The Sun.
London, England, 1863-02-17 00:00:00

[ THE

.TES.

The navy estimates for the year 1863-64 were
published yesterday. It appears that the Govern-
ment is able to reduce the expenditure by more than
a million (X 1,058.273) without injury to the effective
service. The number of seamen is 39,000, against
40,000 last year; of boys, 9,000, as last year; of
coast guards, 9,000, being 1,150 more than last year;
of marines, 18,000. The naval coast volunteers are
taken at 8,000, and the royal naval reserve at 16,000
—making, with the men, boys, and marines, a total
of 100,000; exactly as in the year 1804.
The following is an abstract of the particular votes
which will be asked, with the corresponding votes
for the last year expended, showing the increase or
decrease under each head

1863-64.
Wages to seamen and marines £2,921,951
Victuals and clothing for ditto 1,416,986
Ad miralty-office . 165,322
Coast Guard Service, Royal
Naval Coast Volunteers,
and RDyal Naval Reserve 299,69
Scientific Branch
Her Majesty's establishments

1862-63.
£3,078,121
1,362,093
170,832

_
at home
Her Majesty's establishments

297,602
68,045

183,316 176,624

The Dispens.

(From the Examiner.)

Home Office

There has been some conversation in the House
of Lords on the subject of ticket-of-leave. Lord
Stanhope and Lord Carnarvon regretted that Go-
vernment had not taken the matter in hand, in-
stead of referring it to a commission ; and we think
them quiteright in this question.
When people well know what to think, a
Commission is the best of all devices to
make them not know what to think, by
bewildering them in a throng of conflicting
evidences and arguments. What nuisance has there
ever been that has not had its champions The
pollution of the Thames was defended on sanitary
grounds; and it was contended that the only real
evil resulting from it was the inordinate appetite
it gave to people who worked on the river. Burial
in metropolitan churchyards, too, had its zealous
advocates, and mothers were brought forward to
show that for the health of their children they pre-
ferred walks in the festering graveyards to any
other places. The smoke of London found voices
in opposition to Lord Palmerston's bill, and
it was maintained stoutly that but for the
smoke our fogs would be damp and injuri-
ous, and that it was by the smoke they were,
in the household phrase, so " well aired" and in-
nocuous. A fog in Paris wets you through, it
was observed; a fog in London wraps you as
in a blanket. There is nothing so bad as to
want advocates, and the ticket-of-leave will
have plenty of zealous champions. The
public has, however, made up its mind upon a,
question of which it has had so much prictical ex-
perience—upon a tree known by its fruits, and its
judgment is for a return to law and justice in their
utmost certainty. Judicial sentences must no
longer be subject to a sort of discount, or pass like
a base coin for less than their nominal value ; and,
above all things, the dispensing power of the Home
Office must be very considerably restricted.
Indeed, the mere fact that any Minister desires
to retain the dangerously large dispensing power of
the Home Secretary argues him unfit to possess it.,
Let us see a Minister anxious to surrender it, or to
have it considerably curtailed and checked, and we
shall see in him one who may with least chince of
misuse possess it, but whom it would, nevertheless,
be wise to relieve of it, large as it now is.
To return to the specific question of the ticket of
leave, the general judgment, we repeat, is for au
improved certainty of punishment, instead of the
high degree of uncertainty of punishment which
has of late years prevailed. Against this proposi-
tion it is objected, and by some thinking minds
entitled to respect, that fixed terms of punishment
cut off the opportunity for the criminal to work out
his deliverance by good conduct and industry in
his prison. They say, let his liberty be the price
of a certain amount of work, and be sure that the
habit of the industry he must exercise will be a
pledge for his future conduct. This is specious, but
we suspect fallacious.
See what men will do to break prison, how they
will work their way through stone walls, burrow
like rabbits or moles, labour night and day, with a
rusty nail for their only tool. But is this marvel-
lous industry any pledge for their future conduct ?
And when we hear what wonders a convict has
done to work his way out of jail, do we feel the
slightest assurance that he will therefore renounce
crime and turn to honesty ? Industry is avirtue or
not, we must remember, according to its object.
Crime has its industry in its bad way, as well as
honesty in its good way. Johnson defines industry,
laboriousness to a particular end ; and as a body it
is probable that few are more actively labori-
ous than the thieves, and few worse paid, consider-

in g their highly sharpened ingenuity and unflagging
assiduity, both of which would be admirable for
worthy objtcts. The bad labour they love physics
pain ; they want no holidays, take no rest it a booty
be in prospect. They are planning some villany
when not executing, executing when not planning.
The lawyer, the merchant, money-makers of all
denominations, will refuse to trouble themselves
with business in certain seasons of relaxation. The

thief is always ready for his work, he puts aside
everything for it; never does it come amiss, never,
indeed, is it unsought. Hardy Vaux, pickpocket and
swindler, whose curious autobiography is published
in Murray's Collection, tells us that once he deter-
mined to forego his habits of business, in order to
give his wife the pleasures of a play ; but that,
as he was mounting the steps of Covent
Garden Theatre, he espied a pocket-book
peeping out of a gentleman's pocket, and
could not resist the temptation of filching it,
though for that night, and that night only, he had
resolved on total abstinence. This devotion to busi-
ness led to his arrest and conviction, and ultimately
to a most curious piece of auto-biography, revealing
all the hopes and fears, the outer and inner life of a
thief, and the unwearied application to the preda-
tory arts. To rely, then, on the good conduct and
industry of people of this class in gaol, as any secu-
rities for future good behaviour, is a delusion, for
the one will be simulated, and the other only the
means to the desired end of liberty, and neither
will be a pledge for the right use of liberty when
obtained.

Royal Marriage Procession in the Olden

Time.

In 1236 Henry 111. married Eleanor of Provence,
at Canterbury, and journeying to London with his
bride, they were met in Southwark by the Lord
Mayor, aldermen, and the principal citizens, to the
number cf 360, all being mounted on stately horses,
dressed with splendid furniture. The busier streets
were adorned with tapestry and plate. At night-
fall torches were kindled all over the city.

Henry V. entered London with his Queen (Kathe-
rine), being welcomed by an immense multitude of
the Londoners, the Corporation having prepared a
magnificent pageant for the occasion.
Previous to this, Edward the Black Prince had
wedded the beautiful Joan, Countess of Kent, much
to the joy of the whole nation, and especially of the
Londoners, who kept holiday for many days to
celebrate the event. This warrior Prince of Wales
kept another grand festival, when, in 1357, he
entered the City from Southwark, in company with
his prisoner, John, King of France. The Royal
captive rode on a noble white horse, but the Prince
accompanied him on a mean-looking black peney.
They were met by the whole Corporation splendidly
attired, who conveyed them to the Savoy, where
John was to lodge. The procession was several
hours in passing through the City.
Henry VI., a good but weak Sovereign, married
Margaret, a daughter of the blind King of Anjou.
Their reign was little but a succession of troubles ;
yet she was a noble-minded Queen, and upheld the
red rose of Lancaster with no feeble hand. Her
hapless son, Edward, Prince of Wales, married Ann
of Warwick, at Amboise, but while a mere lad
was mercilessly slain at Tewkesbury, 1471. His
widow afterwards became the wife of Itichard 111.,
and is the Lady Ann of Shakspeare's drama.
Henry VII., by espousing Elizabeth of York,
united the contending factions, and gave his people
a reasonable cause for rejoicing, as he thus termi-
nated long years of intestine war. His son Arthur,
Prince of Wales, when hardly 14, was married to
Katherine of Arragon, a princess much his senior,
who, on the demise of her boy-husband, was induced
to wed his brother Henry, afterwards Henry VIII.
The history of that learned, accomplished, and
popular Monarch and his six unhappy wiv..e!,..
aria lichis
eu
brutish fohies and caprices, his cruelty
tiousness (sparing neither man in h anger nor
a
woman in his lust), are well knnoewa.o
ey
n through
was remarkably
The procession of Ladyarilange,
London, previous to er
Ih,s3Binall the citizens were busy
gorgeous. May sl,
from early morn The streets were covered with
hip Tower (where she lodged, and
gravel from
waist eocn to die on the block), the foot..
"irotbiected by barriers, and occupied by
waheree
in full livery. Cornhill and Grace-
church-street
.were tapestried and hung with rich
ptwaahetheCrsearopanies,
arras. Cheapside had a still richer dressing of cloth
of gold and fancy velvets. At a signal from the
Tower guns the procession issued from the fortress.
First came the French ambassador and his train,
12 knights in blue velvets, their horses decorated
with white crosses ; a troop of English gentlemen,
two and two; the Knights of the Bath in full cos-
tume ; the abbots, bishops, and peers on horseback,
robed, and with massive gold chains; the Lord
Mayor, with the City mace; Garter Kieg-at-Arms,
and the Lord Marshal; the Queen's household, in,
scarlet robes; the High Constable with his wand
office; lastly, a splendid chariot draped with white_
silk, and drawn by white palfreys in housings of
white damask, Anne Boleyn keeping her state under
a gilded canopy hung with silver bells.— Cttyi rs

AN ANCIENT COSTUME REVIVED.---The readers
Of the Contheutionnel (says a Paris letter), who
knew that the great and novel feature of the late ball at the
Tuileries was to be the representation of
the heroine of M.
Flaubert's novel, "Salammbo," were disappointed at not
seeing the name of the lady who personated that character,
or any description of her dress. But, on referring to the
Presse, I find the following paragraph, which the Constitu-
tionna, for some mysterious reason, has struck out from
its otherwise literal production :—" The Countess de Cas-
tiglione was attired as Salammbo, with her hair given to
the wind, a golden diadem above, bare arms, and naked feet
in golden sandals ; the long train of her robe was borne by
the Count de Choiseul as a negro, who held an antique
parasol over her head. The dazzling beauty of the countess
never ceased to captivate general attention."