The Sun.
London, England, 1870-01-29 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVESING, JANUARY 29, 1870

horses, or other such fictitious arguments, ought to
ba allowed to stand in the way.

THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL'S address to his• consti-
tuents at Exeter in all probability closes the series
of Ministerial speeches before the meeting 'of Par-
liament. The leading impression to be derived
from the aggregate of this Government oratory is a
negative one. The Ministers, Cabinet and subordinate,
who have favoured their constituents with " extra-
Parliamentary utterances," have been very successful
in keeping back what it would not be prudent to
reveal. There has been no indiscretion. Seldom,
indeed, has the House of Commons assembled with a
more indistinct notion of what the business of the
session will really be. We know that there is to
be a Land Bill which will not subvert the " rights of
property;" there will be an Education Bill, of which
Mr. FOUSTER expects much and Sir JOHN COLE-.
RIDGE next to nothing; the Ballot will be intro-
duced some time before the next general election ;
the grog shops will be brought into order somehow;
married women will receive a little of the attention
for which they have so long waited; and there will
be another try at getting rid S of University Tests.
Really, the members of the Government who
have enlightened the nation have managed
matters very well. With the exception of a hint at
the nature of the Education Bill, they have not
divulged the least clue to the character of the mea-
sures to be submitted next session, and the different
speakers are contradictory as to the probable date
by which certain of the coming changes will be
completed. The SOLICITOR-GENERAL'S speech is
marked by even greater reticence than those of his
predecessors, and yet it is not without interest. He
vigorously pounded the Opposition journals and
speakers on the dockyard question; but those unfor-
tunates so sadly blundered in their unhappy
attack upon the Government, and received such severe
treatment in consequence, that it may be merciful to
leave them in peace. Admiral ELLIOT'S effusions in
the Standard were the tze plus ultra of political igno-
rance and imprudence. Tho replies of Mr. CHILDERS
and Mr. OTWAY dispose of the question. It really is
a matter of fact that the Conservative Administra-
tion discharged more dockyard men than their suc-
cessors, and therefore the charge brought against the
present Ministry is highly unjust. Tho manoeuvre
attempted by certain minor members of the party in
respect of the dockyards can be compared for impru-
dence only with Mr. STAVELEY HILL'S talk
about reciprocity, and the famous attack upon Mr.
BRIGHT, by Mr. GARTH, Q.C., M.P. for Guildford.
Such weak procedures only display a lamentable
lack of substantial policy.
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL gave the Exeter electors
the usual jubilant review of the past session. Of
this we can only say that as another session is com-
mencing, we shall probably, to cur extreme
comfort, hear no more of the great
things which the Liberals did in 1860. Sir JOHN
opposed his great brother lawyer, Sir ROITNDELL
PALMER, on the subject of married women's
property rights ; and his open declaration
respecting the present barbaric state of the law
gives rise to the hope that an injustice will soon bo
remedied, and that women will be allowed the full
control of their own inheritance or earnings.
Past proceedings in Parliament have decided
that it should be so ; with this, as with many
other questions, all that remains is to find an
opportunity to get through the routine work
of passing a measure. The declaration on
University Tests, too, va sans dire. Sir JOHN
was very angry with the Lords for rejecting
his bill last year, and he makes no secret of
his satisfaction that their lordships must suffer
the scorpions of 1870 for having withstood the whips
of 1860. The Upper House contemptuously threw
out a permissive measure last session. This year,
or next at latest, they „will be I confronted
with a bill which will provide no option on the part of
the colleges. Lastly, the SOLICITOR-GENERAL'S
statement on education is another item of testimony
that the League scheme is not the scheme of
the Government. The utmost the Birmingham
school can hope for is a compromise which will
give them a fair share of power in the towns. It is
clear that. the Government thinks education without
school fees to be thoroughly incompatible with justice
to the existing organisation.

TERRIBLE CONFLAGRATION IN LONG-ACRE.

THIS DAY.

The most extensive fire that has occurred in the neigh-
bourhood of Long-acre for some considerable time past
happened this morning (Saturday), about 3 o'clock, and in
a comparatively brief space of time laid in ruins property
of great value.
The premises in which the disaster occurred were seve-
ral floors high, of cousiderale depth, and abutted upon a
row of tenements in an exceedingly narrow thoroughfare,
termed Nottingham-court, in which over 100 persons re-
sided. The lower part of the main building, which had a
frontage in Castle-street, was tenanted by Messrs. J. and
G. Bell, the potato merchants, of Covent Garden Market,
and the other part as a coach body repairing and painting
shops. Police-constable 384, of the C division, it ap-
pears, in passing along his beat, noticed smoke pouring
out of the side windows of that part of the building
belonging to the Messrs. Bell. lie at once gave an
alarm by springing his rattle, and sent off for
proper assistance, but in less than ten minutes over 5,000
baskets became ignited, as well as 500 sacks of potatoes.
It then became apparent that a conflagration, and one of
no small magnitude, was inevitable, and it seemed ques-
tionable whether any of the houses in Nottingham-court
would be able to escape the ravages of the flames. To
give a:description of the fearful scene that took place, even
before au engine had time to arrive, would be itrpossible ;
suffice it to say, that men, women, and children, upon
finding that the back of their houses were in flames,
either jumped out of window or ran in a state bordering
upon frenzy into the street, and had to wade nearly knee
deep through the water.
With all possible expedition the engines from Chandos-
street, Holborn, Farringdon-street, and the more dis-
tant depots arrived, under the command of Mr. Bridges
and Mr. Palmer, the chief officers of the City and West-
end districts. Mr. Superintendent Swanton was also early
in arriving with the London Salvage Corps. Not a
moment's delay tookplace before the firemen and the Lon-
don Salvage Corps went to work, and copious streams of
the opposing element were thrown by four of Shand and
Mason's land steamers upon the flames, but in spite of
which they continued to travel, and when the roof fell in,
which was within half an hour after the first discovery,
the fire rose at least 30 feet into the air, illuminating the
whole of the metropolis and bringing out in grand relief
not only the steeples of the west-end churches, the clock
tower at the Houses of Parliament, but also the venerable
cathedral of St. Paul's. At the same time several of the
poor creatures' houses in Nottingham-court were blazing
away with full vigour, and had it not been for the services
rendered by Mr. Superintendent Thomson and In-
spectors Brennan and Arnett, it is quite probable that
some of the poor people would have lost
_their lives
in their endeavour to save their humble pro-
perty. Carts, vans, and wagonettes could be seen in
the midst of the flames, but no ono was able to remove
one of them, and they quickly succumbed beneath, leaving
nothing behind them but the iron tires and axletrees, and
even they were reduced to misshapen masses. Eventu-
ally the firemen and Salvage Corps managed to get the
flames subdued. The whole of the premises of Messrs.
Bell are gutted; two houses in Nottingham-court are
burned out, and several others are seriously injured. The
origin of the fire is unknown.

The clipper barque Acton, Captain Parker, one
of the White Cross line of packets, trading between Lon-
don and Natal, owned by Messrs. Pothonier, Tilsley, and
Co., of London, has just arrived from Mauritius, after an
unprecedented passage of 69 days to the entrance of the
Channel. She left Mauritius on lith November, passed St
Helena on 13th December, and arrived at Scilly on the
22d January, having been detained six days outside
through contrary winds.

it is not expected that the Convocation of the pro-
viuee of Canterbury mill meet for the despatch of business
on Wednesday, February 9th, according to arrangement
but that it will be adjourned for two or three weeks in con-
sequence of the illness of the Archbishop.
Some difficulty seems to be experienced in finding
It bishop for the vacant see of Sierra Leone. Dr. Massing-
to whom it was offered, has refused it, and, So it is
said, have other clergymen. It is worth £9OO a year £5OO
a year as colonial chaplain, and £4OO from tho Colonial
Bishoprics Fund.
It is stated that the directors of the reconstructed
European Lifo Assurance Mee have determided that, in
the case of Government employds, where the guarantee
premium does not exceed £1 per cent. per annum, if a policy
for the amount of the guarantee be effected, they will make
the guarantee without cost.

Blackwodd for February.

(NEW NUMBEE-JUST OUT.)

A more than usually brilliant and interesting
number of Maga is the one just oat for Feb-
ruary. Cornelius O'Dowd is himself again, to
the delight of us all, and discourses, among
other things, upon a matter iu regard to
which he himself is great amongst the great—
namely, Chess, in re " Gambits." A fourth
instalment is given of each of tha two serial
stories now running, as it were, neck and neck,
in Blackwood, to wit, " Earl's Dene" and " John."
Colonel llatnley (is it not ?) contributes a second
portion of his sparkling record of " The Opening
of the Suez Canal." There are two solid " padding"
articles among the contents of the number, one
on " University Tests," the other ou " Democracy
beyond the Seas." The " political" is a slasher—
under the suggestively cut and thrust title of
"The Coming Session." Added to this, there are two
rather remarkable supplementary papers of merely a
page or so each of them—one a letter, the other
a Postscript. The Letter, being ad Iressed to
Maga by the noble author of the Comedy of
"Walpole," is a graceful and unanswerable vindi-
cation of his " Employment [in that play] of
Rhymed Verse in English Comedy." The Post.
script—finishing up the February number of Black-
wood—is on eto "Lord Byron and his Calumniators."
Brief though it is, it is more of a slasher even than the
"political" already referred to. The writer, however,
in one of his incidental allusions makes an absurd slip
of the pen—absurd, that is to say, to all readers well
"up" in Dickens—where he says that Mrs. Stowe's
elaborate eulogy ofTruth (in her new and nasty book)
reminds him of " Mr. Chadband's discourse in
' Bleak House,' on the same subject, delivered over
the unhappy Tom All-Alone' " meaning Jo
from "Tom- All-Alone's."

TOIYN TALK.

(From the Western Mail of this Morning.)

FRIDAY EVENING.

As more than a whole twelvemonth has now elapsed
since the present Ministry was inducted into office, the
frequenters of clubland are tempted to consider how far
the members of the Administration have realised the ex-
pectations raised on their formation into a Government. A
year is a tolerably good test to be applied to the capabili.
ties of any 84 of Administrators. And how far (it is reason-
able to ask at this moment) have her Majesty's present
advisers borne the application to them of that crucial test
—a six months' session followed by the six months of a
long vacation ? As a dispassionate observer, I cannot
hesitate to assert at once that, judged by their increasing
unpopularity, several of them have failed egregiously. Lord
Clarendon, it is true, has gone on at a steady jog-trot, and
occupies pretty much the same position in public regard
that he occupied a year ago. Mr. Gladstone's capacity for
work has only been more conspicuously demonstrated
than ever, since he assumed the supremely responsible
post of First Lord of the Treasury. Mr. Bright —re.
garded as a leading horse in the Government team
after kicking over the traces two or three times, and once
getting the bit fairly between his teeth, has latterly not
only shown himself to be a little less skittish and restive
than of old, but has very recently given evidence of his
being, at last, tolerably well broken into harness, and ready
even when there is up-hill work to be done, to press for-
ward, well into the collar, with the steadiest old ministerial
hack amongst them all. Having said this, I have really
said everything in the way t f commendation. Fur—look
at the rest of them ! lies Lord Hatherley, for example,
justified by his labours as a law reformer his selection,
in preference to the most brilliant and the most popu-
lar man upon the whole bench (meaning the Lord Chief
Justice cf England), as the Lord High Chancellor? Has
Lord de Grey and Ripon relieved himself, iu any way
from the charge of being nothing else than a nonentity ?
Has Lord Kimberley contrived by any means to give
good reason for the retention of his preposterous office,
meaning the office of Lord Privy Seal? Has the awfully
increasing pauperism-1 won't say of England, but of
London alone— given the smallest token of abatement
under the benign regime of Mr. Goschen, at the Poor-law
Board ? Has Mr. Cardwell worked a single wonder of
any kind--has he won for himself anything else than un-
popularity—since he became Secretary of State at the head
of the War Department ? Then, as to the Indian Secre-
tars ship, it surely would be difficult to define the particular
advantage accruing to our Asiatic possessions from the
combined labours of the Duke of Argyll and Mr. Grant-
Duff, his Grace's under-secretary. According to Mr. Ber-
nal Osborne's complimentary epilogue, only the other dry
at Dublin, during the private theatricals before the
Lord Lieutonaut, a particular charm—of course—has been
added to the graceful hospitalities at Stravvberrry Hill and
at the Secretary's lodge in Phoeuix-park, by Frances
Countess Waldegravo. Not a doubt of it! but, as to
any beneficial influence exercised by her husband, Mr.
Cleichesterilloi tescue, towards the mitigation of the horrors
el Fenianism, or towards the diminution of the number
of agrarian outrages —how about that ? No one, ag du,
disputes the conciliatory geniality of Lord Granville as Go-
vernment leader in the House of Peers; but who is there
who would venture to assert that there is anything like con-
fidence reposed in the soundness or in the vigour of his
policy as Colonial Secretary ? As for Mr. Lowe, he may
yet happily be enabled, it is true, to cover all his sins as
a financier with the condoning efficacy of that immense
windfall of a surplus of X 6,000,000, which the Ministerial
optimists are just now prophesying he will produce, like
another conjuring trick, out of his annual Badget. But,
even that grand coup, if it comes (as, pray Heaven, it may),
will never redeem the forestalling of the year's in-
come by means of his last budget from the charge of
trickery, any more than the promised surplus will re-
lieve the Chancellor of the Ex.cliequer from the person al
odium earned by him all last session, as the gratuitously
impertinent snubber of even the least aggressive and
the most courteous of deputations. Another Cabinet
Minister or two I have yet to specify. There is, for ex-
ample, one whose sole claim to the Home Secretaryship, a
year ago, among profane outsiders, appeared to be the cir-
cumstance of his patronymic having been changed three
times. That being about the sum and substance of what
any one had to tell about Mr. Bruce immediately on the
announcement that he and nobody else had been elected
by Mr. Gladstcne for the delicately-responsible office of
Secretary of State for the Home Department. His inter-
ference with the cab regulations of the metropolis I re-
ferred to last week as simply vexatious, while his auto-
cratic acts in regard to the Convict Department are, in
two or three instances, startling enough to set at defiance
anything at all in the shape of precedent. Officers but of
yesterday Ave been promoted over the heads of other
officers of long standing and of the ripest experience -the
promotion, in one instance, being all the more remarkable
because of its having been decided upon in direct defiance
of the deliberate recommendation submitted to the Secre-
tary of State by the Board of Directors. As Postmaster-
General, the Marquis of Hartington will have the glory of
inaugurating in his time the sonduct of the telegraphic
system by the servants of the Crown—the chief merit of
this important change apportainiug by right kewever, to
Mr. Scndamore. Instead of expansion, contraction is the
main object apparently aimed at by Mr. Childers, as First
Lord of the Admiralty. Hence the throb of labour has
been dying down into silence, here and there in the vast
and complicated system of the dockyards of England. The
word that has gone out from our administrators is, that
everything must be sacrificed to economy, even (shall I
ay it ?) efficiency !
This is the retrospect which-will have to be lightly
touched in couleur de rose by the Hon. Captain Egerton and
Sir Charles Dilke, the mover and seconder of the Ad-
dress in the House of Commons. Happily, the past
can always be slurred over at these times, in the very
natural eagearness evidenced to sketch, in yet more
roseate colours, the opening vista of the future. The
selection thus made in the House of Commons of the mover
and seconder of the Address is regarded by every one as
eminently judicious.
There is just now on view at 62, Cheapside, the exqui-
site Allegorical Picture, by which Sir Noel Paton won from
her Majesty the accolade of his knighthood. It a master-
piece that would have captivated the admiration of 01l
John Bunyan. For it is the sublimating at a single glance,
in ono inimitable work of art, of the whole scheme of his
" Pilgrim's Progress. Christian is here ssen at the las t
gasp, on his knees, his hands clasped, the good fight fought,
the valley of the shadow of death just traversed—touched
by the holy angel, half-skeleton, half beatific vision—his
dying eyes looking beyond the veil, above the tomb (with
the celestial light shining full upon them), into the super-
natural glory ol the Heavenly Jerusalem. The painting is
altogether a resplendent avid 'nee of Sir Noel Patoa's
genius as an artist and as a poetical dreamer. It is a viable
prayer. Wherever the picture hangs, the place becomes
at once a sanctuary. Not an inch of the canvas but de-
serves an almost microscopic examination. The mere details
of the composition are, many of them, simply marvellous.
The nimbus round the head of the Angel of Death, the
rusted aria' ur of the Knight, the jewelled inoese with the
head of the Redeemer in it, th 3 spider and its broken cot-
web, the fluttering butterfly suspended in mid-air, the lily
and the seeded weeds beside it, the trembling and emaciated
hands of the Christian warrior,hut above all, his breathless
enraptured face, lit up with the glory of the heaven that
opens to his view—all these are really wond, rful in the
mere manipulation of them. The effect of the work as a
w1.,1e is sue!, as entitles the producer of it to our fullest
admiration. No wonder the Queen expressed her's by
knighting him. Eighteen hundred guineas have been
declined very recently for this picture by its present pos-
sessors. Under their auspices the work (the title of which,
by the way, is Mors Janua Vitce) is being engraved in the
highest style of the now almost obsolete art of line
engraving. . .

Touching still upon matters of art, let me repeat to you

an anecdote I lit upon only the other day i B)1713 in re-
ference to Mr. Story' admirably life-like memorial statue
of George Peabody, now adorning the precincts of the
Royal Exchange hero in Loudon. Up to the time of its
production the artist and the philantropist had never met.
Prior to the very first sitting being given the sculptor pre-
pared a cough clay model of a figure—the raw material, as
it were, out of which the likeness was immediately after-
wards to be worked inform and features. This rough clay
model was, as usual, covered over loosely with a damp
cloth. On Mr. Peabody's entering the room, after a little
conversation with the sculptor, the latter suggested that
his visitor should go and sit down just exactly in any way
he himself pleased. On his settling himself comfortaDly
in his chair, the cloth was removed from the rough draft
of the model. • The attitudes were simply identical! And,
on Mr. Story's directing his sitters attention to the coin-
cidence, Mr. Peabody added—what renders the incident
doubly interesting, while it tends to enhance the value of
the statue as a memorirl—that the pose of the figure was
his own usual and favourite attitude when seated.

Referring to memorials—having myself but freshly re-
turned from a survey of the two most wonderful tombs in
the whole world, ono ancient, in fact a sump, the other
modern, and in one word matchless; the former the tomb
of Cecilia Metella, on the Appian ay, at Rome ; the
la ter the gorgeous and glorious tomb of Napoleon the
Great, under the dome of the lnvalidel, at Paris-1 cannot
but ask with a sort of impatience, when, at what remot,3
period of the future, it may be at all likely that the old
Duke's monumental tomb will be finished at St. Paul's ?
Is its completion relegated to the Greek Kalends, or to
what the yokel in one of Richard Jones's farces called,
periphrastically, next-never-come-tide.
A curious fact is rather vividly recalled to mind by the
magnificent collection of old and modern Masters now on
view at the Royal Academy—to wit, the frequency of
replicas in regard to famous masterpieces. Two instances
alone I need here specify— the "Blue Boy" of Gains-
borough, and Sir Joshua Reynolds' idealised portrait of
Mrs. Siddons as the "Tragic Muse," the latter of which is
among the treasures of the Dulwich Gallery, the replica
of it, here sent to the Royal Academy, being the property
of the Marquis of Westminster.
A generation has passed by since the late Dr. Paris
brought out (anonymously) his charming schoolboy
treatise, entitled "Philosophy in Sport made Science in
Earnest." Latterly, it would almost seem as if the fashion
were among our learnel professors to reverse this alto-
gether—science in earnest making philosophy in sport.
To the late Sir David Brewster the world was indebted for
both of those singularly beautiful and ingenious toys,
the kaleidoscope and the stereoscope. Children big and
little have now reason to thank Sir Charles Wheatstone
for another toy, equally beautiful and ingenious—moaning
the chameleon top, a sort of pirouetting rainbow, a very
marvel of revolving magnificence.

POLICE (Ni ELLIGENCE—This Day.

MARLBOROUGH-STREET.

CAUTION TO HOUSEKEEPERS, &c.—Thomas Pattican,
cab proprietor of Torrington-mews, Edgware-road, ap-
peared before Mr. Knox to answer the complaint of the
Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of
working a horse in an unfit state.

When the case was put before the magistrate evidence
was given that the horse driven by the defendant was
very lame, and the case was adjourned until the 4th Feb.
on the understanding that the defendant was to keep the
horse till that time that its condition might then be seen.
Young, officer of the Royal Society for the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals, said that he bad ascertained that
the defendant had sold the horse to be worked in a van.

Mr. Arthur Cherry, the Government veterinary surgeon,
said that was quite contrary to the understanding at the
time, and to the nia.;istrato's instructions.

Mr. Knox fined the defendant 40s. and costa.

Mr. James Dean, foreman to a contractor, of North
Wharf, Paddington, was summoned for working a horse
iu an unfit state.

The evidence of an officer showed that the hcrse was
an undersized one, was being used in a dust cart, and that
it had several sores on its shoulders and back.
The defendant said he was not aware of the condition
of the horse, it having escaped his attention, having about
100 horses in tho stables. It should not be' sent out
again.

Mr. Knox said it was a case of culpable negligence, and
fined the defendant 40s. and costs:

WESTMINSTER.

SAFE ROBBERS.—A young man giving, the name of
Edward Sullivan, was placed at the bar charged with
loitering about Wellington-square, Chelsea, for an unlaw-
ful purpose.
John Greenacre, 333 B said that at seven o'clock that
morning he saw the prisoner and another man loitering
about Wellington-square. He missed the prisoner for a
few minutes, and then saw him get over some railings
from the area of a house. Seeing him, they went towards
the enclosure of the square. Witness laid hold of prisoner
and asked his companion to come with hi,n to the station
when he replied, "not for me,' and ran away.
James Lovett, 27 B, said that on seam:hitt:l the inclosure
near where the prisoner went he found a bundle, contain-
ing pork, soap, bacon, butter, cheese, and other things.
Mr. Selfe—Nava you found an owner?
Policeman -Only for some of the things.

Mr. Selfe then remanded the prisoner until next Friday

THAMES.

FEVER DENS IN POPLAR. - Mr. Charles Young, solici-
tor, applied to 11r. Paget for ten summonses against James
Richards, the owner of as many houses in Comm( dore-
court, High-street, Poplar, for permitting a fearful nuisance
to exist on his premises, which were unfit for human
habitations.

Mr. Paget said be had heard enough to justify him in
granting the summonses. The houses ought to be
closed, lime-washed and repaired, and the cesspools put
in order.