The Sun.
London, England, 1862-10-09 00:00:00

TIIE SUN, LONDON, I'HURSDAY EVBNING,_ 001'0131ER 9, 1862.

least of no advantage to England that it should be
—when they hear the warm friend of negro eman-
cipation expecting it rather from the divided than
the United States—when they learn that the Govern-
ment neutrality has been sincerely carried out, and
that its effects have been much more favourable to
the North than to the South—when they read
his excuses even for Northern angry feelings
towards England, and his exhortations to us
scribes of the press to abstain from all irritating
language in return when they look at all this
they must feel that he only expresses a cool and
friendly judgment when he says, " We may have
our opinion about slavery; we may be for or against
the South ; but there is no doubt that JEFFERSON
DAVIS and other leaders of .the South have made an
army ; they are making, it appears, a navy; and they
have made, what is more than either—they have
made a nation." Mr.GLADSTONE regards the contest
therefore, henceforth, as " not doubtful." What-
ever, therefore, it may be prudent for Mr. GLAD-
STONE and the Government to do, so far as the
opinion of the leading English Minister are known,
they pretty clearly recognise the nationality of the
South.

We entirely agree with Mr. GLADSTONE, as of
course all Englishmen will do, on our policy of
neutrality—and, while we acknowledge that re-
cognition of the South might hasten the termina-
tion of the war, we can hardly think the South are
disposed yet to accept it on the only terms on
which we ought to offer it. If they conquer for
themselves the power to enslave the whole
of North America, from the Isthmus of Pa-
nama to the Potomac and the Ohio, which
is their real object, if they place themselves,
even in a position, as the majority in the South-
wish, to reopen the African slave trade, we of course
shall be unable to deny accomplished facts. But,
till we see the South shut up to its original Slave
States, and deprived of the power of extending
slavery over free soil, England ought to take no
step spontaneously. Both our national honour and
our national feeling, forbid any such recognition as
facilitates the spread of slavery, and the renewal of
the slave trade.

Yesterday brought to a happy close the proceed-
ings of the British Association for the Advance-
ment of Science in 1862, down at Cambridge. Other
assemblages of this body elsewhere may, in pre-
ceding years, have been more important in their
results, but there is not one of them that can be
pronounced to have proved, in all essential respects,
more successful. There has not been visible, in
any one of the sections, a single hitch throughout.
Much of this smooth working, doubtless, is attri-
butable to the excellence of the general organisa-
tion acquired by annual practice_ A great deai of
it is owing to the earnest and cordial co-
operation of the local authorities, in furthering the
designs and in facilitating the arrangements of
the Association. It is from a vivid recognition of
this latter fact that the President's closing speech,
every successive year, may be pronounced, for the
most part, to be purely complimentary. Gathered
together as the promoters and members and
amateur visitors of the Association were,
in this present year of grace, as already upon
two previous occasions, at that ancient seat of
learning, the University of Cambridge—Professor
WILLIS, in his closing speech yesterday, had reason
to distribute his acknowledgments more widely
than there would have been any opportunity for,
had the meeting taken place at some merely fashion-
able or manufacturing town, such, let us say, as
Leamington or Manchester. Thanks in effect had
to be accorded not merely to a local Committee and
the localCorporation,but, as was happily inevitable
under the circumstances, to all kinds of learned
bodies making up together the glory of the Uni-
versity of Cambridge. College after College—
Trinity Hall, Sidney, Sussex, Caius, Clare, King's,
Greville—had to receive the hearty and unaffected
thanks of the Association. From the Master of
each to the Cook—not an official was forgotten by
the President.

" The feast of reason and the flow of soul!"

vied for grateful recollection among the participants
with what some wag—was it Tom HOOD or Tors
INGOLDSBY ?—caked

" The feast of turtle and the flow of punch I"
Even the gentleman who had sent microscopes and
various other apparatus for exhibition received an
acknowledgment of their thoughtful courtesy.
Various railway companies came in for the like
amiable marks of recognition—the Great Eastern,
the Great Northern, and the London and North-
Western. Not that the directors of these com-
panies had done more towards to the advancement
of the interests of the Association than afford cer-
tain facilities for the travelling to and fro of mem-
bers, and for the more convenient issue of return
tickets. Public characters, celebrated statesman,
famous authors, renowned artists, orators, and
philosophers can travel free of all cost upon the
public railways in one or two other countries. But
magnificent recognitions of public service like this
are not in our way. We manage things here—in this
mercantile community—very differently. L. S. D.
is a symbol so potent everywhere in England,
Ireland, Scotland, and Berwick-upon-Tweed, that
it is capable of sobering the most ardent enthu-
siasm—even when the acclamations that enthusi-
asm awakens are at their loudest. L. S. D. being,
in point of fact, to the modern Briton, what
S.P.Q.R. was, of yore, to the ancient Roman I
Awful initials—all powerful—all conquering : in-

scribed upon our every banner—subduing all things
to themselves ! And so, it is purely as a matter of '
course, and without a qualm of regret, that we note
the restriction of the invitations vouchsafed in the
last instance here mentioned, to the facilities of
transit Up and Down, and the freer issue of return I
tickets. The thought of anything more than that 1
being ever dreamt of, never once passing through
any one's imagination. For what he and his fel-
low-labourers in the recent doings of the Associa-
tion have received, the President is, and acknow-
ledges himself to be, truly thankful. To colleges,
for the loan of their halls and lecture-rooms, and
for the
giftu
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ott hchf
aapthcrocceuhorrii
Universitytdne accorded
Council,st
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ehaGeyu osittingsi
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oaee theivilurnesuoeatelimosoilueeulent and refreshing out-
Association to the Schools, to the Senate, and
especially to the Library, that noble hall of letters,
over the porch of which might be inscribed the
three magical appropriate words, declaring that
there—vivunt vivere &gni ! There where, (strange
is it to remember this is ah age when the light-
ning is man's messenger, and the steam-engine
is his fiery dragon, and the sunbeam is his por-
trait painter)—there, in that noble library at
Cambridge, where still stands upon a pedestal
1 in the year of the Redemption, 1862, that antique
statue of the goddessCEßES, at the foot of which
the votaries of Paganism were wont to celebrate
with so much pomp and ceremony the ancient mys-
teries of Eleusis. Gathered together during these
last few days near that marble effigy of one of the
long reverenced Powers (as they were for centuries
believed to be, one of the Dii Majores of a Dead
Religion.--were the Christian Philosophers of the

nineteenth century since the date of the Cruci-
fixion. The simple reflection that it was near
that very statue of CERES that the assembling
together this year of the members of the British
Association took place, realises to us perhaps as
vividly as anything could, what reasons we, the true
Ancients of the earth (as some philosophic thinker
has wisely remarked) have for gratitude to Heaven

—as those to whose enjoyment and consolation have
been confided, in their very plenitude, the benefits
of Civilisation and the blessings of Christianity.

Nothing could possibly be in better taste or
more admirably to the purpose than Earl Rus-
SELL'S reply to the Italians, the nine Milanese
gentlemen; who, assuming to themselves the respon-
sibility of being the interpreters of the feelings of
their fellow-countrymen, have presented to the
noble Earl, her Britannic MAJESTY'S Foreign
Secretary, a symbolical statue sculptured in
Carrara Marble by an Italian artist, one—CARLo
ROMANO ! Than the Foreign Secretary's reply
nothing, we repeat, could by possibility be more
graceful in every syllable. Lord RUSSELL does not
arrogate to himself, or to his colleagues, one
iota of merit in reference to their Italian sym-
pathies, and, if it can be dignified with the term,
what might also be called their Italian policy.
That policy—so far as it has gone—has bat one
single claim to anything like approbation from the
Italians themselves, the priceless merit, however,
under the circumstance, of being absolutely passive
and silent, a policy of avowed Non-Intervention.
After freeing Lombardy by the sweep of his sword,

the French EMPEROR was the first to proclaim for'
Italy, at the close of the campaign of Magenta and
Soiferino, the Policy of Non-Intervention. Eng-
land, cordially adopting that principle of Non-In-
tervention, has carried.it out, let us say, just a trifle
more literally, perhaps, than the author of the
Treaty of Villafranca. England has, at any
rate, not maintained on Italian soil one
single regiment of her soldiers, to say no-
thing of an entire division. England has neither ac-
tually nor virtually " forbidden the banns" between
the North and South of the Peninsula. Non-inter-
vention, so far as the military and naval and diplo-
matic forces of the Government have been concerned,
has presided over the Councils of that Government,
in regard to Italy, as a living and acting principle.
The British Government has allowed Italy to ac-
complish for herself the great task of her emenci•
pation ; and to strive to realise this inestimable
boon of political independence through the simple
device, if she can but grasp it, of Unification. As
O'CONNELL dinned into the ears of his compatriots so
often (meaning nothing all the while)—" Who would
be free, themselves must strike the blow !"
Acting in Italy's regard, literally upon this
principle of Non-intervention, Lori RUSSELL in
his admirable letter to the Italians (given else-
where in our impression of this evening, with the

rest of the Correspondence relating to the presenta
tion to him of the above-mentioned Testimonial

observes most becomingly, " The only merit
I can claim, in conjunction with my col-
leagues in the Government, is that of having
expressed openly, constantly, and successfuily, the
opinion that Italy should not be interfered with
in the great task which, to the immortal glory of
her sons, she undertook." And the noble lord
frankly adds, with a spontaneous recognition on
his part, as Foreign Secretary for England, of one
undoubted good service done to Italy by the French
Emperor (in direct violation, it ought to be remem-
bered, too, of the now vaunted system of Non-Inter-
vention)—" It has been her (that is Italy's) good
fortune that in the commencement of this work she
was aided by the powerful armies of the Emperor of
the FRENCH. Her own fortitude, her own mode-
ration, and her own patience have been conducive
to her further progress, and her constancy will, I
trust, complete the edifice of which the genius of
her people laid the broad foundations." That is, in
truth and in brief, the gist of this last letter from
the hand of Earl RUSSELL. It is a timely missive
addressed to the Italians by the Foreign Secretary
of England, at a moment not the least opportune
that could have been selected : a missive containing
within it words of generous reminder and of manly
encouragement.

It would be very unwise for Mr. CowrEß, or any
of the Park authorities, to resort to extreme mea-
sures on account of the misbehaviour of a knot of
ignorant priest-ridden Irishmen. If these fellows
are so blinded by a fanaticism, which we confess
leads their betters to play the fool, also, in higher
assemblies, that is no reason why the sane common-
sense working-men of London should be denied one
of the most useful and justly-prized privileges of
Englishmen—perfect freedom of meeting and of
speech. Let the Irish, indeed, who do not know
the use of freedom, be prevented from abusing it
to the annoyance of others. Let Cardinal WISE-
MAN teach his clients that the English do not use,
and will not tolerate the shillelagh argument; that
kings and governors here have given up physical
force against heretics, and will certainly not allow
a mob to retain it—but there let interference stop.
His "Eminence," we mean of the "Red Hat,"
not of the " Redan," may inform his semi-
civilised bands, that they are quite at liberty
to select another part of the park, and extol the
POPE and ANTONELLI to their hearts' content, but
that they must keep their meeting to themselves,
and let the friends of liberty for all—for Italian
Catholics as well as for Irish Catholics—have their
meeting in peace, in the place selected for them.
We must frankly confess that we are exceedingly
jealous of any interference with these, generally ex-
temporised meetings of the people. We like them.
We are confident that they are real advantage to
them. We have gone up to many of the parties at
different times, when some orator has been address-
ing them, and we can assure our readers that the
Park congregations of Sunday may almost be
taken as a test of the quality of the orator. If you
see a gathering unusually large, it is almost certain
you will find the speaker a man of more than ordi-
nary ability. Uneducated enough in all probability;
but, with endowments of wit, fancy, humour,
enthusiasm, homely logic, or some quality which
assures you that, trained in a higher circle, he would
have been much better listened to in the House of
Commons, than great numbers who Alia both the
House and the reporters. The thousands who throng
the Parks may be safely entrusted with the charge
of the orators who address them. It is the speaker,
far more than the subject who attracts them ; and
quite as much as the rest of us, they will desert the
prosy drone for the man who fixes attention.
But are we then to have the park filled with the
advocates of all the crotchets and " isms" of the
day ? Shall anarchy be preached, and blasphemy
be rampant without check ? We are not prepared
to volunteer as the high priests of either anarchy or
blasphemy, but as to all the crotchets and the
" isms," the more of them the merrier, we should
say. Let all be protected, while they spout away
or congregate, peaceably ; indeed we hold it to be a
positive advantage that the people should hear all
the notions that any are disposed to discuss in their
presence, and form their judgment upon them.
Even such exercises of,their minds, much as we
may deride mob oratory, are -better than mental
'stagnation. Anything is preferable to sleep, and

if the speaker has brains to get an audience, by
all means let him h tve it. They will go home
talking about something beyond their tools and
their daily labour. We hold that these extempo-
rised inartificial meetings are a useful part cf
popular education. If we could, we would increase
their number rather than check them.

As to the blasphemy, infidelity, and sedition,
there is really little of it. Of the last we never
heard any, of the infidelity not much; and on one
occasion, when a sceptical orator was flourishing
away his stock difficulties to a small knot of young
men, a very homely looking fustian jacket came
up, and in our hearing coolly asked the hearer
some such posing questions on his own creed as
would have done credit to anydebater, and very soon
turned the laugh against him. We really did think

—classical readers must excuse us—of SOCRATES and
the Sophists. So far as we have observed, the
audiences do not relish blasphemy. They are
shrewd enough to enjoy a popular, yet acute argu-
ment leading to a conclusion which the Convocation
who condemned the Essays and Reviews would,
doubtless, say conducted to blasphemy. But con-
structive blasphemy, like constructive treason, won't
do. We rather think that any orator who reviled
the Deity or the Saviour would be soon quitted,
though if he exhibited cleverly the contradictions,
real or apparent, of the Athanasian Creed, as we have
heard done, the hearers would be interested. To
differ from a forged creed, however, or even from
the worthy ST. A THANASIUS himself, is not exactly
blasphemy. If so, we fear many Churchmen, well
reputed of, are guilty of the crime.
As to sedition and anarchy, we were almost going
to say we should be glad of a specimen of it. We
are got so wonderfully quiet, politically, now, that
we seem as if our political pulse were almost gone.
There is no disposition amongst the populace now
to press even for their rights. A lecturer for uni-
versal suffrage would have no doubt the sympathy of
his audience, but the topic would not get him hearers
if his abilities did not. "Every man a voter" is very
good doctrine, no doubt, but every man a shilling
or two more a week would be a much more popular
topic. In any case Mr. COWPER would be wise not
to be a Hyde-park SIDMOUTH, and not to attempt
in any backhanded way to restore, autocratically,
Six Acts legislation.
Deal summarily and decidedly with all club-
men, headbreakera, molesters of quiet health-
seekers, and even with gratuitous disturbers of
those who wish to listen to any of the Park orators;
but be cautious of intermeddling with one of the
most harmless and often one of the most beneficial
of English recreations—that of listening to a public
speaker. Repress physical violence at once—no
man, woman, or child ought to be in danger in the
Parks ; but meet error by truth, and folly by wis-
dom, if the error and the folly are worthy of no-
tice. Let our Park-going class learn like all the
rest of us by free discussion. Let them have this
practical training to meet in crowds, as they gene-
rally do, without disturbance ; let foreigners still
admire that strong common sense which makes
even uneducated Englishmen respecters of the law,
and if Irish Popery will send its scum to England,
let it be taught that it shall know and keep its

place, and net achieve the Papal triumph of silenc-
ing English freedom of speech in the working
classes more than amongst honourable members—
in the Parks more than in the House of Commons.
Let Mr. COWPER act as a Sergeant-at-Arms in the
Park, not as a Col. PRIDE.