The Sun.
London, England, 1870-03-30 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Northward to Babylon. A Femi•Satirical Poem.
12m0., pp. 39. Charlton Tucker.
A charming little pocket volume, beautifully
printed aad daintily bound, here introduces very
modestly to our notice a sort of poetic Siamese
Twins. Separate and yet mystically united, " North-
ward" and " Babylon"—the two Poems, into which
the tiny booklet or volumette is sub-di-
vided—appears on' the title-page as a single
production, that is to say, as " Northward
to Babylon." The writer, whoever he may be
(a contemporary wouti, we observe, rather
have said here, whoever she may be), has evidently
but a very small amount of self-assalion. Insomuch
that the Preface and Dedication," all in one, is
subscribed, with exc,ssive humility, "The Scribbler."
A humility so excessive that we are fain to demon-
strate the fact of its being so by one or two (as they
seem to us) charming quotations. Describing, in a
mere footnote, at p. 12, the eastern Silver Rose, the
Scribbler (soi-disant) can yet %rite of it thus de-
licately :
" Gul Chadne3 (Rose Silver), an exquisite flower,
On a large bush of dark glossy green it is set,
Like silver white tissue, a fit fairy bower,
All daintily crumpled into a rosette."
Again—being in Elfland, and yet turning whimsi-
cally a glance towards Platform-land (on t'other side
of the Atlantic), the author pens wittily a couplet
of rather comprehensive application, where he
writes—

"But planks in Platform-land will split—
A fault in grain the cause of it."
A couplet, by the way, having about it a quite Hu-
dibrastic flavour or twang A sleeper on the verge
of waking is at p. 29 thus described—
" Closed are the eyes, tho lips apart,
Half smiled, as if about to start
From some blest dream !'
A thunderstorm, on turning the leaf (p. 30) is thus
touched into recognition at a glance :
"A dazzling line zigzags the cloud,
Anon the thunder crackles loud,
As if the vault above had split
And heaven all glorious gleamed through it ! "
While again, but a little further on (p. 34), one
comes on this delicately-indicated wintry land-

nape—
" Snow, ever snow! incessant fall
Those feath'ry flakes enshrouding all,
Each speck so soft, so light, s 9 weak,
Yet, massed, resistlessly they break
All in their path, with sullen craunch,
As thunders down th• avalanche
Snow, ever snow ! daylight delayed
Scarce struggles through the falling shade."
As for the drift of the double poem, that we shall
not spoil by indicating—commending those who have
appreciated the graceful morrea►ix we have here
g'ven by way of extract, to turn to the dainty
little book itself, there to read the tale, as it has been
told to us, for themselves.

LAW AND POLICE.

THE BANKRUPTCY LAW OF 1861.—Lord-Justice Giffard
has decided the case of Major Wieland, who was adjudged
bankrupt in the Lewes County Court. It was argued
that the proceedings at Lewes having been instituted
under the law of 1861, the Chief Judge had no power to
transfer them to London. On the other side it was
argued that the adjudication at Lewes was a fraudulent
proceeding, by which the creditors would be materially
affected. It had only been necessary for the bankrupt to
give a bill of sale divesting himself of all his property,
when, by collusion with a friendly creditor, he was
arrested, and the subsequent proceedings were of a very
easy kind. The Lord Justice decided in favour of the
jurisdiction of the Chief Judge in Bankruptcy, and dis-
missed the appeal.
THE WATFORD BOARD OF HEALTH.—An application
has been made to Vice-Chancellor Malins for an injunc-
tion to restrain the Watford Board of Health from pol-
luting the river Colne with sewage. The injunction was
granted, time beine, allowed by the Vice-Chaneellor for
the completion of drainage works now in course of
erection.
" UNCLE DICK'S DARLING " IN CHANCERY. —Mr.
Jessel, Q.C., made an application in the Rolls Court be-
fo7e Lord Romilly, for an injunction restraining Mr.
Knowles, lessee of the Theatre Royal, Manchester, from
performing, for the benefit of the local charities,
Mr. H. J. Byron's new drama, " Uncle Dick's
Darling," the play having been assigned by
the author to Mr. J. L. Toole, the well-
known actor. It transpires that Messrs. Toole and
Byron had a joint interest in the piece, and it was alleged
that the performance of it in places other than those
sanctioned by the author would be pecuniarily disadvan-
tageous to him, inasmuch as it would destroy the novelty
of plot. His lordship granted the injunction, subject
to a permission to Mr. Knowles, to apply in the course of
the present week for its dissolution,
THE HIGHGATE JUVENILE THIEVES.—Six youths, of
ages varying from 13 to 17, all living at 'Highgate, have
been charged with robbing a boy in Highgate Woods.
They are members of the Highgate juvenile gang of
thieves, the captain of whom is 17 years of age. Seven of
them were committed a year ago. The prisoners were
remanded.
CHARGE AGAINST A PUBLIC COMPANY.—At the Man-
sion House, the Great Oceanic Telegraph Company
(Limited) has been summoned before the Lord Mayor for
not having its office open for the inspection of its register
during two hours each day from the 18th to the 23rd of
March, whereby the complainant, Mr. Francis Perry,
172, Fenchurch-street, was refused an inspection of the
register. The complainant having seen the prospectus
of the company, applied for one hundred shares, on which
he paid the sum of £25, but from what he
subsequently heard, he wrote a letter cancelling the appli-
cation, and requesting a return of the money, but he was
informed that his application could not be cancelled.
Afterwards Mr. Perry and his clerk called on several
occasions at the office of the company, but found it closed.
En cross-examination the complainant said he wrote
several letters, asking a return of his money, but in none
of them did he ask to see the register. Mr. Hare said a
great many of the directors and clerks had
resigned, and also the secretary. The remaining
directors were in negociation• with some Manchester
people with the view of raising funds to carry on. the
company, and pending these negotiations the office has
been shut up in order to save expense. Under these•cir-
cumstances he thought that a very small penalty would
meet the case. The Lord Mayor said the Act was a very
salutary one and he was inclined to carry it out and to its
fullest extent. Mr. Hare said in that event he
should repuire strict proof, and contended that no
demand had been made for the register, and
that it had . not been proved that the office
had not been open two hours each day. Further evidence
having been given, the Lord Mayor said he should be very
happy to punish any evasion of the law passed for the
protection of the public, but he must do it according to
law, and in this case he did not think there was such a
palpable act of refusal as would justify him in inflicting
the penalty. The summons was then dismissed.
HEARTLESSNESS PUNISHED.—Damages in a breach of
promise of marriage case have been assessed at Leeds by.
Mr. Wheelhouse, M.P., and a jury. The plaintiff was
the daughter of an upholsterer at Bradford, and the de-
fendant a partner in a cotton mill at Shipley. They were
engaged in the summer or autumn of 1868, and the de-
fendant wrote the plaintiff many. " spoony " letters,
which were read in court. In one letter he
said that a parting from here would be bitter grief, and in
such a case "brandy and billiards would be his wife for
the future." The wedding-day was fixed, but it was post-
poned, and in the meanwhile the defendant seduced the
plaintiff on the plea that he was virtually her husband,
and then endeavoured to shuffle out of his engagement.
A verdict for the plaintiff was returned, with £750
damages.

FALSE WITNESSES.-At the Liverpool Assizes a beer
seller has been convicted of having suborned a number of
poor persons to commit perjury, upon the occasion of his
being summoned for selling beer durinr, illegal hours. On
that occasion he was fined £3, and subsequently tried for
perjury, the jury disagreeing. Justice Wiles sentenced
the psisoner, who had been six months in custody, to six
months with hard labour, remarking that unless the base
practice now prevalent of flooding the courts with false
testimony in small cases were checked, the foundations of
justice would be sapped.

A TRAP TO CATCH A BURGLAR.—A strange case of
burglary has been tried at the • assizes at Leeds. A pro-
fessional tluef attempted to tamper with the assistant of
Mr. Greenwood, a pawnbroker at Dewsbury. The
assistant told his master, and it was arranged that he
should give the burglar and his companions the means of
entering the premises. This was done, and the thieves
thus caught in a trap were arrested on the spot. Five
persons were apprehended for this affair, but two were
acquitted. Of the remainder, one named Hartley, was
sentenced to five years, and another named Lee, to seven
years' penal servitude, and a third prisoner, named Sims
to 18 months' hard labour.

The Pope has written an autograph letter to
Madame Montalembert, expressing his sympathy for the
irreparable loss she has sustained.
The charge of the buildings at South Kensington
las been transferred from the Privy Council Department
to that of the Board of Works.

O'Keefe, one of the liberated Fenian convicts, has
issued a violent address to the Irish in America respecting
the Peace Preservation Bill.

SKETCHES IN PARLIAMENT.

ThEgbAf.
T was deluded into Making in a-Lein-66h Call upon the
Peers yesterday, expecting that they would have some'
thing to say worth hearing. I found spare Lord
Hatherley on the woolsack, a score or two of lay peers in
every-day dress, of course; and four or five bishops equally
of course in their robes, for the Church is the most con-
servative of institutions, and still retains the full dress for
its members in the Upper House as a relic of the old time
when all the peers wore that costume. Perhaps, too, the
l3ishops wish to disguise the precarious nature of their
tenure by the imposing character of their appearance.
But how is this? A bishop is speaking. What can he
have to say about the Peace Preservation (Ireland)
Bill ? There are no Irish bishops in the House nos'
I ask what it all means, and I am told that the Bill has
been introduced only in the most formal manner, hal
been read a first time sub silentio, and that all discussion
is reserved for to-night. I find my way through the
various windings of Sir Charles Barry's building (cony
pared with which the labyrinth that led to Fair Row
mond's bower was a straight road), to the House of Con"
mons, and find there a. very different 'scene from that in
the Lords. No gorgeous paintings, no full robed members,
no glitter of gold and glare of crimson, no inaudible con-
versations, but a business-like assembly numerously
attended, and evidently intent upon serious work. And yet
there are one or two things which would strike a stranger
who visited this scene for the first time. He would ask
first of all, Who are those young gentlemen in the gal-
lery in white ties and black gowns ? Are they sucking
politicians serving their apprenticeship ? The guess i 5
not a bad one. They are Westminster scholars, who, by
virtue of their school-ship, have the entrée to that gallery,
which is otherwise reserved for peers and princes
of the blood. They do not generally use their
privilege for long together—an hour or two is
usually enough for them—and yesterday - they
speedily beat a retreat. Then the stranger would ask
who is that most grotesque of persons standing at the
door with one arm in a sling and holding his head on one
side in the oddest fashion, like a parrot asking to have his
poll scratched. That, he would be told, is Mr. Beresford
Hope, member for that learned constituency, the Univer-
sity of Cambridge, proprietor of the Saturday Review, one
of the wealthiest Commoners, one of the Highest Church-
men in England, an authority in all matters of art,
brother-in-law of a most distinguished Marquis; as
regards his leader, " neither kinned nor kind," and
immortalised by him for his " Batavian grace."
But curiosity would soon cease with respect to all these
matters, for some one is speaking. "Speaking," did I
say ? He is raving, and were it not that this is but the
second hour of the sitting, I should assert that the hon.
member had been dining, not wisely, but too
well. He is very red in the face, very hoarse
in the voice (no wonder), and he holds a roll
of papers in his hands, which he shakes in the
faces of the Government. ' Who is he ? What is it
all about ? He is Mr. Knight, representative for
the Malvern Hills 'and adjacent district. He
is talking about the Irish poor-law, and he
wants to put off the Land Bill for one week,
in order apparently to frame and pass through both
Houses of Parliament, a bill for amending said poor law.
Rather a feat that, even in these rapid days. Dawn
comes after the longest night, and Mr.
Knight 'at last has come to an end of his
tilt against the Government, and sits down with a scream
like a locomotive as it tears into a tunnel. By force of
contrast the silence that follows is profound and almost
appalling. But hark ! is there not a voice, deep, un-
fathomably deep, coming not from the mouth, not
from the throat even, but from the stomach
It is the voice of Newdegate. "I heard him
complain," as the poet says. You don't hear
a word. You know only that the House has gone into
mourning, and that the hon. member for North Warwick-
shire is pronouncing its funeral oration. If you can
fancy what the feelings of a dead man would be on listening
to his own funeral sermon, you can imagine how we all
felt last night when Mr. Newdegate was speaking.
He has altogether mistaken his vocation. He ought
to be a mute (if only he would be mute), or barring that,
a cemetery chaplain. By degrees he becomes audible.
Just as when you have been gazing at the sun the brightest
spot on earth looks dark, but afterwards is seen clearly. ;
so after listening to that son of thunder, Mr. Knight, all
seems silent at first, even the bass-est of
voices, but after a period of rest for the
auditory nerves, that voice becomes distinct. And thus
it was that we came at last to distinguish what Mr. Newde-
gate said. This is what we heard—" The ROMISH HIER.
&WHY. " I did not flee. I have applied for the Victoria Cross.
At'last, after a time that seemed ages—a whole reign of

terror—he sat down. There was no reason why he should
have sat down, not the smallest reason why he should not
be speaking now. When you get from Ulster tenant-
right to " The ROMISH HIERARCHY," there is nothing to
prevent you going on to any other subject that ever has
turned up, from the day that Adam first talked to Eve, or
that ever will turn up, until the day of doom.
But the funny part • of it was that Mr.
Knight's fierce lightning, and Mr. Newdegate's 4,
deep thunder produced not the smallest impression. I
suppose the amendment to postpone committee for a
week was put and negatived, but no one seemed to notice
it, and Lord Charles Russell left his chair, walked up the
floor of the House, made his bow to the Speaker, removed
the mace; while the Speaker, on his part,left the chair,and
the House was in committee, and Mr. Dodson lord of

all he surveyed.
Now_your readers know that when the House goes into
committee niembers may talk as often as they please, it
being understood that they don't make long speeches. It
is not generally known that a good many persons talk at
once, that while one speech is being delivered to hon.
members, hon. members are doing a good deal of speaking
on their own account. In other words, they
are gossiping. Sometimes the gossip is so fast
and furious that it is almost impossible to hear
the set speech. Such a state of things would be impossible
while the Speaker is in the chair ; but Mr. Dodson is not
such a strict disciplinarian as Mr. Denison, and it is only
when the talking becomes very tumultuous that the chair-
man of committees calls " order." Hon. members don't
take much notice even • then. Why should they ? Mr.
Dodson does not sit under a canopy, is clad in trousers,
and does not wear a wig. It is simply impossible for a
man who wears his own hair to command the respect
of 657 men who are just as good as he ; and
When the Radicals have deprived the Speaker of his head-
dress, or when horses' tails run short, that day—that very
day—England's sun is set for ever.
Mr. Pim, the Quaker, M.P. for Dublin, is the author of

the first of that formidable list of amendments which
occupies thirty-five printed folio papers. He is a pleasant-
looking gentleman with white hair, and he clearly does
not mean anything serious. He proposes to postpone the
first clause—the Ulster Tenant-right Clause—but
he lets it be understood that he is not going
to press the matter. He capitulates, in fact, like
an elderly maiden who accepts a suitor before
he has had time to propose. Mr. Chichester Fortescue
makes short work of Mr. Pim, as short as his name, the
whole matter is disposed of in a little more than five
minutes. " A glorious beginning," we all say, " Never
mind, though there are 400 amendments, we shall soon
get through them at this rate, and shall eat our hot cross
buns in comfort." Rash b )asters ! Mr. Headlam is up.
He is a noticeable man, with an abundance of silver hair,
almost too good to be true, and coal black,
eyebrows. He is not like Mr. Pim, a merchant ;heis a
lawyer, and therefore can talk, and he does talk for forty
minutes, and though sitting on the bench immediately
behind Ministers, puts sufficient vinegar into his speech
to make Mr. Gladstone think that perhaps it might have
been as well to have found a place on the Treasury bench
for the aforetime Judge-Advocate. Then follow a crowd-of
members, of whom I will notice the Marquis of Hamilton,
eldest son of the Duke of Abercorn, who escaped, " so as
by fire," from the Abergele holocaust. He is not quite so
fluent and so self-confident as his younger brother, Lord
George, the member for Middlesex ; but he speaks to
the point, and he defended the Ulster custom against the
criticisms of hon. members on the Ministerial side of the
House. The House cheers and as the Marquis is heir
to very large estates in Ulster, and should therefore
know something about what is good for landlords
and tenants, his words, though occupying only two or three
minutes, seem to make considerably more impression
than the English lawyer's speech, long as it was. The
end of all the palaver was that after a few words from the
"learned and jocose" Solicitor-General, as Mr. Dowse is
called, Mr. Headlarri's amendment was put and lost. For
though when Mr. Dodson said "the ayes have it," the
member for Newcastle gave the flat contradiction which
usually precedes a division, there was such a general cry
of "Agreed, agreed," that he did not go to a division, but
did far better—he went to dinner. I will not describe the
other amendments. The thing went on in the same style
for three mortal hours more, with the diversion of two ex-
cursions into the lobby where Ministers were as trium-
phant as usual. When the House resumed Ministers had
the satisfs,cticui of feeling that they had got through the
first paragraph. of the first clause. Rather a bad look out,
tyr thy licoliciays aln thinking,