The Sun.
London, England, 1854-08-14 00:00:00

PROVING TOO MUCH.

Stonor ! Lawley ! ! O'Flaherty ! ! To what are
we mounting up ? In this ratio of progression, what
will be the fourth ? And the worse the appointment is,
the more blameless the Minister concerned is in making
it. There was some little confession of error in the case
of Mr. Stonor, but the choice of Mr. Lawley was fault-
less, and as for Mr. O'Flaherty, Mr. Gladstone shows
moat clearly that if he had to do the thing over again he
could not do better. The testimonials were irresistible.
It does not even now seem to occur to the Chancellor of
the Exchequer that the testimonials, irresistible as they
were, were bad. If a tithe of what is alleged be true,
proceedings ought to be taken against the authors of the
testimonials, for the offence of givi a false character.
But unhappily there is not this redss in the case of
public servants. _

It is much to be lamented that this Ministry is always
so very much in the right. Cesar does never wrong
without just cause. Bad things are done with the very
best motive and the very best judgment. If faults in
either repent bad been admitted, hope might be enter-
tained for the future ; but as everything has been done
just as it ought to have been done, but only with the
most unlucky results, there may be repetitions of the
same miscarriage by the same blameless process, with-
out end.

As these accidents happen when Ministers mean so
well, who can say what would happen if they tried not
to be so very good ? As they do not with the most care-
ful aim hit the mark, suppose they were to make the
experiment of a random shot now and then.

But if that be asking too much of a Cabinet of Catoes,
let them at least mistrust the best testimonials. What,
testimonials the Tartuffe would have produced before hie
final exposure ! To a certain class of persons, character
is a stock in trade, to be turned into cash or money's
worth. And there is this fallacy in accepting reports of
character, that a sort of character passes in the society
which calls itself par excellence good, which will not
pass with the public; which has not the same indulgence
or the same set-offs to influence its judgments. This is
strikingly apparent in the fact that men who have utterly
lost character with the pahlle,• are nevertheless received
and petted as usual in " good society ;" their faults or
vices being condemned in consideration of their amusing
qualities, or the more substantial merits of their casks
and wine merchants. If 'the public itiould be diverted
by these folks, or fed by them, the public might be as
forgiving or as tolerant as the great world ; but that
cannot be. After all, what is a testimonial but an ad-
vertisement, and what is an advertisement but a testi-
monial ? In the columns of the Times you read of a
thousand excellencies, but you say the offers are too
good, or, with the French, la mariee est trop belle. The
Chancellor of the Exchequer must discount his testimo-
nials if he would avoid another O'Flaherty affair.

By-the-bye, we are glad to see the 0 before the name,
because it distinguishes the family from another race of
Flahertys who properly should have prefixed the 0, but
of the head of whom Jekyll said, that he had taken the
0 from the beginning of his name and clapped it to the
end of his income.—Examiner.