivalry,
flavoured not seldom with a smatch of fraud—ap-
pear to put the minds of re:olog gentlemen into a
favourable frame for wrangling and litigation.
With such large sums of money at issue, this is
scarcely to be wondered at. A man who may lose
his thousands if the horse on which he has betted
heavily comes in second, or recedes into the vaeuuns
described by sporting reporters as " nowhere," can-
not be expected to be very amiable in temper, or
constitutionally inclined to play the part of peace
maker. But in the case of " The Earl of Coventry
and Others v. Willes," tried on Tuesday before Mr.
Justice Cromptott on the Norfolk Circuit, the Jockey
Cub appears to have exhibited an amount of petty
spite more characteristic of a set of angry old women
than of a body of English gentlemen. The com-
mencement of the quarrel dates back to the autumn
of 1862. At the First. October Meeting of that year.
a match was run between C Tr. Burn eby's Tarragona
and a horse named Michel Grove. The latter was tht
victor, buts very general impression was entertained
that a fraudulent bet had been made by Csptains
Burnaby and Annesley, by which the public had
bees induced to back Tarragona, and that Captain
Burnaby, the owner of that horse, had instructed the
jockey, Nightingale, to lose the race. The stewards
of the Jockey Club accordingly commenced an in-
quiry into the allegation ; but it appears somewhat
to have hung fire, and on Oct. 20 Mr. Willes, the
sporting reporter of the Morning Post, published in
that journal, under his usual signature of " Argus,"
some comments on the delay of the stewards of the
Jockey Club in giving their decision, the parties in-
volved being naturally desirous of having the impu-
tation removed if it had been unjustly fastened on
them. This criticism on the stewards was endorsed
by a leading article in the same day's paper. The
Jockey Club fired up into red-hot indignation. It
demanded an apology of Mr. Willes. Mr. Willes
refused. It then came to a resolution that Mr.
Willes "be warned off the land and property of the
Jockey Clui; at Newmarket." Subsequently Mr.
Willes, on Apri; 20, 1863, wrote a letter to the
secretary of the club, b-:ating that his remarks "were
penned solely from a setts of duty as a public
writer, and without the slighte.
.tintention to give
pain or annoyance to any single m:mber of the
club." This was not held to be sufficient apology,
and Mr. Willes was formally warned off the ce:irse
—an act which in effect classified him with swindlers
and blacklegs, since the ground is open to any one
who chooses to subscribe, and is only denied to
persons of notoriously or obviously bad character.
The victim of this act of petty tyranny, feeling con-
siderable doubt as to the power of the stewards to
exclude respectable people at their will and pleasure,
gave notice that, on a certain day, he should com-
mit a trespass on the course, not in any spirit of
bravado, but simply that the issue might be raised
in a court of law. This was accordingly done, and
the action tried on Tuesday was the result. Some
of the main points, however, had already been de-
cided in the Court of Queen's Bench. Mr. Willes,
as the defendant, had pleaded the prescriptive
right of the public to go upon the race-course during
the races ; but this, upon demurrer, bad been disal-
lowed by theQueen'sßench,which held that the occu-
pation of the land was with the Jockey Club, as
represented by the stewards for the time being, and
that they possess the right of exclusion. The only
issue for trial, therefore, was involved in the defen-
dant's additional plea that he had " leave and
licence" from the plaintiffs to go upon the ground.
Teat the stewards, jointly with the other members
of the Ctub, are the occupiers of the land, seems to
have been proved beyond a doubt. Tue portion of
heath so used has been conveyed by the Crown to
the Jockey Club, which eln rges for training horses
and using the betting ring, and deputes to its various
servants the several regulations of the course. The
annual subscribers' ticket to the betting ring bear
on their back the words, " The holder of this ticket
shall be compelled to resign the same, and to leave
the inclosure, on the order of any one or more of
the stewards of the Jockey Club, and shall have no
claim to a return of the money, &c.;" and it ap-
pears to have been generally understood that the
stewards, for the sake of preserving order, are
vested with the right to remove objectionable per-
sons. But then comes the plea of " leave and
licence," This was based on the fact that, since the
defendant had been warned off the course, a new
set of stewards had come into office, end, as he had
received no warning from them, the original "leave

and licence" to enter the inclosure, d erived from th
subscribers' ticket, had not been rescinded. Mr
Willes, in fact, sot ight to set up a distinction be-
tween the three ph iintiffs, as stewards of the Club,
and the Club goner ally. Rut this manifestly would
not hold water. As Mr. Justice Crompton observed,
" The Jockey Club is not a corporation ; it has no
common seal, but acts by its stewards!' The
stewards, on this occasion, were as clearly act-
ing on behalf of the body generally as the chair-
man of a board a cts for the whole board, or
the President of a Republic issues his procla-
mations in name o f the State. On the purely
legal ground, there fore, we cannot but think
that the verdict for the plaintiff, with which
the action concluded, was correct; but the nominal
damages—one shilling--showed how little the jury
approved the spirit in which the Jockey Club had
acted towards Mr. Winos. That spirit was clearly
one of malevolence. The greet offeader, after all,
was the Morning Post, Mr. Willes was only the
humble agent of that journal. What he had felt it
his duty to write, the paper he represented.had con-
firmed and repeated in its leading columns. If the
comments complained of were unjust and libellous,
the stewards might have brought an action against
the condlictors of the offending journal; but this
they omitted to do, and it is, therefore, to be pre-
sumed that they were conscious of having no case.
To have attacked the Morning Post would at least
have been courageous ; to make a set upon Mr.
•Willes—to warn him off the ground, and class him
with gipsies, betters from the back-slums, and
thimble-riggerti—was a piece of angry spite which
puts the stewartis and all who acted with them in
an essentially false position,which the little triumph
of a verdict upon mere points of la,,w will not go far
to help. It is greatly to be regretted that Lord
Stradbroke's amendment, m that it was not expe-
dient to take notice of ano,aymons writers in the
public prints," was not carried. As it was, it re-
ceived ten votes to twelve against it ; so that the
feeling in the club was far from unanimous. And
what, after all, have these petty pert ecutors gained ?
" The letters of Argus," says the Morning Post in
its leading article of Wednesday, " will bo continued
by Mr. Willes, except from Newmarket, •where he is
forbidden to appear, and the letters of Arens will be
written as trustworthily and honestly from Newmar-
ket by other gentlemen who will be deputed to act
in his place. This is but a sorry result for the Jockey
Club to obtain. It was the Morning Post which
offended them—the Morning Post with whom they
wereangry, simply because bey were in the wrong;
.i,d against us hey are powerless." This is always the
mistake of those who cameo, understand that the
press, with right on its side, is a power that cannot
ultimately be withstood.

COUNTRY MARKETS.

.1

YORK- SATURDAY.

There was a rather better show of wheat at market to-
day, Hnd late prices were well maintained. In barley for-
mer quotations were made. Oats in slow request. Other
articles as before.
Wheat, red 37s to 40s Oats.... lBs to 203
White do .40s to 449 Beans .. 38- to 40-
Barley .26s to 32s Veal; ....—s to --
Malt, 58s to 60s per qr.; rye, 23s per qr ; flour, 283
to 30s per sack.