The Sun.
London, England, 1862-05-17 00:00:00

AND FINE

THE SIIN, LO X DON, SAPURD )7 EVENING MAY 17, 1862

it was designed to benefit—namely, in this instance,
the cab-owners and the cabmen. Soon enough
they were ranged again at every stand, and plying
business in every thoroughfare—aad all, of course,
for what to them appeared the wretched
legal payment at the rate of sixpence a mile—an
arrangement they seemed hardly able to swallow,
out of their disgust for it. Different modes
were tried by the more quickwitted of the
craft at the outset of this unpalatable sixpenny
regime. Now it was articulated in the tone of the
finest irony, with a disdainful glance at the six-
pence lying in the palm of the large brown hand
(and certainly looking very small there), Cabby
sarcastically recommending his fare very earnestly
not to waste his money like that by riding in a cab !
Now the sixpence, having first of all been looked
at with disgust, was pocketed with a sort of tearful
anguish—with a smothered " Well, it is enough to
break a man's heart, it is "—though, perhaps, all
the while you had just been driven round a couple
of turnings to the house of some near neighbour.
" As near as yourself," Cabby would interject, pro-
bably, if he heard the explanation. Once, after a
momentary altercation, the feeble jibe was hurled
after his sixpenny fire—the Cabman while uttering
the words, not making even the faintest show of an
intention to descend from his box in pursuit—the
loudly-shouted but excessively feeble retaliation of
" It's a bad one !" As the eels have, according to the
popular facetia, become accustomed, by long usage,
to skinning, so have the cabmen got accustomed also
to their misery of sixpence. Whenever they can,
however, by some other device—upon the principle
of diamond cut diamond—they strive, of course, to

get their compensation.
Occasionally, of course, in this doubtless (from
their own point of viow) laudable effort. eoine it ,Q€
a trill() too near the wind in their attempt to " do"
their passengers, and yet to steer clear the while of
that emporium of cheap justice—the very sound of
the name of which is " unpleasing in a cabby's ear"
—the office of the police magistrate ! As about the
last case in point in this way—a case in which not
one cabman only, but three several cabmen in
succession came to grief—there was the charge
brought home the other day before Mr. AItNOLD,
a charge really brought "home" to three cabmen
one after another by Dr.BucilaNAN, of Widham Hill,
Ware. It was the cool and deliberate refusal in
each instance of a fare—there being a heavy rain
at the time—and a lady in company with
the complainant. A refusal by three different
cabmen of a fare, under these circumstances, be-
cause the direction or the distance happened not
perhaps to be to the liking of these amiable pick.
ing and choosing Jehus ! After fining and repri-
manding the three delinquents in turn, the
worthy magistrate, we cannot but rejoice to ob
serve, intimated very pointedly to Dr. BUCHANAN
—who is described by the reporter as a gentle-
man "far advanced in years"—that " the public
were greatly indebted to him for bringing these
cases forward." An acknowledgment all the more
deserved by the complainant, when it is borne in
mind that he had taken the trouble to travel this tv
miles for the express purpose to take out the
three summonses. If ever the cab fraternity have
wanted well looking to, it is certainly the case
that they do now, while the Exhibition is at its
height.

For the benefit of Mr. SOTHERON ESTCOURT,
and of the 288 political Churchmen who stayed to
the last and followed him into the lobby to vote
for his resolution, we transcribe the following from
a Liverpool paper :—" Above EIGHTY FOUR THOU-
SAND POUNDS has been subscribed to the fund for
building a memorial hall in the metropolis, and
erecting new chapels in the provinces, in celebration
of the Bicentenary of Nonconformity. Some pro-
moters of the movement are sanguine that even this
magnificent sum will be doubled during the current
year." Lest our readers should have forgotten it,
we add Mr. ESTCOURT'S resolution, which the poli-
tical Churchmen thought better than the abolition
of Church-rates, or than the proposal of Mr. BRIGHT,
to take away the power to enforce the rate ; this,
then, is his resolution :—" That it is unjust and in
expedient to abolish the ancient customary right,
exercised from time immemorial by the ratepayers
of every parish in England, to raise by rate
amongst themselves the sums required for the
repair of their church, until some other provision
shall have been made by Parliament for the dis-
charge of those obligations, to which, by custom or
statute, the churchwardens, on the part of the
parish, are liable."
Now we have heard of a former House of Com-
-1 mons so wise that it voted a pound-note and a
shilling to be worth a guinea, when not a
member who voted would have parted with
the guinea, if he had it, unless the holder
of the pound-note offered him the note, and
seven shillings additional, instead of one for his
guinea. Much the same is the wisdom of the 288 who
actually voted that the churchwardens were liable
to obligations, meaning pecuniary obligations, when,
by the confessed law of the land, they are not liable,
except in conjunction with a majority of the rate-
payers ! The late Home Secretary, in the absence
of the present one, showed them this beyond dis-
pute. W 3 pass by this Hibernicism in the alleged
facts of the ESTCOURT resolution—and just ask the
hon. member, and his majority of one, what " other"
Provision they want Parliament to make. Why
cry to Parliament like the Waggoner to Hercules
when they see Dissenters everywhere putting them
to open shame. It was but the other day that the
Baptists, not the largest sect by several of Dissen-
ters, wanted £30,000 to build the largest place of
worship in London for a popular young preacher of
their body—they put their shoulder to the wheel,
and the noble building, near the Elephant and
Castle, was opened without a penny of debt upon
it. In the paragraph we have quoted, the Inde-
pendents, we are told, intend to celebrate the ejec-
tion of their forefathers from the Church of England
through the Act of Uniformity, by erecting new
chapels, and a hall in commemoration of the event ;
—forthwith we learn that £84,000 are raised al-
ready, with the prospect of the sum being doubled
before the Bicentenary year is expired !

Now we know not how the 288 feel when they
read such facts. We can only say for ourselves
that we blush for the political Churchmen who
urge all sorts of sophisms in favour of casting their
Church on parish relief, while the Dissenters are
above taking it, and not only support themselves
honestly by independent effort, but support them-
selves handsomely. Mr. ESTCOURT'S resolution
comes to this—that it is "unjust and inexpedient"
to deprive the Episcopal Church of parish relief
where she can get it. Where the parishioners will
let her continue a pauper, maintained by the parish
rates, she may ! Like the parish stone-breakers,
she cannot subsist Viltliu.t, relief ! She
has not, like the Dissenters, the inherent vitality
which lives and thrives by its own vigour. She
cannot beg; to give she is unwilling. All is up
with her if she cannot enforce help from the parish
a
—if she cannot, like other paupers, drag those
who refuse her.piirisb relief before the magistrate.
and force
toif
of venerable Now,
on them
beh venerable old Church, we
beg to differ from such • a notion of her. Not a
great many years ago it might indeed have gone

hard with her, if she could not have relied on the
parish. She was a pauper in spirit, as well as in
fact. Things are changed now. Her pauperism is
the remnant of a bygone age. She only wants to be
shut out of the workhouse, and she could main-
tain herself as well as the self-supportiti g churches ;
not only as we'i, but better. For, in the first place,
she has endowments worth, some say, altogether,
ten millions per annum ; while the Free Churches
of the land, as Mr. BRIGHT termed them, have
hardly any. In the next place, indeed, the con-
sequence of the former, the Dissenters have to
raise not only the funds for purposes corresponding
to the parish rates voted for the Church, but also the
funds requisite to support their own clergy. Then,
again, it is indisputable that, as the rule, the wealth
of the country goes with the Parish Rate Church,
and that the middle class incomes, and weekly wages,
are what enable dissent to keep off the parish books,
and to live independently. Shut the workhouse-
door on the Church, deprive her of compulsory out-
door relief, and she has life enough, and health
enough, and wealth enough to maintain herself,
and all her children. To us this political pauper•
ising of the Church seems ineffably disgraceful. For
the honour of the Church the sooner the disgrace is
confessed, and the ignominious dependence cast off,
the better. The best of her sons feel this deeply,
and blush to be dragged through the mire by such
model Churchmen as the Duke of MARLBOROUGH
and Mr. DISRAELI. The Tories once followed him
and Protection, that is, State relief, for landlords,
just as they now follow him and rates, that is,
parish relief for the Church. They will, if he live the
ordinary life of men, be as ashamed of his leadership
in the latter cause as in the former. In each
case he came in at the eleventh hour, to
fc.111,15 ,catiaci for party ....bjeets. lie will fail
in the second as he did in the first. The Act of
Toleration and Parish Rates for the Church can no
more co_exist, when attention is called to their in-
consistency, than the great maxims of ADAM SMITH
and protection.
Mr. ESTCOURT is not very likely to heed our
advice, but we can have no doubt that he and his
party would deliver themselves from a great plague
if they would adopt it. It is, that they would
march off with the honours of war, by accepting
Mr. BRIGHT'S compromise, offered them, as they
confessed, in a kindly spirit, and so pile their arms,
which they have been wont to brandish when Dis-
senters objected to relieving such able-pursed
paupers at the parish cost. Retain, says Mr.
BRIGHT, all the machinery by which you have been
accustomed to levy your rates—Churchmen are
used to this machinery, and probably can work best
with it ; but, renounce the power to enforce the rate
against the unwilling. So you would relieve your-
selves from the stigma of parish pauperism ; you
would manage according to your old habits, while
those habits would be invigorated by the conscious.
ness of an appeal to generous independence.

We have certainly reason to thank Lord ELcuo
for one of the most delightful hoaxes ever auda-
ciously perpetrated upon a Lord High Chancellor.
Quite unintentionally on Lord ELello's part—but
still a hoax. The explanation given last evening
in the Commons shows the whole affair to have
been, from first to last, the merest equivoque. The
noble and gallant Colonel of the London Scottish
Volunteer Corps on Tuesday has a few minutes
hurried talk with Mr. SPEAKER—Lord ELCHO
standing by the Speaker's chair while they are
chatting together—the right hon. gentleman's at-
tention distracted all the while by the presentation
of petition after petition by various members. A
rifle match was then talked of, in fact, by Lord
ELCHO as in preparation, the noble lord add-
ing that many members of the House of
Commons felt particularly interested in it,
his lordship at the same time showing a
roll of paper that he carried in his hand, and
asking the Speaker's name to it. " I answered,"
observes the Speaker afterwards in explanation,
"that I was very busy, that I could not spare a
moment to read the paper, nor did I see a single
word it contained." And later on he remarks, that
" Wishing to dismiss the subject, I said in joke the
only part I could take would be to fire a shot with
the Lord Chancellor." Thereupon—himself " fired"
by this good-humoured intimation in an off-hand
way on the Speaker's part, that he was what
you call " Game "—Lord ELCHO darts off at
a tan happens by good duck
forthgeentlo.
lovers
sis
olfordashjiopke,
by ill-luck for the
gravity of those august personages the Speakers
of the Lords and Commons Lord ELerro
happens to light upon the Lord Chancellor in the
nick of time just as he is quitting the House of
Peers, and thereupon gives him the challenge
—vicariously ! " I have heard with amaze-
ment," writes the Speaker afterwards to
Lord now —" I have heard with amazement
that the Lord Chancellor announced last night
in the House of Lords that he had received a
a challenge to a rifle match from the Speaker of the
House of Commons--a challenge from the House of
Commons to the House of Lords." It should be
remembered, however, by all, that the announcement
was not at any rate volunteered. It will not be for-
gotten that it was extorted from the Lord Chan-
cellor by the solemn inquiries addressed to him on
Thursday evening by the Earl GRANVILLE. It is
a ludicrous affair from beginning to end. And yet
one that appears to have originated in the most
natural manner possible. The result of it all being,
as the result is almost invariably with nearly every
official inquiry that was ever instituted, that—
nobody is to blame !

MISSING VESSELS.—The Modern Times sailed
from New York on the 6th of February for Bristol, and has
not since been heard of. The Beatrice, of Boston, sailed
from Cardiff on the 10th July for Hongkong with coals, and
has not since been heard of.

INNS OF COURT RIFLE VOLUNTEERS.—The bat-
talion of this corps will parade in marching order in the
King's Bench-walk, Temple, at 3 15 p.m. to day (Saturday)
previous to proceeding to Epsom to take part in the field-
day there, under the command of Colonel M'Murdo, C.B.
THE YELVERTON MARRIAGE CASE.—In the
Edinburgh Court of Session, on Wednesday, Mr. Fraser
opened the debate for the pursuer (Mrs. Yelverton) on the
completed proof; and after speaking for about three hours
the case was adjourned till Thursday morning. The Seoto-
man says :--t' It is expected that, owing to the extent of
the proof and documentary evidence printed in the record,
each counsel who is to speak will occupy several morning
sittings, and that the debate will, therefore, extend over
two or three weeks."

THE ROBERTSON COURT-MARTIAL. DUBLIN,
Friday Evening.—This day Sir George Brown, Comman-
der of the Forces in Ireland, had before him the officers of
the 4th Dragoon Guards at the Royal Hospital, KiLmain-
ham, and announced to them the final decision of the hors©
Guards in reference to the late court-martial. Colonel
Bentinck retires on half-pay. Lieutenant Harran loses his
adjutancy. All the officers who signed the " round robin"
were severely rebuked.

LADY WYN DHAM'S JEWELS.—Yesterday the
action, Garrard v. Giubelei, was brought before the judges
in the ExchEquer Chamber. It was brought against the
defendant for goods supplied sto Lady Sophia Wyndham
before her marriage with die aetendant. An objection was
taken that this being the debt of the wife before her mar-
riage, the wife ought to have been joined as a co-defendant.
The learned judge before whom the case was tried was
applied to to amend by adding the name of the wife, and
the amendment was made, but leave was reserved to move
to set aside the verdict for the plaintiff if the Court was of
opinion that the Darned judge had no power to make the
amendment. The Court of Common Pleas having heard
the argument upon motion, came to the decision that the
judge had not the power to make the amendment. Their
lordships affirmed the decision of the other courts.
The new guest of the Emperor Napoleon, Said
Puha, Viceroy of Egypt, has garind At

LATEST NEWS•

NAPLES, MAY 16.

The official Giornale di Napoli, in speaking of
the endeavours of the Garibaldians to organize an
expedition to the Tyrol, says—

" The Government is determined not to allow it-
self to be forced into action. It will not abandon
the initiative in regard to the sacred interests of
the country."
Garibaldi has made intercession to obtain the re-
lease of the officers who have been arrested, but the
authorities have not yielded to his request.

MILAN, MAY 16, Evening.

Among the persons who have been arrested on
account of the scheme for organising an expedition
to the Tyrol are Colonel Nullo, aide-de-camp of
Garibaldi, and Signor Palazolo.

MADRID, MAT 16, Evening.
A Ministerial Council was held immediately on
receipt of the official reports from Mexico.

The conduct of General Prim finds numerous ad-
mirers in Madrid.

The Senate has, without any discussion, passed
the Bill for the Settlement of the Debt of 1823.

CADIZ, MAY 16, EVENING.

Advices received here from Havannah to the 30th
April announce that the Ist brigade of the Spanish
Expeditionary Corps from Mexico had disembarked
there.

General Prim was at Vera Cruz, superintending
the embarkation of the remaining Spanish troops.

CADIZ, MAY 17.

Additional advices received here from Mexico
state that Juarez had announced his resolution of
resisting the French, and was making warlike pre-
parations.

Civil war had broken out in Mexico. The
Monarchists were said to have obtained some ad-

vantages.

NAPLES, MAY 15.

The official Giornale di Napoli publishes an
article on the arrival of Prince Napoleon, which it
considers as a fresh proof of the friendship of France.
The article continues thus :—" This feeling might,
however, give rise to premature hopes in reference
to the Roman question, which, instead of hastening
the solution of this question, would only obstruct
the steps already taken, and which must certainly
lead to a result. We believe we may state that
the arrival of the Prince still more assures the
cordial understanding between the Emperor and
the King, and will facilitate a common action, for
which the two Governments are closely united,
without, however, hie Imperial Highness having
any mission to make special propositions to the
King.