The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

EXAMINER.—It :s now five years and upwards
since the French Emperor produced a rifled field-
piece, the effect of which as tested in a stricken
field, and that one of the great battles of the pre-
sent age, proved it to be an invention of the highest
importance; and we believe that we are perfectly
borne out in saying that the grooved barrel, as
brought to bear on small arms and great guns, has
considerably changed the system and altered the
details of modern warfare. It would seem to us
almost a matter of necessity, that when all Europe
at once seized upon the French idea and carried it
into effect in one and all of the countries from the
boot of Italy to Sweden, that England should have
taken a strong lead among the nations. Her vast
wealth, her extended commerce, the ingenuity of
her workers in the hard ores of the earth, at once
presented our country to us as one whose position
should at least be as much strengthened by all the
appliances of science as any of the less favoured
neighbouring nations; and there can be lit:le doubt
that if due care and attention had been paid to this
most important matter, we should, in the event of
a war breaking out, have had nothing to risk. We
believe, in reference to small arms—whether we
consider the weapon itself or the gallant men who
have studied its use—that we have muskets and
marksmen equal, perhaps superior, to those of any
nation in the world. Why is it, then, that the con-
current testimony of those best informed unites in
describing England as the most deficient of all
nations in her artillery ? At a dinner lately given
at Liverpool to Admiral Dacres and the officers of
the Channel Fleet, the admission was made by
Lord Stanley that a gun had not been found for
those wondrous ships then lying in the Mersey.
How painfully must the utterance of such a fact
have fallen upon the ears of all present. That the
old 68-pounder smooth-bored gun is the only effec-
tive gun we can command seems to us almost in-
comprehensible. We need not go into detail, for
our correspondent " Caveto" has laboured long and
zealously at the subject, until the time has arrived
when he has won his deserved reward in finding
that the public are fast coming over to those
opinions which our valued correspondent was the
first to broach. The Times' Portsmouth corre-
spondent and the Army and Navy Gazette have
completely taken the same view of the
question; and the daily press generally agree
in deprecating the defenceless position in which we
are left. The Times of the 23d had an able article
on the subject, whereby many of its previous opi-
nions were recanted, but our able contemporary.
does not come down with his usual force on the evil
which is at the root of the matter. There can be no
doubt that if the War Office had called forth the
talents of our engineers by permitting free compe-
tition, the result would have been that we should
long ere this have had two, three, or even five-
hundred pounders on our forts; and that we should
have had guns of five tons' weight, if that be the
maximum of weight of a sea-service gun, which
would have carried heavy charges of powder suffi-
cient to have propelled a shot through any coating
of wood and iron. What has the Ordnance Com-
mittee been about, that we have had no trial of
Admiral Dahlgren's guns, or Parrot's? If guns
carrying 200-pound balls can beat down a fort at
two miles, what armour-ship could resist its force ?
Why is Captain Blakely to be refused a trial in
England, and yet carry 800 pounders to Charles-
ton ? Why are weto find that Whitworth is more
honoured abroad than at home ? Why, in the name
of all that is strange, are we to be called on to accept
Sir William Armstrong and his failing guns as our
patterns of excellence, and deny fair competition to
all others?
LONDON REVIEW.—About a fortnight since a
small and curious little weekly paper, called the
Citeleenham .Looker-on, and which professes to be
a " note- book of the sayings and doings of social,
political, and fashionable life," for the benefit of the
loungers of the Cheltenham pump-rooms, took the
trouble in the leading article, which it significantly
terms "Our Whispering Gallery," to enter into the
,l
.following description of her Majesty's bedroom :
may be stated that no apparent abatement has
occurred in reference to the fixed melancholy which
appears to have taken possession of the illustrious
lady ever since the death of the Prince Consort.
The Royal bedchamber is still hung with crape and
personal memorials of the deceased Prince, to whose
death, however, she never alludes." The intelli-
gence about the crape and the Royal bed-cham-
bero is evidently addressed to that peculiar class
readers who would be keenly pleased to
be informed which rooms at Marlborough House
were hung with chintz and which with damask. If
the "Looker-on" can accomplish the feat of know-
ing about the crape, there is no reason why his zeal
should not get as far the chintz. It is hardly neces-
sary to say that so accomplished and pertinacious an
eavesdropper is not satisfied with following royalty
into its bedchamber. The Cheltenham pump rooms
demand that when the Court goes abroad the
" Looker-on" shall stand itself somewhere on board
the royal yacht, even if it be behind the boxes in the
cabin. By unheard of efforts the "Looker on" has
been able accordingly to discover that her Majesty
has been sick at sea; and he proceeds to discuss the
relative capacities for suffering Bea-sickness of the
different medical attendants upon the Queen. We
know from Mr. Thackeray that in the Rev. Mr.
Honeyman's hours of social relaxation, he used to
indulge his audience with pantomimic imitations of
his uncle the bishop and his uncle's chaplain both
sick at sea together; and that ha managed through-
out. to keep them quite distinct and natural.
The Cheltenham ''Looker-on" performs nearly as
great a feat with respect to Dr. Baley and Dr.
Jenner, the Queen's physicians :—" The late medi-
cal attendant of the Court (Dr. Baley) was so pros-
trated as to be unable to speak or move while afloat.
The successor of the latter (Dr. Jenner) is a better
sailor ; but still he has no inclination to leave terra
firma oftener than absolutely necessary, and is
heartily glad, when his marine expeditions ere over,
to return to his quiet home in Harley-street and the
ordinary routine of professional life." It is pro-
bably difficult for social impertinence to go to
greater lengths than it does in this last paragraph.
We can imagine Dr. Jenner's feelings about the
coolness of the " Looker-on,"—if chance brought
him to Cheltenham Spa, when he learnt from its
columns how delighted he usually was when he got
back from the steamer to his" quiet home in Har-
ley-street." But the vulgarity of the " Looker-on"
is not the moral to be drawn from the whole. The
oddest reflection is that there must be a number of
Cheltenham loungers who are really interested in
reading in their weekly paper an account of the dif-
ferent ways in which Dr. Bayley and Dr. Jenner
are sick on board ship. Probably few of them
are acquainted with either of the two gentlemen.
They are, however, quite willing to learn all they
can of the details of the life of either ; and to learn
them from a newspaper writer whose style of writing
is such as to warrant us in thinking that he deserves
to be kicked out of any drawing-room in London
which he may happen to enter. The Cheltenham
"Looker-on" has not, however, exhausted his
powers over the sea sufferings of the Court. It
seems that the Morning Post has announced casually
that the Hon. C. P. Villiers, M.P., has gone to Spa,
in Belgium. A paragraph about the movements of
any London gentleman whose name is known, is too
good an opportunity for social impertinence to be
lost. Upon the brief advertisement the Cheltenham
" Looker-on" builds the following extraordinary
and, we venture to think, somewhat infamous su-
perstructure It is asserted that the Right Hon.
Charles Pelham Villiers, M.P., has left town to
pass a few weeks at Spa, in Belgium. Were it not
for the general veracity of your contemporary, 1
would be inclined to doubt the bona fides of this an-
nouncement, as the Right Hon. C. P. V. has never
previously been known to go voluntarily more than
one mile from Pall Mall in the whole course of his
life. The right hon. gentleman breathes, moves,
and has his being in an unchanged atmosphere of
Cockneydom, and his friends are always quizzing
him aboutthe feline pertinacity with which he clings
to his club and the Poor Law Board, and his
modest bachelor lodging, all of which may
be found within the charmed circle of one
mile. Now, however, that he has summoned cou-
rage to break through his accustomed habits, it
is to be hoped that he has not invaded Belgian ter-
ritory in the extraordinary costume in which he
appears in Pall-mall—that he has brushed his hat
so that the nap will lie close instead of on end' like
quills upon the fretful porcupine; and that, above
all, he has emptied his pockets of the rolls of papers
with which they are usually filled to repletion, and
has denuded himself of the pieces of red tape which
dangle down either from the crown of his hat or
from the pockets of his ancient blue frock-coat with
the funny old-fashioned collar and the well-polished
sleeves.' That the " Looker-on'' should conclude so
unusual a production with an account of the Lord
Chancellor's dress on board his yacht, is not at all
remarkable. We can only be thankful that ho has
left to many members of the Cabinet unassailed.
In time, however, there is no doubt that he wili
come to the I)ake of Argyle's hair, and the noses of
some of the leading bishops. It is a curious taste,
and one which we hope may long continue peculiar
to Cheltenham. Retired Indian officers, and retir-
ing belles, we preeeme, require this kind of exciting
intellectual food. There is no accounting for tastes,
and it is perfectly possible that absence of sense,
and continual want of employment, may produce in
men and women those odd likings and habits of
thought, which are generally supposed to be most
in place in the servants' hall.
TDB READER.—The nowspopera have done right
in praising Cardinal Wiseinau s Lecture on Self..
Culture, delivered last week at the Hartley Instito.
tion itt Southampton. One does n9t always like