The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-30 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, JULY 30, 1863.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

POST.—Her Majesty has, with her usual good
feeling and good taste, addressed a letter, through
Sir Charles Phipps, to the Mayor of Birmingham, on
the subject of the recent accident to thb female rope-
dancer at Aston-park, which will be read with sa-
tin

faction by every one. The Sovereign is, by a legal
fiction, the parens patrice, but she who at present
occupies the throne has given to a fictitious charac-
ter a reality it never before possessed, by the psren-
tal solicitude which she constantly manifests in the
welfare of her subjects. It is in the recollection of
the public that, on the occasion of some festivities
at Aston-park, in the outskirts of Birmingham,
about ten days since, a woman met with a most
shocking death whilst endeavouring to emulate
the feats of Blondin upon a rope suspended at a
considerable height from the ground. The rope
was rotten, and, having snapped across, the un-
fortunate performer fell and was instantane-
ously killed. The casualty was rendered still more
shocking by the circumstance that the woman was
at the time in an advanced state of pregnancy.
Notwithstanding, however, the occurrence of this
terrible calamity the committee engaged in the con-
duct of the festivities did not think proper to bring
them to a close, nor did the spectators consider them •
selves bound in common decency to desist from the
amusements in which they were engaged. The pro-
gramme of the evening was strictly carried out, and
a volley of fireworks terminated an entertainment
in the coarse of which a human creature was with-
out a moment's notice hurried into the presence of
her Creator. This catastrophe, the remote causes
which produced it,and theconduct of the spectators
after its occurrenee, form the thitne`of her Majesty's
letter. Writing by command of her Majesty, Col.
Phipps expresses the horror with which she heard
"that one of her subjects had been sacrificed to the
gratification of the demoralising taste unfortunately
prevalent for exhibitions attended with the greatest
danger to the performers." We are willing to be-

lieve that in this estimate of the character of the
amusements to which she refers her Majesty will
command the assent of every right-thinking person
in the kingdom. The Queen is peculiarly fitted not
only to express a just opinion of the tendency of
these amusements, but to check their farther de-
velopment by the example which she affords for the
imitation of others. In the columns of this journal,
and in those of others, the attention of the public
has been frequently directed to the growing taste
for exhibitions whose sole attraction consists in

the danger which is entailed upon the perfor-
mers. The subject has been canvassed in Parlia-
ment, and proposals have been made to prohibit,
by legislative enactment, performances equally
perilous to those engaged in them and degrading
to the spectators. But this is a free country, and,
if people like to risk their necks, it is urged that
the Legislature would not be justified in prevent-
ing them. Now, there is one way by which this
growing perversion of public taste can be checked,
and that way her Majesty has adopted. As a
woman, she has expressed her personal feelings of
horror at the late catastrophe ; and, as an exalted

lady, she has pronounced the exhibitions which are
attended with such casualties to be revolting to
humanity and demoralising to public taste.
Her Majesty noticed with great appropri-
ateness the convincing proof afforded on the
occasion of the fete at Aston-park that exhibi-
tions of the kind ,which she condemned had the
effect of deadening the finer sentiments of human
nature. That proof was shown "in the decision
arrived at to continue the festivities, the hilarity,
and the sports of the occasion after an event so
melancholy." We know by experience how much
fashion has to do with determining the nature of
public amusements, and through the Queen's letter
we believe that those which, on account of their
perilous nature, have been so frequently condemned,
have now received their death-blow. As a kind-
hearted woman, her Majesty deprecates the en-
couragement of exhibitions which are fraught with
danger to the performers; as a Queen, she protests
against the lives of her subjects being needlessly
sacrificed ; and as one who, by her high taste, is
entitled to direct and control public taste, she con-
demns a practice whose effects are proved to be
grossly demoralising. There is an amusing simpli•
city in the reply of the Mayor of Birmingham which
cannot fail to arrest attention. That dignitary ap-
pears to have thought that her Majesty's sole object
in addressing him was to reprove him for having
failed in his duties in permitting an exhibition which
resulted in loss of life. He hastens to assure her
Majesty that no one laments more than he does the
accident which has taken place, or regrets more sin-
cerely the introduction into Birmingham of "a bar-
barous species of amusement," which, he apologeti-
cally adds, " has become popular in the metropolis."
So anxious is he to convince the Queen of his zeal,
that he alludes to a previous occasion on which,
though " not empowered by law to interfere," he
did interpose in preventing a similar exhibition
with success, and not obscurely hints that, for the
future, he will not hesitate, even though Aston-
park is beyond his jurisdiction, to prevent the pos-
sible repetition of such a scene as that witnessed
ten days since. The intensely personal view
which the worthy Mayor takes of her Majesty's
letter, and the idea which was evidently upper-
most in his mind, that it never would have been
addressed to him had not his name appeared in
the list of the patrons of the fite, may well excite
a smile. By the public the letter will be regarded
in a different light. It will be accepted as one more
proof of the warm interest which her Majesty takes
in the occupations of her subjects ; and we enter-
tain a sincere conviction that it will exercise no
trifling influence in checking the further develop-
ment of a form of public taste which is eminently
discreditable to the age in which we live.
TTMES.—Of all the States of Europe there is no
one the movements of which are so difficult to calcu-
late aright, as the Empire of Austria. It possesses,
like most States in which public opinion has had the
opportunity of developing itself, two antagonistic
parties ;—there is a Liberal and Constitutional
party, which is for the moment in the ascendant ;
there is a feudal and reactionary party, which
is for the moment depressed and overborne.
Men form different judgments as to the future
career of Austria, according as they fall into the
hands of one or the other of these sections of opinion.
On the one side, Austria is represented as true at
heart to the good old cause of divine right and the
solidarity of monarchs against nations ; on the other
hand, we are told that her Court is determined to act
in accordance with her institutions, and that the days
of arbitrary government and despotic alliances have
passed never to return. We ourselves gave the ex-
ample of a similar vacillation of policy and sentiment
during the reign of Charles 11. when we were the allies
or the adversaries of the liberties of Europe, just as one
party or the other might gain the ascendant in the
Royal Councils. When the recent note on the affairs
of Poland was laid before the Government of the Em-
peror of Russia it became exceedingly important for
him to ascertain what were the real intentions of Aus-
tria in joining the Western Powers. The Russian Mini-
ster at Vienna is said to have reported to his Court
most favourably on this subject. Probably
tpersonsiden-
tical
withw hhoisne
own;feel feelings gastM. de
Balabine fell into the not unusual error of consulting
andany prraedteil,ehcetioiansaawiderteo
received assurances from
the quarter to which he
applied which left no doubt on his mind that Austria
was resolved to take the first opportunity that
should be offered of showing )- good • will towards
her ancient friend and ally.-
Withoutsome such as-
surance it is surmised that Russiahave
ventured to address the Western havede n
would
innever
tone
which she saw fit to use. The
owers the..
Russian Minister
must have believed that by settinge aside the Treaty
of Vienne, refusing to grant an European
urfoan Congress,
and referring everything to a kind
in which Austria should have a seatn and family council,.h
had effectually separated the alliance and, enabled
himself to flout the Western Powers with impunity.
No scheme could be better laid, if, indeed, it could
ever be v, orth the while of a country like Russia to
make for herself an opportunity of spurning well
meant advice, and of covering those who offered it
with discredit and contumely. The scheme was well
laid, but it has failed, and failed, owing, it must be
said, to the honourable, sincere, and straightfor-
ward conduct of the Austrian Government. Rising
entirely superior to the feeling on which Russia
doubtless relied—to jealousy at the interference of
the Western Powers with a matter so delicate as
the affairs of Poland—rising superior to the cajole-
ries and menaces with which he has been alternately
plied by Russian
diplomacy, the Emperor of Austria
has announced, in unmistakeable lenguage, his in-
tention to stand firmly by France and England in
their demand of justice to Poland.
We have good
reason to hope that this convincing proof that
Austria has thrown in her lot with the cause of
progress in Europe has not been lost on the Emperor
of Russia. Ever since the attitude of neutrality as-
sumed by Austria at the time of the Crimean war
the press and the diplomatic agents of Russia
.have
for so signal
been breathing vengeance against her
Andyet ghat
and notorious an act of ingratitude.. . it as
in her wrath
come to pass that instead of gratify
Russia finds herself compelled to sue for the good

offices of Austria, and to sue in vain. We believe that
no time has been lost in modifying and qualifying,
by all the arts of which a subtle and unscrupulous
diplomacy disposes, the disagreeable effect pro-
duced by the reply of• Prince Gortschakoff upon
the Western Powers. If this be so, we have
escaped a great peril, and have to thank the
Austrian Cabinet for extricating us from a dilemma
in which our own imprudence and the arrogance
of Russia had placed us. We had said that an
unfavourable reply from Russia would leave this
country little choice between disgrace or war, and
the answer of Prince Gortschakoff more than realised
our prediction. It is to the firmness and good
sense of Austria, and by no means to the wisdom of
our own counsels, that we owe the prospect we
enjoy of being relieved from an unfor unate dilemma
which seemed perpetually pressing for a solution of
a nature which we were not disposed to give. We
shall 'sincerely rejoice if these anticipations be
realised, and shall accordingly hail the accession
of Austria as a supporter of the cause of humanity
and good government throughout the world. But
while Austria is thus shaking off the shackles of
her old traditions, and doing the highest honour
to the new form of government which she has
adopted, we look in vain for any symptoms of a
similar spirit in the other Monarch on whose
head has descended the other third part of the ter-
rible responsibility of the partition of Poland. If
we owe to Austria the probability of an escape from
an European war, it is undoubtedly due to the
King of Prussia that the possibility of such a war
ever existed. Had the King of Prussia been in any
degree true to the solemn engagements towards
his own people to which he has bound himself by
oath, had, he respected the - constitution of his
country, the feelings of his subjects, the interests of
his Crown, the independence of his kingdom, or
the dictates of humanity, the present dreadful civil
war which is desolating Poland would have been
long ago stayed, and those questions which are
now left to the adjudication of the torch and the
sword would have been decided by calm and im-
partial mediation. It is the heavy lot of the,
people of Prussia not only to be deprived by arbi-
trary violence of their own liberty, but to be made
an unwilling and reluctant means of trampling
down and overthrowing the liberties of others. The
insurrection of Poland was the fruit of deliberate
and intolerable provocation, of an act which con-
verted a process ostensibly designed for the recruit-
ing of the army into a cruel proscription of all that
was best and bravest in the land. The Government
of Russia would never have ventured on an act of
such outrageous and preposterous tyranny if it had
not calculated with a most perfect certainty on the
support of that nation the whole territory of which
is interposed between Russia and the Western
Powers. The Emperor well knew that he might
count on the support, the countenance, and, if ne-
cessary, the armed intervention of the army which
is at the absolute disposal of the King and aristo-
cracy of Prussia, to put down any effort for Polish
freedom. He was well aware that the feeble mon-
arch and the petty aristocracy who have taken in
hand the subjugation of the Prussian nation dreaded
nothing so much as the contagion of liberty, and
would be ready to employ the whole usurped power
of the nation to prevent the rise of anything like
a liberal or constitutional spirit in the north-east of
Europe. Nor has the Emperor of Russia any rea-
son to repent of the confidence which he has reposed
in his Prussian brother. The telegraph informs us
that the paper which has succeeded to the circula-
tion and to the political principles of the Kreutz
Zeitung, as the organ of absolutism and feudality,
considers it urgently important for the policy of
Prussia to seek a better understanding with Aus-
tria, and especially with England. Russia alone is
neither an entirely sufficient nor a reliable ally.
Things must have gone far, indeed, when exhorta-
tions to the Government to retrace its steps are
heard from such a quarter. The remonstrant news-
paper probably perceives that the King is acting
too strenuously on the principles of his own party
for the interest of those principles themselves. In
the present conjuncture a little less zeal and a little
more dissimulation would probably serve the cause
better. The warning does not come too soon. The
King of Prussia has broken definitively with his
own subjects, he is entirely isolated in Europe, and
he retains his present position by the forbearance of
those Powers whom he has irritated.
DAILY NEWS.—After such a disclosure of appal-
ling facts as the Indian Sanitary Report has given
us, there should naturally be no delay in considering
the recommendations of the Commissioners in re-
gard to a remedy of the disease and mortality. The
admirable regulations of October, 1859. for which
the country is indebted to Sidney Herbert, and the
whole constitution of our military sanitary system,
owed their origin to the dismal proof we had had
that the medical service is not only inadequate to
the work of preserving the health of the army, but,
wholly inappropriate to it. Dr. Sutherland's testi-
mony to this fact, in the evidence before us, is very
impressive. Being asked what he meant by there
being no sanitary service in India, while there were
medical men with every regiment, he showed that
the care of health is a wholly different thing from
the cure of disease ; and that the ablest and most
accomplished physicians and surgeons had no edu-
cation on sanitary matters, till the recent regulation
required of medical officers that they should have
gone through a course of sanitary instruction at
Chatham. Again, the medical officers of a regiment
have no power to establish a system in India, or
anywhere else. They may do their best for their
own men ; but their nearest neighbours, or their
next successors, may be subject to all the causes of
sickness and mortality, without any body being
able to help it. Again, the doctors have quite as
much to do in their own department as they can
manage, without undertaking a
wholly different
and more extensive sort of work. Finally, the
treatment of the causes of disease and death must
be as general as the causes themselves ; and this can
be done only by a special administration, charged
with the care of the public health and armed
with authority to provide all the conditions of it.
" The public health," we say, after the Commis-
sioners and their most experienced informants.
In India, even more than elsewhere, it is impos-
sible to take separate care of the health of the civil
and military sections of society. There may be
some purely military arrangements, such as the oc-
cupation and amusement of soldiers in barracks,
desirable with a view to health ; but the great epi-
demics to which the special mortality of India is
due arise from mischiefs under which natives and
Europeans, civilians and soldiers, suffer together ;
and these evils can be dealt with only by a special
administration, furnished with large powers and an
indisputable authority. Such works as draining
districts of land, bringing water from remote high-
lands, suppressing and interdicting the atrocious
nuisances of the bazaars, superintending river works,
and the building of towns as well as barracks, in-
specting the public food, registering deaths and their
causes, and many other regulations needful to the
generalheal th, are beyond the scope of any authority
but that of a department, and are not divisible be-
tween the interests of the civil and military popu-
lation. There must, then, be a Sanitary Department
for India ; and this once resolved on, the department
ought to be made as good as the most liberal wis-
dom can make it. It is scarcely conceivable that
objections will be made on the ground of expense.
The most thorough and well-paid organisation that
Gould be created could not absorb a tithe of the cost
ala
andinstitute—the new
we are sustaining by the loss of trained soldiers,
valued at £lO each ; and by the loss of the service
of many more lying sick in hospital, for the most
part recoverable only so far as to be sent home in-
valided, and (most costly of all) by desertion. If,
of the 20,000 annual desertions from the British
army, nearly all would in a few years be prevented
by practicable improvements in the soldier's lot—by
his being made healthier, happier, and more intel-
ligent, and by a better class of citizens being there-
bycalling—the saving
ary administrations. As
works as the new depart-
mfwoore
untalthtd
et
wrpctioaocuyst et
dfdooafr to
saouodnct
dozen
zee
publice
require
military
buildings, drains, aqueducts, &c.--the means are
ready. Sir C. Trevelyan's budget showed us how pro •
minent an object beneficial public works are in the
policy of the Indian statesmen who are conducting
we may safely rely on the needful funds being
forthcoming whenever the department about to
the rapid progression of our great dependency ; and
come into existence is ready with its estimates.
What, then, should this department be ? This is the
last and most weighty recommendation of the Com-
mission P No one Commission could undertake, to
any effectual purpose, the care of the health of a
epounbsliidcecroanbaliy in
stingdiofffeorennet parts of so vast a regionhundred and fifty millions
of persons. Moreover, the conditions of health vary
as that of our Indian'empire. It is proposed, there-
fore, that there shall be a Commission for each
aPre-
sidency ; and certainly each Presidency will give
any department quite enough to do in superintend-
ing the whole sanitary economy of stations and
bazaars, the improvement of towns and purification
of the country, andthe constant collection of know-
ledge, and reporting of it for the public benefit. As
for the constitutionthese

good guidance in the excellent operation of the one
We have at the head of the army at home. The
civil element must be represented, and the military ;
the sanitary and the medical ; the engineering ; I
and, we hope we may add, the statistical ; the latter
being of essential importance to the advancement of
medical science, and to the formation of sanitary
arrangements for the generations to come. A body
of trained sanitary physicians would be connected
with the Commission, as would, no doubt, a suffi
cient force of engineers familiar, with the works re-
quisite for sanitary objects. It is obvious, however,
that such Commissions cannot go to work inexperi-
enced and unaided. Men, chosen for their familia' ity
with India, could hardly know anything of the prac-
tical working of our military direction at home; and
again, if accomplished members are chosen from home
they would have everything to learn of the Indian
conditions of their work. The proper course clearly
is to introduce an Indian element into the depart.
ment at home, which may learn what is already
known and done, and guide the Indian Commis-
sions till they have gained experience enough to
judge and act for themselves. The recommendation
is that two officers of the Indian Government shall
be associated with our War-office Commission at
home, in order to render available for India such
knowledge and such methods as have been already
acquired and instituted. The delay of five months
in the presentation of this Report and Evidence is
much to be lamented, when it is considered that,
by due punctuality in the production of the Blue
Book, any needful modifications of the laws, and
the appointment of the new Commissions, and the
addition to the existing one, and the new regula-
tions, and a very necessary plan for the registra-
tion—of deaths and of the causes of death in the
chief cities of India (to be extended in time over
the whole country) might have occupied the atten-
tion and obtained by this time the cheerful recog-
nition of Parliament. There can be no doubt that
the recommendations will be carried out in one way
or another. The essential now is, that they shall
be carried out in the true spirit, without damage
from the hostility, tyranny, ignorance, apathy, or
jobbing tendencies of Court, Horse-Guards, Minis-
ter, or any adverse influence whatever.