The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-08 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

SATURDAY REVIEW.—The French Government
is perhaps, on the whole, well satisfied with the
result of the elections. In the provincial towns and
country districts, the mass of the population has
once more illustrated the unfitness of a numerical
majority for active political functions. The pea-
santry of France, as far as it is capable of a
sentiment, retains that admiration for the dynasty
of Napoleon which Thiers and Beranger have sub-
stituted for all other national traditions. With
the legendary 'faith in the first Emperor there is
combined a well-founded belief that military des-
potism is distasteful to the upper classes, and
that its uniform pressure best secures the perma-
nence of equality. On the whole, the constituencies
would probably prefer the official candidates,
although they might not be disposed to make any
strenuous exertion in their favour; and the prefects
and their subordinates take all the burden of the
elections on themselves, justly relying on the habits
of passive obedience in which ordinary Frenchmen
are trained. The people, if they ever think on the
subject, by no means desire that their representa-
tives should take any conspicuous part in the ad-
ministration of public affairs. A deputy is
appointed and paid, not to control the Executive
Government, but to assist at the ceremony of legis-
lation, us ministers and officers of State are sum-
moned to be present in the ante-Chamber when a
Royal or Imperial birth is expected. To foreigners
who are accustomed to superintend the transaction
of their own pabtic business, the working of the
French constitution scarcely presents an edifying
spectacle ; but a certain admiration or surprise is
suggested by the successful ingenuity of a para-
doxical contrivance. When the present Emperor
before assuming his title, invented the machinery
by which he still governs, it seemed difficult to be-
lieve that a regular elective system could be per-
manently reconciled with absolute government,
Experience hes shown that it was safe to rely on
the harmlessness of a promiscuous constituency, pro-
vided sufficient vigilance was exercised by the
Imperial functionaries ; and there are great advan-
tages in the forms of representative government,
when they have been effectually reduced to the
condition of fictions. As an ostrich retains the
character of a bird, though its wings are not avail-
able for flight, the French empire claims the im-
munities and the credit which are associated with
I elective institutions. Perhaps the peasants of the
departments may be flattered with the belief that
once in five years they participate in the establish-
ment or renewal of the Emperor's unlimited power.
SPECTATOR.—The worst danger, perhaps, of the
present situation of the cotton trade is that, as
everybody knows, a sudden termination of the Ame-
rican war would suddenly reverse it. The sudden
confluence of the American stock with the increased
stock from other sources would reduce the price of
the raw material lower than it has been for many
years before the war, and stimulate the demand tor
manufactured goods, which has been so much dis-
couraged by recent high prices, to a point that
would strain to the utmost the powers of the Lan-
cashire labour market, diminished as it is by the
present distress. It is the possibility of this influx
which, in fact, gives rise to any little speculative
increase of mills or machinery which may exist
beyond the range of the districts of which we have
spoken. That Mr. Edmund Potter, the member for
Carlisle, was right a few weeks ago in asserting that
the statements about the over supply of 1860 had
been at least absurdly exaggerated, is now conclu-

sively proved. What was the market which, as it
was then said, had been the most glutted with cotton
goods ? The Indian market. Now, it is remarkable
enough that even at the present very high prices it
is India which is increasing her consumption most
rapidiy. The Board of Trade tables for April show
the following remarkable return of export ct cotton
goods to India :

DECLARED VALUE OP COTTON EXPORTS TO BRITISH

INDIA.

April.
1862. 1863.
Cotton yarns £111,410 £296,857
~ Manufactures

£606,226 £1,242,652
showing (in value) a double demand as compared
with the demand for the same month in last year.
Indeed, while the total increase of the exports
for April 1863 over April 1862, is in value
1;711,782—£636,426 out of this belongs to our
Indian trade alone. There could not be a more re-
markable disproof of the enormous glut of cotton
goods which some had assumed in the Indian market,
nor a more convincing test of the conviction of our
merchants that the present high prices are likely to
be maintained for some time, since they would
otherwise certainly hold back their purchases for
India at the present prices. We conclude, then, on
the whole, and while there are ample reasons for
expecting almost an unexampled stimulus to the
cotton manufacture whenever the American supply
may happen to be thrown on the market, and good
reasons for expecting a return to a very fair trade
within another two or three years in any case, the
prospect for next winter will, unless the war comes
to a premature termination, be still very gloomy ;
that next winter will be a time of trial, even physic-
ally not much less severe than last; morally, in con-
sequence of the great demoralisation of Vas la-
bourers, probably much more severe. Mr. Villiers's
bill for promoting such works under the Board of
Health Act, may, indeed, considerably alleviate the
misery to be expected, but the outdoor employment
thus found for the operatives will necessarily be
very limited during the winter months, more espe-
cially if the winter should happen to be severe.
LONDON REVIEW.—The French Government
have talked so much about the affection of France
for the Emperor, and drawn so largely on it, that
they have killed their golden goose. M. Persigny
has exhausted the supply of Parisian loyalty for
the present, and must be content to subside into
the ludicrous position of a Minister who has exposed
himself and his Sovereign to a civic snubbing.
The success of the Opposition candidates throughout
the length and breadth of the capital will be a most
useful lesson to him and his successorsiou would ir in offi c notoffice
to bore their countrymen. M. l
pro-
bably never have been returned were it not for
official efforts to exclude him ; for M. Thiers is
neither politically nor personally popular. But when
it came to being egged on, and pushed, and nudged,
and kept up at heel by M. Persigny, Paris could not
stand it any longer. It was quite insupportable to
the electors to have the Minister of the Interior, and
all the Prefects, and all the Mayors, and all the
Police setting up a chorus of loyal directions about
the way in which every Frenchman who loved his
country was to vote. To have the Constitutionnel
actually thrust for nothing under their doorsteps,
crammed surreptitiously into their pockets, and
flung into their fiaeres in the Bois de Boulogne, was
nauseous and insulting. So perpetual a fuss about
the Emperor's virtues excited the most sacred in-
stincts of the French nature. They resolved to show
that Paris was not the Provinces, and that they
were not going to be driven up to the poll like pea-
sants by M. Persigny and the Prefect of the Seine.
M. Thiers has accordingly been returned by a re-
spectable, and the other Opposition candidates of
the capital, by an overwhelming majority. In Japan,
the moment would now have arrived for M. Per-
signy to put in practice the august institution of
the Happy Despatch. Even in France it is felt that
his retirement is to be expected. The Paris world
are preparing to bid him God speed on his way to
St. Petersburg. It is quite clear that he has made
himself ridiculous, and the Minister who makes
himself ridiculous in the eves of Paris, makes his
position there untenable. This serious and severe
lesson will not be thrown away upon so wise a man
as the French Emperor. It is not now a question
of a revolution or of a return to the barricades ;
and the soberer of the French know very well
that any attempt to cabal against the reign-
ing dynasty at present would be a failure
and a mistake. But the Emperor will see now
that a high-spirited city like Paris is not to be
overriden by a rather domineering and anxious Im-
perialist such as M. Persigny has shown himself.
The Parisians do not desire, by any means, to return
to the days of Orleanism, far less to the days of the
last Republic. But they have no fancy for being
continually lectured and tutored about how they are
to feel towards the Napoleons ; and how they are
bound to show their gratitude to the Emperor for
deigning to reign over them. They want to be left
alone and not to be worried by every excitable offi-
cial wt o chooses to inflict his pompous views about
Imperialism on them. The bow too long bent will
break, and by a long course of aggravation M. Per-
signy has succeeded at last in getting the French
eagle—which for some years has been the most
quiet and domestic of birds—to peck at his finger.
He has only to thank himself. If he had left well
alone, very possibly fewer of the Opposition would
have been elected. At all events, they would not
have been elected with startling eclat in the teeth
of a persistent, notorious, and unscrupulous an
tagonism an the part of every Government officer.
His imprudence has converted into a political disas-
ter what otherwise might have been passed off as an
electioneering mishap.
EXAMINER.—It is not unworthy of note that the
sell-same day which in Berlin saw the publication
of the royal interdict against the press, witnessed
in Paris the rejection by universal suffrage of every
supporter of the system of rule founded on the sup-
pression of free discussion and maintained thereby.
No doubt Count Bismark and his accomplices may
recklessly bid their master accept the omen, and tell
him, that as it has taken fifteen years for France to
recover from the stunning blow of the 2d December,
they fear no immediate consequences from a like act
of political garotting in Prussia. Reactionary
Prime Ministers are very apt to take little thought
far the morrow ; and when admonished to consider
the inevitable effects which sooner or later must
attend their evil counsels. It is their wont to shrug
their shoulders and to say that things will last their
time. But others naturally take a different view.
The King of Prussia is long past the meridian of
life, and at the very moment when the camarilla
that surround him are prophesying peace and speak-
ing smooth things to him, symptoms of declining
health render it expedient in the judgment of his
physicians that he should seek an exemption from
the anxieties and cares of state, and betake himself
for some time to the waters of Carlsbad. And thus
at the very juncture, when the executive needs to
have all its energies braced to the highest point of
vigour, and all the weight of its damaged authority
concentrated in the utmost degree, the unhappy
king is declared to be physically incompetent to
perform the duties of administration, and advised
for a time to delegate his functions to some other
member of his family. Which shall it be? The
Crown Prince cannot with any show of decency be
passed over; but as his tendencies and leanings are
not supposed to be in accordance with those of his
father, he will, it is said, be persuaded to decline
the odious and perilous responsibility of Regent.
His uncle, Prince Charles, is therefore looked upon
as the person most likely to be made use of by the
Ministerial conspirators on the occasion. Little is
known of his personal character in this country;
but it is obvious that political experience he has had
none; and of his intellectual capacity nothing is
said. If he should prove to be possessed of that
rarest of rare qualities ironically termed common
sense, he may negatively exercise perhaps a salu•
tary influence over the mad and wicked course of
the Government; for inasmuch as his authority will
necessarily be temporary and limited, he may fitly
refuse to sanction further measures of violence which
the anointed head of his house would have no
scruple in adopting. In so far he may thus prove
somewhat of a drag upon the wheels of misrule as
they speed downwards to the brink of ruin.
THE QUEEN.—To-day, let U 3 hope that the
House of Commons will oblige us with another ex-
hibition of good sense, by refusing to pass the mon-
strous proposition to pay £484,000 for Captain
Fowke's hideous sheds and their site, which is to be
made them with al' due gravity on this evening.
It is true that the sum to be asked for this year is
only £172,000 ; but then there is to be a nice little
addendum of £312,000 to follow, for the completion
of the purchase-money, and " for repairing, alter-
ing, and eventually completing the building," and
even this does not include the annual hundred
thousand or so with which the country will have to
be saddled for paying all the officers and hangers-
on and other expectant participators in this awful
job. The whole proposal is, indeed, so impudently
shameless that it fairly takes away one's breath.
We will not echo any of the commonplace senti-
ixtent which is afloat about the wickedness of spend-
ing so much money at the time of the Lancashire
distress. Our views about that calamity, in con-
nection with our finances, teach us to believe that
if some of the millions which we are annually
wasting upon mailed ships and fortifications had
been saved there would have been no distress at all ;
but what we do say is, that any proposition for
perpetuating that abominable sin against good
taste, which we had to endure all last year with
averted eyes, in the face of the whole world, is
nothing short of a national disgrace. All civilised
Europe raised a shout of derision at the fearful
structure when they beheld it, and now it is actually
proposed to purchase and perpetuate it—and for

what ? What but for the benefit of an already
•ivergorged clique of jobbers, the art and science
gentlemen of South Kensington? " Complete" the
huilding! " alter" it ! Ttie only completion that
can be at ail welcomed is that which puts an end to
it ; the only alteration at all seemly would be like
the reformation which Hamlet advised for .the bad
habits of the players. "Reform it altogether.
And yet the very manner in which the proposition
is to be brought before the house gives us hope. As
when the Government brought forward the pet
scheme for dividing the British Museum, and send-
ing the natural history collections to South Ken"
singten, all the naked deformity of the scheme
stands confessed; they are going to tell the whole
truth at once, and confess the utmost item of e.l-
- Let us hope that the omen is a happy one,
and that this scheme for inflicting Fowke's Folly
upon the nation in perpetuity will suffer the same
fate as Professor 0 wen's notable plan for spoiling
the British Museum.

A Man Lost for Four Days in a Coal Mine.

An extraordinary circumstance occurred last week at the
Mount Moor colliery, in the Black Fell, in Derbyshire. The
works of the colliery had been suspended for a short time,
but with a view to preserve the ventilation a furnace was
kept burning below. One of the men engaged at this fur-
nace, named Thomas Brown, went down the pit on Thurs-
day morning to attend to it, and was left there by the
man he relieved ; when this man returned to relieve
Brown, he was not there, but on the seat near the fur-
nace he found his watch and knife, and part of his victuals,
he having evidently consumed part of the latter before
leaving. The furnace was still burning, but the fire was
very low. This man went in seal ch of the missing furnace-
man, but tailed in finding any trace of him, when he gave
the alarm to the persons in charge. A party of men and
officers descended and commenced the search, but this proved
unavailing, although great exertions were made by relays
of men until Monday morning, at seven o'clock, when he
was found in a remote part of the workings, near the old
shaft, he having been then 91 hours in the mine, and 93
hours without food or drink. The sustenance he had during
this time was the oil from his lamp, which he had sucked
up. Although much exhausted when found he soon re-
vived, and after a little food, &c., had been administered,
he walked home with little assistance. It appears that he
had left his post, which was very improper, to look for a
slope drift, which he had been told passed up from the
Maudlin seam, in which the furnace was, into the higher
seam through the main coal, and his light having been ex-
tinguished he was soon entirely lost and bewildered, and
was at length found, as described, after a search of nearly
four days.—. Derbyshire Courier.

COUNTRY MARKETS.

,i.,

NOTTINGHAM-SATURDAY.

For the time of the year there was a moderate show of
wheat to-day ; an inactive demand was experienced, and in
some cases a fall of is per qr took place. Barley scarce.
—White wheat, from 43s to 55s
,; red wheat, 42s to bOs.
Barley—malting, 35s to 398; grinding, 27s to 295. Oats
old, at 27s to 31s Od; new, 22s to 255. Beans sold at 41s
to 458 per qr. Flour, 31s to 40s.

YORK- SATURDAY.

A limited show of wheat to-day, with a moderate demand
at former quotations for selected sorts—inferior a shade
cheaper. Barley a small show, but a firm trade. Other
articles unaltered.

Wheat, red 44s7to 47s ratb.... 2s2 to 24s
White do .48s to 62s Beans .. 40&• to 42s
Barley .29s to 36s Peas to —s
Malt, 62s to 64s per qr. ; rye, 32s per qr. ; flour, 34s
to 36s per sack.