The Sun.
London, England, 1862-07-11 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, JULY 11, 1862.

FRENCH—he it is who " tyrannically intervenes in
a city where he has no more right to be than in
London itself. Nothing can excuse the wrong. If
he has political difficulties at home, that is no
excuse for his saddling the Romans with a Go-
vernment they detest, to suit his purposes. We
only hope the issue may be a lasting severance
between Italians and the Papacy they so justly
detest_

Mr. PEABODY'S reception yesterday in the City
of London was all that could possibly have been
desired. It was as cordial and unaffected as it
deserved to be. It did honour at once to the muni-
cipal body who bestowed it, and to the benevolent
gentleman who was itsrecipient. The munificence of
this merchant prince was of a nature so exceptional
that it necessitated something exceptional in the
manner of its recognition. Not every day, not even
in every century is it, that a prosperous man of the
world can be found with a heart large enough and
a purse long enough to vindicate in a manner
sohaveresplendentbeen "provident
his ardour
ezn
philanthropist.asamete inh
te human
alf
there
form, like old ELWES or like JEMMY WOOD of
Gloucester, who have starved themselves to hoard
up treasures that have at last accumulated to use-
less millions sterling—by a beneficent compensa-
tion, reconciling us to our own race (caricatured in
the persons of those misers who are of all men
among the most miserable) there are other men,
men of a very diffeie,nrosentnettandteynpefoenhaterniandrayc,haracter, men
sverridyiennalme,easr, h
eexposedld te
tenderly
e therly
w
wanhodrolsldeo'vingly in the world's grateful remembrance.
Such a benefactor of his fellow-creatures was that
good old Tar, Captain CORAM, the Captain CORAM
whose portrait HOGARTU painted, the Founder of
our Foundling Hospital. Such another was that
benignant and open-handed merchant, ROBERT
COLSTONE of Bristol, whose schools and
hospitals still flourish down in his native city, and
up here also in the scenes of his residence during
his long passed lifetime, in our ewn metropolis.
Happily for the character of our age we have
still recognizable among the merchant princes
of the present generation, two noble-hearted
men not unworthy of having their names enrolled
in the same category with those of Captain CORAM
and Mr_ COLSTONE, There is WILLIAM BROWN,
of Liverpool ! And—American though the other
is by birth, we may claim him as an English-
man by adoption—there is GEORGE PEABODY of
London ! They are men—these noble-souled con-
temporaries—whom Princes might be proud to
honour. They are men at any rate whom a whole
people have learnt to respect and admire. The
monuments of Mr. BROWN'S magnificent generosity
are already conspicuous among the glories of that
seat of commerce in England, the world's empo-
rium, the great seaport of Liverpool. As to the
monument of Mr. PEABODY'S munificence, we all
know what that is—we all recognise in the thought
that suggested it the amplitude of his goodwill to
his fellow-creatures. For this gift of £150,000
to the very poor of London, the City of London had
yesterday the opportunity of expressing its grati-
tude to Mr. PEABODY, by the bestowal upon him of
the honorary freedom of the Corporation in a gold
box of the value of a hundred guineas, and by his
reception afterwards at a superb civic entertain-
ment.

Some few years hence the Parliament elected in
1859, under the auspices of the Tory CASTOR and
POLLUX, will be reverted to as the Parliament of
bigotry and reaction. It has set its face against the
political reforms which both Whigs and Tories of
former Parliaments had sanctioned, and has espe-
cially delighted in Wednesday musters against
civil and religious liberty. Last Wednesday it
signally maintained its reputation in the second, if
indeed we ought not to call it the first, division of
liberty. Mr. BOUVERIE'S Bill may not apply to a
very large class, though it may be very much
larger than is at present known. But in England
we do not always inquire into the numbers who
suffer under any grievance—if it be a real one, if
the complaint be well founded, and especially if re-
dressing it inflicts no wrong on any one, we are
ready to do justice to a small number or even to a
single individual.

It cannot be denied that, judged by the principles
of religious liberty now acknowledged by all par-
ties, the clergymen whom Mr. BOUVERIE'S Bill
would relieve have a real and a great grievance.
They are subject to civil pains and penalties,
penalties almost involving starvation, for exercising
the plainest right of every Protestant and of every
Englishman. Any of us may change our opinion
after twenty-two years of age on any religious sub-
ject we please. We may reject the whole of the
Thirty-nine Articles, though Dr. LUSHINGTON
pronounces that legally they contain all
truth; we may adopt the decrees of the Council of
Trent, or we may deny Christianity itself, yet no
penalty falls upon us. The unfortunate clergyman
alone, who, when scarcely out of his teens, has
subscribed the Articles and Prayer Book as a pass-
port to the Ecclesiastical service of the State, may
never change his opinion, under penalty of being
forbidden to earn his living in any other profession,
and of being liable to prosecution and imprisonment
at the mercy of any informer, if he resign the
wealthiest living in the Church, and officiate as a
clergyman teaching what subsequent inquiries con-
vince him to be true. Now this is surely simply
outrageous. Yet relief from such penalties is so
grudged by Hyper-Churchmen that Sir LAWRENCE
PALK,-let not his name be forgotten in the annals
of bigotry, induced 98 Englishmen to refuse it on
Wednesday to their fellow Englishmen.

The proceeding of Sir LAWRENCE and his 98 was
mean, base, and false. The bill had passed not only
the second reading, but that most conservative of
ordeals, a select committee; it had been considered
in committee of the whole house—several rights of
those in whose behalf it was introduced had been
surrendered to propitiate sheer bigotry and pre-
judice, and after all this, when the third reading
was supposed to be merely a matter of.course, this
enlightened Dorsetshire Baronet proposes its rejec-
tion on the third reading when opposition had not
been anticipated. This was the dirty trick of a
political sharper. Then to a trick worthy of the
turf in its worst state, he added what was certainly
an utterly false statement. Sir LAWRENCE, after-
wards, said he bad read the bill,—yet he affirmed,
nor did he retract it, that the bill "asked that the
House of Commons should exercise a power never
assumed by the Pope of ROME in the haughtiest
days of the Church—namely, to release priests from
their vows." This is distinctly false; the bill leaves
untouched the opinion about Holy Orders. The
EnglandChurefloirotafodoing.
and the Seceder may regard
them as indelible or not, as they please, it only pro-
vides that the clergyman who desires to renounce
tchoeunsteyrvrnieecabers ° f 0
service of the Church shall be free frcm penal-
tiesTh
ur Church
Romanis
m a
yi n
regard g Bishops
the
manand
as still in Tioi
demands that th,yraherB'
if they like, the bill only
piison, if he iloes not all not be able to put him in
thinki with them. It enables
k
him to earn his living
7,6 e 737 other man. How
charactaistic is it of the
pride of a Church founded
by the cixpenterts Son, twelve fi
ebermcn and a tent-
maker—the latter boasting that he
Worked at his

trade rather than take fees or tithes—that this
Church should new prohibit its " priests" from
honest trade, and that not only while they do
priest's work, but even after their consciences have
compelled them to renounce it.
Mr. ROEBUCK exactly hit the mark when, after
the strong practical remarks of Lord HENLEY and
Mr. BOUVERIE, he told the bigots that two ideas
underlay all their opposition to the bill. The first
—that a man could Control, govern, and altogether
bind his opinions. The second—that there, was
" something in the hands of a bishop whieb, when
they were put upon a man's head, went through
him and attached to him for ever." If a man having
at 22 signed the articles, and, having read and
thought on the subjects to which they relate, at 27
found as the result of honest inquiries that the
evidence failed to support them, was it in his
power to govern his opinion so as not to conform it
to the evidence ? Yet the opponents of the bill
told him that what he believed at 22 he must be-
lieve at 70, if he lived so long. Mr. ROEBUCK
asked the House if any roan among them believed
these two monstrosities—we regret to say that Sir
LAWRENCE PALK and ninety-eight English gentle-
men said—yes.
We cannot blame the House, however, for re-
jecting Mr. HENNESSY'S Bill, for reasons, how-
ever, very different to those which moved Mr.
IVIIALLEY—its great defect in our eyes was its sec-
tarian character. Had it taken broad ground, and
claimed equal rights for all denominations of Chris-
tians, we should have cordially supported it. It is, we
think, overweening arrogance in the Church of Eng•
land to claim not only all the great good things of the
land, but if only a poor £5O is to be had in a gaol
or a workhouse for ministerial services, to demand
that the Church of England should have that too
—to grudge to Nonconforming dogs, indeed, the
crumbs which fall from her wealthy table. At
present the ministers of all Nonconformists, Roman
Catholics included, stand on a level. If prisoners
desire their services they are at liberty to send for
them. Mr. HENNESSY wants to elevate the minis-
ters of his Church above those of other Nonconform-
ing Churches in England. He wants also a little
pay for them. We have no doubt that for the class
of persons who fill our prisons, the uneducated
Methodist minister would often be the most efficient
instructor—he understands them better. But, as
in everything else, the dominant Church excludes
them from prison chaplaincies, because, for these,
the State pays. It will never do, however, to carry
sectarianism into gaols and workhouses. Those
who sacrifice their liberty through crime, or even
misfortune, must be content with the ministrations
of the chaplain provided for them. The only thing
really wrong at present is, the restriction of the
choice of chaplains to the Established Church, when
cases are constantly occurring of special adaptation
of persons belonging to other sects for dealing with
prisoners.

EXECUTION OF TAEPING PRISONERS.

The following account of the brutalities commit-
ted on the Taepings by the Imperialists, is from
the pen of an Englishman, who was present, in
company with both English and French officers
and soldi€rs, at the execution by disembowelment
of Taeping prisoners :

" I went with the crowd to see the execution of t' e Tae-
ping prisoners that had been given up for execution into the
hands of the mandarins by the English and French autho.
rities ; or, what is the same thing, they took no rAasures to
prevent the ruthless butchery of those they lent their aid to
capture ; when, horror of horrors, how am I to describe the
dreadful scene, or will it ever leave my memory ? Among
these wretches were young and old, of both sexes, and of
all ages and sixes, from the infant recently born to the man
of eighty, tottering on his staff; from the enciente woman
to the young maiden from ten to eighteen. The latter were
pushed out by the guards among the crowd of ruffians as-
sembled, and were taken into sheds and by-places and de-
bauched, and again dragged back by the hair of the head to
the Chinese guards, to await their turn for execution. Some
of them had fainted, and were pulled along the ground to the
executioners, who threw them on their backs, tore off their
clothes, and ripped them from the lower part of the abdomen
to the breasts, which were cut off and dashed with a curse in
their faces. The bowels, as a matter of course, gushed out;
but the cut was made in such a way—so skilfully and with
such expertness, that the intestines were seldom injured.
After a little time in this state of excessive torture, the exe-
cutioner thrust his hand into the chest and tore out the
reeking heart, his victim looking him in the face all the
while. A young female, apparently about eight months
pregnant, who never uttered a groan or a sigh at all the
previous cruelties she had endured from the surrounding
mob, had her infant cut out of her womb, and held up
in her sight by one of its little hands bleeding and quiver-
ing; when at the sight she gave one heart• rending pierc
ing screech that would have awakened pity in a tiger,
and after it had been in that state dashed on her breast,
she, with a last superhuman effort, released her arms
from those holding her down, and clasped her infant to
her bleeding heart and died, holding it there with such
force that they could not be separated and when thlis
thrown together on the pile of, other carcasses. Ano-
ther young woman among the prisoners awaited her
turn to be disembowelled, with a fine boy of ten Months
old, crowing and jumping in her arms, had him snatched
suddenly away from her, and flung to the executioner,
who plunged the ruthless knife into his tender breast
before his mother's eyes. Infants but rec.mtly born were
torn from their mother's breasts, and disembowelled before
their faces. Young strong men were diserebowellet4
mutilated, and the parts cut cif thrust into their own.
mouths, or flung among the admiring and laughing crowd
of Chinamen. But no tnote, I can write no 'More df these
scenes; I can now only regret for ewer that I looked on
the dreadful sight. lam no longer fit to be a soldier. I
have been in many battles during the last twenty years,
and in the thickest of the fight in most of them,where a raFe
and thirst for Carnage is dreadful to reflect on after wardai
but nothing heretofore that I have seen or heard of, or even
read of, could be compared to the dreadful cruelty of the
disembowelling execution. May Cod forgive England for
the part she is taking in this war, and may the sin of the
enormities she has assisted in perpetrating on the defence-
less 'worn en, and, innocent and helpless child, be removed
from her door; and after the treatment English women
and children met with froth the hands of the blacks in the
Sepoy mutiny, it is truly wonderful that Englishmen should
join in or countenance similar atrocities here. it is now
ascertained for a certainty that B— and his companions,
after having been tortured in every way that Chinese inge-
nuity and cruelty could devise, were afterwards mutilated
and then disembowelled by the Imperialists; and for that
reason the Chinese authorities would not produce their
dead bodies, Poor F—, who came with me to sea the
execution, fell down in a fainting fit, and was in that state
carried away, and is now a raving maniac from the effects
the dreadful sight had on him. We are now, with the
money wrung from the starving poor of England, assisting
those very monsters whose hands are dyed red in the blood
of our countrymen, and for what ? For the sake of the
golden trade derived from their country. Englishmen,
what would be your feelings, had your fathers, mothers,
brothers, sisters, wives, and children, been served by
Frenchmen or Russians as described above? Would you
think that any amount of revenge you could take on them
would be halt sufficient ? But God, who looks with pity on
the sufferings of His creatures, *sees all this, and hears all
their cries of despair and agony ; and yet it must be all
right, or else He would not permit it. I am well punished,
you will say, for neglecting my kind good uncle's anxious
desire for me to leave the army, and join him in Australia,
and I feel so myself."

BANQUET TO M. ROUHER.—An invitation was last
week, addressed by 157 members of both sides of the House
of Commons to M. Rouher, the French Minister of Com-
merce, then on a visit to London, to a banquet in honour
of his eminent services to the cause of Free Trade. On
receipt of this invitation M. Rouher returned to Paris, and,
with the full approbation of the Emperor of the French,
has now formally accepted it. The entertainment will
take place at Willis's Rooms, on the 16th instant, Mr.
Milner Gibson, as. President of the Board of Trade, presid-
ing. Places have been reserved on this interesting occasion
for the Presidents of the various Chambers of Commerce of
the United Kingdom.
A wooded country is almost invariably a wet
country. The climate of Italy has been much improved by
cutting down many of the Appenine woods; mid Germany,
owing to the clearing away of its dense forests, has obtained
a similar blessing. Most likely this change has passed over
our own country; many parts of it in ancient times w..re
covered with forests, of which prehistoric traces may
be often seen in quarries, and historic remains are occa-
sionally disclosed at a very low tide, or when a Log is
being drained. Of late years the Brazilian Government
deemed it necessary to forbid any more wood to be cut on
the Organ moutAins, for it was found that the rainfall of
Rio Janeiro, which lies at their base, was therPli,y bein
inconveniently lcwered.—Once a Wok.

PRINCESS'S THEATRE.

REVIVAL OF " HENRY THE EIGHTH."

There are not ii few people who maintain that
the modern sensation drama, which made its ap-
pearance in this country some 40 yecra ago, and
which has so reeentiy and generaly been surfeiting
) our visions, if not outraging our tastes, reached its
climax at the Princess's Theatre at the hands of
Mr. Kean. In that great system of " revivals"
which made his management so famous, and
which selected Shakespeare as their subject,
on the groand of giving the greatest dra-
matic productions the greatest amount of illustra-
tion, they detect the sensuous principle carried
out to its extreme audacity, in its most unscrupu-
lous subjection of the highest mind to the merest
show. Mr. Kean, according to their view, was
the most intense dramatic materialist, who, believ-
ing in form instead of spirit, erected means into
the place of ends, and enthroned the
senses in that of the soul. He was a
sort of theatrical "Julian," who carried
the public back from the true faith,
the ennobling worship of the ideal—to the
old and worn-out paganism of spectacle and move-
meat. There is some excess in this opinion, but there
is also some little truth in it. In such revivals as
" The Tempest," the" Midsummer Night's Dream,"
and more especially "The Winter's Tale," we cer •
tainly think that Mr. Kean was justly obnoxious to
these charges. 11, hen under the plea of illustrating
the Poet, the latter was most unscrupulously muti-
lated—whole scenes being cut out in order to intro-
dues) " effete—such as the astronomical phe-
nomena, thrust into the " Winter's Tale," which is
would be as difficult to find in the play, as in the
entire history of the drama, down to the date of
their production, but one conclusion can be come to
—that the entire aim of such a revival was, in the
strictest sense, sensational. A great offence was
committed, in order to create a great excitement.
Shakespeare—who, of all writers, if only faithfully
interpreted, tends to purify the taste by his higher
impulse of the sympathies—was actually converted
in to a stimulant of the verycraving he would restrain.
He was made the vehicle for promoting a state of
mind he is the most opposed to. Thus the double
offence was committed not only of pandering to the
lowest taste in mere spectacular display, but of
degrading to that purpose the highest and purest
instrumentality. Oa the other hand it is just as
true, that in his King John, his King Lear, and,
with some small exceptions, his Merchant of
Venice, Mr. Kean was entitled to the praise of
faithfully interpreting the poet, and rendering
him the entire homage which, in other instances,
had been denied. Here, true to his professed ob-
ject of simply illustrating the text, he was as honest
as he was reverent—subjecting means to ends—
placing the humanity in the foreground and its ac-
cessories in the back. Among the plays belonging
to this category we must include " Henry the
Eighth," with the one exception, however, of the
embodiment of Katherine's dream, which, however
beautiful, must be regarded as a mere sensation
incident. There can be little doubt that this is a
play well entitled to this homage. With the sole
exception of " King John," it is the most dramatic
of the historical plays, whilst it has tie characteristic
of being also the most impressive and effecting.
Where else has Shakespeare so painted the great
moral of authority, the cares and dangers of domi-
nion, the gilded miseries of courts, the coroding
jealousies of rank, the fatal penalties of ambition ?
Sorrow and trial are here depicted as almost the
heritage of kings and nobles. The higher the rank
the sharper the pang, is the greater depth of Its
deceptions. If its royalty has not the cruelty or
craftiness of John's, scarcely less instructive is the
picture of its arrogant and unbridled selfishness
which consecrates sensuality by an abuse of the
holiest rites. Scarcely less affecting than the story
of either Margaret or Constance is that of the noble
Katherine, who, in the possession of all virtues, is
thrust away, in open shame, to die meekly of a
broken heart ; and descending lower, what is there
to parallel the courtier fate of Wolsey. So high,
aspiring, and so crushed—who points the moral of
all ambition in those memorable parting
words, which compose alike for priest
and layman the grandest warning upon record,
save by mind.s that were inspired. We think, there-
fore that Mr. Harris was well warranted in reliev-
ing the usual flow of Mr. Kean's performances,
which have been till now of the romaniic drama,
by this Shakesperian revival, seeing that whilst it
contains so much that must attract our London
sight seers, it presents also so much in substance as
well as exposition that must commend it to all
playgoers. As the revival is a fac simile of its
production by Mr. Kean some seven or eight years
ago, we can have no occasion to dilate on the truth
or beauty of its details, but may content ourselves
with saying that they present every attraction
which was felt on their first presentment—from the
stinking reality of the trial and banquet scenes
to the picturesqueness of the descending angels.
It is only necessary to say that the play, for the
convenience of our country cousins, is made to con-
, chide at the fourth act. We turn therefore to the
aetingi which we eau praise without reserve. Mr,
Kean's Wolsey is a much superior effort to its first
presentment. It had then a physical vigour
and a tettlessness which were as much at variance
with its historical en they were opposed to its poetic
truths it wanted relief and it wanted earnestness.
All these defentg have disappeared, It is now
a very deep and a very genuine performance,
Which impresses as much by its dignity as it moves
by its pathos. It is a conception s hich marks with
singular skill the expiring struggle in the states-
breasts in whioh ambition and compunction
strive to the last motetit for mastery, and
doss not fail by many natural batches, to
eaeite the sympathies of the spectator, whilst in
its broad otitline it presents much to act en the
imagination. Mrs. Resn's Katherine is also a per-
formance of the greatest merit. It le (me of those
assumptions into which she has gradually ma:
tura' with such perfection that we should vainly
seek for any rival to it, whether in perception or
in bearing. All the heroic spirit of the princess,
which the poet has so wonderfully mingled
with the loving soul of the woman, Mrs.
Kean presents in all their: vividness and with
a naturalness which evidences her rare amount of
art. Tho Buckingham of Mr. Jordan was also
very commendable, the great speech to the
people being very feelingly delivered. The house,
we need not say, was crowded to the roof by this
revival, and the applause was loud throughout, Mr.
and Mrs. Kean receiving their usual and well de-
served demonstrations.

THE JAMAICA COTTON.—The cotton now being
spun by Messrs. Dobson and Barlow, in the Western Annex,
International Exhibition, was grown by the Jamaica Cotton
Company, at Manchioneal, Jamaica. The seed of some of
it was planted in the fall of last year, and picked from the
trees in April and May of this year. The finest kind is from
the green seed, common in the island ; the other from
Egyptian seed, sent from this country. Ono has been valued
at Liverpool, on the 4th inst., by Messrs. Stead Brothers,
at 2s. 3d. to 2s. 6d. per lb., and the other at ls. 6d. per lb.
The trees from which it is picked will, as they progress,
give more and stronger cotton. They are perennial, and
after the first planting will be attended with much less ex-
pense for cultivation than at first. Trees are now in bear-
ing in the island which were planted 40 years ago. The
cost of labour is at the least from 30 to 50 per cent. less
than that of slave labour in Cnba, New Or.eans, or Porto
Rico; and though there may, in a few districts of Jamaica,
be a scarcity of labourers fit for the hard work of the cane
field, in many parts of the island the women and children,
who are well suited for cotton picking, hctvo literally no-
thing to do, and consider the employment furnished by the
company quite a providence. It being so, and millions of
acres of the finest cotton land lying waste in Jamaica whilst
our manufacturers are in a state of most distressing desti-
tution for want of cotton, there seems no reason why a
vigorous and united effort should not now be made to supply
the need of our manufacturers froth our own colonies, and
thus to assist the West Indian landed proprietors, by giving
a value to their land, as well as the emancipated peasantry,
by affording a demand for their labour.
The Archaeological Institute of Great Britain
and Ireland hold their
,annual meeting this year at Wor-
cester, commencing on Tuesday, the 22d inst. The details
of the programme are not yet defined, but it is under-
stood they willrembrace visits to the various archaaological.
remains in the neighbourhood, with meetings, a temporary
museum, and other 11e0s of furthering the objects of the
society.