The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-20 00:00:00

gow on Tuesday to consider the Glasgow Union Railway
Bill, Sir A. Orr in the chair.

Mr IVAiNwßtowr, the secretary, having read the notice
con,:ening the meeting,

The CHAIRMAN explained that the directors highly ap-
proved the measure, which they considered Very important
to the company. The directors had made vei7 Satisfactory
arrangements fet titr*.t:on accommodation and for working
icAer the proposed line, which would establish a communi-
cation between the railways on the north and south of the
Clyde. The company's present station in Glasgow was
very incomplete and inadequate for their increasing traffic;
but by the proposed scheme they would get into a very ad-
mirable central station in one of the best places in Glasgow.
The Glasgow Union Railway when constructed would be
of immense benefit to the city of Glasgow and to the rail-
ways having their termini in it, both on the north and
south of the Clyde. He concluded by moving a formal
resolution approving the Bill.

Mr J. LUMSDEN wended the motion.
Mr W. AULD objected to subscribing £250,000 towards
the undertaking, but after a very long discussion and ex-
planations by the cnairman in favour of the measure the
resolution approving the Bill was adopted.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

THE " MORNING POST" ON THE CONFERENCE.--
On Saturday the Conference again met, and, after
a sitting of nearly four hours, separated without
having arrived at any positive result. Indeed, so
far as we can ascertain, the resumption of hostilities
on the 26th may be considerel at this moment quite
as probable as it was before the meeting. A pro•
pose! was made to submit the question of the frontier
line to arbitration ; and we believe it met with the
same success that has hitherto attended other sug-
gestions—it was referred to the belligerent Govern-
ments, by whom there seems little prospect of its
being entertained. Our readers will not fail to
observe that the mere fact of this proposal having
been made is a virtual departure from that of a
boundary line of the Schlei and Dannewerke, as
submitted by England on the 28th of May, and
accepted by the other neutrals, and by Denmark
itself. The German Plenipotentiaries at the meet-
ing on Saturday threatened to have recourse to
privateering against Denmark if the blockade
should be renewed on the expected recommencement
of hostilities. The feeling appears to become more
embittered at each succeeding assembly of the
Congress.
" THE OBSERVER" ON THE CONFERENCE.—The
London Conference has given rise to hot and cold
fits on the part of the susceptible public—alternate
days of hope and of despair. In spite of all the
desperate aspirations of irresponsible writers and
speakers after war, the party of peace is still the
most numerous. The friends of peace are by no
means confined to the Stock Markets and counting
houses of Europe. The clamourers for a more
"spirited" course of foreign policy have always the
best of the declamation ; but the friends of calm and
prudential action are likely to last the longest, and
to get the best of the argument in the end. When
it was found the Conference was put off from Thurs-
day to Saturday all sorts of alarming and suspicious
reasons were given for the delay, although some—
perhaps more sagacious—argued that the delay was
arranged to give a better chance of coming to a pre-
liminary t‘greement. The thermometer fell lower
and lower when it was given out that the Conference
would not meet on Saturday. It was even said to
have been put off indefinitely. Most of the papers
i❑ Paris, and some in London, continued up to yes-
terday morning to assert that the meeting was again
postponed. The Stock Exchange was, therefore,
reassured when it was known that the Conference
met at the appointed hour of one o'clock yesterday,
and that it was attended by all the members accre-
dited from the several courts. There seems to be
some ground for this favourable view, for it would
appear as if the delay had been turned to good ac-
count, and that the Conference had really been
reassembled for the despatch of business. We are
glad to be able to raise higher the hopes of those
who are inclined to draw this not unnatural or
strained inference when we inform them that the
sitting of the Conference was unusually long. They
met at one o'clock, and did not break up till nearly
six in the afternooo, about the same time that the
Cabinet rose, which had assembled at three o'clock.
The Conference is summoned to meet again on Wed.
nesday, at three o'clock. From all these circum-
stances it is not difficult to infer that some arrange-
ment is likely to be arrived at in spite of the mis-
givings of those who, for reasons sufficiently ob-
♦ious, desired a contrary conclusion. There were
wanting persons who predicted the breaking off of
the negotiations, and busied themselves rather pre-
maturely ig diecuesing the consequences of the re-
newal of hostilities. It is not improbable that some
of these consequences may have had their effect in
producing, at all events, a more grave considera.
Lion of the means for bringing about the settle-
ment of these troublesome questions, and withdraw-
ing from the market the difficulties that have hung
over the whole condition of Europe for So long a
period.

" THE STANDARD" ON THE CONFERENCE.—The
Conferences of London are virtually at an end.
The war will be resumed next Monday. The
plenipotentiaries met on Saturday only to prove
that there was no possibility of their coming to
an agreement, and they meet on Wednesday
only to set their hands to a formal certificate of
that impossibility. We understand that Earl
Russell, abandoning, as we Intimated that he
would do, his own frontier line, proposed that
the division should be left to arbitration; that
this proposal was rejected most decisively by both
the Danish and German plenipotentiaries, the
Germans 'insisting upon the line from Apenrade
to Tondern, the Danes adhering to that by
the Schlei and the Dannewerke. The English
proposal was, indeed, taken ad referendum,
but all parties declared their certain conviction
that their respective Governments would not
entertain it for a moment. The significance of
the sitting of Saturday does not, however, con-
sist so much in the rejection of this absurd scheme
of the English
Government as in the general tone
of the discussion and the nature of the pretensions
raised in it. We are informed that the German
representatives, in compliance, of course, with their
instructions, adopted a most arrogant and over-
bearing manner, as well towards England as Den-
mark, and that the deliberations, which were pro
traeted over five hours, ought rather to be termed
recriminations.

THE " SATURDAY REVIEW" ON THE POSITION
OF THE GOVERNMENT.—The weakness of the Go-
vernment is so apparent, and produces so much con-
fusion in the transaction of the ordinary business
of Parliament, that the Opposition naturally asks
with eagerness whether the time is not come to
make a great effort for place and power. There
can be no doubt that the country is suffering from
the inability of the Government to devise and carry
out a definite policy. It is not only that a cloud
rests over all our foreign relations, and that we
spend week after week of uncertainty whether war
may not end the negotiations on which we have
wasted so many well-meant endeavours for half a
year, but there is nothing done at home. The Ca-
vernment cannot carry any measures of its own, it
cannot secure the success of the independent mem-
bers whom it supports, and it cannot shape the
course and economise the time of Parliament so as
to afford a proper opportunity for the passing of
measures of local importance. It is only the per-
sonal reputation of the Cabinet, and a sense that
it has done some things well in former sessions,
that saves the Government from sinking into a
position like that which was held by the Melbourne
Ministry in the last years of its existence. Lord
Palmerston has not quite reached that level of
humiliation at which the head of the Government
is treated with a patronising contempt by the
head of the Opposition. But this is principally
because he is Lord Palmerston, and because his chief
opponent is, not Sir R. Peel, but Mr Disraeli. In
every step the Ministry takes, in its whole attitude
to the country and the House, there is felt the want
of a strong and a guiding hand. Lord Palmerston
has gained much experience; he is more moderate
and farsighted than he was 20 years ago; but it is
impossible to believe that the Danish business would
be in the state in which it is now if the diplomatists
of Europe had had to do with the Palmerston of
1841. But a country cannot for ever retain its
statesmen in the prime of their days, and the nation
has shown beyond question that it thinks the quali•
ties which the Premier has certainly gained more
than compensation for those which he may possibly
have lost. England is the most faithful of all nations
to its political favourites, and when it has once given
its esteem and confidence it is very slow to with-
draw them. It would be very untrue to say that
the country is tired of Lord Palmerston, or wishes
to get rid of him. But there is a general feeling
that the position which Lord Palmerston now holds
is not the proper position for him, nor one that be-
comes his reputation or is on a level with the expec-
tations of his countrymen. It was hoped that,e
whatever other shortcomings he might display, he
would at least be free from the indecision which
leaves th, country and the House of Commons with-
out the ruler that both need. Longsuffer gas
England is, and steadfast in its admiration of the

men it once raiees to eminence, it cannot be expected
that Lord Palmerston could go through another
Session like the present and nut throw something of
a shadow over the brightness of his fame.
THE " SPECTATOR" ON THE OPPOSITION,—AII
through the week there have been rumours
of coming disasters, and that dissonant gong
the Herald has been struck to a jangling note
of triumph, and in 511 clubs everybody with a
promise of something, to be given " whenever

we come in" has been exultant and mysterious.
the report is that a vote condemning Ministe-
r#o,,
nroposed, then there is a word
rial tneddliti '
g so ln
of a resolution distinctly
firroz of Denmark, and
and anon Mr. Disraeli has an idea that aist.:N3P°-
leonic Congress was a magnificent thought. It has
all come to nothing. upon the great question of
the hour, the defetnce of a little Power against dis-
memberment by two great Powers, the Tory leaders
have no policy to propose. They and their chief
assert very boldly that all that has been done is
merely " meddle and muddle," but they neither
propose to leave off meddling nor allow us any clear
certainty that had they been in power the muddling
would have been avoided, They know perfectly
well that if Louis Napoleon will go forward so will
the Whig Foreign Secretary, and as that is pre-
cisely their own idea they have nothing to say, ex-
cept that the Emperor might with a little tact have
been kept in better temper. That assertion may be
a sound political criticism, but it is not precisely a
policy, and what more definite course has Lord
Derby yet ventured to suggest? Apart from this
great question there is nothing afoot which can
heal the schism permanently produced by the pre-
sence of Mr. Disraeli. If Lord Derby asks his fol-
lowers to vote simply that they have no confidence
in Lord Palmerston, fifty of them retort that they
have less in the astute member for Bucks. Vet the
Tory chief cannot, even if inclined, throw his lieu.
tenant over, and without these fifty his majority is
very far from assured. The old sore is unhealed as
ever, and there is no healing it, and so the Ministry
stumbles on, doing as little as possible, and the Op-
position follows after, criticising as much as is pos-
sible without incurring the risk of action, and the
nation watches and begins to doubt whether prin-
ciple is, after all, at the bottom of the struggle for
office, as it has always been told. The Tories may
come in any day by virtue of an accidental
majority, a victory they could not decline,
or a rumour they could not refuse to hear;
but for a planned and final assault the Opposi-
tion, numerically strong as it may be, allows itself
still too weak. Of course in such a condition of
affairs the influence of England abroad is for the
moment gone. Her Government is only strong when
a distinct line of action meets with the approval of
Parliament, and at present the evil of the weakness
of the Opposition is that neither approval nor disap-
proval can be made manifest. The leaders are afraid
to demand a distinct verdict, and Parliament there.
fore remains conscious of nothing except an indis-
tinct dislike to all that is going on,—to seeing
Denmark dismembered, to hearing Heir von Bis-
mark exult, to any line of conduct which might
prevent either of those annoyances. The Ministry
hunts for middle paths, suggests lines of partition
just north of the Dannewerke, tries to believe in
universal suffrage, or asks whether arbitration may
not do, and the Opposition, liking none of those
things, is still afraid to oppose any. A vote of want
of confidence distinctly rejected would deprive their
accidental victories of all value, and they cannot
risk the battle except on some point on which the
schism in their own ranks will be unfelt. Conse-
quently they wait on, and the Ministry unopposed
at home becomes more and more powerless abroad,
till it seems almost certain that Conference will rise
with nothing determined, and a campaign recom-
mence which must either develop into a conquest
or a European war; but which will in either case
leave on us the stain of inability to protect an ally
on whose behalf we had threatened the only Power
bound by permanent interests to ourselves.
THE " EXAMINER" ON THE YELVERTON CASE.
—Toe facts (to the common-place mind) would
warrant the supposition that Mrs. Teresa Yelverton
went, as she affirms, to Edinburgh with the fair
hope and expectation of her betrothal ending in
marriage. She took with her an elderly lady, and a
young lady even younger than herself, as companions,
and she proceeded to occupy with these friends a
small apartment, all the rooms of which communi-
cated. She did not receive Maj. Yelverton in the even-
ings ; she did not receive him alone in the daytime.
Her conduct was perfectly consistent with the idea
that she was (as the landlady assumed) receiving
decently and with propriety a respectable suitor, a
gentleman and her equal. If she had desired, as
suggested (nay, insisted on) by Major Yelverton's
counsel, to come to Edinburgh merely to cohabit
with him, what on earth was to prevent her from
taking a lodging or apartments in that city or the
suburbs, without occupants ? Why encumber her-
self voluntarily with witnesses of her irregular and
vicious course of life ? Why have ladies to stay
with her and embarrass her communications with
her lover? Way not merely one of those small
"flats," as they are called in the modern Athens,
where a drawing.room and bedroom, or three small
rooms, often constitute the whole allotment of space,
utterly divided by the staircase from the higher
and lower flats ? There no one could have pre-
vented her receiving whom she pleased for as many
hours as she pleased, and there could be no after
inquiry, nor after denials, such as " all landladies"
make under the circumstances. It is obvious, if
only from that fact alone, namely, the arrange-
ment as to lodging made by Mrs. Teresa Yelverton
that she did not expect the misfortunes which have
overtaken her " like a summer cloud" when she first
went, glad and hopeful, to meet Major Yelverton
in Scotland. " Sei la ben venuta !" says he, in the
o3d, ungrammatical Italian which both parties oc-
casionally employ in their love-letters. " I did
write her a small sentence in Italian to that effect,"
says Major Yelverton in his former examination.
The smallness of the sentence appears to him a
point for consideration. Like the maiden lady who
was accused of having twins, and was defended
on the plea that she had had but one, and that a
very puny one,—the Major thinks too much stress
should not be laid on a welcome so briefly ex-
pressed. " A small sentence in Italian !" Contra-
dicting, it is true, all his assertions that his "Pur-
suer" found out his address without his knowledge,
and came without his knowledge, and came without
his sanction ; but so short, so insignificant, such a
nothing of a sentence to build a foundation upon!
Still the briefest and simplest sentences have a
meaning, and the deuce of it is, that by no possible
intepretation can " Welcome !" be made to mean
"Keep off!"
THE " READER" ON THE UNPOPULARITY OF
GREAT BRITAIN ABROAD.—Great Britain, it seems,
is at this moment extremely unpopular with all the
rest of the world. By some of the great Powers she
is absolutely detested, others are unusaelly cold in
their estimates of ter, and the one or two that are
still kindly to her as a nation are sad on account of
her present statesmanship. Such at least is the re-
port from all quarters, and there seem to be corro-
borations of its truth. Neither of the two Powers
now at war with each other in America is satisfied
with the conduct of Great Britain in reference to
their struggle, and the feeling of the Federsls to-
wards her is one of actual bitterness. On the Con-
tinent, for some time past, but more especially since
the war between the Germans and the Danes began,
there has been a universal pointing of fingers, with
hisses or other unflattering expressions, towards
our tight little island. We have been snubbed by
Russia for our officiousness in the matter of Poland,
without any compensation in the way of respect or
gratitude from the Poles. In France the selfishness
and insular narrowmindness of Britain are at pre-
sent the favourite themes of journalists. As to Ger
many—why there, it is said, we are in such dis-
favour on account of our behaviour in the Schleswig
Holstein business that English tourists are every-
where, throughout the German States, received
with the cold shoulder, and are even in risk of
insult. The statement has been contradicted,
but it has been made and repeated so strongly that
it is impossible to suppose it wholly false. And thee,
in poor little Denmark, where they do love us for
the sympathy so generally shown among us for their
cause, they are sorely disappointed that our sym-
pathy has been so barren of aught save words. In
short, if there never has been a time when Britain
was generally popular with other nations, she seems
at present to be exceptionally unpopular all round.
THE "LONDON REVIEW" ON METROPOLITAN
HORSE-COPERS.—Amongs the mysteries of horse-
' flesh is the noble science of coping, and its practi-
tioners the horse-copers. These individuals prac-
tise fraud as a trade, and in order to do so they are
obliged to pass through an apprenticeship as severe
as that undergone by Fagan's school of young pick-
pockets. Your accomplished horse.coper must
possess a shrewd knowledge of men to begin with,
and secondly he must know horse flesh well, espe.
chilly that portion of it in which he deals—the
genus screw. He must be to his charges what
Madame Rachel is to her old dowagers—able to
restore them to youth and make them " beautiful
for ever," or at least for the half hour during which
it is necessary the screw should put in a good ap.
pearance before his purchaser. The horses upon
which copers operate are generally nags, such as
hunters, roadsters, and carriage horses. They are
known under certain slang names, such as " the
Adam," an aged horse; " the strong wid," one with
broken wind ; the " piper," one slightly affected in
his wind; the " knock," a lame horse; the
" bobby," a chinked backed horse. These animals
are generally showy-looking creatures, being selected
for their handsome appearance and sprightly
looks by the eoper,just as a bright palmer fly is se-
lected for trout fishing, and many of these horses
remain the stock in trade of the same copers for
years, as they generally contrive to repurchase them
of their dupes, by the aid of confederates, a few
days after the sale, for the mere value of the hides
and hoofs. The getting-up of these old screws is
the first care of the caper when they come into his
hands. "The Adam," for instance, has to be re-
juvenated, and in order to accomplish this he has to
undergo three processes—bishoping, gypping, and
puSiog his glims. The first is the method of imitat-
ing the mouth-marks of a young horse, so called