The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-22 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, OCPOBER 22, 1863,

POLICE INTELLIGENCE—This Day.

MARLBORGUGH-ST.REET.

THE OUTCASTS IN THE PARKS.—Mr. Rogers, one of
the officers of St. George's parish, waited upon Mr. Knox
this morning, and stated in reference to the above subject
that he had, on the part of St. George's parish, been in
communication with the Commissioners of Woods and
Forests and the Commissioners of Police, and ascertained
that a correspondence had been going on between them, the
Commissioners of Police being aware of the alarming
extent of the nuisance, and that steps were about being
taken for the purpose of suppressing the evil.
Mr. Knox said he was very.glad to hear it, for the evil
required suppression, for the sake, not only of the poor
creatures—two of whom were before him the previous day
and than whose appearance nothing could be more de-
plorable—but for the protection.of the public.
The number udmitted to the infirmary of St. George's
Workhouse has been rather understated—the number
altogether being 47—one female stating that she had not
left the park for five weeks living there night and day.
CAUTION TO LICENSED VICTUALLERS—PERMITTING
BAD CHARACTERS TO ASSEMBLE IN A PUBLIC-HOUSE.—
Mr George Axtell, of the Horse and Groom, Castle-street,
Leicester-square, appeared to answer the complaint of the
police of permitting bad characters—(to wit, thieves and
prostitutes)—knowingly to asbemble in his house, contrary
to his license.
Gordon, 323 A, proved visiting the defendant's house and
seeing eleven girls he knew as prostitutes, and five young
men about 18 years of age, two of whom he knew to hare
been convicted of felony, and two to be always in company
of the little prostitutes frequenting Leicester-square. He
(Gordon) spoke to the defendant, asking him to turn the
persons out, but he said they were doing no harm, and de-
clined to do so.

Defendant said he had only had the house three months,
and did not know what sort of characters the persons were.
Mr. Knox said that the officer informed the defendant
what sort of characters he had in his place, and then he
said they were doing no harm. _ _ .

Mr. Knox fined the defendant 405., and advised him to
be cautious for the future, as the police would very properly
be on the alert.

The defendant paid the fine.

TOTAL SUPPLY. FOREIGN SUPPLY.
Beasts 922 Beasts 450
Cows l4O Sheep and lambs .... 1,240
Sheep and lambs .. 4,630 I Calves •••••• • • • • • • 225
Calves 320 Pigs
Pigs, 4OO

LITERATURE,

Rachel Ray. A Novel. By Anthony Trollope.
Two vols. Chapman and Hall.

As charming a story as any yet penned by An-
thony Trollope, " Rachel Ray" is, after all, nothing
more pretentious than a faithful delineation of life
as it actually is in an English country town and its
suburbs. Tne work as a work of art is wholly
unambitious, but it is, from first to last, we cannot
help repeating it, charming. It is like ono of those
masterly little sketches by a great artist dashed
down with a few apparently careless and unstudied
touches of coloured crayons upon a rough-grained
neutral-tinted drawing-board--sketches so glowing
into life and beauty under the rapid hand of the
artist, that they even win from us a more instant
and cordial admiration for the consummate skill
with which they have been wrought than that same
artist's more elaborate compositions, in more endur-
ing materials, in oil, or in water colours, or as in
the instance of Maclise's later masterpieces in that
we medium—that medium of perennial fresh-
ness and beauty—water-glass. As it appears to
us, Mr. Anthony Trollope, so to speak, has worked
(with how facile and untiring a pencil !) in
each end all of these materials. He has
so worked, in mediums of such diversity and with
such a ready adaptation of his powers to the re-
quirements of each, that he has already become one
of the most voluminous as well as one of the most
popular novelists of his day. There are characters,
moreover, which he has conjured up into imagi-
nary existence that may take their place, side by
side, with the happiest creations of the most rarely-
gifted among his contemporaries. The Archdeacon
Grantley of Anthony Trollope may be ranked un-
hesitatingly, as a kindly and humorous creation of
this exceptional]kind, even with the Mrs. Poyser of
Mary Anne Evans and the Colonel Newsome of
W. M. Thackeray—with the Captain Cuttle of
Charles Dickens, and Sir Bulwer Lytton's spindle-
shanked and red-umbrella'd Riccabocca. " Bar-
chester Towers," " Dr. Thorne," and the earlier
volume of " The Warden"—the last-mentioned
being the book that first riveted public attention
upon the genius of Anthony Trollope, to the instant
recognition of its delightful freshness and originality
—those three purely clerical stories may be re-
ferred to here as comprising within them the first
epoch of our writer's career as a novelist. An inter-
mediate period there has elapsed since then, in
which various highly entertaining but, as it seemed
to us while reading them, far more carelessly
written narratives, narratives, for the most part, of
a manifestly ephemeral character, were scrawled
off with wonderful rapidity—about the best of these,
to our thinking, being onr author's romance of
" Castle Richmond," Afterwards have appeared
in various forms, now as a serial tale in monthly
parts, now as a periodical contribution to one of
the popular magazines, now as a separate and com•
plete publication, works of a far more highly elabo-
rated character, brilliant fictions such as " Orley
Farm," and " Framley Parsonage." In " Rachel
Ray " we have no such ingenious complication of
plot, or subtle analysis of character as are recog-
nisable in those Uri majores of Anthony Trollope,
The novel, for one thing, is of lesser dimensions.
The plot of it, for another, is the simplest well
imaginable. Incidents of a momentous character
there aro none. Throughout the whole of the two
volumes, it is nothing less than refreshing, in these
days of sensational writing, to find not one solitary
mystery. The scene is laid entirely in
Devonshire. Principally in the little county
town of Baslehurst. The course of the events
related in the narrative, only once, for a very
brief interval, taking us in one brief chapter of the
second volume 40 miles by railway from the imme-
diate neighbourhood of the little town of Baslehurst
—namely to the city of Exeter, the capital of De-
vonshire. Otherwise, from the opening of the tale
to the close of it, we loiter about the streets of in
the houses of Baslehurst—sauntering now into the
village of Cawston, in quest of the simple-hearted
Rector, old Mr. Comfort—driving with Butler Corn-
bury (before the close of the story M.P. for Basle-
burst) along the beautiful highway leading to Corn.
bury Grange, the old Squire's residence—and
becoming more and more pleasantly familiar with
every nook and corner of the pretty little cottage
at Bragg's End, in which resides the heroine of the
fiction, sweet, charming Rachel Ray : together with
her widowed mother, Mrs. Ray (far more simple-
hearted even than her favourite clergyman, Mr. Corn-
fort)—and besides Rachel's widowed mother, her
widowed sister, Mrs. Prime, grimly, acidly, cynically
evangelical. The homely, natural, lifelike, delicately-
pencilled portraits of the women here cluster.
ing together in Baslehurst, are among the
happiest of Mr. 'lrollope's delineations. There
is a touch of the immortal Mrs. Poyser, already
mentioned above, in the little incidental outline of
Mrs. Sturt, the farmer's dame, on the opposite side
of the green, at Bragg's End, to the Ray's Cottage.
Mrs. Sturt relieving her sympathetic heart while
mourning over Rachel's temporary estrangement
from her lover, Luke Rowan, with such old Devon-
shire rhymes as—" It's passing sweet when two
hearts meet. Bat it breaks the heart when true hearts
part." The Tappitt's, too, are capitally drawn—
not only the coarse, bluff, hard-headed, not to
say pig-headed, old bully of a father, Mr. Tappitt,
brewer, of Baslehurst, as acting partner or repre-
sentative of the firm of Bungall and Tappitt, but
his " womankind'' as well. Mrs. Tappitt, that
most bungling of match-making, or any rate to
that end manoeuvring mammas—who, in her florid
and roundabout person is a sort of casual justifica-
tion of Nathaniel Hawthorne's horrid portrait of
the English dowager. And, with Mrs. Tappitt,
the mamma, the three Miss Tappitts her daughters
—Martha, the staidest, and eldest, who is all for
justice and common sense, Augusta, who having
vainly set her cap at Luke, becomes scornful,
not to say spiteful in temperament for ever
afterwards, as the consequence of her failure in that
same laudable effort, and the best of • the bunch, the
flower of the flock, cheery Cherry Tappitt, the truest
friend amongst them all, that is amongst the Tape
pitt family, to Rachel Ray. For charming, little,
innocent, tender love scenes, we know nothing
prettier, in that way, than can be found in this same
homely tale of the loves of Rachel Ray and Luke
Rowan. Instance the sunset scene under the elms
near the stile of the old churchyard at Baslehurst
Or that other scene upun the landing of the brewery
house in the midst of the Ball, whither our unso-
phisticated heroine Rachel has been chaperoned by
charming Mrs. Butler Cornbury of the Grange,
nee Patty Comfort. Or the parlour scene in the
cottage at Brag
i's
ndeed) her End when Rachel nods (with a
very little nod g
acceptance of Luke as
her betrothed. Or after the lengthened and heart-
wearying estrangement of the lovers, their final
meeting in Mrs. Sturt's back parlour at the farm
house on the opposite side of the green : that dear
little delightful back parlour, looking out upon the
farm kitchen-garden with its roses and cabbages.
The ball at the brewery-house, the contention be-
tweenllow= about the brewery
Tappitt and
business, and the stormy election for the
borough, when the Jew tailor, Mr. Hart,
from ever so manyhouses in Shoreditch,
houses in Regent-street, is
and ever so many other
defeated by a majority of one by the young squire
Butler Cornbury,ry,
who has taken Betty Comfort to
wife, and is now M.P. for Baslehurst ! These are
among the most important incidents
.
or occurrences
of any note, here recorded
in this glibly
alluring little narrative. As among the few more
passages in the two volumes,
serious and thoughtful
we are tempted hero to transcribe from the pages of
electioneering part of the
Rachel Ray, from the
story of course, the following :

NOBLE DEFINITION OF A RADICAL.
A radical is not necessarily a revolutionist or even a re-
publican. He does not, by reason of his social or political
radicalism, desire the ruin of thrones, the degradation of
nobles, the spoliation of the rich, or even the downfall of
the bench of bishops. Many Yertng man is frightened
away Irma the just conclusions of his mind and the strong
convictions of his heart b 7 dread of being classed with.
those who are jealous of the favoured ones of fortune.
A radical may be as ready as any aristocrat to
support the crown with his blood, and the church
with his faith. It is inthis that he is a radical ;
that he desires, expects, works for, and believes in, the
gradual progress of the people. No doctrine of equality is
his. Liberty he must have, and such position. high or low,
I for himself and others, as each man's individual merits will

achieve for him. The doctrine of out ward equality he
eschews as a barrier to all ambition, and to all improvement.
The idea is as mean as the thing is impracticable. But
within,--is it in his soul or in his heart ?—within his breast
there is a manhood that will own no inferiority to the man-
hood of another. He retires to a corner that an earl with
his suit may pass proudly through the doorway, and he
grudges the earl nothing of his pride. It is the earl's right.
But he also has his right ; and neither queen, nor earl, nor
people shall invade it, That is the creed of a radical.

Connected also with the electioneering part of
the work is the subjoined most humourous picture,
from-the-life, of the—

HORRORS OF A PUBLIC DINNER AT AN INN.

A horrid mess concocted of old gravy, catsup, and bad
wine was distributed under the name of soup. Then there
came upon the table half a huge hake,—the very worst fish
that swims, a fish with which Devonshire is peculiarly in-
vested. Some hard dark brown mysterious balls were
handed round, which on being opened with a knife were
found to contain sausage-meat, very greasy and by no
means cooked through. Even the dura ilia of the liberal
electors of Beslehurst declined to make acquaintance with
these dainties. After that came the dinner, consisting of a
piece of roast beef very raw, and a leg of parboiled mutton,
absolutely blue in its state of rawness. When the gory
mess was seen which displayed itself on the first incision
niade into these lumps of meat, the vice-president and one
or two of his friends spoke out aloud. That hard and
greasy sausage-meat might have been all right for any-
thing they knew to the contrary, and the soup they had
swallowed without complaint. But they did know what
should be the state of a joint of meat when brought to the
table, aad therefore they spoke out in their anger.
Tappit himself said nothing that was intended to be
carried beyond the waiter, seeing that beer from
his own brewery was consumed in the tap of the Dragon;
but the vice-president was a hardware dealer with
whom the Dragon had but small connection of trade, and he
sent terrible messages down to the landlady, threatening
her with the Blue Boar, the Mitre, and even with that
nasty little pot-house the Chequers. "What is it they ex-
pects for their three-and-sixpence ?" said the landlady, in
her wrath; for it must be understood that Sharpit knew
well that he was dealing with one who understood the value
of money, and that he did not feel quite sure of passing the
dinner in Mr. Hart's bill. Then came a pie with crust an
inch thick, which nobody could eat, and a cabinet pudding,
so called, full of lumps of suet. I venture to assert that each
liberal elector there would have got a better dinner at home,
and would have been served with greater comfort ; but a
public dinner at an inn is the recognised relaxation of a
middle-class Englishman in the provinces. Did he not
attend such banquets his neighbours would conceive him to
be constrained by domestic tyranny. Others go to them,
and therefore he goes also. He is bored frightfully by every
speech to which he listens. He is driven to the lowest
depths of dismay by every speech which he is called upon
to make. He is thoroughly disgusted when he is called on
to make no speech. He has no point of sympathy with the
neighbours between whom he sits. The wine is bad. The
hot water is brought to him c>ld. His seat is hard and
crowded. No attera:dt is made at the pleasures of conversa-
tion. ny
lie is continually called upon to stand up that he
pretend to drink a toast in honour of some person or
institution for which he cares nothing; for the hero of the
mt i
veas to whom ho is probably indifferent ; for the
cehung.
ricnh,which, perhaps, he never enters; the army,
which
he regards as a hotbed of aristocratic in-
solence; or for the Queen whom he reveres and
loves by reason of his nature as an Englishman, but against
whose fulsome praises as repeated to him ad nauseam in the
chairman's speech his very soul unconsciously revolts. It
is all a bore, trouble, ennui, nastiness, and discomfort. But
yet he goes again and again,—because it is the relaxation
natural to an Englishman.
There is something gravely farcical in Mr. Anthony
Trollope's description of that exceedingly low
church parson—low eneugh to reach the level of
dissent--sleek, worldly-prudent, short, unctuous
Mr. prong. Of a less obtrusive kind, Mr. Prong is
of the genres Chadband. The almost, so to speak,
ecclesiastical love scenes between Mr. Prong and
Mrs. Prime during the anxious period for
bothf
their temporary betrothal (for their
wooing never conies to anything, but is
before long altogether), these highly religious
a
e scenes between Mr. Prong and
and Mrs. prime, afford the funniest, oddest contrast
nd prope'r?,
well conceivable, to the charming love scenes already
refseerlryed
t to, e
together, sometimes very
lo
Luke and Rachel in the ball-
room, in
the farm parlour, or near the churchyard
closely
together,
bringing
Air. Prong and Mrs. Prime being even at their
stile.
moments about as "snug" in their wooing,
ahsa
undreary and his enamorata, when seated
at
happiest
sapoiredits piance from each other of several arm's
lengths in the memorable dairy scene on
the greensward! The masterful character of
the young hero of the tale is admirably well
pourtrayed. His gay, impulsive self-confidence
hovering at times on the very verge of conceit, never
once becomes distasteful. His contention with old
'l'appitt, driving the latter at moments though it does
into a state of almost frantic irritation, never once
leads him on to the ruflimg of his own temper.
The only th.ng
the reader is at all disposed to
quarrel with him about is the hardness, so to say,
of his stubborn silence to poor Rachel during the
tedious, an& for her, most painful interval of
their estrangement. As such a charming love tale
should, all ends happily y with Rachel Ray and
her surroundings. We close the book thankful to
the hand that has written it for the sweet homely
_f every day life, here so very graphically
pictures 0
and delightfully delineated.