The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-06 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF

now to chastise.
These are the sentiments not of an ordinary Republican
journal, but of the New York Times, the accredited organ
of Secretary Seward and President Lincoln. The editor
of this journal is the leader-elect of the Republican party in
the House of Representatives. He has " assisted" at Repub-
lican festivities in honour of Mr. Goldwin Smith, but has
never yet, that we know, committed himself to foolish
gushes of fraternity toward that misguided individual,
who may possibly soon learn to regret that he
should have been tempted into exchanging the assured
poSition of an unobtrusive scholar who minds his own busi-
ness in his own country, for the ephemeral successes which
an astute and unprincipled faction can so easily and so pro-
fitably offer to the foreign tools of its policy.
Mr. Goldwin Smith's denunciation of the English nation
before a Boston audience as having made a supreme effort
to reach "social justice and religious freedom," and in that
effort having failed, merely impeach his patriotism and his
self-reipect. The compliments which he pays New Eng-
land for having produced a Patrick Henry and a Washing-
ton, and the sympathy which, in the same breath, he ex-
tends to Massachusetts for having been " blended by the
necessities of the Revolutionary war under equivocal .con-
ditions with other colonies of a wholly different origin and
character which then held persons to service," merely im-
peach his knowledge of American history and his capacity
of political thinking.
But his indorsement of the Republican party as friendly
to England will convict him in the eyes of his own coun-
trymen, whom alone happily it concerns, either of a wilful
perirersion of the truth, or of travelling through the Union
with eyes as closely shut as his mouth has been liberally
open.

The toll dues, including the half of the tonnage
duties given up by the Government to the town of Havre
for the works of the port, produced in December last the
sum of 53,453 f., making, with the previous months of the
year, a total of 692,036 f.
BREAKFAST BEVERAGE.—HomceopVhic practitioners,
and the medical profession generally, recommend cocoa
as being the most healthful of all beverages. When the doc-
trine of homoeopathy was first introduced into this country,
there were to be obt fined no preparations of cocoa either at-
tractive to the taste or acceptable to the stomach ; the nut
was either sunned is the crude state, or so unskilfully
manufactured as to obtain little notice. J. Epps, of London,
Homoeopathic Chemist, was induced in the year 1819 to turn
his attention to this subject, and at len,4th succeeded, with
the assistance of elaborate machinery, in being the first
to produce an article pure in its composition, and so refined
by the perfect trituration it receives in the process it passes
throt•gh, as to be most acceptable to the delicate.stomach.
For general use Epps's Cocoa is distinguished as an invigo-
rating, grateful breakfast beverage, possessing a most deli-
cious aroma. Dr. Missal, in his wo.k, "Food and its
Adulteratio-_: s," says -"Cocoa contains a great variety of im-
portant nutritive principles—every ingrecliqa necessary to
the growth and sustenance of the Cody." Again: "As a
nutritive, cocoa stands very much higher than ether coffee
or tea." Directions—Two teaspoonfuls of the powder in a
breakfast cup, filled up with boliing water or milk. Secured
ie tin-lined Alb., Alb., and ilb. labelled packets, and k:nl.l by
417 flroon•s, sonfectionErs, and chemists,- rtk avr

TIMES.—The question of " La Liberte des Thea-
tres" has in due time migrated from French to
English soil. After having agitated the Parisian
public for a season, and given its name to a play
which attracted crowds to the Varlet& almost
throughout the year 1864, it has paid us a New Year's
visit. This is as it should be. We borrow our plays
from the French, and in the principles of theatrical
legislation we must be content to follow the lead of
our neighbours. But we fear that the question of
theatrical liberty will not be studied in England
with the passionate zeal which it evoked in Paris.
In France the theatre is a part of the national culte.
It receives its dotations and subventions from the
State without a word of opposition. We talk much
about the edification of our churches, and the Church-
rate question is supposed to be one of the most
important subjects upon which opinion can be
divided among us ; but in France the Emperor re-
builds Opera houses and theatres in the capital and
the provinces, and every one approves the outlay.
" La Liberte des Theatres" is believed to have oc-
cupied the attention of the Conseil d'Etat, and our,
humble parallel is transacted before Mr Tyrwhitt
at the Marlborough-street Police-office. It is some-
what anomalous that in 1865, nearly 20 years after
the formal adoption of Free Trade, such proceedings
as those instituted against Mr. Strange, of the
Alhambra, should be possible. The lessees of the
licensed theatres who have set them on foot appear
to.have no other objection to Mr. Strange than that
he is a rival to themselves. He is providing amuse-
ments for the public which compete with the theatres,
and the opposing lessees are banded together to put
him down, as if they had never heard of the
monopoly of the patent houses under which they
themselves so long suffered. It is not pretended
that the amusements at the Alhambra are immoral,
or that the lessees are acting in the interests of the
Revenue. It is enough for them that there is a
law which forbids tktie representation of plays
in unlicensed houses, and if they can get Mr.
Strange within its operation they will be satisfied.
This is the secret of the summons heard before Mr.
Tyrwhitt at Marlborough-street, the decision upon
which has been reserved by the magistrate. It was
admitted, or appeared in evidence,. that Mr Strange
had recently taken a lease of the grotesque building
on the east side of Leicester-square which was once
a Panopticon, is now an Alhambra, and has been at
different times a circus, a concert-hall, the place
where Rarey tamed horses, and where Leotard swung
and gymnasts exhibited. The building, as the coun-
sel for the prosecution pointed out, is one of consi-
derable size, and, if not in all respects like a theatre
of the present day, it is extremely like the primitive
theatre of the days of Elizabeth. There is a stage
almost as large as Drury-lane, in front of it an
orchestra, and in front of that a pit, which is a real
pit, differing from that of the Globe in Southwark
only in being covered over and in having within it
tables of various sizes, at which visitors can sit,
smoke, and refresh themselves. A double row of
boxes surrounds the pit, and completes the part de-
voted to the audience. The stage itself was pro-
vided with wings, flys, a drop-scene, foot-lights,
and the other usual accessories of a theatre. The
entertainment provided by Mr. Strange for his visi-
tors, and which in the view of the prosecution brought
him within the operation of the law, consisted of a
ballet danced by some 60 or 70 performers, who,
according to Mr. Horace Wigan, of the Olympic,
" went through the pantomime of attack and defence
and putting to death an imaginary enemy, who
appeared to be on the floor." Mr. Wigan was cross-
examined upon his statement that pantomime had
been introduced -in the ballet, and he drew distinc-
tions which are unknown to ordinary mortals.
There are, according to his authority, two kinds of
ballet—the " ballet divertissement" and the "ballet
of action," the latter of which does not require
dancing • but pantomime is indispensable to both.
Mr. Bonham Donne, the examiner of stage plays at
the Lord Chamberlain's Office, who was another
witness for the prosecution, acknowledged that this
distinction of two dames of ballet was unknown to
-him, and .he also ingenuously confessed that he
never could understand a ballet in his life. The
importance of accurately determining the nature
of the dancing on Mr. Strange's stage is
apparent when we turn to the law on the subject.
Places of public amusement are, in fact, subject to
two Acts of Parliament, the one passed in the reign
of George 11., and the other in the reign of Queen
Victoria. Mr. Strange has obtained a licence under
the first Act, but not under the second. The Act of
George 11., which is entitled "An Act for the better
preventing Thefts and Robberies," forbids the keep-
ing of, places for public dancing, music, or other pub-
lic entertainment of the like kind without a licence ;
while the Act of the present reign forbids the public
performance of stage-plays without a licence, and
defines a stage-play' to include tragedy, comedy,_
farce, opera, burletta, interlude, melodrama, panto-
mime, or other entertainment- of the stage. It would
follow that if the dancing on the stage of the Alham-
bra constituted a pantomime within the meaning of
the later Act, Mr. Strange has offended against the
law, but if it were no more than public dancing he
is protected by the licence he has obtained under the
Act of King George 11. It can scarcely be denied-
that a mere exhibition of dancing might be given
under the sanction of the older Act ; for though a
place for public dancing might by itself be construed
as no more than a place at which visitors might
assemble and dance, yet as the public dancing is
associated with music or other public entertainment,
and an exhibition of hired and trained musicians has
always been held within The Act, it would seem that
an exhibition of hired dancers must also be within
it. It is more difficult to determine the meaning of
pantomime in the Act regulating theatres ; the words
with which it is associated all imply the mimicry of
sentiment and feeling, and it is possible that the
dancing of a troupe becomes a pantomime when the
pirouetting and saltation are not so much efforts of
grace and agility as expressions of passionate motion
—when, in a word, motion is subordinate to emotion.
It would, however, be almost impossible to draw this
distinction except in extreme cases. We may say that
the dancing of Egypt is pantomime while the waltz-
ing of Germany is not; but when Mr:Wigan calls " Sir
Roger de Coverley" a theatrical entertainment want-
ing the stage, few would agree with him, and still
fewer when he puts " The Lancers" in the same
category. The question of law—what is a panto-
mime, and the question of fact—what was the cha-
racter of the dancing at the Alhambra, are, how-
ever, matters which Mr. Tyrwhitt has to decide,
and it would be improper to anticipate his decision.
We may, nevertheless, hope that he will pay due
attention to the important evidence of Mr. Wigan
and Mr. Maclean that there was real water at the
back of the stage. In these days, when acting is
quite subsidiary to real water and real smoke, and
a good player is less esteemed than a real horse and
a real cab, we look upon the presence of real water
on the stage as the surest test of a theatre, and this
piece of evidence the worst point against Mr. Strange.
Whatever may be the result in the prosecution of
the proprietor of the Alliambra, the case serves as
an illustration of the piecemeal and irrational cha-
racter of English legislation. It is impossible to
feel any sympathy for the efforts of the lessees to
vindicate a law which rests on such arbitrary prin-
ciples as that which regulates theatres. Even if Mr.
Strange is convicted, and the Exchequer is enriched
by the fine which may be imposed upon him, the
only consequence would be that he would apply to
the Lord Chamberlain for a licence for the Alham-
bra. The functions of that official certainly ought
not -la 'involve any restriction on the number of
places of legitimate amusement, and the application
would probably be granted as a matter of course,
upon due security being given for the propriety of
the entertainment provided for the public. In other
days the Lord Chamberlain might probably consider
whether there was a demand for an additional place
of amusement, but it would now be allowed by all
that that is a question for the theatrical speculator
alone. The gain of a successful prosecution by the
lessees would, therefore, be that they would have to
meet a direct instead of an indirect competitor.
POST.—It is singular that those who advertise
themselves, as being especially continuous propoun-
ders of some new thing and the apostles of progress,
are, above- all others of their time, reactionary. It
is so, however ; and the new lamps which they cry
are only old ones rubbed up, whether they be. the
lamps of house decorators or of professed and pro-
fessing politicians. The house decorator and the
jeweller go back to Egypt and to Tuscany for their
models, and Mr. Bright reverts to the feudal age for
his social schemes and his political ideas. If there
be one theory more absolutely recognised than any
other, we should have taken it to be that theory
which endeavours to rest political organisation upon
distinction or antagonism of classes. Such a pro-
position, whether put forward by a Conservative or
a Radical, is absurd in conception and retrograde in
tendency. Developed in action, it involves a return
to the feudal system territorially, and to the guild
system commercially. Yet such is the character of
the policy which Mr. Bright endeavours to induce
this country to accept and push to completion. The
attempt was made in France to secure to what were
termed the middle classes a preponderance of poli-
tical power, involving ultimately a monopoly of
executive government. Its immediate consequence
was the organisation of a military dictatorship ; the
final result has been the re-establishment of an im-
perial dynasty. But, says Mr. Bright, " the time
is gone by when nations were moved by the shout
of the warrior and the enunciation of the statesman.
Sift the elements of the living world through my
sieve, the manufacturer will be the gold dust that
the digger will gather out of the cradle. The war-
rior and the statesman will be the refuse washed
down the -trc,9i,•

Ih ti

ThQ man

tion of cotton, all the materials for manufactuie•
within our own boundaries. We are the market
We are in addition the greatest manufacturers of
the world, not because our people congregate in
huge towns, and that huge towns have political in-
fluence, but because our manufacturing system rests
upon our territorial system. Those great towns,
Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, and such like, are the
sons of the soil of England, and they flourish. Man-
chester had its roots in the soil of a foreign country,
and she has faded away. Lancashire has been sick
unto death, and if she recovers it can only be by
striking roots in new earth. Is it possible that a
man of such considerable intellect as Mr. Bright
can only see one side of this shield, and can only
look at this. great subject from one narrowed point,
of view ? There is no territorial class such as that
which he appears always to have before his eyes—
no class of nobles such as created and administered
the feudal system. Great manufacturers, wealthy
bankers, eminent engineers, successful lawyers, each
and all enter largely into the composition of the
existing territorial class of this country, and the in-
evitable consequence of this state of things is that it,
has become impossible to constitute all these people;
into separate sections with antagonistic, or even dis-
tinct interests ; and equally impossible, of course, to.
build up a political system upon this imagined and
hoped-for basis. It is somewhat curious that Mr.
Bright should have put his ideal manufacturer upon
the stage just at the moment that all classes, of
whatever politics, are in accord upon this one point,
that they will entrust it to one man only to govern
the country under the Crown who is especially and
peculiarly a pure territorial noble. Curious too
that he should broach his theory that hero-worship
turns away from warriors and statesmen to kneel
before spinners and nailmakers, when we have
Scarcely rested from devising tributes of honour and
regard to our Havelocks, our Clydes, our Law-
rences, our Elgins, and to the Consort of our Queen.
But if Mr. Bright is not satisfied with illustrations
taken from society at home, let him look abroad.
What has the supremacy of towns done for Federal
America ? Is America a free trader ? Is it the
manufacturer who is in the ascendant in the model
Republic, or the soldier ? Singular that the great
Republic, by whose light we were to walk hence-
forth, is taking up all the worn-out devices that
even the most extreme of our Protectionists dis-
carded long ago, is bent upon raising everything
within her owrt boundaries, and is endeavouring to
create revenue by duties upon raw produce ; singu-
lar that Mr. Bright says nothing about these pheno-
mena to his friends in Birmingham.

COUNTRY MARKETS.

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BIRMINGHAM-THURSDAY.

During the present week prices, have been readily paid
for wheat which could not previOusly be obtained. Bar-
ley only saleable in limited quantities. Oats tending up-
wards. Beans dull. Peas taken in retail at full prices.

Currencies :—English. wheat, white, 40s to 448; red, 388
Co 41s per 36 stone. • Malting .barley, 28s to 34s ; grinding,
22s to 258 per qr. Oats, 248 to 30s ; Irish, 19s to 24s per
30 stone. Beans, 38s to 428; and peas, 38s to 428 per qr.

BURY ST. EDMUND'S-WEDNESDAY,

There was a good show of wheat and barley at to-day's
market. The former met a free sale at an advance of is to
2s per qr. Fine qualities of the latter were also is to 2s
per qr. clearer ; other kinds unaltcred in value.