The Sun.
London, England, 1870-05-30 00:00:00

A Lecturer in Difficulties.

M. Laboulaye, a Frenchman, whose name is well-
known in literary circles, has involved himself in a
series of difficulties by attempting to reconcile politi-
cal and philosophical honours. M. Laboulaye
has grown famous as a Liberal, and as such
was duly honoured by the students of the
Coll6ge de France, where he has to deliver a course
of lectures. The students, however, have now taken
a great prejudice against him, because they consider
he has deserted the Liberal cause. M. Laboulaye,
it may be remembered, was spoken of as one of the
new Ministers, and it is currently reported that it was
an unlucky brochure of his, ridiculing the education
given in courts which impeded his accession to office in
place of M. Plichon. or M. Mege. " Prince Caniche"
as the pamphlet.was called so displeased the Empress
that her influence hindered the author's en-
trance into the 011ivier Cabinet. To com-
pensate for this disappointment he has been
nominated to the Senate, and when he presented
himself at the Collbge de France to resume his lec-
tures he was met by shouts of "Au Sdnat ! au
Sdnat !" There was also an unlucky story current
among the students, that the former electors of M.
Laboulaye had reclaimed a silver inkstand
they had presented to the ci-devant Liberal,
and the truth of the report was loudly
demanded. M. Laboulaye, who was not without
partisans in the assembly, behaved with firmness and
' composure. He announced his intention of remain-
ing at his post until the hour was up, whatever up-
roar they made. By his readiness, good humour,
and courage, he kept his assailants at bay
for the specified time, and then retreated
to his carriage, attended by a demon-
strative crowd. A second attempt to resume
the course was made on Friday, with similar ill luck.
The students were divided into two parties, stones
were thrown, the " Maiseillaise " sung, and other
excesses indulged in. The Professor had to leave
the room, being unable to obtain a hearing. The
dignity of a senator has in his case been dearly paid
for.

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MORNING EDITION.

rriHE LATE EDITION of " THE SUN" at
Mr. BEAUMONT'S, " The Wellington," Wellington-street,

Strand.

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY.. MORMNG, MAY 30, 1870.

sell at and .belovt coat price, that if he adso he would
have nothing wherewith to pay his rent and taxes
and to keep himself—there would be some hope for
the honest retailer. But the chance of saving a half-,
penny puts to flight all considerations of this kind
even with persons to whom a half-penny is
is a trifle not worth considering, much more with
the very poor who have to think of every farthing.
This false economy is irresistible. It has been told,
for instance, that when the experiment was made by
a philanthropist of selling pure milk at cost price in
a poor district of London, the people preferred
to buy at the old shops where the price was
a little lower, although the water was mixed with
the milk before their very eyes. Such being the
case, how can we greatly blame the tradesman for
adulteration, provided always that it be harmless,
and not poisonous ? lie does not know Latin, or he
would reply to all expostulation "Popichts vult decipi
et clecipiatur. _ _

The question of short weights, though less
injurious to the public health, is more heinous
from the moral point of view. If the
purchaser is foolish enough to buy tea at a
price below that which it costs before leaving China,
he must know that the article he gets is not tea, but
some other article which the tradesman can
afford to sell at the sum he gets for it.
In such a case the purchaser is robbed
with 'his eyes open. It is otherwise with
short weights. We imagine that we get
full quantity; but we do not get it, and we cannot
get it. It may be said, why not check the weight
with your own scales ? Let those who have tried
the experiment say how it has answered. They will
confess that they have been in danger
of starvation, that the tradesmen keep aloof from
them, neglect to deliver the articles ordered,
so that the unfortunate householder comes down to
breakfast in the morning, and finds that the baker has
"forgotten" to deliver the bread, and the milkman
has been equally oblivious about the milk.

What is to be done ? Something, undoubtedly;
but adulteration is not to be put down in a day, even
by Act of Parliament. In the first place the inspection
of weights and measures and the analysis of articles
sold should be no longer permissive, but compulsory.
It is easy to imagine the amount of vigour which
will be used in putting these permissive precautions
into operation when it is remembered that those with
whom the motive power rests are themselves the
offenders. The inspector and the analyst must be
Government officers, not parochial. They should be con-
stantly at work. A public prosecutor should prosecute
offenders. On conviction the names of the rascals
should be published in the London Gazette and in the
local papers, and they should be compelled to post
in their own shops the record of their offence.
It may be said that it would be hard to
punish a retail tradesman for the adulteration
of the wholesale, or the wholesale for the adultera-
tion of the export agent. The answer to this objec-
tion is that there is no supply without a demand—
that adulterated goods would not be sent unless they
were ordered. Besides, the tradesman can always
protect himself by analysis. Finally, the matter is
greatly in the hands of the consumer. If he expects
to get a pound of tea for the prize of half-a-pound,
he will get only a quarter-of-a-pound, the rest will
be offal and poison.

THE Birmingham League is not satisfied with Mr.
Forster's amendments. We are sorry for it. We
shall be still more sorry if it should turn out that
the League is a true representative of the Dissenters
in this matter. The position of the latter is
this, they are religious, or they have no
raison d'etre. They desire to see the children of
this country brought up in the knowledge of reli-
gion, but they ask that the children shall not be
taught any distinctive dogmas. Mr. Forster has
granted them what they have asked, and more.
By proposing the time-table conscience clause he
has placed it in the power of any parent
to withdraw his children from all religious
teaching without placing them in an invidious and
painful position. This teaching is to be either at the
beginning or at the end of the day's lessons, or at both;
and it is but for a child to go a quarter of an hour later,
or to come away a hallan hour earlier than the rest, in
order to be saved from the peril of false doctrine.
In other words, Mr. Forster, having to choose
between two arrangements, one of which would have
presumed that religion was excluded from the ordi-
nary teaching, the other that it was included therein,
has preferred the latter. Henceforth it is to be under
stood that religion does form part of the English
child's education. At the same time it is
not a compulsory part. The infidel's con-
scientious convictions are respected as much as
the Churchman's. But, as we said, the League
wants more : it wants to prevent any distinctive religious
formulary from being taught in any school supported
by Government money, even though the school-board
wishes to teach it. The reason for this
demand hitherto has been that the League is afraid
of the social influence of the squire and the parson, and
thinks that these persons will generally be able to
get a school-board after their own mind. But Mr.
Frirster now proposes that the boards shall
be elected by ballot, so that this ground
of complaint is taken away. Nevertheless
it would seem as if the League were determined to
press the point ; and whereas it was held that Go-
vernment had no right to interfere actively
In religious teaching, it now holds that it
ought to interpose with a prohibition. This
theory is utterly irreconcilable with the principle
that religious teaching should be left to the decision
of priy3te persons. To forbid religious teaching
is as hostile to that principle as- the enforcement of
religious teaching is. If the Dissenters do not see this,
it will shew that they have very little confidence in
their own hold over the people, even though they claim
half of them as their adherents. It will indicate, more-
over, that they are moved less by religious zeal 'for
the nation than by religious jealousy or the Church.
We shall not believe that they will adopt this course
of policy until belief is forced upon us by facts.

FREE RUSSIA "

AND

FREE AND EASY CRITICISM.

During the last few months a rather animated discussion
has been going ou between Mr Hepworth Dixon and the Pall
Mall Gazette. Several letters in regard to this discussion
having been addressed to ourselves have duly appeared in
our own columns, as well as in those of same of our contem-
poraries. The argument throughout has had reference to
Mr Dixon's last work and the Pall Mall's comments—par-
tially commendatory, partially condemnatory—thereupon.
Before touching, however, in any way, here, upon the
subject matter iu dispute between these two very conspicu-
ous disputants, the popular author and the popular journalist,
we would, in this place, for a reason immediately afterwards to
he explained, give an excerpt in regard to the latter from
another book altogether than "Free Russia"—from a book
in which its anonymous author incidently introduced his
estimate of, we may even go so far as to add, his respect and
edmiratiou for, our young and distinguished contemporary.
The work to which we are now alluding had reference to
lam- Majesty's present ministerial advisers, being issued from
the press upwards of a year ago by the same eminent
publishing house from which Mr. Dixon's " Free
Russia" has more recently emanated. It was entitled " The
Gladstone Government,"and consisted of a series of "Cabinet
Pictures by A Templar " At that portion of the work
set apart for the considetation of the President of the Poor
Law Board, the Right Hon. J G. Goshen, the writer, while
commenting upon the momentous social problem now more
urgently almost than any other demanding its solu! ion from
the Legislature, that of mitigating, if possible, the horrors of
destitution, took occasion to observe as follows :
" Not very readily, we should suppose, will it be lost to
the popular remembrance, how it came to pass that one of
the youngest, and as it has ever since then shown itself to
be, ode of the very ablest of our evening newspapers, leaped
at once, as by single bound,' into celebrity. Reading, as
we all did, the statement there set forth, with a singularly
manly and affecting eloquence, by that noble-hearted and
self sacrificing Amateur Pauper Casual, who therein gave us
his own personal experiences—experimentally acquired—of
our s 3 stem of Poor Law Relief, as it actually is, we recog-
nised upon the instant, in the organ which had had thus the
courage to set forth that startling and most impressive nar-
rative, a journal penned by thoughtful men, men whose
opinions it was worth one's while to ascertain and ponder
over,

" Standing in imagination beside the Amateur Casual as he
plunged into that bath like weak mutton broth—pah
the flavour of which has not yet passed from our palate'
merely from reading about it—we could understand even then
what the time that Las since *lapsed has very clearly de-
monstrated, that, in immersing himself in that revolting
liquid, the narrator, in his capacity as the representative, or
*Liter ego of the young Pall Mall Gazette, had rendered it in a
measure, among our organs of public opinion, as invulne-
rable es Achilles, when he had been plunged into the
Styx. Interesting us the incident was, as another added to
the many interesting incidents recorded in the history of
journalism, it was yet more profoundly interesting as a
social revelation." See The Gladstone Government,
pp. 321-322.
We have quoted these words, here, in The Sun, for the very
simple reason that in point of fact they are
our own opinions. They express now, as they expressed
then, as plainly as words could express anything, the
estimate we had already formed (and Lave all along held
throughout the five years during which it has been in exist-
ence) in regard to the Pall Mall Gazette.
At ith that estimate the course pursued very recently by
the Pall Mall Gazette in dealing with Mr. Dixon's book
about "New Russia," jars and clashes, however, most
disastrously. Facts shall speak for themselves. About
mere matters of taste or mere matters of opinion men may
be allowed to differ. Tritest among all the trite proverbs
belonging to all literature are these two—" Quot homines,
tot sententiie (a thought borrowed from Terence), and De
gustibus non est disputandum. With regard to facts, how-
ever, it is axiomatically remarked that they are stubborn
things ; and, as we have but just now said, they speak for
themselves. la reference to this discussion between Mr.
Hepworth Dixon and the Pall Mall Gazette we would now
add, let them (that ia the facts simply) speak for themselves.
Early in the present year the Messrs. Smith, Elder, and
Co., a publishing firm of gr eat eminence, not altogether dis-
associated from the Pall Mall Gazette, brought out a work
called AIODERN RUSSIA, by a German Author. In April of
the present year the Messrs. Hurst and Bluckett brought out
FREE It I; ISSIA. The latter, that is, Mr. Dixon's work, is
already (iu May) in its Third Edition. While, in regard to
the former, meaning the translation from the German—if it
is even yet out of its first edition, the public knows nothing
at all about it.

Immediately after the original publication of "Free
Russia," we ourselves reviewed it in these columns in terms
which it eminently well deserved. In terms of kindred ap-
proval it was reviewed by the majority of our leading
contemporaries. "Free Russia," we know for a fact, was
not sent for notice to the Pall Mall Gazette—and, for another
fact, we know this, that a copy-being recently asked for, was
at length, in answer to that request, sent by
the publishers of the work to our contemporary.
It was iu consequence of this, that, not longer since than the
IGth of this present May,there appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette
in article praising Free Russia (in parts) as fair," "dra-
matic," and "picturesque," but objecting to five statements
of fact. Thereupon Mr. Dixon replied—jwe have received the
letters and have published them in our columns-I —Mr.Dixon
replied that these live erroneous statements were not
in his book, and that he had not made the errors
alleged. Consequent upon this— the Pall Mall ab sed
him, but gave no answer. Mr. Dixon wrote again
declaring the citations false. The Pall Mall ac-
knowledged the receipt of an " insolent, ingenious letter'"
but kept it dark—refrained from publishing it. Baffled in
his very natural endeavour to extract an apology or retrac-
tation from the editor, Mr. Dixon then turned to the critic.
With what result ? No answer I Finally, on the 20th of
May, the Pall Mall Gazette sent to the publishers of "Free
Russia" and bought a copy of the third edition—the result
of that investment being visible in the Pall Mall of Friday
evening last (May the 27th), in a laboriously got up and cer
tainly a very abusive article running into three columns,
under the title of " Suggestions for a fourth edition of Free
Russia "—suggestions mostly childish and all of them
absurd. For example, there are among them these
direct assertions—" Singing is not music I" Kies
is not the capital of Little Russia" !! "Georgia is peopled
ley Mahomedans "I ! ! " There are no real Russians in the
upper parts of Great Russia "! !! I
As though any one were to observe that the voice of
Patti or of Mario was not music!—that Dublin was not the
capital of Ireland ! !—that Scotland !s peopled by E is-
copalians !! ! That there are no English in New Eng-
land ! I !!
And consistently to the end of the chapter—this chapter
of accidents, shall it be called charitably ? —NOT ONE WORD
ABOUT THE FIVE ABSOLUTELY FALSE CITATIONS MADE BY
THE Pall Pall Gazette. _ . .

In the presence of this really discreditable incident in the
history of the Pall Mall Gazette, we are constrained to re-
vise our opinion of its character and of its pretensions—we
are constrained, in the interests of our calling and for the
honour alike of literature and of journalism, to cancel the
high estimate we have hitherto formed and expressed of the
reputation of our contemporary. Its boast a year or two
ago was that it was written "by gentlemen for gentlemen "
—' which it were true," even Mrs. Gamp might have
said, had she still survived up to only a very little further
back than yesterday—" but then," as Mrs. Gamp's shadowy
"counterfeit presentment," MI s. Brown, might add, "as
the sayin' is, there's gentlemen and gentlemen !"

FASHIONABLE ARRANGEMENTS TO-DAY.
The Levee this afternoon at St. James's Palace.

61111 tin I I r

Ball at the Countess of Caledon's, 5, Carlton House-terrace.
Dancing Party at Mrs. Bonsor's, 10, Hill-street, Berkeley-

HER MAJESTY.

BALNIORAL CASTLE, May 28.
The Queen went out yesterday morning with Princess
Louise.

square.
The Gormless of Bantry's ball, announced for te-morrow,
will take place instead ibis evening.
The Duke of Rutland's garden party nt Bute Ledge.
The Duchess of Sutherland's assembly.
The annual regimental dinner of the sth Lancers (Royal
Irish) at the Albion, Aldersgate- street, at 8 p.m. 1 re-
cisely.

In the afternoon her Majesty, attended by the Duchess
Dowager of *thole and Miss Macgregor, drove to the Linn
of Quoich.

The annual regimental dinner of the 7th Dragoon Guards
(Princess Royal's), also at the Albion, Aldersgate-ktreet,
at 8 p.m. precisely.

Earl de Orey arrived at the Castle as Minister in attend-
ance upon her Majesty.

The annual regimental dinner of the 9th Lancers (Queen's
Royal), at the Albion, Aldersgate-street, at 8 p.m. pre-

The Prince of Wales, accompanied by the Prince of
Teck and Count Gleichen, and attended by Colonel Kings-
cote, Lieutenant-Colonel Teesdale, and Lieutenant-Colonel
Ellis, was present, on Saturday morning, at the guard-
mounting parade in St. James's Park, in honour of the
Queen's bir; hday.

The annual general meeting of the Royal Cam-
bridge asylum for soldiers widows was held on Saturday
at the United Service Institution, Whitehall. His Royal
Highness Prince Teck presided and there were also
present, the Princess Teck, the Duchess of Cambridge,
and Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar. The report and
balaucc-bheet which were satisfactory, were adopted, and.
five widows, making in all 52 inmates of the institution
were elected 0 vacancies. -

The Fairy Rose Garden opon to-day (without extra charge)
at the Crystal Palace.
Signor Marras's apres-midi musicale, at his residence, 10,
Hyde-park-gate, Kensington-gore, three to five o'clock.
The Yorkshire Society's Ball at Willis's Eooms.
Mr. Kuhe's Grand Annual Morning Concert, at 2.30 p.m., at

St.. ames's Hall.
At Lord's Ground (grand cricket match).—Gentlemen of
M.C.O. V. Yorkshire.

SCIENTIFIC MEETINGS—TO-DAY.
Anniversary Meeting of the Asiatic Society, at 3 o'clock.
Meeting of the Architectural Society, at 8 o'clock.
Meeting at the United Service I stitution at 8.30 p.m.,
whore Captain J. C. Hosaasou will read a paper on, the
"Necessity for the Extension of our Naval Transport Fleet
for Military Purposes."

DUNVILLE and Co., Belfast, are the largest holders
of whisky in the world. Their Old Irish Whisky is recommended
by the medical profession in preference to French brandy. Sup-
plied in casks and cases for home use or exportation. Quotations
ion application to Messrs DUNVILLE & Co., Royal Irish Dis-
tilleries, Belfast ; or at their London Offices, 4, Beaufort Buildings
Strand, W. 41