The Sun.
London, England, 1862-07-14 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, JULY 14, 1862.

Govern'lent now reigns, and where the ladies give
as much trouble i Is at New Orleans, the clergymen
are also unconquerable. They will not take the
oath of allegiance, and most of them have, there-
fore, been s;qat to prison ! Clergymen and women
seem to give th e Federal Generals no little trouble.
Between the passi.
ve resistance of the last, and the
energetic and succes'ful efforts of its armies, the
South, so far as this mail informs us, presents to the
North a problem of increased difficulty. To say,
however, " GOD prosper the right " is no easy
task, when both sides have put themselves so much
i in the wrong.

Our veteran Premier has this last year introduced
a notable change in the manner of the distribution
of the annual £1,200 a-year set apart for Civil List
Pensions according to the yearly pleasure of who is
for the time being England's First Lord of the
Tofr ei at
ss ur It is a
kind.
that
at wec haar ng e
eager
gt
eoro ,
asto
oreally o admirable
Lord PALMERSTON, in this matter, the praise which
is incontestibly his due. It is a simple modifica-
tion enough of the arrangement, when you come to
look at it. And is consequently one that it is quite
marvellous to reflect has never yet apparently en-
tered into the imagination of any one among Lord
P.kLMERSTON'S predecessors. All the more odd it
is, that the change we are about to specify has not
been hitherto adventured upon by any other head of
any former Administration, seeing that it is an im-
provement in the mode of distributing these yearly
sums—amounting in all (between the 20th of June
in one twelvemonth to the 20th of June in the one
following) to £l,2oo—that has often and often of late
years been urged upon the attention of our Premiers
one after another. We ourselves have repeatedly
argued, as perseveringly and as earnestly as we
possibly could, in favour of each Premier ad-
vancing in the matter precisely in this given
direction. We have insisted, namely, upon
the urgent necessity of insulting no one by
awarding to him or to her a wretched little dribblet
of £25 per annum—in the name of this great
and wealthy country, and in consideration of ser-
vices done by the recipients in the furtherance (so
far as lay in their power) of the interests of art, of
science, or of literature. We congratulate the coun-
try, we congratulate the Premier upon this decided
and instantly visible change for the better in our
yearly string of Civil List Pensions. Among all
the fourteen recipients of varying proportions of the
annual aggregate of £1,200, not one is pained by
nomination to a pension henceforth of £25 per
annum. The lowest amount awarded to anyone is
£5O per annum—not quite £1 sterling for every
week in the year: only just sufficient, with any
degree of comfort, to keep body and soul together.
Looking down the little catalogue of this chosen
group of Fourteen, we observe moreover at a glance
that not only is the annual sum of £5O the lowest that
has been awarded, in the years last past 1861-1862,
by Lord PALMERSTON, between one 20th of June
and another—but that there are only three classes
of recipients among the whole fourteen. The first
class £lOO per annum. The second class, £75 per
annum. The third and lowest class, as aforesaid,
£5O per annum. In this manner the moderate
aggregate of £1,200 is, of course, soon enough made
up. How ?—map be at once indicated when we
have said that there are three pensions of £5O
per annum, making up £l5O altogether. There are
two pensions of £75, making up another
£l5O altogether. There are, consequently,
distributed under these two heads or classes
—among these five civil list pensioners
—X3OO in all, out of the yearly total of £1,200.
The remaining £9OO are distributed, in separate
handreds, among nine, for the most part admirably
well selected, recipients of—we won't call it the
national bounty, for it is not that ; but we will
rather call it the national tribute of respect, and of
sympathy, and even in some instances of gratitude
for services done ! Services throughout of the
purest and of the most honourable description—
services in the advancement of the interests of art,
of science, and of literature.
One of the three £5O pensions, it should be ob-
served, added to a previous award of £5O set apart
a few years back to the same identical recipient,
makes up for him henceforth, of course, a yearly
pension of £lOO sterling—a very moderate pen-
sion, indeed, under the circumstance. As—who
will not admit when the name and the reason of
these two little sums now happily clubbed together
come to be mentioned? Mr. R. CORT is the recipient,
and the reason assigned for the giving to him of any
pension at all is—that it is " on account of the great
value and utility of his father's discoveries in the
working of iron, and in his failure to derive any
pecuniary benefit therefrom." That father of Mr.
RICHARD CORT having by those same discoveries in
the puddling of iron added to the material and
realised wealth of the country since then, at the
lowest computation, a -vast aggregate of
£200,000,000 ! Reason enough, there, for this addi-
tional £5O pension, making up for the son of that
wonderful benefactor of his country a very moderate
pittance of £lOO per annum. The two other £5O
pensioners are Mr. JOHN WADE and Mr. THOMAS
ROSCOE. The latter in consideration of his literary
labours generally. The former in consideration of
his contributions more particularly to political
literature. The two £75 pensioners are Miss
EMMA ROBINSON and Dr. JOHN HART. The
former in acknowledgment of her numerous " ro-
mances, historical plays, and other contributions to
periodical literature of admitted excellence." The
latter (Dr. HART) in return for his contributions to
the science of anatomy and physiology, and of his
being afflicted with blindness and broken health. As
to the nine 1100 pensioners, it will be sufficient here
simply to enumerate them. One of these nine—a
pensioner for every muse—we have already parti-
cularised : namely, Mr, LEITCH RITCHIE, whose
nomination to the list we were the first to announce.
The other eight are—Mr. (or Dr.) CHARLES
MACKAY, the popular song writer Mr.
JOHN SEYMER, another (like Dr. HART
already mentioned) alas ! literally " blind" de-
votee in the self-imposed labours of advancing and
diffusing knowledge. Mr. GEORGE RAINEY is
another of these rewarded labourers—in his in-
stance, in the fields of " Minute Anatomy and Phy-
siology." Mr. ISAAC TAYLOR is recompensed
in this way also very moderately for no less
than forty long years' meritorious literary toiling
in the paths of history and philosophy. The reci-
pients of the two remaining £lOO pensions are four
persons, and those four all ladies. Two of
them (Miss ELIZABETH BALY and Miss MARIE
JOSEPHINE FAITYET) in consideration of the
merits and labours of Dr. BALY, the late
eminent physician. The two others (Mrs. JANET
WILSON and Miss JESSIE WILsoN) in consideration
of the distinguished services and career of the late
Professor GEORGE (not JOHN) WILSON, of Edin -
of
civ -il
List
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burgh.

one further improvement would we suggest in the
future distribution of this £1,200 per annum placed
year after year at the disposal of the Prime
Minister of England. And that is, simply, that an
occasional £2OO or £l5O per annum may be
awarded, now and then, to some persons of eminence
sufficient in the departments of literature, of
science, or of art.