The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

THE " SATURDAY REVIEW" ON PARLIAMENTARY
REFORM.—The intentions of the country and of the
House of Commons with reference to Parliamentary
Reform might furnish metaphysicians with a new
illustration of the pardox of free will and necessity.
With abSolute control over its own actions, the com-
munity is content blindly to wonder whether it is
about to effect a groat constitutional change. What
statesmen can do, and what they will do, is doubt-
ful, especially as the officialleaders of opinion openly
ask for guidance and pressure from their followers.
It is generally agreed by all, except the consistent
adherents of Mr. Bright, that no improvement in
legislation or in administrative practice is to be ex-
pected from an extension of the constituency. The
demand for additional hands to the rope is pref&red
exclusively for the satisfaction of those who are at
present debarred from a share in the labour of go-
vernment. There is no doubt that there may be an
advantage in providing employment fora certain
number of discontented idlers. The mobs which have
lately disgraced several towns by their violence
probably consisted of non-electors, and it is possible
that the possession of a vote might develope the
rudiments of decency and self-respect. The class,
however, which is supposed to desire enfranchise-
ment is too respectable to create disturbance, except
under the influence of genuine political excitement.
The workmen of great factories in the North are
often intelligent, and they are said to feel a corpo-
rate desire for a share of electoral power. At the
same time, it must be remembered that a mechanic
or artisan with an income of £lOO or £l5O a year
generally takes little trouble to acquire, or even to
register a vote. When the working classes are told
that they care little for the extension of the fran-
chise, they always denounce the statement as a
calumny, but it is evident that in their individual
capacities they are almost indifferent to the privilege.
If a certain number of seats could be given up to
the manufacturing operatives, all parties would be
inclined to settle the question by a rough empirical
compromise. The existing constituencies are willing
to be diluted, while they reasonably object to be
swamped. No practical scheme has, however, yet
been suggested for buying off the most formidable
claimants of the suffrage. Although nine-tenths of
the House of Commons would be glad to leave things
as they are, there are wide differences of opinion as
to the prudence of total inaction. Mr. Bright and
Mr. Lowe agree on the probable tendency of any
considerable measure of Reform. They believe that
the present constituency maintains a political and
social system which is obnoxious either to th 3 in-
terests or to the prejudices of poorer classes. It
would follow that a large extension of the franchise
would lead to important consequences, and Mr.
Bright especially hopes that it would cause a redis-
tribution of landed property. If Parliament were
once thoroughly convinced of the soundness of Mr.
Bright's judgment, it would be useless for any party
or for any Government to propound a scheme of
Reform. English society is not prepared to undergo
total reorganisation in a time of unprecedented
prosperity. There may be many advantages in a
subdivision of property, but accumulation is more
consistent with the national habits of thought ; and
the rapid increase and wide diffusion of wealth and
of luxury every day multiply the natural supporters
of an aristocratic social system. It happens that the
theories of commercial freedom which were once ad-
vocated by Mr. Bright are at present chiefly supported
by the upper and middle classes who exercise political
power. Mr. Lowe commanded the assent of his
audience when he vindicated the legislation of the
last thirty years as thoroughly enlightened and
beneficent. He inferred, like Mr. Bright, that the
representative body had expressed the convictions
and principles of the constituency, and that a new
body of electors would probably introduce sweep-
ing modifications of financial and general policy.
A few years ago Mr. Bright announced that a re-
formed Parliament would throw the whole burden
of taxation on the class which would have been pre-
liminarily deprived of all electoral power. lie now
adds that the public expenditure would be largely
reduced ; but even if his anticipations were well-
founded, the prospect of stricter economy can never
furnish an argument for organic revolution. The
same House of Commons which is asked to intro-
duce promiscuous suffrage has absolute power to
reduce the estimates according to its own judgment
of expediency. While democrats in England con-
sult public opinion by promising a diminution of
expenditure, their American allies are proving, to
their own satisfaction, that a national debt is a bless-
ing ; and, amongst other reasons for their conclu-
sion, they dwell on the advantage of high customs
duties in affording incidental protection to domestic
industry. The House of Commons is, on the whole,
not prepared to adopt Mr. Lowe's belief that a mode-
rato reform would promote the designs of Mr.
Bright. There is a general feeling that the danger
of revolution would be diminished by some
limited concession, and almost every prominent
Liberal politician, with the exception of Lord Pal-
merston and Mr. Gladstone, took the opportunity
of the election to intimate a theoretical concurrence in
a moderate Reform Bill. As Lord Russell could not
appear at the hustings, Lord Anilarley, with amiable
simplicity, informed the electors of Leeds that his
father had just published a new edition of his well-
known work, with additional notes or appendices in
favour of Reform. Lord Palmerston probably in-
tended to discourage constitutional changes, but the
silence of Mr. Gladstone may bear an opposite in-
terpretation. His_ former imprudent defence of
universal suffrage gave sufficient notice to the ex-
treme Liberals that, if they had a chance of power,
they would not want for a leader; but, for the pre-
sent, Mr. Gladstone is willing to act with his col-
leagues, reserving himself for the choice of a policy
when he assumes the chief conduct of affairs. Some
of his political opponents have more definitely fa-
voured the projectoof the moderate Reformers. Mr.

Henley inclined to a household franchise founded
on rating, and Mr. Walpole has lately published a
letter in support of a similar scheme. No plausible
objection can be raised to a £2O franchise in coun-
ties, except that the highly respectable voters who
would be admitted are not desirous of the suffrage.
Mr. Walpole properly points out the difference be-
tween a £6 rental and a £6 rating, as the qualifica-
tion for a vote. It is certainly fair that householders
in boroughs should bo excluded when . the landlord
compounds for their rates, and that in counties
the level of the occupation franchise should com-
mence the payment of the house-tax. Almost the
only unjust fiscal measure since the Reform Act
consists in the exemption from the house-tax which
the £lO voters have secured for themselves. If a
Reform Bill is introduced, it will probably corre-
spond with the suggestions of Mr. Henley and Mr.
Walpole. The greatest difficulty will be found in
the small boroughs, which were some years since
eloquently defended by Mr. Gladstone, as they are
still approved by Lord Russell. Lord Stanley is
willing to consent to a redistribution of seats, and
if any considerable change takes place, . it will be
difficult to preserve the most useful of existing
anomalies. The members for petty boroughs are
well aware of their danger, and consequently they
will offer a formidable opposition to any scheme by
which the privileges of their constituents may be
menaced. Tho institution of equal electoral dis-
tricts would be the most ruinous of innovations, and
any approximation to such system must be watched
with jealous vigilance. The advocates of the
rights of minorities ought to understand that
the small boroughs already effect, to a certain ex-
tent, the purposes which they undertake to attain
by elaborate and impracticable contrivances. At
least one half of the most eminent members of the
House would be excluded from Parliament by an
enactment that the smallest constituency should
consist of a thousand voters. Mr. Gladstone, who
now represents ono of the greatest constituencies
in the kingdom, first acquired his great reputation
as a nominee member for a little market town.
The advantage of a certain number of small
boroughs is generally appreciated, but in a Reform
Bill, which must necessarily bear some reference to
arithmetic, statistical symmetry may not improbably
outweigh considerations of general expediency. It
would be absurd and offensive for a legislator to say
that Lord Lansdowne or Lord Zetland should be
regarded as severally equal to twenty or thirty
thousand ten-pound householders ; but it is never-
theless undeniable that Caine and Richmond are
better represented than Marylebone or the Tower
Hamlets. . Existing institutions which are found
convenient may well be tolerated, but new legisla-
tion must be plausible as well as just. It is not
surprising that all political parties are puzzled with
the difficulties both of reforming and of abstaining
from reform.
THE " LONDN REVIEW" ON THE GUILD OF
LITERATURE AND ART.—A pleasant county, and a
healthy, is Hertfordshire. According to an old say-
ing, the land is worth a certain amount of extra
purchase-money, by reason of the pare air. Green
slopes of meadow-land, intersected by leafy lanes,
stretch from border to border; small woods of
timber-trees, and coppices of tender saplings diver-
sify the more open ground ; stately seats of distin-
guished :families umbrageous with oaken glades
where the deer browse and glimmer, and deep with
ferny dingles where the hares crouch, or, flit like sha-
dows in the sunshine before the intruder's footstep,
preserve, at intervals of a few miles, little Paradises
of secluSion and silence ; old villages and farmhouses
lie thickly scattered about the high roads and quiet
ways ; and, at St. Alban's, a venerable abbey, grey
with mists of Saxon and Norman antiquity, and an
ancient town, haunted with memories of Roman
Verulam, now utterly vanished, introduce an ele-
ment of historical interest into the pastoral freshness
and the patrician grandeur. Though seated so near
to London as to be within half an hour's jaunt by
rail into its very -core, Hertfordshire is as rural in its
scenery, as bright and pure in its atmosphere, as
though a hundred miles intervened between it and
the huge smoke-cloud of the metropolis. If literary
men really love sylvan retirement as much as they
generally profess to do in their writings—a point
which must, we fear, be considered rather doubtful
—one could hardly fix upon a better county than
the northern neighbour of Middlesex for enabling
them to gratify their taste. You have in it a sense
of the neighbourhood of London, combined with
immunity from London cares. The peasants talk
in a tone just roughened with country characteristics,
yet not so difficult as to provoke impatience in the
cultivated ear ; and, "sitting muffled in dark leaves,"
or meditating over a tankard of ale in the shady
parlour of a wayside inn, you are still, so to speak,
conscious of-the near pulsations of that mighty centre
of intelligence which can never become uninteresting
to any man who is not either a misanthrope or a
fool. The projectors of the Guild of Literature and
Art have therefore chosen a charming spot for the
erection of their Homes for the decayed man of . in-
tellect, supposing him really to desire a cOuntrylife ;
and certainly the ceremony of last Saturday, with
its accompanying festival at the fine seat of Sir
Bulwer Lytton at Knebwortli, about two miles to
the south, was calculated to exhibit the project in
the most attractive light possible. The country
around Stevenage, where the Homes are situated, is
at once open and well wooded ; the buildings them-
selves are pretty Gothic structures ; the day was fine,
and a jocund company, headed by Mr. Chas. Dickens,
the Vice-President of the Guild, and one of the chief
promoters of the undertaking, passed a merry
afternoon at the seat of Sir Bulwer Lytton,
the President. All the circumstances were of
a nature to captivate the imagination, and to
call forth seine of the kindliest and most sympathetic
emotions of our being. The old hall of Knebworth
was draped with the banners of many generations of
its owner's family, and the host had provided for
his guests a luncheon such as formed no bad prelude
to the speeches, and to the subsequent`dancing in
the green alleys of the park. It was pleasant also
to listen to the two most illustrious of living novel-
ists speaking each other's praises in words of which,
we are sure, the sincerity was equal to the elo-
quence. Literary men are so often charged with
mutual jealousy and and the charge has
been supported by so many ugly facts, that it is
truly delightful to see two foremost men in the same
walk of literary art thus crowning one another. We
do not marvel that the words of both speakers
should have been interrupted by " loud cheers,"
for the enthusiasm of such moments is contagious,
and it is then that we find even cold and reserved
natures betraying their latent heat and brightness.
That the day was in the highest degree successful,
is certainly no wonder ; and that it will impart a
powerful stimulus to the Guild, which has lan-
guished a good deal since its first establishment 12
or 13 years ago, we cannot doubt.
THE " SPECTATOR" ON CHILD MURDER.---The
public, in its healthy horror of the crimes committed
by Charlotte Winsor, the Torquay murderess, has
we think rather missed the point of the ghastly
story told by her accuser. It has fastened justi-
fiably and naturally upon the sickening revelation
involved as it were incidentally in the woman Har-
ris's statement, upon the fact that in 1865, in a
pleasant village of Devon, there lived a woman of
forty-five to whom child murder was a profession,
who would, by her own statement, " put by" any
other woman's offspring if only she were paid, who
was willing to kill " forty" children if it were made
worth her while, who had put her finger under the
jugular vein of one, and stifled another three weeks
old, and put away a third " for her sister Poory,"
and killed a fourth while her accuser looked on by
throttling it under the bed-ticking, who took
" orders" for murder as other women take orders
for washing, who when a doubtful commission ar-
rived only objected that her customer, had she been
" honest, would have prepaid her fee, and who
when asked if she had no supernatural fears, bade
the questioner " go to hell, for she was doing good."
Murders like those committed by Pritchard or Con-
stance Kent are justly felt to be trifles by compari-
son with massacres like these, with a habit of mur-
der contracted by a woman who had no motive
other than a desire for very trifling rewards, who
had no animosity and no remorse, who wept when
her accomplice gave evidence against her, and who
seems, by ono of those awful perversions of nature
which alinost justify the Calvinistic view of hu-
manity, to have been willing to commit a murder
as an evidence of goodwill. Thugs do not reach
that point of degradation, and to see it reached in
the present day in England, and among a village
population, has given a shock to the community
such as no murder ever gave—a shock deepened by
an' impression, instinctive rather than logical, that
Charlotte Winsor may not.be the only woman who
increases her means by making a trade of the one
great crime supposed to be stopped by civilisation.
We do not wonder that the public, well aware
that infanticide is one of the specially English crimes,
that in Lancashire " overlaying" is one of the most
frequent causes of infant death, the overlaying
being deliberate, that the Coroner for Middlesex
has affirmed and proved the existence of 12,000
women in London each of whom must have mur-
dered a child, that no week passes without the police
reporting the discovery of the bodies of infants,
should have seen in the Torquay horror new proof
of a condition of affairs it had all along suspected,
should have fastened upon Charlotte Winsor, and
altogether forgotten what seems to us the main
sentence in Mary Harris's story,—the story, let us
always remember, of a woman almost as guilty as
Charlotte Winsor herself. She stood and saw her
own child killed, killed " barbarously," to use her
own words, from a ghastly curiosity to see what its
death would be like, and then helped to strip the
poor infant, not yet cold, and pack it away in a
rabbit-box, all apparently without a sigh, though

her conscience or her fears afterwards awoke. This
woman said in, her cross-examination, " I had had
3s. 6d. a week for-a previous child, but I had never
had but those two children." So it was not to con-
ceal her shame, as penny-a-liners always assert, and
juries seem always to believe, that she had put away
her child. She had had one before, shame was over
and done with, and she wanted to be rid of the
second baby, not that she might be believed chaste,
not because she " had been tempted and had fallen,"
—she had lived with her paramour six years,—but
simply that she might be rid of a trouble and an
expense for which he was no longer willing to pay.
That, it seems to us, is the true point of a story
such as ought to cover the kingdom with shame, to
rouse men, if it were possible to rouse them to any-
thing, to a savage decision that at any cost, whether
of effort or liberty, or even minor morals, a scandal
like this shall end. We shall never discover the
remedy if we go on ignoring the facts, and the first .
and most dreadful fact is that shame is not the only
cause of infanticide, but only one cause, and pro-
bably not the main one, that we have something to
cure besides unchastity, something to denounce be-
sides men's lust. • We believe if the cause of every
such crime during the past year could be made
known to men as it is known to Heaven, we should
find shame very seldom recorded, should discover
that the majority of such crimes are committed by
women who have no fear of the world's opinion in
the matter, being far below that, and more than a
moiety in the matter, being far below that, and
more than a moiety of the remainder, perhaps more
than five-sixths of the remainder, by married
women. It is the toil and the worry and the ex-
pense, the weary hours of nursing and the incessant
watchfulness, the interruption of work and tho
danger of utter poverty, which these murderesses
dread, and not merely exposure.