The Sun.
London, England, 1853-09-24 00:00:00

THEATRE ROYAL DRIIRY-LANE.

Lessee, Mr. E. T. Smith.
LAST EIGHT NIGHTS of Mr. GUSTAVUS V. BROOKE''
THIS EVENING, SaPT. 24.
Will be performed V IRGINIU S. Characters by Messrs.
G. V. Brooke, Davenport, Leslie, Moorhouse, A. Younge, Belton,
and Edgar; Mesdames Vickery, Featherstone, and Belton.
To conclude with THE FOUNTAIN OF BEAUTY, in which
Miss Featherstone and Miss E. Ormond will appear. Reduced prices
as natal.

THEATRE ROYAL ADELPHI.

Proprietor, Mr. B. Webster —Directress. Madame Celeste.

THIS EVENING. :Arr. 24,
Will be performed A NOVEL EXPEDIENT. Supported by Mr
L. Murray and Miss Woolgsv.
Altar which, will be presented SA.EDANAPA.LITS.
To conclude with THE CAMP AT CHOBHAM,

A.sTLErs ROYAL AMPHITHEATRE.
Sole Les gee and Manager, Mr. William Cooke.

The unanimous voice of the public Press has pronounced the New
Classical Burlesque to have reached the acme of perfection. No
spectacle produced at the Imphitheatre has ever created so great
asensation. The Dresses and appointments have met with un-
qualified approbation, while the Classical Groupings and Grand
Ballet are nightly received with demonstrations of delight from
fashionable and crowded audiences. Mr. Cooke will (by desire)
introduce his highly-trained Barb steed, whose matchless per-
formance is pronounced perfect. Miss Emily ( 'ooke will continue
her eletant Equestrian Act on a rapid steed, concluding with her
wonderful Feat of Leaping through 16 Balloons. Continuation of
the Battle of Waterloo.

that England and France, after being so long
hoodwinked, are prepared to adopt the course
that should have been taken on the first invasion
of the Danubian Principalities, he will shrink
from the crisis—will quail before the spirit he has
evoked. Bullies are generally cowards, and we
believe that the present case will prove no
exception to the general rule. It was the encou-
ragement he received through the paltry truckling
of the " dear and excellent ABERDEEN," that in-
duced him to proceed to such unjustifiable
lengths. It was the insane desire for peace at any
price, and under any circumstances, that has oc-
casioned the imminent prospect of war. It was
the desire to keep up the English funds that has led
to their serious depreciation. It was the antics of the
members of the Peace Society, not only throughout
the country, but in the Cabinet, that have brought
about the consummation they desired to avert.
Now that a more honourable, a more straight-
forward, a more manly policy has been adopted,
the Northern Despot--the Sir GILES OVERREACH
of Sovereigns—may learn that he has pushed
cupidity
didtihtye
matter too far, and through an excess
has defeated his own object, and forfeited the
gains tendered for his acceptance.
i
It now remains to be seen n what light Russia
may regard the step, the just and necessary step,
taken on the part of France and England. It is
absurd to suppoLintghatthethDearn
daeileprohibitionscanagbaeinisnt
vessels of war passing
operation, for it cannot for a moment be asserted
that the Porte is at peace, while a hostile army
occupies two of her provinces, and while
the invader contumeliously rejects all the
pacific overtures that have been made through
the intervention of other Powers. The
Conference, having adopted the modifications
insisted on by Turkey, is bound to abide by them
as fully as if they constituted portions of the ori-
ginal Note. It is then the proposition of the
Conference that has been rejected, and every
member should, to the best and utmost of his
ability, oppose the party by whom it was so con-
tumeliously repudiated. Let Austria desert its
colours if it think proper—while France and Eng-
land are associated, and cordially co-operating to.
getber, we care not for the assistance of a Power
whose open and avowed enmity may be less dan-
gerous than its insidious support. Austria may
itself be the chief sufferer by a war. It is bound
under heavy recognisances to preserve the peace,
and if, by its vacillating policy, its disgraceful
truckling to its ambitious and grasping neighbour
it suffers that peace to be disturbed it must abide
the consequences. Whatever, may be the re-
sult we are prepared—ready for any alter-
native that may be offered. If Russia aban-
dons her unjust pretensions, well. When she
withdraws her troops from the Danubian Pro-
vinces, the English and French Fleets will also be
withdrawn from the Bosphorus, but no sooner.
If the troops of Nienolas advance, then will there
be a similar advance on his own dominions ; and
if Turkey be attacked, Sebastopol and Odessa will
not remain scatheless. If a war be necessary, it
will not be a little one—it will be a contest be-
tween free and liberal, and despotic and slavish
institutions, and cannot be relinquished until the
teeth are drawn, and the claws pared, of the
Northern Bear, and the pinions clipped of the
Austrian Eagle—until Poland and Hungary be
regenerated and restored to a prominent position I
on the map of Europe.

Little JINGO is by no means a fancy portrait—.a
mere creature of the novelist's imagination. He
is but the specimen of a class, a class frightfully
numerous, and visible in almost all our thorough-
fares. It is absolutely appalling to reflect upon
the number of these unfortunate creatures, and
to know from statistics of indisputable accuracy,
and from reports of undoubted authenticity, that
this number is every year increasing in proportions
wonderfully greater than the average increase of
the population. Testimony to this effect is already
furnished to our hand in abundance by a variety
of humane investigators iuto one of the most
grievous of the great social evils remaining to be
dealt with by the legislator and the philanthropist.
From the evidence thus accumulated it has long
since become manifest that the resolute interposi-
tion of the law is required in behalf of the criminal
and destitute juveniles abounding in all the larger
towns of the United Kingdom. Is there any doubt
as to the urgency of this necessity ? It is answered
by THOMSON'S " Social Evils "--by KINGSMILL'S
" Chapter on Prisons and Prisoners "—by
MAYHEW'S " London Labour and the London
Poer"—by Colonel JEBB'S " Report on Convict
Discipline"—by Mr. CLAY'S " Report" of 1850
—by Captain HAY'S " Report on Common Lodg-
ing Houses "—by the voluminous reports made
from time to time by Committees of Inquiry in-
stituted by Imperial Parliament. It is answered
through the evidence furnished by Mr. PEARSON,
the City Solicitor—by the speeches of the benevo-
lent Lord SHAFTESBURY—by the writings of Mr.
Diox.ENs, the man of genius and generosity—by
the arguments of Mr. Sergeant ADAMS, Chairman
of the Middlesex Sessions—by the statements of
Mr. M. D. HILL, the Recorder of Birmingham. The
abomination dogs our every footstep. It is pre-
sent everywhere throughout the whole framework
of our artificially organised communities. These
miserable children, bred up by thousands to an
existence of crime and destitution, start forth in
swarms wherever humanity may tempt the more
adventurous to penetrate. They are crowded into
squalid lodging-houses—during the day time rov-
ing about the streets in quest of plunder, or gam-
bolling in the gutter ; during the night time hid
away in neglected outhouses or dilapidated tene-
ments, in yards or under arches, in carts or in
cellars—having the gin-palace and the beer-shop
as their place of meeting, and the singing-room
and the penny theatre as their place of amuse-
ment. It is a deplorable picture of human
degradation, but one in no way over-coloured,
one, in particularising which, we have been guilty
of no exaggeration. It has recently been de-
clared, indeed, by Mr. KAY, in his masterly
lecture on " The Condition and Education of
Poor Children in English and German Towns
"
a lecture published by the Statistical Society of
Manchester--that their condition is so degraded
" that any faithful description would read like a
hideous myth, but that our annual calendars of
crime render it only too certain." In explana-
tion, to some extent, of the dreadful increase ob-
servable in this monster evil of late years, it has
been remarked by Mr. PEARSON, in his evidence
before the Committee (1847, p. 309), " It is a no-
torious fact, that immoral and dishonest parents en-
courage their children to commit crime; negligent
and thoughtless parents permit their misconduct;
selfish and unnatural parents leave them in a state
of destitution which they know must infalliby lead
to starvation or thieving." Inevitably, therefore,
the results of these sinister influences have proved,
in the manner before intimated, most disastrous—
the results of this immorality and dishonesty,
negligence and thoughtlessness, selfishness and
unnaturalness. Whatever has been hitherto at-
tempted moreover in this country, with a view
to the amelioration of the miseries of these
w ignorant juvenile delinquents, by the
extension to them of the blessings of education,
has so far proved inefficacious, that, whereas
in America and Switzerland, the, regular
one-fifteenth one-fourth,
in Manchester
it schools a b
saotltuetnedl
ya nbcuet
oi an e
fi of the population.
k circumstance the more to be lamented, when it
is remembered that no less an authority on such
matters than the Chairman of the Middlesex Ses-
seions,
these
Mr. Sergeant ADAMS, has declared of
unfortunates in so many words—" I do not think
that they are naturally worse than other children;
but that their offences
spring from the want of
proper moral and
religious
a education." Consider-
all these lamentable truths, and remembering
their vast importance, it must be admitted by even
the least resolute and least energetic reformer that,
in this particular, a stupendous responsibility de-
volves upon the Legislature. A reformatory
system is recognised as essential for criminals
generally. How much more requisite, therefore,
juvenile •
among this melancholy class of ju
delin-
quents ! If we would really improve the after
condition of the community, let us, in GOD'S
name, endeavour to purify the source of future
generations.