The Sun.
London, England, 1862-04-11 00:00:00

NOTICE.

All remittances' are, henceforth, to be made to
Mr. JOHN CYTAPLIN, at The Sun office, 112,
Strand, who has been appointed, by the Lord
Chancellor, Receiver and Manager of The Sun
newspaper, and the outstanding debts due in
respect thereof.

- •
As. %
date
cp, •
• , 4;-,'
41‘?
s'!
41;
• ' r.` , .
"""4 '

THE SUN.

LONDON, FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 1862.

The Ministerial defeat last night in the House
of Commons is so far deeply to be regretted that
it has shelved for another year the really admi-
rable scheme for the concentration of the Courts
of Justice. It was upon the second reading of
the money bill connected with this imperial pro-
ect that the Commons eventually decided upon
the forrOal rejection of the measure introduced
by one of the Cabinet Ministers. An amendment
haring been moved by the hon. and learned
member (Mr. Sit.:LwYN), who thereby acquired
the glory of " pinkiltig" the Government, by a
dexterous lunge, in the ,midriff—and amendment
that the bill be read a second time this flay six
months—Ministers at length, towards the sOlall
hours of the morning, found themselves suddenly
in a minority of two. And the Opposition, of
course, made the most of it. So soon as the
rwmbers were announced up rose a shout of jubi-
latic.'n, as though the fate of a Government had
been decided. NVien, in point of fact, the triumph
or failure of the bill which unluckily fell through
last evening, made not the smallest difference in
the world either to the Government or to the
Opposition. In effect, it will bo remarked, upon
the mere surface of things last night, that the
House was by no means a large House to begin
with. It numbered considerably less than 206 in
all. At the most—when the opposing forces mus-
tered at length at their fullest number—there were
within the walls, including Mr. Speaker and the
four Tellers, but 169 altogether. And such confu-
sion as the Ayes aud Noes made of it from begin-
ning to end ! Two divisions there were—or if
we would be especially accurate, three distinct
divisions there were—before ii,;e matter at issue
was definitively decided by the throwing out of the
Government bill by that little eleal- majority of
two.

The Speaker—after a lengthened discussion, in
which Sir W. HEATECOTE, Mr. COWPER, Mr.
SELWYN, Mt. FREDERICK FEEL, Mr. GLADSTONE,
Mr. MALINS, Mr. BOUVERIE, the Attorney-Gene-
ral, the Solicitor-General, and Sir H. WILLOUGHBY
all of them took part, sifting the subject
ill debate thoroughly during the agitation
of their conflicting argument's—the Speaker having
at last brought the discussion to a climax by putting
to the house that the word " now" stand part of the
ci_u_e4ti°n---the house divided, and ajain, as in last
s
""lola, there was a tie !

Ayes ....
Noes
.......
1,.
The Tellers
--wildered—the house ringing with
mingled laughter and cheering=everybody looking
at the inscrutable face of Mr. Speaker to
learn the decision about to be given by his casting

Vote!

Mr. Speaker—upon one of those rare occasions
when his honoured name is for once no actual mis-
nomer—addressing, the house, then •
"The house
having given consent for this bill tobe introduced"—
tut, as if a fatality were attendant open him—
us if it were inexorably decreed by Fate that even
for so brief an interval Mr. Speaker were mot to
spoak—up rushes an excited member of the lictifie
with a stammering interruption like my Lord DU,;_
DREARY. There is a cry of " Order" at the se,E,ming
indecorum. But the interposing member turns out
to be Mr. T. G. BARING, the Under SEcretary for
India. The news blurted out by Mr. BARING gets
whispered about the House. An hon. member NV ho
was in the House at the Lime of the Division.
14Ets
.. not passed through the lobby ! The
u3qtlent—who proves to be Mr. WYKEHAA/
...1:
RTIN, the bon. member for Rochester—is sum-

moned to the table of the House, by order of the
Speaker, and there gravely catechised. Gravely,
however, though he is catechised—hardly can the
House meanwhile preserve its gravity during the
examination. "Did you hear the question put,
sir? " " I did, sir. I was in the House,
sir, but I did not pass out at the
door." Why—is not explained. But there
is laughter. " Which way will you give your
voice, Sir ?" asks the Speaker. " With the ayes,"
replies the Member for Rochester. There is more
laughter, and there are cheers from the Ministerial
Benches—for that supplementary vote of Mr. MAR-
TIN'S saves the Speaker trouble by opportunely
giving a tardy majority of one to the Government.
The battle, however, is very far indeed from being
brought to an end decisively. The Courts of Jus-
tice (Money) Bill is yet to form the Marengo of the
Opposition. The Defeat may still, it is thought, be
turned into a Victory ; and unhappily for that
dream of a Palace of Justice that we had se
much and so long at heart—it is thought
thus, moreover, only with too much reason.
The hon. and learned member for the Uni-
versity of Cambridge moves his amendment,
namely, that the Bill be read again six months
hence. The three minutes' sand-glass is turned
upon the Table. The divison bells are rung for the
appointed interval. And at the close of that inter.
val the doors are again shut to. Only one addi-
tional representative, whose name was not in either
list upon the first division, has entered the House
during those three minutes' grace: the hon. gentle-
man in question being the lately-returned member
for the newly-created constituency of Birkenhead.
Yet, upon the division which then takes place,
it proves, wonderful to tell, that the Minis-
terial majority of one has suddenly be-
come transformed into a Ministerial minority of
two. The fact being, that others besides the
member for Rochester have been bewildered
upon the former division—and then and there
baulked in their amiable intentions solely by their
own self-bewilderment. One of the English county
members, it was Col. GILPIN, the member for Bed-
fordshire—and with him one of the Irish represen-
tatives, it was Mr.BLAxE, the member for the city
of Waterford—had, under the influence of some
momentary obfuscation walked into the lobby with
the Government side, when intending to do pre-
cisely the reverse. Aware of these blunders on the
first division they failed to repeat it on the second.
The amendment of the member for Cambridge
University is put—

For the Second Reading
Against it ... . - 83
The voting paper changes hands this time—thanks
in different degrees to the members for Bedfordshire,
for Waterford, and for Birkenhead. The Ministerial
Bill is thrown out by a clear majority of two against
the Government. As a matter of course, immediately
upon the announcement being made, there are rounds
of cheers from the Opposition benches. Nothing
comes of it—nothing could come of it : but still it
is a Government Bill, it has been thrown out, the
Ministry is again in a minority, and the Opposition
members at least will give themselves the luxury of
a ringing cheer or two over their confronting anta-
gonists. The spunge, to be sure, cannot be
thrown up. But another round is over—more blood
has been drawn—and yet, at the end of it all, with
imperturbable serenity upon his every lineament,
there still sits the Judicious Bottle-Holder, with
folded arms, looking, with smiling self-possession,
upon the fluctuations in the political ring!

We should almost have felt exhilirated by the
refreshing novelty of that little "breeze " last night
in the House of Commons, but for the after-qualm
produced by the reflection that if it has served to
enliven for a moment the dull uniformity of the
Session, it has unhappily lost to the country, for
another year, the chance of seeing its Courts of
Justice concentrated. A result all the more tan-
talising, when it is remembered that the site of the
new Palace for the Blind Goddess with the
Balance and the Scales has already been selected and
carefully marked out. Besides which, there is the
Suitors' Fund ready at hand to be drawn upon.
There is the certainty, when once our now scattered
courts are brought together, of an immense yearly
economy resulting both to the public and to the
profession—a double economy, an economy of time
and of money : though, by the way, according to a
familiar adage in this country, the words are, as
indications of value, synonymous. However—lost
tons this year, the Palace of Justice may be secured
effectually next.

We may talk now of " the great guns " of the
day, without incurring the charge of descending
to slang, for the literal great guns, for the time,
attract more of public attention than their figura-
tive competitors. Our Houses of Parliament can
hardly forget them for a single night, since the news
of the battle of the Bth of March in Hampton
Roads first reached England. Every neighbour
you meet has something to say about " great guns ;"
every reader of a newspaper glances over the
columns with the question in his mind—" Anything
i more about great guns ?"—and Lord R. MONTAGU
I and .Lord CLARiIiCE PAGiET, and others do their best
Ito satisfy the publio craving to know all about
the " great guns," and what is only another part
of the same subject, about the shields, cupolas,
or targets, against which the great guns are
matched, or behind which they work
What we learned last night was first a little
history of the Cupolas, in which the guns are to be
used, and under which the gunners are to be safe
against all other guns. General PEEL, we are in-
foroed, was the first official to appreciate the value
of Captilia COLES' invention, when he was last in
office. He wanted to try it as a part of a fort.
The present Government when it succeeded to office
took the same i'ivourable view, but the War De-
partment did not possess the requisite facilities
for constructing the shield ; "the Admiralty, more-
over, wished for the work, and accordingly it was
handed over to them. They built a shield,
made trial of it last autumn on board the Trusty,
and were quite satisfied they ought to proceed.
Hence the demand for a sum of money to build a
ship expressly for the purpose of working the
shield. The public will be pleased to know that
justice is done, pecuniarily, to Captain COLES. He
was at once placed on full-pay, and the usual allow-
ance additional made him of £1 a day given to
officers actually engaged in preparing inventions
for the Admiralty.
But the Shoeburyness ex-periment could not, of
course, be overlooked ; Lord PAGET must be made
to tell all he knew about that ; but he could only say
that the account which our readers saw yesterday
was as faithful as could be wished. It comes to this,
that for close quarters the grand essential is that
the gun must be able to bear the largest charge of
gunpowder which will be all consumed in the ex-
Plosion. The difference between the shots fired at
the Merrimac by the Monitor and those which
utterly smashed the target on Tuesday, was the
difference of
);she weight of powder by which they
were propelled. j will be remembered that the
,
Monitor's shots weigi,e, 1801bs. ; the shot fired on
Tuesday weighed but 15616
yet-s the heavier
balls made no impression -
on 1, , ,
hastily and imperfectly plated as she la, he Merrimac,
• d been,
' while the others went through what represented k!),

aide of the far stronger Warrior, and seemed as if ,
they would have gone out at the other side, had
theiv been one. In short, the recipe for smashing
an iran-plated ship's side comes to the very simple
formul a--" powder enough."
But tl:ten comes the question—Can the guns which
will bear Exch an explosion as that of fifty pounds
of gunpowG'er be carried by ships at all, and
worked on board of them ? Lord PAGET was
obliged to reserve a definite answer on
this point ; sti u, he thought the 300-
pounder,' for such the gun really was, could
can, it will be able
beto siwleenrckeeaanyafit
foora.
twe Ifh itave yet built, and General
PEEL'S plan of placing cupolas on forts also, will
have to be the one ultimately adopted. On one re-
sult of all these experiments the public should now
insist. It is plain that the old struggle between
the attack and defence will go on developing fresh
means of attack, necessitating, ever, fresh devices
for defence. Our policy therefore, is to adopt
the last discovery only so far as is just suffi-
cient to preserve our naval and defensive superio-
rity. The less we have to become antiquated by
each successive discovery the better, if we but safe
in the interim between one discovery and another.
We must not repeat Sir JOHN PAKINGTON'S great
blunder, of constructing a vast fleet of screw liners
and frigates, after the value of iron plating was
proved, only to have them all to cut down and
plated at a much greater cost than if they had been
built for that purpose.

The French EMPEROR has a peculiar mode of
dealing with his quondam friends and his present
enemies, the Roman Catholic clergy. By their help
and that of the army he mounted the throne ; for
a time he was as subservient to them as political
gratitude required, and received their abundant
adulation in return. But the EMPEROR is not a
bigot. It is quite understood that he is, personally,
altogether favourable to religious liberty. If he
has permitted local authorities to act as the slaves
of the priesthood, reasons of political convenience
have been at the bottom, and when an appeal from
the persecuted has been able to reach him he has
always, we believe, shown himself favourable to
them. These tendencies, but of course far more,
his not intervening to prevent the legations from
shaking off the yoke of Popes and Cardinals, have
made the higher clergy, especially, of France, his
bitter enemies. They have not only violated all
decorum by calling him nicknames in their public
documents, but are constantly on the look out to
do something which they know will be offensive
to him. He, on his part, seems to watch their eccle-
siastical antics with great composure. Very cleverly
he gives them rope enough to get themselves into
some outrageously absurd position, and then, com-
posedly, tightens the rope, and pulls them up sud-
denly ; while lay Frenchmen, who know little vene-
ration for ecclesiastics, heartily enjoy the fun.

The announcement we took from the Moniteur
last night was of a similar character to that which
checkmated the Bishop of ORLEANS, who honoured
him with the name of PONTIUS PILATE ; and to
another which recently bid Bishops stay at home
and not quit their dioceses without his leave, when
they were all eager to go to Rome, nominally to
aid in the manufacture of Japanese saints, really to
conspire against the liberties of the poor Romans,
and against the French and English Governments.
The Imperial Interdict which appeared in the
Moniteur yesterday is another illustration of priestly
madness, and imperial cleverness in putting the
bishops in the wrong and the EMPEROR in the right.
One only wonders that such clever men as Romish
clerics are commonly reputed to be, could so gravely
commit themselves as to give the lay viler such an
excellent opportunity of showing himself the better
Christian.

In France, as in England no educated laymen
are to be found who do not rather blush for the
persecutions of which the professors of their
faith have been guilty in past ages, than glory in
them. And it is to this universal sentiment the
EMPEROR was able to appeal. No Englishmen at
the present day defend the proceedings of Bartholo-
mew's day, two hundred years ago—yet these were
defensible indeed in comparison with those of the
French Bartholemew's day. The returned STUARI
and his Royalists did but expel non-conforming clergy
from their livings ; in France two St. Bartholomew's
days were consecrated to Popery, in the blood of
thousands of murdered Protestants. One, the great
occasion, about three centuries ago, when the streets
of Paris were deluged with the blood of the unsus-
pecting victims ; another, however, preceded that
by about ten years, at Toulouse, in which only
about 4,000 were murdered in cool blood. They
had been wantonly attacked; had gathered together
for their defence, had capitulated on condition of lay-
ing down their arms and leaving the city. But on
their leaving, the Catholic authorities declared that
" no faith need be kept with heretics," and they
were all butchered. Rome applauded the deed—
and in 1762 commemorated the butchery by ser-
vices and processions, which it called " The feast
of deliverance! " and this celebration was again
made the occasion of renewed and bloody per-
secutions.

The Archbishop of TOULOUSE—it would seem
incredible were it not done in a public document—
recites with commendation the details of this
i " procession to thank GOD for 4,000 murders," as
VOLTAIRE termed it, and would stir up the Roman
Catholics of Toulouse to celebrate a third time the
horrid feast of blood. We do not wonder that the
press of Paris is indignant at this attempt to repre-
sent Popery as retaining the thirst for Protestant
blood of bygone centuries, by exulting in its foulest 1
deeds of perjury and murder—deeds which enlight-
ened Catholics would gladly bury in oblivion. The
EMPEROR, however, as usual, adroitly seizes his
opportunity to put down an Archbishop, with the
certain approval of the civilised world, as well as of
the education of France—and the Bishop is posted
all over France and Europe by the following quiet
announcement :

" The celebration of a jubilee has been prescribed
by the Archbishop of TOULOUSE in commemoration
of a grievous and bloody episode of our ancient
religious discords. The present legislation and the
concordat in reference to the performance of
Catholic worship in the public streets, all impose
on the Government the duty of prohibiting a cere-
mony which might excite division and hatred, and
disturb public peace."
That the EMPEROR is right in preventing public
ceremonials which disturb the peace, we in this
country know by rather painful experience. We
know whet has been the result of Orange proces-
sions in Ireland, and we do not permit either them,
or the counter manifestations. It must, however,be
acknowledged that there is some difference between
the irritating commemoration of a fair victory, and
the celebration of a faithless and wholesale
murder. Neither of the great sects here would we
imagine think of commemorating their worst per-
secutions of the ether as triumphs. Indeed, at the
present moment Nonconformists are commemorat-
ing with honour, the ejection of the two thousand,
on the English Bartholemew's-day, by the Act of
Uniformity, two hundred years ago ; but so far
from churchmen glorying in the deed, they send us
cruelty, and
its harahneia AnCi
pamphlets describing