The Sun.
London, England, 1863-03-21 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 1863.

In the House of Lords yesterday,
Their lordships transacted some trifling business,
and adjourned very shortly.

In the House of Commons,

Lord PALMEP.STON, in reply to Mr. Ferrand, pro-
mised that the Government would give an early day
for the discussion of questions affecting the opera-
tions in the cotton trade. In reply to Sir John
Pakington, Lord C. PAGET stated that the experi-
ments at Shoeburyness, on Tuesday last, proved
conclusively that 51--inch iron plates could easily be
pierced by Armstrong and Whitworth guns, but at
the same time the Admiralty saw no reason to alter
their opinion as to the relative merits of iron and
wood in the construction of ships of war. Mr. BAY
TER moved a resolut►on declaring that the house
was not prepared to sanction a renewal of the Gal-
way subsidy ; but, after an animated discussion,
in which Mr. Gregory, Mr. I3entinck, and Mr.
Whiteside took part, Lord Palmerston defended the
proposed contract, and the proposition was rejected
by a majority of 63. Mr. Whiteside having called
attention to the fact that Hayes, the murderer of Mr.
Braddell, was still at large, Sir Robert Peel stated
that every possible effort had been made to secure
the assassin. It was rumoured that Hayes was in
America, but Sir Robert believed that he was still
in Ireland, and, although there was reason to
suspect that he was sheltered and protected by the
peasantry, there was some ground to hope tkat Le
would ultimately be krought to justice.
The House went into a committee of supply ou
the army estimates, when a vote of £321,881 for
the Volunteers was agreed to, an l after some dis-
cussion the chairman reported progress. The Ma-
rine Mutiny Bill, after pawing through committee,
was read a third time and passed. The other busi-
ness was disposed of, and the House adjourned until
Monday.

Much as the people delight in the complete suc-
cess of enterprises undertaken for the public benefit,
while they conduce to private advantage, yet a
strong feeling of sympathy exists in favour of those
who partly fail in their first attempt. Now the
case of the great Atlantic Telegraph Company is
one that partakes of both. The attempt, however
doubtful at first, from the vastness of the venture,
was ultimately successful, to the joy of the par-
ticipators in the company and the wonderment
of an admiring world. America was actually
brought into speaking terms with Europe, and for
a brief period interchanged mutual sentiments of
reciprocity and delight. But the joy was transient,
and the disappointment at its cessation unspeakable.
Then the unbelievers from the beginning, and they
were many, partly exulted that " their doubts had
turned out to be too true, and their well-founded
suspicions were proved to have been correct." Such
`mere the bouncing expressions of the false pro-
phets, as the original success fully proved. But
it is sew-
/ to prophesy after the event, and
to take Credit beyond their own sagacity or
book knowledge. Live and learn i 3 better and
more modest than to rail and doubt. Everything
has a beginning and must abide tho test of time in
labour and patience until experience crown its faith
with deserved success. Now, the promoters of that
gigantic undertaking, though unsuccessful in their
laudable enterprise, still remain undaunted. They
What bas
are disappointed but not dispirited.
succeeded once gives good assurance of a more
happy and continuous success in a second attempt
while their knowledge is greatly enlarged and their
confidence stimulated to renewed exertions, for the
prize is worthy of their highest ambition to realise.
Time is money they say, and as knowledge is
power, so to contract distance by communicating
knowledge in the shortest possible time is to corn
meree invaluable, and to humanity au incalculable
b nsfit by the frank and ready interchange of ideas.
It would serve to promote peace and good will among
the nations—and almost render war impossible.
At least it would so far alleviate the inducements
to angry feelings by ready ez.planations, that the
chance; o wa" would be greatly reduced. Doubts

would be calmly resolved, and a good understand-
ing be ultimately established to the mutual
satisfaction of all. This is surely an object
beyond all price. It was on this principle that the
directors of the Atlantic Telegraph Company
determined on prosecuting their original intention,
and after having waited for some years perfecting
their plans and acquiring all the information which
the progress of science has since brought tc bear on
telegraphic communication, both above ground and
under water, they now consider the time more
opportune for making their next grand move. At
the meeting held on Thursday, at the London
Tavern, the Right Hon. J. S. WORTLEY stated
fully the various points in view, the exertions
that had been made in diffusing information on the
subject. He said also that meetings had been held in
London, Manchester, Liverpool, Bradford, Sheffield,
and other commercial communities, in all of which
the project had been most favourably entertained,
and promises of support liberally given, FO that with
a little additional subscription they would be en-
abled to resume operations. The best feeling pre-
vails among the mercantile classes of New York in
support of this great national undertaking, and we
cordially wish it all the success it so truly merits.
It will link the Old World with the New—pro-
mote civilisation, peace, and good-will among the
nations, and realise the wish of the Poet—

" That man and man the world o'er
Shall brothers be and a' that !"

The keenness of the prescient gaze of a great
Humourist like Alr. DICKENS, certainly, when
brought into comparison with it, presents the
strongest contrast to that affected by men like
the author of " Apocalyptic Sketches," ecclesiasti-
cal dreamers, who would fain transform the pulpit
into a tripod. More than one evidence has of late
been afforded that the faculty of forecasting events,
of looking straight on into the future, appertains
rather to Mr. DICKENS than to Dr. CUMMING. As
extraordinary an illustration of this prescience, on
the part of our popular Novelist, as could well have
been imagined, was commented upon some little
time since, very appreciatively, by our brilliant
contemporary, the Saturday Review. It bore
reference to the perfect accuracy with which
Boz had estimated the social condition of the
North American Republic, now many years ego,
when he was travelling through it jotting clown
the memoranda for his "Notes," and meditating the
transatlantic chapters of his then forthcoming
serial story of "Martin Chuzzlewit." How truth-
fully those American Sketches by Boz were drawn
and coloured throughout, later occurrences, the
occurrences of the last two years, have very sig
luny demonstrated. Eden was not more pho-
graphically like the marshy, swampy reality of the
Cairo of the West, than the swarms of SCADDERS,
Mrs. HOMINIES, and JEFFERSON BRICKS, thrown
to the surface by the seething up of the Great Civil
War between the Federals and Confederates, were
the express images and repetitions in flesh and blood
of their imaginary prototypes in the famous Anglo-
American fiction referred to.

An equally remarkable jumping to the right con-
clusion was that which led Mr. DICKENS, as by an
instinct of genius, a few years afterwards, to anti-
cipate all the evidence that has since been long and
copiously accumulating in corroboration of his own
opinion, where, in one of the closing chapters of
" David Copperfield," he illustrated the folly, the
absolute fatuity of that Prison Discipline, which
has since then, in spite of his irony, more
than ever been systematically carried out—
illustrating its utter futility, its absolutely crass
stupidity, by his specimens of the Model Felon
in the persons of URIAII HEEP and Mr. LITTIMER.
A sentence occurring at the ninth page of the
pamphlet, referred to by us only yesterday, as but
just come to hand from Bermuda, recalls to us
rather vividly that sarcastic glimpse into the prison
corridor, presented to our view a dozen years ago, in
one of the later scenes of DAVID COPPERFIELD.
" All prisoners," says the Bermuda Pamphleteer,
who are well conducted are entitled to their
release at the expiration of their mitigated sen-
tences ; and, as hood conduct consists simply in
abs tinence from breach of prison regulations, and
the proper performance of the labour task assigned,
no particular efforts are necessary to obtain
it." Precisely the very impression produced upon
the novel reader's mind, when loitering (so
long ago !) over those amusing descriptions of
the wonderful reformation effected by the over
care of the authorities for Mr. LITTIMER
and URIAH HEEP. Time has added nothing
whatever to the poignancy, as we may call it, of
the great observer's appreciation of the exquisite
absurdity of the coddling system of Prison Disci-
pline. LEECH'S woodcut in Punch recently re-
presenting the pampered convicts nursing their
strength while in durance vile, for a future career of
garotting out of doors when released with the re•
quisite ticket-of-leave, are but supplementary in
their way to the pen and ink sketches of HEEP and
LITTIMER, inculcating pretty much the same iden-
tical truth, only under a somewhat different guise.
Vet, in spite of the mass of evidence long pouring
in increasingly beforo us, demonstrative in the
clearest manner of the error of our ways in dealing
with Felony, both by means of the laxity of our
Prison Discipline, and by means of the uncertainty
of the operation of Penal Servitude—an uncertainty,
this latter, almost equivalent, this latter, to the
proverbially "glorious uncertainty of the law "—it
would be hard to define what headway had yet
been made towards the revision of our humane but
blundering scheme in dealing with our criminal
population.

There is this new Commission of Inquiry that
is just completing its sittings, that is, upon the
eve of drawing up its report prior, to its being
laid in the form of a blue book upon the table of
the Imperial Parliament. That, at the first blush,
at the first mention of it, would seem to give us
a prospect of a change for the better, being at
last really and truly afoot. Unhappily, however,
even before the Commission has absolutely termi-
nated its labours, before its report has veritably
reached its completion, rumours are flying
about abundantly in the clubs and the
committee rooms, in the precincts of the
Lords and Commons down at Westminster,
and among the official regions of Whitehall and
Downing-street—rumours distinctly enough to the
effect that after all nothing whatever is to come of
it That again an elaborately-prepared Commis-
sion of Inquiry has been directing its energies sys-
tematically and assiduously to the discovery of the
most effectual means and method How Not To Do
It. In the Report there will be an immense number
of inquiries, addressed by different members of the
Commission to the various persons brought in turn
under examination before the Commission. And to
each of those questions duly numbered, the answers
(also duly numbered) of the respective witnesses
successively under e •
xaminatton, will be found in
the future Blue-Book
accurately reported, very
neatly printed, and most carefully corrected and
revised. But—all the while—the conclusion will
turn out, we are assured, a foregone conclusion
Alas ! there is no great difficulty in believing it.
It is merely an old, old story_a
story that we are
long since rich nearly to death of—told. all over
again prcoiecly in the anwc, way. :Let u, hov; at