The Sun.
London, England, 1870-09-14 00:00:00

NEW PATENT

ELASTIC STOCKINGS,
KNEE-CAPS, &c., for Varicose Veins and all cases of
Weakness and Swelling of the Legs, Sprains, &c. They are
porous, light in texture, and inexpensive , and are drawn on like
an ordinary stocking Price 4s 6d., 7e. 6d., 10s., and 16s. each
Postage, 6d. _

JOHN WHITE Manufacturer, 22Q, Piccadilly

LONDON,WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14,1870.

THERE is an cld story to the effect that the pious
. men of Birmingham being moved by a laudable
zeal for bringing the savage inhabitants of a distant
island under the beneficent influence of Christianity
sent them a band of missionaries, and that the Bir-
mingham manufacturers thinking that the vessel
which took the missionaries offered an opportunity
of doing business with the aforesaid savages not
to be lost, filled the hold of the vessel with Birming-
ham-made gods. We do not know it the tale
be history or scandal, but we are forcibly
reminded of it by the action of Great Britain at the
present moment. With praiseworthy thoughtfulness
.and generosity Englishmen throughout the kingdom
••,
are forwarding help in money and medical stores for
the relief of the sick and the wounded in this bloody
war. The aid is senttoboth nations alike. Considerably
more than a hundred thousand pounds in money
and vast stores of lint and bandages and medicines
have been collected and forwarded to the huge
Aceldama, where lie the victims of this monstrous
quarrel. The papers tell us that the QUEEN'S cun-
sent to become the patron of the fund has given a
great impetus to the subscriptions, and that ever since
that consent was given the money has been pouring in
incessantly. Almost in the next paragraph we read that
M. ("HASSEPOT, the inventor of the French rifle which
bears his name, is at Birmingham, under the name
of Mr. JACOB, examining rifles and putting his stamp
on the cases. Several gun-making establishments
have orders from the French Government. All the
guns have to pass ' Mr. JACOB'S inspection, and but
for the scarcity of the BOXER cartridge, a large
*Tiber would be shipped off. There are several
Parcels of guns ready, but awaiting cartridges. Up
to the present time 1,000 Chassepots have been sent
off to France, and about 6,000 Suiders." So Mr.
POLLAXY was right after all, and it is a fact that we
English are, with our usual inconsistency, sending
out rifles to inflict wounds and lint to stanch them.
It may well be asked if it would not be better for all
parties if we stopped our money and our rifles' instead
of sending both. It is questionable if English
ladies, who are now scraping lint and making bandages
and sandbags would not, noble though their efforts are,
be doing still greater service to the cause of humanity
by promoting public meetings for the purpose of
calling upon our Government to prohibit the expor-
tation of arms. We know that there are difficulties
in the way; but difficulties are made to .be overcome.
It England were a combatant or in any danger of
becoming so, the Privy Council would at once issue
an order forbidding the export of arms. Such pro-
hibition was issued nine years ago, when the Trent
affair seemed likely to embroil us in a war with the
United States. If the British Government thought
fit to take that step merely as a precautionary mea-
sure, and in view of the possibility of war, why
should it not take the same step now that
,war is actually waging ? The answer, unfor-
tunately, is only too plain. It may be given
in one word—Selfishness. We were in danger
then; now it is only a neighbour which suffers, and
the sufferings of Germans and French are not to be
put in the scale against the profits of Birmingham
gunsmiths. This apathy is not only selfish, it is
inconsistent. We forbid our shipbuilders to build or
equip vessels of war for either of the belligerents; a
very proper precaution, only as this does not happen
to be a naval war in any way, a perfectly useless pre-
caution. On the other hand, we suffer rifles, without
which the war could not be continued, to be sent
away wholesale for the destruction *of thousands
who will be placed beyond the reach of our lint and
bandages, beyond the reach of all human help. It
would be interfering with tree trade to stop this
business, say the pedants, but we should do so to
protect ourselves ; we have done so as far as regards
an industry even more important than gun-making.
It would be impossible to watch every gunsmith's
shop, say the advocates of laissez faire. And
yet it is not so long since nearly every manufactory
in the kingdom was watched by the Government,
for purposes of taxation. If in order to swell our
revenue we placed excisemen in brick yards,
glass works, soap manufactories, and paper mills.
We can surely place customs officers in our gun
factories, in order to make our neutrality real, and
not the sham that it now is. It is time for English-
men to call upon the Government to perform a duty
that has been far too long neglected.

EIGHTY years have elapsed since the first French
Revolution. For, virtually, in 1790 the political
'volcano at Paris had found full vent. Its earlitst
outbreak began of course in 1789—say on the sth of
May, when the States General assembled at Versailles,
or on the 17th of June, when they assumed to them-
selves the title of the National Assembly, or on the
14th of July, when the people rose in the grandeur
of despair—

It was a July evening, and the summer moon shone
fair,
When first the people rose in the grandeur of
despair "

and, seizing any weapons they could lay their hands
upon, stormed and destroyed the Bastille. By the
September of 1790, however, exactly eighty years
ago, the triumph of the revolutionary movement had

been not only assured, but for the most part accom-
plished. The declaration of the Rights of Man had
been adopted by the revolutionary legislature. The
title of the Sovereign had been changed from that
of King of France to that of King of the French.
hereditary nobility had been abolished. Ecclesias-
tical property had been confiscated. Lett res
de Cachet were swept out of existence. The palace
of Verseilles had been stormed by the populace, and
the Royal puppets dragged back prisoners to the
capital. Louis XVI. had not only accepted the
revolution as un fait accompli--he had solemnly
sworn fidelity to the Constitution. On the 4th of
September, 1790, had come the final dismissal and
flight of NECKER. Eighty years afterwards to a day
came, on the 4th of September, 1870, the outbreak
of the Fourth French Revolution.

The historian of the First has, immediately after
this last-mentioned date, been despatched to London,
en route afterwards for Vienna and St. Petersburg,
as the accredited mouthpiece of the Fourth French
Revolution. In the Second Revolution, that namely
cf 1830, he was one of the conspicuous, if not
one of the principal actors. He was then
in the midst of tie publication, volume
by volume, of his great work, the History of
the French Revolution. Begun in 1823, when the
first volume of it appeared, the work was finished in
ten volumes by the year 1832. Having been Under
Secretary of State in LAFITTE'S Administration, and
having been elected Deputy for Aix, M.
ADOLPHE TRIERS, in the very year last men-
tioned, the one in which his first historic
masterpiece was concluded, became . Minister of the
Interior. He subsequently exchanged that office
for the Ministry of Commerce and Public Works--
in 1830 and again 1840 being President of the Coun-
cil and Minister for Foreign Affairs. Twice there-
fore he has been Prime Minister of France—upon
the latter occasion all but plunging Europe into war
by nearly bringing France and England into
collision upon the Syrian question. Since then,
now some thirty years ago, he has never taken part
in any administration. During the first two of those
three intervening decades, he magnificently occupied
his leisure by penning his magnum opus, his great
history of the reign of NAPOLEON, under the title of
the "Consulate and the Empire." The twentieth
volume, completing this gigantic contribution
to the treasures of literature, was published in
1802, exactly thirty years after the publication of the
tenth volume completing his history of the• French
Revolution. Upon the occasion of the Third Revolu-
tion, M. TRIERS was, politically speaking, nowhere.
While LAMATITINE was for three dazzling months
the most conspicuous figure amongst the members
of the then Provisional Government, TRIERS was
there at Paris unnoticed, as a simple National Guard,
carrying his musket on his shoulder. Upon the occa-
sion of the Fourth Revolution he was unanimously
voted into the chair at the last sitting of the. Corps
L6gislatif, subsequently declined to have his name
enrolled as one of the uew Provisional Government
installed at the Hotel de Ville, and has now,
only at the eleventh hour, and because of
the imminent danger of Paris being for-
mally besieged by the victorious army of
the Prussians, consented in this his 74th

year to enter upon an extraordinary
diplomatic mission to London, to Vienna, to St.
Petersburg, as the Envoy of the Government of
Defence—he the celebrant of Napoleonism, the an-
nalist of the Revolution, the creator of the Paris
Fortifications.

TOPICS OF THE DAY.