The Sun.
London, England, 1862-06-24 00:00:00

THE SUN LONDON', TUESDAY EVENINO, JUNE 24. 1862.

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THE SUN.

LONDON, TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 1862.

It will be seen by our Parliamentary report that
half the battle has been won—the Spithead forts
are to be stopped—blind waste of public money
will be given up till the public has had twelve-
months more to think of it, and we may be pretty
sure it will not then be in the mood to renew the
waste. On the other fortifications the House con-
sents to go into committee, there to discuss them
yet further, and we sincerely hope to stop them too.
Nothing but prepossession,or the shame of acknow-
ledging past errors, can prevent the Premier and
his too obsequious Parliament from retracing their
steps. Great efforts were, indeed, made to prove
that this is a righteous House of Commons, which
needs no repentance, but all in vain. The trans-
parent meaning of such appeals is,—" Don't, in the
eyes of the nation, make such fools of yourselves
as to have followed Lord PALMERSTON, blindfold,
in his fortification folly two years ago, and now to
turn round and adopt a better plan." The
House thus appealed to, however, must
make its choice between two evils ; it

must bear the shame, mingled with credit, of an
early repentance, or it must, a few years hence,
bear the intolerable and unmingled shame of having
wasted eleven millions of the public money on
works which are worse than useless, which will
aid rather than obstruct an enemy, and the most
costly of which would, we believe, have to be level-
led_ with the ground if an enemy were not kept off
by our fleet.

The debate, in full, is longer than any but pro-
fessional readers will probably care to read; but a
glance at a summary of it will show that all the
argument is really on one side—the side which
Sir MORTON PETO so ably maintained in the
pamphlet we noticed the other day, that iron ships,
not forts, are our true defence. Looking only
generally at the question, it is easy to see that the
command of the Channel is our only safety. While
that is secure, Portsmouth and all our shores are
secure. Lose it, and Portsmouth could be reduced
to ashes by an enemy's iron ships without their
coming in the way of the torts at au. LI U
enemy's ships could rass the forts with merely
lie otutilidectMir b~ a sin le shot, or could
leisure. Again, if having lost the command of the
Channel, an enemy were able to land, conceive of
the folly, which can imagine that Ms folly, would be
so great as to land at the foot of Dover cliffs, or
anywhere else where we had fortifications. But,
it is replied, in the case, never to be tolerated, of his
landing, he would go up Portsdown Hill and de-
stroy the dockyard from thence ; and so in direct
opposition to the experienced counsels of General
BURGOYNE, Lord PALMERSTON has miles of works
constructed there, which it would take an army to
defend! Truly did the veteran General remark,
that if an enemy landed we should have other use
for our army ; while he showed that extemporised
works, if need were, would be better than fixed
works, respecting which an enemy would previously
have exact information.

Mr. OSBORNE in his speech disclosed one fact,
which reflects great disgrace in some unknown
quarter. The reader will remember how the Mer-
rimac and Monitor emboldened the House of Com-
mons to demand the delay of the operations at
Spithead; and how, almost immediately, there fol-
lowed some experiments at Shoeburyness with Sir
W. ARMSTRONG'S huge gun and 501 b. charges of
powder, which seemed to upset all that was taught
us by the battle in Hampton Roads. According to
the information supplied to the press, and volun-
teered in the House by Lord PAGET, the shot went
through the Warrior-side target, shattered wood
behind it, and one even passed out through the
granite behind it. On these statements the Premier
actually taunted the House with its un-wisdom in
wishing him to stop building the forts. It will
hardly be believed, but Mr. OSBORNE produced the
evidence before the House, that these accounts were
little better than fiction! Not one shot went
through ! None of them would have endangered
the lives of persons in the ship ! None of them
would have affected the seaworthiness of the ship
On the other hand these tremendous shots were all
made with every advantage. They were fired at
damaged plates; the target was fixed, and was
certainly unable to fire a shot in return ;
It was distant but 200 yards, and yet no ruinous
damage was done. What could be expected against
a newly-plated ship, moving rapidly, dropping her
shots, in passing, at the fort, enveloped in her
smoke, 1,000 yards off, instead of a fifth of that
distance. Why, it is certain that, if hit at all
by this monster gun, which Sir W. ARMSTRONG
himself
Pronounced to be very difficult, no material
damage could be
done to her.
But let the
reader think of the difference in
favcur of a ship. It could, on the cupola plan, as
Sir M. PETO informs us, mount a gun as heavy as
could be used in any fort.
It could not be avoided
or run past by the enemy's ship. It could lay itself
yards
where they off, if
g
s
Polypi on the rocks, must
alongside, instead of popping away
harmlessly,
:thie—ll would cost
certainly no more which, like
guns
con chained to a rock
ita
could
dacse
d itself con sink a
ship,
u
would do it—in short, with shipsitthheseforts o
wait till their prey
would
come to the—we e3uld effectually
prevent tiny
hostile ir3nside from taking hes leisurely shots at
our great arsenal.

The Commissioners in this their second report,
which M. PETO has so mercilessly but justly ex-
posed as in flat contradiction to the evidence, place
their sole reliance on the performances of the
monster gun of Sir W. A Thii gun
-10ISTRON G.
no longer exists. The enormous charges lieve
cracked it, so that it cannot again be relied on Thus
these gentlemen in their haste to report in favour
of their old conclusion, first base their recommen-
dation on experiments which have been, by some
one, deliberately falsified in their favour : next,
these experiments, if correctly reported, would

have applied to but a very limited distance, in-
stead of the wide channel at Portsmouth ; and
lastly, the very gun on which they rely is in the
Artillery Hospital, without the slightest hopes of
recovery—with a crack in it indeed, into which
a knife can be inserted for five inches.!

We are to have, it seems, full opportunity of dis-
cussing those parts of the fortification scheme which
the Government is ashamed to give up. After so
much has been effected we may hope yet more will
be. We have got rid of the Spithead forts, and of
the central arsenal, both adjourned to that " more
convenient season," which divines tell us never
comes, and which we hope will, in this case, not
come in our time. It will need a stronger effort to
escape paying £1,200,000 to spare the pride of Lord
PALMERSTON, not to render the country whit safer.
He and Sir G. LEWIS seem to believe in the formula
enunciated by the latter last night, that " efficiency
means expenditure," and that they are in fact con-
vertible terms, With Mr. OSBORNE the whole
country will protest against such a translation of
the word efficiency. How GARIBALDI would laugh
at it ! How all the abler men, naval and military,
would laugh at it ! Of course that we must spend
what we need, to be efficient, is a miserable truism ;
but our Admiralty, not to mention our army, when
it went fresh to the Crimea, are but too plain
proofs within everyone's recollection that expendi-
ture may be inefficiency. What was Sir JOHN
PABINGTON'S wooden reconstruction of the navy
but expenditure without efficiency? what the pro.
posed Spithead forts, and the fortifications begun,
and proposed to be continued, but expenditure
without efficiency ? And what would Capt. COLE'S
new ships be but a greatly reduced expenditure,
with a greatly increased efficiency ? We hope
before the discussion on the details comes, Sir G.
C. LEWIS will be prepared for another withdrawal,
that Mr. OSBORNE will, as diligently prepare his
speech as if this were not possible, and that if such
should be the lucky result, that the hon. member,
not heeding the taunts of Lord PALMERSTON on
"a speech intended to be delivered," will again
favour us with all he meant to say against a plan
to which Government "intended" to adhere, but
which they gave up through fear of his " intended',
speech.

The Chancellor last night introduced into the
House of Lords a bill by which the Queen's Bench
Prison will have to go the same road already taken
twenty years ago by the two other great receptacles
for Prisoners for Debt—the Fleet and the Marshal-
sea. There is, we presume, not a man in all Lon-
don but will exclaim from his heart, if he have any
opinion at all to express upon the matter—And a
good riddance of it! The Chancellor's bill for this
purpose—introduced and read for a first time pro
forma last evening—must be considered simply in
every way but as an inevitable pendant to the
Bankruptcy Bill of last session. For it will be re-
membered in regard to that enactment, if nothing
else can be remembered upon the instant in regard
to it, that one of the principal objects kept in view
by its framer was the abolition of the punishment
of imprisoning for debt altogether—saving
and excepting only where liabilities could
be proved to have been fraudulently contracted.
With that solitary exception the punishment of
imprisonment for debt is abolished, the act of last
year having come into operation on the Ist of last
October. Upon that noteworthy day set apart by
ZIA, all a.

Goal Delivery, upwards of 300 prisoners for
debt were liberated in batches from durance
2.nd ol.oval cry of thanksgiving
being raised by the motley crowd in streaming
out from the dingy door-ways of the Queen's Bench,
and of the two subordinate prisons situated the one
of them in White Cross-street, and the other in
Horsemonger-lane. Here and there only in the
throng were audible at rare intervals indications of
regret at a change for the better considered evi-
dently in each of these instances, strange to tell, as
a change for the worse ! There was the indefatiga-
ble and inevitable wife of the son of one of the great
tribunes of the people in the last generation—whose
voice was raised at the date of her husband's release
less in the accents of dubious rejoicing than in those
of unmistakeable lamentation ! Almost as it seemed
in the self same spirit as that in which the Poor
Debtor told of by Boz, who returned towards
nightfall on the day of his liberation to
beseech the jaoler's permission to let him
in again—to the grim old building which
had come at length, from old association's
sake, to be looked upon as his life-long home.
A happy quittance, however, was it for the most
of those 324 prisoners for debt, nearly all of whom
had the doors of their gaols flung open for them
on and after the Ist of October, 1861. As
affording an instant intimation of the utter
uselessness of any longer keeping up the old
establishments in the Borough-road, in White -
cross-street, and Horsemonger-lane, it will be
enough to mention that there are left at
this moment but six or seven prisoners in the
Queen's Bench, but two only in Horsemenger-
lane, and but fourteen or fifteen in Whitecross-
street. Such wildernesses of unpicturesque shabbi-
ness and almost squalor, as they must be, to
be sure, ender these altered circumstances ! One
Zimmerman-like tenant, may be, smoking his
pipe in a melancholy oasis of a room in a
whole desert of an otherwise uninhabited corri-
dor. A solitary captive, perhaps, in a thread-
bare shooting-jacket, knocking the last remnant of
a forgotten ball about the wild waste of the empty
racket-ground. Every apparent inducement about
him to a quiet suicide off-hand—if he could but
get up to those tempting spikes upon the top
of the high wall, to hitch the top of his
necktye on to one of the amiable prongs
of that alluring chevatts-de-frieze ! Mr. ItoKEß's
occupation in not a jot less gone now at the
Queen's Bench Prison than it formerly went
at ,the Brick Fleet (not the Stone Fleet), and as
it went pretty much about the same time at
the old Alarshalsea. It has gone, that occupation
of the Turnkey, to all intents and purposes, as com-
plete as OTnELLO'S in the tragedy ! Time enough,
consequently, for the carting away of all that old
rubbish still going by the name of the Queen's
Bench 'Prison.
As the Chancellor reminded Parliament last
evening, it II entirely useless as it stands now. It
occupies a site embracing within its circumference
from two to three acres of ground, the value of
which has been estimated at from £200,000 to
£300,000 altogether. Otherwise, about a plum an
acre ! In these days, when spade is so sorely
wanted in the more crowded parts of the metro -
PoliP, a matter—this—of no trifling consideration.
NO Wonder, therefore, is it that the proposition
ture
now made, through the medium of the Lord
Chancellor's
Bill to get rid of that . used-up struc-
of the
ueen s Bench Prison, is welcomed by
all who hear of it.
Particularly when we learn,
upon further incla ,
lry, that the site will be placed at
our command, forthwith,
to be turned to some
really good account (probably being rendered avail-
able for Thomas's Hospital) ; while the
annual x
£3,000 or £4,600 hitherto
epentdi. expenditure of
required for the maintenance of the Queen's Bench,
as a Dvbtor's Prison, will no longer, of course, be

necessitated. A trifle that, in our yearly expendi-
ture of £70,000,000 ; but still, though a mere trifle,
noticeable as another of our inch by inch steps
in the direction of retrenchment. Not
even one fanciful regret will accompany
the Queen's Bench in its passing away. Our Mas-
ter Novelists have flung a spell of romantic interest
over the mere memories of the Fleet and the Mar-
shalsea. Those familiar with the pages of TOBIAS
SMOLLETT and CHARLES DICKENS will recall to mind
upon the instant with what pleasant recollections
of the old Fleet Prison " Roderick Random" and
the " Pickwick Papers" have stored their ima.
ginations While, as to the old, old, nearly forgot-
ten and utterly obliterated prison of the Marshalsea,
have we not within our more recent remembrance
how the great creative and realistic genius of Mr.
DICKENS called up to view once more
the vanished building of the Marshalsea
within the magic circle of the twenty
numbers of "Little Dorrit," and peopled the old
ghostly room, and staircases, and courtyards, and
corridors of the Marshalsaa with a throng of all but
living and breathing flesh and blood human crea-
tures ! Old DoRRIT, that more senile and stately
MIC4WBER! FRED. DORRIT the musician. Young
DORRIT, "of the Streets Streety." Miss DORRIT,
the shabbily gay, and the , slatternly debonaire.
Little DoRRIT, and all her motley entourage. As
to the Queen's Bench Prison, it has not even any
fancifully agreeable associations like those con-
nected with its name—with its locality. A hundred
years and more have been dragged through since
it was built, and delightful it is to know at length
that the dirty old pile is to be razed to tale ground,
and the vacated site given up to some better and
hnmaner purpose than the punishing by imprison-
ment, not only of Fraud and Extravagance, but too
often also of the Crime of Poverty and the Guilt
of Misfortune.

We just mention, lest it should escape the atten-
tion of those who are interested in the question,
that the resolutions on Church-rates, of which Mr.
SOTHERON ESTCOURT has given notice, stand for
discussion to-night. The hon. member has inverted
their original order, and they now stand as fol-
lows :—" That the law relating to Church-rates
may be beneficially settled by combining in one
measure provisions for each of the following ob-
jects :-1. To enable vestries specially summoned,
and in which owners shall have a vote by proxy,
to transfer from occupiers to owners so much of
their liability as regards the repair of their parish
church and churchyard; and to make such
special rate, if voted by a majority, re-
coverable by the same process as a rate
for repairs of highways. 2. To repeal the existing
legal process for enforcing a compulsory church
rate. 3. To give facilities for collecting a voluntary
rate." Mr. Hodgkinson will move as au amend-
ment, "To leave out all the words after the figure
I,' and to add the following words To autho-
rise the levy of a rate or rent in respect of the
appropriated portion of the seats in churches, but so
that no appropriation of seats in any church shall
be made to a greater extent than now actually
exists.' "

The reason why he changed the order was no
doubt this. As they stood originally, the house
might have voted for what was then the first reso-
lution, which now stands second, and have left him
in the lurch with that which now stands first.
By so doing it would have laid the foundation for a
Ulll vu bite Very "Jl nrnnoscka hr Mr.
BRIGHT and by Lord EMMY—namely, to leave
the Churchmen all their existing machinery for
levying a rate, but to abolish the power of com-
pelling payment. By the first resolution Mr.
ESTCOURT retains all that is essentially odious to
the public in Church Rates, and makes enforce-
ment of the rates easier. Every friend of religious
liberty ought, therefore, to be at his post. His
first resolution must be defeated at all costs. It
will revive Church Rates where they have long
ceased, and lessen the means of opposition where
it is now strong. It Is, in fact, as we understand
it, an insidious attempt, under the guise of some
liberal sounding words, to render Church Rates a
more fixed impost than ever, and that on behalf of
the wealthiest establishment in Christendom.

THE COURT.—His Royal Highness the Prince of
Wales crossed over from Osborne yesterday morning in the
Royal yacht Fairy, Captain G. H. Seymour, C 8,, to meet
her Royal Highness the Princess Hohenlohe, who, with
her suite, arrived by special train from Dover, and em-
barked from the dockyard on board the Fairy, proceeding
to Osborne on a visit to her Majesty. •

THE VICEROY OF EGYPT.—We have the pleasure
to announce that the Mayor (Mr. R. Hutchinson), who is
now in London, has invited the Viceroy of Egypt to visit
Liverpool, and that his Highness has accepted the invita-
tion. The day is not yet fixed.—Liveipool Albion.

THE LONDON RIFLE BRIGADE.—It is expected
that his Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge will in-
spect the London Rifle Brigade on Saturday, July 26.
The National Choral Society will repeat the
" Elijah" on Thursday next at Exeter Hall. The chorus
of the society, numbering 600 voices, will on this occasion
fraternise with the Yorkshire and Lancashire choristers,
who are now in London for the Handel Festival, and alto-
gether a very grand performance is expected. The solo
singers are Miss Eleonora Wilkinson, Madamo Laura
Baxter, Mr. Swift, Mrs. Instersall, of Leeds, and Mr.
Weiss—the whole under the direction of Mr. G. W. Martin,
founder of the society.

HER MAJESTY'S THEATRE.—The resources of this
establishment will be developed to the fullest extent during
the next iew days, when a selection of operas will be pre-
sented, including the ever-popular " Trovatore," "Don
Pasquale," "Roberto II Diavolo," and the "Huguenots,"
supported by Madlles. Tietjens, Marchisio, Trebelli, Louise
Michel, and Signori Giuglini, Armandi, Zucchini, Bettini,
Gassier, and Mr. Santley. "Don Giovanni" will be pre-
sented in the following week with a cast u hich the director
may pronounce unprecedented, for in addition to the com-
bined talents of the above-named great artistes, an engage-
ment has been effected with Miss Louisa Pyne, who will
appear for the ffrst time at her Majesty's Theatre in the
part of Zerlina.
MONDAY POPULAR CONCERTS.—The concer
given last night for the benefit of Herr Ernst was success-
ful beyond anticipation. St. James's .hall was crowded in
every part, and the amountrealised, after all expenses paid,
is stated to be upwards of £3OO. The entertainment itself
was one of [the most attractive imaginable—a genuine
"Monday Popular Concert," and of 'the very best. Of
course, the great feature was the quartet in B flat, for two
violins, viola, and violencello, composed by Herr Ernst, and
performed by MM. Joachim, Laub, Molique, and Fiatti.
As this will, no doubt, be heard again in St. James's-hall,
we must be content at present to say that it is a work of
exquisite fancy, in every movement showing the hand of a
master. The execution was perfect.
ELOPEMENT.—The Greenock Advertiser says :
" A well doing sailor who arrived here a few days ago
from a six months voyage, found to his surprise new tenants
in the house his wife snd family had occupied, and on in-
quiry as to the whereabouts of bis better 'half, discovered
that she had decamped with a German sugar-boiler, who
had lodged in the house. Jack felt easy about the loss of
his wife, but would not be deprived of his children, and
traced the fugitives as far as Leith, where he found his off-
spring.- Be also learned that the pair had been living some
time in Leith, and, getting short of money, were sent by
the German Society to London. The German is a married
man. Jack is perfectly reconciled to his wife's elopement,
and hopes she will not find her way back to Greenock
again."
THE LLWIS AND LCCIIFINE HERRING FISH-
INGS.—The steamship Clydesdale arrived at Greenock on
Friday from Stornoway, with about 1,100 barrels and boxes
on board. This increase in number, as compared with the
last shipment to the Clyde is not due to an improvement
in the fishing, but to the demand for, and augmented price
of, fresh herrings taking the fish out of the hands of the
curers on the spot. A few hundreds of good quality have
been caught during this week in Luchlong and Gareloch,
and some fish have been taken near Inverkip. On Friday
about a dozen boxes of excellent herrings were landed here
from Lochfine. There is no alteration in the retail price.
i(lng
from London by Leopold's
health he
ismaintained improvement.A
i n thephysician
state
sent
o f
Queen Victoria, after passing two days at the palace of
Laeken, left two days ago, perfectly satisfied, it is said, with
his observation*.

LATEST NEWS.

PARIS, JUNE 24.

The Mo2ziteur of to-day says :
" News via Washington to the 9th inst. states
that no information posterior to the attack at
Puebla had been received. We are, therefore,
justified in considering the rumour of the retreat
of the French to Vera Cruz as unfounded."

TURIN, JUNE 23, EVENING.

The Biritto of tc-day published a letter from
Signor Crispi, denying that Garibaldi has resigned
the Presidency of the National Emancipation Asso-
ciation, and stating that domestic affairs have
obliged Garibaldi to delegate him as his representa-
tative.

A Royal decree has been issued closing the Uni-
versity of Pavia.
The Italia asserts that the French are evacuating

Viterbo.

COPENHAGEN, JUNE 24.

The intelligence telegraphed to this capital of the
acceptance by Denmark of all the negro slaves in
America is now reduced to the following propo-

sitior

" Lenmark has offered to convey 3,000 slaves
who have lost their masters, to the sugar plan-
tations in the island of St. Croix, and to employ
them there upon the same terms as the free negroes.'

MADRID, JUNE 23 (Evening).
The Queen of Spain has been safely delivered

of a Princess.

Her Majesty and the Royal infant are doing
well.

The Duke and Duchess of Montpensier have left

For London.
The Cortes will he closed this week.

R EJSSIA.

The St. Petersburg Gazette publishes a letter from
Lord Napier, the English Ambassador at St. Peters-
burg, addressed to the English Consul-General,
under date of the 15th of June,. with a view to
open a subscription among the English residents for
the benefit of the sufferers by the recent conflagra-
tions. A similar step has been taken by the
French Ambassador.
The Police Gazette of Moscow announces that the
timber stores on the Minskaia-square have been
destroyed by fire. Other conflagrations have taken
place in that city.