The Sun.
London, England, 1870-06-03 00:00:00

METROPOLITAN GOSSIP-THURSDAy.

The reference to " another place " made by Mr.
Gathorne Hardy in his speech on the third reading of the
Land Bill has excited a good deal of criticism. Taken
literally, the reference certainly does mean that the ex-
' Home Secretary calls upon the House of Lords to enforce
all the amendments of prieciple. which the Conservatives
in the Lower House were too weak in numbers to pass.
Yet I doubt if this was Mr. Hardy's real meaning. With
the remembrance of last session's conflict between the
two houses, he will hardly desire to run again the risk
which was run then. These incidents are too dangerous
to bear repetition. Moreover, there is not the same excuse
. for the course in 1870 that there was in 1869. No strong
party feeling has been aroused with respect to the Land
, Bill. On the other hand there is the certainty that if the
present bill be seriously mutilated by the landlords they
will have to meet a far more sweeping measure
next year. Altogether. therefore, I believe that Mr.
Hardy's reference to the Peers STA& intended merely to
cover his own retreat
The House of Commoner did not rise fozP the holidays in
a particularly good humour. The attacks made upon Mr.
Childers and Mr. Baxter, by Sir Jag, Elphinstone and
Mr. Corry were something more than severe—they were
savage, and the Secretary of the Admiralty is not a man
to bear them without hitting out right and left by way of
reply. There really seemed no reason for the extravagant
bitterness of the member for Portsmouth. His charges
proved baseless. Perhaps it was for that reason the hon.
member was so fierce. Or was it that having fled from
his old residence, Ceylon, because it was too hot, he has
brought over an excessive stock of caloric, and had to blow
it off ?
The long absence of Mr. Disraeli from Parliament and
the ferocious, though clever, review of " Lothair," in the
Tory Blackwood, are giving rise to much discussion.
There is no doubt that the leader of the Conservative
party intended his book as a new manifesto of Con-
servative policy, and he hoped to lead them back to
office under the cld No-Popery flag. But if we
are to judge from Blackwood they have repudiated
the time-honoured banner with contempt. Certainly it
was hardly probable that men like Lord Derby and Lord
Salisbury would consent to bo dragged through the mire
of religious bigotry, even though that was the road to the
Treasury bench. Mr. Disraeli's attempt has signally
failed, and it would seem as if the party were resolved to
throw him overboard, a poor return for five-and-twenty
years faithful, if not always wise service.
Oh ! that Baron Haussmann would pay us a visit and
take Mr. Ayrton in hand. This gentleman is beyond all
question the very worst First Commissioner of Works we
ever had. Not only is he allowing the contractor to make
a waste howling wilderness of the Serpentine in the very
, height of the season, but he has neglected one of the
finest opportunities of beautifying London that ever
offered, When the Metropolitan District Railway made
their line to Westminster, advantage was taken of the
opportunity by Lord John Manners and Mr. Layard to
lay out the ground close to the Abbey and St. Margaret's
Church as a garden. It needs only the flowers to make
Parliament Square, as it is sometimes called, one of the
choicest spots in London. But Mr. Ayrton, who despises
gardeners no less than architects, withholds the flowers,
and the square stands a memorial visible to all the
world of ludicrous pettifogging economy. An indile
worthy of the name would, moreover, insist upon taking in
hand that grievous scandal to our eapital, Leicester-Square.
It has been going from bad to worse, and it is now
simply disgraceful. It appears that some one
has, after litigation, established his right to the
square, so there is no longer any difficulty
in discovering whom to deal with, and there
is no longer any excuse for not dealing with him peremp-
torily, and compelling him to sell the property which he
has so greatly abused. If an Act of Parliament Is required
for this purpose, let it be passed, and then we shell have :`

the talked-of new street from Trafalgar-square to the

Tottenham Court-road, which will cut through the heart
of St. Giles's, and flutter the rookeries in that choice
neighbourhood.
No one but a Londoner can understand the satisfaction
with which the decision of the HOuse of Lords has been
received throwing out the Metropolitan District Extension
Bill. Not only would the proposed station at the Mansion
House have spoilt one of the finest streets in London
jnst after it had be= opened, but the abandon-
ment of the extension to the Tower would have
prevented the completion of the long-promised inner
circle. This completion will now be effected, and it will
be possible to reach any point of London, from any other

point. The opening of the underground line to Black.

friars will to a certain extent compete with the Charing
Cross Railway, as travellers will be set down close to St,
Paul's without the necessity of crossing the river twice.
Ido not hear a good account of another great public
work. A friend who has arrived in England this week
by the overland route says that in Egypt it N well under-
stood that the Suez Canal is filling up, and that it will be
necessary to raise new capital in order to keep it
open. It seems to be thought that this will be done by
forming a new company, and that eventually the canal
will pass very much into the hands of English share-
holders, who will come in and reap where they have not
sown, and gather where they have not strewed, as gene-
rally happens in all new undertakings.

The King of the Belgians was at the Derby,
and both he and the Prince of Wales were a

good deal cheered. The Duke of Edinburgh
is preparing a diary of his tour, and it will
be illustrated by M. Chevalier, a Swiss gentleman,
who was commanded by the Queen to accompany her son.
M. Chevalier (who, by the way, has married an English
wife) has painted an elaborate picture of the installation
of the Duke in the Order of the Star of India ; he has
also painted a large number of Indian landscapes. Still
speaking of royalty, I may mention that Prince Napoleon's
eldest son is suffering from the smallpox; that the son of the
Viceroy of Egypt is going to make a tour of the chief
capitals of Europe, and will shortly be in London ; and
that there has just been published in Paris "The Cam-
paigns of the Army of Africa in 1835 and 1837, by the
Duke of Orleans, edited by his Sons." The preface is by
the Count of Paris, and the introductip by the Duke of
Chartres, and there is a portrait of the Mike, after Horace
Vernet.

The literary topic of the day is the skirmish between
Mr. Hepworth Dixon and Mr. Sutherland Edwards. The
latter gentleman wrote an anything but flattering notice
of " Free Russia " in the Times, and subsequently
one in the Pall Mall Gazette. He seems to have
trusted to his memory for his second review,
and charged Mr. Dixon with sundry mis-statements
which Mr. Dixon declares he never made. He has chal-

lenged Mr. Edwards to cite the erroneous passages, and
Mr. Edwards has given some, which, however, do not
entirely, to use the mildest phrase, bear out his accusa-
tion. So there is war between these two
gentlemen, both of whom have " done Russia.
The strangest part of this affair is that which
Professor Kapoustin has taken in this matter.
The Professor was an intimate personal friend of Mr.
Dixon, has been both his guest and his host ; and he read
the proof sheets of the book as it passed through the press,
yet he writes to the Galas (as the sharp eyes of the foreign
editor of the Pall Mall Gazette discovered) de-
claring that he had implored Mr. Dixon not
to write, and that the book is full of blunders.
The one blunder, of which a good deal has been made—
the assertion that there are six hundred and odd thousand
priests in Russia—was the Professor's own, he himself
having filtered the word " clergy," which included both
the priests and their families, into " priests." It is
painful to suppose that the Professor's repudiation of the
book has arisen from any fear of its giving offence in high •
quarters, and I will not say that this is the cause of the
strange course which he has taken But I can offer no
other explanation.

Sir Charles Dilke, the proprietor and the editor of the
Athenceum, means to pay another visit to Russia during
the Parliamentary recess.. He is, as I have mentioned on

a former occasion, preparing a work on Russia, which
certainly even Professor Kapoustin cannot condemn as
hasty, for Sir Charles has been more than a year about it
already and it will not be out until next year. Sir Charles's
approaching journey is his third visit to Russia.

That country would seem to be peculiarly
attractive just now to literary men as Mr. Ralston of the

3ritish Museum, the best English-Russian scholar we
rave, is about to go there to write a book. It is to be
roped that these and all other visitors to Russia will rea,

Mr. Michell's most able report on the tenure of land in
Russia which appears in the second blue book on that
subject lately published.

There is the strangest story afloat about a recently-
published volume of poems, which is having almost as great
a run at Mudie's as "Lothair." It is said that the author
some years ago lost his wife, and in the agony of his be-
ruavement declared that he would never publish one of
the porno which he ihell hiul, in 10 pttrratize for publi,