The Sun.
London, England, 1870-07-15 00:00:00

SUBSCRI

" Who would rob a poor man of his beer..."

But though the strain was old, very old, the voice
was new. Who was the owner thereof ? No one
seemed to know • the reporters were all in the dark,
and even when it was told them by the omniscient door-
keeper that the hon. speaker's name was " Wheelhouse,"
they did not seem to be much wiser for the information,
and there was, much searching of " Dod " to ascertain.
Mr. Wheelhouse is the minority member for Leeds. His
colleagues, Mr. Baines and Mr. Carter, support the bill
and voted for it yesterday. Mr. Wheelhouse, having to
acquire fame, opposed it ; but, unfortunately for his chance
of celebrity, could find no more effective arguments against
the measure than those which have done duty over and
over again, and have been so often refuted and utterly
turned inside out, that it is wonderful how -anyone can
have the courage to resuscitate such venerable but ten
times exposed old bogies. There was just one new point ;
Mr. Wheelhouse made this bill the text for a tirade against
free traders, a device which will hardly be of much ser-
vice to the opponents of the Permissive BilL There was
no need to ask who the gentleman was that seconded Mr.
Wheelhouse's amendment. Everyone knows Mr.
O'Reilly Dense as the most mirth-inspiring member of
the House. He beats Mr. Bernal Osborne in his power
of provoking laughter ; but while the House laughs
with Mr. Osborne, it laughs at Mr. Dease.
If you ask me why it laughs at Mr. Dease, I should find
it hard to say, as hard as to describe the scent of the rose.
His very face is a comedy. It is a five-act burlesque,
bound up, not in calf, but in manskin, with much hairy
fringe. And then his brogue is so delicious, his polite-
ness so grandly effusive, his arguments so delightfully
topsy-turvy, and inside out, that from the time he rises
with a graceful wave of his hat, to the time that he sits
down with courteous inclination of the head to members
all round, one is continually convulsed with laughter.
To Mr. Pease succeeded Mr. Whalley in support of the bill.
" A Roland for an Oliver," you will say. Not a bit of it.
Mr. Whalley on all other points save the Jesuits and the
Romish hierarchy is not only sane, but sensible, practical,
and logical. He urged a very good point in favour of the
bill, namely, that it would relieve magistrates from one
of the most difficult duties which they had to perform.
Mr. Kennaway, the new member for East Devon, was
the next to speak, and he certainly spoke very well. It
was in fact the first real. attempt to deal with the bill.
Nevertheless he had not the quickness to see that his
arguments were self-destructive. The bill would be an
utter failure, because it would not really interfere with
the sale of drink, and it would interfere with it so
seriously that it would lead to rioting. Both arguments,
of course, lose sight of the fact that the bill will
not be put in force unless a large majority
of the people wish it, and if they-wish it, that very fact
will make the bill work. The inability to see this was
on a par with Mr. Wheelhouse's inability to see that his
argument about the injustice done to the working classes
was met by the fact that it is the working classes them-
selves who wish the measure. Mr. Kennaway quoted an
amusing passage from Mr. Sala, to shew how,
after much trouble, that not very accurate traveller
had contrived to obtain drink in one of the States of
America where the Maine law was in force. Mr. Sala's
difficulties at least shewed that drink was not sold
openly, that, in order to obtain it, it was necessary to
evade and break the law. I suppose that not even Mr.
Sala would say that because a law can be evaded and
broken it ought to be repealed, else it would
go hard with our purses, watches, and pocket
handkerchiefs. Mr. Kennaway spoke for a quarter
of an hour, and then Mr. Dixon, and Mr. Bruce,
rose together. Mr. Dixon gave way, and Mr. Bruce
described the course of the Government. I need not
summarise his speech, which no doubt your readers have
perused. Suffice it to say that the Home Secretary
admitted the great principle of the Permissive Bill, the
right of the ratepayers to have a voice >in the licensing of
liquor-shops, and that he solemnly pledged himself to
introduce the Licensing Bill early next
year. When ho sat down young Mr. Bass
and Sir Wilfrid Lawson rose together, and though
there were loud cries for " Lawson" the member for Car-
lisle gave way and allowed the representative of the bitter
beer interest to say his say. He said it very well ; and he
was honest enough to speak from the trade point of view,
and to denounce the bill because it would ruin his trade.
There was no affectation of concern for the working classes;
it, was a simple and straightforward exposition of
the wishes and expectations of those who, like himself,
have a large pecuniary stake in the maintenance of the
drink traffic. The' House liked this frankness, and ap-
pktuded the speaker. Then Sir ,Wilfrid Lawson very
briefly replied, and the question having been put, 'and the

There is no need for me to dwell upon the interest-
ing debate which took place yesterday afternoon upon
the Permissive Bill. Suffice it to say here that Mr.
Bruce has most solemnly pledged himself to intro-
duce his licensing bill early next session, and
that, so far as can be gathered from his
remarks yesterday, the measure, while it will not
deprive the magistrates entirely of the power which they
now possess, will give the ratepayers a distinct voice in
the granting of licenses for the future. I infer, too, that
Mr. Bruce will not allow licences to be taken away from
those who already hold them without compensating them
except, of course, they have forfeited them by misconduct.
We have not yet heard the end of the Admiralty
changes. In all probability Lord John Hay will resign
his post before long. He finds himself scarcely in his
right position at Whitehall, and thinks he would do better
by taking a command and keeping on the active list.
Should he resign, his present post will in all
probability be taken by Captain George Omma-
ney Willes, C. 8., who yesterday hoisted his
broad pennant on boardthe Achilles as Commodore of the
first-class in command of the coastguard squadron then
on its way to Portland, in Dorsetshire, and not as the Times
absurdly stated yesterday, Portland in the United States.
Captain Willes is high up in the list of captains, and his
commission dates from 1856. Rear-Admiral Yelverton
will soon have command of the Mediterranean fleet, but
will previously hoist his flag for a time as Commander of
the Channel Squadron.
In his letter of resignation Mr. Reed told the Admiralty
that the cause of his resigning was that mechanical
talent was not sufficiently rewarded by the Admiralty, a
statement which can hardly be denied. When the
present Continental crisis arose, Mr. Reed wrote that if
it was thought desirable to withdraw his re-
signation for the present, he was quite willing
to do so for a time. Their Lordships sent
him back a very short answer to the effect that
they could not entertain his proposal. The question
as to who will be Mr. Reed's successor is now greatly
discussed at Whitehall. There are three assistant con-
structors, Mr. Barnaby, Mr. Barnes, and Mr. Crosland,
and it is pretty nearly certain that the new chief-
constructor will be found among these three, or else at
Chatham, in the person of Mr. Thornton, the master'
shipwright. I should add that Mr. Barnaby is Mr. Reed's
brother-in-law, and possesses, moreover, considerable
literary power, no unimportant consideration, as Mr.
Reed himself, who owed his position in no small measure
to his articles, can testify. Finally, with regard to Ad-
miralty matters, it is expected that Sir Spencer Robinson
will make a cruise with the coastguard ships, and that
Mr. Childers will be able to return to work by the end of
the month. At the present time Sir Sydney Dacres is the
presiding spirit.

Mr. Gladstone's Government seems likely to equal Lord
Derby's and Mr. Disraeli's last as regards its legal patro-
nage. There appears to be a strong blight over the courts
at Lincoln's Inn. For fifteen years there was hardly any
change in the personnel of the Chancery Judges, and now for
the last three years there have been changes upon changes,
so numerous that the juniors of a few months ago are now
the seniors, and Sir William James, who was appointed
Vice-Chancellor in December, 1868, now finds himself
senior Lord Justice. Sir Markham Giffard's death will
be much regretted, and I fear it has been due in some
measure to the mistaken economy of the Government
which ever since Sir Charles Selwyn's death a year ago
kept him without any colleague. Sir William James will
now have the delicate task of hearing alone appeals against
his own judgments as Vice-Chancellor. The arrangement
is so eminently undesirable that it is to be hoped
Government will fill up the vacancy at once. The three
Vice-Chancellors are Stuart, Malins, and Bacon. It is
doubtful if the new Lord Justice will be selected from
them. The first has been passed over many times, the
second is a Conservative who owed his position mainly to
political influence, the third has only just been appointed
to his present post. Should one of them be chosen it is
expected that Mr. Jessel, one of the most energetic men
living, will be made vice-chancellor.
It is proposed in France to issue railway stamps, which
anybody can buy beforehand, and so save himself the
trouble and delay of having to purchase his ticket just as
he is on the point of starting, and just as he has to look
after his luggage. The idea is a good one, and should be
considered by our own railway managers. Another inven-
tion, an English one, is that of a cylindrical iron
kerb for the reception of telegraph wires. This will be
easily opened, and so allow the repairs of the telegraphs,
without the necessity which-now exists of taking up the
pavement in order to get at the wires.
Mr. Armitage, R.A., who has lately painted the portraits
of the chief founders of the London University, has
now been commissioned to paint others of the principal
living friends of the institution. Both sets of pictures will
be placed in the large hall.
The chief literary news of importance is that Lord
Lytton is writing a new novel for Blackwood's Magazine,
and that " George Eliot" is writing a novel fer the pub-
lishers of that magazine, and another poem similar in
length to "The Legend of Jubal " for .Macmillan's Maga-
zine. Lord Lytton is, it is said, to have £3,000.
The Weekly Dispatch, which was lately reduced from four-
pence to two-pence, is now coming out at a penny. Mr.
Whitehurst, the Paris correspondent of the Daily Tele-
graph, whose eventful history I described in a
recent letter, is removing from Paris to St.
Petersburg, where no doubt he will find the
Czar of all the Russias as confidential as
the Emperor of the French. Mr. Slagg, whose efforts in
connection with the French Commercial Treaty al e well
known, is bringing out an important pamphlet on the
subject. The Queen was so much pleased with Mr.
Farrar's recent sermon at one of the special Westminster
Abbey services that she has ordered it to be printed. •

•
SENSATIONAL ELOPEMENT FROM PAISLEY.—A.
brother and sister (the former married) left Paisley on
Saturday, with the avowed intention of proceeding to
their mother's house, about three miles from the town, for
the purpose of getting their clothes washed, which they
carried with them. Not returning in the evening, how-
ever, the man's wife went in search of him on Sunday
morning, but to no purpose, and no information has yet
been got as to their whereabouts. The man had to do
with some public money, but if behind at all it is to a very
small amount, and that is covered by a guarantee bond.--,
-bundee Advertiser.

monopoly " at one another, but in reality playing into
each other's hands. Of this there is no positive proof, but
the gossip is based upon the fact that the president of one
company is son-in-law to the president of the other. Last
summer ice sold in this city at thirty cents the hundred-
weight, and in the very hottest weather it reached fifty
cents. This year the price opened at one dollar, has now
been advanced to one dollar and a half, and threatens,
unless the present weather moderates, to reach two dollars
before the season closes. This tremendous advance in
prices has caused the panic.
With the thermometer at 96 degrees in the shade ice is
a necessity, not only to the drinkers of ice-waters and the
consumers of beverages above alluded to, but also to the
fishmongers, the butchers, the soda-water dealers, the ice-
cream makers, the hotel keepers, and the many other
tradesmen whose business is absolutely dependent upon
an unfailing supply of the article. It is therefore absurd
to talk of their resisting the monopoly and " doing without
ice." It is an absolute necessity, a sine qua non, and if
their business is not large enough to warrant them in
paying the increased prices, they must simply shut their
shops and go to something else. This has already been done
by numbers of fish dealers, ice-cream makers, and retailers
of soda water, where sales were not large enough to cover
the heightened cost, and leave a reasonable margin of
profit.
The dealers say, in their defence, that last winter was
extraordinarily mild, and that they were unable to make
their usual harvest. This ip a prevarication. They did
not make their usual harvest, inasmuch as the ice was
gathered and shipped from the Kennebec River in Maine,
instead of being cut up the Hudson as usual, but the crop
was very large, and they have now enough of ice in their
storehouses to supply every dealer and every private
family in New York, though it should not freeze again
until Christmas of 1871. No, this is but a shallow excuse
for an outrageous extortion ; because the weather has been
unprecedentedly warm the monopolists have found them-
selves masters of the situation, and have determined to
make money while the sun shines.
There are rumours that next year you will find the
tables turned upon the dealers—that the hotel keepers
contemplate uniting for the purpose of supplying them-
selves—that the large consumers intend to follow their
example—and that the next season will leave the would-
be monopolists without a market. There may be some
foundation for these rumours, but I doubt whether the
proposed plans will ever be executed. We all know how,
during moments of excitement, people promise many
things to themselves, and forget them immediately there-
after. And so, when the hot weather shall have passed
away, the hotel keepers and the large consumers will very
likely forget their present determination, and next season
will find them as completely in the power of the monopo-
lists as they are to-day, and compelled, for the same good
reason, to put up with their extortions.
I have lingered rather longer than I had intended about
the ice question, but the topic is a most agreeable one at the
present time, when the tubes of half the thermometers in
the city are not long enough to mark the terrific heat
under which we are suffering. Nothing like it has been
known in many years, even in tropical New York, and
our ungrateful children, who have flown to the White
Mountains and other charming localities, where the tra-
veller must needs assume his heaviest overcoat in the
mornings and snestle in the ingle side when the dews of
evening begin to fall—these children, I say, express the
unfilial conviction that we of the city are "getting it" for
our sins. Such may be the melancholy fact—though few
stay in town during these hot months for choice, and all
who can get away are already gone or going. As I wrote
you in my last the stream of summer travellers was pour-
ing steadily from the metropolis, and it has been doing
nothing else ever since. European steamers, coast steam-
boats, and railway trains overflow with passengers eager
to get away from work and have what they are pleased to
term—but which very seldom proves to be—a quiet time
in the country. And now, as if to render the city
peculiarly disagreeable, and to add another to the long
list of reasons why the inhabitants should leave it, we
have lately got up a little earthquake on our own account,
a small affair, 'tis true, but big enough to create some
little interest at the time, and to furnish a much-needed
sensation in these stagnant times to the reporters of the
metropolitan journals. Saturday last was a very hot day,
though there is nothing in that to distinguish it from
several previous Saturdays, and I fear for many Saturdays
to come. Still it was a hot day, the thermometer rang-
ing in the eighties until 7.12 p.m., when it stood at 89
deg. Immediately after the mercury began to rise, and
ten minutes later reached 93 deg., a very remarkable
increase in so short a time. It was at this moment
that the dwellers upon the east side of the city were
struck by a strange rumbling noise around them, and an
unaccountable tremor in the ground beneath their feet.
The phenomena was so extraordinary that many persons
ran from their houses thinking that some great explosion
must have taken place in a distant part of the city. The
entire affair did not last longer than a couple of seconds,
and therefore few people were frightened, though all were
more or less excited by the unusual occurrence. It is now
generally admitted to have been an earthquake, and we
are not a little proud of it, although there are sceptics
who insist that the whole matter is a newspaper sensation,
gotten up for the benefit of the hotel-keepers at the water-
ing places, with a hope by this and similar scares to drive
from the city the economically minded earlier than they
had intended to leave.
The Fourth of July is at hand, and the streets, already
far from attractive, are becoming positively dangerous iu
consequence. The patriotic youth of America are not
content with breaking the city ordinance's by universal
permission upon one day in the year, but must need com-
mence their celebration a week before and continue it a
week after the anniversary in question. Therefore, it is a
common thing to have your new beaver, of which you are
very proud, and which you think every one must be
admiring, perforated by a nitro-glycerine torpedo or some
such diabolical compound, or to have the toe of your boot
and your general nervous system seriously impaired by
the explosion beneath your feet of a " cannon cracker"
weighing at least a pound, and going off with a deafening
noise. All this is doubtless very patriotic and very nice,
but few people enjoy the joke when it is perpetrated on
themselves ; and in face of the fact that such exploding of
fireworks, &c., in the public thoroughfares is forbidden
by law, and see no reason why the " little jokers " should
not be warned, and if caught in the act a second time
arrested. Their parents would be careful enough there-
after' 'and peaceable pedestrians would be relieved from
what is fast becoming an intolerable nuisance.
Nothing could describe the " masterly inactivity"
which reigns throughout the city ; every one does just as
little as possible, and is particularly careful not to accuse
himself. 'Therefore, I regret to say, the theatrical season
is amazingly dull, and the few places of amusement that
remain open are not doing a good business. " The
Huguenotar;is not a success at Booth's, and will be with-
drawn after this week, and the theatre will then be closed.
The Olympic-Theatre also succumbs to the influence of
the weather on the same evening. Though the last nights
of " Fernande" at the Fifth-avenue Theatre are not yet
announced, it is understood that they are numbered, and
that the establishment will be closed at the end of the
coming week. Wallack's and the Grand Opera House
will remain open during the entire season, the former
having secured one Mr. Emmett, the provincial actor, as
star ; and the latter being, in momentary expectation
of the arrival of a ballet and pantomime combination
from Vienna.. It is a sufficiently good sign of the times
when the theatres arc compelled to close their doors, and
from the little sketch I have given you can imagine what
state of things must be. We all hope, however, for
good times coming in the fall, and certainly dramatic
and musical attractions will not be lacking—for Nillson
is coming to sing in concerts, under the able management
of M. Stra.kosch. Schneider, it is said, has been engaged
by some enterprising capitalist to perform in opera
bouffe. James Fisk is organising a superb company for
the same line of 'comic opera to be given at his Opera
House. Janausohek is to appear in English tragedy.
Marie Seebach, a German actress of great reputation,
will make her first debut in this country, and the many
native stars of greater or less magnitude, with Mr. Jeffer-
son heading the list, will all return to us in the fall. In
the meantime I shall fan myself and try and keep cool.

PRINCE HAL.