The Sun.
London, England, 1870-02-12 00:00:00

MIL HU3IE AND HIS CATS.

The late Mr. Hume was a pattern of economy to
modern statesmen. lie was always strivine, for
reductions in the House of Commons, and though
he never succeeded, his example ought to be worth
something in these retrenchment days. He practised
the economy he preached himself as vigorously as he
recommended it to the nation. One day he chanced
to see no fewer than four cats as he passed along
the hall of his heuse in Bryanston-square.
fie immediately asked one of the servants
whether they had so many as four cats.
He received an atlirmntive answer, on which he
objected to so many cf that class of animals being
kept, remarking that three could surely do all the
work in the way of catuhing the mice, and that one
of them must be a "drone," and therefore he turned
out of the house. An inquiry was instituted as to,
which of the four shouli be ejected, and the verdict
was that a sleek and fat animal called " Tommy, "
belonging to the housekeeper, did nothing but eat
and sleep all day. This was the doomed victim.
The housekeeper protested that she would rather
quit her situation than part with " Tommy,"
but he was mysteriously spirited away that very

TOWN TALK.

(From the Western Mail of this Morning.)

FRIDAY EVENING.
As I intimated to you in my last, according to
very general belief here, in political circles, the
champ de bataille this session will be the colonies.
The impression to that effect is becoming confirmed
and strengthened, and is fast widening. In the
Commons Mr. Monsell will have to bear the brunt,
in his capacity as Under-Secretary. But the chief
onslaught will be made in the Lords, where the real
strength of the Opposition lies, not only numeri-
cally, but intellectually. One after another, Mr.
Disraeli's leading associates have been removed
from him, until he is left, in a manner, isolated in the
midst of a phalanx, for the most part (certainly as
compared with himself), of mediocrities. While it
has so fallen out in the popular branch of the legis-
lature, in the hereditary chamber there has come to
be an accumulation of the most eminent and rarely-
gifted among the Conservative statesmen ; inso-
much so that the array is now something formid-
able indeed to her Majesty's Government. Lord
Cairns is there, still in authority as the recognised
leader of the Opposition. Raised to the House of
Peers, on his elevation to theWoolsack, immediately
upon the formation of a Ministry under the Pre-
miership of the right hon. gentleman the member
for Bucks, the noble and learned lord has since added
to the debating power of his party in the Lords the
dash and go of the new blood, always, if but well se-
lected, so very desirable to any every political asso-
ciation. Confronting the Government benches,
though in no way owning allegiance to the autho-
rity of Lord Cairns, are two among the most
conspicuous chiefs in the whole of the serried
ranks of the Conservatives—the Earl of Carnarvon
and the Marquis of Salisbury. Within these last
few months, again, there has been transferred from
the Commons to the Lords, the leader emphatically
of Liberal Conservatism, late M.P. for King's
Lynn, now fifteenth Earl of Derby. As yet Lord
Derby has to assert his new position in the heredi-
tary branch of the legislature. So, too, for that
matter, has one of the greatest men on the side of
the Opposition in that august assembly—in one
sense incomparably the greatest, namely, in the
scope of his genius, in the diversity at once of his
capacity aad of his reputation—meaning obviously,
in this, Lord Lytton—orator, poet, administrator,
novelist, statesman, dramatist, and (in the estima-
tion of Germany) last, not least, philosopher. Upon
a colonial question Lord Lytton would be a very
formidable assailant to the Administration ; as for
that matter, also would be his former sub and, later
on, his successor at the Colonial-office, Lord Car-
narvon. It was when the vast colonial empire of
Great Britain was under the rule of Lord Lytton
(then Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton) as Secretary of
State, with the young Earl of Carnarvon as Under-
Secretary, that both Queensland and British Colum-
bia were called into existence. And it is, now,
precisely in regard to those two colonies in parti-
cular, as well as in respect to the general mainte-
nance of our whole colonial system iu both hemi-
spheres, that the policy of Lord Granvifle and his
colleagues Rill, so to speak, be arraigned at the
bar of the legislature during this present session of
Parliament.

The disintegration of the British empire is the
object aimed at. Mr. Goldwin Smith, if not the
actual originator, has long been the arch-champion
of the whole movement. lie and his associates, we
grieve now to know, have sympathisers in this un-
natural and suicidal project within the inner circle
of her Majesty's present Government. The colo-
nial policy thus cherished at heart by Lord Gran-
ville is one at once arrogant and pusillanimous.
Against it every patriotic effort ought to be directed
persistently and unceasingly. Among the most
momentous and desirable projects of the hour in
this direction, there is one for bringing more inti-
mately into association the vast North American
possessions of England. It is an enterprise 1 re-
member to hare been energetically advocated more
than twenty years ago, in a series of able pam-
phlets, by Major Robert Carmichael Smyth. Since
then British Columbia has been called into exist-
ence, the Hudson's Bay Territory has, in a manner,
lapsed to the Crown, and Canada, New Brunswick,
Nova Scotia, in fact, the whole of our North Ame-
rican territories ranged along the seaboard of
the Atlantic, have been brought into solid confe-
deration. ltuu ei bac.u.l ta ULIK railway, Lit/ laufy

from ocean to ocean through the Red River Settle-
went, and the immense resources, hitherto lying
dOrmant and utterly neglected, will be opened up
to us, and the work of civilisation stupendously
advanced.

Dr. Livingstone is evidently regarded as immortal
by his most trusty friend, Sir Roderick Murchison,
who is instantly incredulous whenever the death of
the great traveller is announced. Happily there
seems more reason than ever, this time, for Sir
Roderick's doubt as to the African explorer's assas-
sination.

You may be interested to know, in regard to that
atrocious controversy about Lord and Lady Byron,
that Mr. Paget is the author of the articles in
Blackwood, and Mr. Hayward the author of those
in the Quarterly. The former admirably commenced
what the latter still more admirably terminated—
meaning the scattering to the winds of heaven (or
rather of the other place) of the infamous slaudurs
invented by Lady Byron's morbidly diseased imagi-
nation.

Another new London Theatre is now rapidly ap-
proaching its completion. It is situated within half
a dozen doors of the Adelphi, having its entrance et
404, Strand, the premises formerly occupied by the
now dead and gone penny sporting paper and organ
of the music halls, the Glowworm. Mr. H. J.
Montague, the popular light comedian, is the sole
lessee and manager. The new house will open
in April, and will be devoted to comedy and bur-
lesque.

Two wonderful inventions have recently been
perfected—perhaps the most wonderful of all the
developments or adaptations of the magical art of
photography. Their names will be their best expla-
nation photo-relief-printing and photo-litho-
graphy. One hardly despairs now of the time when
the photograph may be naturally coloured, so asto-
nishing have been the advance steps taken in this
all but miraculous art, of drawing permanently and
instantaneously with the pencil of the sunbeam
since the two earliest steps made in that direction
by means, first of all, of the Daguerreotype, and,
secondly, by means of the Talbotype.
The difficulty an inventor meets with in endea-
vouring to carry out his project, no matter what
that project may be, is proverbial. There has, for
a long time past, been a striking illustration of this
in the Lo we-Vansittart propeller. From the expe-
riences of the late Mr. James Lose, the ingenious
inventor of that particular screw, and from those of
his daughter and representative, Mrs. Vansittart,
one might readily glean a complete and perfect jus-
tification of Charles Dickens's caustic description,
in " Little Dorritt," of the relation in which Daniel

Joyce and the Circumlocution-office stood to each
other. According to the view of the Circumlocu-
tion-office, as Daniel Joyce objects, an inventor ap-
pears rather in the light of a criminal than a bene-
factor. He is treated as though he had been guilty
of a felony rather than solicitous to confer a benefit
upon the entire community. Fortunately the evil
days of difficulty for the Lowe-Vansittart propeller
would, at length, appear to have passed by —judg-
ing, at least, from the admirable account given by
the 'limes, in two recent impressions, as to the bril-
liantly successful results of several important expe-
riments, demonstrative, bcyood all further denial,
of its superiority over all other screw-propellers.
Durieg my stay at the private view of the Sixth
Annual General Exhibition of Water Colour
Drawings in the Dudley Gallery at the Egyptian
Hall,. Piccadilly, this day last week, I was
more particularly pleased with some half-dozen
pictures, the names of which I am tempted to enu-
merate. Foremost in point of position (being in
the place of honour) 11. S. Marks' garden-scene of
the Princess Pimpinella, reading the romauntof
Sir Bruno, to wile away the pains of her three ill-
starred brothers, who have been changed into peli-
cans by the evil power of the magician Terroso.
The weird comicality of the three pelican brothers,
like so many washed-out flamingoes, with a broad

grin upon their long, hooked bills, cannot bat be
mentioned as a something indescribably ludicrous.
Foremost, by the charm of it, S. Solomon's " Sum-
mer Twilight," delicious in the colouring, as well
as in the graceful, dainty pencilling of the forms
and features introduced in the composition. There
is a briny freshness almost as welcome as one of
Hook's in the " Bracken Boat " of Hamilton
.Macallum. Beautiful, too, and worthy of its theme,
is the ideal head of " Poetry," by E. J. Poynter,
A.R.A. Two other paintings of a very different
character, each of them, to any of these, and pre-
senting the widest contrast to each other, I would
yet mention, to wit, Arthur Severn's " The Sea
after Sunset," and Edwin Bale's "Rival Musicians,"
the latter representing a young rustic with a tin
whistle, just moist from his lips, listening to the
song of a blackbird in its osier-cage.
This afternoon I attended the private view—
really private, being restricted exclusively to the
press—of the spring pictures in oil and water colour,
in the Old Bond-street Gallery, just opposite Bur-
lington-gardens. Also the press private view (in
anticipation of morro at's public private view, es
one might actually call it) of the Society of Female
Artists in the Conduit-street Gallery.
Ou Tuesday evening I attended the last but Silt
of Charles Dickens's Readings. A magnificent
audience was assembled in the great hall at St.
James's—an audience as nearly as possible a thou-
sand—who hung upon every syllable, every glance,
every movement, of the most dramatic reader
living, as he is also incomparably the most popular
author of his generation. Pathos and humour al-
ternated wondrously in " Little Dombey's death,"
and " Bob Sawyer's party"—the first causing many
a tear to trickle, the second calling forth roars of
laughter. A peep through the curtain, from the
platform, before the reading commenced, when the
gas was suddenly turned up, was, to me, really a
new sensation. The effect was something beauti-
ful—the brightened faces and the varied costumes of
the fair occupants of the stalls making that portion
of the hall a very parterre of flowers. Within five
weeks from this will have been brought to a close
Mr. Dickens's brilliant career as a public reader—a
career which has extended now over a period of 14
years altogether, to the delight of many hundreds
of thousands in both hemispheres. On Tuesday
evening next will be repeated the most remarkable
of all his representations, one of the most
powerful pieces of tragic acting in my remem-
brance, the murder scene from " Oliver Twist"—
in the delineation of which to his audience, vocally
and visually, Mr. Dickens is himself, in rapid suc-
cession, the lifelike incarnation, one after another,
.of the weird old Jew Fagin, of sneaking Morris
Bolter, of the brutal assassie, Bill Sikes, and of
poor Nancy, the burglar's victim. Those who have
never yet si;en Mr. Dickens in one of his readings
ought on no account to miss doing so when he
gives those four astounding impersonations.
A very curious and important work by Sir Wil-
liam Jones, the great Oriental scholar of the last
century, is about to be issued from the press almost
immediztely by a new and enterprising publisher,
Capt. Charlton Tucker, just now starting into note
at 14, Northumberland-street, Strand—the street
already noteworthy in the literary world of Lon-
don as containing the publishing office of the Pall
111 all Gazette.

The eccentric rumour to which many persons
gave credence here, last week, to the effect that
Archbishop Manning would for certain be the next
Pope, recalled to my recollection upon the instant
the conclusion jumped to some seven or eight years
ago by the Times, that Cardinal Wiseman was safe
to be the Sovereign Pontiff on the death of his
present Holiness. The limes set the whole state-
ment forth one morning, authoritatively, in its
first leading article, and even revealed the name
by which the Cardinal was to be known on as-
cending the pontifical throne, to wit—that of
Pope Pius X. Cardinal Wiseman's death falsified
all these predictions. This time, however, it seems
entirely to be overlooked that, before Archbishop
Manning can have any chance of being raised
to the pontificate, he will have to be made
a Ca;•dinal. Two things must occur as essential
preliminaries. First of all, the Archbishop moat
bccvine hi° noituence before he can possibly be-
come his Holiness. Secondly, Pius IX. must have
passed into his grave—the Pope being as hale an
old man in appearance as I ever saw in my life,
when he passed within arm's reach of me up
the nave of St. Peter's as recently as on the
Bth of December, the day of the opening of the
Ecumenical Council. According to the " Alma-
nach de Gotha," he is 78 years of age. According
to his own account he is 80. In point of fact he
looks about 60.

Of all the melancholy spectacles I ever wit-
nessed in the House of Lords, the ceremonial of
the inauguration of the present session of Parlia.
ment, at two o'clock on Tuesday afternoon, was
the most triste and heart-depressing. The appear-
ance of the House of Commons, two hours after-
wards, came, however, as a most welcome compen-
sation. If ever a House, if ever a Ministry, meant
business, it is now, that each has done so—ecce the
Speech from the 'Throne, and the Government an-
nouncements immediately afterwards I