The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

SATURDAY REVIEW.—Mr. Lincoln, in his letter
to `she Republican Convention of New York, seems
to pledge himself to a policy of total subjugation
when he expresses a well-founded opinion that no
possible compromise can secure the maintenance or
restoration of the Union. The strength of the seces-
sion is, as he candidly admits, in the Confederate
army, and the offers of scattered civilians who pos-
sess neither political nor military power are wholly
inoperative and worthless. It follows that the Union
can only be restored by the utter defeat of the army,
and a perfect triumph would to a certain extent,
supersede the necessity of negotiation or compro-
mise. As the army of the South is identical with
its population, Mr. Lincoln virtually allows that the
Confederate States are all but unanimously opposed
to reunion. It is certainly not impossible that they
may ultimately be forced to submit, but if the war
were terminated it would still be necessary to pro-
vide for their administration. Mr. Lincoln's sup-
porters have devised an ingenious plan of govern-
ment by minorities, composed of traitors who have
deserted the cause of their states and of Confederacy.
The voters who are willing to take the Federal oath
of allegiance are to elect State Governments, mem-
bers of Congress, and Senators, and to constitute a
privileged aristocracy in the midst of disarmed and
helpless enemies of the Union. The Republican
projectors hope that by degrees the Northern im-
migrants will be strong enough to form a perma-
nent garrison in the South, even if they fail to ex.
pand into a majority. The entire scheme reproduces,
with unconscious accuracy, the mistaken methods of
subduing Irish disaffection which were tried by
different English Governments in the seventeenth
century.
The only excuse for the anachronism
consists in the difficulty of devising any alter-
nati▪
ve. The President may not be respon-
sible for the plans of his unauthorised ad-
visers ; but, in repudiating compromise as
impracticable, he pledges himself first to conquer
the South, and then to govern it against its will,
either by open force or with an admixture of trans-
parent fraud. After all, Mr. Lincoln's letter seems
to be little more than a repetition of the phrases
which make up the resolutions of the Convention.
It matters little whether the Republican platform
was originally devised at New York or at Washing-
ton. Except as cutting him off from all opportu-
nity of altering his policy, this document would
have excited little attention, had it not been for
the extraordinary style, combining the homely joco-
sity of a backwoodsman with the grandiloquence of
a sentimental novelist, in which a man so highly
placed at so momentous a crisis finds it natural or
thinks it expedient to discuss such topics as the
poli▪
cy of wholesale abolition, the fortunes of the
army and navy, and the possibility of peace. Per-
haps there are Americans who are capable of being
ashamed of the vulgar frivolity of their chief magi-
strate in a great political crisis. Facetious refe-
rences to "Uncle Sam's web feet," and repetitions
o f every slang party phrase in the American dialect,
indicate something wrong in the state of political
soci▪
ety, as well as the coarseness of the President's
mind. His opinions will probably suit the Repub-
lican Conventions, but perhaps their leaders may
be reminded that the next candidate for the Presi-
dency will be better qualified for his duties if he
had had the advantage of an ordinary advantage of
an ordinary education.
SPECTATOR.—The two humourists who are at
present virtual dictators of English and American
policy, and, each in his way, almost perfect repre-
sentatives of the political feeling of their respective
nations, offer many curious points of comparison in
the Way of contrast or resemblance. Itis, of course,
not the least of those contrasts that the one is essen-
tially a noble and the other essentially a peasant;
the one a man of the world and of society, the
other a rail.splitter mad an attorney; the one a man
saturated with the diplomatic traditions of half a
century, the other fresh from local politics and vil-
lage squabbles. But it is a difference of greater
moment that the one was chosen because he had
long excited admiration for his shrewdness, ease,
and audacity; the other because he had never
ex cited admiration or attention at all out of
his native State,—the one because he was con-
spicuous, the other because he was obscure.
It is still more to the purpose that the
English statesman's present power is a temporary
trust, held only during good behaviour, the Ame-
rican's a constitutional lease, guaranteed for a short
term of years ; so that in the aristocratic country
the minister's power, given because he was popular,
depends on the endurance of his popularity, in the
df mocratic, the powergiven because he was unknown
is wholly independent of the qualities he evinces
now that he is becoming known. These are the
most striking contrasts. On the other hand, so far
as each has gained personal influence of his own
with his own nation, he has gained it much in the
same way by interpreting its average wishes and
will sagaciously, by anticipating their expression
vigorously, and " putting his foot down " boldly,
with strong lucid sense, and with something of
cynical humour, on a national policy, not too heroic
in profession, but carefully toned down to suit the
common places of country feeling and resolve. No
doubt Mr. Lincoln's personal popularity in Ame-
rica is nothing at all in comparison with Lord Pal-
merston's here. The Northerners area little ashamed
of the rather vulgar personality which figures so
prominently in this great crisis of their history.
His mind has shown itself stow and hesitating,
though never irresolute when once decided, and his
dignity has not been equal on most occasions to ruling
his own Cabinet. The consequence is that he has
only within the lasts few months gained. any per-
sonal, as distinct from his official, political influence,
and perhaps it is even now not very large. Still he
is undoubtedly rising in popular esteem:(!) and some I
of his political professions of faith have had a sin-
gular success in reading off as it were theinmost
thoughts of the millions of Yankee farmers whose
political creed we in England are least able to un-
derstand. And these occasional dicta of Mr Lincoln's
certainly take a grasp of the American mind not at
all unlike the hold which Lord Palmerston's happiest
expositions of English policy take of the English
mind, and for very much the same sort of
reason. They are both strongly logical aswell
as lucid in mind, though the American's
style is sometimes obscured by its deficience3. Both
Mr. Lincoln and Lcvd Palmerston, again, are re-
markable for the strongly secular character of their
political modes of thought, being, indeed—like Louis
Napoleon, Cavour, and almost the greater politi-
cians of recent times (Ricasoli alone excepted)—
singularly careful to disavow undue elevation of
sentiment. Mr. Lincoln is as lucid, and of course
much more homely in explaining
.that he looks only
to considerations of national self-interest as Lord
Palmerstor. himself. Look at
the President's letter
to the mass meeting in Illinois.
It is not refined ;
it won't parse; it ends with a kind of intentional
vulgarity, as if Mr. Lincoln wished to speak to the
Yankee farmers in their own dialect. Mr. Lincoln
jokes, in his own vernacular, about
" Uncle Sam's
web feet," to please the farmers, with just as much
skill and humour as Lord Palmerston, in his more
polished way, has joked about our "Isthmian
games" to please the racing gentlemen in the House
of Commons. But after allowing for these differ-
ences of social latitude, the basis of the noble's and
the plebian's sagacity remains much the same—a
great tack in understanding the deep-routed conser-
vatism of the people at the present moment, and a
marvellously real and practical way of laying down
before their eyes the practical alternatives still open
to them for gratifying that conservatism. It may
seem odd to speak of Mr. Lincoln—the temporary
servant of a powerful democracy engaged in appa.
rently aggressive war—as the mouthpiece of the
conservatism of the country. Yet that is his true
power at the present moment even more than Lord
Palmerston's in England. The President represents
exactly that conservative-aggressive attitude of the
public mind in which both English and Northerners
are now best pleased to stand.

LONDON REVIEW.—Hardly tt week ago, the Mid-
dlesex Sessions presented the public, through the
medium of the newspapers upon two successive days,
with " sensation" forensic scenes of an extra-
ordinary kind. On the first day a barris-
ter of the name of Metcalfe was the hero of the field.
He was defending a prisoner on trial, and took oc-
casion to present his client to the jury as a man of
high respectability, while at the time it was well
known (to the prosecution, at least) that this highly
respectable prisoner had undergone more than one
previous conviction abroad. The prosecuting coun-
sel, at the end of the trial, brought the matter under
the notice of the court as an unjustifiable perversion
of truth on the.part of those who were engaged in
the defence. Mr. Metcalfe, however, explained
subsequently that he himself was ignorant of the
convictions recorded against his client, and the
Assistant-Commissioner, Mr. Sergeant Gaselee, ex-
pressed himself satisfied with Mr. Metcalfe's dis-
claimer. We have no reason to question the gen-
tleman's veracity, however we may suspect his
discretion; but, all personalities apart, the story has
a significant bearing. A counsel may easily have
been ignorant of the prisoner's real character; but
the prisoner's attorney must, or at least ought, to
have known it. Assuming that Mr. Metcalfe was
acting strictly within his instructions when he
asserted the prisoner's respectability, it comes to
this; that the attorney put down on the brief and
urged counsel to assert what he either knew to be
false, or, at all events, what he did not know to be
true. Attorneys do not play these pranks who
have ordinarily to do with barristers of a high cha-
racter. The trick is not known in a certain class (f
business, nor in certain courts. It is confined to

courts where the atmosphere is a peculiar one, and
where prutitienere both Above And below the bar

are supposed to be less fastidious. The next day
afforded an opportunity for a display of personal
prowess between two barristers, Mr. Ribton
and Mr. Besley; with Mr. Sergeant Gaselee,
as before, sitting as arbiter of the fight. It
appears that Mr. Ribton, who was for the defence,
was in the middle o► a cross-examination, when Mr.
Besley interposed. The following severe affair then
came off, much to the edification of the audience ;
Mr. Besley objected to such questions, as they did not
go to impeach the veracity of the witness.
Mr. Ribton said he had never heard such an objection in
the course of his experience in the criminal law, and he was
sure it would not have been taken by any counsel who knew
his business.
Mr. Becky said such observations applied to him were
most impertinent.
Mr. Sergeant Gaselee thought that such observations
ought not to be made.
Mr. Ribton—Then I will retract it. No one doubts that
Mr. Besley knows his business. In fact, he knows
too much-
Every man has his own modes of expressing him-
self, and we have no wish to misinterpret any of
Mr. Ribton's modes of expression, which may per-
haps be peculiar to himself. But the ordinary in-
terpretation of the back-hander with which that
gentleman finished the controversy is obvious.
Judged by our everyday notions, a barrister of
whom it can be said that he " knows too much" is
no better than " a sharp practitioner." Mr. Ribton,
therefore, implies virtually (though perhaps the in-
sult arises rather from clumsiness than malice) that
Mr. Besley is in the habit of sailing as near the
wind as is consistent with professional etiquette.
Now, such an imputation, supposing it to be false
—and we have no reason to suppose it is true—can
be only disgraceful to the man who recklessly makes
it. Whether true or false, it is a discredit to an
English law court that it should be made at all.
The whole affair is as unseemly as it well could be.
The first impression of any sensible person on read-
ing it may probably have been a regret that the
days of duelling for some purposes are extinct.
There really seems to be no other means of prevent-
ing scandals of this kind. The prospect of a pistol
at twelve paces might perhaps have prevented Mr.
Ribton from gratuitously offering Mr. Besley such
an insult ; and, for fear that bullying should become
licensed, duelling and challenging might be limited
to the frequenters of the Middlesex Sessions.
EXAMINER.—OnIy fifty years ago the spectacle
of the execution of a murderer was not thought
sufficient, and was followed by the more lasting
spectacle of the body dangling in chains from a
gibbet. The banks of the Thames were studded
with these hideous exhibitions, and there was a
whole grove of gibbets at Bugsby's Hole, in the
bend between Blackwell and Woolwich Reach,
under which parties used to be made to drink tea,
the tarred remains swinging over their heads, and
the irons creaking a dismal accompaniment. The
gibbet was meant to be a sort of scarecrow of crime,
but when ample experience proved that it had no
terror for the jail birds, but that familiarity with
the sight made it their laughing stock, while it
struck with disgust or horror the better part of the
community, the hateful thing was abolished. In
another fifty years public executions will probably
have disappeared like the gibbet, which in con-
sistency they should have followed off the stage,
both being of the same nature, and best put out of
sight. But let it not be supposed that the gibbet
was unfriended. It had its advocates who prized
it even more than the execution, to which it was
supplemental. The effect of the spectacle of execu-
tion, they said, is at least transitory, and the num-
bers who witness it keep up each other's spirits,
and find more matter of jest and ribaldry than
grave reflection; but the gibbet is a permanent
warning, and many a criminal shudders as he sees
its hideous burden, or hears its irons at night
croaking, raven-like, of an ignominious death. Such
was the theory, but the fact being proved to be quite
the other way, and that familiarity, as usual, bred
contempt of these exhibitions, they were abolished
in spite of the most vehement protests, especially
from that learned Recorder of London of whom it
was said, that he was never known to shed a tear
but once, and that one of disappointment at the
reprieve of Macheath in the " Beggar's Opera,"
when he fondly hoped to see the finale of a
hanging. We are sorry to see the Times treat-
ing as kindred proposals the abolition of
capital punishment and the substitution of
private for public execution. We believe the
retention of the punishment of death for murder to
be necessary, and have often stated our reasons for
that belief; but we cannot think any one good
object effected by public executions. We see no-
thing in them but what is objectionable and counter
to the purpose. A public execution answers no
purpose of example. The example is in the fact,
published throughout the realm, that the criminal
has suffered, not in the sight of his dying convul-
sions, witnessed by a few hundreds or thousands,
who, when all is over, go away laughing and jok-
ing, and with the light reflection, " Well, after all,
it is not much to make a fuss about," or "he died
game and plucky." There is, indeed, nothing im-
pressive in a public execution. All the circum.-
stances are mean and vu:gar, and death is deprived
of all its dignity. Of all the sensation-mongery it
is the lowest. The sight may make some worse,
tend to harden some hearts, bat none can it make
better. It serves to collect the worst of every dis-
trict, and to mix a good deal of levity and morbid
curiosity with sheer brutality. Upon the last occa•
sion, the execution of four murderers, a large pro-
portion of the mob were women, and many of theca
of the appearance called respectable, that is to say,
well dressed. There were excursion trains too, as
for a fair, or races, or a prize fight. It was a gaga
day. There were hampers of provisions, and drinks,
and all jolly doings, to see four wretches make their
last struggle. It was well for the public of that
choice neighbourhood that four murders had been
committed, to give them such a treat in the spectacle
of the retribution. A single execution would no
have attracted such a concourse.

Lew TimEs.—The Social Science Congress will
add to its many attractions at Edinburgh, a reunion
of the Bars of England, Scotland, and Ireland, to
be celebrated at a dinner over which Lord Brougham
will preside. It is a happy occasion seized for an
admirable purpose. The Congress will draw to the
metropolis of Scotland dome of the ablest members
of the bar of each of the three countries who design
to take part in the discussions on the various sub-
jects that fall within their studies and experience,
and it may be anticipated that many will be
tempted by this added pleasure to join the assembly
as spectators if not as debaters. 'l he three bars are
not yet sufficiently known to one another. They
have at present no point of contact. The embryo
Irish barrister meets the embryo English barrister
at the Temple, when both are students, and there
they form pleasant friendships, which are rarely cul-
tivated after the Channel has severed them. But
of the Scotch bar we of the English know nothing ;
we are never brought together, not even to mess
upon roast shoulders of mutton and sirloins of beef.
Something was wanting to bring about a better
acquaintance. An annual dinner in London was
once talked of, atd a meeting alternately at each of
the three capitals has been suggested. But when
the project was put into shape it was felt to be too
peat a request to ask men to come from Dublin
or Edinburgh merely to dine. Something
more was wanted. This something more the
Social Science Congress will supply. It will de-
pend upon the success of this first endeavour
whether the meeting shall become an institution.
There will be much in Edinburgh to repay the visi-
tor. Great efforts are being made by the authori-
ties to give a hearty welcome to the Congress, and
abundance of amusements will vary its serious
labours; so that the meeting of the three bars will
have a great deal of enjoyment besides the pleasure
itself will yield.

A SHIP RUN DOWN BY THE GREAT EASTERN.
—LIVERPOOL, SUNDAY. --- The Great Eastern,
which arrived here this morning, while off Cape Clear on
Friday, ran down a shin called the Jane, Captain Duff,
bound from Liverpool to Quebec. Two of the crew of the
latter were killed by the collision. The Jane left this port on
the 10th inst.

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