The Sun.
London, England, 1853-01-18 00:00:00

:LONDON, TUESDAY, JANUARY 18, 1853.

It is with feelings of sincere regret that we see
and hear a strong antagonistical force exerted
against opening the Crystal Palace on a Sunday.
We would fain believe that they who oppose this
dreaded desecration of the " Seventh Day," are
morally in earnest, and mean well, that they ex-
ercise their conscientious sense of Divine duty,
and would save the nation from an extra endorse-
ment on its sentence to perdition ; but in the mild
it)irit of our great Teacher, we would ask the stern
(!enouncers of Sunday holiday making, if
i:ley individually and collectively never in-
fringe the sacred holiness and godly demar-
cation of this day, the sanctity of which is
F..° strenuously insisted on by them ? We would
ask the reverend gentlemen and pious declaimers

who oppose the cause whether they ever join a
'limner party, or become engaged in secular mat-

i;ers, whereat their " seventh-day " conduct will
always bear the strictest investigation ? Do
,hey forego hot joints—let their families walk
:irough the rain to church, and spend the hours
ntirely in " watching and praying ?" We would
sk them if they know what it is to spend six
'lays in close and heavy occupation at the
desk, loom, anvil, or other common drud-
gery, with only this " seventh day" to call their
wn. We would ask the "ladies" who denounce
:lie question as something piously " shocking," if
they are experienced in the unceasing toil, worry,
and privations of artizans' helpmates and whether
--ley remember that Sunday is the only day on
which these helpmates can get Tom or HARRY to
" take them somewhere in the afternoon ?"
Truly as we respect the Sabbath and its insti-
tutions, and sacredly as we hold the principles of
the Christian religion, still we cannot help think-
ing that those who would close the Crys-
tal Palace on the Sabbath are by no means
advancing the sanctity of the first, or
exhibiting the spirit of benevolence incul-
cated by the latter. The " working classes"
must have some mental and physical safety-valves.
Six days of labour, with monotonous application,
and homes of very limited comfort, render oppor-
tunities for healthy and rational freedom of vital
importance to the toiling population of this great
commercial country ; and many whose hearts and
lirains are tolerably well qualified to judge, have
nn opinion that too little attention is paid to these
points of " vulgar" consideration by the high and
mighty of the land. The merchant-citizen can ar-
range a convivial party at Blackwall or Richmond
—the fashionable Countess can order her carriage
for- a drive round the parks—" his Lordship "
can follow the hounds, or take a trip to Paris at
any moment they choose--and even the tradesman
can steal. a holiday now and then without the
day's Pay being missed in his cupboard ; but there
are thousands in this
world-famed city whose only
twelve hours of liberty is on the Sunday. We
)1.-ust not look for perfection in human nature
--least oc an in
the uneducated and poverty-
iressed portions of
our fellow-creatures.
Some source of recreation, some change of
habit and place, they tem
itou.ght to have,.
:aid the question is, whethaelard
eilergy and Legislature to deny thelses uset in
a
the right of visiting such a minci-broaden'ougsands
seum as we shall have at Sydenhana, and yet per-
mit reeking beer-shops and dangerously-seduc
tea-gardens to flourish and increase as the licensed
haunts of these hard-working masses 7 There is
n, strange inconsistency in raising an outcry
against men and women seeking an inno-
cent and enlightening relaxation in such a
place as the Crystal Palace, amid pure air and
green fields, while the lowest public-houses in our
metropolis are open by Government authority for
"
the sale and unlimited supply
of intoxicating
-irinks, and where men may transform themselves
into desperate and disgusting animals, without any
Paraded expostulation against the evil issuing
trona quarters redolent of "purple and fine linen."
possible to be " righteous over much," and
twoe suspect that those who so fervently endeavour
deprive the working classes of a decent and
Yatural rec •
reation
hope for it, _ .on the only day they can
piety. The,,eare in this morbid condition of
parties
'to Bee " the would doubtless rejoice
attending their parisl7order of people "
;rig the Bible to their churcham family'
regularly and read-
Christian-like allowances foYr'tblit we
must make
e
position and feeling contingen: circumstances of
order," and not " draw the IsTriollgthis "lower
itish discipline too tight." Severnii of
Agnenernw-
pulsion in religious legislation only tyenadntdo
form
eithei the reklellious brute, or still more detest,

able cunning hypocrite, and we believe that a
judicious secular privilege on a Sunday afternoon
would produce more practical good to the indivi-
dual and society generally than all the doctrinal
sermons that are fulminated against this privilege.
Bigotry and Intolerance are frightful incubuses
on the back of Religion ; but it is to be hoped
that the strong arms of Reason and Humanity
will thrust them off in this question of social
policy, and open the gates of Health and Know-
ledge on the " seventh day" without fear of eter-
nal condemnation for so doing.

The. "harsh voice and arrogant manner" of
Mr. RIGBY have again become remarkable through
the familiar pages of the Quarterly. The Right
Hon. Gentleman has, in the current number of
that periodical, ingeniously contrived to satisfy an
old grudge against the author of " Coningsby,"
by depreciating the abilities of the ex-Chancellor
of the Exchequer. Latterly, indeed, the energies
of that veteran intellect would appear to be almost
exclusively devoted to the concocting of the sweet
draught, or rather, the bitter dregs of vengeance.
It was in this manner that the reading public was
at once amused and pained to observe that criti-
cism upon the last and, in many respects, most
brilliant addition to our historic literature, in
which criticism so many charges of plagiarism
were ostentatiously advanced against Mr. MAC-
AULAY. Supposing even that the objections made
to the volumes of the Whig historian had been
justified by the circumstance of their being merely
specious—supposing that the cantankerous allu-
sions now made to the financial policy of the Tory
Chancellor of the Exchequer were authorised in
every particular by their accuracy—it would still
remain to be proved that the course pursued by
the reviewer in either instance had been dictated by
prudence, or characterised by even the semblance of
magnanimity. The associate of TAPED—the ac-
quaintance of TADPoLE.—the factotum, or what-
you-will of the.most Honourable the Marquis of
Moraforrx, that Grand Seigneur of the volup-
tuaries and Patrician among the Sybarites—N-Imi°-
LAS RIGBY has ripened, it is true, during many long
years of leisure, into more than respectable scholar-
ship : but, amidst all his learning, it would seem
that he has dipped but slightly into the wisdom
of the greatest of our uninspired philosophers.
Otherwise he must infallibly have encountered
that profound and beautiful thought which nearly
three centuries ago was expressed by FRANCIS
BACON, the Great Lord VERULAM " Cer-
tainly, in taking revenge; a' man is but
even with his enemy ; but in passing it over, he
is superior; for it is a prince's part to pardon."
Pardon, however, NICHOLAS RIGBY cannot com-
prehend to be a luxury. Rather with him the
luxury is to retaliate. Years flit by, while he is
looking eagerly out for an opportunity. At last
—when, with an ordinary man, the offence, how-
ever grievous, might be supposed to be forgot-
ten—the opportunity arrives, and the bone (very
stale by this time) is picked, and the crow
(grown very aged even for a crow) is plucked.
Assuredly—if Dr. JOHNSON loved, as BOSWELL
tells us he did, a good hater—dear to the heart
of the lexicographer would have been the Right
Honourable NICHOLAS RIGBY.
While the Quarterly is thus scattering ashes on
the head of the late Leader of the Government in
the House of Commons, and while the reviewer, in
that very act, is unconsciously heaping coals of
fire upon his own head, by storing up for himself
future reasons for remorse, the Edinburgh is man-
fully avowing its exultation at the downfall of the
DERBY Administration. The tone of the two
leading Quarterlies is, to say the least of it, signi-
ficant. In the remarks of the Whig organ it is
possible to discern a certain degree of consis-
tency, whereas in the diatribes directed against
Mr. DISRAELI by its contemporary, the organ
of Toryism, the inconsistency is something re-
markable. It should have been remembered,
surely, that too much was due to the Right Hon.
Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire on
the part of the whole of the sympathisers with
the late Cabinet, to allow of the open deprecia-
tion of his services without the most glaring cul-
pability of ingratitude. His courage, his tact,
and his really surprising ability, under circum-
stances of very extraordinary embarrassment,
elicited, it will be remembered, the eulogium of
some of the principal members of the popular
branch of the Legislature. Lord JOHN
RUSSELL, as the Leader of the Whigs, com-
plimented the Right Honourable Gentleman
on the great talents he had displayed as Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer. Sir JAMES GRAHAM, as
the leader of the Peelites, spoke in equally encomi-
astic terms of the energy and skill with which his
political antagonist had conducted, during an
anxious session, the business of the country, in
the lower branch of the Imperial Parliament.
Mr. DISRAELI might then, possibly, have antici-
pated something, at least, like courtesy or even
forbearance in whatever allusions might be made
to himself by the old Tory Quarterly. If so, he
counted without his host—he forgot he had writ-
ten " Coningsby." There was the rub. 0 ! these
personal jealousies, leading to such jealous personali-
ties, when will the political atmosphere be clear of
them ? when can the toils of administration be
conducted without necessarily rousing the bile and
acrimony of partizanship against the statesmen
constituting a Government ?
It is amusing to see the overweening confidence
inspired in the Edinburgh, now that the Whigs
are again in office, even though it be under the
patronage of the Peelites. All the Ministerial
difficulties of the age are settled, if we are to bow
to the force of its convictions—and that simply
because England is endowed with the great talents
concentrated in the ABERDEEN Administration.
Would to Heaven we could as readily coincide in
the correctness of the opinion ! Would to Heaven
that we could believe as firmly as the Edinburgh
appears to do in the certainty of the British Em-
pire being henceforth, at. least for a considerable
time to come, blessed with a Cabinet strong
enough, and united enough, and liberal enough, to
fulfil all the long-disappointed hopes of this gene-
ration. The genius of the men we recognise. Their
administrative abilities we appreciate. Their ex-
perience we respect. But hitherto theyhavethought
so very differently upon some of the most vital
questions of Reform, that, seeing them now sud-
denly allied without any sort of explanation, and
associated with each other within the limits of an
abruptly-organised Cabinet, we are com-
pelled to doubt for once the integrity of their
policy, the solidity of their views, and the sin-
cerity of their principles. We remember, for
example, that a little while since and Lord PAL-
MERSTON was expelled from Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S
Cabinet with every token of indignity, and re-
placed by Lord GRANVILLE, with every sign of a
really ignominious estrangement. And yet we
see this same Statesman, hitherto presumed to be
so manfully and chivalrously independent, meekly
swallowing the recollection of so many and such
enormous insults, and calmly sitting down with a
chastened spirit at a Council table presided over
by the:Earl of GRANVILLE, and where the seals of
thePoreign Office are held, only for a time it is true,
hut still held by no other than Lord JOHN RUSSELL !
Seeing this, it is surely only rational on our part
to acknowledge ourselves mistaken, hitherto, in
dreaming, as before indicated, of Lord PALMER-
STON s manful andchivalrous independence. Again,
we remember, of course, as the country cannot
fail to remember, that, in 1846, Lord JOHN Rus-
SELL was opposed to coercive measures for Ireland,
while Sir JAMES GRAHAM was strongly in favour
, •
of them—we remember, too, that, in 1850,
EL Lord
JOHN was the principal originator
of f
siastical Titles Bill, while Sir JAMES was its
principal antagonist-and yet now, in 1853,, r wine
see these two eminent men enrolled together
the same Administration, as though their
opinions
were identical in regard to the light method of
governing Ireland, or as to the wisest course to be
pursued in sustaining the fabric of Protestantism..
Seeing this, we cannot be deemed unreasonable if
we hesitate to place implicit reliance on the vitality
or the staunchness ofcattheirompoliuntical principles,
We We might extend
" damnable itera-
tion." swenesibmleigt
the crotchets, the
tion." apoininrtto
hair-splittings, and the economic subtleties of
the neW CHANCELLOR of the Ex CH.EQIYER. Enough,

however, has been said upon these supposed
antagonisms and latent contradictions in the
ABERDEEN Cabinet—and more than enough. All
we can do now is, to await with nervous solici-
tude the unfolding of its somewhat entangled
and enigmatical policy—while the Edinburgh is
exulting over the rise of the ABERDEEN Adminis-
tration, and the Quarterly is strangely exulting
over the downfall of at least one member of the
late DERBY Administration. It is under these
somewhat confused auspices that the nation is
watching the instalment of a Cabinet with two
Prime Ministers, half-a-dozen Leaders, a hun-
dred projects, a thousand difficulties, and an
indefinite number of principles.

Every now and then individual facts are turn-
ing up in different departments which im-
press our minds far more strongly than statistical
tables or tabulated results. The story goes of the
late Premier, that when in the Ministry before, with
Lord ALTHORP, and when it was deemed necessary
to obtain a coercion bill for Ireland, the latter
undertook to introduce it ; he duly went through,
therefore, a numerical statement of crimes involving
violence, which ought to have been most convincing.
Lord STANLEY, however, perceived that no im-
pression was made upon the House, and no sooner
did his turn come than he banged down the lid
of the red-tape box, and, exclaiming to one near
him " This will never do," began at once a few
such tales of horror as soon carried with him even
the business-like assembly at St. Stephen's. And
Lord STANLEY was right. Figures may give us
some idea of the extent of an evil, but individual
cases alone can make us sensible of its quality.
We were much struck vgth this while noticing two
melancholy examples of the mischiefs of entire
illiteracy which occurred almost together in the
newspaper reports. One of them wears, indeed,
at first sight, the aspect of the ludicrous.

CATHERINE TAYLOR, an Irishwoman, was
charged before Mr. JARDINE, at Bow-street, with
obtaining money from two servant girls, under
pretence of telling their fortunes. The Court was
convulsed with laughter while the girls gave their
evidence. In addition to the usual crossing of the
hands with the money of one of the dupes, the
impostor retires again to consult her " Book of
Knowledge ;" on the second visit she ascertains
the length of the girl's purse—half-a-sovereign and
a shilling—and, of course, the latter is told that
" the more she has, the better for the charm."
After the girl had held the money in her hand for
a minute or two, the fortune-teller took it, and
"appeared" to wrap it up in blue paper, tying it
round three times with a piece of enchanted string,
and pnce more with a piece of hair which the girl
was to pull from the left side of her head with her
right hand ; she was next to put the money in
her bosom for three minutes, then to take it out ;
after which it was placed in a white handkerchief,
and four or five knots having been tied in the
handkerchief, and pulled tight by both, she was
to take off her garter, and tie the handkerchief
round her leg for two hours. While she was tying
it, the impostor told her that she would be
married twice, and meet with many misfortunes.
The other girl's fortune was then told, with
equally ludicrous ceremonies, though of a dif-
ferent kind ; the second girl being promised that
three wishes should all come true. To accom-
plish this, the prisoner had taken away a
bundle of her clothes (a shawl, a shift, a petti-
coat, and an apron) to be charmed and returned.
It is most superfluous to add, that the vagabond
never did return, and that the first girl, after
waiting with religious exactness the appointed two
hours, on taking off the handkerchief, and un-
tying the tightly-drawn knots, found to her dis-
may only a couple of farthings. It is fortunate
for the public safety that the girls were not too
much afraid of the " wise woman" to describe
her, at their mistress's instigation, to the police.
To a question by Mr. JARDINE, both girls replied
that they could neither read nor write. After
laughing unavoidably at the fooleries of the case,
what reflecting mind can resist a melancholy re-
flection on such mental degradation at the present
day and in such a country as ours / We must
feel that something is seriously wrong when our
domestic servants can, after all, be so grossly
ignorant. It will seem as if the community was
answerable for not preventing, what might have
been well-formed minds, from growing up such
helpless mental cripples, the dupes and the en-
couragers of such absurd frauds.

The other case is the reverse of comic, and fur-
nishes, indeed, an awful illustration of what may
be the appalling consequences of gross ignorance.
It is that of the unfortunate EDWARD HURLER,
recently executed for the murder of his wife.
Hero was a man of naturally superior intellect ;
for though when he came to Newgate he was un-
able to read, yet he, quickly learned, with the
Chaplain's help, to read the Bible fluently, and
found it a great source of consolation in his last
hours. How different might his course have been
had he learned to read it in youth i He was, on
the contrary, utterly left to himself by a father
who deserted his wife and lived with another
woman, and by a mother who lived with an-
other man. He followed his own incli-
nations entirely, without, probably, ever
hearing the duty of mastering evil passions
suggested to him ; his Sundays were spent in
utter dissipation, and he never thought of attend-
ing on any religious instruction. Hence, accord-
ing to his own account, he appears to have killed
his wife in a momentary excitement of feelings
which had never been controlled from childhood.
It is impossible to avoid the impression that, in the
case of such a man, a reasonable amount of early
education might have saved two lives, and pre-
vented a fearful crime.

While, then, meditating on one case in which
ignorance was the encouragement to imposture
and fraud, and in another the cause of murder
and a miserable death on the scaffold, the inquiry
will press upon us, is the community doing
what it can, either locally and volun-
tarily, or through its recognised organ, the
Government, to prevent or abate such ignor-
ance as this, with all the frauds and violence so
directly traceable to it ? Are we adequately im-
pressed with the superiority of the school-room and
the lecture-room over the prison and the gallows,
as the preventives 'of crime ? That criminals of
the worst class are not wanting in the most edu-
cated and even refined classes, is obvious enough.
We need not adduce instances, but this only shows
that temptation may be too strong and self-control
too feeble under the most favourable circumstances,
and is, therefore, rightly viewed, only as an argu-
ment, almost irresistible, against leaving our poor
frail nature to resist its evil impulses with no ad-
vantages at all. As well might a general refuse
to fortify his camp, because some fortified camps
have been carried by a determined assault.
We fully perceive and acknowledge, however,
the difficulties in the way of Government educa-
tion ; and on this question at least, though one
of the most urgent, are quite disposed to "give
our new Administration time," simply because
we have as yet seen no plan which it could hope
to carry. Indeed, it was but the other day we.
noticed a striking case of the efficiency of volun-
tary zeal where Government efforts had failed. A
good school-room, built and aided. by grants, was
given up by the parties who received them ; a
poor man applied to the Borough-road Training
School to be educated for a master ; he was re-
fused as incompetent Nothing daunted, he set
to and educated himself, hired the unoccupied
school-room, and has now the best school in the
place. All would regret any general system which
superseded such a man as this. We do need,
however, if it be possible, some means which shall
give a reasonable education to all. We fear
that the plan has yet to be discovered. What
with the unseemly zeal of religionists for their
sectarian badges, and the real danger of paralysing
our noble voluntary efforts, we can excuse any
Government for only partially attaining its earnest
wishes. Meantime, much can be done by indi-
viduals. A wealthy man who will lay out a thou-
sand pounds in building a good school-room where
one is wanted, and a hundred a-year or so in
supporting the school (the scholars had better pay
the
rest), and who will see to its general efficiency
as his own concern, is one of the best benefactors
of his country. Repealing also the Taxes on