The Sun.
London, England, 1870-08-19 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 19, 1870.

ACCORDING to a familiar proverb, many a true
' word is spoken in jest; and, according to our obser-
vation, many a great public grievance has before
now been brought more vividly to the popular recog-
nition, as at the touch of the spear of ITHURIEL, by
the pencil, more or less pointed, of some political
caricaturist. One of these keen-witted pictorial
satarists has but just now pourtrayed the HOME
SECRETARY in a profound state of somnolence, and
meshed all over during his slumbers with cobwebs
spun about and about him by an industrious spider.
Almost simultaneously with the production of this
cartoon, there emanates from Mr. BRUCE a suggestion,
addressed to the Metropolitan Board, that would
really in itself be quite enough to justify the carica-
turist's freak of fancy, and redeem it altogether from
the charge of extravagance. Sir JOHN THWAITE 5,
the late Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of
Works, very recently expires in the midst of his
labours, some of them really Herculean, as, for
example, the completion of the Augean drainage of
a city as populous as the whole of Scotland—when
our do-nothing HOME SECRETARY coolly throws out
the proposition to the Board aforesaid, a proposition
that they should at once avail themselves of
the opportunity by following suit, by emulating
himself, by doing nothing ! Mr. BRUCE has in
preparation or in mediation among other improve-
ments—but for that matter what improvements has
he not in preparation or in meditation, but not one
of them actually commenced ?—a bill that we are
sick of hearing of as intended for the better govern-
ment of the metropolis. As yet the whole scheme
is in the air. It is one of the dreams embelishing
the slumbers of our HOME SECRETARY. It
is one of the chateaux en Espagne floating
in the empyrean of his imagination. But
until he can give this " airy nothing " a name
and a location, Mr. BRUCE coolly proposes, now that
Sir JOHN THWAITES is gone, that the Board of
Works should appoint to his vacant chair no
successor—that the board, in fact, should leave them

selves for an indefinite period without any Chairman
whatever ! The proposition itself is simply
preposterous. It is so preposterous that it at
once awakens suspicion. To what end, we ask
ourselves, is a notion so outré as this thrown out by
the King Log now reigning over the Home Depart-
ment ? In the midst of the bewilderment not un-
naturally excited by so singular a suggestion as this,
there comes forth what at the first blush appears to
be the wildest and most incredible of rumours; and
yet a rumour that, if it have any foundation at all,
would of itself serve in a very great measure to explain
what without something of the kind really seems to
be utterly inexplicable. The rumour referred to is
as outrageous in its way, even as Mr. BRUCE'S non-
sensical suggestion. It is nothing less than this—
that it is eventually the intention to induct into the
chairmanship of the Metropolitan Board of Works
as Sir JOHN THWAITES'S successor—Mr. AYRTON !
One whose sole pre-eminence is, that he has
achieved for himself the distinction of being
incomparably the very worst Chief Commissioner
England has ever had. To keep the snug berth open
for Mr. AYRTON, so soon as the opportunity can be
found for inducting him into it, without outraging
public opinion unnecessarily by so doing, may, after
all, we cannot help conjecturing to ourselves,
account in some measure for this otherwise inexplic-
able suggestion thrown out to the Board of Works
by the HOME SECRETARY.

Now, a Chairman the Board of Works must have.
Whatever Mr. BRUCE may say about it, everybody
but himself must be agreed upon that point. And
equally unanimous we cannot but all of us be that
anybody would be more popularly acceptable for the
post than Mr. AYRTON. Happily, however, the public
are not driven to the selection just merely in blind
despair of anyone. Iwo candidates there are already
for the office, each of them with excellent claims
for selection by preference to such a man as our in-
tolerable Chief Commissioner. Sir WILLIAM
FRASER'S claim is this, that five years ago he de-
monstrated quite clearly and cogently the erroneous
system upon which the local authorities were then,

and, unhappily, have been ever since, acting.
Lord ROBERT MONTAGU'S Claim is Still

higher, however, it seems to us, than Sir
WILLIAM FRASER'S. It is this—that six years ago
he, Lord ROBERT MONTAGU, presided over that

Select Committee of the House of Commons which

inquired into the all-important question affecting
the well-being of the capital and the other large

towns of the United Kingdom, to wit, the utilisation

•
of the sewage of the metropolis and of those large
towns for agricultural purposes. The blue-book in
which the labours of that Committee of Inquiry
are recorded, if thrown into the scale now, will out-
weigh all competition. Remembering Lord ROBERT
MONTAGU'S labours in connection with that select

committee, we are disposed to pronounce him un-
hesitatingly the very man for the chairmanship of
the Board of Works. If he will save us from all
risk of being saddled with Mr. AYRTON, we are Lord
ROBERT'S most grateful and obedient !

WHEN two opposite parties tell two entirely diffe-
rent stories, there is generally some item of circum-
stantial evidence which facilitates the work of

striking a balance between the adverse accounts. But
in th e case of the great battle just fought west of i\letz
there is as yet no such aid. Never was
contradiction more complete and puzzling. All that we
know is that a very great battle, of necessarily serious