The Sun.
London, England, 1862-09-26 00:00:00

THE SUN.
LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPT. 26, 1862.

Did our readers last night notice the Imperial
Riddle, presented them by his MAJESTY of Paris—
and, we were going to say, of Rome—through the
Moniteur I It came to us rather late. We did
not understand it before we went to press. We do
not understand it now. When we say so, we, of
course, mean that we cannot make separate sen-

tences intelligible, or the several sentences square
with each other. But as to understanding its
object•—there can be no difficulty in that. To the
serious practical question—will you leave the Romans
to the exercise of their just rights, and cease to im-
pose a master on them—the guilty despot is ashamed
to say " no;" but he is determined not to say
"yes." We wonder he is so nice about it. Why not
say "yes," and go on telling a lie ? The man who
cared not a straw for the most solemn legal oaths,
and spontaneous oaths, and the obligations of guest-
ship, and the pledged right hand, prior to the 2d of
December, and who made nothing of certain nega-
tive assertions about Nice and Savoy prior to his
seizure of them—why should he mince matters—
why not say, " I will leave Rome before Christmas,'
and then keep his soldiers there till he died, and
all the suppressed ability of France united to hand
his little boy out of the Empire ? It would be but
the addition of one more deception to the list.
What is the use of this Imperial riddle setting ? It
can deceive no one. Why not say boldly—" In 1849
I bagged Rome, and put the POPE into it, and no laws
against international night-poaching shall make me
give up my spoil." It would be at least merely
Imperial to say, " I am a political highwayman,
and I mean to keep what I have got."
Instead of that what have we ? Why, first a
letter from his MAJESTY to M. THOUVENEL—on a
"reconciliation between the Holy See and Italy."
Which compels one to wish the See were holy
enough to give Italy and the Romans no trouble
about such a secular and profane thing as temporal
power. However, to the first fisherman it was pre- ,
raised that he should be a " fisher of men." The
inheritor of the fisherman's seal may therefore think
that his net should catch men's bodies as well as
their souls ; and that, as his net broke in 1848, it
w" very kind of the French to come and mend it
for 'him.

But the Romans, and all the intelligence and
liberalism of Europe, do not like this everlasting
mending. Indeed, the net after a dozen years French
patching, has become a BONAPARTE not a Papal
net. The poor fisherman, therefore, is actually har-
rassed by the BONAPARTE reminding him that he
is really the net holder, and demanding of him
some little adaptation of his behaviour to this
notorious fact. Outside the net, the Romans see
all their follows of the same name, disporting 4
themselves at liberty, while they in vain try eo
burst the Franco-Papal meshes. They think
this hard. Why should they thus be netted
nP ? What good does it do anyone?
They are told that it is for the good of
the Catholic fish of Italy and all others
countries. They deny this. The Catholics of all
Italy, they truly say, wish them to be as much at
liberty as they are. And as to all the rest of the
Catholics in the world, they can't comprehend what
good on earth it should be to them to keep their
fellow Catholics thus in bondage. They are not
sharks; they will not swallow up " the Fisherman."
Oh dear, no; they only wish to be at large them-
selves, and then they will not even, on any future
day, make a grand unanimous push at his French
"Fisherman," net and all, into the
net, and drag
water.

But to our riddle—if, indeed, it be of any use to
have a try at it. Ist. The POPE iS to lower the
barriers which separate the Pontifical territory
from Italy. What barriers ? For the POPE is to
be "master in his own domain"—" This sway is to
be fr°ol3/ accepted by his subjects"—and "Italy is

The Philosophic Humorist, who by a singular
freak of fortune occupies the courtly post of Cierk
to the Privy Council, has somewhere among
his charming Essays a day &cam thus
articulated :—" I have often fancied," he says,
" that a man might play the part of BRUTUS
in the law. He might simulate madness in

order to ensure freedom. He might make him

self a great lawyer, rise to eminence in his pro.
fession, and then turn round and say, I am not
going to enjoy this high seat and dignity; but
intend henceforward to be an advocate for the
people of this country against the myriad oppres-
sions and vexations of the law. No Chancellorships
or Chief Justiceships for me. I have only pre-
tended to be this slave in order that you should not
say that I am an untried and unpractical man—
that I do not understand your mysteries.'" All
which is, however, as we have already termed it, the
merest day dreaming. And it is a day dream only to
be thought of, even by the meet sanguine and ima-
ginative, in connection with ideal regions like those
sacred to the fancied footsteps of Arcadians and
Utopians. While Mr. HELPS is pleasantly con-
ceiving to himself the possible advent of a wholly
impossible Lord Chief Justice and Lord High Chan-
cellor—bit by bit the anomalies of the law are
being lopped off by the trenchant blows dealt
at them by one after 'another of our great Law Re-
formers. How many of those cruel anomalies have
there not been cleared away, as so much obstructive
rubbish and pernicious lumber, by the bold hand of
the greatest of all living law Reformers, the vener-
able ex-Chancellor Lord BROVGHAM! Beside
him, upon that same removed bench, encouraging
the development and continuance of those whole-
some and beneficent innovations and improvements
are there not those two other NESTORS in the Coun-
cils ofJurisprudence—invested like Lordßßo'crGirAm
himself with the honourable dignity appertaining
to them as ex-Chancellors—Lord LYNDHURST and
Lord ST. LEONARDS ? Conspicuous among the
leading champions of Law Reform in this
later generation, being men as gifted, as
eminent, as pre-eminent, it may be said,
each of them in his own peculiar capacity,
Opposition, and the present learned occupant
as the late Solicitor-General of the political party
now
of the woolsack, a man so profound in the depth and
scope
of h
• legal erudition, that he enjoys the repu-
tation
profession of being the greatest Lawyer
twahtioonhaisn
hh eilsd the seals as Chancellor since the days
of ELDON. And it is.a notable circumstance surely,
last great law reform upon
in its way, that the
Legislature is known to have
which the Imperial Leg
adventured, to the acceptance and the reali-
sation of which the Lords and Commons of Eng-
land have been guided, at the instance successively
of Sir HUGH CAIRNS, in the Commons, and of
Lord WESTBURY, in the Lords.

The Land Transfer Bill, which
was happily
passed through the legislature last session, being
enrolled upon the statute book as a complete enact-
ment, but very shortly before the prorogation of
h
n t e
first place, of
Parliament, may be said to owe its existaneel
i
course, to the exigency of the tunes,
the pear being ripe for this particular Law
Reform
in preference to any other; but in a secondary way
quite as undeniably to the joint labours, to the
frank and earnest ca-operation of the
genius and
skill unmistakably appertaining_,
as law reformers,
to Sir HUGH CAIRNS and Lord WESTBURY. If Sir
H. CAIRNS may be said, of the two, to have led the
way by his earlier scheme of an enactment, Lord
WESTBURY has the honour and good fortune
to have developed his later scheme into an enactment.
The passing of this measure was noticed at the time
as almost the one solitary and consolatory fruit of
an otherwise barren and disappointing session of
the Legislature.. Perfect as a reform, the Act now
upon the eve of coining into actual operation, does
not, of course, even pretend to be. Its principal
merit is that it is, at any rate, a commencement.