The Sun.
London, England, 1863-05-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

SATURDAY REVIEW.—The only thing approach-
ing to a novelty that was discoverable in the debate
of Wednesday last was the formal introduction of
Lord Ebury's compromise to the consideration of
the House of Commons. Amid the enormous crop
of suggestions that have been made for settling this
dispute, more attention appears to have been paid
to this ono than to any other, chiefly, it should
seem, because of the assurance with which it was
offered. Lord Ebury gave to it the name of the
" Only possible compromise upon church-rates." It
is simple—almost as simple as Sir J. Trelawny's
total abolition. It merely provides that no rate shall
be leviable by legal process. It is left open to the
incumbent and his churchwardens, if they like, to go
through all the preliminary steps which now termi-
nate in the legal levy of a rate. They may hold a
make-believe vestry, and pass a mock rate, and
issue a fictitious paper, upon which they may, if
they like, designate by the misnomer of rate the
voluntary subscription for which they may think
fit to beg from each person. Lord Ebury con-
cedes to every parish the ' liberty of going
through this farce; and he appears to think the t,
in doing so, he has made no valuable a concession
that he is entitled to give the name of compromise
to total abolition enacted upon these terms. This
may possibly be the solution to which the Church-
rate controversy will ultimately come. But it will
not be a compromise. It will be an unconditional
surrender. Lord Ebury's impression appears to be,
that the formalities of the vestry and the printing
of a rate-paper are in themselves operations so full
of delight that clergy and laity will desire to prac-
tise them simply as a parochial recreation. It has
not occurred to him that they are now practised
solely with the prosaic object of doing that which
is legally necessary in order to raise a tax. But the
employment would lose whatever fascinations it now
possesses if those who assembled in vestry were pre-
viously informed that, do what they would, they
could not raise the tax. Under those circumstances,
it is probable that their gratitude to Lord Ebury
for enabling them to keep up the pretence to a power
of which they had been deprived would be very
limited indeed. It is easy to appreciate the value
of Lord Ebury's compromise by applying it over a
somewhat larger area. The King of Prussia and
his Chambers are involved in bitter controversy at
this moment. What would the Chambers think if
some member of the Junker party were to propose
to them, as a compromise, that the Chambers ehou id
retain the privilege of meeting at Berlin, and shoula
be allowed to pass as many laws as they thought
fit, but that no legal penalty should be inflicted on
those who treated their enactments with disregard?
Lord Ebury might be at this moment advantage-
ously employed as au ambassador to mediate be
-•
tween the North and South in America. A proposal
that the Washington Government should be privi-
leged to give as many orders and pass as many laws
as they pleased, but that no one beyond the Poto-
mac should be bound to obey them, might in all
probability be a "possible compromise" as far as the
South were concerned.
TILE SPECTATOR.--.The repulse before Charleston
is one of the heaviest blows the Federal Govern-
ment has yet sustained. The actual loss, it is true,
is comparatively insignificant—only two ships, re-
presenting £150,000, and some 20 or 30 men. But
the value of victories is not measured in blood, and
by every other reckoning the defeat is of the most
disastrous kind. It breaks the left arm of the
North. The ironclad fleet which was to give them
the command of the coast has proved a delusion,
and the Confederates, are encouraged to believe
their ports beyond the range of attack by sea. That
conviction alone will release whole armies, and ter-
minate the inclination, so visible for example in
Georgia, to keep all men in the seaboard States at
home to resist invasion. All that is now required
fcr defence of Charleston, Savannah, and Mobile,
'is a strong body of artillerists, and men of all na-
tions are very soon trained to work guns in posi-
tion, and fight behind walls and earthworks. The
experiment was as decisive in one way as it could
possibly be made. The management which left
the fleet unsupported save by a trumpery force of
7,000 men, who never advanced, and never could
have been expected to advance within twelve miles
of the city, may, it is true, be condemned, but we
must not forget the American theory. The Go-
vernment believed that the iron-clads were simply
ships impervious to shot, and expected them, even
if powerless, to suffer as little as the first Monitor
did in her contest with the Merrimac. Under that
belief, which, had the ships really been covered
with solid iron, instead of with iron plates, each an
inch thick and clamped together, might have proved
sound, Admiral Dupont was ordered to enter the
water cul de sac, at the end of which Charleston
stands. He could not have occupied the city
in any case until the arrival of the army, but
he could, had he reached it, have destroyed it,
or held it as completely under command as the
fleet holds New Orleans. Had the theory only been
sound, the ironeads would have inevitably destroyed
Sumter, silenced or passed the batteries on shore,
and anchored as floating batteries right against the
town. Even the people of Charleston—the fieriest
class in the South—would have been powerless
against floating batteries in such a position, and
must either have evacuated their city or surrendered
et discretion. The Washington Government had,
however, mistaken the strength of its ironclads.
The vessels steamed badly, steered worse, and were
not iti.pervious at all. All along the deep lagoon
running up four miles into the land the Confede-
rates had erected batteries armed with the heaviest
guns in their possession—guns which, if not Mr.
Whitworth's, were at least constructed upon his
principle, provided with steel-headed shot, and fired
by gunners who understood that impact depends on
velocity at least as much as on weight of metal.
With the singular inventiveness which the South-
erners share with the people of New England, the
defenders had multiplied obstacles within the har
bour against which the weight and speed of the
steamers were alike powerless. Among them were
heavy cables stretched upon floating and unfastened
buoys, which of course fouled the screws. But for
the readiness of the captain of the Weehawken,
who backed the instant he perceived this obstacle,
the fleet might have been crippled by this device
alone. The cables could have been removed by
boats quickly enough ; but then the very principle
of these ironclads is that the men are never to be
exposed, and every delay left them within what
Americans oddly call "concentric range." Thus
stopped, the ironclads were exposed to a fire which,
without endorsing the magniloquence of men who
never witnessed a naval engagement, we may be-
lieve to have been unusually severe, and within half
an hour were proved unequal to the test. The in-
vulnerable boats were riddled.

EXAMINER.—The Orleanists and ex-stateEmen
of the last French reign have planned to make an
irruption into the Legislative body. The Emperor,
in return, purposes to walk himself into the literary
Parliament of the institute, where his opponents
have hitherto held undisputed sway. With the
"Life of Caesar" in his hand, Napoleon the Third
claims to be a member of the National Literary and
Scientific Body. lie has certainly as good a claim
to be there as M. do Came or Bishop Dupanloup.
The Emperor has had a long, an arduous, and a
patient struggle with that class of the nation who
were eminent as civilians before his time. The
politicans, the journalists, the lawyers, the poets,
the orators, the authors, and (mg the Artiste

frowned, the great majority of them, upon the
Emperor, and refused to pay high homage. It cer-
tainly does honour to France and rrenehmen to
mark how few were the first converts, end hot;
slowly and gradually their numbers have been in-
creased. The Emperor is outliving opposition of
this kind, which he has faced and borne with more
patience, we repeat, than most autocrats would have
shown. No persons showed more inveterate repug-
nance to him than the members of the institute, yet
he has always received them blandly, and has
neither frowned upon them nor prosecuted them.
On the contrary, he has increased their annual
allowance. And except in the way of stifling the
exhibition of their political bile through the diurnal
press, he has given them little to complain of. The
Emperor's political principles must soon be better
known and more frankly avowed. There is, first
of all, the "Life of Caesar" coming out. It surely
cannot be a work purely military, and must contain
thejudgment of the writer on the political acts and
errand of the Empire. Will he take Caesar as a hero
in the Senate House as well as in the fields, or be
the admirer of Ciesardora mitigated? If it be possible
to publish such a work without the manifestation of
political opinion, equally difficult will it be to meet
a new Legislative Body in the same taciturn
way in which the present has been managed by the
French Government. It will be impossible to keep
such members as Thiers or Montaiembert from em-
barking on constitutional questions, and demanding
or making for themselves a liberty of speech hitherto
unallowed. Can the Speaker chosen by the Em-
peror continue to bully them, as he does inferior
men ? or must not the Legislative Body be gratified,
at length, with the liberty and latitude of a real
Parliament ? This remains to be seen. Hitherto
the Emperor has shown great repugnance to quarrel
with the representative assembly. He has yielded
very important points rather than do so. And in
this he is evidently more cautious and tolerant than
many of his Ministers. It remains to be seen
whether he will persevere in this wise conduct, and
admit the gradual extension of French liberty of
speech and action. These are curious problems,
which no doubt 1864 wilt solve.
THE LAW TIMES.—The Law Amendment Society
has been entreating the Lord Chancellor to sanction
some wild views of a section of its members on the
subject of law reporting, but the sagacious Chan-
cellor told them that the subject was beset with
difficulties, that large interests were involved, and
that it could not be dealt with as summarily es the
memorialists imagined. He therefore declined to
promise them the commission they asked for. This
was the answer of a practical man to a party of
visionaries. What do they want ? An official
report of the courts, taken and printed at the public
cost ? This seems easy, and not irrational, but the
difficulties are apparent when a definite scheme is
attempted. In the first place, what is to be re-
ported ? Is it to be a shorthand note ? In such
case every word of every argument and judgment
must be taken and printed verbatim. If not a ver
battm report, there must be selection and revision.
But if it is to be left to the judgment of any person
what shall be reported and how it shall be reported,
there is no reason whatever why a reporter paid by
the country should perform that task better than a
reporter paid by a publisher. No advantage would
be gained in correctness, certainly, and nothing
either in speed of publication or in cost to buyers.
If the reports could not be better nor cheaper than
the present ones, what advantage is to be gained in
return for the burden thus imposed upon the public
purse ? Only this, that there would be fewer of
them. We admit that the existing number of re-
ports is needless and inconvenient; but the compe-
tition is far more noxious to the proprietors than to
anybody beside, One of each class of reports—that
is to say, the speedy report, the omnibus report,
and the regular report—would amply suffice
for all the needs of the Profession. The Law Amend-
ment Society could not, by any expenditure, pro-
vide better reports than these three, and the success
of all of them proves that they supply a want. The
question is, not if they are perfect, but could better
reports be supplied by officials ? We think not. A
Government monopoly of reporting would soon
come to exhibit the vices of all monopolies; and,
relieved from rivalry, the new reporters would study
ease, under the pretence of carefulness and caution.
LONDON REVIEW.—There is nothing so wearing
to the spirits and aggravating to the temper of the
truly Radical Reformer, as the continual tendency
of his most cherished friends to accept offiee under
Government. It is not as if the accident happened
only once or twice. Like Mr. Pickwick's sufferings,
[the writer here evidently means Mr. Pecksniff's]
this kind of misfortune is chronic. Never have Mr.
Cos and Mr. I-ladfield loved a young gazelle [here
the writer spoils by a feebler application of the joke
the most comical of all the comic sallies of Dick
Swivellet]—never have they trained him up to
cheer them with his glad bright eye, but when he
came to know them well, and love them, he was
sure to be carried off by Lord Palmerston to the
ministerial benches. This it is that makes political
life unutterably trying to the people's friend. It is
one long course of disappointment. By some curi-
ous fatality, he finds that it is invariably the Admi-
ralty which exercises this fatal fascination on his
companions. Perhaps it may be, that the unhappy
Government department in question is managed in
a way to attract the especial notice of a patriot—
who, however, little knows where he may expect to
go to when he looks up the subject of marine re-
trenchment for the first time. Perhaps, occasional
promotion is only Lord Palmerston's way of cutting
off the heads of the tallest Liberal poppies. At all
events, the thing occurs too often to be merely a
coincidence. It happened to Lord Clarence Paget.
It used to be always happening to poor Mr. Bernal
Osborne. No sooner had they laid their guns for
an assault upon the Administration trenches, than
they were picked off by some ministerial rifleman.
After a short interval they used to re-appear on the
other aide of the wall, radiant with new found glory,
very much as Romulus appeared to his astonished
countrymen after his deification. From their new
position these transfigured heroes used to waft the
fondest messages back to their old associates. Mr.
Layard's fate ;though slightly different, was equally
distressing. Cruel destiny had marked him out for
one of those Government offices of which he had
spoken slightingly so often. It is Mr. Stansfeld's
turn at last. Lord Palmerston has come for the
Radical pilgrim, as the angel came for Christian in
the " Pilgrim's Progress;" and Mr. Stansfeld has
taken leave of his friends at Halifax in the same
touching spirit of mingled resignation and hope.
Mr. Stansfeld is tco clever a man not to know
where he is going to be taken. As Julius
Peregrinus was " banished into the Senate,"
Mr. Stansfeld feels evidently that in ac-
cepting office he is banishing himself to the
Ministerial benches. The erratum which Mr.
Stansfeld is so anxious to correct in the limes really
is of no consequence. Whether he was " kicked
out" of the Liberal camp or " picked out," is all the
same in its results. The virtuous Cox will think
nothing of him now. In time, Mr. Bright will
come to denounce him together with the rest of the
bloated oligarchs. The distressed Poles are already
beginning to give him up. The champions of the
runaway negroes seem to gaze after him more in
sorrow than in anger. They have taken a kindly
farewell of him, and they are good enough to say
that they think it right of him to go. But he can
no longer sincerely flatter himself that he belongs
to that bright baud. It must have been a harrow-

ing thought to any of the number who formed par
of the Halifax audience to feel the conviction creep
ing on them as he spoke, that the white feathers of
office might already be seen growing on the new•
fledged official swan. Snort as was the interva.

that had elapsed, Mr. Stansfeld, by the time he got
to Halifax, had begun to look on the Admiralty as
a rather ill-used public body. It was a great mis-
take to regard that excellent branch of the public
service as a mere Augean stall. When the Halifax
reformers saw their representative assuming the
part of charity, and hoping all things and believing
all things of the Admiralty board, they may well
have moaned in spirit, and thought that the world
was out of joint. Was this the Lancelot of debate,
who had so often shot like a star before the eyes of
lords and ladies in tournament at Westminster?

THE QUEEN.—Twenty years ago the gentleman
who represented Knaresborough was considered to
be the most violent man in the House of Commons.
He was perpetually in hot water; he was almost
invariably in collision with somebody; and the late
Sir James Graham and Mr. Cobdeu especially were
the objects of the hon. gentleman's attacks. He used
to make the most serious charges against those two
members in particular, and against the liberal party
generally—or rather that section of it of which Mr.
Cobden and Mr. Bright were the centre. When
the free trade measures of Sir Robert Peel were
adopted by Parliament and the country, Mr. Fer-
rand became legislatively extinguished, and he
ceased to ba a member of the House of Commons.
For nearly 20 years nothing was thought of him,
and his name was never heard; but a month or so
ago he unexpectedly defeated a Government candi-
date at Davenport, and he is once more a member of
the House of Commons, and it is worthy of remark
that in the very first observations he offered to the
House on the subject of the distress in the cotton
manufacturing districts, he referred to his almost
forgotten bete noire of " Devil's Dust." He had not
been in the House a week before he gave notice of a
motion on the subject of the cotton distress, and this
motion came on for discussion on Monday last. For
two hours and 20 minutes, in a tone of voice that
made the very roof ring again, he opened out his
indictment against the manufacturing interest, and
during that long oratorical effort he rambled through
a story, the contents of which might have been well
told by a skilful speaker in half an hour. The House
wag full when Mr. Ferranti_ began, but it becanlo

ially to see what
stßeurlyvratl
ertt longhadcobnieefodroewhneshpaede concluded. Sir
in the Ferrand exhibition,
might possibly turn up
fala y 1 It
at
lond
man.
able Member. The right honourable novelist
half, but
"sr
and he took his seat immediately under the honour-
able
sat out the ordeal for an hour and a
he was not
' a
i—
s we have said the attendance
he walked away, ant -7
9°f against a further infliction, and so
very rapidly thinned down.
ATFIEN/EUM —A little more than a
century ago, the old " Jarvey" began to die La—
the cart was glorified because the old Merovingian
kings had nothing better to move about in, so has the
hackney-coach had its glories and its day. In itself)
it was a melancholy and fallen greatness. Tad
s
vehicle full of its cite had once been the carriage P,`•
a peer, but had come to grief. It sometimes came to
worse than that, and in Charles the Second's time it
was found convenient for the commission of murder.
Then a dead duellist was occasionally cast into one,
and sent home to his family. In William the Third's
reign, the hackney took to disreputable ways of ans
other sort, and lost for ever the privilege of driving
in the Park, because crowds of painted hussies
therein used to hoot the ladies who drove by in their
own carriages. Who forgets the story how Harle-
quin Rich leaped out of one into a coffee-room tied
back again after the driver had looked for him in
vain ? and how Jehu ultimately refused his fare,
shrewdly suspecting that the gentleman was the
devil ? In the old prize-money days, it was the
favourite joke of halt a-dozen sailors to ride in a
dozen and a half of hackney-coaches. They were
almost as capacious as a man-of-war, and Fountayne
Wilson, M P. for Yorkshire, using one as a dressing
room, on going from the house to dinner, broke
down opposite the Horse Guards, where the hilari-
ous mob, on rushing to his rescue, foetid that eccees
trio and rarely-washed gentleman with two pairs of
pantaloons and neither of them on ! But the glory
of the cld hackney -coach consisted in the fact that
for many years the regalia of England, crown,
sceptre, and other finery, thrust into blue bags,
were brought from the Tower to the Parliament
House in a hackney-coach, whenever the monarch
required their aid in helping him to show a kingly
face in presence of the Legislature. The glory
culminated when the Princess Charlotte ran away
in one, from Warwick House, to her mother, in
Connaught-place. When the number of that
happy carriage was known, all the foolish part of
London wanted to ride iu it. It is a sad thing to
add, that the glory of the conveyance did not
honestly influence the character of the drivers.
These were so notoriously brigands of a peculiar
class, that when, in 1826, a Jehu of this tribe
deposited at the Hackney-coach Office in Essex'
street a bundle of bank-notes which had been left
in his conveyance, his name, address, and number
were published abroad, as making in the aggregate
something marvellous and worthy of remembrance.
The French cabriolet, which had just previous',"
been introduced—a covered gig with the driver sit-
ting at your side—was an odious invention ; but it
was the forerunner of that cab which we now Pee"
SEM, and which conveys blushing brides to church,
fevered babies to the grave, smitten paupers to the
small-pox hospital, and bevies of children to pan'
tomimes. In no other civilised country is such it
horrible state of things permitted by the Govern'
men t ; and the disease and death thereby engendered
make the modern cab as dreadful a machine to our
selves as ever the old British chariots of Cassivelaw
nus were to the invaders. Considering what the
cab has fallen to, with its driver, we rejoice to hear
that we are to have new and elegant vehicles, fine
horses, courteous drivers, and low fares. All this tg'
at least, promised in the prospectus of a new tom'
,1
pany ; and we hail the halcyon days which are said
to be approaching, when we may enter a handsome
carriage with complacency.
THE CRITIC.—The reputation of Mr. John Stuart
Mill is quite equal to his merits; perhaps some,
even of his admirers, may think that it is slightly
beyond them. Acute, lucid, logical to a notable
degree, Mr. Mill is seldom suggestive, never pro,
found. We admit him to be one of the great roll
ters of modern thought, while denying him Ell
claim to genius. He is a master of language as We'
as of thought—so far as language is a pure, WO'
loured medium. But we generally yearn for lail
guage to be something more than this—to hale
warmth and colour. The extreme transparency
Mr. Mill's speech charms for a page or two ; bu
afterwards it grows wearisome, for, like a broox
wandering slowly through a meadow, it never rises
above, or falls below the dead level of the clearest e;
position. We can never mistake Mr. Mills' meanly:''
but then the meaning is rarely weighty. As -„0
intellectual discipline, Mr. Mill's books have -0
ordinary worth; but woe to him who expects Will
them one single minutest particle of intellects
food. Mr. Mill has carefully cultivated his nod a
mind, and all his productions are finished and eh"'
rate. Yet the absolute lack of spontaneousness allss
imagination irresistibly repels us. In the abseny;
of the creative, Mr. Mill has a species of organisil
faculty. But though the organism is symesetriees
enough, Mr. Mill cannot breathe into it the breat's
of life. Brought up by on able father, uncl(3`
Benthareite influences, Mr. Mill remains esseetiall{
a Benthateite apostle. It is therefore fisting ttlad
he snould expound and vindicate more hill snts
fervently than he has ,et done the Benthanlid,
evangel. The essay on Utilitarianism has alrell4
appeared in Fraser's Magazine. and doubtless lus,
Mill's name will gain for it due attention. Piss
cussion it is not likely to provoke ; partly becaue,
it is not characterised by any novelty, partly becanto
Mr. Mill is at once too judicial and too judicious
se
annoy or to excite opponents; and partly beeauti
the interest in philosophical subjects, never Teo
strong in England, is, for the moment, feebler ti?or
usual. Utilitarianism is confessedly a revivo'o
Epicureanism; a revival without, so far as we et
see, being an improvement. Epicurus taufos
metaphysical as well as moral principle; and it list
a metaphysical as well as moral system
Epicureanism must be judged. But Benthanl Hof
equally destitute of metaphysical insight 613 ore
poetical inspiration. Mr. Mill has not much Lti
of either than the founder of utilitarianism.

auarter of
r. If

COUNTRY MARKETS.

,b,

NOTTINGHAM—SATURDAY. heat"
This corn market to-day was poorly supplied with 'iv; qt
but there was a fair demand, and piices were 10 Phc:riel
higher than heretofore, Only a sample or two of ',oe.
offering, which realised about late rates. Oats also sc'49o,
White wheat, from 43s to 53s ; red wheat, 42s to Onto
Barley—malting, 32s to 41s ; grinding, 27s to 295• t 410
old, at 2.5 s to 31s Od; new, 22s to 28s. Beans sold
to 45s per gr, Flour, 31s to 40s.

YORK—SATURDAY.
The show of wheat was limited to-day, and sales WO
readily made at is per qr advance on last week. Balifil
scarce, with a steady demand, and prices as of late. '
oats, beans, and peas little doing. 24/
Wheat, red 42s to 45s Oats.... 2os to 40
White do .459 to 508 Beans ... 38, to A
Barley .29s to 35s Peas ........„ to ssi
Malt, 62s to 64s per qr. ; rye, 34s per qr ; flour'
to 36s per sack.

GRANTHAM—SATURDAY. ,63t.;
New white wheat, 48s to 51s; red, 45s to 48s Per,: 300 i
b maltino• barley, 38s to 43s per qr ; grinding, 28s
old oats, 23s to26s; beans, 358 to 38s; peas, 34s to 37

LEICESTER—SATURDAY. 36
Old white wheat, —s to —3 ; new, 44s to 50s Mgri
stone. Old red,,4Bs to 52s per 36 stone. Barley, is oat_t
new, 34s to 39s per qr.; grinding, 27s to 30s; 0- veal
27s to 30s; new oats, 22s to 28s per 24 stone.
new, 35s to 39e; old, 42s to 44s per 38 stone.

NORWICH—SATUUDAY.
, ,
There was a less supply of wheat to-day, but
'nand at the full price, of last week; in some install bar
deed, quotations were 6d to is higher. The suPPI) °
ley is nearly exhausted, at former rates. 46
White wheat. 46s to 48, 1 Red wheat ,:toto a
°',
Malting barley ...38s to 40s 1 Chevalier barley 'T to
Distilling d 0..... 33s io 35s I Oats.. 2
Flour, 32s 6d to 33s Od per sack from the raille>

Births.
MELVILLE.—On the 30th ult., at Branston RectorY'
colnshire, the Hon. Mrs. A. S. Leslie Melville'
daughter.
(10013leg°
SOUTTIESK.— On the 29th ult., at Edinburgh, the
of Southesk, of a daughter.
e Wife
WAKE.—On the Ist inst., at 2, James-street, W.,
of H. Wake, Esq., of a son.

Marriages.
CHEESMAN—MICROLSON.— On the Ist inst.,
East Moulsey, Frank, only son of the late 11•
s ,-Ve3P
of
Esq., of the Faulkeners, Hadlow, Kent, to Ellz-v6q., -
second daughter of the late Joseph Micholsooy "-
London.
Clalir
PILTER—WILSON- On 29th ult., at Jesinon-,liiabe
Wm. Fred. Filter, Esq., of North Shields. to .v.l fA,
Fanny, only daughter of the late Ralph Wil6°l3'
of North Shields.