The Sun.
London, England, 1862-04-10 00:00:00

SOCIETY OF ARTS.

At the meeting of this society last evening, Lord
Taunton in the chair, the paper read was " On the
Decoation of the International Exhibition Build-
ing," by Mr. 8, Gregory Crace.
The AUTHOR, after giving a brief description of
the building, explained that he had very little time
for coming to a decision as to the style of decoration
he should adopt. After careful consideration he
decided that the general tone of the roof must be
light, and that the best colour would be a warm
grey ; that the arched principals must be made to
stand cut clear from the roof; that they must look
well in a perspective of 800 feet ; and that they
must not look heavy or confused as they appnached
one another in the distance. No single colour would
do, and the form of the principals precluded the use
of a continuous repeat ornament. He, therefore,
decided on following the form of the construction,
and adopted panellings of blue and red alternately,
relieved by coloured lines, intersected at the joints
by circles of black, on which should be gold stars,
and from these should spring ornaments in vel-
lum colour, with green in the filling. Following
out this arrangement he had a pattern painted
on paper of .the full size of one of the principals,
and it was fixed in its place within a week from
the time of his appointment as decorator. Until
the principals were coloured, it seemed to him that
the thicknesses were lost; he wished to make the
construction evident, and he therefore coloured the
two outer edges in chequers of black and vellum
colour and the centre arch full red. As to the brac-
ings above the polygonal arches he coloured them a
wood colour, with red or blue coloured lines on the
face, and the under thicknesses red. The author
described in similar detail the various parts of the ;
decoration, giving the reasons why he had adopted
the particular colours and designs. He then ex-
plained the mode in which his ideas had been car-
ried out, so as to ensure the completion of the work
within the very short time at his disposal.
A discussion ensued, in which Messrs. A. J.
Beresford Hope, M.P., G. Wallis, P. Palmer, Rim-
mel, Graham, Dillon, Waterhouse Hawkins, and
others took part.

"MILES," "LILY," AND "FATHER TOM."

Filmer and John Locke and Algernon Sidney
may argue the matter out in their quartos, but the
real way of examining the question of patriarchal
government is in the Assize Courts or at the Old
Bailie Sessions. When we meet with a " horrid
example" of misrule fairly open to public comment,
it is only common kindness to distressed maidens
and pining schoolboys to point the moral against
the respectable parents who do their heartbreaking
within limits which juries and journalists cannot
reach. Well, then, look at that Mr. Geo. England,
who appeared in the Central Criminal Court on
Monday last to prosecute his son-in-law for having
married his daughter without his consent. Here
is the cruel parent par excellence. Mr. Eng-
land had a daughter—none but Mr. Fairlie, the
defendant, can tell how charming and how fond.
Fairlie was struck and vanquished. The course
of true love in its billowy flow began. Her father
loved Fairlie, and oft invited him. They acted
little fond parts together. They called each other
by little fond names, taken from Adelphi melo-
dramas. The father was called " Father Torn," the
daughter was " Lily" and the lover was "Miles."
It is very humiliating to confess that, from an inca-
pacity to sit out that sort of stuff, we cannot exactly
gauge the degree of tenderness these name simply,
but we infer that Father Tom's duty was at a
certain specified moment to say, " Bless you,
my children." Mr. England then, up to this
moment, played the part of Paterfamilias in his
most amiable mood. All his early cruelty con-
sisted in fixing a delay of two years to the happi-
ness of the lovers. One day, however, impatience
got the better of dutiful observance, and " Miles"
and " Lily" ran off and got married. Ladies, they
lived like turtle doves. Gentlemen, they never
asked the father-in-law for a penny. They tra-
velled in Spain, they returned to England. They
were never, we believe, repentant ; but, what was
in itself an instance of great filial respect, they
never asked Father Tom for his daughter's jewellery.
"Lily" had got no money, and " Miles ' did not
ask for any. Whether they had any children we
do not know, but that they lived happy for ever
after we are sure was not the case ; for no
sooner did this loving pair come back within the
pale of English law than Old England, nurturing
his old grudge and still resenting the elopement,
indicted his son-in-law "Miles" at the Old Bailey
and sought to have him subjected to an infamous
punishment Cruel father! even if you yourself had
been a model of chastity and domestic decorum,
still cruel, unnatural, and vißdictive.
But here come the fact and the denouement which
point the moral, and enable us to remind all cruel
papas that when they are judging harshly the acts
of young people, they ought to think back a little,
and test present circumstances by younger feelings.
When Old England was pressing for this infamous
punishment against the husband of "Lily," his
daughter, he had to submit to some questioning
on his own account. It then turned out that
old England himself had been a shocking
young man. He had run away with " Lily's"
mother even while his own wife was still alive,
and, worse than this, "Lily " herself had been born
while Old England and "Lily's" mother were still
unmarried. Now, as the English law, with a sense
and truth all its own, declares that a child not
born in wedlock is nobody's child, it became
clear that "Lily" was not Old England's child,
that old England had no right to any consent
or dissent in the matter of the marriage, and
that there was no ground whatever for the prose-
cution. Portia herself could not have brought
this denouement out more dramatically than did
Mr. Sergeant Ballantine. And so the audience,
very irregularly, applauded, " Miles" and "Lily"
rushed into each other's arms, .the Common.
Sergeant was visibly affected, and one of the legal
gentlemen who much frequent the precincts of that
court was heard to whisper into " Miles's" ear that
he had an excellent action for malicious prosecu-
tion. If this is not a warning to cruel fathers,
where shall we find one If this is not a plot for
a novelist, where will Mr. Wilkie Collins go to get
one ? If this is not an argument against suffering
the passion of anger or revenge to enter the patri-
arehial breast, perhaps Sir IL Filmer will present
us with a better ? We would not, however, by any
means recommend young ladies and young gentle-
men to rely upon this precedent, and to go and get
married instead of quietly walking up and down
tho Crystal Palace. For, be it remembered by them,
that this prosecution only failed because " Lily's"
wicked papa was not her mamma's husband, and
that if the cruel papa had been as spotless as he was
stern, " Miles" would have been put in prison, and
would have had to work out his marital happiness
on the tread wheel, while *Lily" would have been
left in cheerless solitude to weep out the many
morals of this dramatic tale.—Times.