The Sun.
London, England, 1865-05-22 00:00:00

SPMIT-OP TH:E:PIIBLIC JOURNALS

THE• " SATURDAY REVIEW" ON THE ROAD MUR-
DER.—We believe that the public at large are little
a ware of the terrible things which will happen if
the evidence at the approaching trial should confirm
the confession of Miss Constance Kent, and if that
young lady should be convicted of the murder of her
brother. It is manifest, from a multitude of signs,
that a certain small but energetic • portion of the
manhood of this country does not mean to stand
anything so shocking and painful. Already a score
of pens have plunged into the most acrimonious but
chivalrous ink, and protested in burning words
against such an enormity, such an outrage to all
manly feeling, as Miss Kent's conviction of murder
would involve. What, in such an event, will be-
come of the wretched Mr. Wagner and the misguided
Miss Gream, is more than can be predicted at this
distance of time. It is clear that, in the eyes of
many, two such offensive persons are not entitled to
the least pity--we had almost said, the last justice.
What is found to be so revolting about them is the
peculiar callousness and unconsciousness of the
enormity of their crime which they display. They
evidently have not a notion of the detestable cha-
_meter in which they appear before one portion of
the public. On Mr. Wagner, as an odious male
creature, it is hardly worth while to bestow a
thought, or to maintain a tone of average decency,
when speaking of his proceedings. He has mani-
festly scarcely a spark of manly or generous feeling
left, or he would never have considered that a con-
fession of fratricide by a tender girl of sixteen re-
quired him to act the brutal part he has done. He
is a priest and a Puseyite, and recommends fasting
and confession, with a host of other horrid un-
English practices, and what can he know about the
thoughts and feelings of gentle British maidens ?
How does he know whether it is usual or not with
them to murder their little brothers, or tell lies and
say they murdered them when they did not ? How
should he know ? - To know these things, we take
take it, requires a very different calibre of mind
from his. And this lady, who styles herself
the " Superior," is she much better ? Pro-
bably she is old, doubtless she has long ago
forgotten " the indistinguishable throng" of hopes
and fears and tender thoughts whichvisit the bosoms
of her young and unfortunate sisters. Deluded by
some obsolete prejudices connected with the Deca-
logue, she has not hesitated to drag into the glare
of publicity, and before the rough and ready justice
of an English jury, a sweet young thing barely one-
and-twenty; She little knows the divine wrath
which such conduct kindles in the bosoms of frank
and generous young Englishmen. Is it to be en-
dured that an ancient female, full of old-fashioned
ideas about murder, shod(' denounce and crush—
yes, crush—a mere girl for cutting a boy's throat
and then putting his body out of sight down a name-
less locality ? Where else was she to put it ? But it
is of no use attempting to argue with two such cul-
prits. Only let them know that they, quite as much
as the fair captive -now in gaol, will take their trial
at the next assizes, and that, if certain portions of
the press in this country have any influence, stern
justice, and a trifle more, will be done them. This
is but a feeble reproduction of the style of discourse
which, ever since Miss Kent's appearance at Bow-
street, has been, hurled at mankind almost daily by
one or two members of the pennypress, but especially
by one. The utterances of the paper in question
may be justly, for aught we know, compared, as an
acute critic suggests, to "the roaring of young lions."
Or, again, such a comparison may be quite inappro-
priate, and may need to be replaced by one referring
to the voice of another animal strikingly unlike a
lion, whose skin he -has been known to borrow.
Certainly there is nothing new in having murderers
and their doings thrust upon our notice with such
unquenchable pertinacity that the advent of a dis-
tinguished practitioner in that line threatens soon to
become one of the great trials of English social life.
It is past the time for hoping that any protest against
a morbid interest in ruffians will have much effect.
We must bear-as best we may the daily bulletin of
the fashionable murderer's health and spirits, telling
us at what hour he rose, and whether he expressed
himself satisfied with his dinner. This is an oldaffiic-
tion, and doubtless we shall learn to bear it in time,
as we do any other permanent and irremediable nuis-
ance, such as organ-grinders, Home Secretaries of the
dummy species, mothers-in-law, or Irish difficulties.
But we fear we detect anew trial in store for us, and that
is the hyper-sentimental treatment of prominent and
interesting culprits. There is no denying that all
the honours of murder are accorded but rarely to
any save women, and not even to them indiscrimi-
nately. For a woman to attain the top of the tree
in this line she must be young, pretty, and of a de-
cent station in life. If she has these qualities she is
nearly sure to become the mostnoticed and flattered
person in England. Whatever the evidence may be
against her, thousands will rave at you and declare
you are hardly fit to live if you hint a doubt of her
innocence. Those persons whose testimony tends
to inculpate her are held up to the scorn of an in-
dignant public. Their motives, their characters,
their antecedents are discussed with an impetuous
malignity which • it is quite fascinating to see at
work in the cause of innocence. Then come the
rhetoric and sentimentalism, and the " grave doubts"
connected with this "painful case." The " fearful
responsibility" we are all of us running—it does not
very well appear how--is dwelt upon with elaborate
unction. We are reminded of the horrors of that
" lonely cell"---of the pale, meek, uncomplaining
victim who sits solitary there counting the " weary
hours." Are we, wretches that we are, even still
thirsting for the blood of that stricken deer ? Have
not our brutal laws blasted that " young life" suffi-
ciently already? And are we determined to pursue
our prey to the last hideous, awful, and irrevocable
end ? Good, but rather confused, people begin to
feel very uncomfortable under all this. Their con-
science acquits them of any "thirst for blood," but
the authority of that print and the eloquence of
their daily 'mentor combined make them half wonder
whether they have not really allowed murderous
emotions to enter their respectable and commonplace
bosoms. In any case the majesty of the law is more
or less injured, even if a great miscarriage of justice
does not take place. A general notion is created
that petty and interesting persons are dispensed from
being very good, that hanging goes by disfavour, and
that right and wrong are old-fashioned words which
havelost a good deal of their meaning nowadays. We
have remarked that theseoutbreaks never occur in their
full intensity except in the case of interesting young-
lady culprits. Old and middle-aged women must
not delude themselves with the idea that they will,
under any circumstances, come in for a share of this
gallantry to their sex. Not at all. You must be
young and pretty,. or take your chance. Of course
you cannot be too pretty, and, what is more, you
cannot be too young. Balzac fixed on thirty as the
age when all the charms and glory of womanhood
reach their highest perfection. One half of that age
would seem to be the ideal worshipped by a certain
class of English writers. In private life one occa-
sionally meets with men who have similar tastes—
men who adore a girl when she can only simper and
look silly, but who turn away with indifference from
the matured thought and feeling of the adult woman ;
men to whom the wit, accomplishments, and sobered
grace of five-and-twenty are imperceptible or insipid,
but who are positively electrified by the monosyllabic
prattle, the giggling awkwardness, the pouting im-
pertinence, above all by the short frocks and the frills
of a garment quod versu dicere non est, of the bread-
and-butter Miss. We cannot help thinking that this,
to say the least, objectionable frame of mind is at the
bottom of the tremendous pother now being made
about Constance Kent. We have been deluged with
writing of such heat and violence on this subject that
it might be supposed English laws were quite inade-
quate to ensure justice unless the people were lashed
into a state of semi-fury to demand it. Nothing kit
Miss Kent's innocence or madness will satisfy her im-
passioned and self-elected advocates, and it is hard to
say which hypothesis inflames their ferocious chivalry
the most. Mr. Wagner swears that in no way did he
prompt or extort her confession, but we are sensible
that it is quite natural that a middle-aged clergyman
should be suspected of perjury, while it is utterly im-
possible to suspect a young girl of murder, even though
she declares she did. Although a trace of insanity has
never been discovered or proclaimed, the insane theory
is the one which reconciles all difficulties : and whe-
ther the facts will bear it or not, it is to be forced
upon them. The " diseased brain" is always a topic
which will revive the spirits of some writers, how-
ever exhausted they may be. Nothing else, we are
assured, could " prompt to such a bloody spasm of
sin," although how this curious fact is known we
are not informed, unless cacophonous alliteration be
a process of discovery. We think it a pity that
murder should be the only crime patronised by our
generous and free-hearted penny press. Several
classes of criminals have ground to complain that
justice is hardly done to them. Thieves, as a rule,
are most contemptuously treated. High-coloured
leaders are rarely or never" devoted to their merits
and misfortunes. A fascinating burglar is now and
then noticed, but it is usually with the sinister and
unfeeling object of dwelling on his guilt, and of in-
creasing
the odium against him. Possibly this may
arise from the fact that as yet young ladies have
not taken to the profession of " cracking cribs ;
when they do, a salutary change may be looked for.
Again, the unfortunate actors in the Divorce Court
rarely meet with the consideration which a magna-
nimous press should extend to crime. Attention of
a certain kind is doubtless given to the unhappy
gentlemen, and the still more unhappy ladies, who
find their way there, but it has none of the frank,
ungrudging sympathy with guilt which, with the
progress of the penny promoters of civilisation, we .
may trust one day to see. It is partly, no doubt,

the fault of the public, who crowd round the delin-
quents somewhat with the same feelings of uncom-
plimentary curiosity that actuate the lounging
cockneys who inspect the monkeys at the Zoological
Gardens. This may possibly cramp the journalist
in his free expression of sympathy or admiration,
which might at present be ill received. But then
one of the great objects and advantages of news-
papers is that they correct erroneous popular im-
pulses, and put a check on objectionable practices.
We are, therefore, in hope that even Sir J. Wilde's
victims may in time have justice done to them.

THE " SPECTATOR" ON MR. HENLEY.—We trust
that Mr. Henley is not yet at the end of his term of
service in the House of Commons, and we should
regret it the more if we thought that his mischievous
speech on the Union Chargeabilityßill was to be his
last formal farewell to the country. He has been a
Tory haunted with glimpses of broader and manlier
thought,—a country gentleman to whom it has been
given to have some little sympathy with great towns,
—a quarter-session squire, who could partly under-
stand the thoughts of thinking Liberals, hard-
headed manufacturers, and ambitious operatives,—
the salt of the country party, without which it would
have lost much of its savour with the nation, and
have become good for little but to be cast out and
trodden under foot of men. It was Mr. Henley and
Mr. Walpole whose influence with the Conservative
party prevented them from committing themselves
to the folly of a final uniformity in the suffrage, to
admitting a " divine idea" in the £lO minimum
which should give a limit to county and borough
suffrages alike. The member for Oxfordshire has
repeatedly shown himself the advanced guard of the
English squirearchy, and it would be sad to have
him make his last effort in defence of a cause to
which only the more bigoted and more selfish of his
party cleave,—to have him print his strong cha-
racter for the last time to the public mind in that
aspect of mere class-prejudice which he has done
much to diminish and something to remove. We
do not know why we should indulge such fears, but
that, having already retired from the Oxfordshire
quarter sessions, he gave on Monday night in his
own off-hand way, and with his old, hearty, indomi-
table pluck, an impression that he was conscious of
declining physical strength. In fact he did what, as
if by instinct, strong men often seem to do towards
the end of their public careers, pronounced with
something of epigrammatic force his own epitaph
as a public man. In reply to the charge of
pulling down cottages made against the landlords
of England in the recent report of Dr. Hunter
and Mr. Simon on the condition of the agricultural
poor, laid before the House by Mr. Villiers, and
impugned by the Conservatives as a gross ex part
statement if not positively dishonest, Mr. Henley
said—" Old as I am, and half worn out, if I could
do nothing else when such charges are made, Iwould
lie upon my back and halloo Fudge !' as loud as I
could." Mr. Henley knew perfectly well the literary
value of what he was saying as a monument to his
own labours and merits. It was really as effective,
if not quite so elaborate, a tribute to his own career
as the late Sir Robert Peel's memorable speech about
the labourer's bread, " no longer embittered by in-
justice," which was to vindicate his memory and
preserve his name. We do not mean that Mr. Hen-
ley's services to the country have literally consisted
of lying physically on his back in the House, of
Commons and crying " Fudge !" But that is the
attitude in which political, though not pictorial, Art
might most happily glorify Mr. Henley. If he has
done anything well—and he has done much well—
in the House of Commons, it has been the expan-
sion and development of that apparently rather
cynical monosyllable. Sometimes, as on Thursday
night, he has roared it out—with pieces justifeatives
we admit—to the opposite party, the reformers.
Sometimes, with more title to the permanent gra-
titude of the nation, he has dressed it up in a less
austere, direct, and chastising form for the benefit
of his friends. But in one shape or other his public
counsels have chiefly consisted in dashing aside with
a strong, shrewd, humorous sort of squirearchical
understanding the pleas which he thought hollow,
or fine-drawn, or wanting in " a bottom of good
sense," as Dr. Johnson said of some lady to her tit-
tering friends, either on the Liberal side of the House
or his own. When the friends of greater intellec-
tual liberty for the clergy have urged their case for
a revision of the subscriptions Mr. Henley has put
aside, not perhaps rudely, but abruptly, the finer
sense and delicate insight of some of the younger
men of his own party (like Mr. Butler Johnstone),
and expounded the question as if it .lay merely be-
tween discouraging absurdly-impractical and un-
meaning scruples in honest Churchmen, and encou-
raging real Jesuitism in dishonest Churchmen. He
solved the question with a " fudge" to the genuine
scruples it was intended to allay, and another " fudge"
to the pretext of, genuine scruples put forward by
those -who, as he held, meant to mask therewith wide
and radical doubts utterly inconsistent with the
essence of our Church. The same sort of strong,
somewhat coarse, limited, good sense Mr.
Henley has applied to all the questions with which
he has dealt, sometimes taking his stand on narrow,
sometimes on wider ground—as on the question of
the franchise—but always endeaVouring first to get
rid of the 'unreal and fanciful disguises with which
accomplished advocates cover their case, and to ap-
proach the heart of the matter as he conceived it.
Nor is there, even when he is utterly in the wrong,
as on Monday night, any proper cynicism in Mr.
Henley. If he speaks with a rough impatience of
" a girl coming into your parish and having an
illegitimate child, for which, because the kid was
_dropped in your parish, you had to be accountable"
—it is not superciliousness, but only a remark in the
same familiar style as that other one that in healthy
neighbourhoods, if people marry young " they have
a smartish number of children"—in short, it is the
squire's frank, off-hand „manner. Mr. Henley is
incapable of real cynicism, though he never cares to
graduate his thoughts or language nicely, for that
is a practice which,when he notes it in others, always
inclines him to say in his heart " Fudge!" And
this rough impression of his that all the half-lights
of life are in some way unreal and pretentious, mis-
leads him sometimes into such gross injustice as he
was guilty of on Monday night in desiring to lie on
his back and cry " Fudge" to the attacks made upon
his order on behalf of the agricultural labourers,
merely because in two' or three cases in which he
had been able to verify the facts urged to prove the
demolition of cottages, he had discovered, or thought
he had discovered, exaggeration and misstatement
in the critics. In truth, what he endeavoured to
show was no refutation of what his antagonists had
proved. He endeavoured to show that the house
accommodation for agricultural labourers had not
diminished but increased since 1831, while his anta-
gonists only offered proof that it had diminished in
an increasing population since 1851. The amplest
evidence given, too, from members of his own class
really corroborated this assertion, but there was
something in the nature of the report and the way
Mr. Villiers had brought it forward which made
the old man very unjustly suspect its bona fide cha-
racter and fancy an ambuscade. Perhaps the irri-
tation he felt with the President of the Poor-Law
Board rather aggravated this suspicion. A man
who habitually meets the weaker and more super-
ficial arguments of his opponents with an impa-
tient " fudge",always internally resents a similar
habit in his foe. Mr. Villiers is an aristocratic
Radical of the cynical kind. He rather likes to
show t the selfishness of the territorial class, and
to pronounce this offending monosyllable, or some
equivalent for it, when they take to themselves
credit for any strength of benevolent or kindly feel-
ing to the labourers. Mr. Henley's amour propre
and territorial prejudices are profoundly offended at
these Pharisaic attacks (as he thinks them) on the
selfishness of his own order by men who pretend to
care, without really caring, for the agricultural
labourer. And his amendment on Thursday night
doing away suddenly with the right of removal
altogether was perhaps honestly meant, but yet
meant also as a retort, or, as he said, to " test their
sincerity." Mr. Villiers in his deep distrust of the
ruling class is equally offended at the disclaimers of
territorial greediness and professions of interest in
the well-being of the rural labourers with which
they reply. Mr. Henley believes that the soi-disant
philanthropic innovators on the Poor Law are cook-
ing their facts ; Mr. Villiers belives that the angry
territorial minority are hypocritical in repudiating
that wish to put off their poor-rates on others on
which obviously they so often act; and thus they
stimulate in each other the impatient contempt
which Mr. Henley's characteristic monosyllable so
well 'expresses. Strong Conservative sense of Mr.
Henley's kind cannot but be partly founded on a
stratum of class-prejudice. It is of the essence of
his kind 'of good sense to feel the " fudge" rise more
rapidly to the surface of his mind when an institu-
tion familiar and welcome to him is attacked rather
than when it is defended. There is to him reality
in all that custom sanctions, and he suspects the
hollowness and unreality rather in those who endea-
vour to make him relinquish his hold on these heir-
looms of thought. Still he has shown himself too
strong not to see clearly enough occasionally the
flimsiness and unreality in the pretexts of his own
party, and even through his savage speech against
the- critics of the English landowners there runs
a thread of candid confession that they have
left undone much that they ought to have
done, even if they have not done much
that they ought not to have done. He denies
very eagerly that with selfish and greedy pur-
pose they have recently demolished cottages,
and so deliberatly sacrificed, the poor labourer's
interest to their own. But he admits that
they have failed to build, to extend the accommoda-
tion with their extending wants, to sacrifice their
own interest in the first instance to that of thepoor
•

labourer. Even this is much in advance of some of
his allies. And we believe the further step proposed
by him on Thursday night, though Mr. Villiers wag
quite right in rejecting it as certain to overweight
the measure and defeat it altogether, may have been
honestly, offered as a sort of conscience-money to
the poor people who have been rattled about " like
peas in a fire-shovel" so long. For Mr. Henley is
in essence a sincere man, not tender in his thoughts
of the poor, but just to them—as just, that is as the
genius of the squirearchy will allow. He is disposed
to think a large proportion of the minor miseries of
the labourer are natural, and that Providence itself
echoes the " fudge" with which he meets the coat-
passion lavished on them. But he feels there is a
point of misery beyond which that monosyllable is
not justified, and for everything over the margiohe
evidently takes home a modified self-reproach.
has the prejudices of his order within broad definite
limits ; pass those limits, and he throws them over,:
board. He will ridicule the critics of his order
a certain point is passed by his friends, and then be
gets up and admonishes the latter that they are,
going too far, and gives real help to his foes. Le'
us hope that in spite of being " almost worn out,
he may yet once more press the just side of his own
mind on the House of Commons with regard to this
matter, and with better effect than he could do on
Thursday night, when the amende offered to the
poor certainly looked—even if, as we hope it was
not—very like a treacherous present to his anta-
gonists. For after all he is a positive and not a
negative Conservative. When he pitches into what
ethinks nonsense, it is from a sort of blind loyalty
to something to which he is attached—if that be
only a parish—and therefore when he gives unplea-
sant counsel to his own friends he always commandg
their respect no less than that of his foes. We shollh;
be sorry if we could see no more of the shading of
political truth and falsehood than Mr. Henley; but
for all that he has a realism of nature which many
a man might envy, and he will be generally missed
by both Tories and Liberals whenever he retires
from political life.

Inspection of the Queen's (Westminster)

Volunteers.

ACCIDENT TO THE INSPECTOR GENERAL. "
The Queen's (Westminster) Rifle Volunteers underwent
their sixth annual inspection in the Regent's-park on Se"
turday, in presence of a vast concourse of spectators. '
The regiment, to the number of 887 of all ranks,
mus-
tered at 5 p.m. at the Duke of York's Column, and, headed
by its band, marched to the Regent's-park. Lord Grosvenor
had command of the brigade, whilst Lord Gerald Fitzgerald
commanded the first and Major Bushby the second bat-
talion, aided by Major and Adjutant J. Ellis Charter, and
Captain and Adjutant Tyler. The battalions were formed
into twelve strong companies, and on reaching the ground,
which was admirably kept by the South Middlesex,
under
command of Lord Ranelagh and his adjutant, CaPt
Spencer Turner, the saluting flag was placed near Solford
House, where was drawn up the carriages of Lady Con-
stance Grosvenor, with whom was Lord Richard Grosvenor'Grosvenor'ex. Lord Elcho, Lieut.-Col. the Hon. C. Lindsay, Bert
number of the volunteer commanding officers and meS
of the aristocracy were present.
Colonel Erskine, Inspector General of Volunteers,ta
the inspecting office; and the regiment, having first Mgr
formed in line, received him with a Royal salute, and hav-
ing wheeled into open column of companies, right in front",
marched past in admirable order, first at the quick' °-
then in close column at the double. The various evelw
tions of a brigade field day were then gone through, surd the
firing in volleys of some of the companies was exceedinglY
good, but more especially the battalion volleys. The ill;
spection had nearly concluded when an accident occurred
to the gallant inspector general, which it was at first fear'"
had resulted in serious consequences. Colonel Erskine was
in the rear of the first battalion, when the word was gir:
to fire a volley, the sudden simultaneous character of wh
so startled the horse upon which he was riding that it
reared so perpendicularly that it was unable to rea
itself. Colonel Erskine was thrown, and the animal fo'
backward and rolled over him. For some moments the
gallant colonel lay motionless. Lords Ranelagh and Elcho
rode forward and secured the horse, and the surgeon of th •
regiment was speedily by the colonel's side. It apPorea
that there were no bones broken, or other injury excePt,,a.
severe bruise on one of the thighs caused by the
rolling over him and pressing some keys, &c., he had ill
pocket against it. Lady Constance Grosvenor's carriag°
was ordered to the spot, and Colonel Erskine having bee"
assisted into it, at his request it was driyen to the flagstaff,
where he remained till the movements were completed'
The regiment having marched forward in line in review
order were formed into square.
Colonel Erskino, who had by this time much recovered
t
from the shock he had sustained, addressed the
from the carriage. He said :—Westminster Rifle Volur
teers—l had the honour of inspecting the regiment tvi°
years ago, and therefore I have had not only the opi'cr;
tunity of comparing its state of efficiency with that
other corps, but of comparing it with that I found it in en
the occasion to which I refer. I am very happy to WI
from what I have seen of you this evening, I am convince"
that there is no falling off in the discipline of this fine
corps. Your movements have been highly satisfactell.
The brigade has been well handled, and I have to
compliment you on your so'dierlike movements and
"
steadiness under arms. There was one, little point, ho
W
ever, to which my attention was directed, and that 111%
that on one or two occasions I detected talking in tit
ranks. I do not, however, mean to say that such is
complaint I have to make generally, for it was not so.
td
was very sorry for the little accident which took place
myself, because it interrupted for a time your evolution;
t
and compels me to apologise to you for addreSSing yOll f 1.90
this carriage, instead, as I should otherwise have done, fr°.,,.
my own horse. I can only repeat that I congratulate ter
and hope that I shall always find the Queen's Westnaillst
in the same efficient state as they are at present. I may
add that I wish your regiment every success. 1
Lord Grosvenor then proposed three cheers for the 81',.
lant inspector-general, which were heartily responded to,h
only by the regiment, but by the immense crowd by whlfor
at the time the carriage was surrounded. Three cheered,
Lord Ranelagh and the South Middlesex for keepillg ,d.
ground, and three cheers for the commanding officers, closv
the proceedings.