The Sun.
London, England, 1865-07-31 00:00:00

ffiE 8151+4; I:4ONDON, MONDAY . EVENIN.O., JULY 81
.1i,365

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

THE " SATURDAY REVIEW" ON LORD DERBY'S
FATHER.---EXPENSIVE METAPHOR !—The Conser-
vative leaders can now estimate with some accuracy
the exact cost of an unfortunate trope. A metaphor
often goes a great deal further than an argument,
and the majority of men are evidently much more
powerfully affected by a figure or an illustration
than by the substantial reasoning which it is meant
to colour. Lord Derby, as an accomplished master
of the whole art of eloquence, might fairly have
been expected to know this, and as the respectable
leader of a party he might fairly have been expected
to profit by his knowledge. Everybody who has
had any experience in discussion, even in private
life, is aware that plenty of people who can listen
with patience to a series of the most crushing argu-
ments, so long as they are advanced with gravity
and deference, will be thrown into violent anger by
a single jocose simile. In the case of large and im-
portant bodies of men this disposition is intensified.
The offensive tropebecomes more offensive by being
on the lips of all men, and it is soon felt too that the
trope is a condensed and graphic expression of the
orator's real sentiments. Nobody knows better than
the author of " Coningsby" what is the worth of
a cry, and Mr. Disraeli must have felt that the
elaborate and pointed figure of the Muzzle was
supplying his opponents with a far better cry
than they could have devised by their own un-
assisted ingenuity. It is very hard upon the lieu-
tenant that a single metaphor of his reckless chief
should have demolished the sublime structure which
had been so artificially raised upon the mysterious
base of Caucasian Catholicism. For six long years in
the cold shade of Opposition he had cherished a
becoming sympathy with the Pope, whom he no
doubt looks upon as a brother in affliction, as he is
only parallel in impotent perversity. During the
whole of that time he had done all he could to win
the sweet confidence of the Irish Ultramontanes,
and at last he even tried to persuade them that no-
thing but a wise regard for their best interests could
have induced him to vote against the Oaths Bill.
He laid great stress on the sincerity with which he
" honoured their ancient faith and venerable creed."
With Mr. Whiteside and Sir Hugh Cairns by his
side, Mr. Disraeli deserves sonic credit for having
had the courage to go so far. He even said that, if
the Roman Catholics considered that any reproach
was laid upon them by the opening words of the
existing. oath, he would not for a moment oppose
their omission, though, parenthetically, he rather
thought any feeling of this kind was of " a morbid
character." The Pope himself could not reasonably
ask more. Such fair speaking deserves a better
reward, but Mr. Disraeli's evil star was, as it usually
is, in the ascendant, and his three columns of argu-
ment and appeal and deep religious feeling were
worse than nullified by one pungent metaphor in
the mouth of his rash chief. With fatal complete-
ness the metaphor was worked out and polished
until rhetorically it was faultless. When the last
sentence was finished, the hearts of all Liberal
whips and solicitors and electioneering agents
must have rejoiced with exceeding gladness. " I
am very much obliged to you, but I had rather
" keep the muzzle on," was as welcome an inspira-
tion to them as " Our Young Queen and our Old
Constitution" was to Taper and Tadpole. The
eight seats which have been lost to the Conservatives
in Ireland, unbalanced by a single gain in that
country, are a striking and substantial proof of
what rhetoric can do. The peculiarities of the occa-
sion make this especially provoking to the Opposi-
tion. They were on the point of reaping the fruit,
which had been so long ripening, of the Italian
policy of the Government. The support given to
the impious assailants of the property of the Holy
Father was supposed to have utterly destroyed the
traditional ties between the Roman Catholics in Ire-
land and the Whigs. Indeed there is every reason
for thinking that, if the Conservative leaders had
not fallen blindly into the trap which Mr. Monsell
set for them, their sanguine anticipations would have
been fully realized. Solomon's proverb, however,
that in vain is the snare laid in the sight of any bird,
does not apply to the Conservative birds. Instead
of giving the Oaths Bill the go-by as adroitly as
they could, both Mr. Disraeli and Lord Derby did
their best to make it one of the most prominent
questions of the Session. They could not vote for
it without offending the more fanatical of their Pro-
testant followers, nor against it without offending
the Roman Catholics. In either case they were in
a difficulty ; and their delicious skill and thrice ad-
mirable- tact were shown by Mr. Disraeli making a
speech that was sure to annoy all the staunch Pro-
testants, and by Lord Derby working out a trope
that was sure to outrage the feelings of all the
stanch Catholics. Such be thy gods, 0 Carlton !
THE " EXAMINER" ON THE ROAD MURDER.---COB-
stance Kent is sentenced to death without the ver-
dict of a jury. There was no finding, for there was
no searching. The prisoner was her own accuser,
declared herself guilty, and the Judge thereupon
ordered the plea to be recorded, and proceeded to
pass sentence of death. There was thus, in fact, no
trial. The only evidence was the evidence of the
prisoner against herself, which was accepted as con-
clusive and decisive. It seems to us that, according
to all the principles of jurisprudence, Constance
Kent's accusation of herself should have been tried
just as if Constance Kent had been accused by an-
other, and evidence should have been called for and
examined to see whether the self-crimination was or
was not corroborated by circumstances. This would
have thrown light upon the method of the crime, a
knowledge of which is always for the interest of jus-
tice. As it is, all is left in darkness. The seal of
confession has, indeed, closed up truth against jus-
tice, as the priest's lips against disclosure. We all
know that there is a sort.of mania for false confes-
sions, and without meaning to say that the confes-
sion of this convict falls within the number, we hold
that it ought not to have been accepted without the
severest scrutiny. As we have • said before, we
rather believe in, it than not, but it: is possible,
though barely possible, that it may be.the fancy of
a diseased mind, or an invention for a purpose to
which we shall presently advert. The truth of her
whole statement, as conveyed by her counsel, we
do not believe. She denies that she was goaded
to her crime by any unkind treatment in her
home, where, she declares, she met with nothing
but tender and forbearing love. The object of
this avowal seems to be to aggravate her guilt to the
utmost, and to make the • foul, unnatural murder
appear absolutely motiveless, a fiendish caprice.
But there are many persons who know that, whether
with cause or without cause, Constance Kent was
unhappy in her home, and thought she had reason
to complain of her treatment. And for this she had
the sympathy of the neighbourhood. That sym-
pathy might have been given on mistaken grounds,
for there is always some prejudice against a step-
mother's rule, but, be that as it may, it was believed
in the vicinity that Constance Kent had undergone
oppression and humiliation, which had goaded her
to her cruel act of vengeance. And when this
opinion prevailed in the neighbourhood, the eager-
ness for the detection of the criminal declined. To
believe that a girl of sixteen could have deliberately
committed this detestable crime without 'any venge-
ful motive, and in return for tender and forbearing
love, is to believe something utterly out of human
nature. In very unnecessary efforts to deepen the
dye of guilt much stress has been laid upon the sus-
picion under which the convict's father fell and suf-
fered for many years. But is it quite fair to assume
that the girl living out of the world knew anything
of that suspicion.? And here occurs a supposition
far from credible certainly, but not to be pronounced
impossible. Suppose this confession a device to de-
liver the father's character from the cloud that has
hung over itsince the murder. Suppose the daughter
sacrificing herself to restore her father's fame and
lost place in society. Mark how much it would do
for him, for it would not only rescue him from an
unmerited odium, but it would give him a claim for
all the reparation society could make. The _hypo-
thesis will be said to be to the highest degree
improbable ; be it so, but to the highest degree
improbable also is the crime confessed. And by the
issue of the proceedings in the Criminal Court, to
which the name of trial cannot with any fitness be
given, we are left in a wide sea of conjecture open
to all imaginings. To one conclusion only we can
confidently come, that the statement made by Con-
stance Kent's counsel, as authorised by her, is not
all true. She may be guilty, but not guilty with
every motive for innocence. Her obvious object has
been to criminate herself to the utmost in order to
acquit her family to the utmost. We see a very
significant circumstance supplied to the report of
what passed when the judge was passing sentence.
In dwelling upon the bad passions which had led to
the crime, the judge mentioned jealousy, upon which
Constance Kent interposed, not jealousy. Now
what ground had the judge for specifying the bad
passions to which this crime could be attributed?
He had nothing judically before him but the indict-
ment for murder, and the prisoner's plea of guilty.
There was not a circumstance, not a tittle of evi-
dence before the Court, to indicate the motives of
the crime, or the bad passion to which it might be
referred. All was wanting that should belong to a
conviction. And in his difficulty the judge had to
place Constance Kent through certain bad passions
of which the Court had not a jot of evidence in the
possession of the Evil One. In the indictments of
former times judges were saved the trouble of citing
this agency, for the crime was always laid to the
instigation of the Devil. The commutation of Con-
stance Kent's punishment to penal servitude for life
is what every one was prepared for, and if, as re-
ported, her destination is Western Australia, that is
an additional mercy ; for in a prison of her own
country her punishment would be more keenly felt,
well educated as she has been, and nurtured far

. „
above the average lot of female convicts. Perhaps,
at some distant day. another confession will come
to light.
THE " SPECTATOR" ON THE POSSIBILITY OF RE-
FORM.—Are we to commence at once another thirty
or forty years of steady progress, removing disabili-
ties, soothing hatreds, forming alliances with our
colonies, linking Ireland more strongly to the Em-
pire, assisting in the emancipation of other European
races, or are we to waste another six years in a
sterile contest about the principles of motion, the
distribution of power, the munber of revolutions
which can safely be made per minute and all the
other primary data of political mechanics ? Are we
to begin the battle in thorough condition, or only to
chatter angrily about the true principles on which
training should be conducted ? Tadpole and Taper
say we are ; we say we are not ; and we will give
them the benefit of opening the case. Their argu-
ment, if we understand it, is contained in the an-
cient joke that it is a shame to fritter away one's
money in merely paying one's debts. It is a pity,
they say, to fritter away so splendid a majority in
passing a bill which will either bring it to an end or
render it unnecessary. That majority if wisely used.
may accomplish very great things—things which
even Tadpole and Taper wish to see accomplished,
changes in administration, in the law, in our colo-
nial relations, in the organisation of the huge club
which practically rules the army. It may enable us
to complete the scientific adjustment of our finance,
by applying sound principles to local, as we have
already done to imperial taxation, may raise mate-
rially the condition of the poor ; may even, as the
speakers confess with a shudder, help to get that in-
terminable ecclesiastical question out of the way.
If it does none of these things, it will at least secure
to the party a long and easy tenure of power, avert
divisions, tide the country over the chasm between
Lord Palmerston and Mr. Gladstone without any
Tory interregnum, and generally make the lives of
all Whigs very pleasant to themselves. Above all,
it would make the Government strong qua Govern-
ment, as a power which is not only to exist but to
act, to urge, and lead, and restrain—by no
means an unimportant point. Government
has of late been a little weak, a little apprehen-
sive of interests, a little afraid of giving oppor-
tunities y controversy, perhaps even a little
blind to" the necessity of maintaining order, as in
the lax proceedings in Belfast, and the reluctance
shown to keep the skeleton of Convocation strictly
chained in its tomb. All these advantages are to
be thrown away, and for what? For a measure
which, so far as Tadpole and Taper can see, the
country does not demand. There is argument in
the press, but it is reasonable argument, not denun-
ciation ; there are no meetings, no subscriptions, no
monster petitions, nothing anywhere which can
fairly be called agitation. A few members have
been unseated for not being distinct enough in the
cause, but so have a few members for not being
clear upon the malt tax, a few moderates have
given place to men of stronger opinions, but at
least as many Radicals have been unseated some-
what unceremoniously. How are the Lords to be
made to pass a Reform Bill if the country will
not stir? yet a rejected Reform Bill, if brought
on in earnest, involves a dissolution, and so also
does one which has been accepted and passed. Mem-
bers will only be savage at the idea of facing their
constituents so soon, and the long expected defection
of the Liberal Conservatives will probably take
place with that for its excuse. There is force in all
these arguments, more particularly the last, but
public opinion inclines, we believe, nevertheless to
the replies. In the first place, the argument for de-
lay, based on the value of the existing majority,
implies that it is a homogeneous whole, a body of
votes which can be relied on even when there is no
central idea to hold them tightly together. It is
nothing of the kind. There has been no personal
cry in these elections to bind the party together, for
though Lord Palmerston has been defended, they
are Tories who have defended him ; and though
Mr. Gladstone has been praised, the whole body
have not heartily assisted in the laudation. The
party is not a strong staff, but a bundle of staves by
no means all round or square, though held together
by a common desire to advance instead of standing
still, by a common resolve to oppose reaction, by a
common fear lest a Tory Government should, on
some one point or other, America, or France, or
finance, or the Church, take some retrograde step.
The pivot round which its common ideas revolve
has been the question of Reform. There is scarcely
a Liberal in the country who has not expressed in
some form or other, in a greater or less degree, a
willingness to admit a new class within the pale of
the Constitution, the single difference being the
width of the door to be made. If this pivot is
taken away the machine must cease to revolve, and
it will be taken away, if for the second time Par-
liament declines or neglects to recognise the neces-
sity of new fastenings. The Radicals alone can
lock the whole machine. We all talk very plea-
santly, and in one way very truthfully, of the im-
meme majority the Government have secured, but
what is that majority worth if Mr. Bright, and Mr.
Forster, and Mr. Stansfeld, indignant at broken
pledges, and aware that the one Minister they care
for is in opinion on their side, walk out on the next
great division with their following at their heels ?
The majority will not be able to accomplish much
after that, even of its ordinary work, will certainly
not be able to secure to the departments pleasant or
easy lives. These men are in earnest, and there is
no American question now to keep them, like con-
scripts, willing or unwilling, still obedient in the
ranks. The Government would be driven on every
serious emergency to renew the policy of last ses-
sion, and look to its opponents as a reserve, a course
fatal not only to progress, but even to the strong
Government Tadpole and Taper love. E very in-
terest would be dangerous, and a new idea
merely a ladder to facilitate hostile escalade.
Mr. Gladstone would be paralyzed, and
every other _Minister, except Sir Charles Wood, who
sits in the pleasant shelter of a mound of popular
ignorance, would be compelled in self-defence to
proclaim a policy of quiescence. Any corporation
would be too strong for the Government, any com-
pany too formidable, any clique, even the reduced
band of Ultramontanes, too dangerous to be slighted,
and every improvement would be clipped, and pared,
and mutilated, to avoid a factious opposition. The
great majority would be useless, and when Lord
Palmerston gave up the reins Mr. Gladstone would
be compelled to appeal to a constituency weary of
watching year after year the Liberal waste of power.
Even therefore on the party ground, we believe that
it would be safer to introduce a well considered,
moderate bill, a bill based on information collipted
during the recess, a bill which could be carried with-
out resistance, more especially if it were not followed
by an immediate dissolution. Why should it be fol-
lowed ? The workmen who have waited so long
would, once their object had been secured by law
beyond all chance of revocation, wait patiently for
another year or two, and every other class professes
that it is already represented. The argument that
the House would no longer represent its own con-
stituency is not an argument, but only a reminis-
cence of 1832, of the time when a few great families
possessed a clear majority in a House in which they
now seat rather less than a fourth. If the bill is a
wise one it will make no such change as to throw
electors and constituencies out of rapport ; it will
take one session at least to pass, there must be time
to register, and opportunity given to reorganise,
and in the interim Parliament can go about its
daily work as placidly as at present. The Govern-
ment would at all events not be weaker than it will
be if the earnest Reformers split off in disgust from
the majority which at this moment inspires it with
such-hope.
THE " OBSERVER" ON INFANTICIDE.—From the
days of Moses, -who, as an infant was exposed by his
parents in an ark f bulrushes, with the hope of
saving him from a more certain death, to the pre-
sent day, infanticide has not been an uncommon
occurrence. It was a usual thing for certain ancient
nations to expose on the highway or river's bank
those infants they could not support, and a benevo-
lent country took charge of them. The most whole-
sale act of infanticide on record was committed in
1772, in which year a woman was executed at Lis-
bon for the murder of thirty-three infants committed
to her charge. it is hard to believe that such a
barbarian, especially in a female shape, should exist
in the nineteenth century, but a reference to the re-
port of the law proceedings in the Western Circuit
during the past week will show that a something
(we canot call her female), named Charlotte Win-
sor, has made a business of " putting by" the chil-
dren of women to whom they were an encumbrance
or a shame. Charlotte Winsor is charged with
the murder of the infant of one Mary Jane Harris,
and the latter, in giving her evidence against the
infamous woman, relates one of the most extraordi-
nary stories ever told in a court of justice. The
mother of the child swears that " indeed she wished
it to live," but that the prisoner had so " filled her
mind up" that she was actually present when the
poor infant was slaughtered. Three distinct
cases, besides the one before the court of
" putting children away," were sworn to by
Mary Jane Harris as having been confessed to
by the prisoner, and these were spoken of in such a
way as to lead to the inference that child murder
was made a regular trade by Charlotte Winsor, the
remuneration or blood money varying from £3 to
£5. The past week has also witnessed the trial of
a married woman for the murder of her female
child (suggested on the part of the prosecution to
have been illegitimate, although no evidence was
produced to prove it), which resulted in a verdict
of " Not Guilty ;" and the trial of a girl under 20
y"e aGrusi
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labour, being passed upon her. Scarcely a week

passes but that in the pollee or law outs Peparti
may be found a case of child murder, or its milder
form, concealment of birth ; and the cases which
come under public notice mustbe but a tithe of those
which actually occur. Yet how is the crime to be
prevented or cured? The fear of punishment, be
it never so heavy, would not operate on the mind
of a wretched girl who, having the will,has no diffi-
culty in accomplishing the means of not publishing
her disgrace to the world. It is a most delicate
subject, and one worthy of the attention of philan-
thropists and students of political economy. We
cannot hope to eradicate vice from our country, but
I it is possible to render vice so hateful and so difficult
to follow that virtue would be preferred. An asylum
for deserted children, after the manner of the
ancients, would perhaps be of benefit. As bear-
ing somewhat upon this subject, we may allude
to a question which has been recently 'mooted,
more prominently in Marseilles than else-
where. Does the present extravagance, espe-
cially in personal adornment among females,
discourage men from marrying ? Two or three
seasons back it was suggested by a correspondent of
the Times that no man with an income of less than

£3OO a year should think of marrying. We fear
that time has made the case rather worse than better,

and that extravagant habits and notions are in-
creasing not alone in the female sex, but also among
the males. Luxuries are now so easy of attainment,
and the life of a single man, especially in London,
is so full of charm, and so wanting in the cares and
anxieties which form part of the married life, that
we cannot wonder that Ccelebs should linger in a
state of bachelorhood,when he sees of what stuff the
wives of the present day are made. Over education
may have something to do with this. Girls now-a-
days are not brought up to spin and work as their
grandmothers were. Sewing machines and patent
domestic utensils have changed all that. Middle-
class society, too, does not seem contented with its
lot, but must have its box at the opera, house out
of town, and summer visit to the Continent, as well
as those to whom formerly those privileges were
reserved. And this alteration in the tone of society
must necessarily affect the condition of the young
women. They cannot spin, to toil they are afraid ;
so, unless their parents can during their lifetime
provide for them by marriage or otherwise, they
must come to grief. The governess market has been
long overstocked ; now one can get a governess,
with accomplishments not dreamed of fifty years
ago, for less than you pay a footman who can
scarcely spell his own name. All this may have
something to do with that immorality which every
day becomes more painfully apparent. A remedy
Must be found, or England will lose its character
for the purity as well as the beauty of its women.

THE "ARMY AND NAVY GAZETTE" ON BIG AND
LITTLE ANCHORS.—The late Mr. Brunel, the de-
signer of the Great Eastern steamship, had such
mammoth ideas in reference to all that concerned
his gigantic conception that he actually ordered
anchors of 15 tons weight to be hung at the bows
of the vessel. Mr. Brunel, who doubtless arrived
at his deductions from taking the Admiralty anchor
as his model, the weight of which is calculated in
proportion to the amount of tonnage it is called
upon to hold, would now, if alive, be surprised to
find that the big ship has been held in the impe-
tuous tideways of the Mersey and Medway, and
rode out in safety the furious gale which destroyed
the Royal Charter, by a comparatively small
" Trotman," which, ex its iron stock, weighed 5
tons 11 cwt. 201 b. When the Great Eastern got
under way lately at the Nore, the Special Corre-
spondent of the Times paid this anchor a graceful
and deserved compliment. We may add, that from
the moment the Great Eastern was launched up to
the present time, she has had no other anchor in
use. Notwithstanding this, and that the royal
yacht, the Victoria and Albert, depends even when
she has a precious freight on board, on the holding
powers of her " Trotman," the Lords of the Admi-
ralty persist in stating that the anchor is unsafe.
There is no logic in this statement. If the anchor is
dangerous,why, in the name of all that is reasonable, is
it portioned out to that vessel specially reserved for
the use of the Sovereign ? The fact carries contra-
diction with it. If, however, anything is wrong
with the ground tackle of the yachts of the Tycoon
of Japan, the Emperor of the French, the Emperor
of Russia, the Pasha of Egypt, the Pope, or of
Prince Jerome, the Lords of the Admiralty will be
indirectly blamed, as all the distinguished indivi-
duals named were probably induced, when ordering
their anchors, to argue that what was good for the
Queen of England would be equally so for them.
The question is essentially a public one, as Mr. Seely,
when he made his successful onslaught on the Go-
vernment, asserted that the nation was paying for
its anchors 50 per cent. more than was necessary.
This may at the first glance appear to be a haphazard
statement; but it should not be so regarded, as by
the employment of the patent and improved anchor
a great portion of weight may be dispensed with.
For example, the established anchors supplied to the
Black Prince and Warrior, of 6,109 tons, and to
the Achilles, of 6,121 tons, weigh 5 tons 12 cwt.,
ex stock, or a trifle heavier than the one by which
the Great Eastern, of 22,000 tons, has ridden out

gales of wind and even hurricanes. We leave this
exercise in the rule of three to be worked out by the
mathematicians at Whitehall ; and if they are un-
equal to the task, we would suggest that they should
be handed over to Dr. Woolley, at his school at
South Kensington.