The Sun.
London, England, 1870-05-16 00:00:00

A DANGEROUS PRECEDENT.

The Standard declares that the threatened walk over of
Sir Shafto Adair for East Suffolk has produced a strong
feeling of disappointment, and even indignation, amongst
Conservatives throughout the country. East Suffolk is a
thoroughly Conservative constituency. The local party
managers are represented as promising that at the general
election they will have a colleague for Mr. Corrance, and
will return again two Conservative members. Assured as
we are of the preponderance of Conservative opinion in
the constituency, we hesitate to lend implicit faith
to such a promise. Possession counts for a good deal
even in elections. If Sir Shafto Adair once
takes his seat as member for East Suffolk it will be a diffi-
cult task to eject him. The East Suffolk Conservatives
have not apparently amongst them a county gentleman
ready to fight the election when the odds are overwhelm-
ingly in his favour. Can they hope to find one who will
come forward when Sir Shafto Adair has got firm in his
saddle ? What we desire to point out to them is that,
even if they have the best reasons for believing that the
seat surrendered to Sir Shafto Adair now could be wrested
from him at the general election, they are altogether in
error in supposing that this temporary sacrifice of
a vote in Parliament, when a vote appears of small
importance, will not inflict a serious injury on the
Conservative cause. The Conservative party in consti-
tuencies like East Suffolk has a comparatively easy task.
It has naturally a majority, and it needs but a little care
to maintain it ; but the Conservative cause in many con-
stituencies has to wage a very desperate battle. The East
Suffolk Conservatives may console themselves with the
prospect of another election, which will restore them the
seat they seem at present disposed to give up without a
struggle ' • but however just their calculations they must
pot expect Conservatives throughout the country to share
their confidence; and they will, if they let Sir Shafto
4.dair walk over the course, very seriously prejudice the
Conservative cause.

POPULAR RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.
The Post points out that the National Society are
moderate in their demands for the religious education of
the people. The Bishop of Gloucester assured the Prime
Minister the other day that the society is perfectly
willing to co-operate with the Government in promoting
education, and that it has already given proof of this its
disposition by the wide discretion it has conferred on the
managers of its schools with regard to the Conscience
Clause. No doubt the Society looks at the education of
the people from its own point of view. It
objects to religion being separated from educa-
tion. At the same time, it concedes that the State
should aid the schools of other denominations, and it
makes no oppositon to schools supported by rates. It
must not be forgotten, in dealing with the education
question, that the State is in the position of having con-
tracted engagements with the various denominational
bodies, on the faith of which they have invested large
sums in founding schools. As we have in the matter of
national education to deal with the children of the poor,
it is right that we should not strain respect for conscience
in a degree which neither they nor their parents require.
It is a wholly gratuitous assumption that the people
themselves object to religious teaching, and it can hardly
be denied that their wishes upon this matter ought to be
consulted.

MURDERS IN CITIES.
The crime at Chelsea suggests a practical question to
the Telegraph. Is it really the case that the denser the
crowd the larger the city, the more numerous the police,
the more constant the observation, the greater are the
facilities for sudden, daring, almost open crime, the
smaller the securities for property and life ? It was long
ago said that the criminal's highest chance of safety lay
in the thronged, intricate, ever-baffling maze of the great
metropolis ; and that no more true or more awful
solitude can be found than amid the myriad
faces of its streets. But is the real truth a blend-
ing of both these descriptions ? Is London, by
its size, its complexity, its vast swarm of ever-changing
human atoms —seldom settling down, always suspicious
and repellant of each other—actually the safest place for
the offender against society, the most perilous place for the
offender against society, the most perilous place for the
tranquil and unoffending member of society? We should
be most reluctant to believe such a theory, but the Chelsea
tragedy sheds a dreadful light on the ease with which the
worst crimes may be committed. Two old, well-known,
respectable persons disappear, and their household place
is taken by a new man, shifty, hypocritical, unknown
to those who had relations with the master. There
are entrances and exists at untimely hours,
and with unseemly companions, unwonted to the
staid and reputable predecessors ; an usurper, in a night,
rises into the place of the quiet householder and pro-
prietor, who must have been known to many people in
the district by sight and by speech. Yet not a whisper
of suspicion rises to any lip ; the Huelin household sink
into a bloody grave, and no one misses them. Their home
is found empty and insecure ; the police enter, stare inno-
cently about, and go out again, bellying gladly—it relieves
them of trouble—the easy declaration of " a neighbour "
that " it's all right." And so the murder lurks
hidden till the positive physical touch of blood
puts a keen and-honest carman on the fatal scent. Who
is my neighbour? is an old inquiry. There are doubtless,
manifold reasons why the homely and kindly old term
should receive no enthusiastically liberal interpretation
in London. But, if only for purposes of police, it cer-
tainly does seem expedient that the phrase should be ap-
plied to those who live next door ; since stolid and un-
genial indifference to our neighbours is one of the first
aids to the plunderer and the murderer—to the common
enemy of all those disconnected and jealous elements that
compose our city society.
ASSOCIATIONS OF THE INNER TEMPLE.

----
When Queen Elizabeth, remarks the Daily News,
granted a coat of arms to the Inner Temple, she gave
them the well-known cognisance of the winged steed. The
horse of the Muses seems a very inappropriate symbol of
the devotees of " Coke upon Littleton." Its meaning,
as well as that of the emblem of the lamb, which the
Middle Templars boast, has been the subject of much
dispute. After all, there is a sort of appropriateness in
the winged horse. Popular associations with the
Temple are as full of literature as of law. We
do not see why one of the lights of the upper tier of the
newly opened hall should not have been occupied with
the figure of Charles Lamb, whose connection with the
Inner Temple is probably more historical than that of
Henry 1., and is at least as interesting as that of Hera-
clius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, or of William Mareschall,
Earl of Pembroke. That essay of Elia, which discourses
of " the Old Benchers," will be living literature when
Tenterden and Thurlow are but the shadows of names.
Why should not the Benchers ornament their
hall with a statue of Ruth Pinch by the fountain ? With-
out, however, seeking an adventitious interest from the
accidental association of literature, or travelling back to
the Knights Templars or the Knights Hospitallers of St.
John, the history of the Temple, since those

bricky towers
The which on Thames' broad aged back do ride,
became the place where " studious lawyers have their
bowers " touches at a thousand points the larger history
of England. The graceful ceremony which took
place on Saturday, when the New Hall of the
Inner Temple was opened by the Princess Louise, adds
another link to that graceful blending of the new and the
old, of law and of life, of youth and of learning, which is
twined about the Temple. Whether the Inns of Court
are destined, in are age of reform, to be improved out of
existence, to be swallowed up in a great Legal University,
or otherwise to lose their present form and character, is a
secret which we shall not try to unveil. The Temple will,
in any case, remain a historic possession.

COAL IN CHlNA.—There is at last a prospect of
the vast mineral wealth of China being turned to some
account. Tring Footae has received permission to open up
the coal fields at Nanking and Kinthaing, where coal of a
very superior quality is obtainable. He intends to send
to England for competent engineers and the requisite
machinery. Good specimens of coal have also been
obtained at San-ti, some 200 miles above Hankow.
REPORTED FIGHTING IN CHINA.—It is said by
the China papers that an Imperialist army, under the
Viceroy of Kansuh, has met with a serious defeat from
the Mahomedan rebels, and is totally demoralised. The
Mahomedans are willing to lay down their arms on con-
dition of three provinces—Kansuh, Shanse, and Yunnau
—being allotted to them. The defeated army was the
finest of the Imperial forces.
The Rev. A. Campbell, rector of Liverpool, died
on Sunday at a very advanced age. He had been ailing
for some time.
It is said that some French ultra-Imperialists, more
zealous than wise, circulated a rumour in the provinces to
the effect that the Left had ordered 3_2,000 guillotines to
be prepared for use after the 9th of May, the date fixed
-for a new revolution ; and that not a few .were found
halnoil9 on9Asla 4mbelipyo the.rtimour,