The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-08 00:00:00

attended with increasing success. It is impossible for those
who remember London only a few years ago not to be
struck with the change in this important respect. Not only
is Saturday now a half-holiday but most of the shops are
closed at an hour early enough to let those employed in
them have the precious benefit of reading or attending
lectures in the evening. The health of the body as well as
of the mind is incalculably benefited by the sacrifice which
their employers in general have cheerfully made, but which
might be very much lessened were their wealthy customers
to juin in the benevolent plan by making purchases at
earlier hours. Nothing can be more selfish than their
refusing this concurrence—unless, indeed, it be mere want
of reflection on the evil they are doing, at least on the good
they are preventing from being done. Let us hope that a
due consideration of the important subject may have the
effect of removing the cause of complaint. Important in-
deed we may well call it when as many as 700 are employed in
one establishment.* All the plans that have been under-
taken, more especially those which the people themselves
first began and then continued with a perseverance we can-
not too much commend, have had a most salutary effect in
improving their condition every way, and their character as
well as their condition ; or, at least, in bringing to light the
improvement which they have of late years received. No-
thing can be more admirable than the manner in which they
have strugg:ed under the heavy pressure of distress during
the last 12 months. It is truly touching to mark, not only
their peaceful demeanour, by their firm resolution of only
accepting when absolute necessity requires the assistance
amply provided by the wealthier classes, and given with
great delicacy—their determination to suffer the greatest
privations before yielding to that necessity. A more con-
vincing proof could not be given of the blessed effects that
have flowed from their progress in education, and their
habits thus acquired of sober reflection upon the state of
affairs, on their own position in society, and in their real in-
terests as well as duties to the community, of which they
form so important a part. Whoever recollects the very
different conduct of the same classes half a century ago,
when suffering under an incomparably less pressure from
the same interruption of the American trade, will at once
feel thankful for the change, and proud of his countrymen
and his country. With such sentiments may be mingled a
feeling of compassion for those who so long derided the
efforts made by the friends of social science to teach the
humbler orders generally, but especially to inculcate in
them sound views of their social interests. These are the
contemplations and the enjoyments of rational men in
our times ; and they make us rise superior to the renowned
nations of the classical ages, much as we may be their in-
feriors in merely ornamental arts. An association like ours
would have been deemed vain, or puerile, or absurd, by the
ancient sages. But so would they have had no belief in the
merits and the services of the philanthropist—nay, been
unable to comprehend them, or imagine how virtue
" Saw her Howard traversing the globe.

Onward he moves I disease and death retire I
And murmuring demons hate him—and admire."
—Darwin.
Those ancients, indeed, have told us what was their idea
of happiness in the Isles of the Blessed,t where they con-
ceived the lot of the wise to be that, freed from all c ire,
their whole existence would be passed in investigation
and gaining a knowledge of nature. How they would
have pitied if not despised us when told that without under-
valuing the pleasures of extended knowledge we yet re •
garded it as the greatest happiness which Heaven could
bestow, to be graciously allowed the solace of looking
down upon the scene of our earthly labours, and seeing
with eyes which age and sorrow can make dim no
more, the great body of those for whom we had toiled
and suffered, exalted by the possession and by the
right use of the gifts we had helped to bestow. Some,
unhappily, there be who will not permit us to indulge
in such hopes; who believe, at least maintain, that our
death and our extinction happen together. Men, it seems,
have been sent from the South to inculcate this dismal
error, while those who will believe anything oppose to
those who will believe nothing their visions of spiritualism
and direct communications with the departed. The pro-
moters of social science regard such errors with contempt,
only softened by pity. Theirs is the belief held, theirs the
hope cherished by Hale, and Bacon, and Locke, and New-
ton—belief in the " King Eternal, immortal and invisible,
the only wise God"—hope inspired by the study of His
works and confirmed by his revealed Word.
At the close of his address Lord Brougham was enthu-
siastically cheered.
The LORD-ADVOCATE moved, and the Right Hon.
JOSEPH NAPIER seconded, a vote of thanks.
Mr. HASTINGS read the annual report of the Council.
The Right Hon. Mr. ADDERLEY moved the approval,
which was seconded by Lord ARDMILLAN, and carried.
Mr. HASTINGS, Secretary, reported 2,500 tickets issued.
Prince Alfred attended the evening meeting, and was re-
ceived with cheering.
The sectional meetings begin to-day, and continue until
Tuesday next. Great preparations have been made for the
conversaziones of the University and Royal Scottish Aca-
demy, and for the working men's meeting to-morrow (Fri-
day) evening 34,000 applications have been made for the
3,500 tickets. The attendance at the Congress is unusually
large.

* This shop (Shoolbred and Co., Tottenham-court-road)
closes at 7 or 8 o'clock, according to the season, and 4 or 5
on Saturday. The young men have a library of 3,500
volumes, with a readieg-room, and 80 of them attend the
drill of a Rifle Corps.
-

:Ac veteres quidem philosophi in heatorum insulis fin-
gunt, qualis natura sit vita sapientium quos cura Omni libe-
ratos, nihil aliud esse acturos putant, nisi ut omne tempus
in quverendo ac discondo, in naturai cognltione consumant.
.De. Fin , Lib. V.

Earl Go-to-bed ; Or, Rest and be Thankful,

Our contemporary, the Saturday Review, thus comments
upon the Foreign Secretary's late Finality sentiment that
we shoWol, all of us, in regard to that old matter of Politi-
cal Reform, rest and be thankful. Id was but natural that
Earl Russell should feel this at the bottom of his mind at
the Blairgowrie festival. After traversing all Europe and
America, and dilating on all the political topics of the day,
and surveying his own busy and restless career, be found
✓that he was disinclined to do more, Thankful for the day's
long work, he prepared himself for bed, smoothed his own
pillow, and addressed himself to grateful sleep. We do not
mean to say that he has not done enough to deserve his
slumbers, but the difficulty is that he seems to suggest that
it is bedtime for all his countrymen too. It does not follow
that all our eyeg ache because Earl Russell cannot keep his
open any longer ; and though he has been a roadmaker in
his time, we are not prepared to admit that the race of
Macadam is to die with him. We may be thankful for the
road, but rest is another matter.
The lassitude and desire of repose which attend the later
afternoon of lifo,and the natural love of a peaceful euthanasia,
however real, may arise from very different causes. There is
not a more touching or beautiful moral spectacle than the
ripeness and richness of a long and consistent life sinking,
like the sun in his declining strength, "more lovely ere his
"coarse be run." Bot in this sort of life there is not the
violence and shock of contrast. Earl Russell's sunset may
be golden and thank worthy, but his day has been chequered
enough. No doubt the stormy petrel itself may have a home
and may betake itself to die surrounded by the grateful
attentions of many generations of young petrels, but it is a
bird at whose death-nest few naturalists have assisted. Earl
Russell, too, may talk in a very edifying way of his calm
and grateful desire to repose in the quiet haven where the
winds breathe soft and the tempests cease to roar ; but the
taste is at least, for him, a new one. His life, at any rate,
has been spent in disturbing other people's tranquillity, not
perhaps altogether without a sacrifice of his own quiet. He
has been a Reformer all his days ; and reforming, amend-
ing, improving, cannot be achieved without a certain
amount of agitation, and flurry, and jar. His eulogist on
this very occasion recalls his " strenuous fights," and his
successful efforts to burst this and that "fetter" and
"shackle." But fighting and hammering at hard obstruc-
tive chains are not easy work. Nor is the task of upsetting
Ministries and managing successful intrigues quite con-
sistent with a love of personal ease. We do not mean to say
that all these things may not be, under certain circumstances,
a matter of duty, but one does not look for them in a very
peace-loving man—in a man who pines for rest, who longs
for the hour of sunset. Warwick the King-maker is not
the man from whom one would expect to hear an aspiration
to tired nature's sweet restorer. So, too, the author of the
Durham letter is not one whom it is easy to picture ex-
changing the mustard-pot for the oil-flask. You do not look•
for,the assuager of tempests in the cloud-compellitg king.
The statesman who curtly and insolently dismissed Lord
Palmerston from office may honestly—yet at the same time
very oddly, and perhaps not altogether without a pang—
parade himself as this very Lord Palmerston's eulogist
and subordinate ; and after performing such a feat he may
feel disposed to close the curtains on his own political life.
Again, if Earl Russell's engrossing feeling is for peace
and quietness, it must be observed that the sentiment has
come upon him very suddenly. Why the ink is hardly dry
of his Denmark despatch, which, whatever may be said of
its matter, hardly betokens the man who seeks peace and
ensues it. So also with the tone and temper of all his recent
foreign policy. As regards Russia it may be, and we believe
that it is, our duly and our interest not to bite; but a very
wise dog who has made up his mind not to bite usually saves
himself the superfluous trouble of barking. As far as we can
understand or characterise Lord Russell's diplomacy, it con-
sists of a uniform course of barking and snapping and snarl-
ing—of yelping perhaps in the presence of big dogs, but of
growling ferociously over all the little ones. Witness Den-
mark and Brazil as specimens on one side, and Prince Gods-
chakoff and Mr. Seward on the other. It is but a day or two
ago that the French inspired organs talked significantly
about the hollowness of English rodomontade, and for this
rodomontade Earl Russell is responsible; and though rodo-
montade may have its occasional functions and uses in the
great economy of political things, it is not precisely the
weapon which the rest-loving statesman would take up.
We can quite understand that the late Lord Aberdeen might
have spoken from the bottom of his heart if he breathed
the prayer for peace. So with the gentle and melancholy
Falkland; but Earl Russell is not Aberdeen, nor Falk-
land, nor gentle, nor melancholy, nor dove-like. The
birds of prey do not coo. Earl Russell's life has been spent,
and on some occasions most profitably spent, in stirring the
careless, in stimulating the idle, in lashing up popular pas-
moue! in appealing to iciudlipg memories, iu iuvoking with