The Sun.
London, England, 1854-07-20 00:00:00

ciently onerous, we see the imperative necessity
of some relaxation of the stringent regulations now
in force. If we are to pay " war taxes," we
should insist on a " war currency." The demand

for an extra vote of credit will form a suitable
opportunity for bringing the question under the
consideration of the House and country, and for
eliciting the Ministerial intentions on this vitally
important topic.

Our readers will have seen in The Sun a brief
Abstract of the Report of the Parliamentary Com-
mittee on Public-houses, and the resolutions
which they have attached to it. With the gene-
ral spirit of the Report all judicious and impartial
persons must agree. The Committee evidently
desire to encourage amongst the poor a taste for
rational and improving amusements, to lessen the
temptations to sensual and depraving pleasures,
and to uphold, to a reasonable extent, the reli-
gious claims of the Sunday. Whether, indeed,
it be possible, by prohibitory legislation, to secure
a religious observance of the day set apart, not by
Divine, but by Church authority, for worship,
we more than question ; still the attempt has
been made so long, that, like Protection and Fac-
tory Acts, and chartered monopolies, the thing is
not to be got rid of in a day. It will be many
long years before our legislators, devout men
all, will believe that religion does not need
their pious cradling and guardianship. The Com-
mittee, therefore, prudently would close the Gin
Palace and the Crystal Palace alike till after
morning service. It quite understands that Par-
liament will forbid those who will not attend
a morning service to go anywhere else. Men
shall not be amused if they will not be edified.
We refrain from displaying the logical and prac-
tical consequences of such legislation, only remark-
ing that we quite agree with Archbishop WHATELY,
no mean authority, that the province of Govern-
ment is to prevent crimes against man only, not
sins against GOD. A simple rule which, if well
understood, would save the House of Commons
and the House of Lords too, much sanctimonious
speechifying and debate.
On the Sunday, the Committee propose to giv,
in summer at least, the advantage to intelligent
recreation over the gin-shop. The latter is to be
opened on Sunday only from one to two p.m., and
from six to nine p.m., while the Crystal Palace, the
British Museum, and similar places, it is proposed
should be opened from two p.m. for the rest of the
day. We do not understand why it is not from
1 p.m., when the partial opening of public-houses
is to be permitted. They have ihus endeavoured
to give intelligence a comparative advantage over
sensuality ; the former is to have an uninterrupted
course from two till nine ; while the latter meets
a check of four hours between one and nine. On
one point the Report is justly emphatic, namely,
theimpossibility of continuing the restriction on ra-
tional entertainment on the Sunday, while drunken-
ness and other forms of debasing gratification are
hardly interfered with. Nothing surely can more
revolt all common sense as well as morality, than that
our Legislators should freely open "dram and jerry
shops" to the multitudes whom they deprive by
law of their ordinary occupations, while they shut
in their faces the doors of the Crystal Palace.
Men may spend their earnings in brutalising them-
selves, in ruining their health, in impoverishing
their families, and even in drinking themselves into
wife-beating; but they may not spend them in what
must enlarge and improve their minds, and what
their families can share with them ! The selfsame
Legislature will sell on Sundayits tax-paying spirits
to the multitudes, whom it compels to be idle, at the
corner of every street, while it will allow no one,
except those who will stoop to evasions, to sell
ocular instruction in art, science, nature, and his-
tory! We may surely demand that such egregious
inconsistency shall not disgrace our statute-book
till another Session. Nothing on earth can jus-
tify, first, legislating against Sunday work, and
then offering to the unoccupied the most seduc-
tive and demoralising of gratifications only.
The whole question of the sale of intoxicating
liquors, especially on the day when ordi-
nary employments are illegal, is just now
attracting unusual attention. Our Judges
have so unanimously pronounced intoxication
to be the cause of the greater part of thecrimes they
aro called upon to try, and our police reports bear
such superabundant testimony in the same direc-
tion, that men, far enough removed from tee-
totalism, are beginning to ask whether Govern-
ment can do nothing towards suppressing one of
the most fruitful causes of crime. The adoption
of the Maine Liquor Law by several A merican
States, even by the Legislature of New York itself,
though it was lost by the Governor's veto, and
the prohibition of the sale of spirits in Scotland
itself on Sundays, show that the evil must have
become great indeed which could induce Govern-
ments to resort to such violent methods. It is
also a sign of the times, that even the Edinburgh
Review has, in its last number, substantially
argued for the Maine Law—seeming, indeed, to
have little to say against it, except that, if carried
out rigidly in Britain, it would deprive the Chan-
celler of the Exchequer of some 15,000,000/. per
annum ! We do not, on this occasion, touch on
the argument on either side ; we only point the
attention of the fair-minded public to the growing
sense of the evils of the present facilities for intoxi-
cation ; indeed respectable public-house keepers
themselves expressed before the Committee
their wish that the New Scottish law
should be adopted in England. Should this
ever be the case amusement must be permitted
to those who will not attend worship, otherwise
they will be driven for excitement, which human
nature will crave, to secret vice. But should it
nas ouptna,
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people may at leas
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self. Such prohibitions are doubly wrong, for
they first lay down the law for another man's
conscience, and next they step beyond the pro-
vince of human legislation. They confound sins
against GOD with crimes against men.

CABINET COUNCIL.—A Cabinet Council was held
yesterday at the Foreign-office, Downing-street. The
Ministers present were—the Earl of Aberdeen, Lord J.
Russell, the Lords Chancellor, the Marquis of Lans-
downe, the Dulie• of Argyll, Viscount Palmerston, the
Earl of Clarep.don, Sir George Grey, the Duke of New-
castle, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir James
Graham-, Sir C. Wood, the Right Hon. S. Herbert, Sir
W. Mnlesworth, and Earl Granville. The Council sat
four hours and a half.
THE COURT.—We understand that her Majesty and
the Prince Consort, and the youthful Royal family, are
expected to prolong their sojourn in the Isle of Wight
until after the Prince's birthday, the 26th of the ensuing
month, on which occasion the Queen will give the
annual rustic fete to the domestic labourers on the Os-
borne eFitate.
Her; Royal Highness the Duchess of Gloucester and
snitri leave Gloucester House, Park-lane, early in the
ensuing week, for White Lodge, Richmond Park, for
the season.
The Earl of Hardwicke has left town for Dover, to
embark on board his lordship's yacht the Susan, now at
anchor in the Downs, to witness, we understand, the
embarkation of the French troops for the Baltic.
The Count and Countess Flahault have left Grosvenor-
square, for Brighton. The Hon. Miss Elphinstone Fla-
hault is staying with Lord and Lady Shelburne, at Lans-
downe House.

Viscount Brackley has arrived in Grosvenor-street,
from visiting the Earl and Countess of Cawdor, at
Brighton.
Lord and Lady Feversha,m and the Hon. Miss Dun-

cornbe have left town for Duncombe Park, Yorkshire.

Sir William and Lady Molusworth entertained at din.
ner, yesterday evening, the Duke and Duchess of Argyll,
the Duke and Duchess of Wellington, the Marchioness
of Ailesburv, the Marquis and Marchioness of London.
derry, the Duke of Newcastle, the Bishop of Oxford, the
Earl and Countess of Essex, the Marquis of Granby,
M.P., the Ron. Mrs. Dyce Sombre, the Marquis of
Lansdowne, Baron Marochetti, Viscount Torrington,
Mr. Knightley, ALP., ka.
Sir John and Lady Lister Kaye and family have left
town for their seat, Denby Grange, Yorkshire.
By letters received on Tuesday from Constantinople,
intelligence has been communicated of the death at the
ma, owing his connection with the
Turkish capital of Mr.
William Hale, the inventor of
the rocket without a tail or a stick. Mr. Hale's name
will be known to
ny,
seizure by Government some time ago of a large quantity
of rocket's of his manufacture, at Rotherhithe, on the
supposition or information that they were made for the
refugees living unckr the protection of this country.